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I want to preface this by saying that this isn’t something I have seen anywhere in the literature nor have I pulled from any resource. It’s just, over time, I realized that the model of healing people have didn’t seem to line up with what I saw or experienced.

And there was also a HUGE difference in how specific resources impacted victims depending on where they are in their healing.

I have literally never seen resources identifying that they are appropriate or inappropriate for certain stages of healing.

Here is a pretty solid example of what I mean: How to gauge how far along you are in your healing: How the phrase “take responsibility” makes you feel

A lot of what we see in terms of healing is prescriptive (forgive! let go! move on!) tends to actually be descriptive.

Meaning that people generally recommend the results of healing as the cause of healing, and it is horribly invalidating to a victim and also doesn’t actually work. I mean, I have literally never seen someone ‘decide to forgive’ a person and then they’re healed; literally never.

There are certain things that, in my opinion, tend to facilitate healing, the main thing being time and space from the person that has harmed you.

Which makes sense – your body, for example, wouldn’t be able to heal from a knife wound if you keep stabbing the knife back in.

But in reality, not even doctors or therapists can ‘heal’ anyone.

The best a medical doctor is able to do is to remove what is impeding healing/causing harm and then facilitate the body in being able to repair itself.

A therapist is generally working with a client to help them make the choices that are best for themselves and supporting them in that.

Honestly, I wonder how many of medical or psychological issues are basically professionals trying to encourage us to do whatever we already know to do. It’s easy for a medical doctor to conduct emergency surgery from an automobile accident, but it is a whole other situation for our primary care physician to talk to us about overeating or smoking or drugs.

This doesn’t apply to children or adults in extreme abuse situations, but a lot of abuse support is helping a victim realize they need to leave a situation and that they can leave a situation.

Victims stay because they love the abuser and believe wholeheartedly that they can change or stop. So it is a sort of gentle re-programming and it almost has to be self-incepted. It’s one thing for your friend to tell you you are in an abuse dynamic, it’s another to realize it for yourself.

So if I had to distill the healing process into a ‘prescription’, it would be to:

stop the harm, validate your experience and sense of reality, start to process what happened and anything else from your history or past, work on boundaries, learn about healthy relationships and communication, and support oneself in living a life for yourself so that you can live a healthy life with others.

The model of healing that I have developed looks like this:

Crisis Phase

• harm ends/safe
• harm recognized by victim
• harm validated by others
• victims receives support

Processing Phase

• process experience
• integrate reality
• learns about/from experience
• grief model (denial, anger, bargaining, depression) to acceptance

Transition/Moving Forward Phase

• letting go
• forgiveness (optional!)

Integration Phase

• build/strengthen life/relationship skills
• better boundaries
• better emotional regulation/increase distress tolerance
• increase shame tolerance
• address co-dependency
• re-parent self
• change how you relate to others

The Sun Rises

• forgive/accept/celebrate self (let go of shame, self-blame)
• self-acceptance
• self-compassion
• self-worth
• gratitude/appreciation for self and life
• celebrate progress
• change how you relate to self
• weave the future you want into the present

You are the light at the end of the tunnel.

• shine your light on yourself, your life, the people in your life
• conscious choices about the life you want to build

Additionally, I sort of stumbled into another stage of healing, which is to have relationships with people that are ‘repairable’. From another comment:

So we’ve been learning that having boundaries is important and keeps us safe, but also we’re probably not always going to be perfect about it or we have those bad days or whatever, and so having a safe relationship with someone who extends you the benefit of the doubt means functionally having a relationship that is repairable, and one where even if we do a dumb thing that might hurt a person we care about, we aren’t really harming them.

It’s the first time in my life I’ve really ever experienced this type of dynamic in multiple relationships – where there is the safety, goodwill, trust, and space to allow repair attempts – that it’s kind of blowing my mind.

It just reminds me that we can focus so much on ourselves or the other person, but if we focus on the dynamic (and whether it is a safe, supporting, fun one) that might matter most?

I’m still formulating my thoughts around it, but it’s been -mind blown- level of living. Like in the best way. It’s not a binary safe/unsafe paradigm but a ‘safe to be repairable’ paradigm.

Hopefully this makes sense. Again, I want to emphasize that I am not a mental health professional and I have never read this in any resource, so it is important to take it with a boulder of salt and work with a therapist. I cannot recommend therapeutic support enough.

