Domestic Violence by Proxy
How to Heal the Lingering Legacy of Trauma, Tragedy and Terror

 

by Dr. Jeanne King, Ph.D.

Being shoved out of your children’s lives is a violation like none other. Rallying your kids up to be the pistol that carries the bullets blasting your heart open is equally horrific.

In fact, this method was one practiced by Hitler in tormenting the Jews. Literally, …the children were ordered to shoot their parents in cold blood. I can hear the sound of those rifles now.

When this trauma is yours, you know how it colors your entire life. In every fiber of your being, you hold a piece of its reality. It’s your trauma. It’s your tragedy and it inspires your terror.

How do you see it for what it is? And how to you grow beyond it?

You're Not Good Enough to Be in Your Children’s Lives

When the world delivers the message restricting your contact with your own flesh and blood, something shifts in you to reconcile the absurdity of this predicament. You own it and make it true.

The trauma of the blow, the tragedy of the loss and the terror of life in this way, haunts and hurts you. It is imperative that you see what is going on for what it is. Otherwise, you will carry the lingering legacy of domestic violence by proxy to your grave. And don’t expect your children to bury it with you... Oh, no. They, too, carry the badge of this legacy into the next generation.

The Trauma and the Tragedy of Domestic Violence by Proxy

Come with me and look more closely at this trauma. Bring your compassion to embrace the tragedy and bring your understanding to grasp the way in which this terror lives in your life.

While it is true that your children come through you to be their own, instinctively you know your right to be in their formative years. And when you are denied this right, you feel as though your heart has been ripped out of you. The pain of that penetrates your entire being.

The tragedy is both yours and theirs. For they, too, have lost the presence of you and your parenting along the way. They grow up with a missing link and seek to reconcile the hole it leaves. When you meet them on the other side of minority, you get the opportunity to mend the tragedy for both of you.

This doesn’t mean that you are responsible for their healing. Only they can do that. What you can do is be there and allow yourself into that hole...as they can allow themselves into yours.

The Terror of Domestic Violence by Proxy

The terror is more generalized into other aspects of your life. It may begin with a feeling of not belonging to your children’s world, and it may generalize into a feeling of not belonging to your community. It can even project into a feeling of not belonging to society, in general.

Here again, it is imperative that you break the “disconnect” that you live in having been severed from your own flesh and blood. With each step that you take to re-enter into your life and into theirs, you replace the terror with communion. And from here, you will know healing, wholeness and happiness.

For more information about healing domestic violence by proxy, visit www.preventabusiverelationships.com/psychological_healing.php (2 Volume Healing eBook Set ) and claim your Free Instant Access to Survivor Success eInsights. Psychologist Dr. Jeanne King, Ph.D. helps people nationwide recognize, end and heal from domestic abuse. © Jeanne King, Ph.D. — Domestic Violence Prevention and Intervention