Stephen Prior

“If we look again at these four patterns—alternation between victim and victimizer roles, identification with the aggressor and subsequent guilt, self-blame, and the seeking of object contact through perverse or violent means—we see that each is based on a psychological contradiction. It is intolerable to live life as a victim: one is weak and powerless. But it is equally intolerable to live life as the perpetrator, for then one deserves all manner of punishment. It is intolerable to be completely alone and unconnected. But it is equally intolerable to seek relationship through perversion or violence. It is intolerable to be a passive and helpless victim. But it is painful to escape from this helplessness by believing that you caused and deserved abuse. The escape from passivity is achieved by feeling inescapably bad inside. The abused child struggles, then, with what truly are dilemmas, both of logic and of life.”
― Stephen Prior, Object Relations in Severe Trauma: Psychotherapy of the Sexually Abused Child