Betrayal Trauma: When Mothers Fail To Protect

Can we forgive the violation of trust from those who chose to look the other way?

Photo by Shifaaz shamoon on Unsplash

Bless The Daughters: An Examination into the Mother Wound, Inherited Pain and the Legacies that Shape our Lives

Chapter Four ~ Betrayal Trauma: The First Cut Is The Deepest

The winter solstice arrives; the exact moment when half of Earth is tilted the farthest away from the sun and we experience the shortest day of the year in the Southern Hemisphere. In Latin, the word solstice is made of two words: sol– meaning “the sun” and sistere meaning “to make stand”. While it may be the day with the least amount of light, it’s also one of the most powerful days of the year; a day where the sun literally comes to a standstill before it embarks upon a new shift in direction.

It also happens to be my birthday.

The day feels particularly hollow this year, or perhaps it is only me who hears the emptiness rumble throughout the chambers of my heart. It is a nothing day; the sky a bland canvas of grey, lacking in texture or movement. Once, a European backpacker passed through this way, sat at our kitchen table and declared Australian winters to be little more than a miserable autumn. The observation has never left me. I think of it today, wish the sky would feel something — break open her bleeding heart and weep downpours of rain. Instead, she remains motionless; apathetic.

My mother does not contact me for my birthday. This is not surprising yet still, I notice and try not to taste the emptiness upon my tongue but find myself ruminating on these words from Elizabeth Strout in her novel, My Name Is Lucy Barton,

“Lonely was the first flavour I had tasted my life, and it was always there, hidden inside the crevices of my mouth, reminding me.”

There is a poem, Dark Night, written in the 16^th century by a Spanish monk known as Saint John of the Cross which became the basis for the term, “dark night of the soul” — a term we commonly use in society today when describing a period of spiritual transformation or a time of feeling depressed, lost or lonely. I recognise this dark night feeling as it settles upon me, allow myself to embrace its darkness; its grief. I am familiar enough with this drawing inward process to know resistance is futile. That like the solstice we must allow ourselves to be still and rest in our days of darkness before the light once again awakens us and embarks us upon a new shift in direction.

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“Of all the responsibilities that a mother must fulfil if her daughter is to thrive, perhaps the greatest is protection. A mother who knowingly fails to protect her daughter from harm or from physical or sexual abuse at the hands of a father, stepfather, or anyone else is guilty of aiding and abetting the perpetrator. Emotional abandonment takes on traumatic and dangerous facets when she betrays her daughter by standing by and allowing physical harm to befall her.”

~ Susan Forward, PhD, Mothers Who Can’t Love: A Healing Guide for Daughters

Winter persists. Outside my window, fraught clouds move through the sky like high-speed trains, their destination unknown to all but them. Down the hill I see seagulls perched on the flats where water has begun to lay. I once read of the way seagulls fly inland when they detect a storm approaching. That their sense of weather fluctuation is razor-sharp, as is the accuracy of their internal barometer to recognise when the air pressure is shifting. How they live in large colonies to protect one another from the weather if the storm reaches them before they have a chance to move inland.

It reminds me of villages — the concept of families living and working communally, of children being raised by not just parents but aunts and uncles and grandparents and other family members. Children being kept safe by the herd; protected from any dangers until they themselves become the protectors of their own villages.

More seagulls gather on the flats; flock together against the approaching storm.

I turn away, and carry on.

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It’s difficult to know how to begin a story like this. Whether to start slowly and draw the reader in with a breadcrumb trail of my life, or begin with that which overarches all else—the first stone thrown into the tenuous waters of my heart that every other wound has since rippled from: the betrayal.

To understand the most profound component of the Mother Wound in my life — to understand the depth of pain I am preparing to excavate as I undertake this exploration — I feel it's important to know that I experienced childhood sexual abuse every day from the ages of seven-years-old to twelve-years-old.

I have thought of these years of my childhood often: the abuse, rape and trauma I experienced, but more so, the lack of action in the wake of my eventual, paralysing admission. I have, many times, wondered at the accuracy of memory — or lack of memory where there is nothing but a blank, black repression I cannot access. Wondered if I imagined my own version of events or at the least, embellished the truth of actual occurrence.

David L. Calof addresses this in his book, The Couple Who Became Each Other: Stories of Healing and Transformation from a Leading Hypnotherapist. He writes that survivors of childhood abuse often deny or minimise their abuse memories, fragmenting them into shards and leaving only the acceptable traces in their conscious minds, as remembering every detail would be a pain too unbearable to manage.

He goes on to say we rationalise with statements such as, my childhood was a little rough, he only did it to me sometimes, it wasn't so bad, others had it worse than me, commonly spoken as a way to mask the fact the abuse was devastating and chronic. ¹

For me, the abuse was devastating and chronic. But more devastating was my mother’s response, or lack of. I have wondered this often too — why my mother could not see, did not see. Chose not to see. More so, why — even after I told her — she failed to take action as I hoped she would. I have wondered if, in the humiliation and shame that came with having to speak the unspeakable, I played down the extent of the abuse in a way that made it seem it wasn’t so bad, thereby negating any need for drastic or immediate action.

Either way, I was a child violated in the worst of ways; a child who was afraid and confused and ashamed and in need of a validation and protection I did not receive. I was not removed from the life of this perpetrator, nor he from mine, but instead encouraged to forgive and forget; proffered Bible verses for guidance: If someone slaps you on the right cheek? Offer him your left. How many times do I forgive the one who hurts me? Seventy times seven.

