From “Victim” to … ?

“Victim” “Abuser” “Survivor” Which is your status, if any?

Recently a question was posed on Facebook that asked, “When a victim becomes an abuser, when should he or she be held accountable for his / her actions?”  It was a thoughtful question and one worth following.

Victims of childhood abuse generally take one of two paths. Either they grow up to become survivors, or they turn into abusers themselves. Which road they choose is up to them and how they accept responsibility for their own lives.

How many times do you hear of an abuser and know that he came from a life of abuse himself? Quite often the usual response is “… and so the cycle continues…” This is unfortunately quite true. If you don’t know there is life outside of abuse, it is the only life you know. And so if you grow up seeing your father beat your mother over cold eggs for breakfast, you are going to think it’s acceptable for a man to beat his wife anytime she doesn’t do things as he expects.

I believe that once you recognize that you are a “victim” then you recognize that you were not treated correctly. At that point you are AWARE. You are aware that what you call “normal” might not be morally correct. You are aware that life from this moment on should change.

Change is scary. Even if you have been abused and your life was miserable, change is scary. Misery is familiar. You understand how to cope and dance around misery. Change the playing field and you’re lost.

Recognition of abuse, in my opinion, is where these two new roads merge. This is where the question must be asked “What do I have to do to change my life situation?” A strong person will look for ways to escape the prison bars he or she just realized were there. A strong person will start looking beyond the bars for someone who may be able to help break those bars. It’s hard to escape alone.

Then there are those who recognize the abuse but choose instead to live with it. In turn most of these people pass the pain down the line. Although they lived through the abuse themselves, they are still capable of passing that same pain down. Sharing the pain. Maybe even finding pleasure in bringing pain to someone else, to retaliate against their own pain. A pain they aren’t willing to work to stop.

To use an example, let’s talk about a man who was abused throughout his childhood. As an adult he realizes what happened and recognizes that the behavior of his abuser was very wrong. He knows the pain he went through. He tries to live a normal life but there are residual effects of having been abused within him.

In turn, he ends up becoming an abusive man as well. His victims feel the same shame and pain and helplessness that he did. He passed his pain on down to them. Should he be punished for his actions? At what point did he switch from being “victim” to “abuser”?  Should he be held accountable for his actions or should they be overlooked because he was a victim himself?

We are 100% responsible for our decisions and actions. Nothing done to us in our past gets us “off the hook” for anything we do later in life. We still CHOOSE to act the way we do. Whether we choose to move on and survive and thrive, or we choose to stay and suffer in pain, the decision is ours to make.