Navigating Gatherings with Grace and Strength: Heal Trauma Bonding with Shadd Cunningham

Hey there, this is Nancy Bos coming to you with a special episode of the Empower Your Voice podcast. I'm not currently recording episodes because, you know, I just came off of the Empowered Voices World Tour, legs 1 and 2, the western United States, South Africa, northern Europe, and I have so much footage that I need to get through to share with you. But this particular episode is a conversation that I had with a psychologist from San Antonio, Texas, Chad Cunningham. We just, we wanted to talk about this topic. We just put it on Zoom and recorded it, and here it is for you. We're talking about trauma bonding. Trauma bonding in a family, in our institutions, our workplace, in schools. Trauma bonding is something that if you're aware of, you can rise above it. And as we head into family gatherings that could potentially be triggering, it is important to know how to rise above it. So check out this special episode, share it with people that you would love to have, you know, be more informed about this. You know who they are. Share it, let's be a better place, a better world, better people, because we know better. So here we go. Trauma bond, tell me more about that.

You know, trauma bonding, right? Like when we, uh, have gone through something traumatic and we walk around on eggshells around people because we want to please them in, in fear of their reaction or acceptance.

Yes. And I'm guessing that becomes— well, it, it becomes such a big part of our obsession or our, our, our activities and our mental focus and concentration that, that other things start to fall away to the side, so that soon we probably become trapped in that trauma bond sometimes. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think when people get trapped, it's Um, a lot of times we'll do things that we don't want to do that we normally wouldn't have done if we didn't attend to the trauma.

Attend to the trauma, yes, just to, just to keep things in balance so we don't get thrown out or hurt any worse. Oh my goodness.

Yeah, because I think that anytime someone goes through traumatic experiences, uh, number one, we feel less than the normal of someone that who, who may or may have not. Most times we— and that's the other thing I want to bring up is not feeling normal. When we're around somebody who hasn't gone through what we're going through, okay, gone through, they're not going to understand us. Does that mean that what we're doing is wrong? No, it's just that our hurts are being projected out wrongfully instead of transparently and being safe to be vulnerable with.

So how can a person tell themselves? I mean, I would imagine we've all experienced some degree of trauma bonding at some point in our life, whether it's with a, a lover or an employer or a family member or someone in our friend group. I would imagine it's pretty standard stuff. How can we tell if we're in a trauma bond? Do we have to have somebody else tell us?

Um, I think one, one example of trauma bond, that we see not just in today's world, but is when we see someone go back to relate with someone in their life when they have someone new in their life, because they want that connection. They want that— that there's something that they know they don't want this over here, but because it was unfinished, their trauma tells them— and it doesn't excuse the bad behavior or lack thereof,. But it is an example as to what that bond is. It's probably a false bond that they're connecting to. But a lot of times what they end up doing is sacrificing something good that they should be bonding with here, if that makes sense.

Absolutely.

Yeah. So it makes good sense, right? And so when I bring that up in trauma groups or counseling, people just go, oh my gosh, that was totally me.

Because it's been everybody at some point or another.

Right. But that response from somebody, that's a notification to the clinician or someone helping them, or just a friend. A lot of times friends will help you a lot better than a clinician.

Yeah.

So that's a response to them to go, okay, they know I understand them. Goes back to that empathy.

So you're opening up something for me that hadn't occurred to me until we were talking about this. I've never understood how some um, universities' music programs will, um, use trauma to motivate their students. And so there are some notorious universities, especially in opera and music theater, that the professors are aggressive and mean, and they pit the students against each other. So like maybe every Friday is going to be a contest of who is the best sophomore in the program. And so they really are actually they get to the point where they're mean. The students are mean to each other instead of building as a team. Yeah, yeah. And this is— this was a successful model, probably still is at a few schools, um, a successful model for a lot of the 20th century, for the trauma was expected. And you can just imagine, um, well, it's, it's easy enough to see from the outside if we look at a, a Japanese tiger mom getting their kid to play violin, or a Russian ballet coach abusing And actually, I know this, that a friend of mine, her daughter who's now 24, um, had an abusive ballet coach for all of high school. So that the girl ended up with all this trauma that she had to deal with, including eating disorders and separation anxiety and all kinds of complicated things that stem from this ballet teacher. Now, this, this girl became so good that she made it on ballet tours, a girl from the United States, on ballet tours in Europe and was, um, courted by Disney to be one of their dancers. So that, that, that trauma incentive has worked in the arts for a long time, and it's always confused the heck out of me. I, I was never that kind of teacher. I was always the encouraging, you can do it, let's go, bring me your best, you know. And, and I never had to suffer through that kind of trauma. Hmm.

