Can one ever Know who is Behind what?

Marmsbrook retreat for psychological rehabilitation was situated in a fairly large forest, with only a private road that led there. There was a high fence around its yard, with a gate in it, which virtually always locked. There was also a garage (that was continuous with the fence) on one side, for staff members – and occasionally one or two of the patients – to park their cars. It could be entered by foot from the yard – by those who had keys. On the other side, though outside the fence, there was a small pond fairly nearby. In it some of the patients occasionally were allowed to go swimming or fishing, usually with at least one escorting staff member.

The rehabilitation was specialized on patients that apparently had become dangerous because of abuse. With this in mind the staff were discussing who was how much of a hidden abuser in their different patients. An old nurse, named Eva, said that for at least some – and perhaps many – of them such hidden abuse evidently came first and foremost from their mothers. She talked especially about two siblings (a brother and a sister), both of whom she had known for more than five years. “I know that both of them are so obnoxious that one would believe there's a father behind it. But, firstly, they have different fathers, but their behaviors are alike. Secondly neither of the fathers had very much to do with that child of his.”

The manager, a fairly chubby old man, hardly seemed agree. “But in that case,” he responded, “ she, the mother, would have to have been abusive in the sense that she didn't care about them – but she evidently has cared. Wouldn't it be more likely that they both felt drawn others, who mislead them? Because, there's no sign, in either one of them, of caring to acknowledge it when someone else has a stressful situation. It is they who don't care in that sense, who usually have been abused by either a father or some other male authority. Are you implying that these two are telling examples of the opposite?”

Eva looked thoughtful. “Yeah! I need to see them as telling examples of that it really must have been their mom. Because neither of them has really had much of any male authority about them. Didn't you know that?”

He cleared his throat. “In a sense,” he said after a while, “the abuse can be partly their mothers. In an other, the main abusers must have been more capable than she is of domination and callous brutality.”

“I have,” Eva objected, “investigated those possibilities, and it seems that neither of them can have been abused so much by anyone that it can compete with their mother's influence.”

Another nurse, Carla, said: “The sister seems to be into that her abuse was about being manipulated! She has had it there was no escaping mom's tricky make-believe about her that she is abusive herself. Thereby she cannot escape the notion of there being no moral to associate to.”

Both the manager and Eva looked thoughtful. For a while there was a silence, then a male nurse, Tony, broke in: “So has the other one – at least perhaps, or in a sense. Because he has confessed to me that there was no means by which he could easily feel that softness actually was trustworthy!”

Eva inhaled audibly. “Exactly!” she asserted. “That's exactly the impression I have. I mean of the both of them! Exactly that!”

“Hm, well, in that case,” the manager muttered, “I'll have to try to reconsider and re-adapt our treatment program a bit. But, as far as I can tell, I cannot, as of yet, assume that there is no actual implications of that the responsibilities of the involved have to be conformed to in any other sense than that I can have it there's no complex issues about this type of situation.” With that he closed the meeting.