The Trauma No One Talks About

Betrayal trauma happens when someone you deeply trust—like a partner, parent, or spiritual leader—becomes the very person who emotionally harms you. As a therapist who works predominantly with women, I see this kind of injury every day. Yet it remains one of the most overlooked and least understood forms of trauma.

What Is Betrayal Trauma?

Betrayal trauma is a psychological injury that occurs when someone we rely on for love, safety, or stability violates that trust. Psychologist Dr. Jennifer Freyd coined the term, noting that the brain often suppresses the betrayal in order to preserve the attachment. Unlike more obvious forms of trauma, betrayal trauma is often invisible—it shows up as gaslighting, chronic self-blame, emotional withdrawal, and eventual isolation due to shame or divided loyalties.

Why It Goes Unnoticed

Our culture tends to recognize physical abuse but minimize emotional manipulation or neglect. Betrayal trauma often hides behind normalized behaviors—like women over-functioning, giving second chances, or staying “for the family.”
Girls aren’t typically taught healthy boundaries. Instead, they’re socialized to be caretakers, conflict avoiders, and peacekeepers. In betrayal trauma, the person may be physically present but emotionally unavailable—what Dr. Pauline Boss calls ambiguous loss.
When you're stuck in a loop of waiting—for change, for clarity, for consistency—you can’t grieve. You can’t move forward. This is the agonizing limbo that ambiguous loss creates, a type of grief with no closure—and no clear end. This is why I believe intentional acceptance is a key paradigm to these relationship dynamics.

When You Can’t Leave: Learned Helplessness

Even when someone knows the relationship is harmful, they may feel paralyzed to leave. This is often the result of learned helplessness, a psychological state in which repeated failed attempts at change lead to emotional shutdown.
Think of it like a trauma version of Stockholm syndrome. When your reality is repeatedly denied, minimized, or twisted—by someone you love—your nervous system eventually numbs to the red flags. Not because you don’t care. But because it’s too painful to stay fully conscious in a situation that constantly hurts you. This isn’t weakness, it typically works unconsciously. And it’s survival.

Why Women Are Most Affected

From an early age, women are taught to prioritize relationships, avoid conflict, and keep the peace. Many internalize the belief that their value lies in holding things together—even when it costs them everything. To be clear, this is not about being naïve or co-dependent. Many smart, self-aware women find themselves in these dynamics. Why? Because the shift happens slowly. Subtly.

Narcissistic partners often use intermittent reinforcement—offering warmth and affection just enough to keep you hooked. You wait for the version of him you first fell for, the one who still shows up—sporadically.

As Dr. Ramani points out, roughly one in every six people today, especially in Western societies, show enough narcissistic traits to impact their close relationships—far exceeding earlier clinical estimates. When betrayal trauma occurs, these same patterns can make it even harder to recognize abuse, let alone walk away from it. It’s far less about knowing better, and far more about the cost of leaving.

The Path to Healing

Healing begins with permission: to name what happened, and to believe yourself. Whether you choose to stay or go, recovery involves reconnecting with your internal compass, setting boundaries, and reevaluating your relational expectations. Therapy offers a grounded, nonjudgmental space to clarify your values, assess your needs, and expand your support systems. Somatic work, mindfulness, and wellness practices like sleep, nutrition, and stress regulation can also support symptom relief. Betrayal trauma isn’t rare. It’s just rarely acknowledged. By giving it language, and bringing it into the light, you can begin to unlearn it—and write a new story.

References:

Freyd, J. J. (1996). *Betrayal Trauma: The Logic of Forgetting Childhood Abuse*. Harvard University Press.

Boss, P. (2006). *Loss, Trauma, and Resilience: Therapeutic Work with Ambiguous Loss*. W. W. Norton & Company.

Seligman, M. E. (1972). Learned helplessness. *Annual Review of Medicine*, 23(1), 407–412.

Durvasula, R. (2023). *YouTube video: Why People Stay in Abusive Relationships*. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf2CC73eKqk

Relationships are a Circus

I wrote my first breakup elegy. A testament to a (relational) life that felt more like a survival strategy than a sacred connection.
I know you’ve been there too.

