Cycle of Abuse
Nov. 16th, 2013 03:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis graphic short points out a crucial fact about child abuse: not all survivors become abusers later. (That actually applies to all forms of abuse, not just sexual abuse.) Some do, because abuse can break people in ways that make them more inclined to hurt others. We've got scads of stories about that. I'm thinking we could use more stories about the many survivors who DO break the cycle.
As a storyteller, I believe in telling all the stories. I wouldn't want to give up the abusive-background-villain motif. But when that's the overwhelming majority of stories told about abuse survivors ... maybe it's time to ask if you really need that specific motif or you could choose something else. It's not so great to make stuff that can hurt people. Let's see if we can think of more things that are helpful.
Besides, rehashing a literature superhighway rarely leads to great groundbreaking stuff. If you want to make an impact, look for the stories that aren't getting told, or aren't told much, or are told plain wrong. Then go fix that.
* * *
EDIT: This discussion contributed to the following poem in my batch of work from the November 2013![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
crowdfunding Creative Jam:
From the prompt about seasons of life, I got the free-verse poem "A Seasoned Fighter." It's about a child abuse survivor who grows up to become a superhero and protect other people from abuse.
110 lines, Buy It Now = $55
As a storyteller, I believe in telling all the stories. I wouldn't want to give up the abusive-background-villain motif. But when that's the overwhelming majority of stories told about abuse survivors ... maybe it's time to ask if you really need that specific motif or you could choose something else. It's not so great to make stuff that can hurt people. Let's see if we can think of more things that are helpful.
Besides, rehashing a literature superhighway rarely leads to great groundbreaking stuff. If you want to make an impact, look for the stories that aren't getting told, or aren't told much, or are told plain wrong. Then go fix that.
* * *
EDIT: This discussion contributed to the following poem in my batch of work from the November 2013
crowdfunding Creative Jam:From the prompt about seasons of life, I got the free-verse poem "A Seasoned Fighter." It's about a child abuse survivor who grows up to become a superhero and protect other people from abuse.
110 lines, Buy It Now = $55
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-16 03:57 pm (UTC)She, my husband, and I were emotionally abused in romantic relationships, and that's a lot more fraught.
Thoughts
Date: 2013-11-16 08:16 pm (UTC)A concept I have found very useful: "If you can't lower the price, raise the profit." Experiences you learn from are useful, even if otherwise destructive.
>> She, my husband, and I were emotionally abused in romantic relationships, and that's a lot more fraught. <<
I'm glad you're there for each other.
thank you
Date: 2013-11-16 05:02 pm (UTC)kellyc
Re: thank you
Date: 2013-11-19 06:40 am (UTC)*hanky*
>> Too damned many of us, it's true, and we =don't= all become abusers. Like you said, it's past time to tell the stories the way they need to be told. -Thanks-.<<
You're welcome. I have written a poem on this topic, by the way, "A Seasoned Fighter." If you get me an email address, I can send you a prompter copy.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-17 02:23 am (UTC)If you ask childfree people why they have chosen not to reproduce, a surprising number of them will tell you it's because they don't think they could be good parents, having had only bad role models.
Yes...
Date: 2013-11-17 02:47 am (UTC)That matches my observations.
>> If you ask childfree people why they have chosen not to reproduce, a surprising number of them will tell you it's because they don't think they could be good parents, having had only bad role models. <<
I don't find this surprising, and I've heard it from several childfree people. However, I feel that it's only valid if they don't want children. It shouldn't prevent them from parenting if they do want children. Skills can be learned.
Re: Yes...
Date: 2013-11-17 10:16 pm (UTC)Re: Yes...
Date: 2013-11-18 12:00 am (UTC)Re: Yes...
Date: 2013-11-18 07:36 pm (UTC)Sexual abuse always seems to include some planning and forethought - so much of the emotional chunk involved in that seems to be about the abuser covering their tracks so nothing will ever affect them. It's very consciously hurtful.
