ABSTRACT
Authoritarian wounding comes primarily at the hands of two groups of authoritarians, parents and mates. Respondents expressed all sorts of guilt. Some felt guilty about not protecting their younger siblings from the family authoritarian. Some felt guilty about having failed themselves or not living up to their potential. Virtually all respondents reported that only physical separation, and the wider the separation the better, allowed them to feel safe and provided them with the opportunity to heal. Some respondents felt compassion for the authoritarian in question, expressing that the authoritarian parent had himself or herself suffered gravely in childhood. These respondents sometimes came to the conclusion that a little compassion might not be a dangerous thing; and some went on to reach out to the authoritarian parent in the hopes of reconnecting with him or her and heal the relationship.
