Some homes raise children right, while others exhaust them quietly. Some roofs do not leak rain; they leak silence. Some walls do not echo just laughter; they rehearse secrets too heavy for a child’s spine. This is the reality that we rarely title correctly, even when some of us can relate to it on reflection. We sometimes call it culture, spiritualize it as a ritual for ungodly gains, or outrightly excuse it as tradition. But in all honesty, it is a wildlife disguised as a family where inheritance soon becomes silence.
The first betrayal is not the abuse, it is the normalisation of such an act. In dysfunctional abusive homes; and in some cases polygamous settings, evil rarely arrives wearing horns. It mostly comes with routine. A youngster soon learns early that: pain has a schedule, the authority is indisputable, silence is survival, and boundary is negotiable. The worst atrocities are not always violent, some can be systematic in identity. Such an act not only stays in their childhood, but it matures with them into adulthood.
It could just begin with a look held too long, a touch explained away, and a night that becomes a memory no morning can cleanse. The child is then taught the most complicated lesson of all: “You must never say what just happened to anyone.” In some broken polygamous homes for example, love is not multiplied, it is simply rationed. Affection becomes a currency, while the children become the collateral. The women compete, while the men dominate; and the innocent disappear between two hierarchies.
Where power is unchecked, bodies become territories. If accountability is absent, abuse becomes tradition. So the children grow up believing that authority cannot be questioned, and that pain is deserved. They also feel that God is watching but unmoved. Child abuse not only robs their innocence, but it also mutes their mouth; making it difficult to speak. Then they grow up and are not able to explain why so much anger lives under their skin, and why intimacy with just anyone feels unsafe.
Such individuals may become successful in life and respected. However, they remain internally homeless. The tragedy is that they survived the house, but the house did not let them go. And without divine intervention and healing by God’s mercy, one or all three things often happen: they become emotionless, alive, but absent. They also become angry and fight ghosts that no one else can see. Lastly, they become the echo; repeating what wounded them, while they constantly hate themselves for replicating that same pattern.
This is how bloodlines bleed without any visible wounds. This is also the sad reality of how generations inherit silence instead of surnames. The most destructive lie whispered to abused youngsters is this: “If you survived it, it wasn’t that bad.” But survival is not proof of health, and scars that do not bleed still ache. Many individuals do not know they are wounded; they only know they are tired. And yet, mercy interrupts history and some people wake up to the truth, no matter how late it took them to realise the facts.
The worst thing that can happen to a person from a complex background is not that they were violated, but that they were never told the truth about it. But the most powerful thing that can happen to the victims is realizing that they were never the problem. Once this is known, then the wilderness loses its power, the house collapses, and history eventually meets mercy. A healed individual interrupts cycles, and names what others hide. Such a person is not weak. They are proof that mercy can rewrite bloodlines, trauma is not destiny, and EL-ROI still delivers individuals from houses that were never homes.
Abusers are often once abused, even though it doesn't excuse their behaviour. While silence becomes a plot, pain seeks expression. Some even turn to addiction, reckless behaviour, or suicide. This is not a weakness, it is untreated anguish exceeding human capacity. It is not because they are evil, but because untreated trauma re-enacts itself. This is how some generations are destroyed except by divine help, mercy, truth, therapy, and a safe community.
One of the most tragic outcomes of an abused person is their inability to form a healthy relationship. Love may feel suspicious, suffocating, and dangerous to them. They may also crave closeness yet sabotage it, fear commitment, and confuse control with care. Marriage, parenthood, and friendship become battlefields instead of shelters.
✍🏽 William Z. Bozimo
Veteran Journalist | Columnist | National Memory Keeper
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