Looking At The Cycle Of Abuse

It's amazing. It's shocking. It's disturbing. It's the abuse cycle and it's a monumental problem. You're probably familiar with the concept. Someone suffers abuse as a child and then abuses his or her own children later in life.

It happens with surprising regularity, exponentially multiplying the problem of child abuse. It's a befuddling situation, too. One would think that those who understand the agony and pain of abuse would be the least likely to visit it on other children. It doesn't work that way, though. The cycle of abuse continues.

Why? What makes it happen? It's a tough question with no clear-cut single answer.

There are many explanations. Some explain it in terms of modeling. They maintain that we naturally look to our parents for guidance in our formative years.

Our parents, for better or for worse, fill the role as our primary teachers and we can't help but to soak up their lessons--even when they're incredibly destructive. Modeling is at the heart of the cycle and that's why it makes so much sense to do whatever we can to teach individual victims of abuse that they can do things differently. The alternative, ignorance, is very unattractive.

In fact, another explanation lies in ignorance and a lack of education. People fail to learn that their suffering wasn't normal and wasn't appropriate. They fail to learn that there are ways to cope with the aftermath of abuse and to hold their abusive inclinations in check. They're ignorant of alternative strategies and outlooks, and they naturally return to what they knew as children.

Additionally, there is the inescapable fact that abuse is powerful. It's so powerful that it reaches out from the past into the present, warping our thinking and leading us toward destructive behaviors. Those who are unprepared to deal with the consequences of their own difficult childhoods simply repeat the previous mistakes, unable to avoid the aftershocks of an abusive upbringing.

There are many potential explanations. More important than understanding why we see a cycle of abuse, though, is how we can end it. What can be done to stop this pattern before future generations are subjected to physical and psychological violence?

The answer lies in each abused individual. It may not seem fair to put the onus on them, but that is where it must eventually be. We can't rewrite history and we can't make the past disappear. Inevitably, the pain and suffering of childhood has an impact on the present. It does not, however, need to govern the future. Only when abused individuals decide to intervene--coming to grips with the past and learning how to handle the ramifications of abuse in their lives--can we hope to see the cycle of abuse grind to a halt.

 Source: http://www.nursing-hints.com

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by Kim Standerline

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