It's been said about characters that they don't change until it hurts too much not to, and I think the same is true for real people, too. It's just too bad that an innocent life was sacrificed, a cat-alyst for change if you will. (Yes, I am awful. If it makes things any better, in my head the kitty was totally like "So my life was sacrificed in a petty human turf war? How perfectly pointless. Next life I shall be Astro-Kitty, hunting space monsters and catnip across space!" And so it was.)
I'm trying for the happy life thing, and I get my revenge by becoming a teacher, and being a good teacher
Having an awesome life full of passion and integrity = best way to overcome and combat abuse, ever.
Weird story: Part of the reason my dad was so controlling was because he'd heard from a fortuneteller when I was little that I'd have a lot of difficulties early in life but would be just fine once I turned 33. He interpreted this to mean that he had to keep me "safe" until that age and not let me make any choices he thought were bad. Ironically, at 33 I finally said no to his abusive control and married the love of my life. And in fact my life has been great ever since--not always easy or good, but full of wonder and joy. So in a way my fortune did come true, but in a weird self-fulfilling way. I'm pretty sure my dad would have been that way fortunetelling or no fortunetelling, but he told me it contributed to his anxieties about me and I believe him. So yeah, strange kind of modern fairytale I guess.
I write about abusers, and like you I get complements for portraying them as real people with understandable needs, wants, and fears, while also showing how really awful what they're doing is.
It's ironic, because understanding the abuser as a human being seems to be strongly correlated to surmounting and speaking against abuse. I have not met a single abuse survivor who is full of rancor and hatred against their abuser. Disgust at the abuser's actions, of course, and very understandable dislike, yes, but every single survivor was aware of what made their abuser tick and often expressed compassion or sorrow for the abuser while condemning the abuse.
This is not to confuse cause and correlation, as in "forgive your abuser and everything is going to be okay!" because ewww no, and in fact fully feeling the rage is a vital component of the process. But somewhere in that process understanding of the abuser seems to happen, as part of understanding the survivor's own story as a whole.
In fact, seeing abusers as mindless beasts is often a part of abuse apologia, as in "So-and-so is a human being, not a monster, therefore so-and-so can't be an abuser." The idea that only soulless beasts (with apologies to actual animals) commit abuse is a central misconception that has to be uprooted in order to bring light to abuse. The abuser as the alien Other is used far too often to erase abusers in the midst of communities, and their abuse and their victims as well.
And don't even get me started on the distorted images of victims that make it so hard for abuse victims to self-identify as such. For thirty years of my life I resisted that label so hard, with unhappy results for my well-being and happiness.
I would actually guess you have three kinds of abuse apologists
That makes sense! Abusers can only fall on one side of the issue, otherwise they wouldn't be abusers, while victims and onlookers can go either way. There's also some overlap in that abuse victims may be abusers themselves. There was a shameful period in my life when I was physically and emotionally abusive to my boyfriend (now husband), and looking back I had a lot of unprocessed rage from the abuse I had suffered. That doesn't justify anything, of course--what I did was my responsibility alone. Berating myself and resolving to do better next time never helped, though. Facing my own history of abuse and healing from it did. Not hitting and yelling at your SO is hardly a merit-badge achievement (as Chris Rock put it, "You're supposed to do that!"), but I am so glad that I was able to become a better person and grateful to my husband for giving me a chance--while by no means advocating it for all victims, obviously.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2015-04-14 04:15 pm (UTC)Having an awesome life full of passion and integrity = best way to overcome and combat abuse, ever.
Weird story: Part of the reason my dad was so controlling was because he'd heard from a fortuneteller when I was little that I'd have a lot of difficulties early in life but would be just fine once I turned 33. He interpreted this to mean that he had to keep me "safe" until that age and not let me make any choices he thought were bad. Ironically, at 33 I finally said no to his abusive control and married the love of my life. And in fact my life has been great ever since--not always easy or good, but full of wonder and joy. So in a way my fortune did come true, but in a weird self-fulfilling way. I'm pretty sure my dad would have been that way fortunetelling or no fortunetelling, but he told me it contributed to his anxieties about me and I believe him. So yeah, strange kind of modern fairytale I guess.
It's ironic, because understanding the abuser as a human being seems to be strongly correlated to surmounting and speaking against abuse. I have not met a single abuse survivor who is full of rancor and hatred against their abuser. Disgust at the abuser's actions, of course, and very understandable dislike, yes, but every single survivor was aware of what made their abuser tick and often expressed compassion or sorrow for the abuser while condemning the abuse.
This is not to confuse cause and correlation, as in "forgive your abuser and everything is going to be okay!" because ewww no, and in fact fully feeling the rage is a vital component of the process. But somewhere in that process understanding of the abuser seems to happen, as part of understanding the survivor's own story as a whole.
In fact, seeing abusers as mindless beasts is often a part of abuse apologia, as in "So-and-so is a human being, not a monster, therefore so-and-so can't be an abuser." The idea that only soulless beasts (with apologies to actual animals) commit abuse is a central misconception that has to be uprooted in order to bring light to abuse. The abuser as the alien Other is used far too often to erase abusers in the midst of communities, and their abuse and their victims as well.
And don't even get me started on the distorted images of victims that make it so hard for abuse victims to self-identify as such. For thirty years of my life I resisted that label so hard, with unhappy results for my well-being and happiness.
That makes sense! Abusers can only fall on one side of the issue, otherwise they wouldn't be abusers, while victims and onlookers can go either way. There's also some overlap in that abuse victims may be abusers themselves. There was a shameful period in my life when I was physically and emotionally abusive to my boyfriend (now husband), and looking back I had a lot of unprocessed rage from the abuse I had suffered. That doesn't justify anything, of course--what I did was my responsibility alone. Berating myself and resolving to do better next time never helped, though. Facing my own history of abuse and healing from it did. Not hitting and yelling at your SO is hardly a merit-badge achievement (as Chris Rock put it, "You're supposed to do that!"), but I am so glad that I was able to become a better person and grateful to my husband for giving me a chance--while by no means advocating it for all victims, obviously.