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In previous posts, I wrote about the phenomena of re-victimization reenactments based on my recent book, Putting the Past in the Past. But there is another type of reenactment—when a former victim of childhood abuse or neglect ends up treating others, specifically their own children and/or their partners, the way they were treated growing up. In this post, I will explain why and how this occurs.
Not everyone who experienced abuse or neglect as a child repeats what was done to them, but unfortunately many do. Studies suggest that about one-third of those who were physically or sexually abused or extremely neglected will go on to abuse others. The rate of abuse among individuals with a history of abuse is approximately six times higher than the base rate for abuse in the general population.
Although many former victims tend to reenact the same type of abuse they experienced, not all victims who become abusive repeat the exact type of abuse they experienced. For example, a child who was sexually abused may not go on to sexually abuse their own children. Instead, they may be more likely to become a neglectful parent.
Why Victims of Child Abuse Often Become Abusers
In general, some of the main reasons why someone who was neglected, abused, or abandoned becomes abusive themselves are the following:
Denial
You’d think that being able to make the connection between the way we treat others and the way we were treated growing up would not be a difficult thing to do. After all, the saying “hurt people hurt people” has become quite popular lately. But unfortunately, those who become abusive are often in deep denial about the abuse they themselves sustained as children. There are many reasons for this, the primary one being that children want (and need) to believe that their parents love them and they will excuse even the most inexcusable behavior on their parents’ part in order to maintain this belief.
Male victims have a particularly difficult time admitting that they were abused or neglected due to society’s insistence that men should never be seen as weak or as a victim. When a male child is attacked, whether it is verbally, emotionally, physically, or sexually, society expects him to stand up to his abuser and fight back. If he doesn’t fight his attacker off, it may be considered to be his own fault. It’s not OK for him to tell anyone about it, not OK to admit he is suffering, and certainly not OK for him to cry about it. And so we have a lot of grown men who can’t afford to connect the dots between their own aggressive/abusive behavior and the fact that they were victimized/traumatized as a child.
Identifying With the Aggressor
Another reason why former victims may repeat a parent’s abusive behavior is the concept of identifying with the aggressor. This can be a way to stay in denial about an abusive person’s behavior and the effect it has on you. It is an unconscious mechanism in which an individual identifies with someone who poses a threat as a way of coping with fear and trauma by becoming like the person(s) causing the fear.
Continuing to Feel Powerless
Being abused is incredibly disempowering. This can lead former victims to attempt to gain power over others as a way of compensating for feelings of weakness. Old, repressed anger gets turned into a kind of revenge which they take out on others. They are essentially sending the unconscious message that “I’m big now and no one will hurt me again and to make sure of that I’ll hurt others first,” even if it’s their own children or partners.
Taking on this defensive stance ensures former victims that they don’t have to re-experience the terror and helplessness related to the past trauma. In addition, abusive behavior allows the person to express and direct rage toward others that they were unable to express toward their abuser. But this doesn’t take away their inner sense of feeling weak and powerless.
Shame
Another reason it can be difficult to connect the dots and realize you are repeating your abuser’s behavior is that abuse is very shaming—so shaming in fact that the abused child can block the awareness of the abuse out of their mind. Also, many cover up their shame with a sense of false bravado. They create a wall that they use to hide behind. There they can hide their feelings of inadequacy, weakness, and shame brought on by the abuse or neglect they suffered. While this wall can prevent any further shaming—“I’ll shame or attack you before you can shame me”—it also prevents the person from gaining insight into their own behavior. This makes it hard for them to recognize their abusive behavior, the origin of this behavior, and the changes they need to make in order to stop their abusive behavior.
Many former victims turn their feelings of shame into blame. When something goes wrong in a relationship, they tend to look outward. It is always someone else’s fault, never their own. And abusive people are seldom able to have compassion for their victims. All they can think about is that someone hurt them or disrespected them. Therefore, in their mind, they are completely justified in hurting that person back.
Stuck in Blame
Still another reason why we are often blind to recognizing when we are repeating a parent’s abusive or neglectful behavior is that we are stuck in blaming or rejecting a parent. Instead of being in denial about being abused or neglected as a child, some people become preoccupied with being angry and blaming a parent. Ironically, we tend to unconsciously repeat the qualities and actions we despise the most in that parent. Our unresolved anger toward our abusive or neglectful parent blinds us to our own abusive behavior.
If you have been become abusive toward your children and/or your partner, it will do no good for you to chastise yourself about this, creating still more shame. Instead you need to work on making the necessary changes that will help you break this destructive pattern. In upcoming posts, I will offer you ways to do so.
