A person of long-term recovery, Paul is grateful for surviving and thriving. He’s worked at 4 world-class treatment centers and served on the board of Possibilities Treatment Center. (Saskatoon) For the past 7 years he has supported clients worldwide, online, as a Trauma, Recovery and Awakening Coach. In 2021 Paul published Mistaken Identity: A Sacred Journey from Addiction to Awakening.
In this excerpt, Paul reveals how unhealed childhood trauma creates susceptibility to both experiencing and perpetrating emotional abuse. Listen to the full conversation on The Gifts of Trauma Podcast.
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As a little boy, I never learned healthy anger because I couldn’t be angry. If I was, I’d get physically hurt. Also, I never wanted to be angry like my father, so I learned to suppress my anger. When I went out into the world, I continued to suppress my anger until I couldn’t. Then I’d ‘go off’ on somebody, and my unhealthy anger poured out. I’m 62 now, but back in the day, I was Mr. Ottawa… a bodybuilder, a big guy, and pretty intimidating. When I blew up, it was abusive… so I ended up becoming what I said I’d never be—just like my father. It took a lot of healing work to understand that my father’s anger was simply his own trauma response.
I’m currently working with a 23-year-old who’s an emotional abuser. In our last session, he told me about a big argument he’d had with his girlfriend. When she answered a call from her ex-husband’s brother, he got triggered. He shared, “When she got off the phone, I lost my mind and verbally abused her.” What he overheard took him back to his alcoholic father, who left when he was young, and to his mother, who couldn’t be there emotionally, and to his abandonment issues. His jealousy is all about his inner fear and insecurity—that’s what got triggered. When I mirrored that back to him, he bawled like a little baby, because that’s not how he wants to be with the woman he loves. He’s bringing his own unhealed trauma and his own unhealed past into his present-day life. That’s what we all do, until we’re aware… Until we work through our own healing.
“If we just look after the abused and don’t do anything for the abusers, we’re nowhere. It’s got to be equal.”
Abuse is never right. I’ve abused people emotionally on occasion. Many of us have. But consistent emotional abuse within a relationship is a different beast. In Compassionate Inquiry®, we explore what makes some of us susceptible to emotional abuse. We’re not weak—we’re empathic, sensitive, and deeply caring. But at some point in our childhood, we chose attachment over authenticity. When I invite a client back into their childhood, together we discover what made them susceptible to abuse. It’s not about blame; it’s about understanding.
Gabor Maté observed that when a pedophile goes to a playground, the child that they target for abuse is one who already has big trauma. The other children won’t go to him. Likewise, the abuser targets people who are already susceptible to abuse. This is something I convey with great compassion to my clients, because I don’t want them to feel shamed or blamed. Their susceptibility comes from their early childhood experience. It’s connected to them not getting the love and acceptance they needed. And from learning, very early, that their emotions don’t matter.
If we look at a few of the seven impacts of trauma, we see that we disconnect from ourselves and we disconnect from our gut intelligence. We disconnect from others, whom we also don’t trust, because of our unhealed past. Our negative views of the world cause us pain until we heal them. The impact of our early trauma creates a susceptibility to emotional abuse. Nobody’s at fault here. Since childhood, our nervous systems have been conditioned to feel comfortable with this style of relating. They got wired a certain way, so when we meet someone else with the same wiring, it feels good. And when we meet someone with a healthy relating style and different wiring, it doesn’t feel so good, and we don’t connect. That’s just how it works.
Imagine a little child being raised by parents who are doing their best, yet still passing on the emotionally abusive relating styles with which they were parented. When that’s what you learn, that’s what you pass on, and that’s what you’re attracted to. You grow up and find a partner who reflects that relating style. It feels comfortable because it feels like being with family. You don’t know what’s going on. You’re just repeating the patterns you were familiarized with as a child.
So getting into an emotionally abusive relationship is absolutely not our fault. But getting ourselves out of them and breaking the pattern does become our responsibility.
In my book I talk about a moment in time when I was two years clean and sober, working at a treatment center. One day it hit me that I’d been waiting all these years for my father to rescue me, for my mentor to rescue me, for my sponsor to rescue me… What also hit me was that no one’s coming to rescue me because it’s no one’s job to save me but mine. It hit me in the body, in the heart, and in the gut. I cried a river of tears, and afterwards, I felt free! I understood that from then on, I was going to take 100% responsibility for my life. Then my life began to change.
Being responsible for your healing doesn’t mean you caused the abuse. It means you’re the one who gets to end its influence. Responsibility is about owning what’s going on, diving in, and doing the healing work. That’s why Compassionate Inquiry® is so powerful. If we don’t heal, we’re just going to attract another abuser, the same person in a different body. A line I really like says, “If I don’t heal what happened, I carry the abuser with me long after they’re gone.” – Unknown
One of the biggest barriers to taking responsibility is being in the victim mode. Getting out of it is the first essential step in healing. Imagine not doing your healing work because you’re stuck on… It’s the abuser’s fault. So you don’t take ownership or responsibility. You’ll know you’re in the victim mode when you’re blaming. Yes, you’re being victimized, being abused, But the faster you can come out of that and own what’s going on and take full responsibility… the sooner you can begin to heal. “It all begins with us.”“Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. And in between the two, my life flows.” – Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Gifts of Trauma is a weekly podcast that features personal stories of trauma, transformation, healing, and the gifts revealed on the path to authenticity. Listen to the full conversation, and if you like it, please subscribe and share.
