Different types of people can develop Stockholm syndrome at different times in their lives. Most commonly, children of abusive parents and people who were kidnapped become victims of this weird phenomenon.
When people are in emotionally charged situations for too long, they develop this as a means of survival. At some point, it’s easier to feel empathy and love for the abuser than to fight them.
People who were subjected to awful conditions because of their abuser depend on the smallest acts of kindness from them.
You may have developed this syndrome if you were in an abusive relationship before. If you’re not sure and you haven’t still gone to therapy for it, maybe this could be your final push to seek professional help.
1. Without knowing, you were constantly in survival mode
You can develop Stockholm syndrome if you were constantly in survival mode during your relationship. You were always anxious about what he’d do next so you kept yourself quiet and small at all times.
This also meant that you would do everything he asked of you because the alternative was punishment for misbehaving.
In an abusive relationship, everything the abuser does is to inflict pain on the victim and instill fear in them. For that exact reason, you would always do anything to keep him happy. Sometimes, that wasn’t enough.
2. You saw his small acts of kindness as a reward
A victim completely depends on the small act of “kindness” (which are more like acts of human decency) from their abuser.
It’s one of the first signs of Stockholm syndrome, where you genuinely thought he was doing you a favor when he decided not to raise his voice or his hand at you.
In a healthy relationship, you wouldn’t even have to worry about those things.
But even at the times where he was nice to you, you were anxious. You could never feel completely at ease in his presence. You’d always expect the worst.
3. He made you cut off everyone else
You thought that he was doing you a favor. Your abuser will do anything he can to isolate you from the most precious people around you because that’s how he can gain complete control over you.
When you don’t have anyone else in your life, he has authority over you and the decisions you make. You can’t even ask anyone else for advice and they won’t try to take you away from him.
However, an abuser will do this in a way that’ll seem like he’s doing it for your own good. Every single time you’d talk about someone, he’d tell you stories about how they’re bad for you.
At one point, you started to believe him and his stories, despite them being blatant fabrications. An abuser develops great lying and manipulation tactics in order to keep his victim compliant.
So when you only have him in your life, you start to cling to him. You start to do anything and everything out of fear that he’ll leave you.
4. You claim to love him even though he abused you
How can you truly love an abuser?
Love is something beautiful, something that’s reserved for real connections between us and the people who treat us right. Unfortunately, we tend to fall in love with people who don’t deserve it.
But it’s extremely rare to love an abuser. It appears like a coping mechanism. Just like a child loves his abusive parents. A child doesn’t know that those people aren’t good for him, he just knows that they provide and so, for some reason, the child asks for the approval of those people.
This also happens when however unsafe the environment is, it’s still the safest you have.
That’s why even though he’s still an awful human being who manipulates you and treats you like trash, you love him. He hurts you physically, emotionally, and mentally, but you still choose him over anyone and everyone else.
It doesn’t matter how hard you tried, you simply couldn’t bring yourself to love anyone more than you loved him. You couldn’t even love yourself enough to leave him.
5. You thought there was no way out
The biggest sign that you truly did develop Stockholm syndrome is when you start to believe that there’s no way out so you need to make the best of it. You start to rationalize why you can’t leave him to the point where you start to believe it.
You convince yourself and those around you that it’s not as bad as it seems. He did such a great job at brainwashing you, that now you can’t see past this problem you found yourself in.
It doesn’t matter how many times people try to get you out of the relationship, you always find some way to convince them that everything’s okay. You believe that he’s the best caretaker and that you deserve all the horrifying things he does to you.
But you need to know that there’s always a way out. There’s always someone willing to help you through this process. Someone out there will be your support system and it’s never too late to leave. You’re never trapped.
If you need to stay long enough to gather more evidence to get a restraining order against him, then do so. But you don’t have to stay with someone who’d probably treat an animal better than he treats you.
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