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DR MARGARET NAKHID-CHATOOR

DURING THE last week, people have e-mailed or sent WhatsApp messages in response to my article in the newspapers on domestic violence as a hate crime. I don’t know many of these people; some are students and colleagues have also added their two cents.
What is important is that a national conversation is needed on the issue, not just in our cliques or in groups, as domestic violence has affected people’s lives intimately and others who read of their stories may be healed vicariously, knowing that there are people with similar experiences who have survived and are committed to living their lives differently. Here are a few of their stories:

Those whose mothers were abused:

“I just wanted to say that I agree with everything. The effects aren’t simple and short-term. I mean my brothers and I were really young when my mom literally ran away with us in the middle of the night. But just because we were young doesn’t mean it hasn’t affected us in some way that has a lasting effect to this day.
“It wasn’t easy. My mom was a domestic worker because my uncles said that she and her aunt couldn’t further their education after secondary school so she did not have any skills or education to lean on. My aunts had told my mom to stay with my abusive father for our sakes…yeah…I don’t get how that makes sense but yeah.
“His family had nothing to do with us even though he beat up my mother, and they ignored us. We were a broken family and lived in poverty. What drives me today is the need to be educated and not to need anyone or be in a situation where someone’s actions, like my father, dictated how my family lived.”

Witnesses to abuse:

* Intergenerational trauma is perpetrated by both males and females. I have been thinking about what causes men to hate women and I believe that it may very well be a disorder that is rooted in childhood trauma.
* I can’t tell you how many young boys I know who were abused by mothers or whose mothers saw them abused and did nothing. It’s not something we talk about. I am happy you addressed an issue that I have been pushing to be addressed and that is, what percentage of blame we women have to accept for growing boys who grow up to be men who hate women?
* When we say or do nothing about a husband or partner’s behaviour, we teach our daughters to accept that treatment, and also tell our sons it is acceptable to treat women in the same way.
* Most of these men probably were never the recipients of a mother’s true love. You cannot give to another what you do not know of.
* This is the first time I saw someone encapsulate the source of domestic violence in such a crystal-clear way, that resonated with my own experience as a child.
Prof Selwyn Cudjoe’s article, “When love ceases” (Sunday Express, March 21) was also his response and personal reflection on the issue. It was surprising, though, when he attributed his “despicable” behaviours towards his wife, as having learned them from the boys on the block, rather than acknowledge that these behaviours were in fact learned and modelled from the male person he had imitated, his own father.
But writing about abuse can be cathartic and as a professional man it is the hope that other abusers in like manner can admit to their abuse, heal from this and ask forgiveness from those women and men, boys and girls who were abused and traumatised. It is one thing to recognise that our behaviours result from childhood pain and trauma – to seek healing and to transform that pain is still quite difficult and elusive for many.
In moving forward, please note that trauma is not the event that happened to you – domestic violence and abuse in all its forms are traumatic events. Trauma is what has happened to you, inside of you, eating away your sense of self, the wounds and the pain that lingers and festers unless it is attended to in a significant way.
If there is no intervention or a conscious effort made not to model the learned abusive behaviours of domestic violence, these negative emotions are then transferred to others, most times subconsciously, in an attempt to make others feel as you felt when you were young – helpless, insecure and powerless.
Let the healing begin in this country of ours and in the world. The loss of one’s self is the essence of trauma. Seek to connect with others who can support you and to talk about your pain, or to vicariously learn from others how they dealt with their trauma. Learn from their experiences. Let the healing begin. Take care.

Dr Margaret Nakhid-Chatoor is a psychologist and educator
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