Trauma bonds a victim to their abuser

After everything that my ex narcissist boyfriend put me through emotionally and physically which far ouweighed the good times as well as the times he was being ok to me, not coming anywhere near to making his behaviour balanced or even close enough to compensate for his abusive behaviour, I still had deep feelings for him that would eventually mean that I would go back to him!

These feelings were not always there especially when he was dishing out his abuse and for the day or so after in which time I would feel hatred, anger and total disgust for him but no matter what he did, for some reason I would not hold onto these bad feelings towards him for long and would always revert back to feelings of loving him as well as inconsolable guilt for me abandoning him and for the hurt he was going through that had been caused by me leaving him.

This was something that I just couldn't understand let alone try to explain to my family and friends who were of the opinion that if it really was that bad then why did I keep going back to him and how could I possibly still love him unless of course I was somehow also to blame for his behaviour as afterall it takes two!

I knew without a doubt that I had done nothing to cause the abuse but I sadly couldn't explain why if that was the case, I still kept going back and not always due to fear but because I wanted to as I loved him and missed him when I was not with him to the point that I would feel so low and depressed until I was with him again!

I was fully aware that the relationship was toxic and I had in the past ended relationships with people who I loved  for a lot less reasons knowing that it was not quite right for me (all of which however were so much better for me than the relationship I now had for sure) but I  had not struggled to
end these relationships and stick to my guns in the past even when it hurt to say goodbye.

The relationship I was now in was so wrong and I had been subjected to just about everything that I thought I would  never tolerate and had never come close to tolerating in the past but I was bound to him for some reason and I felt helpless in my attempts to rationalise why this was!

That was until I stumbled across an article about trauma bonding that can occur when a victim is subjected to high levels of abuse which can cause extreme changes in the brain of the victim due to the intense pressure that they feel under to survive that actually causes a chemical reaction in the brain to produce high levels of cortisol as well as dopamine which put simply means that the victim becomes addicted to low levels of kindness
and safety shown by the abuser in the times when he is not inflicting the abuse even if only for a short time which can cause the victim to bond with the abuser in a very similar way that a drug addict becomes dependent upon a drug just to feel good. Those times when an abuser is not abusive and showing some kindness gives the victim the release from the heightened feelings of fear and anxiety so that the brain becomes wired to get pleasure in these times and also craves these moments much the same as an addict craves drugs.

This made sense to me and gave me the reason I was searching for to explain why I found it hard to get away from him for good despite being totally aware that what is was doing was not acceptable to me and wrong on every level!