My Abuser Was a Kid Like Me
Abusers, and the trauma they leave behind, don’t always conform to the stereotype
I grew up in the tail end of the After-School Special generation. These television shows would air from time to time, showcasing some common conflicts to which teens are exposed, including abusive relationships. Thanks to these programs, and similar ones we were shown in school, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what abuse looked like.
The abuser was a lot older than the victim, first of all. A parent, neighbor, uncle, or even much-older sibling.
Or if not older, he (virtually always, it was a he) was definitely much bigger and stronger. The huge football player who got physical with his teeny-tiny cheerleader girlfriend, for example, or the biggest kid in the school bullying the scrawny kids.
There was, of course, a physical component — an element of force. He’d grab, shove, wind up for a punch. Or, at the very least, he’d threaten one of these things in order to get what he wanted. Sometimes the physical assaults even became sexual in nature.
And, always, there was an undeniable level of intentionality. The abuser knew exactly what he was doing, and he was doing it on purpose.
I used an incomplete definition of abuse to excuse the actions of my abuser
When I was around eight years old, my cousin coerced me into exploring sexually with him. It was an ongoing situation, and though it felt uncomfortable and just wrong somehow, I believed I needed to continue allowing it to happen if I wanted to maintain my close relationship with him. This began a long pattern of self-destructive behavior, mostly centered around this idea of having to consent to things that made me feel uncomfortable in order to be loved.
It was abuse because it caused me lasting trauma — trauma from which, three decades later, I am still recovering.
As I grew up and started to reckon with my feelings about this, I began to rely heavily on the definition of abuse I’d developed implicitly in childhood. For years, I held up this cliché-ridden schema as evidence that much of what I endured had not, in fact, been abuse. We were the same age, I told myself. And the same size, I said to my husband. While I was coerced into doing things that made me uncomfortable, no one ever hurt me physically, I said to my therapist.
I became an expert at explaining away the actions of my abuser, the basis of my argument being that, since he was a kid like me, he couldn’t possibly have known what he was doing. An eight-year-old wasn’t capable of abuse.
If that was the case, though, why was I still suffering the reverberations of this relationship decades later? Why, when a partner, friend or therapist asked about my negative sexual and relationship experiences, was my cousin the first person who came to mind?
I’ve spent a lot of time considering these questions, and eventually I came to a simple truth: It doesn’t matter that my abuser was my age, or my size, or that he probably had no idea what he was doing. It doesn’t matter that all our contact was technically consensual.
It was abuse because it caused me lasting trauma — trauma from which, three decades later, I am still recovering.
Through doing this work I realized it was time for some updates to my framework for what abuse is — updates I hope will help other adults in processing their own trauma; updates which I hope we can apply when helping a new generation of children develop a schema for recognizing abuse that is hopefully less cliché and more authentic than the one I held for so long.
Abuse relies on a power differential that may have nothing to do with age or size
We’ve all seen the images of the abusive boyfriend or father. He is physically threatening, towering over his victims and exerting an influence over them that is, while reprehensible, vaguely understandable. His deep voice, large hands, and imposing stature make it easy to see he’s in control.
The exact nature of the victim’s need is irrelevant in this conversation. What is important is the abuser’s ability to exploit that need in order to get what she wants.
But when we pigeonhole the abuser into this larger-than-life box we are glossing over the real reason abusers can exploit their victims: power.
The abuser in a relationship is the one with the power. And it doesn’t have to be physical power. It can be financial power, emotional power, or professional power. Or, it could be the power to withhold something else the victim needs — love, affection, or even medication or illicit drugs.
My cousin and I were the same age and the same size, and for years I used this as one of many reasons he couldn’t have possibly been abusing me.
But my trauma was made possible because he was the one with the power. I looked up to him and feared losing his affection if I didn’t go along with what he wanted. He maintained the power because I thought I’d get in trouble if I told. And this power dynamic continued for future encounters because, once I had consented, I didn’t think I could take it back.
Most abuse is not physical
I think most of us know psychological abuse exists. Simply knowing this fact, though, isn’t as helpful as one might hope. Psychological abuse is a nebulous concept, and it can look different depending on who is involved.
An abuser has an instinct for what her victim needs. Sometimes, this is a physical need for safety. The victim concedes to his abuser in order to avoid being harmed physically, or in order to minimize the damage. But, often, the need is not physical in nature. It could be any of the things I mentioned above — professional advancement, financial stability, affection — or something completely different.
The exact nature of the victim’s need is irrelevant in this conversation. What is important is the abuser’s ability to exploit that need in order to get what she wants.
In my case, the need I so desperately needed to fulfill was for love in all its forms — affection, recognition, and acceptance. By appealing to my insecurity with compliments about my physical appearance and maturity and then threatening to withhold affection if I didn’t consent to his demands, my cousin — even at eight years old — was adept at getting exactly what he wanted.
And he never had to lift a finger in anger.
Abusers may not even be aware what they’re doing is abusive
As I mentioned above, I always saw abuse as something that was done consciously, with the full knowledge and intent of the abuser. The biggest struggle I’ve faced while processing this trauma, then, is the fact that my cousin likely had no idea what he was doing was abusive.
Even unknowing behavior can create lasting trauma
He couldn’t have known what a lasting effect his actions would have upon me and, though I haven’t talked to him in nearly 20 years, I doubt he ever thinks about our experience as anything other than innocent experimentation — if he thinks about it at all.
I also have a suspicion, correct or not, that his behavior resulted from one or more sketchy experiences on his end. The way he talked to me, the way he normalized what we were doing, the way he manipulated me — it makes me believe he had either seen or been the target of this behavior himself.
And this is the thing about abusers. Many have been abused themselves, or have lived in an abusive environment. They’ve learned, implicitly, how to behave, and so when they abuse someone else, they may not even be aware they’re doing it. Especially when they’re too young to understand the dynamics of abuse.
But even unknowing behavior can create lasting trauma, and using my cousin’s likely ignorance as an excuse only served to further my denial and thus extend the time it took for me to fully come to terms with what happened to me and how I felt about it.
Anything that results in trauma is abuse
The ultimate result of all these years of re-evaluation is that I learned to define my own experience, rather than letting others do it for me. All the “Yeah, but…”s in the world only serve to excuse other people’s behavior and minimize my own experience.
If I experienced it as trauma, then that’s what it was.
And the same goes for you. Is there an experience in your past that keeps coming back to you, coloring the way you perceive the world? Was there a power differential involved? Or did someone withhold something you needed? Do you keep making excuses that explain all the reasons you shouldn’t be feeling the way you do? If so, it might be time to take a step back and re-examine this experience.
We can separate our feelings — our compassion, understanding, and even love — for the other party from our own internalized trauma. We can understand that abuse in real life rarely looks the way it did in those After-School Specials. We can know that, true though they may be, the excuses we make for our abusers do nothing to heal the pain their abuse has caused us.
Once we’ve done that, the healing can truly begin.
Invisible illnesses are so difficult to manage, in part because it’s hard for others to understand what they can’t see. It can be even more difficult to understand the debilitating effects of trauma on the developing brain, because “trauma” is not a diagnosis. Yet it still manifests itself for a lifetime, a double-invisible influence, informing the beliefs we hold about ourselves and the world and guiding our behavior, especially in times of struggle. For, me everything started with childhood trauma.
Join me here every second and fourth Monday, where I explore the invisible influence of past trauma on current beliefs and behavior. Find all my past columns and subscribe for updates here.