Passive-Agressive Abuse

Passive-Aggressive Abuse

I have been giving advice to people since I was ten years old. I was born to teach and write and learn. Over the more recent years I have come to be aware of what I call passive-aggressive abuse or abuse by proxy or covert abuse. This is when someone is angry and tries to hide it by being nice. Then she/her finds someone to express his/her anger overtly.

One of my current clients is named Vince. When he first recalled his childhood, all he remembered was that his father abused him. I asked him one day about what his mother did while this was going on. He said, "She watched." I asked him if he was angry that his mother did not protect and he said, "no."

Months later, I asked Vince once again to try and remember his mother's role in the abuse. He told me the following story. "If I misbehaved my mother immediately told my father what I had done, and he would beat me." I said, "Can you go a little deeper?" He said, "I would be waiting in my bedroom for my dad to come home. Within five minutes of my father's arrival he would start yelling, 'Vincent come down right this moment.' Then he would yell, scream and hit me." Vince ended by saying, "I cringed when I heard his voice."

Then I asked Vince if he ever talked to his mother about this. He said, “yes.” I said, “What did she say?” He said, “She told me that when my dad was beating me, he was not beating her. Then she added that she was angry with me but did not want to be the one to punish me; that she felt it was my dad’s job and didn't want me to be angry at her.”

I pointed out to Vince that she was protecting herself, but at his expense. Then, I asked him how he felt about this, and he said, "Well I love my mom, and I forgive her, but it explains a lot about where my rage comes from and how I sometimes treat my own son."

This was the beginning of a deeper level of Vincent's self-awareness which is leading to a transformation that is changing his life. In my practice, I call this Deep Process Work." Not everybody needs this, but I did.