Are you Victim, Denier or Abuser? Triggers of course

I assume everyone here is in the family victim role, but the family roles are interesting.

More information if you don't already know.
http://dx-dissociative-identity-disorde ... overt.html


Definite Family Victim Role here

Thank you for your post tylas. In my own system, and my experience with it so far. Most of it has been with protectors, ISH, and child parts. Also the recapturing of buried deep parts. More later after i check out your site again. Blessings

No I wouldn't agree that my role in the family is of a victim. From your own site, " The ROLE OF VICTIM, however, means not only that persona has been victimized but that he or she performs the role of victim in the family as well" --- this I do not do at all.

"They learn to respond to the abuse of others and/or their own abuse by denying the reality of the abuse" ---- this I do very well.

Tylas, I don't know why you are assuming that everyone here would be in a victim role. I certainly am not, and I'm sure there are many others that would also disagree.

Just because someone is repeatedly victimised does not automatically mean they mentally accept the 'role of victim'. They might fear being re-victimised, but that is not the same thing.
I would say an inability to accept that role, while being subject to it anyway, might establish an inclination to produce a person with a dissociated identity split. But, that is purely speculation on my part and by no means would describe every occurrence.
There are a great deal of other conditions that feed into the potential outcome when children are abused, and 'victim, offender, denier,' seems massively too simplistic for my liking.

I don't think I'm a victim, I'm definitely not an abuser, and I didn't know about the familial abuse so I guess the DID was denial but I didn't deny what I saw and remembered. I'm the only son of four children, two sisters being younger. I, as an alter, arrived just before the birth of one sister, so my role quickly became protector of the young and that assignment was owned by all alters who came after me. Actually every alter except the youngest, who's a baby, show protective tendencies so it's probably a hard-wired trait.

My parents were both dissociative and presented such an inconsistent reality, sometimes horrendously abusive, other times nice and normal, so I don't think any of us took on roles that are sometimes described as part of an abusive family.

I am so confused....

WE are all talking about our role in our Birth Family right?


Such as my Father was an Offender
Mother was a Denier and Offender

Brother became an Abuser
Sister became a Denier
I was in the Role of Victim

All 3 of us were abused

tylas wrote:I am so confused....

WE are all talking about our role in our Birth Family right?

Every person in the world is a peg. That peg is shaped is by our experiences throughout life. Some experiences cut deeper than others and reshape us. When born, every person is perfectly round. By the time we reach adulthood, some have a square shape, some are oval, some triangular.

We as DID have some very deep cuts and our once perfectly round peg now has many shapes, juts, indentations, and markings. Each peg is unique as the life that peg lead.

There are people in the world that try to make peg boards to place us all in. They try to shove the square pegs into the square holes without consideration that that mostly square piece is slightly rounded at parts. They try to place the piece that is mostly round with a few rough edges into a round slot in the peg board. In doing so they are knocking off the triangular corner and some of the paint.

Every peg is unique. Every peg has a spot on them that matches up perfectly with some spot on another peg that they were around.

When we try to fit into the peg board, we are doing ourselves an injustice. It is up to each person to try to repair the deep cuts in our peg, to repaint what we don't like, and reshape ourselves.

We can say we are mostly triangular, but each triangle has some 90 degree edges and some rounded places.

I know I don't fit into a peg board nor do I wish to change myself so that I do. I'm just looking for some sand paper, wood putty, and a few cans of paint to redesign what my childhood made me into. My shape is me and I don't wish to fit into any of those roles.

Yes I am talking about my "role" in the birth family...

but you have just said tehre that your sister was abused and became a denier.... does it not fit then that some of us on this board may have been abused and become deniers?

We are what we think we are. If we see ourselves as victims, we’ll be victims. I’ve discovered that somewhere along the line most of us would refuse to be victims and realise instead just how strong we really are. Painful memories and depression can keep us from realising that. Working on these aspects of ourselves can free up energy to work on healing, recovery and integration. I know it’s easier said than done but we must let go of the baggage and take real good care of our self - our whole self with love and understanding. We can live with DID, we can make it work for us instead of against us.

Bourbon, of course.

For others that might be confused:
Did you guys read the whole post - a copy from the book that explains the roles of the birth family in abusive families? NO wonder there is confusion. I just put a link. Here is the text from the book.

Without any doubt in anyone's mind, I was in the role of Victim in my Birth Family. Outside of the family I had parts that would take down anyone and other parts that were terrified of people.

Without any doubt in anyone's mind - I am in no way in any sort of Victim role now, but that is irrelevant to the Victim Role in the Birth Family. I am talking about your childhood - how you grew up... what caused the DID/DDNOS/C-PTSD

Page 76-85 - Renee Fredrickson, PH.D.
PDF of Fredrickson's book
This great book you can get from Amazon for just the price of shipping!

Covert System
"The covert system in sexually abusive families has certain commonalities that are recognizable to any survivor. All three of these roles, offender, denier, victim are a learned response to living in a sexually abusive family system.

Roles in Families
Roles in families are comparable to jobs in a work situation. In a restaurant, for example, the available work roles are boss, cook, waiter, and cleanup person. These work roles are filled by people of various personalities with the necessary abilities to do the job. A need exists and people perform the necessary function. For a family to be sexually abusive, people must fulfill the roles of victim, denier, and offender.

Role of Victim
The term victim generally means that someone has been victimized. The ROLE OF VICTIM, however, means not only that persona has been victimized but that he or she performs the role of victim in the family as well. In sexually abusive families, people in the victim roles have all been abused. Their response to the sexual abuse over time is the learned powerlessness of the victim roles.

Role of Offender
The roles of denier and offender are also based on learned responses to family sexual abuse. People in the offender roles have been sexually abused. Their response to that abuse is a persistent pattern of sexual victimization of others to avoid their own pain.

Role of Denier
People in the denier roles have lived with ongoing sexual abuse in their family of origin, and they have often been sexually abused as well. They learn to respond to the abuse of others and/or their own abuse by denying the reality of the abuse.

Each family member is one of the roles:

Offender Role - Deny any history of sexual abuse normally. They learned when young to deal with their own sexual abuse by identifying with the aggressor and taking out on others any negative feelings they have. Only the strong survive - hurt rather than be hurt - is their thinking pattern. Most are sexually compulsive. The father does not turn to a daughter due to preference, it's because of ease of access. They will have their sex act of choice, but if not available, anything will do. These people do not feel remorse or guilt. My brother took this role.


Denier Role - All deniers cope in a family where siblings are being molested and raped. Survival is ignoring all signs of abuse. They often marry and are oblivious to the abuse their husband is doing to their kids. They falsely believe the best way to survive is to stay on the good side of the offender. When they are sexually abused they deal with it by minimizing the abuse and then forgetting about it as soon as possible. Their response to disclosure of abuse shows a alack of compassion for their children or their siblings and a selfish focus on their own lives.Wicki hates her most of all, because she never stopped trying to get Mother to hate us.

Victim Role - This person is the target for much of the offenders sexual abuse. Other children in the family are probably sexually abused also, but the child in the victim roles has certain qualities that mark her for special attention from the perpetrator. Thus, victims are usually more systematically and severely abused than their siblings. Victims are also victims of role reversal - where the child becomes the adult, and the parents is the child. Victims are expected to take care of their parents, along with other children in the family. They must be strong enough to survive the onslaught of abuse and neglect they receive while still providing the responsible nurturing required of them as surrogate parents. Victims are criticized by both offenders and deniers for being sensitive."