By comparison verbal and physical abuse is really immediate and the immediacy is what scares the hell out of me. Anyone can have a frustrating day, and dealing with kids is not always a delight and a pleasure. If you don't have the solidity of a nurturing upbringing (or somehow made that emotional solidity), you can be even a pretty decent parent and still be only one bad work day, one set of bills, or one particularly bad tantrum away from just lashing out and scarring another human being for decades. My experience is that in a culture like Georgia, say, that's collateral, it's fine, it's great, nobody thinks twice about stuff like that - but I don't want to be an average parent by a dismal standard of what average is, you know?
Re: Yes...
Date: 2013-11-19 06:18 am (UTC)I think there are some cases when sexual abuse is opportunistic, but it seems far more often to be premeditated as you said. Sometimes it's actively malicious too, but plenty of times just indifferent -- the abuser wants personal gratification and doesn't care if that causes harm, but harm may not be a prerequisite for gratification.
>>By comparison verbal and physical abuse is really immediate and the immediacy is what scares the hell out of me. Anyone can have a frustrating day, and dealing with kids is not always a delight and a pleasure.<<
Yes, that's true. Other forms of abuse are often spontaneous.
>> you can be even a pretty decent parent and still be only one bad work day, one set of bills, or one particularly bad tantrum away from just lashing out and scarring another human being for decades. <<
Also true, and I think that's exactly what leads to the cases where the serious abuse happens only once. The parent snaps and crosses a line, but doesn't do it again. The family life may be crummy but not usually violent. I wrote about this version in "Gathered Here Today."
>>My experience is that in a culture like Georgia, say, that's collateral, it's fine, it's great, nobody thinks twice about stuff like that - but I don't want to be an average parent by a dismal standard of what average is, you know?<<
Yes, that sucks.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-17 10:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-17 11:25 pm (UTC)This is actually explicitly brought up in the show Criminal Minds early on, from no less a character than Hotch, the team leader (and "team dad" in many ways).
Hotchner: You were just responding to what you learned, Vincent. When you grow up in an environment like that, an extremely abusive and violent household.. it's not surprising that some people grow up to become killers.
Vincent: Some people?
Hotchner: What's that?
Vincent: You said some people grow up to become killers.
Hotchner: ...And some people grow up to catch them.
I liked that moment a lot, because it doesn't deny that abuse hurts people and that it can shape them into abusive behaviours, but it doesn't make that the only option. Seeing two very different men with similar backgrounds is a nice nod to the fact that human reactions to trauma are diverse and there's hope out there for survivors to take many different paths.
Thank you!
Date: 2013-11-19 06:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-18 08:07 am (UTC)I was abused by a teacher and went on to work for twtney years as a teacher with abused kids, disabled kids and terminally ill kids. I wanted to prove to myself and the world that some teachers do care- deeply about the less fortunate and less privileged
'What everyone knows' is such a dangeous thing and writers need to be fully aware of it.
Yay!
Date: 2013-11-18 08:14 am (UTC)I'm glad you found it helpful.
>> I was abused by a teacher and went on to work for twenty years as a teacher with abused kids, disabled kids and terminally ill kids. I wanted to prove to myself and the world that some teachers do care- deeply about the less fortunate and less privileged <<
You win. That is so awesome. Thanks for sharing!
I'm currently working up a superhero character who comes from an abusive background, and wants to protect people instead of hurting them.
>> 'What everyone knows' is such a dangeous thing and writers need to be fully aware of it. <<
Sooth.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-16 12:35 pm (UTC)Something that always struck me when I read the Bible was that there was a lot of good advice in it, (Do not kill - 'cause your victims relations will want revenge, Don't commit adultery - because your lover's spouse & relations will want revenge, Don't eat pork - undercooked pork can be *extremely* dangerous - and some tribes practiced cannibalism so you couldn't quite be sure what meat you were eating ...&c)
But all that good practical advice was given wrapped up in a package of blind (stupid) faith - probably because people can be blindly stupid at times and it's easier to say "don't do this 'cause if you do God'll damn you to all eternity" than "don't do this 'cause it isn't right and you don't *really* want to start a war over this do you?" Quite frankly, the early Jewish tribes seemed quite blood-thirsty and did want to start wars at the drop of a hat. The Old Testament is more an oral history of a group who got into trouble because they couldn't control their baser impulses than a history of God's benevolence towards mankind, imho.
