POV-2025: From Living Room to Nation: A Family Systems View of Power and Abuse
Therapist Reflection
This is an excerpt originally written in 2025 that I’m resharing as it continues to feel relevant in today’s conversations around trauma, family systems, and power dynamics. While this piece reflects a specific moment in time, the patterns it speaks to are ongoing and worth revisiting as we deepen our understanding and awareness.
September 28, 2025
Dysfunctional, traumagenic families (family system that involves ongoing interactions that cause significant psychological injury, such as betrayal, powerlessness, and traumatic sexualization) often have at their center a parent who is not emotionally mature. These parents themselves are often survivors of childhood trauma, still carrying unhealed wounds. They are walking cases of unacknowledged PTSD; many people with PTSD fall into a “flight” response—turning fear and anger inward, developing anxiety or depression. Others live in “fight” mode, lashing out at their children and the world around them. Their victimization is repeatedly manifested in their speech. Essentially their expressions relay that life is “happening to” them vs coming from an empowered state of mind. (These are the very people who will insist “I’m not a victim”.)
For children, attachment is a matter of survival. No matter how they are treated, they must remain faithful to the parent. They don’t choose to be loyal, it’s just necessary for their survival. That loyalty means pushing down their confusion, excusing the beatings, the berating, the humiliations—sometimes even sexual assault or exploitation. Any moments of tenderness are swallowed up by the larger tide of cruelty, leaving the child desperate for safety and belonging.
When these children become adults, they develop a range of coping strategies. Some find healing, but many turn to death-dealing ways of self-medicating. Addictions numb the pain for a while but soon create more suffering. Others get stuck in anger, resentment, or despair. The loyalty that once kept them safe now keeps them trapped: unable to direct their rage toward the true source, they turn it outward on peers, strangers, and groups. They envy those who seemed to receive more care, more safety, more comfort. When someone dares to speak up about their pain, the unresolved survivor feels deprived all over again—unsure of exactly what was lost, but unable to summon compassion.
I believe untold numbers of people are shaped in this way. The loyalty that once bound them to an abusive parent gets transferred to leaders who resemble that parent: falsely strong, commanding, withholding, even cruel. Familiar feels safe. They support figures who do not actually hold their best interests at heart. Many wear thick masks of toughness, mocking “snowflakes” or “the woke,” while following religious or political leaders who preach values but fail to live them. The contradiction doesn’t trouble them—after all, their first “god,” the parent, also said “I love you” while offering little real love.
These abusive parents, too, were often victims. They never broke the chain of generational trauma. “My father was strict with me,” they reason, “so it’s good enough for my kids.” Strictness was beatings. Discipline was humiliation. Support was manipulation. And so the cycle continues.
Some traumagenic families even sit atop wealth and privilege. For them, abuse intertwines with power. They learn to control, to dominate, to take “more and more,” hoping it will fill the void. It never does. Many of these wounded children have grown into today’s leaders. They polish their public images, wrapping themselves in piety and “family values,” even as they deftly engage in doublespeak.
What is doublespeak? Orwell named it well, and our government has perfected it:
“Pre-emptive counterattack”: attacking first.
“Rapid oxidation”: a fire.
“Energetic disassembly”: an explosion.
“Servicing the target”: dropping bombs.
Families use their own version:
“That never happened—you’re imagining things.”
“You’re too sensitive, it was just a joke.”
“It wasn’t that bad, you’re overreacting.”
“This is just how families are.”
It’s all gaslighting. And perhaps the most dangerous tactic is DARVO, described by Dr. Jennifer Freyd: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. We see it everywhere today. Victims are blamed, perpetrators are cast as martyrs, and the public swallows the reversal.
These patterns feel right to survivors who never resolved their early wounds. Abuse dressed up as authority feels familiar, comfortable, safe.
But healing is possible. Survivors who face their past discover that they can finally talk back, set boundaries, walk away. They can name fearmongering as immaturity, not strength. They can stop excusing cruelty, even if they choose to express compassion for those who hurt them. They recognize the chain of generational trauma—while keeping firm, life-affirming boundaries in place.
This, I believe, is where we stand in 2025. As more survivors become thrivers, as more of us demand respect and refuse gaslighting, we shift the balance. Just as a neglectful parent cannot provide the guidance a child deserves, leaders who abuse, withhold resources, attack their own people and manipulate cannot truly serve us. The imbalance is showing. And it will not stand.