Yeah, but you— but with that, like, you're bringing up, like, whether being mean Have you ever seen it within that? I'm going to guess you know more about this than I do, but have you seen it to where the student or child comes out of that and goes, I'm not going to do that with my child?

Oh, yes. The next generation is not going to suffer that way, that's for sure. And if they do, if they're one of those people, it's like, well, and this does certainly happen, especially if you've read the book Tiger Mom, or you know that culture, it doesn't— not necessarily Asian. This exists in every culture that when the young woman who has been traumatized into a successful career, or the young man, becomes a parent themselves, they don't know any different. They don't know any better than to do it the same way because it worked. They became the concert violinist. They became the CEO of a tech company because of that discipline that they're grateful that their parents instilled in them, right?

Yeah. So like Oh, good.

I was just going to say I'm confused about positive results from such a negative training.

Yeah, I personally couldn't stand behind that because I'm a firm believer that with understanding and encouragement, I think that sports has been, you know, has sport— I'm just going to call it sport, but like the sport of music or, you know, the competition you brought up. I mean, we see it like in countries like Madagascar, Kazakhstan, you know, where, where you have different countries, you know, or Kazakhstan, the coming of age for a man is to go out with his eagle or his hawk or whatever they do, and they go hunt the rabbit, and that's their team sport, and that's the thing for men. Where Madagascar, you have children of the men, little boys of the, of the, uh, village who have to ride a bull and tame it, and they— these kids get killed, they get maimed. I mean, this is like So we have this competitive spirit, you know, that causes a lot of trauma. This isn't right.

This isn't right. Exactly.

You know, you want to be first chair, you better start doing it. Which first chair means— well, I know you know what it means, but you know, it's— I see that and I go, yeah, this isn't good.

Yeah. And you're right, you see it in the same thing even in, um, you know, second grade soccer. Um, hey kid, you want to be in the Premier League, you get your back out on that field.

Absolutely.

Mean parenting. Yeah.

So I, I see where, going back to the trauma bond, where that trauma from Sutton's— the, the things you just brought up and what I was talking about— is it can sometimes alter the way we deal with people, our loved ones, uh, our love for someone else. It will create a self-image of ourselves that is not good, and we react accordingly. Yep, you know, absolutely. And I can tell you about one instance in my life. I thought on a personal level, I mean, I was, I was at the point where I was like, I'm just, I'm not good enough for this person, like they're too good for me, like, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna post-attach, which doesn't mean anything, but, but I did that and I detached but I didn't want to, which means the trauma bond, right? Where we go, hmm, you know, uh, I wanna— I wanna— I don't want to walk on eggshells with this person, so I still want to— I still don't attend to them, you know, or my dad or a buddy of mine. I still want to, you know, have that friendship. And we see it all over, even people without trauma. You see it where people go Yeah, I don't know why they did. They have relational— I call it relational historical trauma, something I made up. When, you know, say a bunch of buddies from high school, you know, like, well, God, they were my great friends from high school. That doesn't mean they need to be your friends right now, 30 years later. They could have transitioned to some other type of personality or disposition that isn't going to fit your moral character or code.

I can see where in the moment the, the good would be so good, the happy hormones would be so fantastic that it would— the, the extreme bad, it would almost find balance. Absolutely. And an addiction to those happy hormones that have never been created except in a situation like that where we did that, you know.

Yeah. So I think, you know, going from trauma bond, I go to responses, which for the traumatic experience, which, you know, my history, you know, being a 5-time open heart surgery patient and yeah, all the stuff I've had done. And we're not going to go into detail about that, but from that response, I have certain empathies, but then I have certain non-empathic guards that I had for life until I started seeing a personal therapist, right? Not just my clinical advisor, but a personal therapist who goes which I think we've talked about this before, which she asked a great question. She goes, have you ever thought about what trauma did for you, not to you?

