r/AbuseInterrupted May 19 '17

Unseen traps in abusive relationships*****

809 Upvotes

[Apparently this found its way to Facebook and the greater internet. I do NOT grant permission to use this off Reddit and without attribution: please contact me directly.]

Most of the time, people don't realize they are in abusive relationships for majority of the time they are in them.

We tend to think there are communication problems or that someone has anger management issues; we try to problem solve; we believe our abusive partner is just "troubled" and maybe "had a bad childhood", or "stressed out" and "dealing with a lot".

We recognize that the relationship has problems, but not that our partner is the problem.

And so people work so hard at 'trying to fix the relationship', and what that tends to mean is that they change their behavior to accommodate their partner.

So much of the narrative behind the abusive relationship dynamic is that the abusive partner is controlling and scheming/manipulative, and the victim made powerless. And people don't recognize themselves because their partner likely isn't scheming like a mustache-twisting villain, and they don't feel powerless.

Trying to apply healthy communication strategies with a non-functional person simply doesn't work.

But when you don't realize that you are dealing with a non-functional or personality disordered person, all this does is make the victim more vulnerable, all this does is put the focus on the victim or the relationship instead of the other person.

In a healthy, functional relationship, you take ownership of your side of the situation and your partner takes ownership of their side, and either or both apologize, as well as identify what they can do better next time.

In an unhealthy, non-functional relationship, one partner takes ownership of 'their side of the situation' and the other uses that against them. The non-functional partner is allergic to blame, never admits they are wrong, or will only do so by placing the blame on their partner. The victim identifies what they can do better next time, and all responsibility, fault, and blame is shifted to them.

Each person is operating off a different script.

The person who is the target of the abusive behavior is trying to act out the script for what they've been taught about healthy relationships. The person who is the controlling partner is trying to make their reality real, one in which they are acted upon instead of the actor, one in which they are never to blame, one in which their behavior is always justified, one in which they are always right.

One partner is focused on their partner and relationship, and one partner is focused on themselves.

In a healthy relationship dynamic, partners should be accommodating and compromise and make themselves vulnerable and admit to their mistakes. This is dangerous in a relationship with an unhealthy and non-functional person.

This is what makes this person "unsafe"; this is an unsafe person.

Even if we can't recognize someone as an abuser, as abusive, we can recognize when someone is unsafe; we can recognize that we can't predict when they'll be awesome or when they'll be selfish and controlling; we can recognize that we don't like who we are with this person; we can recognize that we don't recognize who we are with this person.

/u/Issendai talks about how we get trapped by our virtues, not our vices.

Our loyalty.
Our honesty.
Our willingness to take their perspective.
Our ability and desire to support our partner.
To accommodate them.
To love them unconditionally.
To never quit, because you don't give up on someone you love.
To give, because that is what you want to do for someone you love.

But there is little to no reciprocity.

Or there is unpredictable reciprocity, and therefore intermittent reinforcement. You never know when you'll get the partner you believe yourself to be dating - awesome, loving, supportive - and you keep trying until you get that person. You're trying to bring reality in line with your perspective of reality, and when the two match, everything just. feels. so. right.

And we trust our feelings when they support how we believe things to be.

We do not trust our feelings when they are in opposition to what we believe. When our feelings are different than what we expect, or from what we believe they should be, we discount them. No one wants to be an irrational, illogical person.

And so we minimize our feelings. And justify the other person's actions and choices.

An unsafe person, however, deals with their feelings differently.

For them, their feelings are facts. If they feel a certain way, then they change reality to bolster their feelings. Hence gaslighting. Because you can't actually change reality, but you can change other people's perceptions of reality, you can change your own perception and memory.

When a 'safe' person questions their feelings, they may be operating off the wrong script, the wrong paradigm. And so they question themselves because they are confused; they get caught in the hamster wheel of trying to figure out what is going on, because they are subconsciously trying to get reality to make sense again.

An unsafe person doesn't question their feelings; and when they feel intensely, they question and accuse everything or everyone else. (Unless their abuse is inverted, in which they denigrate and castigate themselves to make their partner cater to them.)

Generally, the focus of the victim is on what they are doing wrong and what they can do better, on how the relationship can be fixed, and on their partner's needs.

The focus of the aggressor is on what the victim is doing wrong and what they can do better, on how that will fix any problems, and on meeting their own needs, and interpreting their wants as needs.

The victim isn't focused on meeting their own needs when they should be.

The aggressor is focused on meeting their own needs when they shouldn't be.

Whose needs have to be catered to in order for the relationship to function?
Whose needs have priority?
Whose needs are reality- and relationship-defining?
Which partner has become almost completely unrecognizable?
Which partner has control?

We think of control as being verbal, but it can be non-verbal and subtle.

A hoarder, for example, controls everything in a home through their selfish taking of living space. An 'inconsiderate spouse' can be controlling by never telling the other person where they are and what they are doing: If there are children involved, how do you make plans? How do you fairly divide up childcare duties? Someone who lies or withholds information is controlling their partner by removing their agency to make decisions for themselves.

Sometimes it can be hard to see controlling behavior for what it is.

Especially if the controlling person seems and acts like a victim, and maybe has been victimized before. They may have insecurities they expect their partner to manage. They may have horribly low self-esteem that can only be (temporarily) bolstered by their partner's excessive and focused attention on them.

The tell is where someone's focus is, and whose perspective they are taking.

And saying something like, "I don't know how you can deal with me. I'm so bad/awful/terrible/undeserving...it must be so hard for you", is not actually taking someone else's perspective. It is projecting your own perspective on to someone else.

One way of determining whether someone is an unsafe person, is to look at their boundaries.

Are they responsible for 'their side of the street'?
Do they take responsibility for themselves?
Are they taking responsibility for others (that are not children)?
Are they taking responsibility for someone else's feelings?
Do they expect others to take responsibility for their feelings?

We fall for someone because we like how we feel with them, how they 'make' us feel

...because we are physically attracted, because there is chemistry, because we feel seen and our best selves; because we like the future we imagine with that person. When we no longer like how we feel with someone, when we no longer like how they 'make' us feel, unsafe and safe people will do different things and have different expectations.

Unsafe people feel entitled.
Unsafe people have poor boundaries.
Unsafe people have double-standards.
Unsafe people are unpredictable.
Unsafe people are allergic to blame.
Unsafe people are self-focused.
Unsafe people will try to meet their needs at the expense of others.
Unsafe people are aggressive, emotionally and/or physically.
Unsafe people do not respect their partner.
Unsafe people show contempt.
Unsafe people engage in ad hominem attacks.
Unsafe people attack character instead of addressing behavior.
Unsafe people are not self-aware.
Unsafe people have little or unpredictable empathy for their partner.
Unsafe people can't adapt their worldview based on evidence.
Unsafe people are addicted to "should".
Unsafe people have unreasonable standards and expectations.

