Metamorphasis
Bronze Member
For myself, I know now that in the family I grew up in, a big factor in the abuse was a general poverty of social skills. I only began to make my way towards an understanding of this when my youngest son, after years of unhappiness at school, was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome.
He had some social awkwardness, & was always in trouble at school, for not conforming with teacher's expectations, despite having a good heart & great intelligence. Because he was smart, they never guessed he was misreading social cues & taking things literally. They thought he was deliberately sarcastic & disobedient.
I recognised some of his genuine confusion from my own childhood. I also recognised that my dad would be diagnosed with AS if he were growing up today. His lack of empathy, self centred view of things & demanding imposition of inflexible rules made him a scarey authority figure. I don't think he had any idea of how to behave appropriately towards a partner or young children.
My son didn't grow up in a physically & emotionally dangerous household. I did: the foundation experiences that ultimately, with later traumas, led to my PTSD. But I sometimes wonder whether the presence of autism in our family (AS is considered to be a form of autism) meant that I found my Dad scarey & unpredictable, not just because he exploded without warning, but because I missed warning signs. Maybe neither of us had the "normal" quota of intuitive social awareness.
I know I rely a lot on what is said, & am not a great reader of body language, which can make a person very vulnerable. The kind of brutal authority my Dad imposed made me vulnerable, & inclined to automatically do what I was told. Maybe my vulnerability to the further abuse I experienced was not just a conditioned obedience response, but the kind of gullibility discussed here - not recognising manipulation.
Whether because born that way, or trained by early experiences to be that way, people who don't have good non verbal communication skills, or don't have a clear "gut feeling" they are comfortable trusting, will be inclined to take others at face value. But it would be unfortunate to go from general trust to general cynicism.
Those of us who haven't automatically got a good social radar need to teach ourselves about what to watch for, including feeling uneasy - the kind of clues we might sometimes have, but disregard. Though his siblings needed not much help with this, I had to consciously instruct this son in what to do, when, why, & what to notice in others. Doing that helped me become aware of my own strengths & weaknesses in reading people.
When your boundaries have been routinely violated in childhood, you're not sure where they should even be. When you use words carefully to say just what you mean, you expect others to do the same. The combination of "obedience training" which is an effect of childhood abuse (having experienced non compliance as dangerous) doesn't encourage healthy skepticism.
But we can learn. We can get better at all of this stuff. We don't need to take a blanket position like "trust is always best" or "people are all out for themselves." What others apparently do so easily, we can learn to do too.
We need to trust in our own capacity to grow & change, & know that others can too. We need to remember that words can be powerful & persuasive, & are a wonderful tool, but are not enough in themselves.
We need to believe that even if we sometimes make mistakes, we can get good at this in time, & generally manage to sort out who & what to trust.
He had some social awkwardness, & was always in trouble at school, for not conforming with teacher's expectations, despite having a good heart & great intelligence. Because he was smart, they never guessed he was misreading social cues & taking things literally. They thought he was deliberately sarcastic & disobedient.
I recognised some of his genuine confusion from my own childhood. I also recognised that my dad would be diagnosed with AS if he were growing up today. His lack of empathy, self centred view of things & demanding imposition of inflexible rules made him a scarey authority figure. I don't think he had any idea of how to behave appropriately towards a partner or young children.
My son didn't grow up in a physically & emotionally dangerous household. I did: the foundation experiences that ultimately, with later traumas, led to my PTSD. But I sometimes wonder whether the presence of autism in our family (AS is considered to be a form of autism) meant that I found my Dad scarey & unpredictable, not just because he exploded without warning, but because I missed warning signs. Maybe neither of us had the "normal" quota of intuitive social awareness.
I know I rely a lot on what is said, & am not a great reader of body language, which can make a person very vulnerable. The kind of brutal authority my Dad imposed made me vulnerable, & inclined to automatically do what I was told. Maybe my vulnerability to the further abuse I experienced was not just a conditioned obedience response, but the kind of gullibility discussed here - not recognising manipulation.
Whether because born that way, or trained by early experiences to be that way, people who don't have good non verbal communication skills, or don't have a clear "gut feeling" they are comfortable trusting, will be inclined to take others at face value. But it would be unfortunate to go from general trust to general cynicism.
Those of us who haven't automatically got a good social radar need to teach ourselves about what to watch for, including feeling uneasy - the kind of clues we might sometimes have, but disregard. Though his siblings needed not much help with this, I had to consciously instruct this son in what to do, when, why, & what to notice in others. Doing that helped me become aware of my own strengths & weaknesses in reading people.
When your boundaries have been routinely violated in childhood, you're not sure where they should even be. When you use words carefully to say just what you mean, you expect others to do the same. The combination of "obedience training" which is an effect of childhood abuse (having experienced non compliance as dangerous) doesn't encourage healthy skepticism.
But we can learn. We can get better at all of this stuff. We don't need to take a blanket position like "trust is always best" or "people are all out for themselves." What others apparently do so easily, we can learn to do too.
We need to trust in our own capacity to grow & change, & know that others can too. We need to remember that words can be powerful & persuasive, & are a wonderful tool, but are not enough in themselves.
We need to believe that even if we sometimes make mistakes, we can get good at this in time, & generally manage to sort out who & what to trust.
