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As we can see, abuse in childhood can simply continue over a period of time which conditions the victim. In many ways, a child is conditioned over time to accept the abuse just because it happens repeatedly. The child begins to navigate around the abuse to help reduce the events of the abuse by trying to figure out the ever-changing house rules.
In abusive homes where the parents are abusive to the child/ren, the rules are usually extreme. They change constantly. One never knows what will “trigger” the parent’s temper. Are they going to be nice or mean? It’s hard to tell. The abuse conditions you for more abuse.
The conditioning comes from the little things most of all. The little comments such as, you are no good, you are stupid, you are a liar (when the child speaks the truth that the abuser doesn’t like), you are weak, you think you are special (when the child is seeking approval), and so many more things. It’s the verbal abuse along with the little things like tripping the child as the child walks by. It’s the little things that condition the child.
Another thing that abuse uses to condition a child is withholding things they need like affection, food, sleep, and safety just to name a few.
What can being conditioned look like
It looks like bad decision making. Many people use their experiences to make decisions. If those decisions are made on faulty information, they will look like a bad decision. It will reap the consequences of a bad decision and can lead to more traumatic experiences as well because when the information is bad so will be the decision.
It can look like angry outbursts. I know when I go into full survivor mode, I’m ready to fight to the death or maybe run for my life. Sometimes I freeze and can’t speak or move. I don’t want to use the word triggered because that word has been bastardized into a minimized definition. But when I’m having a PTSD reaction, it can look like an angry outburst. After all, what does a warrior charging into battle look like?
It can look like a suicide. It is not uncommon for teens and adults who survived childhood abuse to attempt suicide. Sometimes they are successful. Abuse tears down your self-worth, it destroys your sense of self, and with the shame and guilt that gets piled on the child, the child has no choice but to learn how to live with the burdens of all the horrible things they are told they are. They have to carry the burden of being stupid and socially unacceptable, not worthy of love, not worthy of protection, not worthy.
It can look like the individual is a nervous nelly. An adult who survived child abuse is now conditioned to worry about every single thing they do. Will it piss them off? Will they get mad at me? Will they attack me if I make a mistake? Circumstances were always on rocky ground with the family.
It can look like this person is a magnet for traumatic events. When you can’t recognize the warning signs, it makes it quite impossible to see it coming. When an individual is always on alert but everything looks the same on all sides, the individual’s conditioning prevents him/her from being able to determine if the situation is safe or dangerous. When Home looks the same as the danger zone, there is no way to tell the difference.
The conditioning can lead to more abuse and that is what it did for me. I had several more traumatic events take place over the next 30 something years. Now that I was growing up and was developing as a young woman, new perpetrators sought me out. Well, they were seeking the perfect victim and I was just that. Conditioned especially to be abused, attacked, and used.
We as human beings all are conditioned. Conditioning can be intentional like when we make a conscious effort to change a habit. It can also be positive as well as negative. It is the best ideal situation to be conditioned in positive ways that help us live up to our potential but there are many common ways to condition a person in a negative way.
We sometimes call it abuse, gaslighting, or brainwashing when it is negative conditioning. It depends on the tactics used. The way I see it is that Positive conditioning uses methods such as tools like journaling, meditation, and exercise. Negative conditioning uses tactics such as the manipulation tactics used by Narcissists or the government.
Negative conditioning that uses narcissistic manipulation tactics is the most detrimental of all the abuse out there. That can be such a mind screw that all you can do is walk away from them until they see through the gaslighting and accept the fact that they may never wake up from it.
The Boy Who Wouldn’t Take No For An Answer
School just let out. It was a nice day in Downey, California. Tina was now going to a public high school for the first time. She is sixteen. All the other kids had no problem getting around. However, Tina was simply trying to learn how to navigate all those classroom changes and so many kids. She wasn’t used to it. She was used to the small little Christian school. Maybe 3 peers max in her last school. Maybe 30 kids in the entire school.
She always struggled socially anyway. The family moved around a lot. It was common to go to 3 different schools in one school year. It was difficult for Tina to make friends and eventually she never learned how to make friends. But she tried none-the-less.
She got $20 and a kid at school talked her into buying a bag of weed. She didn’t know what she was doing so she gave the money to the kid and he went and bought the weed. He brought it back to her. It wasn’t very much but it was enough.
Tina didn’t smoke weed but she really wanted to fit in. She really wanted to make a friend or two. Before she knew it, a whole group of kids were sitting around her at one of the kids’ houses. Their mother was single and was a working mom and wasn’t going to be home until after five.
The older brother who lived in the house was there and rolled all the joints to give away. After all the kids left, Tina had to go home too. The older brother, Mike Edwards, talked her into going on a walk with him. He took what she had left and rolled another joint.
He coaxed Tina into smoking some with him. She had never smoked it before and didn’t know what to think about it. All the kids seemed to not worry about it and liked it. So, she did.
After that, she walked home. Or at least she tried to. She stumbled home and when she got there her dad noticed how intoxicated she was. Of course, she was fine after dinner but it was an interesting experience for Tina.
The boy, Mike, kept calling her in the middle of the night. It was a landline with a few phones hooked to it. One is in the parents’ room. A common routine went like this. Tina had to get up early for school the next morning. She would go to bed by ten. In the middle of the night, this boy would call.
Tina answered the phone as quickly as possible before her parents did. He would tell her to sneak out and meet him. When she would decline he would threaten her.
He was usually intoxicated or wanted to get intoxicated. He would threaten Tina and pressure her into taking a drag off his joint or a sip off his beer. Then he would scream the cops were coming to freak her out and then he would laugh.
He did things like this one time, he threatened to attack her little sister Mary and she still refused to meet him. The next day Mary told her how nice of a guy he is and that he said to say hi. Just to let her know he could make good on his threats.
Another time, he came over and crushed in her father’s hood of his car. To show her that he could follow through with his threats. This went on for 6 months before her parents got sick of being woke up in the middle of the night by the phone ringing.
Dad answered the phone that night. Dad yelled, the boy threatened him and mom and dad had questions for Tina. Tina told what was happening and how he had been threatening her and so dad made Tina show him where the boy lived. He went in there and took care of the boy. The boy didn’t give up. He still tried but he said her father was a crazy old man. Takes one to know one I say.
Tina threatened to sick her father on him. He tried one more time but Tina was pregnant so he didn’t try as hard and that was the last time he tried. Tina had a lesson in intimidation and how it works for defense as long as you can back it up.
How Do perpetrators find their victims?
I have already spoken about conditioning. What does conditioning have to do with the perpetrator. What does my conditioning have to do with Mike Edwards? He isn’t conditioned.
True, but he consciously or unconsciously selected me directly because I was conditioned in such a way that made me vulnerable to his assault tactic. He used manipulation to get me to comply with his will. I was conditioned to comply with those types of manipulation tactics.
I fit more of the criteria than just the conditioning. The way I look, the way I dressed, my mannerisms all gave him the indication that I would be the perfect target for him.
If we look at conditioning in the terms that I’m using it, we can see that he is conditioned, we all are. It’s just a matter of how are we as an individual conditioned and who did the conditioning. Conditioning is also sometimes called training and we can condition our own mind and body as well.
The one thing I take away from the whole idea of conditioning is that we have the option and the capability to re-condition ourselves. That’s what I’m doing on my healing journey.
