By Linda C J Turner | Trauma Therapy, Neuroscience & Emotional Intelligence
There’s a particular kind of pain that comes from being with someone who seems to enjoy inflicting hurt — not only with words, but with silence, neglect, control, and emotional manipulation. It’s chilling when cruelty seems to come naturally to them, as if it’s second nature. And it becomes even more disturbing when you realise that this behavior runs in the family — when siblings share the same emotional coldness, the same disregard for the pain of others, the same instinct to dominate or devalue.
This isn’t coincidence. It’s conditioning. It’s trauma. It’s survival gone sideways.
But most heartbreakingly, this kind of cruelty often seeks out gentle, empathetic souls — not by accident, but by design.
The Origins of Cruelty: A Childhood Cut Off from Safety
Children are not born cruel. They become that way when cruelty is normalized in their environment — when love is conditional, when affection is scarce, when power is the only language that’s spoken. Children in these homes often grow up learning that to survive, they must control. They must dominate. Vulnerability is punished, and emotions are dangerous.
What’s left is a child who grows up emotionally armored — a child who may become an adult that fears intimacy, despises weakness, and uses cruelty to avoid the shame that still lives inside.
In families where multiple siblings show these traits, you often find:
- Emotional neglect or outright abuse in childhood
- Environments of high control or unpredictability
- Parents who used manipulation, shame, or domination
- A family culture where feelings were denied, mocked, or punished
Without intervention, these survival strategies become identities. And from there, the cycle continues.
The Empath as the Target
Abusive individuals do not typically seek out other domineering personalities. Instead, they seek the soft ones. The fixers. The rescuers. They look for people with an open heart and a tendency to blame themselves — because these are the ones who will stay, try harder, and bend themselves into knots to “make it work.”
Empaths — with their deep capacity to love, to forgive, and to understand — often become the perfect emotional supply for people who are emotionally broken but unwilling to heal.
You’ll often hear survivors say:
- “I thought I could love them into healing.”
- “If I stayed busy and avoided conflict, things were calmer.”
- “I created my own world because I had no emotional safety in the relationship.”
What they’ve done is survived. But survival is not the same as living.
The Years You Gave, the Conflict You Avoided
To those who have spent years walking on eggshells, avoiding conflict, giving your all — I see you. It’s not weakness that kept you there. It’s the hope that things could be different. It’s the compassion that led you to understand their pain. It’s the loyalty that kept you believing you were in it together.
But it is never your job to absorb someone else’s cruelty, no matter how damaged their past may be.
Understanding someone’s trauma is not a permission slip for them to continue harming you. Empathy does not mean self-abandonment.
The Psychological Trap of Emotional Abuse
Emotional abuse often functions through:
- Gaslighting: Making you question your perception of reality
- Blame-shifting: Everything becomes your fault
- Silent treatment or stonewalling: Used as punishment or control
- Love bombing and withdrawal: To destabilize your sense of emotional safety
- Control through fear or guilt: So that you stay quiet, compliant, and small
Over time, this breaks down your self-worth. You start to wonder if maybe you’re the problem. You question your memory, your responses, your needs. And that’s exactly how control works.
Generational Healing Starts With You
When you finally step away, when you say “enough,” when you reclaim your voice — you are not just healing yourself. You are breaking a cycle that may have run in families for generations.
It is not your fault that you were drawn into someone else’s trauma — but it is your right to step away from it.
You are not “too sensitive.” You are attuned.
You are not “too emotional.” You are emotionally intelligent.
You are not “too much.” You were just with someone who was emotionally unavailable.
To the Empaths, the Survivors, the Ones Who Gave and Gave
You deserved someone who matched your depth, not exploited it. Someone who would see your heart and protect it — not trample it when it suited them. Someone who knows that love without kindness is just control wearing a mask.
If you’ve escaped, even if you’re still healing, know this: You did not fail. You survived. You preserved your spirit despite years of subtle erosion. That’s not weakness. That’s strength beyond measure.
And if you’re still in it, still figuring it out — know that you’re not alone. And it’s never too late to choose yourself.
Final Word: Cruelty May Run in Families, But So Can Healing
We can’t always understand why people turn out the way they do. But we can decide how we respond to it. We can set boundaries. We can protect our peace. We can stop making excuses for behavior that cuts us down and start nurturing the part of ourselves that has waited patiently — sometimes for years — to come back to life.
Because healing, too, can run in families. And it starts with the one brave soul who says: No more.
— Linda C J Turner
Trauma Therapist | Neuroscience & Emotional Intelligence Practitioner | Advocate for Women’s Empowerment
