How Our Behavioural Patterns Are Formed in Life

It was about three years ago that I started to look back over my life and think… oh, this wasn’t a once-off.

I realised the abusive relationship I was healing from was the peak of events that had been up for years prior with others in my life.

My lack of self-worth, self-esteem, ignoring my needs, people pleasing, narcissists, and acceptance of the status quo, so I didn’t make waves and create conflict. Yep. I could see the patterns now so so clearly trodden into my past.

I’d done the therapy rounds. Multiple professionals, lots of insight, lots of tools. They were good people and incredibly helpful for a season, but it stopped working for me. They hadn’t lived what I’d lived. They were trauma-informed, but they hadn’t endured the kind of emotional and physical chaos I had. They had great textbook knowledge and had met many people with backgrounds similar to mine. But they had no lived experience.

Logistically, therapy also became inaccessible for me long-term. Full-time work, life, the good therapists booked out forever, and the cost… not exactly pocket change. So, I started learning my way, and I haven’t stopped.

To be clear, this isn’t me being anti-therapy. If I ever want to, I will return to a therapist. Right now, it’s not my need.

Around the time of my decision, I became aware of the patterns in my life. I got interested in how our behavioural patterns are formed. I wanted to know why my patterns had made me a magnet for narcissists. How trauma can cement these patterns into our nervous systems. I also wanted to know how to better recognise them and break them.

My aim, is that by the end of this post, you’ll understand:

How behavioural patterns are formed in our early life
Why those patterns can make you vulnerable to abuse
How trauma wires survival responses into everyday behaviour
How to spot your own patterns
Ways to start breaking the patterns that are not working for you

What Are Behavioural Patterns and Why They Matter in Healing from an Abusive Relationship

Let’s keep this bit simple.

A behavioural pattern is a repeated way of thinking, feeling, and acting that your brain has decided is safe or effective, whether it is or not.

These patterns become:

The way you move through relationships
The way you handle conflict
The way you talk to yourself
The way you tolerate (or ignore) red flags

Research shows that our early relationships with parents and other caregivers shape our inner map of how we love, feel safe and have connections with others. These maps influence how we relate to others as adults, including how we handle conflict and how much mistreatment we’re willing to tolerate. They also impact our thoughts of ourselves and what is deemed acceptable treatment towards us.

This is called attachment theory. It is responsible for the patterns we have running in our lives long before that narcissist ever turned up. This further confirms there was no weakness in staying for as long as we did. We were not stupid for missing the red flags. Our behavioural patterns were primed before the abuse.

These patterns were learned, and what has been learned can be unlearned.

How Our Behavioural Patterns Are Formed in Life

Our patterns are not random. They’re built from three big sources in our lives:

Early family dynamics (parents, siblings, extended family, caregivers)
Significant relationships and social experiences
Trauma and survival responses

Early attachment and conditioning

Attachment theory research shows that when a child has consistent, responsive care, they’re more likely to develop a secure attachment style (confident, empathetic, able to set boundaries) and healthier expectations in relationships. When care is inconsistent, neglectful, or frightening, children often develop anxious or avoidant patterns that easily follow them into adulthood.

At the same time, basic learning theory (reinforced behaviours when we were growing up) plays a role in how we react to different situations.

If speaking up or stating your needs leads to punishment or shame, your brain learns it’s safer to tolerate and stay quiet.
If people-pleasing leads to less conflict, your brain learns that if you’re agreeable and you cater to others, it’s safer.
If shrinking yourself keeps the peace and is reinforced positively, your brain learns you must be small to be loved.

As an adult, these behaviours could now include self-neglect to the benefit of others, the inability to voice your needs, believing others’ emotions are your responsibility to manage, and the belief that boundaries should be non-existent for those you love.

None of these are conscious decisions. They’re survival strategies that become automatic behavioural patterns, and they start when we are young.

The people who hurt us

It’s brutal, but true.
We often learn our deepest patterns from:

The people we loved
The people we relied on
The people who hurt us

If criticism, withdrawal, or rage were standard in your family, your brain may have normalised walking on eggshells, constant self-blame and taking responsibility for everyone else’s feelings.

