What is Love Bombing?

Love bombing is a manipulative technique used to gain control over someone by overwhelming them with excessive affection, attention, and admiration in a short period.

It often involves intense displays of affection, such as constant compliments, lavish gifts, frequent communication, and declarations of love. While this behaviour may initially appear genuine and flattering, it can be a form of emotional manipulation.

Narcissists use love bombing to excessively flatter their target.

Key characteristics of love bombing include:

🚩#ExcessiveAttention and Flattery: The person showers their target with compliments, praise, and constant attention, making the target feel special and valued.

🚩Rapid Advancement of the Relationship: The love bomber pushes for quick escalation of the relationship, such as moving in together, making future plans, or even discussing marriage very early on.

🚩#Isolation: The love bomber may try to isolate the target from friends and family, encouraging them to spend all their time together and discouraging contact with others. They might cancel their own plans, or stop socialising, so they can use this as an excuse for why you should stop too. This form of control means they always know who you're with and they can gradually isolate you from your support network, meaning you become more reliant on them. They might give "reasons" why you should distance yourself from others and say you only "need each other" and "you're a team" further creating a reliance on them. This narcissistic trait is used to gain control over you because overall they are insecure and reliant on you for validation, admiration and possibly for other means, such as housing and money.

🚩Intense Communication: Frequent phone calls, texts, and social media interactions are common, creating a sense of dependency on the love bomber.

🚩Sudden Withdrawal: Once the target is emotionally dependent, the love bomber may abruptly withdraw their affection, leaving the target confused, anxious, and desperate to regain the initial level of attention. This can be done suddenly and for a short period, to create a bigger impact of the target feeling lost and anxious that they are alone, which can create even more dependency. It can also be used by a narcissist when they have done something to upset their partner. By leaving and then ghosting the partner, it causes anxiety as the victim worries that something bad has happened to the abuser. When the abuser eventually reappears, they might get away with their original bad behaviour because the victim is so relieved to find they aren't hurt and have come back.

Love bombing is often used by narcissists, abusers, or individuals with manipulative tendencies to establish control and dependency. It can lead to unhealthy, toxic relationships where the target is manipulated and exploited.

Recognising the signs of love bombing and the red flags of a narcissist is crucial to protecting oneself from this form of emotional manipulation.

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I'm Aimee, a #MentalWellbeingCoach specialising in supporting females who are recovering from domestic abuse.

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