Sorry. I'm rambling. The point I'm trying to make is - Perhaps the statement about the sins of the father being visited on future generations has to do with child abuse - a warning that the children of abusers often become abusers themselves.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-16 10:22 pm (UTC)(Is this Truth about Judaism? Beats me. But it *did* make a lot of sense to me, given other things I learned about Judaism.)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-17 02:48 am (UTC)The word "mitzvah", which is commonly understood to mean "good deed", is literally "commandment". Many of the blessings we Jews traditionally recite in the course of a day begin
"Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu, melech ha'olam, asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu…":
"Blessed art thou, Lord, our God, king of the universe, who has made us holy with your commandments and has commanded us…".
The underlined words in transliteration, translation, and Hebrew (written from right to left):
b'mitzvotav : "with your commandments" : במצותיו
v'tzivanu : "and has commanded us" : ×•×¦×•× ×•
Both mitzvot מצות "commandments" and tzivah ציווה "commanded us" (the h is lost when -nu "us" is attached to the verb) come from the three-letter root צוה, tzavah "command".
Thank you!
Date: 2013-11-17 02:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-16 11:20 pm (UTC)But that's NOT true! Like, that's the whole point of the comic that got linked! In sexual violence, there's no evidence (http://www.gao.gov/archive/1996/gg96178.pdf) that being molested as a child predisposes someone to molest other kids as an adult. And the US Government reported here (https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/factsheets/long_term_consequences.pdf#page=5&view=Behavioral%20Consequences):
Data from the Longitudinal
Study of Adolescent Health showed that
girls who experienced childhood physical
abuse were 1–7 percent more likely to
become perpetrators of youth violence and
8–10 percent more likely to be perpetrators
of interpersonal violence (IPV). Boys who
experienced childhood sexual violence were
3–12 percent more likely to commit youth
violence and 1–17 percent more likely to
commit IPV (Xiangming & Corso, 2007)
That tops out at 17% more likely to be violent when physically abused as a child. That's not 'often'! And I really wish people would stop acting like if something terrible happens to you, you're more likely to become a terrible person yourself!
--Sneak
Well...
Date: 2013-11-17 01:16 am (UTC)Studies and interpretations vary. Some find little or no causality while others run considerably higher.
Among my experience is designing and grading coursework for prison classes, and some of the students wrote about how abuse had affected them. They were allowed to write about anything they chose, to encourage them to write at all, so some of the papers were things like "how to hotwire a car" and "how to survive a beating." I've heard people talk about abuse outside of prison too. My impression is that the percentage of survivors is higher in prison.
Abuse is a risk factor for other bad things happening later, not a guarantee. Also, it is rarely the sole reason. Many other things such as poverty, homelessness, substance abuse, unemployment, etc. play into negative behavior including abuse of someone else.
>> And I really wish people would stop acting like if something terrible happens to you, you're more likely to become a terrible person yourself! <<
I think it would be a lot more constructive to say something like, "This experience raises the risk of other things going wrong later. Here are some ways you can lower the risk of future disasters and meanwhile also help yourself feel better." It's kind of like, if you do sports and collect injuries, that raises your risk of things like arthritis. So you might take up yoga and eat a healthy diet to counterbalance that risk.
It can be very tempting to say, "Well, it won't happen to me, I won't do that to someone else." But it's not good to ignore the fact that some abuse survivors do hurt other people. That doesn't help with prevention of abuse. (It may, however, help with suicidal ideation, self-harm, or other problems.) Looking at the successful 70% who don't go on to abuse someone else is a good way to identify what they're doing right so you can be one of them.