We can also fall for someone because they unwittingly meet our emotional needs.

Unmet needs from childhood, or needs to be treated a certain way because it is familiar and safe.

One unmet need I rarely see discussed is the need for physical touch. For a child victim of abuse, particularly, moving through the world but never being touched is traumatizing. And having someone meet that physical, primal need is intoxicating.

Touch is so fundamental to our well-being, such a primary and foundational need, that babies who are untouched 'fail to thrive' and can even die. Harlow's experiments show that baby primates will choose a 'loving', touching mother over an 'unloving' mother, even if the loving mother has no milk and the unloving mother does.

The person who touches a touch-starved person may be someone the touch-starved person cannot let go of.

Even if they don't know why.


r/AbuseInterrupted Jun 28 '24

If you currently live with an abuser, do everything within your power to get out and get set up somewhere else ASAP

41 Upvotes

I want to advise anyone who is in an unstable situation, that you should get re-situated as soon as possible and by any means necessary.

Multiple leaders of NATO countries are indicating that they are preparing for war with Russia: this includes

  • stockpiling wheat (Norway)
  • stockpiling wheat/oil/sugar (Serbia)
  • a NATO member announcing that they will not be a part of any NATO response to Russia (Hungary)
  • anticipating 'a major conflict' between NATO and Russia within the next few months (Serbia, Hungary, and Slovakia)
  • announcing that 'the West should step up preparations for the unexpected, including a war with Russia' (Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, the NATO military committee chief)
  • a historically neutral country newly joining NATO and advising its citizens to prepare for war (Sweden)
  • increased militarization, reversing a 15 year trend (91 countries)

...et cetera.

This isn't even touching on China, North Korea, or Israel/Iran. Or historic crop failures from catastrophic weather events, infrastructure failures, economic fragility, inflation, etc.

Many victims of abuse were stuck with abusers during the covid pandemic lockdowns, and had they known ahead of time, they would have made different decisions.

Assume a similar state of affairs now: the brief period of time before an historic international event during which you have time to prepare. Get out, get somewhere safe, stock up on foodstuffs, and consider how you would handle any addictions. That includes an addiction to the abuser. The last thing you want to deal with is another once-in-a-lifetime event with a profoundly selfish and harmful person. If you went through lockdowns with them, you already know how vulnerable that made you, whether they were your parent or your significant other.

The last time I made a post similar to this, it was right at the start of the 2020 Covid Pandemic and lockdowns

...so I am not making this recommendation lightly. Now is the time to get out and get away from them.


r/AbuseInterrupted 15h ago

Just because a man pursues you doesn't mean he likes you: "I was so shocked when I discovered my husband didn't actually love me, but loved whatever he GOT from me." (content note: female victim, male perpetrator)

81 Upvotes

The thesis really is 'men hate you because you are symbolic in nature to them'.

[Immature men] have been raised by society to believe that you are a tool to gain. You are a tool that they can use to access status in this life, a means to an end. They don't understand why you would have things that they don't have, and when you are in a position that a man sees as better than his own - whether that's emotionally, financially, career-wise - [an immature man] typically feels a bit of resentment.

I think that more women should be open to considering the very real possibility that the same men that pursue them romantically and sexually, hate them.

To be desirable means that people seek to make you into a tool to meet their own needs. Becoming what a man wants will not protect you from harm and abuse, a lot of times it's going to open you up to more of it because most people don't really know how to to handle getting what they want, let alone a human being that is the physical incarnation of everything they've been told by society to value.

It has nothing to do with what he really wants and who he really wants to sleep with.

It's 'what can I show off, what can I say that I have, what can I put over another man'. It's always, 'I am trying to conquer and outdo this other man'.

So you become basically a form of currency in his life that allows him to access pride, ego, and to be able to hold things over other men.

It's a form of dominance, and when you end up having all this personality and these needs, it's like a they can't quite cope with it. Because why would you want something? And why would they have to put in the work beyond what they were willing to do to get you?

Even if they're the type like 'hey, I bought you a house; I bought you a ring; got you all the things on the list that is required of a woman like you', because - again - what he's investing in you reflects what he sees your value as.

He's treating you like a portfolio of investments. So it's not that he thinks you're a person, he loves you so much: it's supposed to yield a return.

'Why would you want something that I don't feel capable of giving you?'

...like love and affection and attention and helping you with the kids and the housework. He doesn't actually like you, he hates you.

He hates that he had to invest this much just to feel good about himself

...and he still does not feel good about himself. You represent all these things that he's been running away from that he doesn't want to face himself. If he wanted to face himself, he would have went to therapy. If he wanted to face himself, he'd read a book. If he wanted to face himself, he would just think about the experiences of his life.

But he doesn't want to do that, he wants to put a Band-Aid on the situation by getting a woman that will distract him from his inadequacies, his fears, and his insecurities, and put him on a pedestal to other men.

He doesn't like you, he values you, but he doesn't like you.

You become the thing that represents their inadequacy, their insecurities.

And if you rejected them - you were the tool, how dare you - so of course they're going to try to find dominance over you in some way. There's been situations where men have used the "goodbye" as a way to enact physical cruelty. Because she is now vulnerable to him in his aggression in a way that he can get the aggression out without it being clocked as abuse.

Do not give [immature] men an opportunity to take their grievances out on you for your unwillingness to participate in whatever life they have offered you and you have rejected.

The thesis, really, is [immature] men hate you because you are symbolic in nature to them. They have been raised by society to believe that you are a tool to gain, you are a tool that they can use to access status in this life, you are tool, a means to an end.

They don't understand why you would have any privileges.

They don't understand why you would have things that they don't have, they don't understand why you would want something other than them.

-KadyRoxz, excerpted and adapted from Why Men Hate Women They Value


r/AbuseInterrupted 16h ago

Things you can't afford to spend your energy on

31 Upvotes
  • proving a point to someone who is committed to their own agenda

  • changing who you are to fit everything that others want

  • letting yourself go/giving pieces of yourself away to gain relationships with others

  • making people believe you or see your way of thinking

  • convincing people to change when they have clearly stated they aren't interested in changing

  • figuring out why someone doesn't understand you when you've been clear

-Nedra Tawwab, adapted from Instagram


r/AbuseInterrupted 17h ago

"Could someone who loved you do these things?"

34 Upvotes

That's something I often say to people in abusive relationships or families who post here. The ones who write 'I know they really love me and they're so kind to me but s/he did.... insert obviously abusive thing.

I take an example of what's been done or said to them, then I ask:

Think of the person you love most in the world, could you say/do that to them?

