As we approach Mother's Day, I felt it necessary to call attention to the reality many estranged adult children live in our present society. Adult children who have survived childhood abuse, particularly if they choose to go no contact, are often subjected to a secondary traumatization in the form of cultural backlash. Our culture often has a desire to rationalize and make sense of the abusive parent's behavior and pathology. I believe we as practitioners and as a society need to focus instead on directing that compassion and mental energy to advocating for, protecting, and treating the survivor of the abuse. In the context of a woman who escapes her physically and sexually abusive boyfriend, would we tell her that her boyfriend was simply “loving her the best way he knew how”? Would we pressure her and pepper her with obligatory messages to return to her abuser? Would we tell her she would regret leaving her abusive boyfriend, or that it was her responsibility to take care of him? These are the societal messages survivors of childhood abuse are often subjected to. When the abuser is one’s parent, our culture is prepared to offer up an array of explanations and assumptions that serve to justify, explain, and excuse the abuse. Our culture is quick to defend the abusive family member simply because they are a parent, an elder, or a relative. Estranged adult children are guilted with messages like "You only get one family!" and "But who will take care of them when they get old?". The weight of responsibility in the parent-child dynamic is transferred squarely onto the child's shoulders-the child is expected to make accommodations and amend their behavior in order for the relationship to work, and the abusive parent is entitled to continue their abusive behavior unchecked. Parents, especially mothers, are celebrated and their position is regarded with reverence simply because they had a child and it is assumed that they provided their child with love and nurturing. It is important to note that many mothers do, in fact, do their best and deeply love their children. Well-meaning parents can carry their own trauma and unknowingly pass it on to their children. Mothers are human and many of them make honest mistakes in spite of their best intentions. These women contribute greatly to our society and truly deserve to be celebrated and supported. I am not writing about these mothers. There are mothers who did not love, protect, or nurture their children, but in fact envied, resented, violated, neglected, terrorized, and intentionally harmed them instead. There are mothers who treat their children with coldness and cruelty privately while maintaining a facade of kindness and affection publicly. There are mothers who knowingly allow other family members to abuse their child sexually and physically, and there are mothers who physically and sexually abuse their own children. There are mothers who feel no empathy for their children and cannot see their child as an individual, but rather as a means of self-fulfillment, aggrandizement, an extension of themselves, or as nothing more than an accessory. Our culture can accept the reality of abusive fathers more readily, it seems, but the opposite can also be true. Mothers can be abusers. For many estranged adult children, the cultural reverence for mothers flies in the face of the experience they lived behind closed doors. The world celebrates their mother and assumes all mothers are inherently nurturing and loving, while effectively disregarding the truth of the abuse. The cultural narrative that “all parents did their best”, or the assumption that all parents, particularly mothers, love their children in the “best way they know how”, inflicts yet another layer of additional trauma. These statements are in effect gaslighting; they serve to perpetuate further shame, guilt, and familial obligation onto the survivor. The narrative that our abusive parents loved us and did their best runs completely counter to our lived experience, and it sends the conflicting message that love and abuse can be one and the same. Abuse and love cannot coexist. The presence of love requires the absence of abuse. Counselors and survivors of abuse must take the focus off of attempting to make sense of the abuser’s behaviors and release the desire to whitewash the abuser’s character, particularly if the abuser is the survivor's parent. A therapist’s attempt to “humanize” the abuser, understand the abuser’s background, or insist that the abuser “did the best they could” can alienate, invalidate, and inflict a secondary trauma onto the vulnerable survivor seeking counseling. The focus of compassion and understanding must be on the survivor in treatment. It is a necessity that adult survivors of childhood abuse seeking counseling search for a mental health professional that is well-versed in the long-term effects of childhood trauma and are aware of the impact culture has on abuse recovery. It is my belief that in order for counseling to be effective for the adult survivor of childhood abuse, a counselor must release the desire to push the narrative onto their clients that all human beings are inherently well-intentioned. This narrative runs entirely counter to the experiences of many survivors of childhood abuse, and can contribute to the development of cognitive dissonance. The survivor knows they were abused and treated with cruelty, yet they are subjected to messages that their parent loves them and had their best interests at heart. This creates a mental fog in which the survivor questions their sense of reality and even feels ashamed for the way they feel towards their abusive parent. We as a collective society and as mental health professionals need to do the challenging inner work of releasing our desire to be comfortable maintaining the worldview that the world is full of people simply doing the best they can. Some people are not well-intentioned. Some people actively seek out ways to exploit, control, harm, and inflict pain on others. There are individuals that lack empathy, a conscience, and have no desire to make the world a better place. This is difficult for the average person to understand-because we cannot enter that mindset. It is even more difficult for the abused child, who deeply loves their abusive parent and yearns for their acceptance, to understand.
Estranged adult children would benefit in seeking a counselor that has a willingness to understand their lived experience and hold space for their emotions-including their rightful anger, which must be acknowledged, processed, and channeled in a constructive way. Counselors providing treatment to these resilient individuals must exercise an awareness of the cultural implications survivors of childhood abuse face. Insisting that forgiveness must be a part of the healing process in order for recovery to be successful burdens the survivor with unnecessary stress, guilt, shame, and obligation. Abuse recovery mirrors much of the grieving process-acceptance of the past that cannot be changed is a constructive and achievable goal during the healing journey.
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Hi, I'm Hazel!I'm an Associate Licensed Counselor in Birmingham, Alabama and provide Trauma Recovery Coaching worldwide!
I earned my M.Ed. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at the University of Montevallo. My special interests include trauma healing, abuse recovery, and attachment work. Archives
January 2025
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Disclaimer: All content is for informational and educational purposes only. The opinions stated within my content are mine and they do not represent the ACA, APA, any other individual, therapist, institution, or organization.