As I write this, three decades have passed. I still do not know whether my mother believed me, or not. But what I do know now is she blamed me — for this; for everything. That if not for me, perhaps her life would have eventuated into everything she’d hoped it would be — if not for the daughter who refused to follow the narrative she'd been handed from generations before.

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On the Australian Childhood Foundation website, an article by Lauren Thomas titled, What is Trauma? lists three different types of trauma:

Simple Trauma which involves experiences or events that are life threatening and/or have the potential to cause serious injury, however, these incidents are not seen as complicated as they are not found in relationships core to survival, not likely to be associated with stigma, and not experienced repetitively over time.

Complex Trauma which involves interpersonal threat, violence, and violation and includes multiple incidents and is almost always associated with stigma and a sense of shame experienced by its victims, and is further complicated when experienced in relationships with those we look to and rely on for our survival.

Developmental Trauma which happens when other trauma — especially complex relational trauma — is experienced during a time of development and impedes the development and function of the brain among other developmentally adverse consequences. ²

However, in 1991, American psychology researcher, author and educator Jennifer Freyd, PhD, proposed the theory of another type of trauma: betrayal trauma. The Encyclopedia of Psychological Trauma, referencing Freyd's findings, says this of betrayal trauma,

"Betrayal trauma occurs when the people or institutions on which a person depends for survival significantly violate that person’s trust of wellbeing. When psychological trauma involves betrayal, the victim may be less aware or less able to recall the traumatic experience because to do so will likely lead to confrontation or withdrawal by the betraying caregiver, threatening a necessary attachment relationship and thus the victim’s survival. Research findings indicate that adults are less likely to fully recall childhood abuse by caregivers or close others than by strangers. In addition, betrayal trauma may be associated with other problems such as physical illness, alexithymia, depression and anxiety." ³

According to Freyd’s theory, someone may experience betrayal trauma when they are terrified — sometimes for their physical safety or their life — or when they are betrayed by someone who they depend on for survival, such as a parent or caregiver, whom they rely on for food, shelter and other basic needs.

Researcher, author, consultant and professional speaker, Dr Jill Manning, specialises in betrayal trauma and defines this type of trauma as occurring when, “someone we depend on for survival, or are significantly attached to, violates our trust in a critical way.” She believes betrayal trauma to be distinct for two reasons: the perpetrator is in close relationship with the victim and therefore the violation of trust is experienced as a deeply personalised offence, and due to the close and interconnected relationship between the perpetrator and victim, it can be difficult to confront or sever ties with the perpetrator, resulting in a high risk of reoccurrence. ⁴

In her book, Mothers Who Can't Love: A Healing Guide for Daughters, Susan Forward, PhD, declares the greatest responsibility a mother has is to protect her child — that if a mother knowingly fails to protect her daughter from harm or abuse at the hands of another, this finds her of equal guilt as the perpetrator.

Forward refers to those who have experienced betrayal trauma as unprotected daughters and says these daughters will enter the world in one of two ways: with the assumption that everyone will hurt or betray them and the belief they are alone in a dangerous world, or the pendulum may swing the other way and they will become overly trusting, ignoring warning signs and red flags in their desperate need to be loved.

The first can lead to being fearful and suspicious in relationships, unable to trust and expecting the worst of people. The second can lead to entering relationships where re-victimisation occurs. Either way, Forward states that unprotected daughters do not believe they are worthy of love for if they were, their mothers would never have allowed them — or worse, enabled them — to experience such devastating and life-altering abuse. ⁵

I think of these words from writer and poet, Chloë Frayne, “What a mess I have made with nothing but an idea that I am not enough.” I recognise these words in my own life; in the fallout of the betrayal trauma I have experienced — the belief that I am not enough, or worthy of love. It is the wound that has become intrinsic to my core — the one that has made me culpable for the choices I have made, or been too afraid to make; for the ways I have hurt, and hurt others.

For the way I will spend the rest of my life trying to forgive myself for the damage I have effectuated because of this belief, even as the damage of my mother’s betrayal continues to erode my entire sense of self in the world — a world in which women have been raised to be good girls forbidden to express anger toward our mothers; instead, required to overlook our pain for the preservation of a relationship we have been taught to honour.

For many years I tried to forgive my mother because I believed that to be the good thing to do, but I remained, and still remain, unable to summon sincere and authentic forgiveness. Because — as I was yet to learn — this wasn't to be the last betrayal, nor the worst.

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Next week: Chapter Five ~ The Issue of Attachment: Attachment Theory and the Mother Wound. If you’d like to continue reading and have each chapter land directly in your inbox while supporting my work at the same time, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

1. 19. Calof, D. (December 1, 1997). The Couple Who Became Each Other: Stories of Healing and Transformation from a Leading Hypnotherapist. Published Bantam.

2. 20. Thomas, L. (March 5, 2019). What is Trauma? Australian Childhood Foundation. https://professionals.childhood.org.au/prosody/2019/03/what-is-trauma/

3. 21. Freyd, J. (2008). The Encyclopedia of Psychological Trauma. Published by John Wiley & Sons. https://dynamic.uoregon.edu/jjf/articles/freyd2008bt.pdf

4. 22. Manning, J. What is Betrayal Trauma? Dr. Jill Manning. https://drjillmanning.com/betrayal-trauma/

5. 23. Forward, S. (October 21, 2014). Mothers Who Can't Love: A Healing Guide for Daughters. Published Harper Paperbacks.