Trauma and Accountability: Examining Russell Brand's Story

Sexual Addiction, Trauma, and Recovery: Analyzing Russell Brand's Journey

Morning, this is an adhoc newsletter which I have written this morning after watching the Channel 4 Despatches programme on Russell Brand, going out to all subscribers. This newsletter discusses sexual assault and sexual addiction, just to let you know before you read any further.

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Having watched the Despatches documentary last night, there’s a 12 step saying has been at the forefront of my mind: ‘Look for the similarities and not the differences’.

I am trained in the psychology of addiction. I spent a total of 5 years looking at addiction every which way and I’ve been in the field for 13 years. Amongst my clients, I work with sex addicts and I work with those who have been sexually assaulted, groomed and raped.

So I watched the Despatches programme in which Russell Brand was exposed last night for allegedly grooming, sexually assaulting and raping women who shared their stories in the programme with very conflicting emotions. I say ‘allegedly’ not to diminish anyone’s truth but, you know, legals.

The similarity within every strand of the story that I heard last night is trauma.

Russell Brand’s behaviour transgressed all reasonable cultural and societal behaviours. This is something that he himself has openly shared about.

Of course he did. That is what people in their addiction do. They lie, justify, minimise, use grandiose behaviour, in order to get their fix. They need their fix to feel ok, to feel different to how they feel in that moment. It seems like the only way to make sense of their life. Some of that behaviour goes unseen, small white lies, and some of it ends up on a Channel 4 Despatches documentary.

Russell has documented life with his father, in which his earliest memory is watching porn whilst his father was with women in his bedroom. Exposure to pornography at a young age may lead to ‘poor mental health, sexism and objectification, sexual violence, and other negative outcomes’ according to UNICEF. They may as well have a picture of Russell Brand alongside the article.

What Russell experienced as a young child and as an adolescent is undoubtedly traumatic. We can assess something being traumatic when the event is UDIN - unexpected, dramatic, isolating and with no resources/strategy. As a young child, seeing pornography can be extremely confusing. It can bring up sexual feelings whilst also feeling horrifying, disgusting and intriguing.

This creates intense shame - a potent sense that there is something fundamentally wrong with the person. Those feelings of horror, confusion, disgust and intrigue become internalised. Ironically, becoming sexually aroused dampens our sexual shame. The very thing that has created shame - sex - becomes the thing to eliminate the shame, which is why we can then witness such apparently shameless behaviour. This is sexual addiction.

Of course, more sexual arousal actually creates more shame because of the circumstances within which the person is becoming sexually aroused, and so more shame is created and the cycle continues, leaving destruction in its wake.

This warped association between innate healthy sexuality and sexual arousal is known as cross-wiring. Where there is any cross-wiring, whether it is socially acceptable or not, it prevents intimate sex and drives sexual choices around partners, activities and frequency. The book ‘Discovering sexuality that will satisfy you both.’ goes into this in much more detail.

You have probably heard of the trauma responses that we go into: fight, flight, freeze, fawn and flop, but trauma continues to affect people way after the event and we see that in their behaviours. Patrick Carnes, in his book ‘Betrayal Bonds’ lists 9 ways in which it shows up:

1. Trauma reactivation

2. Trauma arousal

3. Trauma blocking

4. Trauma pleasure

5. Trauma splitting

6. Trauma abstinence

7. Trauma shame

8. Trauma repetition

9. Trauma bonds.

That’s a whole other subject in itself, but what we see from Russell’s behaviour is akin to trauma arousal and trauma repetition.

Recovery from addiction is only the first step. It is just putting down what you used to block the trauma (number 3 in the list). You can be clean and sober from substances and behaviours whilst not being emotionally sober. Emotionally sober means that you have worked on processing your trauma in order to increase your window of tolerance so that you don’t ping into an old trauma response like the 9 listed above.

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In his 12 step recovery from sex addiction, Russell will have had to do Step 9:

‘Made direct amends to such people (i.e. those who had been harmed by the addict’s behaviour) except when to do so would injure them or others.’

I had a little ‘huh’ moment last night listening to the women. If Russell had done his 12 steps in sexual addiction recovery, would he not have made direct amends to these women? Unless he and his sponsor considered it harmful to do so for himself or the women and he chose to live his amends through being open and candid about his addiction and what he had done in the past.

