I realised how susceptible we all are to being abusive. Abuse is so prevalent, and so normalized, and often so easy to do, without being even aware of it.
Harry Potter Normalizes Abuse
Maybe it’s my depression that twists a rainbow world into shades of grey. Or maybe the Order of the Phoenix really is a minefield riddled with C-PTSD.
The Rapist in the Mirror
But what of the men who were genetic fathers to these lost children? Male privilege absolved them of personal responsibility.
The Fucked-up Truth of Non-Dark Alley Rape
When you live as a woman, there is a power imbalance. It means that I would let myself be raped if I perceived a threat to my life.
When Hurt Becomes Abuse and The Dimensions of ‘Hurt’
Many abuse victims like me, have also demonstrated the same behaviours which can be tagged as emotionally abusive. Yet they are not abusers themselves. Why? At what point does hurt become abuse?
When the Abused, Become the Abuser
Yet emotional abuse is incredibly damaging, perhaps in part because it cannot be recognised and dealt with in the same way. Emotional abuse gets swept under the carpet because it is supported and perpetuated by society as a whole.
Like The Poppy
When my self esteem was low, my relationships were abusive. Yet I always assumed that when my self-esteem was higher that my relationships would be healthy.
How Can I Help My Abusive Partner?
You asked… I’ve lived with a man for several years, and about a year ago we decided to “go poly”. It was the first time I realized that I didn’t have to put all my energy and effort into one other person, that I was allowed to care for myself and my own needs. Sadly enough, taking responsibility for myself … Read More
Am I abusive?
You asked… I read your response on anxiety with interest and foreboding. I am in an open relationship with my partner. I suffer hugely from anxiety, and although I try to take full responsibility for it, I fear that my initial – uncontrollable – reactions of fear and anxiety impact my partner’s decisions on how or even whether to move … Read More
Questions You Never Wanted to Ask
I knew that my father had tried to divorce my mother a year before they adopted me. I knew that I was ‘her project’. I knew that he was never around.
How Our Disgust for Abuse Erases the Abused
We are programmed as human beings with a biological reaction called ‘disgust’ and as a society, have reinforced this through any number of mechanisms to be able to live together. It’s part of the reason why so many stories of abuse remain untold and why many abusers can go on abusing, sometimes over decades. Abusees become disgusting by their association to abuse. Their stories are often doubted, shunned or dismissed as inconsequential.
I Called It Love
But it wasn’t about love, it was about power. About how far I would be willing to go. About how much abuse I might be prepared to accept.
Why Compassion for Abusers is Necessary For Healing
I write not to vilify her. I write because I own my story. I write to assert my existence. I write because silence around abuse, even emotional abuse, gives it the authority and space to continue.
How Can We End Abuse?
As a crusader for this system, abuse was not my mother’s intent. She was an agent in an abusive system, whilst believing that it was the best thing for me.
Otherwise Known As The Human Condition
Twenty years later those two people are now strangers and our story is one of the human condition, of love and tragedy. It was inevitable. And so I simply sigh, close the book and move on.
Why Doesn’t She Leave Him?
The smallness of each indicator made it impossible. But then you made a mistake, and you punched me in the face.
Coraline and “The Other Mother” Narrative
Coraline will give her eyes, she will sacrifice her unique perspective on the world, and lose herself to her other mother’s vision of herself.
Why are all the Men I date Assholes?
I have a son and a daughter (with a man who is as far removed from being an asshole as it is possible to be). If either of them were ever caught up in a situation where they were the perpetrator or the victim of such a situation, I don’t know how I would contain my vitriol …or my guilt. Because in both positions, my children would be operating out of a place of low self-esteem. One who needed to feed their ego by taking power to control and manipulate. One who felt they were worth very little and that this was the only relationship they deserved.
How my Therapist Helped Me Love After Maternal Narcissism
Take responsibility for your feelings. You are in charge of them. But that’s difficult. Because we need to feel angry. We’re allowed to feel angry.
The Bouncer
The guilt of who I am, what I have done is so shameful that I cannot face the pain. There is no point in holding someone who is shattered and worthless.
The Last Fight
I don’t know whether the roaring was in my head or from his throat, but it felt like I had gone mad.