The way I had this explained to me was as a slot machine addiction.
If every time you put a coin in a slot machine nothing came out you'd disconnect the emotional investment in trying fairly quickly.
But when you get the odd scrap of change back now and then you become super invested in getting another payout so end up throwing more and more money in and maintaining focus on the small win that might happen again and not the big loss going on.
I have/had am dealing with a similar thing with my Dad. My Mother was the machine that never paid out, ever. I feel a lot of rage towards her for that but very little or no love.
Dad on the other hand had the none drunk days where he offered a small kindness or brought me a bottle of soda home. There was a lot more drunken attacking and physical assault than sober kindness from him growing up but I NEVER STOPPED TRYING for the jackpot as a child and I was totally focussed on getting that payout via my own investments in 'being a good girl'
Stockholm I am told has a lot of similarities to the slot machine metaphor as it is a learned coping mechanism aimed at doing what we thought was needed to generate what we needed to survive as children or adults in a violent and dangerous situation.
I am told this is a very normal and self protective mechanism that many people who are traumatized for a long time find themselves doing without any real understanding why.
By this I mean logically we can see we are being treated appalingly but some rogue part of us won''t let go of the idea that IF I JUST TRIED AGAIN things might be different. It is the second part of the thinking that keeps us locked into putting those coins in.
It was suggested to me that the only way out for me was to reframe my 'person' as a slot machine and SEE what I was doing as gambling with my own feelings as the currency that I was feeding into Dad. Since I realised that I have found it a lot easier to manage my urges to play the game of 'look how much I deserve to win your love/respect'