Stale partnerships that feel worn out, past their expiration — but there’s no visible mold, so you’re still feeding off it.
Will it make you sick? Maybe.
Can it cause a parasite? Likely.
But we’d rather take what’s in front of us than go hunting for something new to eat.

It’s so much… work.
Even when the consequences could be detrimental, we humans go for the quick fix — the immediate gratification — the short-term pleasure over the inevitable stomach ache.
And as we all know, hardly anything feels worth it once we’re bowled over with sharp, shooting pain in our guts.

Of course, it wasn’t all catastrophes and doom-scrolling.
I take with me the memory of an electric, magnetic attraction — unlike anything I’d known before.
I had never been desired at that level. It was all-consuming, enveloping even.

It could take me out of my mind and into my body — a rare gift for me, historically.
I can now appreciate beauty in a more visceral form.
I can acknowledge that love can feel like a pulsing, living current —
a felt sense of touching another person’s heart.

I had never known the power that hands and lips could hold
until ours intertwined.
For that, I am grateful.
It made me feel both powerful and feminine —
also a rare gift for me, historically.

Most of us stay in these relationships far past the expiration. I did. Twice.
Why? Because loss is challenging.
It’s incredibly isolating, and our culture does a terrible job normalizing the withdrawal tendencies we all experience after a severed connection.

The disruption in your daily rhythm is jarring. This person was your shadow.

You’re walking around without a piece of you in tow.

Something feels perpetually missing, shallow, and cold — like a dimmer switch turning down the color and energy available to you.

It’s as if all the furniture in your living room has been removed and you’re forced to stand around without a place to rest.
TV is no longer interesting. Dinner with the girls feels lacking.
And your Spotify starts sending you “Made for You: Melancholy & Fall Feels” playlists. Thanks for that.

The remedy of time creeps along the calendar — 30 days no contact, two months post-breakup — but it doesn’t feel celebratory.
It feels like an affirmation you repeat but don’t yet believe.
I don’t need you. I deserve better. You fell short.

But we both know that’s not what you believe with absolution.
You think, Was it really that bad? I did a lot of mean things, too. Maybe I won’t tell my friends if I reach back out… at first. Knowing someone is better than knowing no one, right?

The truth is, you never really knew them — not as well as you thought.

You’re not grieving the loss of the other person as much as you’re grieving what you thought you knew about yourself — that you were more loving, patient, wise, self-aware than you turned out to be.

One Achilles heel in my most recent relationship was a sense of “shared reality.”
But that reality was colored by my paranoia that I couldn’t fully trust him — that his mistakes, maladaptive patterns, and manipulations outweighed my own.
The irony is that this was still my reality.

If you’re always not “as bad” as the person you’re with… what does that say about you?
Is that the measuring stick I want to use for my worthiness?

One of the most valuable questions we can ask post-breakup is,
“What role was I playing?”
and
“What did I gain from playing that part?”

For me, I’m classically the one who is structured, disciplined, incessantly driven, and in charge.
What have I gained from playing this role?
To feel in control.
To predict outcomes.
To covertly avoid my own growth.
To disprove the fear that I am not what I attract — that I am better.

But I am not. I am flawed. Unhealed in many ways.
I only experience different forms of dysfunction — not different levels.

When you expect perfection, you will be perpetually disappointed.
When you assume the worst, you will receive the least.
When you only want to win, you inevitably lose.

The Lion Tamer and the Lion

I am walking away.
Not because I want to.
But because you kept the circus alive.

You are the ultimate predator — inherently at the top of the food chain, yet choosing to perform for peanuts.
Your reputation is to lead and protect, but your appetite is untamed.
Living in the spotlight, hungry for applause, but returning to a cage alone.

I am the disciplinarian — tirelessly trying to train, tame, and teach a wild animal.
Repeating the same sequence, expecting you to jump through hoops.
But my composure has grown tired, always suppressing play for poise.

You resent my self-discipline and structure,
my compulsive need to keep rehearsing.
We were together each night, side by side, but living worlds apart.

We weren’t meant for The Greatest Show on Earth after all.
I no longer want the title of tamer — to be known for diplomacy and mastery.

I may have once conquered a beast, but I bear scars from your attacks.
I am stepping off the pedestal and taking off my costume,
for I am wild too.

I may have survived,
but I have not succeeded.
I can no longer keep you.