First off, I will never be a supporter of anyone who passes on their past trauma onto others, it just can’t ever make sense to me. Everyone is going through messed-up things, and most of the time, we let the people who hurt us go scot-free while we end up punishing innocent people who had nothing to do with the pain we’re feeling.
Had a bad day at work? No problem! Instead of taking it out on toxic colleagues and bosses, they’d rather go home and dump all that aggression on their spouses and kids. And many times, they do these things and cite their past trauma as if it makes it all okay.
These days, when you read about serial killers and known rapists, you hear things like; he was abused as a child and bullied a lot, and that pushed him into such a life. Like bro… the people he’s raping and killing in the present didn’t bully him in the past, why the hell do they have to pay for sins they didn’t even commit? There is no way I would ever see anything right in the transfer of aggression. No matter how painful or hurtful something is, you have no right to inflict it on others.
That’s why it’s always advisable to take time to heal after breakups, especially the messy ones. Because if you don’t do this, whatever relationship you get into will always be messy, and your new partner will be paying for sins that your old partner committed. They’d be fighting a battle with an opponent that’s not even on the field. Can you imagine how crazy that is?
There are so many instances I can give about people passing on trauma. The truth is, many times trauma makes people stronger, but it can also make them weak in a big and dangerous way. Humans have a thing for shared joys and pains. That’s when things are going well for you, there are those who will be there simply because things are good. The moment it flips, they disappear. Also, when things go bad, there are those who will be there because they are sadists and just love sadness for some reason.
Trauma touches us all differently. Some might go through a terrible experience that no one should ever have, and they’d end up becoming advocates about it, doing their best to protect everyone else from experiencing that. Others will go through the same thing and want to carry as many people as possible into the same pit. That’s why two women can be victims of domestic violence, one could go on to open up an NGO that fights for Women’s rights and clamors for safety in homes and persecution of all abusers. Meanwhile, the other woman may choose to see it as the norm and even end up advising other women to stay with abusive partners.
I can say this because it’s something that we see on a regular basis. A young lady can complain about being beaten by her husband and how she plans to leave, but then you’ll see ‘mature’ ladies talk about how she should stay because they also had it worse and they survived it.
This is the same way lecturers of today refuse to make the educational system easier for their students. Because during their day, they had to do so many things by hand, they had to walk long distances in their quest for knowledge. Many of them hate that we have it so now, so they just give us pointless work to stress us out. Because if you’re not suffering for it, it’s not good enough. That’s why a lecturer in this big 2025 will be demanding that a student write a project by hand! Or demand that assignments be done only by hand, or submitted to their desk. When it can be easily typed and sent to their email. But no, far be it from them to make things easier.
The cycle of pain is never-ending, it spreads like a virus, and it takes down anything in its path. Because everyone it touches goes on to inflict the same pain on others, and that’s how it moves on from generation to generation. For many, it could end up being the only thing they know. And the only way it can ever really stop is when one person refuses to let their trauma decide for them.
I know that trauma and pain can be overwhelming, but I refuse to accept any explanation that allows for it to be transferred to people who don’t deserve it. It’s just like having an armed robber stealing from me, but since I can’t do anything to hurt them, I arrest my neighbor instead because I suspect he could also be an armed robber. And just like that, it keeps going.
It’s a crazy world, we’re already going through so much. Don’t come making it worse by heaping all your unresolved issues on innocent souls. We can do better.
