Everything you do is fake. It is false, it is not real.
That was the message that many of us got as children. The guilt was so entrenched about trauma bonding that it became a central theme in all of our relationships.
I think they got off on the idea of saying something – getting something – bad from you, something bad and traumatic, and then walking away either in the family home or in their home, and then mulling on this bad thing. And by mulling on this bad thing, they are, in some respect, caring about you. But it’s not really caring, at all, because they are surviving and living on your trauma. It makes them more comfortable with their own. It makes the conversation and the life easier, so that’s why it’s done.
And to come from a place that had been collectively traumatised, as a country, throughout history, well, that’s just super interesting.