1.  WHO CAN I DEPEND ON?
   for sure NOT my family!

PREVIOUS: Adult Play #2

QUOTE: “To be betrayed, the person must first experience trust in the betrayer….. Betrayal is probably the most devastating loss a person can experience.”

😥 BETRAYAL TRAUMA 😲
This is when the people or institutions you depend on for survival significantly violate your trust or well-being
EXP: physical, emotional, or sexual abuse perpetrated by a caregiver
Q: Does the victim need to be conscious of the betrayal to call it “betrayal trauma”?
ANS: “No.” Being mistreated is by definition betrayal, whether the child recognizes it explicitly or not.
While conscious awareness of it may be suppressed at the time of trauma & for as long as the victim is dependent on the perpetrator, strong feelings of betrayal will eventually surface.

✍️ THEORY
Traumatic events differ in degree of fear & betrayal, depending on context & characteristics of an event.
EXP : People with a history of childhood sexual abuse – which result in PTSD & dissociative symptoms – much more often reported feeling betrayed rather than feeling great fear.  Many other studies have found that betrayal is a psychologically toxic component of events.

😴  BETRAYAL BLINDNESS 😵
Betrayal blindness is the un-awareness, not-knowing, dissociating or forgetting about —> years of painful experiences. It may extend to betrayals not traditionally considered ‘traumas’ such as gossip, inequities in the workplace & society….
• Victims, perpetrators & witnesses can each have betrayal blindness to preserve relationships, institutions or social systems they depend on.

In Childhood
• Children automatically trust their parents (caregivers) – they don’t have a choice. But that trust can be destroyed early & easily if their family & community is unreliable, non-nurturing & dangerous. The earlier the trust-betrayal, the more long-term damage is done, since small children can’t understand & process such disappointment

• Kids don’t want the instability & cruelty of their home to be true, so they can’t afford to consciously admit their suffering is being caused by the unloving adults they depend on. If they did it, it would make life even more unbearable, so they do whatever they can to deny painful experiences (blame themself, fit into toxic roles, people-please, rescue…..)

• Years of emotional pain from abuse & neglect lead children to make definite & lasting negative decisions about themself & the whole world, based on very real events. These twisted conclusions & assumptions form self-hate, cynicism, bitterness & hopelessness.

That old accumulated pain is then mirrored & added to by rigid unhealthy ‘laws’ of other dysfunctional groups such as school, church, neighborhood. The combination becomes the basis for all future choices & interactions.  Toxic beliefs get ‘written in stone’ , very hard to change in any case but impossible to correct as long as they stay out of conscious awareness.

♻️ Besides internal reasons for ‘not-knowing’, there may be external reasons for suppression. Common demands for silence come from a specific perpetrator & others (family & society’s flying monkeys), to the point of never having the ‘event’ mentioned – much less acknowledged. More….)

“Experiences that have never been shared with anyone else may create a 
different internal structure than shared experiences”
BTW: Al-anon saying “You’re only as sick as you secrets”

🙇🏻‍♂️ BETRAYAL ways
a. Programing : We were brain-washed into not trusting our own observations, opinions, emotions & conclusions.
We were:
• told “you don’t feel that way /  that’s not how it is / I don’t know why you think that / Oh, nothing (is going on)” …..
OR
• not given important information about what was really happening in the family, leaving us with an uncomfortable feeling of insecurity, wondering what’s wrong, making up scenarios & blaming ourself, thinking we’re crazy !
AND
• expected to go along with the program, no matter —— how harmful to our mental & emotional health, that it didn’t fit our native personality, how little it allowed us to explore options & possibilities in the world, or find out what our true purpose is

EXP: “The Judds” was a reality show on the OWN tv channel (2011).
Mother Naomi slowly spilled all the ugly family secrets she’s been protecting for the past 60 yrs – murder, incest, suicide, neglect…. Daughter Wynona finally has an understanding of the problems between the two, & came to have compassion for & a new trust in her mother.
Sadly,  in 2022 the severely depressed Naomi shot herself ! — just before being inducted into the Country Hall of Fame. 😭

NEXT : Trust Betrayal, Part 2