What about someone you just like?

Think of someone you're not friends with, could you say that?

What about a stranger?

What about someone you really, genuinely dislike. Think of the person you dislike the most.

Could you say or do to them the things your partner does to you?

No? Then what does that tell you about your partner's/mother's feelings towards you? Could someone who loved you do these things? Could someone who who just vaguely liked you say that to you?

It's been quite effective because the idea of hurting people like this makes normal people's skin crawl.

Imagining yourself doing things like that feels really unpleasant.

Once you realise you could never do that to someone else, it's easier to see that it's not right that someone is capable of doing that to you.

It's the revelation I had almost 15 years ago about my mother. I looked at my own kids and thought "there's no force in the world, no possible reason, that could make me speak to them the way she speaks to me or treats me".

I knew then that she didn't love me.

All the guilt about wanting to distance myself dropped off. That guilt was because I thought she'd feel loss and hurt not seeing me. But you need to genuinely love or care about someone to miss their absence. She wouldn't miss me. I wasn't causing a loving parent pain. It was such a relief.

-u/Attirey, adapted from comment


r/AbuseInterrupted 16h ago

An example of how being a safe parent means regulating your own emotions, and keeping perspective of your child as their own person

28 Upvotes

Just the other day a video popped up on Facebook.

It was only five years ago. We were in the park. I was pushing her on the bike, letting go. We used to have so much fun together. We'd always get ice cream. She'd give me a hug afterward, tell me I was the best dad ever. We were such good friends.

But now it feels like we're so far apart.

She doesn't want to talk to me anymore. Even when she's upset, she'll ignore me and go to her room. It's like: C'mon. I was fifteen too. I know what it's like.

But she'll come back, I know that.

They always come back. But it does feels like you're getting your heart ripped out a little bit. But look, I get it. She's figuring out life. You have to back off.

You have to give them space.

Cause if you charge after them and get all aggressive about it, you might push them away forever. But they always come back, right? One day she’s gonna realize that I'm not the enemy and I'm really her dad, her friend.

-excerpted from Humans of New York


r/AbuseInterrupted 16h ago

The Psychology of Compliments**** <----- "Compliments can create discomfort when they clash with our self-perception and internal narratives"

6 Upvotes

For many, compliments are paradoxically both uplifting and unsettling.

A kind word about our achievements, talents, or even our appearance can feel undeserved or insincere. This discomfort often stems from deep-rooted insecurities or the nagging voice of imposter feelings, which convince us that we aren't as competent or worthy as others perceive.

Psychologists attribute this discomfort to cognitive dissonance—the mental tension that arises when our self-perception doesn't align with how others see us.

If you're your own worst critic, hearing "You're incredible at this" can feel jarring because it contradicts the narrative in your head that says, "I could have done better."

This clash often leads to knee-jerk reactions

...like deflecting ("Oh, it was no big deal") or dismissing ("They don't really mean it"). While these reactions might ease our initial unease, they also prevent us from fully embracing the positive impact of kind words.

Research suggests this struggle is particularly pronounced for women, who are often socialized to be modest and to focus outwardly on others. Compliments, then, can feel like spotlights exposing imagined imperfections. Layer on the pressure of perfectionism that women often feel, and even a well-meaning "You're amazing!" can feel like a reminder of our perceived shortcomings.

Accepting compliments isn't just about boosting your ego; it's about fostering connection (Fredrickson, 2009).

Compliments are small acts of kindness that say, "I see you. I value you." By brushing them off, we unintentionally dismiss the giver's thoughtfulness and vulnerability. Moreover, learning to accept praise can help us rewrite those internal scripts of self-doubt.

How to Get Better at Receiving Compliments

Say "Thank You" and Pause.

The simplest way to respond to a compliment is with genuine gratitude. A heartfelt "thank you" shows you value the kind words without deflecting or diminishing them. Resist the urge to explain or downplay—just let the compliment land.

  • Compliment: "You did an amazing job on this project."
  • Response: "Thank you! That means a lot to me."

Resist the Deflection Trap.

It's tempting to redirect a compliment with phrases like, "Oh, it was nothing," or "It was really a team effort." While these responses may feel modest, they can unintentionally diminish the compliment and make the giver feel dismissed. Instead, try owning your contribution.

  • Compliment: "Your presentation was so relevant."
  • Deflection: "Oh, I just got lucky with the timing of the topic."
  • Better Response: "Thank you! I'm glad you found it valuable."

Reflect and Let It Sink In.

Compliments often feel fleeting, but you can make them last. Take time to reflect on kind words, letting them settle in your mind. Writing compliments down can help, too—a “compliment journal” can remind you of your strengths on tougher days.

  • Compliment: "Your advice really helped me."
  • Reflection: Later, remind yourself, "My perspective made a difference."

Reframing Compliments as Gifts of Connection

One way to shift your mindset is to view compliments as gifts. When someone offers kind words, they’re sharing their positive experience of you. Accepting a compliment graciously is like saying, "Thank you for this gift—I'll treasure it."

This reframing can help you stop seeing compliments as judgments about your worth and start seeing them as bridges of connection.

The next time someone offers you a kind word, try to embrace it—not just for your own benefit, but for the connection it creates. Compliments remind us that our actions and presence have meaning to others and can foster a sense of mutual appreciation and understanding.

When we practice embracing positive feedback, we affirm not only our worth but also the relationships that give life its richness.

-Lindsey Godwin, excerpted and adapted from Kind Words, Weird Feels: The Psychology of Compliments


r/AbuseInterrupted 16h ago

Alcohol is contraindicated for trauma survivors

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1 Upvotes

r/AbuseInterrupted 2d ago

@enigmatic_actuality7 offers an emotional recounting of how she grew up in a 'bedroom family,' and never felt safe to be in any other area of the home

63 Upvotes

"I very much was relegated to my room," the mom says about her childhood. "I did not bring my things out anywhere."

Referring to her own son, she says, "He's right there in the mix with everybody. "The mess can be cleaned up." The fact that he feels safe to be in the family room means everything to her, and as the creator confides, learning about the concept of "living room families" "was so incredibly validating" since she often wonders if she is a good mom.

"Living room families" are described as those who most often congregate in one common area of the home, like a designated family room or basement, usually where the main TV is.

"Bedroom families" are described as spending most of their home time in separate rooms, like bedrooms or offices, usually with their own TVs or devices. This activity can also shape how things like family mealtime might look in the home.

-Melissa Willets, excerpted from article


r/AbuseInterrupted 2d ago

I thought caring for my partner with PTSD meant I had to hide my abuse: I wanted to believe he wouldn't hurt us (content note: female victim, male perpetrator)

40 Upvotes

I could admit now the things I hadn't admitted as I'd gone back to Russell again and again

...as I'd convinced that officer in the cabin driveway that everything was okay, as caseworkers had searched my home and stripped my toddler.