Okay. Okay. Nice.

When she asked that, it was like the gates of heaven opened up, or whatever you want to call it. Like the clouds, the sun came through the clouds. And I'm like, oh, so I don't have to react this way, and I don't have to respond this way for people who are trying to steal my value.

You got it.

Or people who are trying to create a narrative about me when they're neglecting theirs because they didn't have the same amount of trauma.

Yeah, absolutely. Learning to never do that again to anyone else, right?

Or to yourself, right? And so that red flag for me was, you know, uh, the most important thing for me is cardiac care. And so if I'm in the hospital, I want my loved one there. I don't want to be abandoned. I don't want to be left and When I figured out— I wish I would have figured that out before then, but I stopped and I'm like, it created an impulse in my brain to put up a wall, like instantly. Like, like, like it was the— it was being protected. Like I had to be protected. I had to be. If I wasn't protected, that means I wasn't loved, I wasn't good enough, and I'm trash. I'm not worth it.

Fear.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

In my Empower Your Voice, um, small group classes, I use something that's akin to cognitive behavioral therapy where the person, um, we, we take a little time to get the group— it's always a group setting— into a state of mind where they're willing to look back and figure out what happened in their sometimes youth, sometimes not too recent or distant past that they didn't realize had caused them Trauma. And it's so fascinating how in this, uh, quiet moment, I give them literally 60 seconds to come up with something. More often than not, whatever comes up is a surprise to them. Like, wow, I didn't expect that. I didn't realize. One example is a woman who was, um, born a twin, but her big sister, or not big sister, her twin sister was very handicapped. And so this woman has been raised in second place her entire life, and she had never thought about that. She's 63 years old. She'd never thought about that until she was in this Empower Your Voice class. So then once we identify that trauma— and gosh, how many traumas are there? I mean, there's a lot, right? But once we identify it, then I ask them to look into the pain, feel that pain so that they recognize it when it shows up later, and then neutralize it. Look at it from a completely robotic perspective. Like, yes, this happened and this was my response. Um, I, I accept no blame. I was innocent. I am just the victim on this, whatever. Just no emotion. And then I ask him, if possible, to put the positive spin on, on it, like you're talking about. Like, realizing this, I realize the gifts that I was given is that I have greater empathy for other people, or I'll never do this to my kids again, or realizing my own self-worth now like I never did before because that person didn't have the right to do that to me. And also I encourage them to look with sympathy into the person who caused the pain. Like what caused that person to cause the pain so that that person then loses power. Why, why was that person doing that to you? So I realize that that's very similar to some therapeutic methods that are out there and being used, but rewriting your story, rewriting your personal narrative with conscious intention is possible to get through the trauma.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think that, I, I think that, you know, with, uh, you said intention, growing up, going through trauma can cause a lot of, uh, neurocognitive behavior therapy, which is, I know it very well, but I mean, it's, it's almost like I wish I would have used that growing up because I had a lot of wrongful thoughts because of my disability. Uh, being a 5-time neurosurgery patient, I thought I was never good enough. I thought I was always abnormal. And so I would overkill and become perfect. I had everything to be perfect. I was a perfectionist, had major OCD, which I know why— I know now why I had that, because it was the only thing in my life I could control. I couldn't control this if something came up. And so, like, for, uh, in grade school You know, I had two of two, you know, the second, third, uh, open heart surgery was during grade school until I got out of high school and into my early adulthood is when I had my fourth and fifth. But in between junior high and high school, I struggled a lot because, uh, it's not that I didn't have energy, it's that I— my trauma kept me back and my disability kept me back a lot because of the restrictions I had with my heart. Yeah, and they didn't want to operate on me when I was in high school. So, you know, um, I barely— I never made the basketball team, you know. It's not that I was some great athlete, but, but it was like I became bitter and I acted in a way that probably wasn't the best. I wasn't, you know, a bad person, but it was, you know, it wasn't, uh, like I was great like I wanted to be because of that trauma response.

I'm also hearing that you identified with the disability, that it was you, it was part of your identity.

Absolutely.

I don't know if you know this about me, but my daughter who's 24, she has a chronic pain disorder. She got it when she was 12, and she's in pain 24/7 with a headache. And thankfully, it was brought to our attention early to make sure that she doesn't think of herself as the pain. That she's solid and awesome on her own, and she's got this pain which is just extra.

