One of the most devastating consequences of abuse is that the perpetrators instil in you a distorted self-image, forcing you to view yourself through the distorted lens of their twisted perceptions. Not only do you view yourself as one who suffers, but also as the one who deserves it. The consequence of abuse is that victims lose not only their happiness but also their identity as people capable of happiness.

Abuse that normalizes pain begins in childhood. As a victim, you never get to claim your own identity; you are assigned one by your abuser. Victims are taught that their abuser is the cause, and the abuse is the effect of the abuse. The victim sees themself as the cause of the abuse, mounting the whole blame on themself, instead of the abuser, a typical case of shame replacing love.https://mypsycheandyours.com.ng/tears-for-a-lost-childhood/

Victims of child abuse suffer not only from pain but also from their belief systems. Beliefs like these are not choices, but rather a reaction to the intensity of the perpetrator. The psychological effects of child abuse are so intense that they overwhelm the child’s sense of self. A child can’t contain their abuse rather the abuse will contain the child. As a result, child abuse becomes more than an experience, it becomes an identity.

As a result of his or her difficult childhood, the child does not consider themselves a good kid. Shame makes them believe that they suffer because of who they are. The one who suffers is who they are. Circular reasoning illustrates how wounded adults continue the patterns of a painful childhood: they believe that pain believes in them.

Our most intense experience is what we believe until we become conscious enough to realize it. What could be more intense than abuse when you are a child?

Most abusive homes normalize pain and, thus, denormalize love. If the abuser is a part of the child’s family, whatever the abuser normalizes will be believed most by the child. The concepts of love and abuse converge in this regard because love becomes an exception to abuse.

Love cannot be recognized without pain, and abuse is recognized as part of love once love and pain cross-activate. Growing up believing that love hurts, that pain signifies love, that pain is more real than love – the child will begin to confuse loving relationships with painful ones. They then, at that point, grow up to live out only this mindset; “If it’s stable, it’s boring”, “If it hurts, it’s familiar” and “I only believe it’s love after pain”.

The child who believes pain to be truer than love will grow to believe they merit whatever suffering they encounter in their connections. Paradoxically, they fault themselves for the suffering that feels so familiar, all while being inexorably drawn to it.   Our experience is as loving as the people we choose when we are too young. Hence those in love, whether healthy or unhealthy, say, “You feel like home.” whenever home feels abusive, the person will unconsciously say, “ You abuse like home”.

It’s generally not until they go to therapy that they discover they repeated their abusive childhood not because it felt good, but because it reminds them of home. You find yourself constantly dating narcissists and you choose to bear the pain that comes with them.   Love finds you always just like others but yours comes with a condition and you bear it because your childhood had put you in a position where you must bear unfavourable conditions.

The unavailable partner you date isn’t your first, but you have chosen to endure and cope with whatever abuse that comes with it.  Attracting and being attracted to these types are learned skills, and the institutions that teach these skills are painful childhoods.

We follow precedent until we become aware of it. This doesn’t mean clutching the past to such an extent as proceeding with it. This is similarly valid for those with healthy childhoods entering blissful adulthoods. The happy and troubled individuals follow the vectors of their childhood point. The abused children must choose to develop and pick up a new bearing.

Patients who avoid discussing (or talking about) their traumatic childhoods still feel as though they are living in them. To reshape their lives, free of the influence of their trauma, they must become aware of how their past shapes their present. In light of this, Jung states:

Everything we do not become conscious of, we will call Fate.

Growing up in the forest, the bear does not know that, that is right because nature, like love, is everywhere. A bear that grows up in a circus does not realize this is wrong, other than the feeling that she is not being herself. We cannot be ourselves when we are trapped in our trauma. We feel lost in pain because of this.

In her formative years, the circus bear lives in a chained circle. Due to the internalization of the chain, the bear will never leave the circle once the chain has been removed.

During their formative years, abused children live within a circle of pain. Because their beliefs have become internalized, these children don’t leave the circle as they grow up.

Until you heal, you cannot see that the toxic environment was not your own heart, but those who led you in circles.

Not only does your inner child carry memories of beatings, insults, and all the lack of love, but also the beliefs that fit that suffering.

Three beliefs revolve around shame: shame as precedent, shame as norm, and shame as oneself.

Shame creates doubts inside you and always asks, ‘Who are you to think you can be loved? ’

The key to healing is believing in yourself, especially when it comes to your lovability. As long as you love, you are healed. Trauma inhibits love to the extent that it inhibits you. Healing occurs when the inner child learns to embrace the love of the present without holding on to the shame of the past. The experience of love does not have to involve pain for me.

As long as abused adults continue to live in the same internal world as abused children, the abuse lives on. The patient is not oppressed by the abusive parent out there but by the internalized one here.

Patients initially find this disconcerting, as their oppressor is no longer their abuser, but an internalized aspect of themselves. The liberation lies there, however! Healing the inner child and freeing the victim from suffering belongs not to the abuser but to the patient. You will be healed by the one who feels your pain, not the one who caused it.

You must learn to see yourself through your own eyes rather than through the eyes of your abuser to heal from abuse.