My Case Study of the Trauma Bond

My case study of the trauma bond are my own experiences with those years. Hopefully, it will provide additional insights into the mind of the abused child. The past three weeks, my group has helped me write the trilogy of articles for raising awareness on abused children. They gave their testimonials for how to spot an abused child, and then how to spot an abusive parent. Together, we showed what these signs look like to outside observers, while our testimonials provided the context behind them.

It was while putting together last week’s article on why the abused child stays silent that a beautiful memory of my grandparents dislodged. I saw them clearly for how far they were willing to go for me the whole time. They were more than my safe adults. They were my champions. If only they had known everything, my childhood would have been vastly different. How was it then, that I arrived at the same conclusion as those in my group who had no safe people? (The assumption that no one, including my grandparents cared and that they knew everything, anyway.) Follow along with my case study and perhaps even more questions will be answered.

Since in so many ways, my story is a follow up to last week’s article, I’m including quotes from it where applicable. This is to further drive home the points made in both this one and the previous article.

My Case Study: Age 7

“Abused children require multiple positive experiences outside the home. It takes time for a young developing mind to gather the thoughts for identifying what it is that’s better than their home life.

Even if they do speak up…it is typically one minor thing.”

Why Didn’t They Tell? 5 Reasons Abused Children Stay Silent

Summers at my paternal grandparents’ house, away from my parents was finally setting in by age seven. My grandparents’ house was peaceful and nurturing and their marriage was a true partnership. So, one day I told them how much better it was with them because my parents fought every day, and it made me cry. Bear in mind I was also being physically and verbally abused at home, but it never occurred to me to add that. Nor did it occur to me to add how often I witnessed my borderline mother beat my father and that he couldn’t defend himself because “Men aren’t supposed to hit women.” My focus was on my parents fighting and screaming at each other. They couldn’t go a single day without a fight.

I vaguely remember them asking me questions and that they fully sympathized with what I told them. And then, next thing I knew, my grandfather came home with a set of kitchen magnets. That’s the part I remember best because my grandfather used them to empower me with some magic words.

My Magic Words: “Don’t Forget”

My grandfather set the magnets on the refrigerator, and he asked me if I could read what they said. “Don’t forget,” I replied.

“That’s right,” he said. Then he pointed at the first magnet and said, “This one is your dad,” and then he pointed at the other magnet, which had a red painted fingernail. “This one is your mom. The next time your mom and dad fight, you tell them ‘Don’t forget.’ And if they don’t listen to you, you call us.” I spent the rest of the summer practicing my magic words under my grandparents’ encouragement. They also made sure that I knew their number by heart.

It sounds silly, arming a seven-year-old with two little words in a home of domestic violence. Except for it actually worked, at least for a little while. When my parents came to take me back home, my grandfather showed them the magnets right in front of me. He told them what they meant and what I’m supposed to do whenever they fight. My grandmother reiterated his words, my grandparents acting as a united front on my behalf. But it was delivered as a kid-friendly confrontation. My grandfather’s stern voice delivered through a smile so that it sounded like he was making a joke the whole time. His arm around me as he told them what they couldn’t do around “his grandbaby.”

Hindsight is 20/20

I didn’t know this at the time, but something more than that kid friendly confrontation happened between them. How else do you explain my parents being on their best behavior for a little while after we got back home? I still remember that first trip to the grocery store when my father went down another aisle to grab something and my mother couldn’t find him for a moment. I whispered, “Please don’t fight him!” She looked at me, surprised and said, “I won’t.” True to her word, she spoke to him calmly when she spotted him. This had never happened before. (I guess I should add here that even in the borderline community, my mother redefined paranoid jealousy.)

I was used to her accusing him of messing around with other women if he was out of her sight for mere seconds. (Yes, even in a public grocery store.) The screaming matches would escalate in the car ride home, while I was in the backseat crying and begging them to stop. But suddenly, they weren’t fighting anymore. This calm pattern continued for two or three weeks, just long enough for me to wonder if this was going to be our new forever. Then the fighting resumed, but I remembered my magic words and from the backseat of the car, I hollered, “Don’t forget!” Immediately, my parents stopped, and all went quiet. I’m not sure how long my magic words held sway, but I do remember the day they were stripped of power.

Submission of Power: My Case Study

One day, at home, my parents started fighting and I was scared my mother would start hitting my father again. They were screaming so much, they didn’t hear me say “Don’t forget.” So, I went straight to the phone and called my grandparents. My mother realized right away what I was doing and she ended the call before anyone could answer.

That’s when I got lectured on being bad for talking about them to my grandparents. She instructed me to start telling my grandparents that my parents were very loving and sweet to each other. And I did just that! How mind blowing it is, the extreme power abusers have over their child just because they’re the child’s parents? And just how much the safest “safe adults” are up against when they are trying their hearts out to look out for the child?

My Case Study: Assumptions About Safe People

“Children make the assumption of anyone who detects a clue in the abusive parents’ behavior, that they must know everything else that’s going on behind closed doors. So, the child doesn’t see much point in bringing it up.”

