The Danger of Being a Whistleblower
The intention to heal is a threat to the system, the family, to the parents, even to society. Becoming a healthy authentic and autonomous being is a subversive political act, for which, in some countries and situations, people are forced to give up their freedom, and sometimes even their life.
Never underestimate the fact that, as much as politicians and governments say that they want everyone to live a good and healthy life, what in general they mean is that you should be controlled and only given ‘freedoms’ that fit with their own long-term goals. Because, whatever anyone may say, those who hunger after power over others have an agenda that is more often than not against the autonomy and self-authority of others, and is fuelled by their own trauma and their survival strategy of perpetration.
As much as a family that has harboured trauma and perpetrator-victim dynamics for generations, cannot tolerate someone in the family reaching out for something else – personal knowledge and healing – because it threatens the system, this also applies to societal systems.
To go to a therapy that understands trauma as we do in IoPT, is a threat as much to the status quo of society as it is to the family system. The whistleblower, whether blowing the whistle on the perpetration within the family or within government or society, puts him or herself in considerable danger. We have seen this with Edward Snowden, who still has to reside in Russia because in the USA he will be tried as traitor, and most likely jailed for the rest of his life, if not sentenced to death. And we can feel this in ourselves as we approach the issue of naming and revealing the truths of our family in the therapeutic setting.
To step away from the established, primarily perpetrator-victim dynamics, and the insisted upon ‘reality’ of the traumatised and traumatising family by speaking out loud truthfully about what happened to us, and feeling our own pain, is more often than not seen within the family system as a terrible betrayal. And then the weapons family members may use against this ‘whistleblower’ are hatred, ostracisation, shame, blame and guilt tripping…. all a form of ‘killing off’ the person.
Even if we do not actually tell our family the truth, (and I would certainly recommend that people think carefully about rushing to tell their mother and father and siblings what they have found and understood about the perpetration in the family), they will know anyway because of how different we are. The truth spoken, even within oneself, shows in how we then live our life. The traumatised family, the perpetrator family, cannot tolerate what they experience as such a betrayal.
Thus, we can see that becoming truly ourselves holds a considerable challenge … we have to be willing to lose our family if necessary. And this means truly giving up on the deeply held illusion in all of us that if l hold still and quiet within the system, I will, eventually, gain my mother’s love.
Breaking away from the held ‘reality’ of perpetrator systems is always seen as a betrayal, primarily of the mother, and those family members (siblings etc.) who still hold to the family reality. All will blame this “whistleblower’, because it is too frightening for them to break free as well, and they too all hold the deep delusional yearning for the mother’s love.
Taking oneself and one’s trauma seriously may indeed, in very traumatised families, have potentially serious consequences, but this is the price of freedom.