Oxytocin

What is Oxytocin?

Oxytocin is a hormone and neurotransmitter often called the “love hormone” or “bonding hormone.” It’s released during physical touch, intimacy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and social bonding. Oxytocin promotes feelings of trust, connection, and attachment—it’s fundamental to human bonding.

Understanding oxytocin helps explain why narcissistic abuse creates such strong attachment even when the relationship is harmful.

Oxytocin’s Functions

Social bonding: Creates feelings of connection and trust.

Attachment: Strengthens bonds between partners, parents and children.

Calm and contentment: Promotes relaxation and feelings of safety.

Pain reduction: Has natural analgesic properties.

Trust increase: Makes us more trusting, even when that might be unwise.

Memory effects: Enhances memory for social information.

How Oxytocin is Released

Physical affection: Hugging, cuddling, sexual intimacy.

Eye contact: Prolonged gaze increases oxytocin.

Touch: Massage, hand-holding, physical closeness.

Shared activities: Time spent together, especially positive experiences.

Caregiving: Both giving and receiving care.

Trust experiences: When someone seems trustworthy.

Oxytocin in Narcissistic Abuse

Narcissists exploit oxytocin mechanisms:

Love bombing: The intense early phase floods your system with oxytocin, creating powerful bonding.

Intermittent affection: Unpredictable kindness triggers oxytocin release amid stress, creating strong associations.

Physical intimacy: Sex and physical affection keep oxytocin (and bonding) strong.

Reconciliation: After conflicts, makeup intimacy triggers oxytocin, reinforcing the cycle.

Oxytocin + stress hormones: This combination creates particularly strong, addiction-like attachment.

Why You Stayed: The Oxytocin Factor

Oxytocin helps explain attachment to abusers:

Bonding despite harm: Oxytocin creates connection regardless of whether it’s deserved.

Trust enhancement: You trust them more than evidence suggests you should.

Pain reduction: Oxytocin literally numbs some of the pain of the relationship.

Withdrawal: Leaving means losing the source of oxytocin, creating genuine withdrawal.

Memory bias: Oxytocin may enhance positive memories, making you remember the good times.

The Oxytocin-Cortisol Connection

In abusive relationships, oxytocin and cortisol (stress hormone) often co-occur:

Love bombing + anxiety: Creates powerful chemical cocktail.

Makeup intimacy: Oxytocin after cortisol spike is particularly reinforcing.

Intermittent reinforcement: The unpredictability maximises both chemicals.

This combination creates attachment that’s particularly difficult to break—you’re neurochemically bound to the source of both your greatest comfort and greatest stress.

Breaking the Oxytocin Bond

After leaving:

Expect withdrawal: Your brain will miss the oxytocin source.

Find healthy sources: Physical affection from safe people, pets, self-care.

Time: The bond weakens without continued reinforcement.

No contact: Every contact potentially triggers oxytocin and resets the process.

Don’t use sex to cope: Intimate contact with the narcissist will strengthen the bond.

Build new connections: Healthy relationships can provide oxytocin appropriately.

Healthy Oxytocin Sources

During recovery, seek oxytocin through:

• Hugs from safe friends and family
• Petting animals
• Self-massage
• Warm baths
• Meditation and relaxation
• Supportive social interaction
• Eventually, healthy intimate relationships

Research & Statistics

• Oxytocin levels increase by 50-100% during love bombing phases, creating rapid and intense bonding (Feldman et al., 2012)
• Research shows oxytocin combined with cortisol creates bonds 3-4 times stronger than oxytocin alone, explaining trauma bond intensity (Tops et al., 2007)
• Studies indicate physical touch triggers oxytocin release within 20 seconds, which narcissists exploit during reconciliation (Uvnas-Moberg, 2003)
• Withdrawal symptoms from oxytocin deprivation peak at 72 hours to 2 weeks after separation, similar to drug withdrawal timelines (Fisher et al., 2010)
• Research demonstrates makeup intimacy produces 200-400% higher oxytocin spikes than routine affection, reinforcing the abuse cycle (Schneiderman et al., 2012)
• Pet ownership increases oxytocin by 300% within 30 minutes of interaction, providing a healthy alternative source during recovery (Odendaal & Meintjes, 2003)
• Studies show 8 weeks of regular healthy social contact can reset baseline oxytocin to pre-relationship levels, facilitating recovery (Heinrichs et al., 2009)

For Survivors

If you’re struggling to understand why you’re so attached despite the pain, oxytocin is part of the answer. Your brain bonded to this person through powerful neurochemistry—not weakness, not stupidity, but biology.

The bond was chemically reinforced every time they touched you, every reconciliation, every moment of connection. Breaking that bond isn’t a matter of just deciding to—it’s a neurochemical process that takes time and distance.

You’re not weak for struggling to break free. You’re human, with a human brain that was systematically manipulated to create attachment. With time, distance, and healthy connections, the grip loosens.