Seven recovery pathways with six domains emerged:

• normalizing
• minimizing
• consumed/trapped
• shutdown or frozen
• surviving
• seeking and fighting for integration
• finding integration/equanimity.

Recovery after [violence] is rarely a linear process.

Survivors use various methods to deal with the consequences of the trauma related to these experiences, often including diminished functioning, negative self-view, and lower quality of life. The consequences of [violence] challenge survivors’ recovery long after the abusive relationship ended in many different life domains. Specifically, the ‘lived experience’ can impact victims physically, emotionally, and spiritually and change how victims perceive themselves.

Changes in survivors’ self-view can influence their behavior and help-seeking actions, consequently impacting revictimization experiences or successful integration of the traumatic experience within their lives.

Defining Recovery Domains and Criteria

Harvey criticized research assessing trauma recovery, noting that it has relied on poorly defined and seldom specified criteria. Since then, progress has been made in defining the domains that can characterize successful recovery after traumatic events.

This paper defines recovery as regularly using skills, characteristics, or strengths that enhance health, security, and wellbeing.

These skills or strengths include intentionality for the survivor to take action and attempt to “go on with normal life”, as well as seeking support from others to combat isolation and fulfill emotional needs. Scientific literature also highlights the role of the informal support of family and friends in successful recovery from [violence]. For example, one survey indicated that decision-making about selecting sources of support is a vital recovery skill.

Supportive networks encourage survivors to increase their positive ties and set boundaries on toxic relationships to promote mental health and support recovery.

A qualitative meta-synthesis of survivors’ perspectives of [violence] recovery found that trauma recovery domains are multidimensional, requiring courage, active engagement, and patience.

The five primary domains of the healing process are (1) trauma processing and reexamination, (2) managing negative states, (3) rebuilding the self, (4) connecting with others, and (5) regaining hope and power.

They discovered three interconnecting recovery objectives: reconnection with the self, others, and the world. Reconnection with the self involves reclaiming one’s identity and making decisions autonomously. Reconnection with others involves feeling a sense of belonging in the community. Reconnection with the world involves developing a positive view of the world and finding fulfillment and personal growth.

In addition to these recovery criteria, a 2020 review of recovery after intimate partner violence, described developmental aspects of recovery, which included disentangling from the past, coping with the present, and moving toward the future.

Most trauma recovery measurement literature has used the absence of psychological symptoms such as depression, PTSD, and other clinical distress to indicate trauma recovery. However, research is beginning to move away from measuring symptoms, service use, or clinician-based recovery assessment because they are based on medical models of mental illness, which may conflict with the survivor’s definition.

This research conceptualizes trauma recovery as a process representing a movement toward integrating a healthy and thriving self.

For example, one survivor-oriented definition of psychological recovery is “establishing a fulfilling, meaningful life and a positive sense of identity founded on hopefulness and self-determination”.

Within this vein, Harvey describes eight recovery domains, including:

• Authority over remembering
• Integration of memory and affect
• Affect tolerance and regulation
• Symptom mastery
• Self-esteem
• Self-cohesion
• Safe attachment
• Meaning-making

Yet, more recently, there has been a trend toward a more holistic approach incorporating positive recovery outcomes.

For example, one study found that successful trauma recovery involves the experience of “breaking free”. Another study categorizes successful trauma recovery as “an upward trajectory” and labels those who have recovered as “thrivers”.

From this, Wanner et al. developed a 43-item trauma-specific quality of life measure that evaluates the five successful outcomes

…including:

• Emotional Well-Being
• Functional Engagement
• Recovery/Resilience
• Peri-Traumatic Experience
• Physical Well-Being

In addition, Tedeschi Blevins and Riffle have operationalized the concept of posttraumatic growth with domains of: new possibilities, relating to others, personal strength, spiritual change, and appreciation of life.

For survivors of GBV specifically, Sinko, Schaitkin, and Saint Arnault have introduced a Healing After Gender-based Violence instrument, which attempts to holistically capture healing as an outcome. However, these instruments do not capture the recovery pathways or explain relationships with other healing variables.

This study defines recovery domains and criteria by looking at the range of recovery, examining recovery not as an endpoint by pathways or phases, leading to desired recovery outcomes.

Research that examines trauma recovery from a process (rather than outcome) point of view tends to reference “pathways” of trauma recovery. [Judith] Herman wrote:

“Recovery unfolds in three stages…the first stage is the establishment of safety…the second stage is remembrance and mourning, and the third stage is reconnection with ordinary life. Treatment must be appropriate to the patient’s stage of recovery” (p. 99).

