I had this comment on another blog of mine the other day. – it said that telling people that narcissistic behaviour is not uncommon in trauma survivors is wrong. It is nasty, re-traumatizing and victim blaming. So that made me think about how we are demonizing Narcissistic Personality Disorder and narcissistic behaviour. Instead of seeing that much of it is coming from childhood trauma. I am not talking about saying it is okay to behave that way. But that it might be more helpful for everyone to look at where it is coming from.
There is a reason why generational trauma is a thing. There is a reason why trauma and abuse runs in families. A child learns appropriate behaviour from their caregivers. They learn about boundaries, and how to survive in this world. If your caregivers are manipulative, abusive and prone to anger – then you might just end up copying that behaviour. It is one of the ways that trauma works. And unless we stop demonizing that behaviour and actually address it, then trauma and abuse cycles will continue.
A lot of people think that if you point out that trauma can cause abusive behaviour later in life, that it is meant as an excuse. It is not, though. I mean it as an explanation. A cause and effect line. And a point where we can maybe find ways to support those people to do better. Because if they processed their trauma, like any other trauma survivors, they will also be open to learning new coping strategies and ways to interact with the world. Instead of asking: what is wrong with you? – we should ask: what has happened to you?
Now, I got reminded of that this week again. In therapy. Yes, I am still going to therapy although I often ask myself why. I am still not great at opening up and I always show up late. But well, I still go. So we were discussing my father – which is probably reasonable because he was my main abuser. So I described some of his behaviour and my therapist reflected that he sounds like a sociopath. And I ended up having to explain to her that I dislike terms like that because they actually make someone seem evil and unempathetic. Most abusers are not that, most abusers are more than one thing.
And the reason why they are more than one thing is because their behaviour is the result of trauma. Now, my father had a really traumatic childhood. He grew up in a muslim country in the 1940s and 1950s, where the man of the house basically held all the power. All of it. So my father got controlled by my abusive pasha of a grandfather. There were beatings, and humiliation, there was rape of my grandmother that him and his siblings witnessed. Of course he didn’t come out being a healthy adjusted human being. And when he got married and had children, he became what his father had been. Cause and effect.
It was absolutely shitty to live with an abusive father. It fucked me up for life. But I don’t think I hold anger against him the way thar people would expect. I carry sadness instead. Sadness that I ended up in a family that is part of a cycle of abuse. And that my father comes from a time where mental illness was not taken seriously. He could have gotten help, he could have learnt better ways to be a father.
The reason my therapist described my father as a sociopath is because he was different at home than we was with others. He was able to seem open minded and supportive. But I don’t really see it that way. Because I think we are all more than one thing – it all depends on the relationship we have with someone. And my father has learnt early on that you have to wear a mask of pretense in public. We all wear that mask, don’t we? We try to seem okay at work, or among friends. When really, we are crying inside.
A sociopath wouldn’t feel empathy and express emotions. I have seen my father in depression. I have seen him cry, alone in the livingroom, at night. I have seen him break down when his mother died. He had a pet bunny that he loved dearly and he was totally heartbroken when the little fella had run away. He just didn’t show that empathy to me, or my siblings, or my mother. Why? Because he never learnt that that is the way you are supposed to connect to your family.
It sucks. And I don’t take away any blame from him. He is responsible for his actions. If he were truly a good person, he would have understood that what he was doing was wrong. But his childhood gave him a need for power and control, and his dad showed him ways to get those. What I mostly blame him for is that he didn’t break the cycle of abuse. If he really loved me, or my mum, or my siblings, he would have stopped and gave his own behaviour some thought. Does that make him evil or a sociopath? Nah. It makes him not self-aware. It makes him self-centered because he put his needs before those of his family.
So I don’t feel anger towards him. And I don’t want to call him a sociopath. He wasn’t even a sadist. He is an abuser, he is a rapist, he is a pawn in the cycle of abuse and never got aware of it. What I feel is sadness. I feel sad that I had to end up in a family like that. A family with no self-awareness and an inability to do better. I feel sad that there was no way out for me and that I was too helpless to make any changes. I am sad because my life got ruined because my bloodline is a collection of abusive men who were not self-aware.
Part of me also resorts to self-blame. Because I wasn’t enough for him to realize that what he was doing was wrong. I wasn’t lovable enough. not someone to be proud of, or to care for. I know logically that that is bullshit. He was supposed to be a father that cared and loved. But he was unable to.
I know that lots of trauma survivors hold on to their anger. They want revenge. Or they want their pain acknowledged by their abusers. They need to say nasty things. And that is okay. But that is emotion. I think I got past those feelings when I understood how trauma cycles and generational trauma work. I understood that my father’s behaviour was a result of his own trauma. So instead of anger, or a need for revenge or acknowledgment, I just got sad. Sad about that I had to go through a lot of shit, that now has left me with a lot of unhealthy coping strategies, copious amounts of anxiety and a broken mind and body. I wish it were different. I know it can’t be. But it really really just sucks, that that is my lot in life.
Fragments of Reality 