Yeah, yeah. I even discussed this with, uh, with my mom. It was kind of an enlightening thing, conversational. I was like, I think back, not that I was a bad kid, I mean, I did my normal high school kid stuff, right? I mean, you know, yeah, of course I'm telling the truth, you know, but it was, you know, right? But trauma does that, right? I mean, trauma— I, I found this just working with trauma groups And being a therapist working with people in trauma, I'm like, oh my God, that's where I relate with you, because, you know, that's what I did. Like, trauma made me want to tell the narrative, um, that I— that, that the person needed to hear, which would equate to lying, right?

Yeah. Can you give me an example of that?

The trauma bond, you know, walking on eggshells, tell them the answer they want to hear because you don't want to have conflict. Well, when you have trauma bond, you avoid conflict.

Yeah, especially if your parents are the ones that you're avoiding conflict with, right?

And so into adulthood, Nancy, you wouldn't believe it. I, I've actually had people in my life, I go, just because they're family doesn't mean you don't put up a boundary. It has taught me to do that. I mean, trust me, I know people that go, well, they're family, so they can still keep treating me like crap. No, that's not good, because guess what happens from that trauma bond? Guess what happens? So the people who actually do care for that person and love them they end up destroying that person and that relationship over the divisiveness and the toxicity from a family member who comes in and treats them a certain way because they know that they're a peacekeeper. You've heard that term. They know that they're that way, and they— their good relationship gets destroyed because they're not willing to put up a boundary to avoid the divisiveness and the toxicity from the trauma Wow. That they dealt with, and maybe even their partner.

At what point do we need permission? At what point do we say, okay, you know, is it your quinceañera when you're 15 years old? You are no longer a kid. You need to put up boundaries now and no longer accept this. I mean, there is no point where we are declared free of that dependency, right?

But I, but I, but I, when I hear, yeah, and when I hear terms like, you know, boys will be boys, you know, family first, I'm like, Is it though? I mean, yeah, I mean, I'm not going to put my family first if it's, if it's toxic and it's, and it's divisive from something that is good for me. And that's not selfish.

How is that not selfish? Tell me more about that.

Oh, absolutely it's not selfish because I'm not diving into a cesspool that they're pouring stuff into that's going to drain me. Why would I do that all in the name of family? Number one, if family is good and family first, then they should set aside that toxicity for something outside the relationship. It's like, it's like the, the classic narcissistic parent, right? Everyone in the outside world thinks, oh God, they're the greatest people, but inside the home they're— yeah, you know, I mean, we see it all the time, all the time. You know, so that's a great example of I'm not going to, I'm not going to jump into a pool that isn't good for me. That's how it's not selfish. You're not going to go down the road with a wheel with— okay, here's a good example. You have two cars. One has the lug nuts aren't even tight. The other one, you know, is very serviced, has great wheels. It's not going to wreck. What are you going to get into?

I think I'll get in the safe one.

How's that selfish?

You know, I think what I'm doing right now is redefining— or not redefining, maybe for the first time defining selfish. Yeah. So if a person is selfish, does that mean they're looking out for themselves at the cost of other people? So that narcissistic person is selfish, and they do that causing loss or cost to other people in order to elevate themselves, right? But the person who acts in their own self-interest right, and is not selfish. I mean, there's a fine line there, especially with our shared upbringing. Not— we, we didn't share an upbringing, but we had similar upbringings, um, as Lutherans, where if you take care of yourself, that isn't the same as being selfish. I'm having a light bulb here.

Absolutely.

You have to take care of yourself first. Nobody else is going to do it after your mom stops.

You know, and you know, it's, uh, selfish is knowing the bad behavior, knowing you have an agenda, and not caring about the relationship or the individual that you were trying to be divisive or lying about.

Oh, does it always include division and lying? No. Okay.

