Our expert, consultant psychologist, writer Tatyana Ogneva-Salvoni reports.
The State Duma adopted a law on domestic violence in the first reading. Earlier, a criminal case was opened for beating a family member. Now they won’t. At least for the first time they will forgive. True, the lawmakers, led by the initiator of the project, the notorious Mrs. Mizulina, clarify: only bruises and abrasions will be forgiven. If more serious harm is done to health, then a criminal case against the tyrant will be opened immediately.
It turns out that if mom walks with a black eye or a broken lip, then it’s okay. But if daddy breaks her ribs when drunk, then maybe they will punish her.
What about the children? How does it feel for them to watch Mom convulsively cover up the bruises in the morning and cry while Dad does not see? How will this affect their psyche? Psychologist-consultant Tatyana Ogneva-Salvoni told us about this.
Family beatings, especially regular beatings, are a symptom of the so-called dysfunctional family, which consists of those who, in turn, were brought up in a dysfunctional family. In which it is not customary to talk to the point, where they play the most intricate and cruel psychological games. But nevertheless, this is a family. We are used to seeing any conflict situation in contrasting colors – black, white, bad, good, we defend this, and we condemn this. If one is a priori a monster, and the other is a priori a victim, then such a perception cuts us off from understanding the situation as a whole. You can hang labels as much as you like. Let’s take a look without ratings. Why does one person raise a hand to another person? This comes from powerlessness, from the lack of words to denote what he feels and what he wants, from not understanding himself, from the fact that a person has such a hell inside that he can no longer restrain it, and this hell pours out. The anger in the soul of the family tyrant is off the charts. And behind the anger is his own enormous unlived pain. The house tyrant has a frightened soul. Why, these are already individual reasons. He fights with fear that has become his nature. He doesn’t know how to build relationships differently. Healthy contact and closeness scare him. Probably, sometime at an early, very tender age, he received a great trauma, which he could not cope with. Therefore, there is a huge shame behind the fear, so huge that the easiest thing for this type of people is to drown it out with alcohol. Shame is where a person has failed. And he lacks the courage to just see it.
Tyrant wives are also brought up ready for such relationships, as they have before their eyes the experience of their dysfunctional family. It does not happen that a girl from a prosperous, psychologically full-fledged family suddenly married a rowdy alcoholic and lived with him all her life, enduring beatings. If she does, she will not stand it, she does not have the resources for this. And the daughter of a tyrant father has the resource of maintaining a mentally unbalanced person next to her. She is a ready victim, so with her even a potential tyrant will become a real tyrant. She will allow him to do this, often unconsciously. Boys tend to defend their mothers. And subsequently, in adulthood, it is difficult for them to get out of the shadow of the influence of the mother’s figure. They seem to take the place of a protector next to their mother, most of their hearts remain with her. And if you manage to build relationships with other women, then these are painful stories. Such guys often fall in love with women with difficult destinies who need to be saved or protected. Calm, prosperous women without hysterics will be of little interest to them.
It is very difficult for girls to get out of the shadow of their tyrant father. She will look for someone like dad, a bully with a frightened soul and untied hands, but with attempts to remake him. And at the same time, provoking the use of physical force, as if arranging an exam – she achieved success on her way of redoing this instance or failed. She also has a lot of unfounded shame, and in order to overcome it, she can go all out, only to drown out this feeling of shame. However, these are some generalizations. Everyone’s fates are different, because under any starting conditions, each person always has a choice – good or evil. Real life examples. One guy’s dad drank and beat his mother, the guy grew up a recidivist robber. Another’s father also drank and beat his mother, but he grew up and became an extreme lifeguard with awards for exploits. At the third one’s dad drank and beat mom, he grew up and became an incredible writer. One girl’s dad beat her mother, she grew up and became a porn model. Another has a similar family situation, but she has become a scientific doctor of the highest level. Another one went to a nun.
Obviously, children from such a family, in which they received an outrageous amount of pain, have the hardest part – to become someone ordinary, to live an ordinary, inconspicuous life of an ordinary citizen. They are able to endure more than an ordinary person, so many of them find themselves in helping professions, where they have to deal with situations in which a person from an ordinary family would go crazy with grief, pain, and the amount of blood. It is even more difficult for them to build a more or less healthy family, where they are happy and calm, since it is the joy and tranquility that are unusual and frightening for them. They can withstand almost any horror, but they can hardly withstand happiness and silence. True, some of them manage to learn this too. But this is already for a few. Basically, they are great at life roles of either great victories or great falls. And joy, love, well-being are somewhere in between.