No.
They’re not. They are regular people who did not learn.
Are yu going to argue with me? Do you think they certainly were told but they didn’t want to listen? I will prove to you that that is not accurate. Come with me….
We’re going to take a peek into little Randy’s house. Randy is four years old. His three-year-old sister just got a gift from a doting aunt. It was a sweet-faced doll. Aunt Lila said, “I couldn’t resist. I saw this doll and thought immediately of Beth.”
Well, that is very nice. Lovely. But what about Randy? We can see the dark cloud hovering over his head. There’s a part of him that is thinking – unconsciously – “What’s wrong with ME? Why didn’t I get that doll?” See, he’s not particular about the nature of the gift. He just didn’t want to be overlooked. Of course, he’s too young to be aware of these thoughts. They are more like inarticulate feelings. Suddenly, he goes and kicks his sister in the shins.
The family is aghast. How mean he is! And they tell him so. They are SURE to tell that to him because that IS mean behavior. He storms off to his room and starts ripping things up in there. He is so angry. Of course, he couldn’t tell you why if you wanted to know, and frankly, even if he could explain it, he doesn’t trust you any more because you did not understand him. At all. You decided he WAS mean. Not that he acted improperly, but was mean.
Randy is not allowed to cry. He is in so much pain. He now doesn’t like his aunt or his sister. He also hates himself. After all, look what he did! He thought he was a good person, but he clearly isn’t. If he were to cry, someone would tell him his tears are misplaced, that he should be crying for his poor sister who was hurt so badly, her leg is now sore. From his four-year-old kick.
Randy has to do something with these awful feelings. He doesn’t know what to do. He starts kicking at his toys, this is a great distraction. Nothing gets better.
Fast forward a few years. Randy “knows” deep down inside that he is rotten to the core. He’s been receiving this message for a long time. He’s a big boy of 10 now and the kicks have something special for themselves and for him. He starts smoking weed. It is funny! He can laugh. Wow. That’s a new one. He has found something.
Fast forward again. The adult Randy also can get a “kick” out of a relationship. He knows he can be cool and cute. Someone will like him. And they do. He marries someone. She reminds him of his sister. She cries easily. He does not – under any circumstances – want her to see his pain. But he could be in pain. It wouldn’t take much. After all, there’s the idea of the straw that broke the camel’s back: He’s had a long accumulation of pain.
So is Randy evil? Of course not. He’s an unloved child.
That certainly doesn’t mean he can go on behaving as he has been. He has a lot of unlearning to do. But the beautiful part is that he can do a bunch of learning and learn that his feelings are valuable; he can learn that it can be safe to communicate them; he can learn that those feelings are the key to getting his needs met. There’s lots he can learn.
So let me ask you a question. If he learns all that, would he be the same person as when he was abusive?
No. He wouldn’t be. He’d have changed. Radically. and the interesting thing is that it is possible. Doable, even. I help people make those radical changes every day. Do you want to be one of them? Book a call https://drdeb.com/book