Trauma begets trauma and it’s a sad fact that many who have been traumatised can end up being perpetrators, but so many people who bear the marks of trauma (and it’s more than we might expect) are always the victim; they always submit; they never fight. Even if they mount some resistance there is never enough power to meet what the aggressor will bring.
People who have been psychologically abused tend to:
§ Feel they’re unworthy – those who have been treated as if they’re unworthy do tend to believe they’re not worthy. This is the horrendous effect of abuse. It leaves us doubting that which should never be doubted. We all belong here as much as the largest star in the universe.
§ Constantly apologise – they will even apologise for things they have no control over, for the lack of patience and anger in the ones who abuse them, for everything that goes wrong. There is a belief that if a person apologises, they might calm the aggressor down. Well, we know that doesn’t always work, and for some it never actually works at all. Constantly apologising can be an attempt at restoring the power imbalance; and that’s a sad fact.
§ Be especially sensitive to criticism – when the soul is eroded by the constant drone of contempt, the soul is embittered toward itself and it doesn’t know why – no plant can grow or even survive in a toxic garden, and the same applies to humans.
§ Need more assurance than they wished they’d need – there is a place where reassurance is necessary and appropriate, yet when we know we’re craving it, we can know why, and we can begin to resent that mistreatment caused it.
§ Breakdown unexpectedly and uncontrollably – when there is low confidence, self-concept and self-esteem, there’s a constant self-barraging going on in the mind, a constant self-doubting that can only bring about the state of misery. The scariest thing about this is a person knows just how abysmal the abyss is – how cavernously deep and bottomless is that pit.
§ Hide their feelings – they don’t feel safe sharing their feelings, because they have learned that the people they trust betray them. The only hope anyone has in these relational circumstances is to shift the dynamic and begin to only associate with safe people so recovery can commence.
§ Struggle to trust – when nobody has proven trustworthy – or so few it doesn’t affect the calculation – you can resolve that trust is a folly, that it’s just not worth it.
People who have been psychologically abused bear scars that can only begin to heal once they’re safe and out of harm’s way.
Photo by Jordan M. Lomibao on Unsplash
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