Welcome to Back from the Abyss. I'm Dr. Craig Hecock. When I was in medical school, I remember a second year class where three women, I think they

were from the women's shelter, they came to talk to her class about domestic violence.

I remember really enjoying their talk.

And then I was, maybe not surprisingly, the first one to raise my hand and I asked a question.

And I asked them,

are there any risk factors for women who end up in abusive relationships? And let's just say my

question was not well received. I remember getting a very harsh response, something to the

effect that I was victim blaming, victim shaming, and that it was never the woman's

fault. But that's not what I meant at all. And it was only years later in residency that I came to

realize that in fact, there is a huge risk factor for women who end up in abusive relationships.

They almost always were abused, whether emotionally or physically or sexually,

as children. For you see, childhood abuse sets kids up for continued abuse, because one sexual

assault often leads to another, then to another, to another. But why is this?

The short answer is that predators, whether canine or feline or human,

predators can see and smell and feel weakness from a mile away.

It's as if children who have been abused are sending out some kind of beacon,

advertising their vulnerability.

But what is this beacon exactly? It could be fear. It could be the numbing of dissociation.

It could be a repetition compulsion where children and then adolescents and eventually adults,

they walk unconsciously, yet relentlesslylessly into the hands of their abusers.

Moreover, predatory humans know when their prey is vulnerable due to lack of protection from parents or guardians.

Through the process of grooming, predators can suss out whether their prey is in fact unprotected and ready for the taking.

...