Status Updates From Trauma and Recovery: The Af...

“I believe many unexpected deaths occur when a person finishes one phase of life and must become a different sort of person in order to continue. The phoenix goes down into the fire with the best intention of rising, then falters on the upswing. At the point of transition, I came close to dying along with my other self.” (p. 56)

“Many survivors are terribly afraid that their children will suffer a fate similar to their own, and they go to great lengths to prevent this from happening.” (p. 56)

“The phenomenon of repeated victimization, indisputably real, calls for great care in interpretation.
For too long psychiatric opinion has simply reflected the crude social judgment that survivors "ask for" abuse. The earlier concepts of masochism and the more recent formulations of addiction to trauma imply that the victims seek and derive gratification from repeated abuse. This is rarely true.” (p. 55)

“These distortions are not easily corrected by experience, since the survivor tends to lack the verbal and social skills for resolving conflict.
Thus the survivor develops a pattern of intense, unstable relationships, repeatedly enacting dramas of rescue, injustice, and betrayal.” (p. 55)

“Contrary to common belief, victims of childhood abuse rarely resort to self-injury to "manipulate" other people, or even to communicate distress. Many survivors report that they developed the compulsion to self-mutilate quite early, often before puberty, and practiced it in secret for many years. They
are
frequently ashamed and disgusted by their behavior and go to great lengths to hide it.” (p. 54)

Mealtimes may similarly be times of extreme tension rather than times of comfort and pleasure. The mealtime memories of survivors are filled with
accounts of terrified silences, forced feeding (..) or violent tantrums (..). Unable to regulate basic biological functions in a safe, consistent, and comforting manner, many survivors develop chronic sleep disturbances, eating disorders, gastrointestinal complaints, (..)

“More commonly, the child idealizes the abusive parent and displaces all her rage onto the nonoffending parent. She may in fact feel more strongly attached to the abuser, who demonstrates a perverse interest in her, than in the nonoffending parent, whom she perceives inditterent.“ (p. 53)

This malignant sense of inner badness is often camouflaged by the abused child's persistent attempts to be good. In the effort to placate her abusers, the child victim often becomes a superb performer. She attempts to do whatever is required of her. She may become an empathic caretaker for her parents, an efficient housekeeper, an academic achiever, a model of social conformity.

“Just as routinely, the children refuse to be absolved of blame. Similarly, adult survivors who have escaped from the abusive situation continue to view themselves with contempt and to take upon themselves the shame and guilt of their abusers. The profound sense of inner badness becomes the core around which the abused child's identity is formed, and it persists into adult life.” (p. 52)

The language of the self becomes a language of abomination. Survivors routinely describe themselves as outside the compact of ordinary human relations, as supernatural creatures or nonhuman life forms.
They think of themselves as witches, vampires, whores, dogs, rats, or snakes.

The child entrapped in this kind of horror
develops the belief that she is somehow responsible for the crimes of her abusers. Simply by virtue of her exıstence on earth, she believes that she has driven the most powerful people in her world to do terrible things. Surely, then, her nature must be thoroughly evil.

“The abused child's predictable difficulties in
modulating anger further strengthen her conviction of inner badness. Each hostile encounter convinces her that she is indeed a hateful person. If, as is common, he tends to displace her anger tar trom its dangerou ource and to discharge it unfairly on those who di not provoke it, her self-condemnation is aggravated still further.” (p. 52)

“Feelings of rage and murderous revenge fantasies are normal responses to abusive treatment. Like abused adults, abused children are often rageful and sometimes aggressive. They often lack verbal and social skills for resolving conflict, and they approach problems with the expectation of hostile attack.” (p. 53)

“Survivors frequently describe being blamed, not only for their parents' violence or sexual misconduct, but also for numerous other family misfortunes. Family legends may include stories of the harm the child caused by being born or the disgrace for which she appears to be destined.” (p. 52)

By virtue of these defenses, the abuse is either walled off from conscious awareness and memory, so that it did not really happen, or minimized, rationalized, and excused, so that whatever did happen was not really abuse. Unable to escape or alter the unbearable reality in fact, the child alters it in her mind.

All the abused child's psychological adaptations serve the fundamental purpose of preserving her primary attachment to her parents in the face of daily evidence of their malice, helplessness, or indifference.
To accomplish this purpose, the child resorts to a wide array of psychological defenses.

When abused children note signs of danger, they attempt to protect themselves either by avoiding or by placating the abuser. (..) Many survivors remember literally hiding for long periods of time, and they associate their only feelings of safety with particular hiding places rather than with people. (…) The result is the peculiar, seething state of
"frozen watchfulness" noted in abused children. (p. 50)

Adaptation to this climate of constant danger requires a state of constant alertness. Children in an abusive environment develop extraordinary abilities to scan for warning signs of attack. They become minutely attuned to their abusers' inner states. (p. 50)

In addition to the fear of violence, survivors
consistently report an
overwhelming sense of
helplessness. In the abusive family environment, the exercise of parental power is arbitrary, capricious, and absolute. Rules are erratic, inconsistent, or patently unfair. Survivors frequently recall that what
frightened them most was the unpredictable nature of the violence. (p. 50)

Survivors describe a characteristic pattern of totalitarian control, enforced by means of violence and death threats, capricious enforcement of petty rules, intermittent rewards, and destruction of all competing relationships through isolation, secrecy, and betrayal. (p. 49)