bsmcneil
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 22, 2006
In a different forum, someone posted this tonight about their own (separate from this place) experience with abuse and with some questions and statements about how people can "allow" abuse, it felt like a pertinent thing to share. I did get permission from the author to repost it; but, they asked that I not share their identity beyond the group we were in.
“As someone who spent time in an abusive marriage, I acknowledge the poor decisions that I made which contributed to my situation. But in no way is it my fault that I was abused by my spouse. Manipulative people manipulate. I was made to believe this was a good person. For months, I was treated wonderfully and made to feel so secure in our relationship. And then that rug was pulled out from under my feet and I was stuck in a situation that was very difficult to get out of.
There is a difference between accountability and victim blaming. I’m all for taking accountability. I am NOT about to excuse manipulation because I chose to trust someone and then they completely changed after months of being married.
I wasn’t willingly ignoring abuse. The abuse came on subtly, and slowly. Abusers are insidious and they spend time building a web of beliefs and lies, a facade, before revealing themselves.
You can heal, have accountability, AND blame your abuser. The abuser took advantage. The abuser manipulated. The abuser created the scenarios and the mentality that led to the excusing of any bad behavior.
Literally anyone can find themselves in abusive relationship without realizing, and it’s because you are manipulated into these kinds of relationships. Don’t pretend like there is something specific about victims that made them vulnerable. There may be commonalities, but it can happen to anyone.
You can hold yourself accountable for some things, but being a victim of an abuser is not one of those things.
There is no black and white, only grey. Your abusive relationship is not mine and vice versa. You can speak to your experience with abuse, and that’s really where it ends.
The reality is that victims are not to blame, even if they could have made better choices at times in a relationship. Someone took advantage of that and manipulated it. The not great choice never should have been manipulated.”