A lot of times, a lot of times that's why we have the word stonewalling. Gaslighting, right? I mean, people can stonewall you, which is where they don't even contact you. They stay in silent to make you guess, to feel bad yourself, even though you didn't do anything wrong, you know? Because that's why I always say it's not selfish to disregard someone who's blaming you for something you didn't do. That's a form of gaslighting, right? So when we do that, this is, this is the counter thing, Nancy. This is where it gets dangerous. So say that you do what the family wants, or you don't even say anything about what the family's doing, and you disregard it and just go, well, you know, that's, you know, I just, I just know what to expect from them, and I know their limitations. Okay, number one, a person who says that is excusing the family's toxicity. So when you excuse someone's family's toxicity, even if it has to be family, friends, whatever, anybody in the world, when you excuse that toxicity, you're telling the other person who is, who it's affecting, that actually does love you and care for you You're making them question if they will— if you will ever defend them. So guess what they don't feel? They don't feel safe. They don't feel protected. They don't even feel loved, really, because it's only a convenience for you to be loved as long as you don't say anything and stir it up.

Right, right. And if they're going to choose family first and you happen to be their life partner, you don't get chosen first.

Yeah, parents who choose children first too. A spouse comes second, and that's not, that's not the order. Sorry. I mean, that's why our divorce rates are 50 to 60% now. It grows every year. I see it in marital therapy there all the time. So all the time, you know, I don't care what he does, I'm just going to do this. That's just who he is. Well, that's not being transparent, vulnerable. Are you even having dinner together? Are you sitting down talking? You know, because that— because guess what happens? Even if you don't have trauma, Nancy, say that— say the two people in a marriage— let's just go off with that— say the two people in marriage don't even have trauma. They're— they're golden spoon child. They've had it good their whole life. You can manifest a subconscious and pseudo-trauma behavior because of that non-defense and lack of love that you're showing each other. Even if it's a learning figure, it's still not going to be real. Otherwise, I mean, look at, look at Facebook as an example with trauma. You look at a family like, oh my God, they look like they have it really all together, and they have a horrible marriage. Yeah, or no, you know, that's why we call it main character syndrome. You know, people put their life on Facebook to make it look like something it's not, but behind closed doors they're manipulative, they're mean, they're, they're all the other words we could use, right?

Yeah, it's interesting.

And look at our culture though. You ever hear these two comments, which are completely oxymoronic? I don't know if they're oxymoronic, but they're completely opposite. But family first. No one screws you like family.

Oh wow, I've never heard no one screws you like a family.

I've heard numerous times. I'm like, so if those are true, yeah, why do we keep jump— see, that's where that toxicity comes from. No one likes to hear the word toxic. Especially if they've been prone to it by somebody. But, but I use it freely because that is what it is. And so through my trauma, getting back to my trauma, and maybe you've experienced this, I want your input on it, but through my trauma, I've been able to, I've been able to go, okay, I'm stopping. I'm gonna stop reacting because that's what I used to do. Something used to just trigger me and I'd be like, boom. And it was almost impulsive until I started going to therapy. And I'm like, this is, you know, it's just black or white.

Yeah, black or white.

Right. But when it becomes black and white for me now is when I see the behavior of somebody that isn't matching up with what they're telling me.

Okay.

If someone else does something I don't even know that I'm not married to or or exclusive with, per se, just as an example, I leave it alone. I'm just like, not my zoo, not my monkeys. And I'm okay with that. And that's not selfish, that's not me being arrogant, it's just me being— I'm going to choose safety and protection. I'm going to choose that all day long, not just because of this, but because it's healthy. I— no one goes, hey, I hope you— I hope I marry someone that's going to beat me and talk to me bad and gaslight me and, and sacrifice me on a cross to their family. No one does that. No one says that. Otherwise we wouldn't, you know. But those are things that I think about, and that's why we're able to look at a marriage, we see how they act with each other. I'm like, that's gonna last 3 years.

I want— so I want to zoom it back out though to the, um, the institution, um, the— like I was talking about the universities that, uh, you know, have a culture of dysfunction and pain. Um, companies— this is definitely something that happens, especially in— well, it used to be Microsoft's reputation. I was going to say especially in small, but in big companies, Microsoft used to— I believe the policy was to slash 10% of your team every year. And so that, um, that meant that nobody was safe. Um, and so that is a culture. And believe me, I've known so many of those Microsoft people living there, teaching them, teaching their kids, um, that there was definitely a culture of fear. The— they bought your loyalty, and then with, with high paycheck, extreme lifestyle that you could get nowhere else. And especially for people who came in from out of the country and were using that money to support their families outside of the country, that was even more valuable than it was for Americans. And, uh, yeah, they bought your loyalty, they created this trauma bond among the people who are there, and that creates its own family. And I'm— I don't know the numbers on divorce in the tech world, but I bet it's even higher because almost all of those employees every day had to choose the employer over the family.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

