The Frequency of Captivity
Stockholm Syndrome as Energetic Survival
Filed under: Nervous System Politics | Psychological Infrastructure | Bureaucratic Abuse
By Polly Chromatic | SWANK (Standards & Whinges Against Negligent Kingdoms)
❝ Let’s get one thing straight: Stockholm Syndrome isn’t about love. ❞
It’s about energetic survival.
What diagnostic manuals call “trauma bonding”, and psychologists rebrand as “abnormal loyalty”, is in fact:
Entrainment.
The subconscious syncing of your frequency to a captor’s emotional field—
Not to love them.
But to survive them.
I. When Coherence Becomes a Cage
The human nervous system is a pattern-hungry creature.
It does not scan for goodness—
Only predictability.
So when locked inside a coercive dynamic—
An abusive lover.
A punitive bureaucracy.
A manipulative social worker—
Your body performs the oldest sacred calculus:
“If I match them, they won’t destroy me.”
“If I agree, maybe they’ll stop hovering.”
“If I speak their language, they might let me go.”
This isn’t codependence.
It’s somatic diplomacy.
And it works—until it costs you yourself.
II. The Mechanics of Emotional Entrainment
Stockholm Syndrome is not a pathology.
It’s physics.
The dominant field always entrains the weaker field—
Unless the weaker field is sealed.
Entrainment begins when:
Your internal rhythm is interrupted
You defer to external signals as truth
You override intuition to stay intact
Over time, identity does not “disappear.”
It camouflages—within the captor’s frequency.
You don't forget who you are.
You suppress it to avoid being annihilated.
III. Where It Gets Darker: Institutional Captivity
It’s not just individuals who do this.
Institutions entrain.
Courts entrain submission through procedural silence.
Hospitals entrain compliance with fluorescent sterility and jargon.
Social services entrain obedience via false concern and strategic paperwork.
The state entrains dependence with bureaucratic rituals and data dashboards.
They hand you a clipboard and call it choice.
They say “assessment” when they mean accusation.
They offer “support” while recording your collapse as evidence.
And when you start echoing their tone in your emails—
You’re already halfway gone.
IV. The Exit Route: Recalibration as Resistance
To escape, you don’t just walk away.
You seal your field.
You speak your own language—
Even when it’s punished.
Especially when it’s punished.
You stop seeking recognition in the captor’s gaze.
You stop matching their mood to survive the room.
You remember:
Your clarity is a threat.
Your no is not a malfunction.
Your refusal is not instability.
CONCLUSION
You were not broken.
You were entrained.
You were not weak.
You were adapting to an environment that could not see you.
But now:
You are allowed to seal your signal.
You are allowed to vibrate out of range.
You are allowed to stop making sense to the system that misnamed your survival as dysfunction.