The People We Ignore

We spend a hell of a lot of time explaining the behavior of adults who hurt people. Their mental illness. Their addiction. Their trauma. Their terrible childhoods. We find reasons. We make accommodations. We ask everyone around them to understand. But who's asking about the people they hurt?

When I was a boy, my mother would disappear for days, leaving me and my younger brothers alone. We didn't know where she was or when she would return. We were children, alone, trying to get through each day. And when she finally came home, the fear didn't end.

We had to figure out which version of her had walked through the door. Was she angry? Delusional? Were we safe? Did we need to fight, run, or hide? Fight. Flight. Hide. On repeat. We didn't know whether to fear her absence or her return. That was childhood.

My mother lived with serious mental illness. I understand that. I've spent much of my adult life trying to understand it. But not one time in my entire childhood did someone ask how we were doing. Not once. Nobody asked whether we had eaten, whether we were afraid, or what it was like living in that house.

There were explanations for my mother's behavior. Reasons we should understand. Expectations that we should accept what was happening. But what about us? We weren't invisible. We were ignored. And there's a hell of a difference.

And this isn't just about my childhood. Mental illness. Alcoholism. Addiction. Rage. Abuse. Neglect. For some children, these aren't occasional disruptions to an otherwise normal life. They are everyday life.

There's no clocking out. No taking a break. No escaping to somewhere better. Home is where you learn to recognize footsteps, read faces, check moods, smell alcohol, and know when to disappear. You learn to survive the very people who are supposed to protect you.

Mental illness is real. Addiction is real. Trauma is real. So is the damage. Not everyone struggling with mental illness or addiction hurts their family. But when harm is happening, we cannot become so consumed with understanding the person responsible that we forget the people living with the consequences.

We can spend years explaining why someone hurts people. But at what point do we stop explaining and start holding them accountable? When did understanding someone's suffering become an obligation to tolerate their behavior? Your trauma doesn't give you permission to create someone else's.

Yet we continue to make excuses. "That's just how he is." "You know how she gets." "They've been through a lot." "They didn't know any better." And somehow, the responsibility shifts to the people being hurt. Be patient. Be understanding. Forgive. Accept. Move on. Bullshit.

Maybe they didn't know better. Maybe they have a terrible past. Maybe they're struggling with something they never asked for. That doesn't mean everyone else has to pay for it.

Then those children grow up. They build careers, marriages, and families. Some spend decades trying to understand what happened and unlearn what they were forced to learn just to survive. Because you don't turn eighteen and magically leave childhood behind. You carry it. Into relationships. Into parenting. Into the way you trust, love, communicate, and handle conflict.

Some repeat the behavior they grew up around. Others fight like hell to make sure they never do. And when those children become adults and finally talk about what happened, people still don't know what to do with the truth. Even people who knew the parent. Who witnessed the dysfunction. Who knew things weren't right. Suddenly, everyone is uncomfortable.

"That's still your mother." "She was sick." "She did the best she could." "That was a long time ago." Or my personal favorite. "She's old. She's not going to change."

What the hell does any of that have to do with what happened to the child? Being someone's parent doesn't erase harmful behavior. Being sick doesn't erase the consequences. Getting old doesn't erase accountability. And surviving something decades ago doesn't make it any less real.

Think about this. A child can spend years surviving an adult's dysfunction, grow up, do the hard work of changing their life, and finally speak openly about what happened. And people still want to protect the adult. Again.

The child was ignored when the harm was happening. Now the adult survivor is expected to protect everyone else from the uncomfortable truth. And this is where it becomes deeply personal for me.

To this day, when I see an adult hurting someone and everyone around them starts making excuses, I lose my shit. Because I know what happens when people look the other way. I lived it.

I won't excuse abusive behavior because someone had a difficult childhood. I won't pretend something is acceptable because confronting it might make people uncomfortable. And I sure as hell won't ask someone being hurt to protect the person hurting them. Protecting people who do harm is not a game I play. It ends with me.

I've spent more than twenty years working in corrections. I've seen what childhood trauma, neglect, and instability can do to people. I've seen the consequences follow them into adulthood. And I've seen people take responsibility and change. But I keep coming back to one question. Why do we become so interested in childhood trauma only after that child becomes an adult in crisis? Where was that concern when they were eight? Ten? Twelve?

We know more about childhood trauma than ever. We have research, programs, training, and an entire vocabulary built around it. But knowing the terminology doesn't feed children left alone for days. It doesn't protect a child hiding in a bedroom, listening to an angry parent. Understanding trauma is not the same as protecting children.

Not every adult knows what's happening behind closed doors. But when someone knows a child is being harmed, looking the other way is a choice. And that choice has consequences.

Somewhere tonight, a child is doing exactly what my brothers and I did decades ago. Watching. Listening. Waiting. Trying to figure out whether it's safer when the parent is gone or when they come home. And somewhere, an adult knows something isn't right and chooses not to ask.

We spend so much time asking what's wrong with the adult. When the hell are we going to ask what's happening to the child? Nobody asked us. We weren't invisible. We were ignored.

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