Betrayal is a form of killing that causes slow and painful death, of trust, of caring, of intimate sharing, and ultimately, of relationship. But what of the killer, and what of the killed? The betrayer and the betrayed?
I heard the words betrayal trauma, and like the code being correctly clicked into place to open a safe, I finally understood some of the clients I have worked with over the years; clients that had cold hard facts, evidence they spoke, and proof that they proffered in sessions, that should have had them heading for the hills away from people that had corrosive control over their souls, but alas, they could not, would not, extricate themselves from their vicious and sometimes violent oppressors. How come? Why, given all they had experienced, and shared in sessions, were they so reluctant to disengage from their abuser?
It's a trick, a sleight of hand in the mind, dear reader. We are the biggest liars when we see what we want to see in another, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary. We lie to ourselves, and with magical thinking, we believe we can somehow sweeten up the sour pusses, soften the emotionally hardened, and kind our way into a self-absorbed soul, to manipulate them into returning the favour. Sure, we may have been misled, but it doesn't take much encouragement for us to mislead ourselves. Are you blaming the victim? is your question. Yes, perhaps I am on some level ... it is with the hindsight afforded the seniors among us, and that includes me, that I can say, I have done my fair share of hoping against hope with people that displayed unsavoury character flaws that I accommodated, because I wanted to see past the obvious and into their depths, into what lay beyond ... I have discovered, sometimes there just isn't anything to see, because there is no depth to dive into!
My most successful clients are bullet biters. They are the stuff of which great humans are made. Honest clients want not only to hear the truth, they want to live it. This means that the sleight of hand is stopped dead in its swiping tracks; the trick of mental manipulation is called out: they start to see with eyes that do not want the shield of rosy colouring. They see, and hear, in black, and in white. From the *scary safety of honest to goodness truth telling, a path is cut; a trajectory begins to draw them out of the circumstances and situations, that formerly had them dancing to the beat of their betrayer. I wager it is self-betrayal that is the most painful to face, when we have compromised who we are and what we want, by going along with the idea that we can change another to suit our own dreamy desires. The bullet biters face the facts when they see how they have contributed to their own downfall. The brave hearted will look at the trauma they have caused themselves by betraying their own soul, and they will want to rectify the situation, course correct, and live a pristine sort of life, based on what they value the most: Truth.
Betrayal is a brutality that takes time to recover from, but the recovery cannot begin until the injured person acknowledges that betrayal has occurred. Jesus died on a cross, betrayed by humanity through our sin. It feels great to point a finger or wave a hand in the direction of people that have hurt us and betrayed our trust, but when we recognize we have done the very same things to each other, and to the Creator, that asks only for our devotion, in return for his forever faithfulness, we recognize we have some forgiving to do and some forgiving to ask for too. This does not mean we continue to subject ourselves to the trauma of ongoing betrayal, it means we hold ourselves and others accountable, even to the point of removing them from our lives, if they are not willing to change, and we are no longer willing to accept them as they are.
There are many people that have been victimized by psychopathic narcissists. Upon listening to the stories of women defending the men that had very nearly murdered them, I learned that because of the trauma this type of betrayal caused, they could not see the men as they were, wicked perpetrators and killers. To be clear, we do not consciously begin relationship with people we suspect might eventually want to strangle us to death; that is a ludicrous idea. Evil is insideous, and sometimes shows itself as filled with light, wooing and winning victims, telling them what they want to hear in order to captivate. It is when evil begins to show its ugly face, that we must start the question process, and ask ourselves:
- Is what I see now, the real person?
- Is the one I thought I knew a fraud, a pretender, a predator revealed?
- What do I observe, that has me wondering what has changed, and why?
*Scary safety: it is frightening to face facts, but freeing at the very same time. It is not easy to begin the process of change, but those that want to live free from mental manipulation, their own and that of others imposed upon them, will do the work required to stay the course, despite the challenges and painful reconciling that is encountered, and engaged with, along the way.
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