Reenactment of Childhood Trauma

 

Reenactment and Trauma

I have resumed my therapy. I had many years of therapy, mostly based around the use of substances. I have used no substances in more than 15 years now. But my work is far from over.

No one else can experience your life the way you have....and even the most "well cared-for" children suffer abuses, hide secrets, become traumatized. This does not happen only in homes that APPEAR to be chaotic....not only in homes where there is poverty, addiction, physical abuse....but in the home behind the white picket fence next door. 

This may be preaching to the CHOIR, because any one led here is likely aware that things on the OUTSIDE of the door can bear little resemblance to things that are happening on the INSIDE of it. 

Many of us have been told, throughout childhood, that it is a BETRAYAL to SPEAK of these things...some have been taught that it is a betrayal merely to have CERTAIN THOUGHTS. 

Many more of us have been taught to "intellectualize" away events by being very "understanding" of the REASONS they occurred. "You MUST understand that when Uncle Charlie tried to rape you when you were 12, it was BECAUSE  he was (enter your own excuse)". Perhaps he was drunk...or perhaps he was depressed...or perhaps he was an abused child...or perhaps HE was traumatized....

Those of us who have experienced this growing up learning that NO MATTER WHAT may have happened, or been done, to us....the perpetrator cannot be held responsible because there is was a "REASON" and we "need to understand that" and "learn to forgive" and realize that we "make mistakes too".  

So while we "learn" to "let bygones be bygones" or "stop living in the past" ...that wound festers in us. The child still cries out for someone to answer the question ...

"If it was NOT their fault then who WAS at fault?" 

Unfortunately, by covering these wounds, having them painted over, not discussed, ignored...the child inside us comes to the only conclusion that is possible...

"It MUST have been my fault!"

No matter how well the logical part of us may understand that we were NOT at fault. The child who drives our actions still believes it was.

Experts say that PTSD/CPTSD actually causes a CHANGE in our brains. It colors all that we do, every decision we make, what we feel we deserve, what we are willing to tolerate.

It can also cause us to, unconsciously, reenact traumas.

For example...

A child was abandoned (on some level) by a parent. This abandonment may not have been physical. Perhaps the parent was consumed with trying to please someone else and emotionally abandoned the child. Perhaps the child was never good enough. Perhaps the child experienced a trauma at the hands of someone else, and the parent did not believe it or did not act appropriately on this knowledge.

(I have been reminded to re-watch the "Prince of Tides" in order to understand how this will affect the grown up version of that child.)

If sexually abused, that child is much more likely to experience sexual abuse (even rape) as an adult.
If physically abused, that child is much more likely to have an abusive partner.
If abandoned, that child is much more likely to experience abandonment by a partner(s) in adult life as well.
OTHER children will react by BECOMING the rapist, the "abandoner" and the abuser.

Is that just bad luck?

No. It is all classic in "reenactment" of the trauma. This is an effort to gain CONTROL of what the child experienced but never processed...and it can come out in many different ways...but all are devastating.

Let's use an example of an 8 year old male child who was sexually molested by "Uncle Charlie". His Mother was never certain whether what he was saying was true...and she was LOATH to bring it to the attention of his Father who ADORED his only brother "Charlie". The child was told, by his Mother, that his Father might become ANGRY and punish him if he did not believe him (and this may well have been true)....and that telling anyone would "break up the family"....and that it was in the past and there was nothing to gain from telling anyone else....and that "Uncle Charlie" had been through so much, being abused as a child and being left by his wife and losing his job...etc.etc.

As a result EVERYTHING within "the family" seemed to remain unaltered....everything except that child.

Via the process of "reenactment" there are many different things he might grow up to do as a result of this trauma.

• Perhaps he will grow up and become powerless in an abusive relationship because he has learned that it is NOT OK to defend yourself or "say bad things" because doing so will result in being "abandoned" or cause other pain. This may lead him to go to ANY LENGTHS to maintain a relationship EVEN IF IT IS ABUSIVE.
• Perhaps he will grow up to have children of his own and, not trusting his own experiences, he might believe that "Uncle Charlie" has changed...and it would be "OK" to let his children spend the weekend with him...placing his own children in danger that he should KNOW EXISTS.
• Perhaps he will become involved WITH an abuser who sexually molests children...in an attempt to FIX the molester and resolve his own trauma.
• Perhaps he will grow up to BECOME the abuser and molest other peoples children...leaving that helpless victim role by becoming the perpetrator.

NONE of this is something that he makes a conscious DECISION to do...for who would become involved with a KNOWN pedophile?

But that CHILD INSIDE SEES the similarities between the prospective partner and the person who abused him as a child....the inner voice might LEAD him to be attracted to that person...because although "Uncle Charlie" hurt him...he was also very powerful...and PERHAPS if the child had done something different...or NOT done something....or handled it another way...Uncle Charlie would NOT have hurt him...because everyone he trusted told him that Uncle Charlie is a GREAT GUY!

The reasons for his continued misery may not be within his control, or within his conscious thought, but a result of actual, physical changes in his brain.

Without realization of this, the cycle often continues....

I am just beginning to see how this "reenactment" has likely altered the course of my own life. 

Now, I need to begin to heal it and prevent it from repeating in the future.

I have been paying long enough...