Seeds of Love

Sadly, we have been receiving a great deal of painful news in our country lately. Dozens of women are murdered every week, and some of these murders receive wide coverage in the media and on social media. The fact that these tragic events have stayed on the agenda so much lately doesn't actually come from an increase in the number of murders. It's just that, as a society, we're becoming a little more aware of women's rights and want to respond together. But unfortunately, beyond femicide and murders of women, violence is like a disease this land has suffered from for many, many years. Sadly, we can't see any sign that we are healing.

We wanted to write this post as psychologists with experience working both with violent inmates and with women who have been victims. We aimed to look at one of society's bleeding wounds from within the field of psychology and to discuss the responsibilities that fall on us as individuals. Before discussing all this, we remember Ceren, Şule and hundreds of victims whose names we don't know. We say 'if only', knowing it means nothing. And we say 'let it be the last', even though we know it won't be…

First of all, we think it's important to understand what kind of personality traits the killers responsible for all these murders have and what kind of psychopathology they carry. Most of the people we commonly call psychopaths or sociopaths receive a diagnosis of personality disorder*. Because this is accepted as a psychiatric disability, individuals diagnosed with a personality disorder even receive disability benefits from the state. Treating these individuals is not very realistic. These people can usually be taught certain skills, but it is very hard to see them return fully to normal. Individuals with these personality traits lack empathy. They can't have an orderly life or hold a steady job. They are impulsive and have difficulty controlling themselves (in fact, they don't think they need to control themselves). When deciding whether or not to act, they focus on whether a behaviour will harm them. Understanding what the other person will feel, or putting themselves in their place, is not an ability these people can have. The killer who took Ceren from us cannot feel sorry for Ceren, cannot grasp her lost future and cannot comprehend her family's pain. He truly can't, because he doesn't have that capacity. Working with people like this is often truly exhausting for us too, and seeing how differently they look at events makes us question whether we even come from the same species. The truth is that people like this have a personality that cannot think or perceive what most of us consider normal, that is cut off from social norms, and that can commit any kind of perversion once convinced no harm will come to them.

The type of person we've described isn't actually so unfamiliar to you. You witness them often on the news. So how does a person come to have these personality traits? We think this is the key question that needs to be discussed. Looking around, after all these tragic events, the two things talked about most are 'awareness of women's rights' and 'changes in the penal system'. But there is another issue that we believe has a bigger impact on these events: the conditions in which people who are alien to social norms, who have different moral values, who are prone to violence, selfish and lacking in empathy are raised! Unfortunately, the large number of mothers and fathers with weak parenting awareness and skills leads to bigger problems. Let's talk about some common upbringing conditions we have encountered in many of these people, as far as we have observed;

1) Being disciplined through violence

2) Growing up deprived of love or receiving only conditional love

3) Conflict between mother and father about child-rearing (for example, the father reacting violently to something while the mother responds with an embrace)

4) Not being able to take on responsibility from an early age (all needs being met by the parents)

5) Severe conflict between the parents being reflected onto the child, and divorces that are reflected onto the child

6) Needs not being met (material and emotional)

7) Being abandoned by the family, growing up alone, losing a parent, and the child's emotional needs not being understood

8) Being sexually and physically abused and not receiving informed support from family and relatives

9) Growing up in neighbourhoods with high crime rates and having no friends outside these neighbourhoods

There are surely some points we've missed or that didn't come to mind while writing. We also don't mean that children and adolescents who have experienced some of these will develop a disordered personality. But we can say that a significant proportion of people with personality disorders experienced at least 2-3 of these in childhood. Our aim in listing them is to discuss what we can do to build pavements where future generations can feel safe and walk without anxiously looking over their shoulders. We know that official authorities and every member of society must take responsibility for this. We've devoted the last part of our post to a short discussion of what we can focus on as individuals.

We meet the violence that occurs in society with anger and sorrow. These reactions are very human. We feel there's nothing we can do except remember the person who died, join protests and condemn violence. Perhaps whatever we do, all this violence won't end overnight. But the fate of Turkey 20 years from now is in our hands. That's why every individual needs to properly fulfil the responsibility that falls on them. Prospective parents and parents are responsible for raising children for a certain period. Many parents want to take care of their children as best they can and meet their needs in the best way. But beyond that, we are also responsible to some degree for the children we don't raise ourselves. We should meet other children with understanding when they make mistakes and guide them in the right way. We shouldn't 'other' them, and we should be able to value them all equally. We should put seeds of love in the hands of children who have never seen the beautiful side of the world, to instil in them the feeling that they can become good people when they grow up. If we as a society don't look after the children of this country, we will push children who frequently show behaviour outside the norm onto a muddy road that is very hard to turn back from, especially after adolescence. So we should pass this awareness on to one another and work together for a more peaceful future.

We hope we can reach days when these terrible events, which deeply sadden us as a society and make us rebel, no longer happen.

We'd like to end our post with the words of Ceren's mother, Gülfer Hanım, which we find very valuable; "I have only one wish. My heart has been burned; may no other mother's heart burn. May the education system be fixed, may they sow seeds of love. May people not be looked at with hatred. We have nowhere else; we will live here in Turkey. Let's always look at each other with love and respect. Perhaps if there had been seeds of respect, these things wouldn't have happened."

*The personality disorders referred to here are Cluster B personality disorders (antisocial, narcissistic, etc.).