"Just run away"—what a privileged and overly optimistic thing to say. It is the kind of cheap comfort that can only be offered by those who have never once stepped into the actual mud of reality. For survivors of childhood trauma, the world is not a safe playground filled with places to escape to. Even when they flee with every ounce of strength they possess, they often find themselves merely floundering in another kind of mud called "the world." And ultimately, the brutal reality is that a single phone call from that hellish relationship can drain all the strength from their body, leaving them to walk right back into that very hell.
Why a Single Phone Call Pulls You Back
People around you don’t understand. Frustrated, they throw blunt criticisms: "Why do you still pick up their calls after fighting so hard to escape?" or "Why do you keep going back to them?" But they do not know. They don’t understand that you are tied down by the vicious, addictive psychological ropes of "Intermittent Reinforcement" and "Trauma Bonding."
A rare warm word from someone who tormented you your entire life, or a tearful phone call crying, "I’m sorry," or "I need you," acts as a powerful stimulus to a survivor’s brain—much like a drug. It is because a single, deceptive ray of hope—that you might finally get the "parental recognition and love" you so desperately craved as a child—takes complete control of your brain.
In that moment, the brain ceases rational judgment. The strange familiarity of that relationship and the deep longing for attachment override the instinct to protect yourself. Like a magnet, you step back into the mud, even though you know the place you are returning to is hell.
There Is No Paradise in the Place You Fled To
What is even more despairing is the fact that even if you manage to put physical distance between yourself and the abuse, the internal mud follows you. Poverty, social isolation, and interpersonal skills damaged by trauma continuously haunt the independent survivor. The world is cold, it feels as though no one truly wants to help, and the pressure of surviving completely alone creates a horrific paradox: that perhaps the "familiar hell" was better.
This is why you have no choice but to keep floundering, even in the world you fought so hard to escape to. Like a quicksand that pulls you deeper the more you try to extricate your feet, past memories and present helplessness pull at your legs from both sides.
Just Keeping Your Head Above Water Is Enough
So, if you are currently caught in the mud and floundering, or if you have the experience of escaping only to end up right back where you started, I hope you do not blame yourself. It is not because you are foolish, nor is it because you lack willpower. It is simply because the gravitational pull of that swamp is incredibly strong.
Realistic clinical practice does not demand that you "instantly make a grand escape from the swamp and live a perfect life." That is impossible. What you can do right now is simply "poke your head out just enough to breathe" while still stuck in the mud.
The process of escaping is a messy, tearful repetition of failing countless times, falling flat on your face, and crawling back into the mud. There is no such thing as a perfect escape. It is merely crawling toward the edge of the swamp, covered in filth, bit by bit, one centimeter at a time. Even if you collapse again along the way, that very gesture of floundering is the most heartbreakingly beautiful proof that you are fighting with everything you have to stay alive.
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