Re: Well...
Date: 2013-11-17 02:17 am (UTC)All of these things can be worked with *if* they're confronted, I think. But they do need to be confronted. A person literally might not realize that a particular noise level is age-appropriate "keeping it down" because of their own experience, and needs to learn that a timeout isn't appropriate for that level of noise, either. (If possible, moving to a different place might be, or trying a different activity, etc..)
I am concerned because I know some good, competent people who seem to feel that abuse would just sneak up behind them, whack 'em on the head, and graft onto their souls, indelibly. And it just doesn't work like that. (Though I will grant that the sneaking up and starting to graft *does* sometimes happen if people don't know what to watch for - but it can still be exorcised.)
Re: Well...
Date: 2013-11-17 02:52 am (UTC)I agree.
>> Thinking on physical abuse - a child who grew up getting spanked for playing like a normal child (but loud enough to wake the night-shift parent) has learned that ordinary noisy play is "bad" and that an appropriate way to respond to bad behavior is physically. <<
Yes, that can happen.
>> It's also possible that there's some genetic link to low frustration tolerance or poor impulse control in any given case. <<
Possible, but I suspect the genetic factors have less impact than plasticity. Abuse can cause PTSD, among whose more common symptoms are low startle threshold and poor impulse control.
>> A person literally might not realize that a particular noise level is age-appropriate "keeping it down" because of their own experience, and needs to learn that a timeout isn't appropriate for that level of noise, either. <<
That can happen with any parent, and it's fairly common. Most people don't know much about child development. It's more likely with abuse survivors who grew up without good role models. Fortunately this can be fixed with education.
>> I am concerned because I know some good, competent people who seem to feel that abuse would just sneak up behind them, whack 'em on the head, and graft onto their souls, indelibly. And it just doesn't work like that. <<
Psychological trauma is like physical trauma in that it can be mild, moderate, or severe. Sometimes an injury will heal on its own. Often it requires treatment in order to heal. And sometimes it's so bad that nothing can fix it.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-22 05:28 am (UTC)My parents were likely abused, including sexually, as kids.
And they went on to abuse me.
I was abused, including sexually... and I've never abused anyone else.
We CAN break the pattern.
Which means that my parents made the choice NOT to break the pattern, which leaves them totally culpable, in my opinion.
I think the whole "cycle of abuse" trope just gives abusers an excuse, and one which is unfair to us that DO break that "cycle".
Thoughts
Date: 2013-11-22 05:36 am (UTC)And they went on to abuse me. <<
Alas!
>> We CAN break the pattern. <<
This is true.
>> Which means that my parents made the choice NOT to break the pattern, which leaves them totally culpable, in my opinion. <<
It's not necessarily a choice. For some it is: the ones who think, "Someday I'll be the one dishing it out." For others, they may not have opportunities to learn better -- certainly they aren't getting appropriate skills as they grow up, and might not later either. For some, they may be broken too badly to heal. Those things happen too.
>> I think the whole "cycle of abuse" trope just gives abusers an excuse, and one which is unfair to us that DO break that "cycle". <<
I think that talking about the cycle without teaching people how to break it is unfair and ineffective. But to ignore it entirely overlooks the very real, sometimes permanent damage that abuse can do. I don't think that's helpful. I think we should be looking at how to prevent abuse, and how to help survivors overcome it.
Well...
Date: 2013-11-19 06:44 am (UTC)Whether that's the specific intent or not, it's certainly true that abuse does harm the victims.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-16 03:22 pm (UTC)Yes...
Date: 2013-11-16 07:56 pm (UTC)* About 30% of abused and neglected children will later abuse their own children, continuing the horrible cycle of abuse. That means 70% of survivors SUCCEED in breaking the cycle. So while a survivor's risk level has gone up, compared to other survivors they have quite a good chance of success anyway.
