On why abuse happens

It may not be what you think as an internalizer :: ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON SEPTEMBER 22nd 2022

Trauma survivors who are internalizers often ask me how much compassion or rather, tolerance, they should have for trauma survivors who are externalizers.

Internalizers - you start to abuse yourself and not other people as a result of trauma.

Externalizers- you start to abuse others (and yes sometimes yourself as well) as a result of trauma.

Externalizers are the ones who continue to overtly contribute to linages of developmental trauma. It is classic, I got treated this way so I will treat you this way. Instead of, I got treated this way and I will do everything in my power to never treat you this way because I know how bad it feels (internalizers).

Most folks who are on this newsletter and actually reading it, I would assume fall more into the category of internalizers - this is because externalizers are very rarely truly engaging with any kind of repair behaviours (such as gaining self-awareness through reading a newsletter about nervous system health) because they refuse to even consider they cause rupture.

Any rupture an externalizer causes, they justify. Externalizers tend to use abusive tactics because they want control. Being vulnerable makes them feel out of control, so when you make them feel vulnerable in any way, they see you as the thing that has forced them out of their control (you are now something we call the bad object), thus whatever they do to you is to keep themselves safe, and they justify it as such because in their experience, you already did them wrong first (you didn’t - they are mislabeling their emotions).

This gets very complicated when you consider that let’s say your father is an externalizer okay? Well you being alive and loving you may make him feel vulnerable - he can’t control what you think of him, what you decide to do with your life, if you are going to be well or die on him randomly and leave him with a broken heart… so he may right the relationship by being abusive (gaining control and destroying intimacy) to avoid feeling vulnerable because he does not know how to stay within the vulnerability. It is too much risk for rejection or abandonment.

The thing about externalizers is that they act like they are super cool, but they are the most afraid of rejection and abandonment. They avoid what they actually desperately want in order to avoid any risk of something that may happen that would humiliate them and leave them with the confirmation that their earliest trauma imprints were right - they are in fact, worthless.

People who had severe trauma can go into externalizing to survive. Being vulnerable made them weak in their environments; being needy made them suffer. So they don’t do that anymore, and they get very mad at those who encourage or want that from them. So let’s say you make a person who is an externalizer feel vulnerable, what will they do to “right” the relationship in their mind? They will do something that creates rupture in your relationship in order for them to not feel vulnerable anymore.

This is why in relationships with people who externalize their trauma, you can often find exhausting rupture attempts after you feel closest to them - something that would fall into the category of avoidant attachment or maybe even some would call this sabotage.

So, okay, let’s say you are an internalizer who finds themselves in a relationship with an externalizer. You love the person, but they make you sick.

How long do you wait for the externalizer to heal and change and love you properly?

This question is not the question I would ask first in this situation because it won’t in any way address the root issue of why you are in the relationship. You’re not in the relationship in question with an externalizer who is avoiding intimacy with you because you’re not patient enough. You’re in the relationship most likely because you want to avoid intimacy as well, but in an internalizer kind of way.

An internalizer thinks there is something fundamentally wrong with them - they think this is why their abusers did what they did to them (now I hope you know that’s not true - abusers do what they do to avoid feeling vulnerable or powerless). But because as internalizers, we don’t know that yet, you don’t assume you are worthy of healthy available love, thus you don’t try to get it. You might believe no one wants to give it to me, and you desperately may not want to find out that is true, thus you don’t put yourself in truly available situations.

It’s a very common pattern that internalizers and externalizers find each other and are in relationship with each other. Because both parties don’t have to actually have to find out if their externalizing abusers were right after all - that they are worthless- by staying together.

So what do you do if you find yourself in this dynamic as an internalizer?

The first question to ask yourself is this:

Can I buy into the idea (just a little at first) that I got abused because someone was unwell, and not because I was deserving of it?

That’s question one to sit with and see if you’re willing to see that perspective and change your belief system about why abuse happens and specifically, why abuse happened to you.

Secondly, observing all the ways you have internalized that abuse you were mirrored is helpful.

If you were physically hit for example, that gives you the message that you are not worthy of boundaries. Nowadays, you may believe that now you cannot have a limit or a boundary, if you want to be loved. So you sacrifice your boundaries and limits for other people all the time because you want to be loved.

If you were neglected, it gave you the message that your needs are dysfunctional. Thus, at the moment, you may be thinking that advocating for yourself is selfish and unhealthy (when it actually would be a sign of health and a sign of self-connection).

This is a lengthly process that if you undertake provides amazing life-giving benefits.

You will find that once you challenge your internalized abuse stances, you will feel confident enough to enter relationships (friendships, work alliances, romance, etc) where there is true availability present. Yes in true availability, you risk rejection and abandonment, but you also have the opportunity to reach vital attunement and co-regulation that fuels you. And when you are fuelled up, the world becomes a very lovely place to wake up to.