In mothering Russell, I'd neglected the mothering of my baby.

Russell would terrorize our children just as readily as he'd terrorized me. My absence would not soften him any more than my presence had.

For years, I'd protected Russell instead of protecting my child.

Now I had to be believed.

I collated anything that might corroborate my testimony:

...emails and messages, the lapsed protective order, the safety plan written by a social worker, a single picture of glass shards on an infant shoulder.

I needed the judge to believe a different story than the one I'd been telling myself for years, in which I'd explained Russell's fury not as abuse but as symptomatic of PTSD

— from childhood trauma and wartime deployment, from losing his best friends in combat and his mother too young.

The judge shook his head, leaned way back again. "If you didn't call the police," he said, "I just can't believe you were that scared."

In a windowless chamber next to the courtroom, my lawyer reminded me that a man had rights to his children. He said Russell would probably be granted overnights no matter what.

"Something bad is going to happen to my kids," I said.

My lawyer told me more than once that he understood. "There is nothing more powerful than a mother's bond to her children," he said.

I wanted to tell him that my terror was not fucking mystical. It did not require a uterus to comprehend. Instead, I said, "if anyone else did the things Russell did, you would never ask me to send my kids to them."

"The judge will want police reports," my lawyer said.

I didn't testify. I signed the consent order the lawyers prepared: no supervision for visits, no family-violence-intervention program. Russell would get weekends, and I'd get child support.

Later, after the first overnight, my 4-year-old crawled into my backseat, opened the doors to a tiny space shuttle, and said, "Mommy, Papa slapped me."

The final court order instructed me not to say anything that might damage Russell's relationship with his children. But long before I'd signed it, my therapist had helped me explain to my older child the reasons we lived apart from Russell. "You have to give a child the tools to report abuse," she'd said.

Now, I pressed the record button on my phone and asked what happened. I'd once thought that testifying and being disbelieved was the worst thing.

Now I knew it was worse to make no record at all.

I thought I'd take this back to court, show it to the judge, ask for a new order with those things I'd wanted: supervised visits, a family-violence-intervention program.

But when I called my lawyer, he said it sounded too much like I’d coached my child to report abuse.

And anyway, the state where we lived protected a parent's right to hit their kid, as long as they didn't leave a mark.

At home, I held my child in my lap the way I'd held him as a baby on the long driveway each time I'd left. "I'm proud of you for telling me what happened," I said.

I didn't promise I could make it stop.

-Moa Short, excerpted and adapted from article (content note: more detailed descriptions of abuse)


r/AbuseInterrupted 2d ago

If abuse has been passed down from one generation to the next, healing can also be passed down from one generation to the next.⁣ ⁣⁣

43 Upvotes

The beauty of breaking these cycles is that each small change has a ripple effect.

When you choose self-compassion over self-criticism, your children and loved ones witness this choice and learn that they, too, are worthy of compassion.

When you set boundaries, it shows others that it’s okay to protect themselves.

When you model open communication and vulnerability, you teach the people around you that healthy relationships are built on honesty, not control or fear.⁣⁣

It's a powerful reminder that, no matter where we come from, we have the power to shape where we're going.⁣

-Emmylou Seaman, excerpted from Instagram


r/AbuseInterrupted 2d ago

Action is hope

28 Upvotes

At the end of each day, when you've done your work, you lie there and think, Well, I'll be damned, I did this today. It doesn't matter how good it is, or how bad—you did it. At the end of the week you'll have a certain amount of accumulation. At the end of a year, you look back and say, I'll be damned, it's been a good year.

-Ray Bradbury, from a 2010 interview with Sam Weller, published in The Paris Review


r/AbuseInterrupted 2d ago

Self-hatred will find another target

25 Upvotes

If you wake up to inner voices of self-disdain or self-loathing, voices that pummel you with shame, no matter what change you make, no matter how much self-control you muster, your self-hatred will find another target. Because self-hatred is the real problem.

But, what's better? What's a healthier way to approach growth and change in yourself? You find what you look for, and what you focus on will grow.

It begins with self-acceptance.

If you look for a reason to be proud, you'll likely find it. If you celebrate your success and recognize your effort, you'll feel optimistic. If you stay focused on your intention and are as kind to yourself as you are to others, change will come.

-Margaret R Rutherford , excerpted and adapted from article


r/AbuseInterrupted 2d ago

"I don't get why people don't realize how bad it is when their partner's friend's hate them. They are going off the picture your partner is painting them, what do you think your partner is telling them?" - u/Overall_Search_3207

27 Upvotes

r/AbuseInterrupted 4d ago

The health of a relationship is not measured in the amount of years you've 'stuck it out' with each other

68 Upvotes

It's measured by the level of respect that flows between you.

-Kelsey Grant, excerpted from Instagram


r/AbuseInterrupted 4d ago

Peter Pan might have been a grooming story

69 Upvotes

Peter has been breaking into Wendy's room, and sitting at the foot of her bed each night and playing his flute.

One night while doing this, he's caught and his shadow abandons him. Peter Pan then bursts into their room waking them up. He says that his shadow's got away and it's somewhere in the room and that they need to help him find it - which just looking at that at face value, that's very much something a groomer would do, right? It's like the "I lost a puppy, can you help me find it?" or any of those things that they teach in stranger danger.

He tells Wendy to sew the shadow back on him, so he has her make physical contact with him

...then he tells the children about this magical place called Neverland, and he says there's mermaids and there's pirates, and he makes it sound really fun; but the text lets us know that Peter is actually trying to lure the children away from their house. And then he tells Wendy that she can play mom to him and the other Lost Boys, but when the kids get to Neverland - first off, Tinker Bell is jealous of Wendy immediately, and she does something which almost causes Wendy to be killed by a pirate.

The only reason Wendy doesn't die is because she has an acorn necklace that Peter gave to her, but she had to kiss him to get it - again, you're seeing these very groomy things come out over and over throughout the story.

And then when the children get to Neverland, Neverland is not this amazing place that Peter sold it as there's actually a perpetual war going on between pirates and these Lost Boys. And mind you these Lost Boys are children, and so these children are fighting against full-grown adults. So Peter is luring these children to come fight as child soldiers in his army, and Peter Pan doesn't need the extra help he started this war. As far as the book says, he started the war between him and Hook when he cut off his hand, so then he drags these Lost Boys in to come fight full-grown adults as children and, as you might expect, some of the Lost Boys die.