This is a common behaviour when parents have had similar patterns growing up with their parents. Whether intended or not, the damage can be done that sets the stage for our future patterns.

It becomes the outlook you have for every future relationship, including abusive ones.

How Early Patterns Made Me (and Maybe You) a Target for a Narcissist

Narcissists and other abusive partners are very good at finding people whose patterns will work in their favour. I’m not sure if they are conscious of the decision, but probably not. Those with secure attachment style just don’t tolerate their games and can see their red flags a mile away.

If, like me, you grew up learning to:

People please (the fawn response)
Hide parts of yourself to keep others comfortable
Carry shame for things that weren’t your burden
Avoid conflict at all costs

…then you were, unfortunately, an excellent fit for someone who wants control.

The “fawn” trauma response, the instinct to keep others happy to stay safe, is increasingly recognised as a survival strategy often developed in childhood, particularly in children who were afraid of their parents.

When a narcissist arrives, someone with fawn behavioural patterns falls perfectly into the script.

The narcissist starts with love bombing. It feels like finally being seen, chosen, valued. Suddenly you matter.
When the devaluation begins (subtle criticism, gaslighting, put-downs), your instilled patterns kick in. You believe it’s your fault:
- “If I just try harder, they’ll go back to how they were at the start.”
- “If I keep them calm, everything will be okay.”
- “If they’re angry, it must be my fault.”

Over time, this cycle becomes a trauma bond, a powerful mix of fear, intermittent reward, and emotional addiction. Our bodies even release hormones that reinforce the addictiveness of this cycle.

This is why understanding how our behavioural patterns are formed in life is such a huge part of healing from an abusive relationship. It lets you move from wondering what is wrong with you, to understanding you are repeating a learned survival pattern and that your actions were understandable given that fact.

How Trauma Reinforces Behavioural Patterns

Trauma changes how your nervous system operates.

When your brain perceives threat, it flips into survival modes like fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. These are automatic, body-based responses designed to keep you alive.

If you experienced chronic trauma such as relationship abuse (like ongoing emotional or physical abuse), your nervous system learns that danger is constant, you’re never really safe and the best way to survive is keep everyone else calm.

This puts your nervous system in overload. The on button is always on.

So trauma-based behavioural patterns might look like:

Always scanning the room for others’ moods
Apologising constantly
Numbing out or dissociating in conflict
Staying hypervigilant, even in safe situations
Feeling unable to say “no” and have boundaries no matter how much you want to.

These patterns were logical in a danger-filled environment. The problem is that your nervous system keeps running them long after the danger has passed.

How to Recognise Your Behavioural Patterns

You can’t change what you can’t see. Recognising patterns is the first step.

Notice “same story, different person” moments

Ask yourself:

Do my relationships feel like the same movie with different actors?
Do I repeatedly end up with emotionally unavailable or controlling partners and friends?
Do I always become the “fixer”, caretaker, or emotional bin for the people in my life?

If yes, then that’s the data you were looking for.

Track your automatic reactions

Start a simple journal (nothing fancy) for a week as a trial for yourself:

When someone is upset with you, what’s your first instinct?
When you’re uncomfortable, do you fight, flee, freeze, or fawn?
When someone crosses your boundary, do you speak up, or do you swallow it, excuse it or feel frustrated?

These responses are trauma patterns, and if they are not suiting the life you want, then you can change them with practice.

Listen for your inner script

Our patterns are also in the things we tell ourselves. Just because we have thoughts doesn’t mean they are true.

“It’s my job to keep everyone happy.” It is never your responsibility to make others happy. You are responsible for your own happiness only.
“If I say no, they’ll leave.” This is a lie our brains tell us. If they do leave, then they were only staying because our lack of boundaries suited them.
“If someone is angry, I must fix it.” You are never responsible for another person’s emotions.
“My needs are less important.” Your needs are always important, and it is your responsibility to put your needs first.

