Villains

Hannibal Lecter, Norman Bates, Adolf Hitler, Vlad the Impaler, Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump. Besides being “villains” of a sort, what do these men have in common? I will give you one guess!

I had a very interesting session with a client yesterday, and he actually told me to “write about this” because he wants people to understand Complex PTSD.

With permission, I will tell you just a small bit about this client. He grew up in Connecticut, and his family is “one of the 1%.” He went to a private boarding school, under protest. Sean Spicer was in a class behind him. Tucker Carlson went to a similar private boarding school right across from his.

You might think, well, he comes from a rich family, he went to a private school (forced, mind you. He hated it and was abandoned there… just as Tucker Carlson was abandoned at his private school, but more on that later…) how can he have problems? Yet, for various reasons that I won’t get into, my client has CPTSD.

What is CPTSD? Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (complex PTSD, sometimes abbreviated to c-PTSD or CPTSD) is a condition where you experience some symptoms of PTSD along with some additional symptoms, such as: difficulty controlling your emotions, and feeling very angry or distrustful towards the world.

Now back to the “villains.”

Hannibal Lecter, as a small child, witnessed his parents murder. He was an orphan at a very young age, and due to that fact, became “parentified,” having to take care of his younger sibling. He later became a psychiatrist and “lived out his past trauma” by murdering and cannibalizing his clients. Trauma. He most likely had CPTSD.

Norman Bates was severely emotionally abused by his mother. She also harped on him how “sinful sex” was, and that “all women were whores.” Growing up like that, Norman developed CPTSD. Trauma.

Adolf Hitler. We don’t know as much about his childhood, but we do know that his father was physically and emotionally distant and neglectful. Hitler became very attached to his mother, but then she died of cancer when he was only 17. He also lived through the first World War. I would surmise that he also had CPTSD. Trauma.

Vlad the Impaler. Vlad was the second son of Vlad II Dracul. When he was 11 years old, Vlad was sent to the court of the Ottoman sultan Murad II as a hostage. His father and elder brother were assassinated when he was 16, and Vlad spent the rest of his life fighting to claim his father’s title. Trauma! CPTSD.

Tucker Carlson. His mother left and abandoned the family when he was only 6. She went “off to live the life of a Bohemian.” His father had full custody and put him into a private boarding school, St. George’s in Rhode Island. This school, at the time Tucker was enrolled, later became embroiled in sexual harassment charges. And Tucker dated, and later married, the headmaster’s daughter. Trauma?

Donald Trump was also forced to go to a private school filled by the “one percenter.” It’s fairly well known the relationship with his father was not ideal, to put it lightly. There was also conflict with his mother, and his brother. I would feel confident in saying his childhood was traumatic.

This was the conversation my client and I had yesterday. Is it no wonder that Tucker Carlson became an angry adult, after having his “Bohemian mother” abandon him? And who knows what happened at that school? And how involved was his father? Now, of course this is mostly speculation, but I praised my client. He went through similar strife as some of these “villains” but he himself did NOT become a villain. That takes strength. It takes strength to not “live out past demons.” It takes strength to not take out your anger on innocent victims. It takes strength to choose the path of good rather than evil. Having a traumatic childhood is not an excuse to choose wrongly, but it is an influence that can be avoided.

It made me think… about complex post traumatic stress, and how it effects our entire world.