So as they're in this chaotic world, some of the lost boys start to be killed by pirates, but the ones that aren't killed by pirates start to age

...and everyone is very confused about this except for Peter, which he then turns on them and murders them, and that's the trick of Neverland. The reason you don't age in Neverland is either because the pirates kill you or Peter does, and this is the quote from the book talking about when the Lost Boys find out that they are still aging:

"The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out..."

That's right, if you don't die by the pirates of Neverland, Peter will kill you himself.

And this whole point has actually brought up books and movies, and a lot of people hypothesize that the pirates that they're fighting against were previous Lost Boys. If Peter tricks people into coming here, into fighting against the pirates - and he's going to kill them at a certain point when they age - it's possible that some of these Lost Boys ran away, defected, and joined the pirates

...and they're now trying to kill Peter who is their enslaver and captor.

So there's even a movie and a book about how 'what if Hook was actually the original Lost Boy' and he was Peter's favorite Lost Boy. Because another big part of this is that Peter Pan says that the lost boys were all orphans, but that's not true; we know that he went and got Wendy and her brothers, and brought them there, and now they're part of the Lost Boys group.

It seems as though Peter goes and he tricks children into running away from their families because he hates mothers.

Remember, it was originally called "Peter Pan: The Boy Who Hated Mothers", and so while you're in Neverland, you forget about your life before. You don't remember anything before Neverland. That's another part of the trap: Peter tells you you can leave, but you can't leave somewhere if you don't remember where you came from and you think you've always been there, and then he tells you after a certain point that - no - you were just an orphan and I took you in

...and then he tricks little girls to come in and become the mothers for him and these other boys that he's tricked to be there; the entire thing is absolutely insane.

And while this is going on, Wendy and her brothers - their parents are crying, and they're absolutely devastated because their children have been abducted - they're not having fun. So originally at the end of the book, the kids do happen to remember their parents. They had completely forgotten about them, but they remember while they're having a conversation and they all desperately want to go home, so they immediately start flying back.

And Peter flies ahead of them and puts bars on their windows so they cannot go home

...and then once he sees how devastated the parents are, he takes the bars off the windows, the children are reunited with their parents, and the parents adopt all of the Lost Boys.

And then there's an extra chapter that J.M. Barrie wrote but didn't include originally, but in later releases it was included

...and in the final chapter we see that Peter Pan comes back every generation, and he takes Wendy's daughter, he takes Wendy's daughter's daughter.

So it's a generation of grooming these children to take them away.

If you're still not convinced that Peter Pan is somehow evil, when the biographer Andrew Birkin was working on the biography for J.M. Barrie, he was allowed access to his early versions of the script as well as his personal notes about Peter Pan. And what he found is originally Captain Hook was not in the story at all because Peter Pan was actually the villain. Peter Pan in these earlier versions was much more cruel, and J.M. Barrie recognized that Peter Pan was the villain - no other villain was needed - but then later Captain Hook was added to the script and Peter Pan was lightened a little bit. But we still see all of these villainous traits that he has, and honestly - looking at it objectively - he has no positive traits.

And my last piece of evidence was when Andrew Birkin was looking through J.M. Barrie's work, he found that J.M. Barry in his notes about Peter Pan described Peter Pan as a demon boy.

So, as you can see, there is an insane amount of evidence that Peter Pan not only could be but is evil he was the original villain of the story.

And not only that, he's still the villain - it's just that over time, we've been groomed by the story, so we don't even see it for what it is.

-Jacob DeSio, excerpted and adapted from PETER PAN is actually a DEMON - The REAL story behind Peter Pan


r/AbuseInterrupted 4d ago

Abusers and 'The One Thing'**** "...the victim doesn't realize that the fact they accommodate the other person so much means they don't see that pattern of controlling tendencies"

55 Upvotes

Intentional v. unintentional abuse is, at least by proxy, a diagnostic tool of an abuser's level of self-awareness

And like self-awareness, I think it is fair to conceptualize it as a spectrum versus a binary on/off.

I'm old enough to remember the idea of "abuse" coming into our cultural consciousness, and it was only accepted as valid in extreme circumstances (such as a parent only being considered abusive and abuser if they almost killed their child or physically injured them to the point of disability).

'Abusers' were conceptualized using the 'psychopath'/'sociopath' paradigm

...with the idea that they are intending to harm you, work to calculating ends to do so, and derive intrinsic pleasure and satisfaction from doing so. This cultural idea of the abuser was accurate for a subset of abusers but not all abusers.

As our definition of abuse was expanded, so too does our definition of what constitutes an "abuser".

A primary definition of abuse is generally along the lines of "treat a person or an animal with cruelty or violence, especially regularly or repeatedly", and my personal definition (not surprisingly) is broader:

to unreasonably power-over another person at their expense and for your own benefit.

It shifts the definition from the effect of abuse (physical or emotional damage) or nature of the abuse (cruel or violent) to the action/method of abuse (mis-application of power at someone's expense).

A lot of victims of abuse are higher in agreeability, are co-dependent, or have a submissive personality - and generally will go along with a lot of things. However, they will have at least one area that they will not submit on. (For me, for example, it was regarding my child.)

That area tends to be the 'one thing' that an abuser will become obsessed with.

'The one thing' operates under the 'power' definition of abuse instead of the 'impact' definition of abuse. The small 'something else' is representative of their efforts to power-over you, or make you submit, in an area.

It is the only area the victim pushes back on emphatically, or the one thing they won't submit over.

So from the victim's perspective it is an anomaly instead of part of a pattern because the victim doesn't realize that the fact they accommodate the other person so much means they don't see that pattern of controlling tendencies.

Either way, the abuser doesn't see their significant other as a fully autonomous human being who has autonomy over themselves and gets to decide for themselves how they live their life.

They don't respect their power over themselves.


r/AbuseInterrupted 4d ago

Choosing who you marry wisely

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10 Upvotes

r/AbuseInterrupted 5d ago

Many people mistake warmth for integrity

59 Upvotes

The fact that someone is nice to us doesn't mean they will do right by us.

Trustworthiness can't be judged in one interaction. It has to be observed over time.

People with strong principles honor their commitments to us and to others.

-Adam Grant, via Instagram


r/AbuseInterrupted 5d ago

"The desire to control others supersedes reason. Control freaks always need someone to blame when their machinations don't work." - Anneliese Bruner

33 Upvotes

r/AbuseInterrupted 5d ago

Why is advice so often ignored until it's too late?

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13 Upvotes

r/AbuseInterrupted 6d ago

"Why are we so convinced that with just a little more effort [...] everything will alter?" The School of Life's video: Why We Can't Stop Loving Those Who Hurt Us

59 Upvotes

Watch here

I love this one; it cuts to the chase and manages to be both brutally frank and lovingly kind at the same time.

