Lashing Out: Repetitions of Childhood Trauma & Abuse

Do you notice that you easily fly off the handle? Get so frustrated that you lash out at a loved one? If so, you likely suffered abusive treatment as a child. Maybe you had a demanding, exacting, easily frustrated, blaming, and humiliating parent who made you feel bad about yourself.

That’s traumatic. You had no control. And, as you’ve grown into adulthood, it is easy to confuse your loved one with your “little self,” or your abusive parent of the past. That’s called transference in psychoanalysis. You’re living the past in the present without knowing it. It happens.

But abuse should never happen. And, often, it’s unpredictable and seems to come out of nowhere, even when you try so hard to be “good.” And, when you don’t have control, control is what you want. So, you try to control others. You hate needing anyone. When you’re hurt and no one understands or helps you, there is no other way out but to shut down. Harden up. Go cold to your needs. (And even start to act like the parent you either hate or are angry at.)

Without knowing it, you live with that parent inside you. You might try to “forget” those bad memories. All traumatized kids do, but they live inside you. In the way you treat yourself. The harsh, self-hating voice that was originally your parents’ and now is yours—haunting you.

The past repeats itself. Through your unconscious actions. Through seeing your partner as “the little you.” Constantly “making a mistake.” Not doing things right. You have no patience. Because no one had patience with you. And, you become “a tyrant” in your need for control. You project your self-hate. Your partner is “never good enough.” Because that’s how you feel about yourself.

It’s easy to be taken unawares, full circle into your childhood trauma. Freud called it the “repetition compulsion” or compulsive reenactment of the abuse you knew.  Abusers don’t die easily inside. But you don’t have to “become your abuser.”  That can change. You can be freed of your self-hate. You can say you’re sorry and forgive yourself “into a brand-new existence.”

If you’d like to read more, click here to see my post on Guillermo del Toro’s film, Frankenstein.