When I was a kid, I used to get beat up and bullied sometimes. I knew it was unfair and I wanted it to stop, so I started lifting weights. It took awhile but I got strong and powerful and sure enough I found those bullies. I grabbed them right by the throat and said “do you remember me?” They apologized for their bullying and ran away. I felt powerful but little did I know I had just completed one of the most dangerous cycles in psychology……..the process of “becoming what you hate.” I hated the bullies and had become the bully. I had become what I hated. I know a guy who was cheated on by his wife, so he went out and cheated to even the score……becoming what he hated. I know a young man who was pulled over several times and mistreated by the police. He became a police officer when he grew up and mistreated people he pulled over……..becoming what he hated. I know a girl who was belittled constantly by her teachers in public school. She grew up to be a teacher, who mistreated her students………becoming what she hated.

Humans do this because they download the idea that the abuser is the safest position to take, inside the abuser/abusee relationship. By learning this, we often become what we hate and pay the dis-empowering cycle forward without our knowledge. Today I no longer strive to abuse as a way to find safety. I can defend myself from any bully regardless, I’m older now and I’m no longer afraid. We need to find inner peace and apply it logically, so we never become what we hate. I actively struggle to become a better person daily and to break the chains that bind me to a traumatic past. You can do it as well. True story.