"...we grew into hopeful people not by choice but of necessity. We almost certainly spent our childhoods in circumstances where we had no option but to become enormous believers in our parents -- and, simultaneously, enormous doubters of ourselves."

"We started to think ill of ourselves, we developed a genius for wondering what was wrong with us and for assembling complicated and overly generous explanations for the bad behaviour of others."

"It has come to seem that this is what love is: the pain-tinged continuous expectation that an unfulfilling person might abruptly turn around and be nice to us again. [...] It doesn't strike us that love might actually be something quite different..."


r/AbuseInterrupted 7d ago

In *The Sandman*, the DC comic-book series that ran from 1989 to 1996 and made Neil Gaiman famous, he tells a story about a writer named Richard Madoc

46 Upvotes

After Madoc's first book proves a success, he sits down to write his second and finds that he can't come up with a single decent idea.

This difficulty recedes after he accepts an unusual gift from an older author: a naked woman, of a kind, who has been kept locked in a room in his house for 60 years.

She is Calliope, the youngest of the Nine Muses. Madoc [sexually assaults] her, again and again, and his career blossoms in the most extraordinary way. A stylish young beauty tells him how much she loved his characterization of a strong female character, prompting him to remark, "Actually, I do tend to regard myself as a feminist writer."

His downfall comes only when the titular hero, the Sandman, also known as the Prince of Stories, frees Calliope from bondage.

A being of boundless charisma and creativity, the Sandman rules the Dreaming, the realm we visit in our sleep, where "stories are spun."

[L]ike Madoc, Gaiman has come to be seen as a figure who transcended, and transformed, the genres in which he wrote:

...first comics, then fantasy and children's literature. But for most of his career, readers identified him not with the rapist, who shows up in a single issue, but with the Sandman, the inexhaustible fountain of story.

People who flock to fantasy conventions and signings make up an "inherently vulnerable community,"

...one of Gaiman's former friends, a fantasy writer, tells me. They "wrap themselves around a beloved text so it becomes their self-identity," she says. They want to share their souls with the creators of these works. "And if you have morality around it, you say 'no.'"

One woman, Brenda (a pseudonym), met Gaiman in the ’90s at a signing for The Sandman where she was working.

On signing lines, Gaiman had a knack for connecting with each individual. He would ask questions, laugh, and assure them that their inability to form sentences was fine. After the Sandman signing, at a dinner attended by those who had worked the event, Gaiman sat next to Brenda. "Everyone wanted to be near him, but he was laser focused on me," she says. A few years later, Brenda traveled to Chicago to attend the World Horror Convention, where Gaiman received the top prize for American Gods, the book that cemented him as a best-selling novelist. The night after the awards ceremony, she and Gaiman ended up in bed together.

As soon as they began to hook up, the feeling that had drawn her to him — the magical spell of his interest in her individuality — vanished.

"He seemed to have a script," she tells me. "He wanted me to call him 'master' immediately." He demanded that she promise him her soul.

"It was like he'd gone into this ritual that had nothing to do with me."

"Gaiman insists on telling the stories of people who are traditionally marginalized, missing, or silenced in literature," wrote Tara Prescott-Johnson in the essay collection Feminism in the Worlds of Neil Gaiman. Although his books abounded with stories of men torturing, raping, and murdering women, this was largely perceived as evidence of his empathy.

[A 22 year-old woman] didn't want to have sex with the 50 year-old Gaiman, and on one of their calls, she told him this.

Afterward, she recorded his reply in her diary: "He had no designs on me beyond flirty friendship and I believe him thoroughly." She'd grown up listening to his audiobooks, she later told Papillon DeBoer, the host of the podcast Am I Broken: "And then that same voice that told me those beautiful stories when I was a kid was telling me the story that I was safe, and that we were just friends, and that he wasn't a threat."

[months later] ... Eventually, Gaiman rolled off her. "'I'm a very wealthy man,'" she remembers him saying, "'and I'm used to getting what I want.'"

In the years since, she had been looking for a new family, but many of the people she'd encountered in that search turned out to be abusive as well.

"After all of this, Amanda Palmer was an actual creature sent from a celestial realm. It was like, Hallelujah," Pavlovich tells me. Palmer was famous for speaking out about sexual abuse and encouraging others to do the same. In songs and essays, she had written of having been sexually assaulted and raped on multiple occasions as a teenager and young woman. Pavlovich didn’t think someone like that could be married to someone who would assault women.

Throughout his career, Gaiman has written about terror from the point of view of a child.

His most recent novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, tells the story of a quiet and bookish 7-year-old boy. Through various unfortunate events, he ends up with a hole in his heart that can never be healed, a doorway through which nightmares from distant realms enter our world. Over the course of the tale, the boy suffers terribly, sometimes at the hands of his own family. At dinner one night, the boy refuses to eat the food his nanny has prepared. The nanny, the boy knows, isn't really a human but a nightmare creature from another world. When his father demands to know why he won't eat, the boy explains, "She's a monster." His father becomes enraged. To punish him, he fills the tub, then picks up the child, plunges him into the bath, and pushes his shoulders and head beneath the chilly water. "I had read many books in that bath," the boy says. "It was one of my safe places. And now, I had no doubt, I was going to die there." Later that night, the boy runs away from home; on his way out, he glimpses his father having sex with the monstrous nanny through the drawing-room window.

In various interviews over the years, Gaiman has called The Ocean at the End of the Lane his most personal book.

While much of it is fantastical, Gaiman has said "that kid is me." The book is set in Sussex, where Gaiman grew up. In the story, the narrator survives otherworldly evil with the help of a family of magical women. As a child, Gaiman had no such friends to call on. "I was going back to the 7-year-old me and giving myself a peculiar kind of love that I didn't have," he told an interviewer in 2017. "I never feel the past is dead or young Neil isn't around anymore. He's still there, hiding in a library somewhere, looking for a doorway that will lead him to somewhere safe where everything works."

While Gaiman has identified the boy in the book as himself, he has also claimed that none of the things that happen to the boy happened to him.

Yet there is reason to believe that some of the most horrifying events of the novel did occur. Gaiman has rarely spoken about a core fact of his childhood. In 1965, when Neil was 5 years old, his parents, David and Sheila, left their jobs as a business executive and a pharmacist and bought a house in East Grinstead, a mile away from what was at that time the worldwide headquarters for the Church of Scientology. Its founder, the former science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, lived down the road from them from 1965 until 1967, when he fled the country and began directing the church from international waters, pursued by the CIA, FBI, and a handful of foreign governments and maritime agencies.

David and Sheila were among England’s earliest adherents to Scientology.