“When verbal abuse is the way of life as they have known it at home, the child has a hard time noticing who is good and caring. It’s not unheard of for them to jump to conclusions…”

“Why Didn’t They Tell? 5 Reasons Abused Children Stay Silent

As it often happens in violent homes, things escalated the older I got, while my perception of what my grandparents would do for me shrunk. I assumed that if I asked them for help, my grandparents would give me more useless “magic words” and then talk to my parents like it was one big joke. In last week’s article, I had much to say on my own experiences in making assumptions. But quoting that would blow out this section. It all seemed obvious to me that just because my mother showed her verbal mean side, that they must know she was also physically abusive. How wrong I was!

My grandparents had done so much for me over what very little I had shared. But a child’s mind won’t make those sort of connections. As a matter of fact, I didn’t see this memory fully for what it was until last week. My case study demonstrates how the trauma bond snowballs into the assumptions the abused child makes. Even when they have the best people in their life, they won’t always see it clearly.

Epilogue: How Our Legal System Hurts More Than It Helps

“…children are more apt to see themselves as bad than their parents’ abusive behavior. It’s where loyalty to their abusers who happen to be their own parents is coming from, and they don’t want their parents to get in trouble.”

“My case worker cared. She came to my school multiple times, begging me to stick to my original story. But the moment I was sent home, protecting my abusers became a foregone conclusion. -Jaena”

“Why Didn’t They Tell?” 5 Reasons Abused Children Stay Silent

1986, just before the holidays, I told my guidance counselor about my home life and asked if it qualified as abuse. She called CPS (Child Protective Services), and by third period, I met my case worker and a police officer. So, I got my answer. The problem was, they sent me, a barely twelve-year-old, home after filing my report. Adult me marvels at a system that had the gall to expect a child to stick to their story after doing that. But twelve-year-old me didn’t know I was responding to all the gaslighting the way any child ensnared in the trauma bond would react. (Both underlined terms are in Trauma Glossary 1.)

My case study reviewed in the following facts:

Fact: I went to the guidance counselor that morning because my borderline mother was beating me every single day, and I couldn’t take it anymore.

Fact: My borderline mother didn’t lay a finger on me the whole time CPS was working my case. But she didn’t have to. The amount of shame my parents filled me with was enough for me to change my story the following day.

Fact: The gaslighting was so severe, I was looking forward to my next beating. In my mind, that beating would mean that my mother finally “forgave me” for getting them in trouble.

“Keep Your Mouth Shut!” My Case Study

Hooray for the system validating that my mother was committing child abuse and that it was wrong. However, that same system added even more trauma on a year that was already the most traumatic year of my life. The law failed me when I reached out for help. But instead of seeing it this way, I blamed myself. The CPS debacle taught me that they would add adversity to an abusive home with no follow through. There was no hope of rescue because the law “taught me” that I was too weak to stick to my story. I carried those beliefs for the rest of my childhood. And my parents never had to worry about me speaking out against them again. Not even to my grandparents, or confiding to my school friends.

When the law fails the abused child, they feel the burden rests entirely on their shoulders. The battered child sees no alternative but to take matters into their own hands. My case study is what happened at age 12 when I had had enough, but the law failed me.

So, at age seventeen, I had had enough again. With no hope of the law coming to my rescue, I took matters into my own hands and challenged my mother one morning with my fists clenched to the side. The consequences could have been deadly, but instead, my story had a happy ending. My mother walked away without a fight and she never touched me again. But someone else challenged her abuser at the same age I was. Her story ended in tragedy and she is now serving a 23 year prison sentence.

Her name: Ashlee Martinson and we will be talking about her next week as I show you the eerie parallels between my case study and hers.

Further Reading

Every twelve weeks, I create a history comic in place of an article. They are sort of my “case study” of other people who came before us. Each history comic concerns someone in history who had a similar problem we have today. They managed to solve that problem and become extraordinary human beings. 

If the story of what my grandparents did for me warms your heart, you might be interested in the history comic I made of my grandfather’s story on August 22nd. Believe me, he was no ordinary grandfather. He was a trauma warrior, and everything in that comic actually happened. He shares how he processed that overwhelming grief and healed in the most beautiful way. It will inspire you, as it has already inspired those who have commented on it.

I also made a history comic on Frederick Douglass. This one concerns how to defeat soul death. In part one of that comic, Douglass shares his story of recovering from soul death when he fought “the slave breaker.” In part two of that comic, I share the takeaways I got from his story when I challenged my mother at age seventeen. Because my story did not end in tragedy, I got empowered, just like Frederick Douglass did. However, it never occurred to me how dangerous my situation was that morning until I watched the documentary on Ashlee Martinson. (The link to that documentary is above, where you see her name.) 

Had my mother accepted my challenge to fight instead of walking away, there isn’t a doubt that Ashlee’s story would have been mine. That’s why I will be raising awareness on her situation next week.