Children with abusive family members cannot protect themselves. It’s awful when the whole family witnesses their pain and humiliation, and worse when the abuse goes on in secret. During and after each crime against them, the children blame themselves. Their genes scream to trust and forgive what their minds know is wrong.
When they should be learning how the world works, instead they craft intricate and absurd explanations for what is happening to them, or else escape into comforting creative play. The lucky know that their creative escape worlds aren’t real. The unlucky can’t always tell.
As these children go out into the world, other children, sensing their damage, shun, mock, and bully them. Instead of comfort and growth, the world outside the home reinforces the message that they are hated, inferior, and deserve nothing but violence. If they belong to a despised minority, their genetic identity can become part of their explanation for why these things keep happening to them.
Years pass. Their minds and bodies mature, but their spirits never catch up. No matter how deeply they bury their shame, their damage makes them meat for future predators. If they’re lucky, they find partners who secretly understand and want to help them heal. But cunning predators often pretend to be healing helpers, and some wounded spend their lives mistaking one punishing narcissist after another for their love savior.
Should the walking wounded find true love with an equal partner, they will almost certainly lose it. Therapy can help them understand why they keep making the same mistakes, but only rarely will it lead to true change or the possibility of lasting happiness.
Some wounded eventually choose to live alone. The luckiest start families and treat their children as they themselves should have been treated. Raising loved children is the only consistent and lasting healing some will know. For me, it has been enough.
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