When people are in their active addiction, be it substance or process, they can black out. Short and long term memory can be impaired. Working with people who have addiction, I have seen this first hand in sex addiction. It is not that they are willingly forgetting, but that their nervous system is so overloaded it is not possible to remember.

This can mean it is so tricky because people’s versions of events can vary, but both party is adamant that they are speaking the truth. It’s a bit like an optical illusion. One party is adamant that they see the old lady, one is adamant they see the young woman. Our cultural norms and values dictate the idea of what we ‘should’ see.

I am not advocating a society which excuses behaviour because of someone’s trauma.

However, what I am saying is that when we come with a trauma informed approach we have the chance of making absolute fundamental change. Rather than scapegoating someone and feeling justice has been served, we need to take a wider approach.

Yes the person absolutely needs to take responsibility and accountability for their actions.

Absolutely.

But we also need to be asking the hard questions about accessibility to trauma healing, the availability of pornography, the objectification of women in mainstream media, the impact of pornography on young children, the impact of absent fathers in the family home, the sex worker industry, reasons that 16 year old girls are wanting to and able to go home with 30 year old men and everyone seeming to be ok with that, the safeguarding in all workplaces.

Not from a viewpoint of blame, but from a viewpoint of reducing trauma and shame.

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Then we come onto the women. They spoke of not even being able to verbalise the word ‘rape’, through fear. Fear of the impact it would have on their jobs, how they were viewed and believed, their families and friendships. And just…having no voice around this kind of thing because when people do speak out (especially women) they are mocked, ridiculed or treated as if they are mentally ill.

It’s one thing to go through the trauma of being raped or sexually assaulted, but then feeling like you cannot speak of it is another level of trauma. It creates trauma shame, trauma splitting (which in my view often gets pathologised as ‘borderline personality disorder’) and trauma abstinence.

If Russell failed to limit himself, they failed to protect themselves. I know I am flying close to the wind here and the words ‘victim blaming’ may be crossing through your mind. So let me be clear.

I am in full support of any woman being protected and speaking up and sharing how they have been victimised. I am NOT blaming them.

Of course, ideally they shouldn’t have needed to protect themselves, yet we also need to ask the hard questions of why someone who is seen as such a philanderer, risqué character is attractive to some people.

We again need to look at the bigger picture. How is a society which encourages people pleasing; giving people the benefit of the doubt; encouraging people to ‘be kind’ even if that means denying their own boundaries; giving men more opportunity when they allude to the things that Russell alluded to in his comedy shows; conducive to women being taken seriously when they say no?

Hell, it’s worse than that, this lack of taking them seriously is internalised. How many women - and not just women of course - how many victims were victimised because they had learned to dismiss that nagging feeling, that warning voice inside of them? It is an innate warning signal that, thanks to our society, has become muted as we mutate into silently screaming versions of ourselves. How many DO speak up, and receive the treatment I mentioned above?

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

This sets up people to be traumatised: no resources or strategy when they find themselves in unexpected and dramatic situations which leave them feeling so alone.

We must stop protecting our own awkwardness in calling out what we don’t like, what makes us feel icky and in hearing it when others do the same.

You know what’s really rough about this? You lose friends and family. When you overcome the awkwardness, when you speak up for your values, when you live a life of ‘no means no’ you lose people. And that is a tough price to pay, but it’s a debt I believe that we all owe if we want a safe, fair society.

That is not done through calling out villains and victims, it’s done through sharing our experience and those who listen being trauma informed and curious so that we can create a society which accepts the light and shade of the human experience and aims to improve it.

It is only through seeing ourselves in both Russell’s story and the women’s stories that we will find real progress. Shame existed in both sides of the story, as did unmet needs and transgressed boundaries.

Can you relate to a sense of shame sometimes, feeling like you are somehow wrong? Do you feel like your needs went or are now unmet? Have you sometimes transgressed boundaries or smiled along when you wanted to scream no? Yep, me too. I know, I know we may not have gone to the same lengths or caused the damage, but we need to focus on uprooting the shame and dysfunction, not only chop down the way it sprouts up in our society.

Look for the similarities, not the differences, and you may just help to change the world.

Thank you for reading

That’s it for now.

‘Til next time.

Jacky x