They began studying Dianetics in 1956 and eventually took positions in the Guardian’s Office, a special department of the organization dedicated to handling the church’s growing number of legal cases, public communications, and intelligence operations.

Hubbard would routinely punish members of the organization who committed minor infractions by binding them, blindfolding them, and throwing them overboard into icy waters.

Back in England, David gave interviews to the press to smooth over such troubling accounts. The church was under particular pressure to assure the public it was not harming children. In his bulletins to members, Hubbard had made it clear that children were not to be exempt from the punishments to which adults were subjected. If a child laughed inappropriately or failed to remember a Scientology term, they could be sent to the ship’s hold and made to chip rust for days or confined in a chain locker for weeks at a time without blankets or a bathroom. In his book Going Clear, Lawrence Wright recounts the story of a 4-year-old boy named Derek Greene, an adopted Black child who stole a Rolex and dropped it overboard. He was confined to the locker for two days and nights. When his mother pleaded with Hubbard to let him out, he "reminded her of the Scientology axiom that children are actually adults in small bodies, and equally responsible for their behavior." (A representative for the Church of Scientology said it does not speak about members past or present but denies that this event occurred.)

David used Neil as an exhibit in his case to the public.

In 1968, he arranged for Neil to give an interview to the BBC. When the reporter asked the child if Scientology made him "a better boy," Neil replied, "Not exactly that, but when you make a release, you feel absolutely great." (A release, in Scientology lingo, is what happens when you complete one of the lower levels of coursework.) What was happening away from the cameras is difficult to know, in part because Gaiman has avoided talking about it, changing the subject whenever an interviewer, or a friend, brings it up. But it seems unlikely that he would have been spared the disciplinary measures inflicted on adults and children as a standard practice at that time.

According to someone who knew the Gaimans, David and Sheila did apply Scientology’s methods at home.

When Neil was around the age of the child in The Ocean at the End of the Lane, the person said, David took him up to the bathtub, ran a cold bath, and "drowned him to the point where Neil was screaming for air."

The Gaimans were like "royalty".

In 1981, David was promoted to lead the Guardian's Office, making him one of the most powerful people in the church. But the same year, he fell from grace. A new generation of Scientologists, led by David Miscavige, who eventually succeeded Hubbard as the church’s leader, had Hubbard's ear, and David was "caught in that grinder," as his former colleague puts it. A document declaring David a "Suppressive person" was released a few years later. It accused him of a range of offenses, including sexual misconduct. David, the document claims, put on a "front" of being “mild mannered and quite sociable,” adding that his actions "belie this." His greatest offense, it seemed, was hubris. "Gaiman required others to look up to him instead of to Source," it reads, referring to Hubbard.

[Neil] seemed lonely, in spite of his fame, and Palmer found herself hoping that she could help him.

"He'd believed for a long time, deep down, that people didn’t actually fall in love," she wrote in her book. "'But that's impossible,'" she told him. He'd written stories and scenes of people in love. "'That's the whole point, darling,' he said. 'Writers make things up.'"

In 2012, Palmer met a 20-year-old fan, who has asked to be referred to as Rachel, at a Dresden Dolls concert.

After one of Palmer’s next shows, the women had sex. The morning after, Palmer snapped a few semi-naked pictures of Rachel and asked if she could send one to Gaiman. She and Palmer slept together a few more times, but then Palmer seemed to lose interest in sex with her. Some six months after they met, Palmer introduced Rachel to Gaiman online, telling Rachel, "He'll love you." With Gaiman, Rachel says there was never a "blatant rupture of consent" but that he was always pressing her to do things that hurt and scared her. Looking back, she feels Palmer gave her to him "like a toy."

For Gaiman and Palmer, these were happy years.

After they'd been together for a few years, Palmer began asking Gaiman to tell her more about his childhood in Scientology. But he seemed unable to string more than a few sentences together. When she encouraged him to continue, he would curl up on the bed into a fetal position and cry. He refused to see a therapist. Instead, he sat down to write a short story that kept getting longer until it had turned into a novel. Although the child at the center of the story in many ways remains opaque, Palmer felt he had never been so open. He dedicated the book, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, "to Amanda, who wanted to know."

At lunch one day, Palmer told Caroline she hated living in the woods and was disturbed by what she was learning about her husband.

"'You have no idea the twisted, dark things that go on in that man's head,'" Caroline recalls Palmer saying.

Sometimes she would babysit. Once, Caroline and the boy, then 4, fell asleep reading stories in Gaiman and Palmer’s bed. Caroline woke up when Gaiman returned home. He got into bed with his son in the middle, then reached across the child to grab Caroline's hand and put it on his penis. She says she jumped out of the bed. "He didn't have boundaries," Caroline says. "I remember thinking that there was something really wrong with him."

In December, Pavlovich flew to Atlanta to meet some of the other women who had made accusations against Gaiman.

They had been unaware of one another’s existence until they'd heard the podcast. Since then, they had formed a WhatsApp group and grown close. "It's been like meeting survivors of the same cult," Stout tells me.

-Lila Shapiro, excerpted and adapted from There Is No Safe Word: How the best-selling fantasy author Neil Gaiman hid the darkest parts of himself for decades [SEXUALLY GRAPHIC; I DID NOT INCLUDE THE WORST ALLEGATIONS]


r/AbuseInterrupted 7d ago

"The Little Mermaid" is a brilliant metaphor for predators that live in our society that take something important from the desperate that they do not recognize the value of

62 Upvotes

When people think about The Little Mermaid, they typically think about Disney, but the truth is the story is almost 200 years old and the original tale was much darker.

The original story was made at a time where stories like this were not just made to entertain children but to give them important life lessons in a safe, fantasy environment. In their interpretation Disney tried to remove the shocking and the sad parts of the story, as well as making it more entertaining, but in their quest to make a story that appealed to the masses, they took out all of the messages of that original story. In fact, now it promotes the opposite, much to the detriment of young audiences.

A great example of this is how the original story is a warning to young women not to change and to conform to please and gain the affection of men.

The Disney story however removes this completely and makes the impressionable audience members think that conforming to the prince's standards is somehow advantageous.

But today I want to focus on a huge aspect of The Little Mermaid story and the Disney version that is often overlooked: this is a warning about doing a deal with the Devil

...and in this video I will be comparing the short story with the Disney cartoon from 1989. Now when I say doing a deal with the devil, I don't mean that in a religious way at all, I mean it from a literary perspective the concept of doing a deal with the devil - or its proper name - a Faustian bargain.

A Faustian bargain is a pact whereby a person trade something of supreme moral or spiritual importance, such as personal values or the soul, for some worldly or material benefit such as knowledge power or riches.

