As an adult looking back, I can see how my mom’s unacknowledged sexual trauma took control of the relationship and created toxicity. I don't blame her; I understand that this was a natural trauma response. The consequence of sweeping her sexual abuse under the rug was that she was not able to respond appropriately when triggered during sexual encounters. Her rejection of my father’s sexual advances had nothing to do with him, as hard as that may have been for him to accept. Had he known about her abuse at the hands of her father, he may have been able to respond differently to her perceived rejection of him. Prior to the suicide attempt, as these episodes intensified, mostly behind closed doors, my father's drinking worsened. After silently, secretly and shamefully enduring my mother’s violent outbursts for extended periods, he would drink too much and lose control. There would be blood and broken glass. I don't judge my dad for this; I understand that he did what he could to drown out the screams of his own pain. In her mid-thirties, my mother was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder, then known as manic depression. In reality, she suffered from severe delayed-onset post-traumatic stress disorder. With the guidance of a medical team, my father came to understand that when he had attempted to be intimate with her, it triggered her suppressed memories, and her fight-or-flight response went into overdrive. Young husbands and fathers are at significant risk of becoming secondary victims of their partners' past abuse.
She would often appear lucid but dissociated from reality, operating under the belief that my father was my grandfather, returning to rape her again. I witnessed at least two similar episodes of severe dissociation with my mom. However, as young children, we witnessed our father's violence, but we didn’t see what he endured in private. Naturally, to everyone around us, Dad was the villain, and Mom was the victim. The neighbours, our relatives, and the people at our church unquestioningly believed this narrative. Nobody delved deeper or asked the right questions. No one tried to help them. No one was equipped to do so. This polarisation creates a flawed narrative that makes the issues we are dealing with as a society so much harder to address. The reality is that there are no victims or villains, there are only multifaceted and complex human beings in need of healing. By demonising perpetrators of violence and placing victims on a pedestal, we invisibilise the nuances and create a situation in which loving accountability is out of reach. This fuels the denial, absolving the perpetrator and blaming the victim. There can be no accountability nor restoration under these circumstances. If we, as a society, continue to ignore the impact on the partners of abuse survivors who have not yet acknowledged the abuse, we are setting them up to fail as husbands, wives, fathers and mothers, and actively establishing ‘perfect storm conditions’ for them to lean towards dysfunctional coping methods. They will potentially become perpetrators of domestic and other forms of violence thinking that trauma responses are directed at them and reacting defensively instead of holding space for healing. Young husbands and fathers are at significant risk of becoming secondary victims of their partners' past abuse. They have fewer coping skills to deal with complex trauma, and most would not yet have developed more mature degrees of compassion and understanding. They would be incredibly vulnerable to dysfunctional coping strategies.
November 2023 | Collective Action Magazine
106
Made with FlippingBook. PDF to flipbook with ease