Author: Invah

Healthy people distance themselves from people who do this because it makes them uncomfortable.

So the over-giver is like “I have so much love to give, why doesn’t anyone want me” when a healthy person intuitively understands that that isn’t love because they know that even with someone’s consent, it is taking advantage.

Relationships should be relatively balanced in terms of giving to each other and taking from each other.

Healthy people aren’t straight up ‘takers’, which is the position the over-giving person unintentionally puts them in.

The only people who feel comfortable with that (and entitled to it) are takers…which is why those relationships always end up in toxicity.

It just isn’t a sustainable model for relationships, too, because sometimes something happens that creates a situation where you can’t endlessly give, such as a having a baby.

Taking away your over-giving from a taker makes them extremely angry, and they feel like you broke some kind of promise to them and betrayed them.

A serious failing of the judicial system and child protective services, one that is completely unaddressed as far as I can tell, is the transition of a toddler from a (hopefully) supervised, functional family environment to a completely unsupervised, potentially dysfunctional family environment.

A child who has grown up in the dysfunctional family environment has a better chance, in my experience, of making it through alive than a child who is coming from a functional one to a dysfunctional one.

The child growing up in the dysfunctional or abusive family structure has already begun to learn maladaptive coping mechanisms, already begun to learn the danger signs, already learned to shut down, disengage, stand still.

This child is learning what they need to survive in their environment.

The child coming from the functional family is going to be coming from a completely different family experience

…has been treated in a completely different way, one that is respectful and honors their intrinsic self as their own person. This child has learned that assertive communication of their needs will result in those needs being met. This child has learned that their caregivers will coach them through their upsets and freak-out loops. This child is relatively free to explore their autonomy, Erikson’s second stage of child development. This child also experiences clear and consistent boundaries, where expectations are objective instead of subjectively depending on the emotional state of the caregiver.

This child is wholly and completely unprepared for the dysfunctional and proto-abusive family environment.

Dysfunctional parents experience these behaviors as dysrespectful; the dysfunctional parent in this scenario is reminded, over and over, of their shame, of having their child taken away when ‘their’ child doesn’t understand what the biological parent wants, what they are ‘supposed’ to do because there is no history and no corrective language or practices in common from the one family to the other; the dysfunctional parent may feel rage when ‘their’ child doesn’t love them, as they have not bonded, because many dysfunctional people have children for the sole purpose of feeling loved.

Not to mention that toddlerhood is full of abusive parenting triggers such as eating, potty training, and sleeping.

The child coming from the functional environment is coming from a completely different family structure and culture during a time when routine is paramount. Their attempts to maintain or re-establish that routine will be met harshly and, likely, physically.

A toddler can safely be moved from a dysfunctional family to a functional one, but it is incredibly dangerous for the toddler being moved from the functional to the dysfunctional.

The key here is that there is no transition, no ability for the toddler to learn the routine and expectations of the new environment before oversight and supervision is withdrawn.

The family court system has prioritized family unification but has not put any mechanisms in place to ensure the successful transition of the toddler from the functional environment to the dysfunctional one.

Because of their developmental stage, a toddler is uniquely endangered in a way that a baby or older child is not. The failure of the judiciary and child protective services in recognizing this, and acting appropriately and protectively, is why this happens.

The sobering, heartbreaking, unfair truth is that no one can rescue a victim of abuse.

Even when we can remove someone from immediate danger and harm, and whisk them away to safety, they are still in jeopardy.

• Maybe it’s a violent spouse stalking their victim all over the country.
• Maybe it’s figuring out the practicalities of how to live in the world without any support system; getting a job, paying bills, getting a roof over your head.
• Maybe it’s the terror of shared custody with an abuser. Watching your sweet beloved children knowing they are being abused by the other parent, or step-parent, or grandparent, or whoever. That you can’t protect them from monsters.
• Maybe it’s realizing that even if you leave abusive parents, they can exert extraordinary power over your future by whether they provide financial information for college.
• Maybe it’s the vulnerability of being in a foster home, away from everything you’ve ever known. Being actually vulnerable to further abuse in a system that fails children so often.

