by Jessica Kuzmier

Created on: August 06, 2010   Last Updated: August 30, 2010

Breaking the cycle of abuse is a difficult goal to achieve.  Even though the pain of being a victim is so great that a person swears to not to be like the abuser, this resolution is much harder to implement in practical life.  Unresolved pain from the abuse and lack of healthy coping skills are two reasons why the legacy of abuse is passed down through the generations.  

    However, the good news is that it is possible to do so.  If a victim of violence learns new skills, she can learn methods to either avoid becoming an abuser herself or stopping the abusive behavior she has learned.  Unfortunately, this kind of thing requires hard work.  It is more than a snappy resolve to say the past is the past and it doesn’t matter.  In the case of breaking the cycle of abuse, a person needs to look at her past, if at least to learn to heal whatever wounds were inflicted upon her so she does not unleash her pain on some unwitting victim, thus perpetuating the cycle of abuse.  

    Unfortunately, this is a lesson I know about too well.  Rage and violence dominated my childhood, leaving me with a legacy of rage that no amount of surface changes and positive thinking could curtail.  I would try to change my thinking, but invariably the rage within poisoned my attitudes and behaviors.   Life coach Debbie Ford calls this the “beach ball effect”.  It may seem like a good idea to squash down what seems like unacceptable attitudes, thinking, and behavior, but like a beach ball pressed underwater, it will pop out when least expected.  Not surprisingly, this beach ball effect happened to me most often in romantic relationships.  The emotional volatility that goes with the territory of these kinds of relationships created the perfect storm for my own unresolved demons to come out.  It was easy to justify my own behavior when I went through the emotions myself, and just as easy to forget about what it was like to be on the receiving end.  This kind of thinking I experienced is perhaps one reason why abuse appears so cyclical in nature.

    There is another reason why abuse can perpetuate itself from one season to the next, one generation to another.  The negativity that surrounds a legacy of abuse can lead a victim to repel those who might teach him better coping skills, or treat him better in general.  A person who is depressed

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