Complexities

I think that you are correct identifying alcoholics as invalids, their infirmity is inside of them...
invisible until they add the alcohol to their system.

I think that that train of thought could be expanded for perpetrators of violence as well.
They are black holes that suck people into them...
and then abuse them because to relieve their own pain.

On of my central disagreements with the domestic violence movement is that believe that all perpetrators are sane, rational, mature adults who consciously choose to abuse. The whole grooming process, and the escalation of control and ultimately violence is somehow pre-scripted or at least outlined in their brain from the beginning.

That is too simplistic. It negates the influence of biology, psychology and their social environment...we are  a product of our total environment...to change behaviors we need to change the way we sense the environment and the way that we react to its stressors.

When we see an invalid we are moved to compassion and possibly action to help them. We long ago did away with the notion that the blind man was blind because of his or his father's sins. But we are not as understanding of alcoholics or perpetrators.
There are many in addiction therapy who still believe that use/abuse of substances is a conscious choice. They throw people out of the program because of their lack of compliance. What they fail to realize is that the addiction is driven by learned behavior, genetics, altered neurodevelopment, physiologic craving, environmental cues and stressors, and more. We can never "cure" and addict until they overcome their reaction to internal and external environmental cues. It will never be simple...it cannot solely be "just don't drink". That just shames them which perpetuates the cycle.

And those of us who have lived with addicts or perpetrators understand the meaning of pretending to be normal. It is the way that we were trained to behave in public. No one could see us as we truly were because that would be mortifying. Not only do we pretend to be normal, we do it so well that we forget what is reality and what is pretend.

I just had a memory flash into my brain.
In 5 grade and through Middle School I had a friend who lived fairly close to us. I would go to her house and sleep over frequently. It seemed a better place than our house, but her Dad would occasionally come home drunk and violent. When we heard his car pull in, her mother would very quickly rush us into my friend's bedroom and close the door. He never hurt us, but I could hear yelling and things crashing outside of her door. This experience should have scared the crap out of me the first time it happened, but it didn't. I kept going back to sleep over. Did I think that behavior was normal? Is that why it didn't scare me away. Like I said I preferred to sleep over there...it got me out of our house. Was I that good at pretending that I could even pretend that drunken violence at a friend's was normal and not worthy of reporting to anyone?

My brain just stopped with that memory. I will check back tomorrow.
Love and Light,
Maggie