Dr. Lenore Walker developed the cycle of violence theory in 1979. She studied violence in the home and came to the conclusion that physical violence is unlikely to be a once-off episode. It is more often a constant presence in the home.

She based the cycle on the similarities in peoples’ stories of violence and broke it into three phases.

It starts with tension building. The home becomes tense; people get sensitive and argumentative. Others may attempt to reason and calm them. During this phase, people may antagonise each other.

Sometimes the waiting is worse than the violence.

Then there is the explosion, during which people get hurt in any number of ways. Others will try to protect themselves.

The honeymoon phase follows the explosion. During this phase, people will do anything to make up for what happened and make many promises. Some will believe them and forgive, and be happy and hopeful again.

Until next time…

My Story

In my home growing up, phases two and three would happen while we kids were in bed. We would hear it and not see it. We would know that Mum was getting ‘a hiding’. My mum always fought back as best as she could. But he was twice her size and he always won.

It was traumatising.

By the next morning, they would have patched it up again and then life would go on as normal. We never saw them making up after the fighting. It was confusing. I didn’t know how Mum could forgive him. I also didn’t see how they reconciled. The family rules dictated that I couldn’t ask what had happened. So nobody ever spoke about it. The trauma of witnessing family violence plus the power of our family rules crippled me.

The spell wrapped itself tighter and tighter around me.

Now that I’m older I can see that there was more to it. Yes the cycle of violence happened but Mum and Dad didn’t only want to control or hurt each other. They were acting out of their own frustration at not being able to communicate. Both of them were also acting out of their own hurt; they hurt each other and they weren’t equipped to talk it out. That wasn’t what we did in those days. The rules dictated how we acted. They were acting out their own patterns of learned behaviour. I also know that alcohol lowered their inhibitions.

Waipero was present and breathing fire into both of them.

Unfortunately for me, the violence became imprinted on my brain. It became the way things are and always will be to me. I grew to expect it, and recreated it with my friends and later my ex-husband. I would push him and goad him with words until one day he hit me. That hurt was a relief. Now I knew how things worked. After that I pushed and pushed, and he turned away. We grew further and further apart until he left. I kept on recreating the patterns as the spell had taught me to. I didn’t know any better. Desperately, I was pushing everyone away while inside I was crying out to them. Even though I didn’t drink, I still used the only ‘tools’ at my disposal.

Today

Now that I've started recovery, things are very different in my own family. I am more aware of how my actions and reactions affect those around me. Knowledge of the spell and my ACoA ways have helped me. I will be forever casting off the spell, turning to my counterspell.

All of a sudden, it seems, my children are now adults and have children of their own. They are breaking their own spells and casting new ones. It is liberating to see the little ones growing in a loving healthy family. I can see that the generational spell has been forever undone when I look into their innocent eyes.

This is true of you too. Things can change for you. You can cast a counterspell. You are not six any more; your eyes are opening. How things are today are not how they were when you were a child. You are an adult now, you can take responsibility for yourself. With this in mind, maybe you need to do an update? Was your daddy a pushover and easy to manipulate? Do you still do that to others? Did you need to look after your mother after she had had a beating? Are you forever in caretaker mode looking after everyone, whether they want it or not? Is it possible that your sister’s partner reminds you in some way of Uncle Donovan? The uncle who lived with your family and hit you or touched you when no one was looking?

Warning

If you think you have PTSD please go and talk to someone about it. There are many places to get help. You don't have to go through this alone. Here is a great PTSD coach, which does not replace therapy but can be used in combination with therapy. There is also an app available called PTSD Coach. You can download it on iTunes and Google Play.

Your past

No-one is solitary. You may be alone at the moment, but it hasn’t always been this way.

For you to have been born, there must have been some sort of union between two people. It doesn’t matter where your conception took place; in a marital bed, in a car, or at a nightclub. Even if your conception took place in a lab, there was genetic material from two people involved.

Psychodrama calls this social presence in your early life your ‘social atom’. You have parents, whether you see them or not. The absent parent is still part of your social atom. You may have siblings or step-siblings. You may have other family members or neighbours that are part of your circle. They may or may not have known about the abuse and addiction in your life.

Here's a way to illustrate your own social atom. You can use toys, rocks, leaves, socks or whatever you like to depict it. Choose an object to be you. Then choose objects to represent the people in your early life. You can place them close to you or far away, depending on how close you feel to them now. You can place them turned away or facing towards you. Place them in relation to each other. Use size, colour and texture to bring the different people to life. It's especially important to be thoughtful about this.

Secondly, draw your social atom onto a sheet of paper using symbols. Use lines to show the relationships between them and you. Also, show the relationships between each other. Now you can make meaning of the relationships in some way. The relationships can be positive/positive, or negative/negative, or positive/negative. You can use plus and minus signs or colours, or whatever makes sense to you. Can you see an overall pattern? Can you see anything significant that you didn’t know before?

Your present

The drive to recreate what we know is powerful. It is familiar to us even when it is painful. For this reason, we often hear people saying things like “why do I always go for the bad boys?" or “why do I always go for people I have to look after? All my friends need constant looking after. Why do I do this?”

We've all done it. Including me. One of the reasons I married my children’s father was that he was small and feminine. So I knew that he couldn’t physically hurt me much. We recreate the patterns we learned at home. We may not even know it, or we may do it on purpose. Even choosing someone opposite to your father is still basing your choice on him. You may choose someone that doesn’t drink, only to find that they are indifferent to you. Just like Mum.

Your future

Knowledge is the first step to change. If you would like to go a little further in this exercise I can coach you through it. Or you can buy the e-book which has the next step in it. See below for details.