Other research on mental illness recovery has taken the same approach, describing stages of mental illness recovery as a time of moratorium or withdrawal, awareness, preparation, rebuilding, and growth (characterized as living a full and meaningful life, self-management of the illness, resilience, and a positive sense of self).

Another frequently used metaphor for trauma recovery stages includes stages of “integration” or “self-integration”.

This recovery model refers to the self-integration stage in which the survivor has regained possession or control of something stolen or lost. This integration includes regaining the self and integrating the impact of the trauma as a part of that new self.

This ultimate stage of recovery as self-integration echoes other stages of recovery, such as empowerment, becoming resolute, and reconnection with the self.

While these stages have been theorized about, there is limited knowledge about holistically assessing the pathway of recovery. In addition, some stages mentioned, such as reconnecting with ordinary life in Judith Herman’s model, are complex processes that may require additional exploration to articulate variations and benchmarks within this pathway. These gaps in understanding call for building hypothesized stage or pathway models that can be used for assessment.

The purpose of this study was to develop a Trauma Recovery Rubric (TRR) to quantify trauma recovery domains and pathways for a sample of GBV survivors and to examine the relationship between the TRR scores against quantitative measures of trauma recovery challenge indicators (PTSD and depression symptoms) and trauma recovery indicators (posttraumatic growth and sense of coherence).

The final version of the Trauma Recovery Rubric includes seven trauma recovery pathways:

• avoidance (normalization and minimizing)
• coping with memories and feelings (consumed, shutdown, and surviving)
• regaining mastery and health (seeking integration and finding equanimity).

Each recovery phase has criteria that characterize the six domains of trauma recovery:

• trauma definition
• balancing emotions
• body, cognition, and behavior
• acceptance of trauma impact
• holistic self-view
• autonomous functioning
• engagement with a supportive social network

Discussion

While our quantitative analyses revealed no country-level differences in trauma integration scores, we found differences when comparing survivors with clinically relevant depression with those who did not. We also found that depression and an individual’s sense of coherence significantly predicted one’s TRR score, but PTSD, in contrast, did not. This finding suggests that depression and PTSD have differential impacts on trauma recovery and warrants additional study. This rubric can be used to further understand recovery pathways cross-culturally. It can also allow researchers to examine differing recovery trajectories and other risk or protective variables.

The need for an instrument to capture trauma recovery pathways arose through the collaboration and discussion among the twelve countries within the larger international research consortium of MiStory (see https://mistory-traumarecovery.org/home, accessed on 14 May 2021). The TRR was created to analyze and quantify survivor narrative data using a rubric based on these discussions. To date, rubric scoring tools have mainly been used in the education sector to implement and evaluate specific assignments or tasks. This study is the first to use the rubric for quantifying qualitative data in assessing trauma recovery. As such, this research could constitute a model for analyzing other similar research efforts.

–Kleio Koutra, Courtney Burns, Laura Sinko, Sachinko Kita, Hülya Bilgin, Denise Saint Arnault; excerpted and adapted from Trauma Recovery Rubric: A Mixed-Method Analysis of Trauma Recovery Pathways in Four Countries (content note: study; gender-based violence approach)

And that’s something that victims of abuse in the early stages of their journey are drowning for from the person who abused them.

When you see advice along the lines of “only you can give yourself closure”, it can evoke a rage response. Because it feels so deeply unfair and because when we are on the early stage of our healing journey, it feels like that if only the abuser would apologize and take responsibility for what they’ve done and make amends, then we would be healed.

And it isn’t true.

In over a decade I have never seen, not once, an abuser apologize to a victim in a way that healed them. The response tends to be “How could you do this to me?? How could you do this??”

It doesn’t provide closure, it actually opens things up more.

And there is nothing the other person can really say or do, because the victim is still in the healing stage. Theoretically speaking, the abuser could try over and over to make amends and show up and ‘prove themselves’ but I’ve never seen that work because it tends to make the unhealed victim angrier.

“Where was this before? This means that you could have been better but you weren’t.”

Honestly, it is only a in healed state that the actions of a perpetrator won’t continue to harm the victim…which leads me back to the concept that an abuser can’t provide an unhealed victim closure, there is nothing the abuser can really do to ‘heal’ the victim; it’s an internal process.

And there’s a part of me that used to hate that this was true

…and I know a lot of victims of abuse who rail against it and hold on to that idea: that if the abuser apologizes and accepts responsibility for the harm they perpetrated against us, then we would be healed.

