– Learning Why Children Don’t Leave Abusive Households Through Individual Counseling in Nashville

Last Updated on May 4, 2023 by Chris Roberts

INDIVIDUAL THERAPY CAN FORCE US TO DEAL WITH OLD MEMORIES OF ABUSE IN OUR HOMES

Reference: “The Body Keeps the Score. Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.” Dr. Bessel A. Van Der Kolk. 2014. Viking.

If you are not the child of an abusive household, it can be hard to understand why children living under these dire circumstances don’t get out, or get help. The same can be said in cases of domestic violence. Very, very rarely does a spouse leave after one incidence of domestic violence, and it’s rare a spouse ever gets help or leaves even after years of abuse. But why?

In a phenomenal book about abuse and trauma by Bessel A. Van Der Kolk, M.D. entitled, “ The Body Keeps the Score,” Dr. Van Der Kolk tries to explain this reality. In attempting to explain the reality of a child, Dr. Van Der Kolk writes, “Children have no choice who their parents are, nor can they understand that parents may simply be too depressed, enraged, or spaced out to be there for them or that their parents’ behavior has little to do with them. Children have no choice but to organize themselves to survive within the families they have. Unlike adults, they have no other authorities to turn to for help—their parents are the authorities.”(p. 133)

We can’t ever understand the lives of children unless we remember the developmental stage they are in when these types of things happen. Try to remember what it was like when you were 5 or 7 or 10. Think of all the things you didn’t know then. It’s actually impossible to fully re-immerse yourself in that world of a 7 year old, because our brains and experiences have grown in such a way that it is impossible to go back. But, we can learn enough and try to remember our childhood in such a way that it makes much more sense. Dr. Van Der Kolk goes on to write, “Children are also programmed to be fundamentally loyal to their caretakers, even if they are abused by them. Terror increases the need for attachment, even if the source of comfort is also the source of terror. I have never met a child below the age of ten who was tortured at home (and who had broken bones and burned skin to show for it) who, if given the option, would not have chosen to stay with his or her family rather than being placed in a foster home.”(p.133) This is a heart-wrenching reality to accept. But the research confirms it over and over and over again.

WHY DOES THIS MATTER TO INDIVIDUAL THERAPY?

This matters, because so many people who experience complications later in life have come from homes where abuse and trauma are prevalent. It doesn’t really matter what the complications are; research continues to find that any repeated complications in childhood and adult life have a strong correlation to childhood abuse and trauma. However, due to the fact that children “organize themselves to survive the families they have,” many had to push these terrifying experiences out of their conscious minds in order to be able to keep living in that home. This means that individuals have to do some serious and difficult work to even consider the possibility that they might have been abused as children. Of course, once abuse has been remembered, then the even more difficult work of dealing with the horrific reality and memories.

Trauma work is never easy and it is always complicated. If you have the courage to enter into the heartache of your past, then know that there are trained therapists in Nashville, TN who would love the opportunity to work with you.