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They have ‘so much trauma’?

That means they need to heal, they do not need to be in a romantic relationship. This means therapy and time to themselves.

This should be anti-attracting to you.

We know we’re in a healthy place to date when this (emotional ‘need’) doesn’t hook you emotionally into wanting to caretake someone but makes you go “OH, you definintely should not be dating right now”. That weeds out abusers who perform victimhood to trap their victims, as well as people who are just emotionally a hot mess.

Wanting to ‘heal someone with your love’?

That just means everybody here needs therapy. They don’t ‘need your support’, they need the support of a mental health professional. This instinct right here is what entangles (co-dependent) victims with abusers over and over.

We are not mental health professionals.

(Co-dependent) victims often put themselves in the position of a mental health professional trying to figure out the abuser’s trauma. Which is crazy because professionals are not supposed to be doing that in a non-professional capacity: doctors don’t treat their family and neither do therapists.

Their reasons for their bad behavior do not matter.

This kind of abuser fails by not being emotionally responsible for themselves and their actions, and not managing their own trauma and CPTSD.

If your default response to the idea that someone needs help is that YOU want to rush in romantically as help, then you are at-risk for abuse in relationship after relationship.

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

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.