Write these down when they appear. They’re clues to how your behavioural patterns were formed in life. The voice you hear in your head when these sorts of thoughts pop up often gives you an indication of whose limiting beliefs you have adopted as your own.

How Do We Break the Patterns?

These patterns came about because you were protecting yourself. This is not evidence of weakness; this is evidence of your power to survive.

Now that you no longer need these sorts of patterns in your life, you can make changes to suit your growth.

Breaking old patterns is about updating your survival software.

Name the pattern with compassion

It’s pointless to berate yourself for being a people pleaser. Picking on yourself just makes you feel worse and brings shame, guilt, and other emotions into the mix.

If you pick up on what you’re doing mid-behavioural pattern, you can work on getting into the habit of thinking something like “Ah, my nervous system has defaulted to fawn response because of how I feel right now”

No shame, just noticing the behaviour.

If you want to know more about this behavioural pattern, you can ask yourself:

When did I first need this?
What did it help me survive?
What would I say to the younger version of me who had to use this to get through?

This shifts you from any negativity towards your actions to self-understanding, which is essential when you’re healing from an abusive relationship.

Experiment with tiny, safe opposites

You don’t have to overhaul everything at once. Choose micro-shifts, teeny tiny habits.

If your pattern is always to say yes, then practice saying no. It could be a simple “not this time”, “that’s not going to work for me this week,” or just a straight “no.”

If your pattern is to freeze, experiment with a mindful practice. Place a hand on your chest, feel your feet on the floor, and take one slower breath before responding. This is practising the pause.

These tiny acts can start to teach your nervous system that you can do something different and remain safe.

Rewire through repetition and support

Patterns were wired in your brain through repetition; they’re rewired the same way.

You can try different ways of redirecting your wired patterns into new systems that work for you. These could look like:

Journal about your reactions and triggers
Somatic practices (yoga, shaking, breathwork, walking in nature)
Trauma-informed therapy or coaching if it is accessible and suits what you need.
Communities or resources where people understand narcissistic abuse and trauma responses. You can check out The Resilient Blueprints Resources

You’re growing into someone with new habits and abilities. You’re learning to live as yourself without the old survival strategies.

You’re Allowed to Outgrow Your Old Survival Patterns

If you’ve realised that the patterns you built in childhood made you vulnerable to narcissistic abuse, it’s easy to sink into anger, blame and shame. I’ve spent some time there myself.

But I don’t want to spend time placing blame on myself and others who also carry limited beliefs and ideals that were never theirs to start with. It wouldn’t get me anywhere good, and I would never make them realise what they had done.

Understanding how our behavioural patterns are formed in life is not about blaming your parents forever or letting your abuser off the hook.

It’s about reclaiming your power. If you learned these patterns to survive in life, then you can unlearn them now they are no longer required.

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FAQs

Q: How do I know if a behaviour is “just my personality” or a trauma pattern?

Ask yourself:

Did this behaviour help me stay safe, loved, or accepted in a difficult environment?
Do I feel like I have to do it to avoid conflict, abandonment, or criticism?

If it feels compulsory, fear-driven, and out of proportion to the current situation, it’s likely a trauma-based behavioural pattern rather than an authentic personality trait.

Q: What’s the first step to breaking patterns that make me attract narcissists?

The first step is awareness without self-attack. Start by noticing your automatic reactions in relationships (people-pleasing, over-explaining, tolerating disrespect, or ignoring red flags). These are survival strategies you learned earlier in life. From there, you can begin practicing small boundary-setting and seeking out safer, more reciprocal relationships.

Q: Can behavioural patterns form in trauma really change, or am I stuck like this forever?

No, you’re not stuck. Research on trauma and neuroplasticity shows that our brains and nervous systems can change throughout life with new experiences, supportive relationships, and consistent practice. It takes time and patience, but the patterns created by trauma are adaptations. You’re allowed to rewrite your script.

Sources:

Child Development

Trauma Bonding

How Our Behavioural Patterns Are Formed in Life

What Are Behavioural Patterns and Why They Matter in Healing from an Abusive Relationship