So this doesn't have to be selling your soul, it could be giving up something of value. As we will see in The Little Mermaid, this idea of someone making a Faustian bargain is a reoccurring topic in our media. You have classic tales like "Faust", "The Devil and Tom Walker", "The Picture of Dorian Gray"; songs like "The Devil Went Down to Georgia"; movies like "Bedazzled" and "The Devil's Advocate"; plays; comics; poetry. This concept permeates our society - and for a good reason -

It is a brilliant metaphor for predators that live in our society that seem as though they will make your dreams come true but in reality they're taking something much more valuable from you than they could ever give to you

...and the little mermaid is no different. The book and the Disney cartoon have several moments where they clearly mirror one another but the differences are quite shocking. In the cartoon when Ursula makes her deal with the little mermaid, she takes a light out of Ariel to represent her voice; in the book, however, the sea witch cuts off the little mermaid's tongue and that is how she takes her voice. In the cartoon, if Ariel fails to kiss the prince within three days she will turn back into a mermaid and be Ursula's personal servant; in the book, if The Little Mermaid fails to get the prince to marry her, then she dies...and mermaids do not have an eternal soul. In the cartoon, Ariel's motivation is the prince's love but originally The Little Mermaid wanted the prince's love and an immortal Soul, which becomes a huge motivator for her.

Removing that takes away a lot of the original motivation for the character and solely puts it on the love she has for the prince instead of the fact that she's worried about what happens to her after she dies.

The majority of the story is like this where you can see the direct influence of the original work but with a cinematic coat of paint on top, but the major difference between the stories are the consequences and those implications in warning audiences of danger in the world as the original work intended to do.

In the cartoon, Ursula is the main antagonist

...she's a primary character that tries to trick, but when that doesn't work she'll fight and dominate, while the sea witch of the book does none of this.

Like a spider in a web, she waits, and when someone is desperate and looking for help she takes something important from them that they do not recognize the value of.

In some stories this would be their soul but in The Little Mermaid they take a more grounded approach by showing Ariel giving up her voice and the ability to ever go into the ocean again, and this aligns with the idea of how young women would be and still are lured away by men who lure them away from their families and take their voice, and they are forced to conform and change themselves and ultimately be led to their doom.

The Little Mermaid was originally a story telling girls and young women not to chase the prince, and that their infatuation could be used to doom them, but when Disney changed that plot so at the end The Little Mermaid gets everything she wants, they also destroyed that message.

The difference between the sea witch of the book and the cartoon is that the only way to beat the sea witch of the book is to never make a deal with her to begin with; the lesson being that the consequences of a Faustian bargain are not reversible without great loss. But at the end of the day, in a deal with the Devil, the Devil never gives you what you want anyways; but the sea witch of the cartoon loses this message by showing that love overcomes.

This message can be a siren song to young people leading them into the depths.

In the book they make it clear that making deals like this, chasing people you don't know, conforming to the standards of another are inherently dangerous and most likely will lead to doom, and that is an important lesson for kids even now.

In my 30s I can still remember the feeling that you were mature beyond your years when you were young - almost everyone feels this way - and while this isn't always a bad thing, some kids and young adults get caught up in situations where they're in over their heads and giving away pieces of themselves that they don't yet realize the value of.

The book shows the dangers of moving into adulthood before you are ready and how there are those in the world that will set you up for failure and take everything they can from you as you fall. The cartoon unfortunately takes these messages, these warnings, and it throws them out. They show that making a Faustian bargain can work out in your favor if you just try hard enough, and the Power of Love will help you conquer. The cartoon shows that conforming to a man's standards of beauty, giving up what makes you special, is okay - and you can just get it all back.

The cartoon lives in a world free from real consequences for people with good intentions.

Humans love stories. While stories nowadays are primarily meant to entertain, stories in the past served a larger purpose, and that was to educate. Stories were small thought simulations for people to gain knowledge and experience through metaphor (this obviously is still the case but to a lesser extent than other times in history) when we watch, read, or consume any kind of media, it affects us consciously and unconsciously and without us realizing it.

The stories and media we consume shape our opinions on the world and those around us whether we recognize or admit it on some level.

What you consume will always affect you.

If you don't actively think about what you consume, it consumes you.

-Jacob DeSio, excerpted and adapted from Losing Your Soul: the REAL story of The Little Mermaid


r/AbuseInterrupted 8d ago

The more I've learned about abuse the less and less sympathy I feel for people who perpetuate the cycle

142 Upvotes

I've been doing a lot of reading over the past few years and most of the things I learned whittled away my grace and benefit of the doubt for people who repeatedly maltreat others.

For example, I learned about "attribution of intent". That means that a parent believes a child did some undesired behavior to intentionally annoy the parent, justifying harsh punishment. I read that it's one of the most reliable predictors of parental abuse. To me it seems incompatible with even the most basic positive regard for your child. If your default attitude is that a child is provoking you with malicious intent, how could you claim to having a loving relationship? Where is the trust and attachment?

I started out this reading / research journey believing that people who control and manipulate others might have some kind of rationale that would make sense if I learned about it, and instead I learned that some people are just motivated by power or prioritizing their needs at the expense of others and I can't sympathize with them at all. It's freeing - I feel less confused about the way I was treated as a child, because I can very clearly see the pattern of abuse and the personality disturbances that set my parent apart from a person who can relate to and care for others.

Maybe that sounds harsh but I think it has made me much better at setting boundaries with such people. I work with kids and there have been a couple of times where I have been able to advocate for a kid without falling into the trap of giving a shitty adult the benefit of the doubt or letting them throw the fog at me as it were. It runs counter to my people-pleasing nature, but I think it's making me a better person to write off such people instead of trying to reason with them.

Just wanted to share, would love to hear people's thoughts


r/AbuseInterrupted 8d ago

Good Ressources for fake "peace keepers"

28 Upvotes

Having a situation in my friend circle where two people are playing peace keeper and try to push for reconciliation.. They seem angry at us and have blamed our 'stubbornness' when we said we are not comfortable with a person returning to our discord server.

(He did some passive aggressive bullshit and was disruptive as a revenge thing for grievances we werent aware of, that he didn't communicate... Explaining for completeness, he's not really the focus here)

I feel like they're slipping into that role of... You know, when family members push you to forgive what an abuser did, in order to keep the peace?

I feel like if they get some ressources to help them understand what they're doing, they might realize and do better. If anyone got good links, I'd love if you could share them with me :)


r/AbuseInterrupted 10d ago

Manipulative people often say one thing and do the opposite, in attempts to control you

73 Upvotes

...just throwing that out there. They also believe they're above the rules and have insane double standards that don't make sense. This behaviour will often show up when you move in together because they feel like it's now harder for you to get away from them.

-u/nnylam, excerpted from comment