Beautifully said. I love your sweet prose to Raven too. My heart goes out to children who don’t feel seen though we know El Roi - God sees them. “Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord cares for me.” Psalm 27:10
I am personally a firm believer as well in the idea that personal trauma can be transmitted through following generations. When I visited Glencoe several decades ago, I knew that there was one family link to the events there as one branch of my family tree was linked to the Campbells and some by that surname were present. I found the site extremely affecting and told my wife that we had to go because "this place is literally freaking me out" - it has only been in the last ten years via Ancestry, that I've found that another branch of my tree reaches back to a multiple times Great Grandfather who was carried away from the massacre in his mother's arms.
Everything you say about ACE is true, and supported by many studies. The problem is, that without context and nuance, those truths feed the 'damaged goods' narrative, most widely expressed in the meme 'hurt people hurt people'. These phrases, damaged goods, hurt people, cycle of abuse, put a label of shame on ACE survivors; people who have been abused are assumed to be likely to go on to hurt others in turn: best avoid them.
There are other truths. Not everyone who is abused goes on to abuse. Not everyone who abuses is a victim of abuse. What we don't have (as far as I know and I've looked) is the data that considers the number of abuse survivors who go on not to abuse .. even to be activists against abuse, or supporters of other victims.
So truths that should lead us to treat abuse survivors with compassion, in fact, lead us / society to ostracise them. Survivors learn that it is wise not to let their history of abuse be known. They learn that the perpetrator was right when he or she said 'keep quiet or else'.
Beautifully said. I love your sweet prose to Raven too. My heart goes out to children who don’t feel seen though we know El Roi - God sees them. “Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord cares for me.” Psalm 27:10
This is beautiful!
I am personally a firm believer as well in the idea that personal trauma can be transmitted through following generations. When I visited Glencoe several decades ago, I knew that there was one family link to the events there as one branch of my family tree was linked to the Campbells and some by that surname were present. I found the site extremely affecting and told my wife that we had to go because "this place is literally freaking me out" - it has only been in the last ten years via Ancestry, that I've found that another branch of my tree reaches back to a multiple times Great Grandfather who was carried away from the massacre in his mother's arms.
Everything you say about ACE is true, and supported by many studies. The problem is, that without context and nuance, those truths feed the 'damaged goods' narrative, most widely expressed in the meme 'hurt people hurt people'. These phrases, damaged goods, hurt people, cycle of abuse, put a label of shame on ACE survivors; people who have been abused are assumed to be likely to go on to hurt others in turn: best avoid them.
There are other truths. Not everyone who is abused goes on to abuse. Not everyone who abuses is a victim of abuse. What we don't have (as far as I know and I've looked) is the data that considers the number of abuse survivors who go on not to abuse .. even to be activists against abuse, or supporters of other victims.
So truths that should lead us to treat abuse survivors with compassion, in fact, lead us / society to ostracise them. Survivors learn that it is wise not to let their history of abuse be known. They learn that the perpetrator was right when he or she said 'keep quiet or else'.