1. The intrinsic satisfaction of power and control.
2. Getting their way, especially when it matters to them most.
3. Someone to take their problems out on.
4. Free labor from the victim; leisure and freedom for the abuser.
5. Being the center of attention, with priority given to the abuser’s needs.
6. Financial control.
7. Ensuring that the abuser’s career, education or other goals are prioritized.
8. Public status of partner and/or father/mother without the sacrifices.
9. The approval of friends and relatives.
10. Double standards.

from Lundy Bancroft, via 10 Reasons Abusers Don’t Change

The new research by Kristen Neff (note: this article is from 9 years ago) on self-compassion is compelling; but it is in direct and problematic contrast to demonizing self-esteem, and blaming ‘the self-esteem movement’ for ‘a generation of narcissists’.

This comes from a flawed understanding of self-esteem

…the belief that self-esteem’s purpose and function is to make someone feel better about themselves.

Self-esteem is actually a barometer of self-efficacy beliefs: the extent or strength of one’s belief in one’s own ability to complete tasks and reach goals.¹

Here again we see people flip cause-and-effect: self-esteem is actually a result of learning competency and capability; it is, in effect, the structure that self-trust creates. Self-esteem is not in opposition to self-compassion, self-compassion is actually required for healthy self-esteem.

This intersects with another misunderstanding of human development, which is that people (usually children) need to fail.

What best prepares kids to deal with failure is not earlier failure, but earlier success.

What best equips kids to deal with challenging circumstances seems to be a combination of being loved unconditionally, having the chance to make decisions while still a child, and knowing that your parents can provide guidance and wisdom when necessary.

More broadly, what best prepares kids to deal with failure is not earlier failure, but earlier success.

A great deal of psychological research shows that when kids are left to fail, first of all, the main message they take away is that their parent could have helped them but didn’t. And, second, that he or she is incapable of dealing with challenges, so kids come often to see themselves as failures and then they avoid more challenging situations as a result.

So, the idea that if kids stumble and screw up, they’re gonna pick themselves up and dust themselves off and say, ‘By golly, now I have the skills and determination to try even harder next time!’ could charitably be described as a conservative fairy tale.”

-Alfie Kohn

Self-esteem is the conceptualization of a child’s relationship to their self

…their belief in their intrinsic ability to effectively exist in, and adapt to, the world; and an indicator of what they have learned about their value and self-worth, whether they can trust themselves, and whether others have trusted and believed in them.

Self-esteem is about whether you are capable and can rely on yourself.

Self-compassion is about whether you have compassion for yourself as a human being.

The two concepts are required in concert for healthy identity and belief building.

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¹ Ormrod, J. E. (2006). Educational psychology: Developing learners (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall.

I am reaching the point in my personal process where I am starting to consistently see things in context of whether something is mine

…particularly feelings. This is not surprising when you consider that the process of abuse depends on violating someone else’s boundaries and convincing the victim to violate or abandon their own.

Abuse is a misuse of power over someone else, at their expense, for the abuser’s own benefit/gain.
Abusers control.
Victims take responsibility.

Abuse requires stealing the victim’s autonomy:

• holding unreasonable, entitlement-beliefs;
• acting selfishly on those beliefs at the expense of another;
• and where you have power-over another in that they cannot effectively set boundaries/leave/reject or rebuke your actions;
• the other person has no choice but to swallow unfairness
• because they effectively have no agency

…while convincing them to take responsibility. (Even though responsibility requires autonomy!)

Cognitive distortions, self-delusions, projection, gaslighting, alloplastic defenses, defining are all processes of displacement, of saying “this feeling is not mine, it is yours” or “that feeling is not yours, it is mine”.

Victims and abusers, both, have a distorted perspective on what actually belongs to which person.

This is why boundary-work is so incredibly important for those involved in the abuse dynamic; knowing where you end and someone else begins is so fundamental, yet fundamentally compromised.

For me, this involves expanding my ability to tolerate distress even when I know or believe I can fix/change/make something better for someone else. That’s not mine to fix. Even if I feel anxiety about it. Jumping in ignores the other person’s autonomy, and is controlling, even if well-intentioned.

It also involves expanding my ability to recognize my own emotional state and not project my fears/insecurities/discomfort onto other people. I found myself interpreting someone else’s actions through the prism of my insecurities, and realized that I was projecting them onto this other person. I certainly had Reasons, but they were wholly driven by my lack of self-awareness: this feeling belongs to me.

