According to trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk, “Being treated by family members as irrelevant . . . creates another kind of psychological pattern. People’s identity is formed around questions like ‘What did I do wrong?’ or ‘What could I have done differently?’ That becomes the central preoccupation of their lives.” Wounds lead us to believe we can control people, change them, if only we contort ourselves just right—it’s a problem of mistaken omnipotence. We’ve heard of fight, flight, or freeze reactions in response to trauma, but the last response is fawn: try to get people to like you so
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