Grooming In Abusive Relationships

While being groomed might seem pleasant, in abusive relationships, it is a way to be manipulated, used, and coerced into doing harmful things to self.

Grooming is a way for the abusive parent or partner to transfer their responsibility onto their victim. The abuser knowingly works at exploiting their victim. Once groomed, the abuser can take from the victim any time they want to, and they can keep their victim submissive to them. In any kind of abusive relationship, whether it’s physical, verbal, sexual, or emotional, the abuser transfers their shame onto their victim. The victim absorbs their abuser’s projected shame and takes it on as their own, which keeps them small and submissive. Once the abuser has transferred his or her shame onto their victim, they no longer feel shame about the abuse they inflict. They can feel justified and blame their victim for the abuse and believe that the victim “deserves” the abuse for all the “pain” they cause the abuser. It very much gets twisted in the abuser’s mind, which helps them continue to abuse their victim.

The parent who abuses believes that the child needs to be corrected, punished, and controlled or they child will do the wrong things in life. The partner who abuses feels like they possess their victim. They can feel jealous of the victim or can be jealous of others who want to “take” the victim’s time or love from them. The abusive partner might hit, manipulate with tears or yelling, or use verbal assaults to control their partner so their partner will not leave them. In adult relationships, an abusive person will control their compassionate, fawning victim into feeling sorry for them by explaining how they have always been victimized and hurt in their lives. This will make the victim feel sorry for their abuser, which keeps the victim loyal to their abuser. Playing on the victim’s fears that abandoning them will make the abuser have to resort to self-harm or that the victim will appear selfish if they leave the “poor” abuser is manipulation and control. It is emotional abuse. It is the exact opposite of love. Love is freedom. The abuser cannot allow their victim freedom because it could mean that the abuser loses control and might be abandoned by the victim once the victim sees the light and realizes they are being abused. So, the victim begins to feel that the abuse is their fault for being “bad” and this also keeps the victim quiet and unwilling and unable to seek help from others or to leave the relationship. Additionally, by using charm and manipulation when the abuser feels like they are losing control of their victim, they confuse the victim into thinking that there is really no abuse or that when there is, they deserve it because the abuser is really “so nice” and “so kind” to them and “loves” them. This is called cognitive dissonance. The brain cannot figure out what the truth is and so it chooses to believe that the abuser is loving and good instead of dangerous, mentally ill, and harmful, which would make the victim afraid of losing the abuser, who he is toxically connected to due to the intermittent reinforcement and occasional love-bombing they receive from the abuser.

In childhood, the abuser uses charm, manipulation, shame, religious beliefs of the family, the family’s dysfunctional story or false beliefs, bonding, gift-giving, isolation, favoritism, and their authority to groom the child. When the grooming is covert, it is more damaging because then the child suffers from cognitive dissonance as well. In other words, when a parent acts lovingly toward the child most of the time or in public and has a public image of being a doting, self-sacrificing parent but then is abusive behind closed doors or at intermittent times, it confuses the child. The child always wants to believe that their parent loves them. To believe that their parent is abusing and using them would increase the trauma to an unbearable level for the child, so the child finds ways to survive and convince their minds that they are the cause of their abuse and that it is their fault and not their parent’s.

We all know that the consequences of child abuse are very damaging, but we might not know exactly what is occurring for the abused child. As mentioned above, he or she begins to lie to themselves and believe that they are to blame for their abuse; that they are unworthy of good things; and that they are shameful. What solidifies these lies is the over-arching belief that they are powerless to change any of it. And as children, they usually are powerless to change any of this because the family dynamics at play will not allow for the child to think or believe anything else. To have a good self-image and to be confident threatens abusive people, so the child learns quickly to play small and not be “too big for their britches.” Basic emotional literacy and intelligence are not learned and attachment to caregivers is ruptured, leaving a child with an anxious, avoidant, or fearful attachment style. Knowing how to do practical life tasks such as finances, having healthy relationships, and finding employment can be impaired by the abuse and the false beliefs that the child is not good enough in some way is perpetuated by a shaming and loud inner critic. The abused child’s higher-level brain does not develop well, leaving them with what we call a “bottom-heavy” or primal/reptilian brain.

It is only when a child grows up that he or she can heal. However, because the child was groomed from very early on in life (often since birth), they will unconsciously attract to them other abusive people in the form of close friends, bosses, and love partners. They are already in a small, shame-filled, and submissive energy and those who need to exploit, manipulate, and control others can easily spot someone who is primed and ready for their abuse. This is how generational trauma lives on and on.

There is, however, much hope for the trauma and abuse survivor. As an adult, you can move past your generational trauma. You can learn to have a secure attachment style even after years of abuse in your life. You can have a completely different life than the one you had as a child. You can seek help and move forward in your life into happiness and freedom from abuse. Learning to accept and have compassion for yourself, to stop abandoning yourself, to change the false beliefs about yourself that were created by your abuser, to reparent yourself, and to love the parts of you that were impacted by your abuse is very, very possible and will free you to find your inherent joy in your life. You can become or remember your authentic self. This is very promising work we are doing these days.

I help you move out of these old, unconscious and outdated patterns that were created in you as a child before you can even remember it all happening, so that you can consciously change now in this moment. It is never too late to change. You CAN do this!