It was also a function of not trusting the other person to maintain their boundaries, to exercise their autonomy and self-awareness; to make decisions/communicate. That is not mine, either.

This is mine.
That is yours.

I am responsible for what is mine; I am not responsible for what is yours.
You are responsible for what is yours; you are not responsible for what is mine.

An incredibly simple paradigm that I am having to learn and apply so that I can functionally move forward in healthy relationships.

1. Certainty/Comfort
2. Variety
3. Significance
4. Connection/Love
5. Growth
6. Contribution

and I personally would add another: autonomy/authority over oneself.

That:

• the authority-exercising individual, organization, or system control and have power-over/overpower in every encounter, regardless of the purpose for that encounter
• any non-authority persons are responsible for the encounter and actions of the authority

It is a splitting of power from responsibility that is dangerous

…and it allows cognitive rationale for specifically punitive response. It fails to recognize the rights and entitlements of those not in authority, and often denies those rights.

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Authoritarianism is entitlement- and position/role-driven rather than person- or situation-based

…and requires service to that role in the name of “respect”. Authoritarian cultures, specifically, are highly oriented toward honor and respect.

Perceived disrespect and perceived dishonor are processed as an “attack” intended to humiliate and shame. This ‘disrespect’ and ‘dishonor’ is assessed as dominance-behavior by someone the authority believes to be in a position of power under them.

The problem is that authoritarian cultures define honor and respect as instant and unquestioning obedience coupled with overt submission:

favoring complete obedience or subjection to authority as opposed to individual freedom, exercising complete or almost complete control over the will of another or of others

Anyone who doesn’t immediately submit to the authority figure is someone who is illegitimately challenging their authority and needs to be corrected. The transgression is perceived to be an attempt to exercise power over, to overpower, and so the ‘correction’ must redress the balance.

Sometimes people use ‘respect’ to mean ‘treating someone like a person’ and sometimes they use ‘respect’ to mean ‘treating someone like an authority’. And sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say ‘if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you’ and they mean ‘if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person’.” (source)

Because authoritarian cultures are socially position-oriented, this ‘corrective’ action must publicly re-establish their position and entitlement to power-over.

What is power?

• Power is the capacity for effective action.
• Power is acting effectively and potently.
• You can have the constant capacity for power without constantly exercising it.

The legitimacy of the power (both capacity and exercising) is based on its socially- or culturally-determined reasonability: Does this capacity for action, does the action itself, make sense from the perspective of socially determined values?

Often this power is exercised over others. Parents have the capacity to exercise power over their children, and are expected to by definition of the relationship. There are multiple dynamics that are inherently power over: boss/employee, police/citizen, hierarchical relationships in the military, mentor/mentee…

Part and parcel of a legitimate power-over dynamic is that the person in a position of power-over another is also responsible for or to the person over which they have power. The person in a position of power-under is not without protection.

The existence of power-over in a dynamic is not inherently problematic either.

Where power becomes illegitimate – a mis-use of power, and therefore abusive – is when:

• The exercise of that power is not reasonable by social or cultural standards.
• The person exercising power-over another is attempting to control the other person. (vs providing consistent, anticipatable consequences)
• The person exercising power-over another is not fulfilling their responsibility to the person in a position of power-under.
• The person in a position of power-over pretends to give away their power by giving the person in a position of power-under “power” (‘responsibility’) for the exercise of that power.

Additionally, power and aggression are often treated as synonymous, when they aren’t. Power exercised aggressively may or may not be de-legitimized based on the social or cultural constructs around the aggressive exercise of that power.

A discussion of power is also a discussion of authority

…which is one reason where the exercise of power in romantic relationships becomes unclear.

Even in (heteronormative) patriarchal relationships, where a man is considered the leader for the family, a woman will have spheres of authority. This relationship is not inherently abusive.

If the victim tells others:

• Why isn’t there a picture?
• Why didn’t you take 3 seconds to take a picture?

If there are pictures:

• How do we know this isn’t photoshopped?
• How do we know this isn’t makeup?
• How do we know this isn’t staged?
• How do we know you didn’t do this to yourself?
• Why isn’t there video?

If there is video:

• Why isn’t there audio?
• How do we know you didn’t set this up?
• How do we know you didn’t provoke the situation?
• How do we know you didn’t act differently since you knew there was a camera?
• Look at what you did/how you acted/what you said. Of course the other person responded the way they did.

