Dual Nature in the Abuser

Manipulation is the form that abusers take, and there is a dual nature common to those threatened enough:

“It is not unusual for abusive people to act like both a lion and a lamb in the course of being confronted. The lion intimidates, producing in others feelings of fear and desires to flee. The lamb pleads, producing in others feelings of sympathy and desires to extend help.”

— Wade Mullen

I’ve seen the lion one minute and the lamb five minutes later. It led me — someone who’s dealt with union heavies, tough tradies, weight lifters, prisoners, drug addicts and alcoholics for much of my life — to feel about as insecure as I ever have. Completely thrown for how to think, feel or respond. This particular moment, after the danger passed, I just broke down. A grown man reduced to nothing in the space of a few moments.

The tactics, for they are manoeuvres for influence, are used in an arsenal of trickery, that they themselves will vigorously deny. You never know where you stand when you don’t know who you’re dealing with. And, in these kinds of moments, you never truly do. One of these moments is enough to generate a trauma response.

The lion is enraged, a visceral ball of explosive capacity, riled up and ready to enforce the action they think is required. The roar is either deafening or eerily seething, in a kind of just-you-wait attitude. This is a creature when you’re in the midst of the situation whom you just do not want to cross.

The lamb is the pretence of purity possibly a lot of the time, demure and easy to please. But the lamb is especially reeled out when you’re a quivering mess from one of those lion outbursts. The lamb comes in to placate you, and to calm you down so they don’t have to face the consequences of their actions. The lamb presents before the court of one’s peers. Only those close to the abuser see the lion.

We all have capacity for the lion and the lamb in us. We all do. But it’s those who make a craft of these two in a dual nature who are especially pathological. The lamb charms us for a time, before we get a glimpse of the lion, possibly when we say our first ‘no’. Then, the lion prowls from within, and when we’re especially cognisant of the lion, the fear of re-traumatisation is brutally real. Indeed, just the mere thought of the threat is enough to spark a physiological response we cannot control.

Be wary of this dual nature. Ordinary couples especially should talk about this. It should be talked about in pre-marriage education. It can arise in workplaces and in churches. A problem might arise if it cannot be spoken about; if it’s too close to home. In that case, it’s not advisable to discuss it, because it could provoke a confrontation that could be traumatic.

If this is the case, be in dialogue with those safe persons you trust.

Go to someone who will believe your perception. Most of the time we ourselves want to downplay matters of abuse. Do not make excuses for the abuser.