As I see many childhood trauma survivors in my practice, I often meet people who have experienced narcissistic abuse in adulthood. Sometimes it is from a current partner, sometimes from an ex, but it is striking how often this experience appears in my clients’ stories. They describe relationships that begin like a dream, filled with intensity, attention, and a special feeling of being “the one,” and end in confusion, humiliation, and despair. To someone on the outside, the question seems obvious: why not just leave? But as we discuss the relationship, it becomes painfully clear that this is not a simple choice. What looks like love from the outside is a carefully set trap, and childhood trauma survivors are uniquely vulnerable to falling into it.
We do not arrive in adulthood as blank slates. Every adult relationship we enter is already influenced by the first relationships that shaped us. The earliest and most significant of these is the bond with our mother or the primary caregiver. If that bond was warm, loving, and consistent, we grow up with a deep-rooted belief that we are wanted and worthy. If it was rejecting, cold, critical, or abusive, we end up carrying the opposite message. Not only we think we are unwanted. We feel it in our bodies. It shows up in the rhythms of daily life. Over time it becomes part of our identity.
This internalised sense of “I am unwanted” is not erased simply because the child becomes an adult. People imagine they can outgrow childhood. They believe new achievements, professional success, or romantic love will overwrite old wounds. But the reality is more sobering. Childhood trauma does not vanish. It lingers like an old computer program running in the background, unseen but constantly influencing behaviour. When a narcissistic partner enters the picture, that hidden program lights up. The narcissist finds the weakness and exploits it.
Why Love Bombing Works So Well on Survivors
Narcissists are masters at creating the illusion of perfect love. They overwhelm their targets with grand gestures, constant attention, and declarations of being “the one.” This strategy, often called love bombing, works on almost anyone in the short term. But it has a particularly devastating effect on survivors of childhood trauma.
Why? Because love bombing mimics the very thing they have craved since childhood. When a person has grown up deprived of consistent love, validation, and acceptance, they do not simply want these things. They hunger for them. Love bombing lands like a feast after years of starvation. It feels not only desirable but essential, like finally being able to breathe after years underwater.
For the survivor, the narcissist appears to offer what the mother never could. That sense of being chosen and cherished feels intoxicating. It is not just flattery. It is relief. It feels like medicine for an old wound that has been festering silently for decades.
The problem is that this medicine is addictive. Once the survivor gets a taste of it, they want more. And the narcissist knows this. After the initial rush of love bombing, the narcissist begins to pull back. They become cold. They withhold affection. They criticise or go silent. The survivor, desperate to feel that sense of specialness again, starts to chase.
The cycle repeats. The narcissist controls the rhythm of giving and withholding. The survivor adjusts to the rhythm like a dancer learning steps. Every small dose of attention feels like winning the lottery. Every cold withdrawal feels like abandonment. And so, the survivor stays, trapped in the hope that the next wave of attention will finally heal the wound.
Outsourced Self-Worth
The root problem is not the narcissist’s behaviour, however, although it is manipulative and abusive. The deeper issue is that survivors of childhood trauma often grow up with no stable sense of inner worth. They were not taught, as children, that they mattered simply for existing. Instead, they were taught—implicitly or explicitly—that their value was conditional. They were good enough only when they pleased, obeyed, or succeeded. Or worse, they were told outright that they were a burden or a disappointment.
Without an internal foundation of worth, survivors grow into adults who outsource their value. They place their sense of self in other people’s hands. Instead of saying to themselves, “I matter because I am human,” they wait for others to confirm it. They listen for words of approval, love, or admiration. And when those words are withheld, they collapse into self-doubt.
This constant search for external validation makes them highly vulnerable. They enter relationships not as equals but as seekers. They look to the other person to confirm their right to exist, their beauty, their intelligence, their value. For a narcissist, this is the perfect match. The narcissist thrives on being the sole supplier of validation. They set themselves up as both the poison and the cure. They wound with one hand and heal with the other. And the survivor, hungry for affirmation, keeps coming back for more.
Case Example: Joanne’s Repeated Returns
Joanne’s story illustrates this cycle well. She grew up with a mother who was more likely to criticise than comfort, more likely to reject than reassure. By the time Joanne reached adulthood, she carried an emptiness she could not name. She did well academically and professionally, but no achievement felt enough. She needed someone else to say she mattered.
When she met Tom, everything seemed to change. He called her constantly. He sent flowers. He told her she was his soulmate. For the first time in her life, Joanne felt chosen. She felt special in a way she had never experienced.
But soon Tom’s behaviour shifted. He grew distant. He ignored her calls. He flirted with other women and even put Joanne down. Each time Joanne confronted the behaviour, he returned with apologies and new promises. “You are the only woman who understands me,” he would say. And each time, Joanne forgave him.
Rationally, Joanne knew this was not love. Friends told her to leave. She herself said she wanted to end it. Yet whenever Tom returned, her resolve collapsed. The spark of feeling special burned so brightly that it overshadowed her anger, humiliation, and pain. The illusion of being chosen felt stronger than her awareness of being mistreated.
Joanne was not addicted to Tom himself. She was addicted to the feeling he created in her. That feeling was not love. It was a substitute for the maternal affirmation she had never received. Tom’s attention reawakened the hope that had lived in her since childhood: the hope that someone, finally, would prove she was wanted.
The Way Out
The truth is hard but necessary. The narcissist is not the problem to solve. The wound inside is. As long as the survivor craves external validation, they will remain vulnerable to those who manipulate it. Recovery requires more than leaving a toxic relationship. It requires building an inner foundation of worth.
This means learning to parent oneself, to provide the unconditional acceptance that was missing in childhood. It means saying, “I am lovable and worthy, even if no one else tells me so.” Therapy can support this process, and, over time, the survivor learns to internalise the unshakeable and solid sense of worth.
When that happens, the narcissist loses power. Love bombing no longer feels like oxygen because the survivor has learned to breathe on their own. Withdrawal no longer feels like annihilation because the survivor no longer depends on the narcissist for survival. The cycle breaks when the survivor stops chasing the illusion of being special and instead accepts the deeper truth: they were always worthy, even when no one recognised it.
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