* In at least one study, about 80% of 21 year olds that were abused as children met criteria for at least one psychological disorder. Abuse really does tend to break people; they just don't all fracture along the same plane.
* 14% of all men in prison and 36% of women in prison in the USA were abused as children, about twice the frequency seen in the general population. That means a majority of criminals DON'T have a background of abuse.
* Children who experience child abuse & neglect are about 9 times more likely to become involved in criminal activity. Again, this is a raised risk factor, not a guarantee.
* As many as two-thirds of the people in treatment for drug abuse reported being abused or neglected as children. This actually is a majority.
From another source, nearly half of all adults were physically assaulted as children. The proportion of abusers is much lower than that, so again, a lot of survivors break the cycle. (You can see how some sources cite widely different rates of abuse.)
The numbers of prison inmates who were abused is considerably higher when counting adult as well as childhood cases of abuse.
Regarding homelessness:
* When the violence from their childhood is combined with their experiences as adults, 92% of homeless
mothers have been severely physically or sexually assaulted; 88% have been violently abused by a family member or intimate partner.
* 8% of homeless children have been physically abused, twice the rate of other children. 8% have been sexually abused; three times the rate of other children.
There are multiple types of abuse, all destructive. Many abuse survivors share common traits as a result of their experiences. There are ways to overcome abuse.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-11-16 11:25 pm (UTC)I'm also really sad to realize that even though we come from an abuse background, and have read a lot, we had NO IDEA that the 'cycle of abuse' idea wasn't true! I know Rogan's been afraid of having kids because of that.
Now I'm downloading a bunch of articles to read! I'm learning a lot today.
--Sneak
Thoughts
Date: 2013-11-17 12:59 am (UTC)You're welcome! I'm always happy to turn people on to new things they love, and to help creators sell their stuff.
>> I'm also really sad to realize that even though we come from an abuse background, and have read a lot, we had NO IDEA that the 'cycle of abuse' idea wasn't true! <<
Well, it's true but not complete. Abuse does direct harm by terrorizing people, which sometimes changes brain chemistry in bad ways; and it does further harm if it also prevents them from learning important life skills or developing healthy traits. Those things raise the chance of people having problems later: not just abusing someone else, but substance abuse, self-harm, mental illness/injury, homelessness, all kinds of crappy outcomes. Abuse makes it harder for people to cope with ordinary or larger life stressors.
But it's not a guarantee that you will have a fucked-up life or hurt other people. It just means that living a healthy life will require extra time and work to heal the damage from the abuse and to learn missing skills for coping with stress, interacting with people, managing your life, etc.
Where I think the discussion tends to break down is focus and track shifting. The statistics are almost always focused on the negative side: 30% of abused people go on to abuse their own children. That means 70% DON'T. The real question is: why do some become abusers while others do not? Well, part of that is innate personality, because some people are more aggressive or cruel while others are more nurturing or gentle, and all kinds of other trait differences. But a large amount of it is knowlege. In order to break the cycle, you need to learn a big stack of stuff like the fact that abuse is wrong, people should solve problems in sane ways, treat yourself and others with compassion, here are some safe coping skills, here is gentle discipline, etc. Telling wounded people that they're damaged goods and doomed to repeat it is not helping. I don't think that it's an improvement to focus only on the other side of that scale either, but adding that perspective as in the cited comic is a useful counterbalance to all the stuff on the doom side. The place to focus is where the switch gets thrown one way or the other, and that's all about figuring out how to process what happened to you so that you can stop it getting worse for you or anyone else.
>> I know Rogan's been afraid of having kids because of that. <<
:( Alas! That's a scary thought. Of course, parenting is scary to almost everyone. It gets less so if you put some effort into learning about it in advance though.
I think Rogan would make a fine parent. One advantage to healthy multiplicity is that it encourages the development of intrapersonal and interpersonal skills. Those are really useful in parenting.
>> Now I'm downloading a bunch of articles to read! I'm learning a lot today. <<
Yay! That's always good to hear.