In a study conducted by The Society of Occupational Medicine, participants reported higher levels of cooperation and group morale, increased communication skills, and improved operational performance, especially following a traumatic event. Researchers found that while unit cohesion improved soldier mental wellness and increased mission success overall, it had little to no impact on soldier mental health and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) rates once the combat zone element was removed.

Let’s not confuse our ability to hurt the same with our capacity to love properly.

Unit cohesion serves a purpose just like all bonds built on pain, and that purpose is to manifest the support necessary to survive further trauma. When these bonds are forged outside of trauma zones, we find them far less beneficial. In romantic relationships, for example, we see trauma bonding has the same allure as it does to kidnapping victims and soldiers but serves no real purpose. The ability to withstand intermittent trauma is a necessity in a war zone where the likelihood of further traumatization is all but guaranteed—but not so much in a loving relationship where ongoing trauma has no place. There’s no doubt that we detect companionship in the experiences we share with others, even more so when those experiences are negative ones, but let’s not confuse our ability to hurt the same with our capacity to love properly.

The Black community is no stranger to trauma. According to a study out of the University of Pennsylvania, police brutality alone is having population-level consequences for the mental health of the community as a whole. With an increase in depression, psychological distress, anxiety disorders, and a 9.1% prevalence rate for PTSD (compared with 6.8% in Whites), it’s no surprise that pain seems to be one of the things most Black people have in common. Anywhere we see an increase in PTSD, we see people utilizing unhealthy strategies to cope with it. Emotional numbness, or the avoidance of emotional experiences, is a common logical response to repeated trauma. We see this in our ability to watch police killings and bloody street fight videos without flinching. The more trauma you’re exposed to, the less it feels like trauma, and your brain prefers it that way.

But as people become collectively numb to external stimuli, it takes more for them to feel, meaning their interactions require a lot more intensity to feel “authentic.” This explains why children exposed to trauma during their formative years engage in thrill-seeking and risky behaviors at a much higher rate than their peers; unfortunately, adult victims are no different. These cravings for heightened stimuli not only trickle into our daily decision-making but also affect our romantic pairings. Where others might view someone’s unaddressed trauma as a red flag, a similarly traumatized person would see the potential risks as being worth the camaraderie that comes with them. To a person enduring ongoing trauma, someone who can help them cope and survive is far more important in the moment than someone who can help them heal. These relationships are proof of that.

Anywhere we see an increase in PTSD we see people utilizing unhealthy strategies to cope with it.

A friend once told me that because she and her boyfriend both came from single-parent homes, they were less likely to create one for their unborn child. We may not all agree that the absence of a parent can traumatize a child, but there’s enough evidence to support that children raised with only one active parent deal with a host of emotional, social, and psychological challenges that peers raised in healthy two-parent homes do not. And for those of us who know the pain of parental abandonment and have yet to heal from it, a person who relates to that pain may seem like a logical fit. My friend was confident that because she and her then-boyfriend both knew the hurt that parental alienation caused, they’d be less likely to inflict that pain on their child. But my friend hadn’t chosen a partner who was familiar with the healing process; she chose a partner who knew how to live with their hurt, and together they formed a bond anchored by that relation alone.