Abuse is abandonment because when children are abused, no one is there for them. What’s happening is purportedly for the child’s own good. But it isn’t about the child at all; it’s about the parent. Such transactions are crazy-making and induce shame. In each act of abuse the child is shamed. Young children, because of their egocentrism, make themselves responsible for the abuse. The child says to himself, “My caretakers couldn’t be crazy or emotionally ill; it must be me.”
