Bad Behaviour In Adults Often Stems From Unaddressed Trauma In Childhood:

It’s very easy to judge and condemn someone for bad behaviour with indignant contempt. But the truth is, most people aren’t born bad; they usually have a back story filled with all sorts of horrific, unresolved trauma from childhood. When we look at the root causes of violence, addiction, or destructive behaviour in adults, childhood trauma is almost always at the core.

I’ve been reading this non-fiction book called “The Ice Man”. It’s the story of a man who became a contract killer for the Mob in New Jersey. He killed more than 200 people throughout his career (if you could call it that), and his personal life. Now, I’m certainly not condoning his behaviour; it’s cold, it’s callus, and spine-chillingly mortifying! However, I couldn’t help but notice the atrocities from his own childhood that clearly led to him becoming a serial killer and assassin — a very extreme example of what unaddressed childhood trauma can turn into.

His father was a brutally violent man who used to bash him, his mother, and brother to a pulp on a regular basis. In fact, his father bashed his older brother to death in front of him when he was just five years old. Richard (the Ice Man) started to wet his pants out of sheer fear of his father; that led to him being beaten even harder. If he showed any emotion at all, that was bashed out of him too. This is a textbook demonstration of the cycle of abuse — where trauma in a child is silenced, punished, and suppressed rather than supported or healed.

His father was a drunk and a gambling addict so there was never any money for basic essentials like decent and warm clothes, food, etc. This made Richard a prime target for bullies at school. He was bullied so badly that at thirteen years old he decided to take retribution by attacking the lead bully with a baseball bat. His suppressed anger led to him losing control and accidentally killing this bully – his first of many kills to come. Again, we see how chronic trauma, violence, and emotional neglect in childhood can evolve into dangerous coping mechanisms later in life.

As someone who has studied psychology, works in the field of dealing with people with severe trauma, and from my own personal trauma, I’ve come to my own hypothesis about what separates victims and victims who eventually become perpetrators themselves. And as I read “The Ice Man”, I could clearly see how my hypothesis definitely has some weight to it.

You see, when a person becomes the victim of severe trauma, they are faced with making one of two choices. The person who chooses to stay the victim says to themselves (subconsciously), “That trauma was so painful that I don’t ever want another human being to have to go through that.” So, they make the subconscious choice to inflict that pain onto themselves. Whether that’s through self-harm, addiction, abusive relationships, etc., they are always at the helm of feeling all of that pain over and over again. This is one of the lesser understood but extremely common effects of childhood trauma in adults.

The victim who becomes the perpetrator, on the other hand, says to themselves (subconsciously), “That trauma was so painful that I’m going to make sure I never feel that way again, and the way to do that (to take control) is to become the perpetrator and be the one who inflicts the pain onto others.” It becomes a subconscious coping strategy to deal with trauma. But in order to do that, they need to dissociate from their moral compass. This is often where the narcissist, sociopath, or psychopath is born. Of course, there are varying factors, but I believe it is the need to dissociate from their emotions and moral compass in order to gain control over their pain that largely contributes to these behavioural disorders forming within their psyche.

Keeping my hypothesis in mind, as I read the following words about Richard’s first kill, I felt the validity of my theory reverberate down my spine.

“A different feeling swept over Richard: a feeling of power and omnipotence. A kind of invincibility. He remembered all the abuse he had suffered over the years because of Charley, the taunts, and put-downs, the random punches and slaps and kicks, and he was suddenly glad he’d killed him… I will never, he said out loud in the quiet interior of the moving car, ever allow anybody to fucking abuse me again. And he never did.”

It is here in this passage that we can clearly see Richard’s decision to “take back” control over his overwhelming feelings of pain is what led to him becoming one of the worst killers of all time. I also see this play out amongst paedophiles; they have usually been sexually abused themselves in childhood and are faced with the choice — remain the victim or become the perpetrator. This explanation does not excuse any of the horrendous behaviour, but it does help us understand the psychological patterns behind why some adults develop harmful or violent behaviour.

Understanding the back story allows us to hold a little compassion for the innocent children they once were. It also highlights why trauma-informed care, early intervention, and open conversations about childhood abuse are crucial. When adults learn to recognise and acknowledge trauma in children, they can get them the support and psychological help needed — before those children are left to make one of two very devastating choices: to inflict pain onto themselves, or onto others.

People aren’t born bad. They have had horrific things done to them that turn them into behaving badly. Let’s all work together to help prevent that from happening in the first place — through awareness, trauma education, early support, and compassion.

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