Saturday, February 16, 2019

The Cycle of Trauma and Abuse

This is for women with an ACE score of 7 or above.

Dont know your score? Find out:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/02/387007941/take-the-ace-quiz-and-learn-what-it-does-and-doesnt-mean

Why is there so much domestic abuse? Why does it seem to follow from parent to child? How do I stop it before it starts? How do I find someone who won't be violent? How do I "see" it in someone before falling for them?

So many questions. So many complicated answers. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) one of the questions is very simple to answer. It does no good to look for the seed of violence in someone because it is in all of us.

It happens to every dude at some point. It starts off really subtle. He gets angry about something. He balls his fist and makes like he gonna punch the couch or some shit. He looks over and sees his babe is scared. The thought flashes through his mind for just an instant: She is afraid of me. She hates me. Why does she hate me? This type of thought gets buried immediately. Swept under the rug if you will.

A while later it happens again. Over time, the mess under the rug gets bigger and bigger. Eventually he begins to notice there is something under there. He starts to process it. He thinks "She has PTSD, I can't be like that around her. Fine. Anything for my baby."

But it's not fine, because so much of this stuff happens beyond our conscious control. When he sees you being afraid of him, it invokes resentment. This is not easily controllable, it takes many years of experience. What ends up happening is this resentment also gets swept under the rug.

Now there is "she fears me, and I hate it" buried under the rug. With each incident, it grows. Eventually it becomes "She is afraid of me. She hates me. I resent her. I hate this cowering little bitch. I want to fucking punch her in the face. That will give her a reason to be afraid of me." At this point there is rage under the rug.

It is important to understand that this is all subconscious at this point. He's not sitting there next to you brooding about this shit. He's not consciously thinking anything like that. They're just little flashes that happen when you have a conflict. Fear and hate are the opposites of love. The subconscious mind cannot process those opposites at once. Cognitive dissonance occurs. Any time that happens, it immediately gets shoved down into the subconscious. Because he loves you with all his heart, any opposite emotion instantly gets buried the moment it happens.

Eventually the inevitable moment comes where he hurts you physically. Of course he's sorry. He didn't want it to happen. Bla bla bla, big drama unfolds. He buys you flowers and worships you for the rest of the day. You know the drill. But why did it happen? He knows your past, chances are he swore he would never be that guy. So why??? The answer is that part of his subconscious did want it to happen. There is that Rage buried in there. That desire to hurt the one he resents for being afraid of him. It is subconscious contempt manifesting into conscious violence. It is the root of most domestic abuse.

If things deteriorate to the point where you have to escape, you will repeat the cycle again. It will keep happening until you are dead or old enough to where the men you date have learned enough and are mature enough to handle the nuances of their own psyche. And of course some never do. There are lots of dudes in their 30s and 40s who beat on women. There are many women who just accept it.

What you really want to do is break the cycle. You can't talk your way out of it, because this is all subconscious. A professional therapist could make progress, but this would take months if not years, not to mention big dollars. Chances are, if you had the kind of money to spend on a therapist, you would probably not be dependent on a man for shit and thus would not get close enough to a man to put yourself in a position to be abused.

But that's not the world most of us live in. In the real world, chances are you need a man just to share in living expenses, to say nothing of love. So you need solutions that don't involve dumping whole years worth of incomes on therapy. You need to bring this subconscious shit to the surface and force it to be processed. A way to do that is to go to the gym, find one with a punching bag. You stand there and hold the bag and literally tell him to pretend like it's your face. And you tell him all the shit that is gonna piss him off. And get him to spill his rage.

You want to hear him say whatever it is he needs to say. "I hate that you're fucking my best friend. I hate that he fucks you better. I hate that your pussy is all over the internet. I hate that you have a fucking sugar daddy. I hate that I can't be myself around you without worrying that I'm gonna scare you. I hate that you're such a fucking pussy. Poooor wittle baby can't take a joke without crying booo frickin hoo." I don't know if these are his feelings, I'm just making shit up, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you stand there and take it all and not show fear.

If you attempt this, it is very important that you don't fuck it up. Have a strong grasp of the physics involved. Don't be getting knocked the fuck down by the bag when he hits it. You want him to see your face. You can't be behind the bag the whole time. But you don't want to be accidentally getting hit because that would destroy the entire purpose of the exercise.

After he is done, you talk about what was said, and the conversation should be free from emotion. Here you can make real progress toward controlling violent tendencies. The goal is not just for him to be able to express everything that's buried. The real goal is for you to be able to accept his moments of anger and not give in to fear. Because we are animals that sense fear and are not quite evolved enough to control our reactions to it. Fear is the nourishment for the seed of violence. You have to be resolute and ready to stand behind the declaration that you will not tolerate abuse, and that if it happens you will either leave or die trying. And then you have to have faith that no matter what happens, he is not going to hurt you in his anger, and thus there is no reason to give in to fear.


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