You must be lying.

• You must be lying if you didn’t take a picture.
• You must be lying if you didn’t go to the police.
• You must be lying if you didn’t go to the hospital or crisis center.
• You must be lying if you never told anyone.
• You must be lying if you ever looked happy with the abuser.
• You must be lying if you ever look happy, ever, even when away from the abuser.
• You must be lying if you accuse a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, sibling, cousin.
• You must be lying if you accuse a teacher.
• You must be lying if you accuse a coach.
• You must be lying if you accuse a good friend of the family.
• You must be lying if you accuse your boss.
• You must be lying if you are in the process of divorcing this person.
• You might be lying if you did take a picture.
• You might be lying if you took audio or video, through manipulating the situation.
• You might be lying if you did go to the police.
• You might be lying if you did go to the hospital or crisis center.
• You might be lying because you told others.
• You might be lying if no one else saw this abuse.
• You are definitely lying if you don’t act exactly the way I believe victims of abuse act.
• You are definitely lying if the person you accused doesn’t act exactly the way I believe abusers act.
• You are definitely lying if I can’t imagine this happening to you by the person you accuse.
• You are definitely lying if I can’t imagine the person you accuse of committing the acts you describe.
• Or, you deserved what happened to you if I believe you allowed the abuser/aggressor to abuse you.
• You deserved what happened to you if you didn’t leave at the first sign of abusive behavior.
• You are a lowlife for airing this private stuff in public. Anyone who would do that would also lie. (This is an ACTUAL quote about a victim of abuse from a comment online.)

There can be no justice if no level of proof is enough.

But the problem isn’t proof.

We believe proof will force the abuser to recognize their crimes against us. We believe that proof will lead our community to recognize the crimes against us.

Yet the very person who perpetrated the abuse and violence insists on their innocence. And the victim, who actually experienced the abuse, often doesn’t understand what is happening until they are too deep. They both, for a time, believe the victim is the problem.

The Third Party

When an outside party to the abuse hears about abuse, they don’t typically identify with the victim unless they, too, have been victimized. They unconsciously identify with the abuser. They automatically place themselves in a position to re-create the legal system; they are detective, defense attorney, judge, and jury.

They mis-apply legal concepts like “innocent until proven guilty”, and because they identify with the perpetrator, the perpetrator is innocent until proven guilty. A person could well decide the victim is telling the truth unless proven otherwise.

And when the person in front of them isn’t innocent, they believe that the victim must be ‘guilty’. Guilty of lying, guilty of staying in the relationship, guilty of contributing to the abuse…and therefore not ‘worthy’ of victimhood.

“Proof” is my belief in the credibility of your character and claims, balanced against my belief in the credibility and claims of the person you accuse.

“Proof” is my belief, and whatever upholds my belief.

This person is weighing everything in context of their internal model of reality; when what is presented doesn’t fit with this model, they reject it as false, and therefore reject the victim.

What proof will someone accept if it contradicts their model of reality?

Proof that they discover, internalize, and accept on their own: indirect communication. Instead of being confronted by and challenged with the precept that their reality is wrong, that they are wrong, they themselves adjust their inner model because they themselves are acting upon information they have discovered. The third party is the agent of changing their mind.

This person will also accept challenges to their model of reality if it, in part, reinforces their reality.

For example, the witness and testimony of un-involved, third parties; outside persons who have no apparent gain to be had from intervening. (Woe to the witness, however, who is not unimpeachable.) Or from a trusted, but un-involved, known person where believing them re-establishes their belief in their trusting this person.

This person will also believe victims in cases where the victim’s assertions do not challenge their reality.

People are more likely to believe a stranger’s account of abuse than someone they know, if expressed directly to them, in person, because this account does not challenge their pre-existing beliefs and doesn’t appear to be motivated for gain.

The driving fear…

People are almost pathologically afraid of being taken advantage of, manipulated, made foolish. This fear is so deep our culture pathologizes attention-seeking behavior in children and minimizes those who have attempted suicide as ‘just doing it for attention’.

Which is distorted when you think about, since seeking attention is literally what children are wired to do; since seeking attention is exactly what someone who is suicidal or in crisis should do. Someone who is using the threat of a suicide attempt to control others is emotionally abusive. These things are not the same.

We strongly reject ‘needy’ people for this reason.

So the victim who comes forward is automatically suspect because they are the agent for challenging the inner model of reality.