Part XI of Living and Dying with Abuse
Stories of success are usually there for that. I both hope and fear that I’m the only one with this particular experience. I both hope and fear that my telling of failure has no value in battling abuse, that only the telling of success can help. I can’t give much but I know this: Don’t be a fool like me.
Save who you can and be quick. Abuse and trauma are so sinister that it can take ages to reflect and to grow out of its effects, and before that you or the other abused may simply die. One might not even fathom the idea of abuse and an escape from it until presented with it. You most likely need to build up the abused’s self-esteem and motivation (that includes oneself) to leave the stagnant and isolated state, to teach the complexity of abuse and its effects, and to make a plan that leaves no room for rest lest it be sabotaged. Disrupt the status quo yourself and on your terms before something else does irreparably. You need to band together, help and be there for each other, get away together. I made the mistake to let myself be withdrawn and isolated, which is self-destructive in itself and especially within abusive environments where connection is vital, and I let others be alone too. It is incredibly confusing and frightening to be the only one being aware and wanting to escape abuse.
Abuse affects people differently and misunderstandings arise when everyone’s coping mechanisms are not attuned to each other. It’s important to be honest, to confide, and find out how everyone is affected and what behavior is shown to whom — the earlier the better. Communication is difficult if one suspects others to be sympathetic to the abuser. Abusing someone less than someone else or playing favourites (among children) is an instinctive strategy against unity. Escaping an abuser becomes harder with a child and with each additional child, as sowing division is easier among more offspring (children themselves feel entrapped, or simply are without knowing it).
I overlooked that I focused too much on the abuser and my own trauma and not enough on my mother who had to live the longest with this. The emotional support we had to give each other I neglected on my part. The longer the abuser was in my life and the more I knew about the abuse without any change happening, the more my trauma worsened. The more that worsened, the more severe my panic/anxiety responses to (even trivial) stressors. The worse I became, the more I neglected the emotional support and connection that is vital for people and especially for abused ones. We must be kind and love and care about each other in order to go on living, while there is still time — once one experiences loss, “cheesy” sentimentalities feel like punishment for unheeded warnings.
“Connect, connect, connect. Be there, be there, be there. Helping the abused woman overcome isolation is the most valuable contribution you can make. Work to govern your own frustration and impatience because those will keep you from being fully connected to her.” (Lundy Bancroft, Five Central Concepts in Getting Free From Abuse)
You want to escape the abuse together with your mother but aren’t sure if she genuinely cannot put a name to the abuse and its effects or if she will reject you? Plan ahead, ask anyway, and if she rejects you at least then you’ll have certainty to move on alone or to help her in any other way you can. You live with an abusive partner and refuse to leave? Stop using your children as emotional support and leave the abuser. You are still believing in the stigmata of mental illnesses, neurological learning disabilities, and developmental issues? Do your research, the widespread lack of knowledge among parents just adds to the damage of abuse; your own children might already be in need of therapy and of being free of the abuse. You feel trapped by your children beginning or trying to build a life around the abuser? Stop hoping for your children to make the first move, they are probably clinging to the hope for you to do it, for an alternative, or they aren’t aware yet themselves because they are still children. This is all provided that the mother even thinks of questioning anything (the frustration of children doesn’t end so easily, even if we know that the abused aren’t to be blamed). Alternatively, if you are starting to hope for the first move or stagnating in this mindset, you need to do it yourself. Find out what ground you are on, try to reach a common one. In your own dysfunctional ways you could be unknowingly testing each other. Sadly, “chronic mistreatment gets people to doubt themselves” (Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That, p. 49) and communication may be the only way out of that.
Toxic, abusive environments are a bigger force than one might recognize at first. If it’s home then it is likely the fabric one lives and develops in the most, the fabric one returns to day after day, for a very long period of time. The evasive and mystifying character of emotional and psychological abuse and manipulation makes it difficult to understand, and at times will feel like an invisible malignant force that governs one’s life. Economic factors, societal and generational constraints/stigmas/myths, lack of education on abuse, one’s own trauma and mental disorders are hindrances to escaping these environments or becoming aware of them in the first place.
What we crave, and what is vital, is to not be the only one knowing. Write your experience down, safe it for posterity, put it somewhere up or send it to trusted people. No matter whether your perspective seems common or unusual — experiences with abuse are not a monolith, someone else might find yours in particular helpful. Read and quote from books or articles or other people’s accounts that resonate, and look for context, references, literary connections.
Personal connection to other people is important to encourage and support one another. The most important thing is, in any endeavor, to not be alone, to have people who have your back, people to return to, who let you rest and build you up. The world lacks a large pool of information, and there isn’t yet a stop to abuser’s being given a platform and sympathy (or himpathy*) — it’s like they are incapable/unwilling to shut up and not seek to plant themselves in the position of “authority” or as the focus of the narrative. The lack of knowledge, awareness, and contextualizing is a real tragedy, but it extends and influences, it’s contagious in a way, and the unawareness of this spreading is just as tragic and harmful. It does not come to mind so quickly to determine one’s life, experiences, or feelings without being made familiar with the concept of abuse, one might even have trouble associating the word “abuse” with one’s own experiences. Emotional/psychological abuse is not in the least less traumatizing than physical abuse, and perhaps even more dangerous as it is harder to point out.
