Even if Love isn’t what makes the world go round, it makes our heads turn, sure enough.
Some call it Chemistry, and it is also somewhat true, for body substances – dopamine, adrenaline, serotonin, vasopressin, and some others – rush about to provide that incomparable feeling of indescribable bliss that we keep chasing after.
Although people are well aware that love is blind, they persist in delighting in that blindness and derive so much pleasure therefrom that they aren’t too eager to regain their visual abilities.
Those who yield easily and likewise those who try to resist both know that love comes in many disguises – like, for one, „love bombing.“
Do you know what it is from experience, or does the term sound strange to you? Read and see if you can relate to this version of that lovin‘ feelin‘.
LOVE BOMBING – SOUNDS GRAND, IS IT REALLY SO?
It is when one person keep showering another one with signs of attention and affectionate advances. Love bombing is done in many ways for different purposes, not all of them well-meant.
What is the same about love bombing is that it is bound to end up souring on you – the active party intends to create a habit and then use it for their own ends. It might mean their abusive traits surfacing and taking control.
That means that love bombing can place you in a very disadvantageous situation where you will feel caught up in a mesh.
Love bombing isn’t easy to detect
When love bombing is just getting on the way it can be hard to understand what exactly is happening, because of the initial excitement. What you feel is a glorious promise, and the welcome sensation of butterflies. The emotional upheaval is what we need and we don’t harbor any suspicions at this stage.
You have to watch if the happy start follows on to a relationship that quickly takes up a goodish hunk of your time. Gadgets and social sites allow people to keep in touch all the time and expect instant responses which works into a love bomber’s hands. They can keep you involved in interrelation throughout the day.
It can place you in a vulnerable position
Actually, love bombers often come across as attractive – many of them are of the narcissist kind, exuding self-confidence, independence, ambition.
On the other hand, there are people who feel drawn to potentially abusive partners through subconscious scenarios of their own. It is often psychologically connected with the relationship between our parents which we tend to emulate.
If their relationship was particularly traumatic, or there was some past relationship which proved especially hurtful, we might feel obliged to date the same kind of person in an attempt to relive a past situation and rectify it.
No matter how harmful a relationship may be, it will be a familiar kind so it will feel more or less all right.
The thing is, a trauma doesn’t always render a person weak. People who lived down traumas grow more sensitive and kind, prone to exonerate bad behavior. That sets them apart as natural victims of habitual abusers who sense such people out.
Struggling to free yourself
Since love bombing is apt to degenerate into loss of values, the process gets to be painful and torturing as the relationship is progressing.
The victim will be wanting to go back to the stage where they were dealing with a marvelously attentive and caring person – but there’s no going back, that nice person was all pretense.
All those signs, gestures, small tokens were intended to be reciprocated – everything a narcissic type does he does to get something in return. Their behaviors were meant to produce the expected reaction, and once it’s achieved, they go on pressing fort hat reaction until the other party begins to feel exploited.
The whole relationship has been designed with a view of devaluing the victim, so the person on the other side is constantly on their toes afraid to do the wrong thing. Meanwhile, their boundaries get transgressed and their self is being invaded.
Unfortunately, this does not become clear until the victim has gotten out of the tenacious relationship, and the disguising mist has cleared. Then the bombing appears what it was, empty moves intended to deceive.
WHAT ARE SURE-FIRE SIGNS OF BEING SUBJECTED TO LOVE BOMBING?
Ignoring boundaries
What a love bomber does (or tries to do) from the very start is transgress your personal boundaries. Claiming that they do it out of love, they can drop on you all of a sudden, make arrangements without securing your concurrence, speak for both of you – that’s the very essence of bombing.
Seizing control
A skilful love bomber who takes care to disguise his ways may not seem to be intent upon gaining control, but he is, invariably wanting to know every little thing about you all the time until you feel fenced in. If you go along with it, well and good, but if you ever attempt to insist upon your wish, a bomber is certain to get furious and tell you that you are ruining your love with your foolish stubbornness.
Making you break away from friends and other ties
The only kind of relationship a bomber can understand is when you belong to him unreservedly; all your other relationships are sheer poison to him. The bomber will inevitably try to wean you out of other relationships and make you wholly dependant on them – that will give them the total control they crave for.
Reciprocate or feel guilty
Such relationships are strictly reciprocal: see how much I care for you, but you must likewise care for me. This seemingly just demand boils down to putting emotional pressure on partners forcing them either to feel guilty or to be obliged to make return gestures.
Hot-and-cold treatment
As soon as they got you hooked, all kinds of manipulation are switched on, some of them to ensure the victory. Getting hot and cold is a good way to see if you remain firmly hooked and will be there for them even if they withdraw themselves from close contact. If you respond when they get back and say hi, they understand that you are still willing to play toy for them.
Feeding you no end of compliments
Compliments are usually paid with good reasons on suitable occasions, not piled upon a person until they are literally smothered with them. Such excess of fine words usually goes to show that there’s not a lot of feeling behind them.
A rapid progress of relationship status
When your new-found beau fires ‘I love you’ at you before you got to know him well enough for comfort, that is a sign that the person may be rushing you into a serious relationship. Bombers have a lot of cliches at their command: ‘I have never loved anyone like this before,’ ‘you’re my one and only,’ and so on. They go to produce an impression that a miracle has occurred for you and him, and you’ve reached the end of the road. That’s not the best tactic, but it often works.
Gifts come in strings
On the one hand, gifting is natural, on the other, no-one really expects to buy their way into love. So you get your gifts, but if they come in abundance, it may be because they are more investments than real gifts.
Ceaseless contact
To be in control means to maintain constant contact, and the modern lifestyle facilitates it: your bomber is intent on following you around, he can easily employ these means for such ends as:
- to spur the relationship on owing to the possibility of maintaining constant socializing;
- knowing where you are and what you do, to gain control over your activities;
- to pause the contact in order to check you are hooked.
The last one being the result of bombing’s drugging effect, when you feel void once the bomber breaks contact; the attempts to re-establish contact will create a spurious feeling of control over the relationship.
Check for discomfort and restlessness
Confront your gut feeling. Should something arouse your suspicions, reassess your relationship and review your partner’s behavior from stage one. Is there anything at all that made you feel uncomfortable? Were you at any moment used or manipulated? Did he show enough consideration for your personal boundaries? Love and affection are definitely not the feelings that are known to produce restlessness and worry.
