When an individual becomes depressed and fearful in response to abuser it actually activates the attachment system. The individual desires proximity to the caregiver (who is also the abuser). The seeking of proximity leads you back to the maltreatment. This leads, in some cases, to hyperactive or reactive attachment disorder (RAD). The “movement” to reaction in hypersensitive BPD is triggered whenever there is an emotional injury or a lapse in attunement or even a perceived lapse (i.e., the things that activate the fear that activates the proximity-seeking). This reactivity starts much earlier in BPD individuals than in the general population (hypersensitivity). BPD individuals go into infant-mode quicker than the general population. Attachment-system determines neurobiological link to hyper-arousal and rapid cycling.
Otto Kernberg discusses temperament, identity, and its behavioral manifestation is character. The patient becomes victim and persecutor at the same time, cycling role reversal. The patient learns that they have two dyadic systems. They begin to tolerate the awareness without having to keep them separate. The split is a protection of an ideal relation. If they don’t protect it, they’re afraid of being overwhelmed by the bad one. They start to become aware of the contradictory aspects of their sense of self. They are integrating incompatible emotional experiences.
With couples who have survived or are survivors of historical or political trauma, we see a survivor mentality emerge in their dyad. “Survivor mentality,” at its most fundamental level, means loyalty to the story of suffering and survival. This loyalty utilizes shame, grief, loss, guilt, and anger. The story of survival becomes intertwined with expectations about achievement, obedience, success and failure.
“Survivor mentality” robs many of us of all or part of our childhoods. Children raised in families with historical trauma feel the weight of responsibility for redressing the balance of loss and setting things right. One way we try—and fail—to accomplish this is to challenge the power of the perpetrator through reenactment, thus reinforcing the very victimization we are trying to overcome.
What is a Re-Enactment?
We’ve all seen Civil War or Revolutionary War re-enactors at play—or at work. Historical “re-enactors” often describe themselves as inhabiting two different eras: the one they were born into, and the one they connect to historically. Re-enactment means acting on unconscious impulses that will recreate the conditions of an old situation that remains unresolved. It is a replay of an old trauma in a new context—in the hopes of finally mastering it. For example, a child who was abused might seek out abusive relationships or might become an abuser to one’s own children. The impulse may be very old, but the context in which that impulse is played out is a new one. Part of the problem involves trying to force the new paradigm to adapt to the old one.
Additionally, there are dangers associated with finally mastering the old trauma. The mastering exposes us to creates unmanageable anxiety. Why is this? Why would resolving old threats pose such a terrible risk to our sense of even very marginal safety? There are several reasons for this. They have their roots in the ways that we internalize our earliest caregivers, upon whom we depend for our very survival. In other words, resolving these conflicts can make us feel like we are risking annihilation. There is the threat of annihilating those to whom we are loyal, to those upon whom we have been completely dependent in the past. By reenacting the story time and time again and creating situations in which we are vulnerable to reenactment, we remain loyal to the story, to the master narrative of suffering.
