hobbitsaarebas:

alexaunderground:

elizabethalexis:

lora-mathis:

annnmoody:

fuckyeahwomenprotesting:

I feel we talk about signs of abuse from the victims standpoint but not from the abusers standpoint. In order to stop emotional abuse and recognize when we engage in unhealthy behaviors I made this list.

• Do you react to important people in your life by ignoring them completely and not acknowledging their presence? Especially if they do something you don’t like?

• Do you feel that your partner/friends/family members are the cause of your bad moods or frustration?

• Does your partner/etc “do things the wrong way”?

• Do criticize your partner/etc for being unreliable or a bad person?

• Do you feel you have to constantly overlook your partners flaws in order to be around them?

• Are you frequently accused of being “moody” or “hard to please”?

• Do your partners complain that “nothing they do is good enough?

• Do your partners appear to avoid you when you are angry or upset rather then comfort you?

• Do you negatively comment on their intelligence or appearence? Either in private or in front of others.

• Do you blame them when someone goes wrong?

• Do you ever use phrases like “I could just hit you right now” or “I”m so mad I could punch something”?

• Do you ever punch walls/throw things in front of your partner/etc?

• Do you leave during fights and not inform of where you are going and when you will be back?

• Do you behave the same alone with your partner that you do if you were in front of your friends or in public?

• Have you frequently accused your partner of being too sensitive?

• How often is your partner praised and complimented by yourself?

• Do you think your partner spends too much time with friends and family?

• Do you feel your partners friends and family are trying to drive you apart?

• Do you actively comfort your partner when they are upset or angry even if you don’t really understand why they feel the way they do?

• If your partner brings up a behavior that bothers them do you respond by discussing how to change it or do you respond defensively?

• Do you have difficulty apologizing?

All of these things are abuse tactics. Obviously even the healthiest of us will do these sometimes but if any one becomes a regular habit that’s when the problem starts.

this is super important, i feel like this website makes it easy to put yourself in the role of the victim but never the abuser. It’s also important to note that being a victim does not preclude you from being an abuser.

I find this esp. important. I’ve exhibited some of these behaviors. I know abuse perpetuates abuse and that victims of abuse learn abusive behavior. I also know that having mental illness can make reacting and dealing with feelings even more difficult. That being said: being mentally ill does not mean you cannot be held accountable for your actions. Nor does being a survivor of abuse. I gotta take care of myself & heal and recognize how trauma and mental illness plays a role in how I treat others. Being a victim doesn’t mean you cannot be an abuser too. 

this is the most important post on this website.

Thank you for this.

“Obviously even the healthiest of us will do these sometimes but if any one becomes a regular habit that’s when the problem starts.“

This is an important fact that I think gets lost in tumblr’s fixation with moral purity/absolutism. It’s normal to have graceless moments sometimes, when you react badly or say something insensitive/thoughtless/ignorant. When you do, apologize if you can, and move on. But there is a big difference between failing to be perfect, and having an ongoing pattern of mistreating others and refusing to change. 

Abuse often comes up in the belief that you have a right to be cruel, shaming, violent, belittling, or otherwise punitive to others if you don’t like their behavior. And by this, I’m not referring to being curt/impolite to gnarly bigots on tumblr and IRL, or holding someone accountable when they hurt you, even if they find it upsetting to be told they messed up. I mean, when the people you love displease you, do you think you have the right to punish them and make them feel self-loathing or afraid? Do you act to make them feel miserable too if you feel bad? Do you go beyond just expressing your feelings/boundaries and push to control others so you no longer have to feel anything you dislike?

Self-reflection of this type can be even harder to parse when you’ve been abused, because it’s natural to retaliate against your abuser, or to want to. Self-defense/self-protection against abuse is not the same as abuse, but abuse makes that distinction really confusing from the inside. It’s natural to hate your abuser, to want them to suffer for what they’re doing/did to you, to struggle to tolerate their harmful behavior, etc. This does not make you abusive. But just because you have been abused doesn’t mean that everything you do/did – even to your abuser – is ok, or that it was all just self-defense.

I don’t have a reliable way to help anyone distinguish between self-defense and abusive patterns. I wish I did. It’s confusing and complex to figure out, especially in relationships between people who are both marginalized or are both survivors. 

