"I met Jennifer in Medellín when she accompanied Mateo to one of his restorative justice sessions. She did not sit next to him. She chose a chair at the back of the session room, hands clasped tightly, eyes fixed on him as if watching something that could change direction at any moment. Mateo spoke calmly about his past. Jennifer listened with a tension that revealed what words had not yet surfaced. Mateo's story follows a pattern psychology knows well."
"As a child, Mateo learned that survival required toughness, that vulnerability invited harm, and that no one came when he spoke. The street answered where institutions failed, and aggression became his language of belonging. Jennifer knew this history. She understood how neglect shapes emotional regulation and how trauma turns into anger when there is no space to be heard. She believed that love and understanding might reach parts of him that life had hardened."
Fear often precedes visible violence in intimate relationships and functions as an adaptive, bodily survival response rooted in past trauma. Understanding a partner's traumatic history does not obligate acceptance of aggression, control, or harm. Patterns of intimate partner violence escalate predictably when fear is ignored, as global data indicate. Mateo's childhood neglect and social abandonment taught toughness and aggression as survival, turning violence into a language of belonging. Jennifer, aware of his history, still experienced physiological fear and vigilance. Recognizing fear as encoded experience is essential to preventing escalation and to balancing empathy with safety.
Read at Psychology Today
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