Understanding Trauma Bonding - Part 2: A Note from Shawn

Don’t get it?

Yeah. Me either.

The psych says I should write it down. Says it’s safer on paper than stuck in my head.

Says my brain wired itself to see J as safe because sometimes he was.

Because sometimes he was the only one standing between me and worse.

She calls it a trauma bond.

Makes it sound like glue.

Like something you can peel off if you just try hard enough.

It’s not that easy.

He’s one of the people who hurt me the most. Took what he wanted. Kept me knocked out when it was easier that way.

And still—

He’s the one who brought clean clothes. Sat on the other side of the door talking while R kept me locked down. Ran interference when he could.

I hate him for that.

Hate that I can’t write him off as all bad.

Hate him for being the only person who ever made it feel less like hell.

And Dad—

God, Dad.

I’m not supposed to miss him, right? Not after what he did. Not after selling me with the line about “we need the money to get away from R.”

But I do. I miss him and I hate that I miss him. I keep hearing him say we’d leave, like a promise you feed yourself so you don’t starve.

I won’t write R’s name. Not yet.

I want him gone. I want him to choke on every night he made me live through.

Hating him is the easy part.

The hard part is the fear still sitting in my hands when I pick up the pen.

But J—

Putting his name down feels like betraying something I can’t explain.

Feels like handing him over to people who won’t know that sometimes he was the reason I made it through a night.

That’s messed up.

I know it is.

Doesn’t stop it from being true.

The psych says that doesn’t make me weak.

Says my brain was just trying to survive.

Maybe.

But sometimes I wonder if I should’ve hated him harder.

If maybe that would’ve been enough to break the glue.