And tumblr’s absolutism makes it hard for people to self-reflect, because it makes the emotional cost of doing so incredibly high – often intolerably high. If we believe that all people who are or have been abusive are irredeemable garbage who should die/be killed/be isolated from others forever, what is someone supposed to do when they recognize abusiveness in theirself? If the cost of self-reflection is death or losing everyone you love, self-reflection will be avoided. Instead of protecting survivors, this absolutism teaches people (many of whom are survivors) who recognize their own abusiveness to either go into denial (thus prolonging the abuse) or to self-destruct via self-harm or suicide, rather than trying to change. 

I am not saying anyone should be forced to manage their abuser’s behavior, share spaces with their abuser, or feel empathy for those who hurt them. But I am saying that conversations about abuse, survivors, marginalization, and accountability are often much more complex than most of us like to admit. 

aut-of-space:

The ugliest part about trauma triggered by non-physical abuse is how keeps itself going.

If you’ve been emotionally abused, you start to numb yourself because not feeling anything is the only way to avoid it. Additionally, your trauma tricks you to see emotions as a weakness. Because otherwise, your only coping skill would be gone.

If you’ve been psychologically abused, you either start to justify it by lowering your self-esteem or you build up an unhealthy amount of it to wear as an amour. Additionally, you either think you’re not good enough to deserve anyone’s attention or you’re too good for anyone’s attention because that’s the only way you can integrate your experience.

Trauma is ugly. It tricks you to make false and extreme assumptions about yourself and life in general. And it forces you to keep them up because otherwise your experiences might strain you or break you more than they already did. Trauma protects you. It gives you a false sense of safety because it was the only thing that you could do back then to save (a bit of) yourself.

But honestly, as a cptsd survivor, let me tell you…

Don’t listen to your trauma.

Don’t listen to that voice which tells you emotions are a weakness and kindness is dumb.

Don’t listen to that voice which tells you that you either have to be better or worse then everybody else because otherwise you wouldn’t have had to endure what you did.

Because it’s just not true.

Emotions aren’t a weakness. Yes, they hurt you. And they always will. But they will also offer you so many good things which are completely worth it.

The warm feeling after being kind to someone else. The stolen moment in the morning when the sun is rising and you know that today will be a beautiful day. The happiness of listening to your favorite song…

These are all emotions that trauma is often shutting off, too.

Emotional abuse doesn’t happen because your emotions make you weak. People don’t pick you because they see your emotions as a weakness but rather because they are unable to deal with their own negative emotions by themselves. Abusing you is to them the same thing that numbness is to you – a way to deal with the bad things that happened to them.

And you don’t desrve to be miserable just because other people are. You deserve all the good things emotions can bring.

And I know that your trauma voice is telling you that it’s too dangerous. That feelings are a nuisance. That you’re somehow better than others for not feeling anything because it makes you more rational.

But that’s not true. It’s simply your trauma voice. That part of you which is still so afraid of being hurt and abused again.

But there are other ways to prevent that than being numb. You can learn how to keep these people away from yourself. You can learn how to recognise who treats you and your emotions with respect and who only views them as a tool for themselves to feel better. And you deserve it.

Psychological abuse isn’t an indicator of your worth. It’s nothing but a thing other people operationalize again to feel better about themselves or cope with something they can’t handle. It’s a mirror of the abusers worries, insecurities and weaknesses.

And honestly, believe me when I say that you’re more than that. That your self worth is not, like your trauma voice probably tells you, depended on the actions of your abuser. Because again. That voice is only trying to protect you. It’s nothing but your fear of being treated like that again which turns into an expectation. Because after all – that’s again your trauma voice – it’s better to be afraid and avoid something then to risk being hurt again.

But that’s also not true. The same thing that protects you is now holding you back. It prevents you from trusting others, from getting close to them. And you don’t deserve to spend a life in isolation just because you’re afraid that something will happen which might never happen again.

There’s also a different way. You can again learn how to recognise people who want to abuse you like that. You can learn how to spot people who lift themselves up by putting others down. And instead of avoiding everybody else, of doubting that you’re good enough… You can just avoid those who want you to have this wrong believe because it gives them some sense of worth.

(This whole post is based on my own experience and observations. Only parts of it are based on factual scientific knowledge. If you don’t agree with something, feel free to comment but have in mind that this is my personal experience I’m talking about which I in no way claim to be universal.)