No one deserves to live with abuse. No one deserves to die with abuse.
* “himpathy — the disproportionate or inappropriate sympathy for
a man who behaves in misogynistic or, I would now add, entitled ways,
over his female victims” (Kate Manne, Entitled, p. 110)
How to think about abuse
Abuse is to be escaped from, anything less should be unacceptable. Accountability and mutuality can only exist and flourish without abusers. Abuse isn’t normal to a human mind. It’s always shocking, violating, confusing, even paralyzing, and that is why it is so effective (though to finally take the step to consciously un-normalize it can be painful and take time). One can know all about abuse and red flags or think so and still miss or experience something new. It’s not freeing to forget or ignore it as if it doesn’t happen or matter. That would just be stalling the pain or burying it where it just continues to rumble and erupt.
It is perhaps not less painful but sort of calming to contextualize it all, to put oneself like one anecdote of experience into a vast explanation, to say that you’re not the only one. I didn’t achieve anything, neither helped myself or loved ones, I am just a person trapped in one of the countless narratives that exist in this world, in a version that lacks a happy ending, but perhaps I have some insight to share, perhaps all the information out there is helping someone else. Abuse is abuse is abuse, whether it is known of or not, it exists regardless; if it is not contextualized by the abused (or by all abused), then it is by others, and the context exists regardless.
Partner abusers are miserable, bereft, empty creatures, lacking in profound connection and understanding with the people they pressure to keep living with them, they exploit you to your bare bone. And most won’t likely ever change, they see the privileges they (want to) gain through abuse as enough:
“Certainly the abusive man also loses a great deal through his abusiveness. He loses the potential for genuine intimacy in his relationship, for example, and his capacity for compassion and empathy. But these are often not things that he values, so he may not feel their absence. And even if he would like greater intimacy, that wish is outweighed by his attachment to the benefits of abuse.” (Bancroft, pp. 157–158)
Abusers will cheat, exploit, humiliate, and burden you, and when you stay they get an ego-boost, even if one may not think themselves as being emotionally affected by it, they will see themselves affirmed in one’s silent acceptance. There is no certain way to be in order to not attract abusers. A different set of characteristics will attract a different set of abusers. Or rather, abusers operate regardless of the other person’s traits, their abuse manifests regardless of anyone but themselves. They chose to take your human rights away from you, to dehumanize you into something to be owned and controlled, abused and manipulated.
Part of abuse is victim blaming and punishment as a reaction to being abused. They do not help or solve the problem because they are intrinsic aspects of it that keep it alive. Instead of asking why someone acted or dealt with it in a certain way and shaming them for it, direct your energy into asking and shaming the abuser for what they do. Direct your energy into purging abuse, its normalisation and creation, and the ignorance surrounding it from all aspects of life.
“Blaming an abused woman for the abuser’s behavior, or for the fact that she hasn’t left, never helps. The way out comes from supporting and empowering the target of the abuse, not by blaming or criticizing her.” (Bancroft, Five Central Concepts in Getting Free From Abuse)
If someone still prefers to focus on victim blaming, you’ll know that they themselves have an affinity for control and power imbalance, perhaps specifically to the control and power imbalance abusive relationships hold or to the larger imbalance created and upheld in society. Some people are so deep into sympathizing with abusers or authority or parental figures that they cannot accept that any reasoning or rationalisation of an abusive action is harmful, that there is no merit to abusive behavior, that it cannot be forgiven through any justification. People who sympathize with abusers instead of victims are shallow. They see the broken, traumatized, unpleasant persona of the victim and distance themselves from them, instead becoming closer with the abuser who faces no psychological repercussions for their own abusive behavior and can show a joyful, energetic, entertaining veneer. They hear the victim’s pain and experiences of abuse and decide to have nothing to do with it, instead seeking out the abuser’s promise of decency that they deny their victims. And some simply pay more attention to the hurt feelings of the abuser than the extensive damage he leaves in other people’s lives and in society at large. Unfortunately, abusers still don’t face the consequences they should, they keep existing, they keep damaging and twisting reality and standards.
Tl;dr
Don’t make the same mistakes I did, the clock is ticking, get away from the abuser as quickly as possible and work hard towards escape, confusion and division is a much bigger problem than it seems, the whole situation is more severe than you think (even for you, be aware of your repression or numbness), don’t give abusers a voice and don’t listen to them, no sympathy for abusers and their sympathizers, structurally there needs to be not only more help and education about abuse but also way less factors that advance an abuser’s control and entrapment in the first place.
Lundy Bancroft, Five Central Concepts in Getting Free From Abuse (2018), https://lundybancroft.com/five-central-concepts-in-getting-free-from-abuse/
Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? (2002), Berkley Books
Kate Manne: Entitled (2020), Crown
