Was Danny abused as a child?

he did seem to take that to heart rather than just letting it roll off like usual...

..a lot of good points, Ali, thanks for your input!
 
Up until Crime and Misdemeanor I agreed about Danny not having an older sibling vibe, but some of his phrases in that episode made me reconsider. The scene where he told Aiden they were good to go after Mac told him to drop the case and then towards the end when he told Aiden he took all the heat from Mac and she shouldn't worry. Those all seemed like the statements of the eldest child in a family. I also have a suspicion that Aiden is the oldest and is naturally drawn to Danny's closed off tougher than tough attitude. Danny seems needy to her and maybe she feels a great need to comfort.
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That's a good point, and I can see how Danny in that case might be the headstrong/lead-you-into-trouble older sibling vs. Aiden's more protective older sibling.

And yeah, I totally think Aiden sees in Danny someone she needs to protect/look out for. His aloof attitude probably makes him somewhat of a challenge. Why she feels the need to put up with that is more an issue about Aiden's character than it is about Danny's.


That's good! He put himself in the position of a sexual object, but Danny took his hands off the table and withdrew when the pedophile gave him a sexually predatory look up and down his body.
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Yeah, I caught that, too. The guy obviously responded--maybe Danny wasn't prepared for that/hadn't thought that far ahead. The withdrawing is more of the passive agressive behavior we've seen from Danny--he'll challenge, and then back off if it seems like the person he's challenging is going to respond.


I don't know if the writers would do sexual abuse again, since it is part of Nick's past on LV, but it is viable as a possibility.
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Yeah, that's part of my reasoning, too. However, the exploration of Nick's abuse was limited to a few lines in one episode, wasn't it? They could probably get away with it in Danny's case as it's obvious whatever is troubling Danny seems to loom much larger in his life than that incident did in Nick's. With the exception of that one case which brought it up again, Nick seems to have dealt with it and moved past it. Danny clearly hasn't.

I think Danny's issues are the result of several incidents in his childhood from a myriad of directions. Some I think that happened to him directly and others that simply caused dramatic shifts in his childhood, but were not necessarily perpetrated against his physical person. I feel like the two catalysts for Danny's issues have been mentioned, the gypsy cab incident and his mother's death.
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Well, the former was definitely a physical thing. As for the latter, I'd be really interested to learn how old Danny was when his mother died. Unless I'm misreading posts here, it seems like we all think he was pretty young. That could have a huge influence on his behavior, and of course would have greatly changed his family dynamics.

I'm also interested in Danny's deadpan response to Aiden's joking about him being dangerous, when he said very dangerous it seemed loaded and lacked the humor of her jest.

Ali
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Tanglewood issues perhaps? Or some misperception on Danny's part that he's a negative influence or factor in the lives of people around him? As we've discussed before, Danny probably has a negative self-image.
 
i think it really matters on how old he was when all of this occurred...
 
Maybe Danny's mother developed complications after giving birth to him and died. Mabe Daddy Messer blames Danny for "killing" his mother and made his feelings know. That would explain Danny' line that he is very dangerous if he blames himself for the death his mother.
 
i think Danny definately thinks negatively about himself.

The paedophile incident is interesting. I never actual saw that episode. Perhaps it was just hostility towards abusing children in general. I'm sure on that one.
 
he has EXTEMEMLY low self-esteem, and it's not the humble kind, either...
 
no, its more the kind where he tries to cover it by acting confident and trying to prove himself all the time.

I think he's heading for a crash ands burn with his self-esteem and the abuse thing.
 
Yeah, you can tell Danny's gruff demeanor is a cover. He yells at suspects but it's clear how upset he is whenever he does that. That's another interesting thing about Danny...he has no ability to hide his emotions...they're all very close to the surface and apparent. He doesn't seem to have the normal filter most people have for keeping their emotions in check.
 
Yeah, you can tell Danny's gruff demeanor is a cover. He yells at suspects but it's clear how upset he is whenever he does that. That's another interesting thing about Danny...he has no ability to hide his emotions...they're all very close to the surface and apparent. He doesn't seem to have the normal filter most people have for keeping their emotions in check.
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yeah i have noticed that too his emotions are all always on show and like you said i think it was the Dove Commission he gets really angry with the suspect and Aiden has to calm him down. you can tell he was upset though but i though it was harsh when he took out his emotions on the kid who lost his dad. but he did make up for it but he shouldn't have lost it in the first place!!
 
On a note relating to Danny's possible relationship with his father, has anyone read the books by Dave Pelzer? I couldn't believe after all his mother did to him, he still just wanted to hear her say 'I love you'. Even after he was rescued and placed in foster care, he almost said he lied about the abuse because telling about the 'family secret' was wrong. You'd have to have a very hard heart to read those books and not cry at some point. Danny might not have gone through such serious abuse, but then no-one rescued him either.
 
^I haven't read the Pelzer books, but I've heard about them. To be honest, I think if Danny's father was the person who abused him, Danny's probably still seeking his approval and/or love. Look how he behaves with Mac...I imagine that mirrors his relationship with his dad as well.

And I bet if it ever came up, Danny probably lied about the abuse. In fact, I bet if it came up now--like if Mac or Stella suspected something and asked him--he'd still lie about it. A combination of his trust issues and the fact that he probably still thinks it's his fault on some level.
 
I think Tanglewood's got everything to do with it, and that's why he left. Also, there's something on the official CSINY site about Danny that mentions that he grew up in a family under surveillance (the character, not the actor)... maybe he witnessed something that happened to one of his family members, and it really messed him up. Either way, he's not normal, and I don't really get how he got into the force if he's that messed up. I mean, obviously he's gifted at what he does, but... what about the psych report? I'm dying to know what it says about him.
 
that's a good theory Angelica.

I was thinking about the Tanglewood connection. Danny said to Mac that all the tanglewood gang has been passed down from father to son. So the tanglewood boy's fathers were also tanglewood boys. Maybe Danny's father was a tanglewood boy and Danny didn't want to join so his father basically disowned him and abused him as a result. What do you think?
 
His father being a Tanglewood boy is entirely possible. The disown/abused part doesn't rub me the right way. Abuse usually starts at a young age, and not as a result of anything. It's a form of control more than anything. If there was abuse I'd say it happened long before Danny was to be a Tanglewood boy, and may have even contributed to his decision not to join.

I think it's more likely that if his father was a Tanglewood boy and Danny refused to be one, that it was taken as an insult, by both his father and the gang. Like the mafia mentality. It's a family. Once in, never out. So Danny refusing to be the next-gen mobster was an insult to his father and the Tanglewood boys, and maybe they did something to his father. A campaign of terror or something.

I'm dying to see how this storyline evolves and if we're even close with any of this. It's probably really simple and we're looking into it way too much.
 
that's a good point csi007. I never thought of that *smacks head in realisation*

I could definately see that happening. Danny refusing to join being seen as an insult so the gang take out their revenge on Danny's father. It would explain why the know about him.

It could also explain why Danny is the way he is. Not only about the abuse but also guilt. He looks upto Mac as a father figure but then pushes him away because he doesn't want him getting hurt. Sort of internal conflict.
 
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