It is so profoundly, stupidly unfair.

And we don’t have reliable supports in place to help victims of abuse. We have a patchwork between non-profit and legal and community resources, and it often depends on what town you are in, what basic knowledge you have.

Some people have to be convinced they need rescue in the first place.

They don’t recognize they are being abused. They question their feelings, judgments, instincts, and wonder over and over what they can do to ‘fix’ things or ‘make things better’.

Is this okay?
Is this normal?
Do people normally act this way?

They might begin to see that it isn’t a ‘communication’ or ‘relationship’ issue, and wonder

Is this abuse?
Am I being abused?
Did I do something to cause this?

Most people, after finally realizing they are being abused, try ‘rescuing’ the abuser.

Trying to communicate them into not abusing; they try to explain. They try and try and try again. The honeymoon stage (if one still exists in their abuse cycle) gives them hope that this time things will be different. That they have the power to ‘change things’, never wanting to accept that – in reality – they want to change another person, and this is, itself, an impossibility.

What should I do?

…people ask when they finally realize they can’t fix or change or make things better. They realize how stuck they are, just how much their lives are entangled. Victims (generally) want their same life, just one that’s free from abuse.

We want what we have, but better.

And we want to be rescued. We want someone to tell the abuser to stop abusing, to hold them accountable. We want the abuser to be taken away. We want someone to give us a place to go and set us up with work or school, and get us on our feet.

But this is almost never on the victim’s terms.

People set up to help victims of abuse have very specific ways they are willing to do so, who they are willing to help, and how.

So many people want to know ‘what should I do?’ and the problem is that the answer isn’t the same for everyone.

So much depends on your personal situation and even where you live. A person in a larger metropolitan city is simply going to have more options than the person in a very small town.

Sometimes a victim can’t leave…yet.

Sometimes what you can do is to bide your time while positioning yourself for success and independence. Sometimes you have to play the abuser’s game or work within the ‘rules’ they’ve set up. Sometimes you only exist in the privacy of your mind.

In order to rescue ourselves, we need a completely opposite skill set from the one we used to survive.

We need to learn assertiveness, how to stand up for ourselves, how to manage our anxiety and discomfort when someone else is mad. We have to learn that someone else’s problems and emotions are theirs. We have to learn to recognize boundary violating behaviors early on, instead of desperately looking for signs that a problem person loves us. We have to love and accept ourselves, instead of making ourselves smaller.

Sometimes we can’t do that right now.

Change is a process…any kind of change. All steps matter. Our lives are the momentum of our history and choices and chances, and it takes time to undo and re-orient and re-build our foundation. To build momentum in a healthy and positive direction.

Not only are we convincing each other to rescue ourselves, we are convincing each other that we can.

And when you are in the middle of it, it is so hard to see the other side. It’s amazing that we believe we can change abusers but that we can’t change our situation.

What can I do?

Honestly, the real honest-to-god answer on this is to build relationships outside the abuse. Even if you are dealing with non-profits or the legal system or community resources, it is relationships that will give you the strength and support and resources to rescue yourself. At minimum, they can mirror you to yourself as someone who deserves better. At maximum, they can give you the tools or space you need.

I will never cease to be amazed at how I one day needed the services of the very non-profit I had been volunteering for.

Victims of abuse are so isolated, they feel so alone in their experience and struggle, and we may have forgotten how to trust because of how badly it has been abused. Building relationships means building trust in others…and ultimately in ourselves.

We have to rescue ourselves…and we can.

We just don’t have to do it alone.

Telling an abusive person they’re abusing you isn’t going to make them stop. That’s like telling a snake to stop biting you.

You tell YOURSELF something is abusive, and then act from there. Stop trying to reason with the snake. Run away.

–u/sweadle, comment