First rule of domination: establish the right “Family System”
“Chronic childhood abuse takes place in a familial culture of pervasive terror, in which ordinary caretaking relationships have been profoundly disrupted. Survivors describe a characteristic pattern of totalitarian control, enforced by means of violence and death threats, capricious enforcement of petty rules, intermittent rewards, and destruction of all competing relationships through isolation, secrecy, and betrayal….children who develop in this climate of domination develop pathological attachments to those who abuse and neglect them, attachments that they will strive to maintain even at the sacrifice of their own welfare…reality…or their lives.”
Herman 98
This description might seem like something from a concentration camp and one in which the people in it knew it was deranged and wrong. But this was normal life in our house – our “home environment. And we never realized just how ABNORMAL things really were.
Frankly, whatever environment you live in begins to shape you, whether you realize it or not. It shaped us, our assessment of things, our reactions and beliefs. After a while, whatever we were living in was our “normal life.”
How did he succeed in creating such an environment and such control over us? Rules and tools….
About the “rules”
“In addition to the fear of violence, survivors consistently report an overwhelming sense of helplessness. …exercise of parental power is arbitrary, capricious, and absolute. Rules are erratic, inconsistent, or patently unfair…what frightened them most was the unpredictable nature of the violence. Unable to find any way to avert the abuse, they learn to adopt a position of complete surrender….While most survivors of childhood abuse emphasize the chaotic and unpredictable enforcement of rules, some describe a highly organized pattern of punishment and coercion…similar to those in political prisons.” Judith Herman, MD, Trauma and Recovery
Herman quoted one survivor as noting: “We never thought of the rules as fair or unfair, we just tried to follow them.”
In our house, we never questioned the rules or really understood just how ABNORMAL they were. They were OUR normal, and we just learned to live with it.
As Herman went on to explain, the result of that kind of family system is that the survivors develop extraordinary awareness of any warning signs of violence, or of the abuser’s state of mind. These included things like very subtle changes in facial expressions, tone of voice, or body language.
I could ALWAYS tell how my night was going to go the moment my father stepped out of the car when he got home from work. That one facial expression told it all, and I was almost never wrong. The only question I couldn’t predict was how bad it would be. The moment I saw an angry facial expression, I went into terror and high alert, and began preparing for anything he might ask or do.
The first survival tool was to be very quiet if he was in a bad mood so as to avoid being noticed. But usually, he was already looking for me to pick a fight with. So the next steps were “fawning” methods – try to appear absolutely obedient, respectful, or to point out some “success” I had in my day that he might like.
But usually that didn’t help either. If he wanted a fight with me, he was going to drive it. So my only resort at that point was to freeze – no matter what he did, do NOT register anything on my face, be ready to run, and above all, DO NOT CRY. THAT set him off big time. At that point, physical violence was imminent if he said, “You better not be crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.” If I couldn’t swallow my sobs quickly enough, he made good on the threat.
As I said earlier, his goal was to create the “family system” that he needed to maintain control over all of us so he could always be certain of getting his needs filled. So he inflicted fear, uncertainty, and unpredictability, and did this with systematic repetition such that we knew the pattern by heart and would respond immediately at the earliest signs of it.
What were OUR family system rules?
My father loved his time in the Navy. And he ran our house like a Chief Petty Officer in boot camp. They had rules in boot camp that they learned by heart and lived by. So did we. Here are just some of the rules drilled into me:
- Never tell anyone about the abuse. It is special. No one will understand, and if you tell, it will break the family
- The abuse “helps me with your mother”
- “You’re the oldest. You should know better.” This was his catch-all to accuse me of not doing something that was not specifically already mentioned in the rules. It made sure I could always be wrong.
- “You’re the oldest. You take care of your sisters.” Implied by this was that I was free to use physical force if needed. But bottom line, if something happened to them on my watch, I was in trouble
- FAMILY IS ALWAYS FIRST. Outsiders are not to be trusted and NEVER rank as high as immediate family.
- NEVER tell anyone ANYTHING that goes on in our house. Loyalty to family above all.
- No one else will care about you except our immediate family. No one else will ever care about you like we care about you.
- Always side with the family.
- Never let someone older than you stand if you are sitting. NEVER let your mother (or anyone older than you) carry packages or anything heavy or climb ladders or …. Get off your ass, get over there and do it. Never let your older relatives shovel much snow. Get out there and do it for them. You are ALWAYS to help someone older. (This is the one rule I had no issue with, and I still live by it even though I am in my seventies)
- Never sit around. You are always supposed to be doing something, or else you are in trouble
- If you are sick, hurry up and get better. It doesn’t matter if you just threw up. Go force yourself to eat because you need to force yourself to get better…NOW.
- If Dad says I am going with him, or I have to do something, it is law no matter what Mom wants or needs; if it comes down to who will be worse to me if I fail, it will always be Dad.
- You worry too much. Stop being so sensitive
- Don’t cry
- You should want me to do this to you. It is special, and you should be upset if we can’t get together.
- This will get you ready for your husband
- Any statement that starts with “Fine…I guess you…” means intense danger, and you’re about to be “iced out” emotionally for an undetermined period of time
- Any accusation that says “I guess you don’t love me because…” will deliver the same danger and punishment
- Total silence and refusal to make eye contact means you are in DEEP trouble.
- Any sentence said like a commanding officer means you’re in trouble
- Men are weak and have no control. Women have to be strong
- EVERYONE can always be “made”
There were more, but these were the most common ones. And the first eight were reinforced constantly.
But the most especially reinforced rules, reinforced thousands of times from as far back as I can remember, were any rules pertaining to letting him abuse me. I was to keep quiet and tell no one. I was to show him I loved him by letting him abuse me. I must agree that the abuse was a good thing and that OF COURSE I wanted it as much as he did. I was NOT supposed to avoid him but actively seek him out, or respond with excitement if he sought me out.
And most of all, I had to climax and say that I ENJOYED IT. Because if I didn’t, I was in more trouble than if I’d refused him outright.
Up Next: “Tools”
Note:
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Tags: family, life, love, mental-health, writing
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