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Wait. . .Who Am I Here?
Trauma’s Sunken Place
“Wait. . . who am I here?” is a line from the film “The Stepfather.”
This question marks a turning point in the story — the point at which the sociopathic crazy person realizes that he has lied to so many people about his identity that he cannot remember his current alias. He’s got multiple families with multiple wives, kids, and “jobs,” and he’s lost track of himself. He doesn’t know who he is, here.
I’ve been multiple people. Or, I’ve played many roles. Maybe those two things are the same thing. Maybe I’m a sociopath too. I don’t know who I am, here, in the new world after trauma. In the world where the rules that upheld my prior understanding of reality have been violated so badly that I cannot claim that I ever understood anything.
Judith Herman, in her book Trauma and Recovery, says
“But the final step in the psychological control of the victim is not completed until she has been forced to violate her own moral principles and to betray her basic human attachments. Psychologically, this is the most destructive of all coercive techniques, for the victim who has succumbed loathes herself.”
Well, that’s what I did. Violated my own moral principles and betrayed my basic human attachments. The unfortunate result, for me anyway, is that I no…
