A theory well described in Bessel A. van der Kolk’s 1989 article, The Compulsion to Repeat the Trauma; Re-enactment, Re-victimization and Masochism. He reports that when a person is exposed to trauma, especially in childhood, traumatic events such as those experienced in this man’s life; loss of a parent, exposure to suicide, violence to a school friend, and likely even more that may never be known, there is a profound impact on an individual’s psychological development and the resultant compulsive behavioral repetition may even be accompanied by a loss of conscious memory of the original traumas.