You see in law enforcement— law enforcement, yeah, law enforcement divorce rate's huge. You know, yada yada yada, you know, um, lawyers, you know. So these are— those are the things that, that, that are secondary traumas where somebody came into a relationship from somebody who was abusive because of their whatever, their trauma history. So they get secondary trauma. Otherwise they would still be in the relationship, right? Bad to each other, not, not be respectful, right? You know, saying things you really don't mean, you know, all that other stuff. But I think that one thing that I want to end on is that I think that trauma, trauma's red flags are good as long as we have a correct response.

Okay, are there specific red flags to look for?

Absolutely. You know, one out of the 5,000 to 10,000 people that were in the seminar that I spoke at, and one, one person comes up and goes, hey, you suck, what you said wasn't true. Yeah, you really think I'm gonna allow that guy to really affect me?

Hopefully not.

No, because he's projecting. There's something he's not dealing with in his own life that I don't even know the guy. How could he even possibly know what my intentions were? If no one else is saying it in the breakout sessions or all the other good positives that we are getting.

And yet so many people then would take that moment to cause performance anxiety in the future because that one person did that.

Here's a non-projective approach. Instead of going, hey, you sucked, I didn't agree with you. Here's a non-projective, no projection response. Hey, you were talking about this. Could you explain more? Because I'm understanding. And I'm not getting it the way I think I need to get it. How much better are you going to respond if that guy says that versus the creepy—

pretty excited, actually. Like, yes, I'd be glad to. Let's have a Zoom, right?

Where is that?

Cool. Okay.

Yeah, right. So if you don't deal with our trauma, what would be my normal historical trauma response? Whoa. Now it starts, you know, now it's a battle of the words for what? Nothing. Oh God, nothing. I'm investing in giving my power to somebody who doesn't want to value me. Why would I value someone's opinion if they don't even know me, for one, or if their value set is only to knock me down?

Right.

I'm never going to let somebody rob my emotional bank that I've spent years trying to build.

So I hear that you need to recognize the red flags and you need to learn how to respond in a different way. Instead of falling into the old patterns that you were probably taught as a small child. It takes that conscious integration of new responses.

Absolutely.

Yuck. That's a lot of work.

It is. But I will tell you personally, it is worth it. Yeah. It keeps you away from codependency. It keeps you away from triangulations. It keeps you away from, uh, disintegrations, meaning people tearing you down over time. And you not doing it. And when I, when I got rid— not rid, but when I started finding good responses and attending to my trauma bonding and my trauma responses and my trauma alone, I started really diving in and endorsing what did my trauma do for me, not to me. And ever since I've done that, I haven't looked back. And I'm like, I'm focused. It's like attending to somebody who's not showing you the behavior or the action, they just want to talk about what they want to do with you, or, or, you know, for you, or care for you. They don't show it. And unfortunately, you have to let people make their own decisions, and a lot of times it's not going to be the correct one. So when we realize, say, just more historically, since you have a— you and I have that in common with religion and his attempt to find God denomination— when we have that history, you know, we think back. I mean, I think back as a non-denominational faith-based guy, and I go Oh my God, I would never go back to that church ever.

Right?

Like, no way.

No way.

Like, I was taught so many wrong things and misdoctrinated. I mean, it was just like, oh my gosh, I find out truths and I go, whoa. Of course, I was a very rebellious young kid.

So you're saying steer clear, just get the hell of it out of there and don't go back. But it's not that easy if it's your brother or your father or your mother or your roommate.

Yeah. If I had to go back, I would love them where they're at. It's still not going to take me away from what I know. Yeah, I'm not going to allow that because I already know what I know is true. Just because someone else doesn't, that's okay. I'm going to love them where they're at, not where I expect them to be.

Beautiful.

Beautiful. So that's, that's what I would do.

Thank you. This has been an awesome conversation.

Absolutely. Always is.

We'll talk again soon.

See you. Bye-bye.

Okay, bye.