Why do we hold on to hurt?

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(Bolded by me) Exactly. And you feel worse and worse as a person and you might not even know why, and it's all your fault because the abuser has convinced you of this.

That’s tough! Thanks for sharing your story. I can certainly relate to it.

I’ve heard that it’s not rape unless one fights back to the fullest extent humanly possible
(Deuteronomy 22:23, 24) and that spouses shouldn’t divorce or separate for abuse unless it’s “extreme physical abuse” (verbal or sexual doesn’t count) to the point that one’s life is in imminent danger. People have been praised for staying with abusive spouses. Someday I want to get involved in activism if only to make me feel good.

The amount of harm these teachings have caused is staggering. I’ve spoken to so many people who all have such similar stories. It’s kept people, like me, in bad situations for years. Also, the guilt and self-blame alone are devastating. There was also the idea that if you chose to hang out with the wrong crowd (or nonbelievers) it’d be your fault, too. Just a huge amount of blatant victim blaming going on which can cause secondary wounding and can impede recovery (if it doesn’t permanently stop it altogether).

I think this is another reason why it’s important to talk about this stuff in school because who knows what misinformation kids are hearing at home or in their communities.

A better scripture than the one I reference above is Matthew 5:30: “If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off.”

Last edited by TwilightPrincess on 11 Dec 2019, 1:25 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Yeah, it can be subtle. Abusers are often good at knowing where to draw the line so they don’t push it beyond the point in which they could get into trouble (legally or losing the relationship altogether).

Things also gradually get worse. It doesn’t usually go from 0 to 100 quickly.

Exactly. Using my school example, the bully didn't just walk up to me and start throwing punches: he started by being friendly and amicable and even inviting me to his house regularly (even though his father used to love scaring me by doing things like throwing a dog at me and laughing at my scared reaction). It slowly happened to the point I wasn't sure what I did to cause him to start abusing me and blamed myself for it. Eventually, when I finally had enough and fought back he put on the big 'victim' act. With me being big and emotional while he was small and stoic I now realize that the reason literally everyone turned on me was that he convinced fellow bullies I was a good target and the more friendly/neutral kids and teachers that *I* was the bully and he needed help in stopping me. I still think to this day that people firmly believe I was the abuser even though I took 100 punches for every 1 I gave back. I also imagine many thought I was crazy when I would try to tell the horrific things he did because he was an expert at doing it when nobody was around and when it was finally obvious to authority figures (I was covered head to toe in bruises) they sent a social worker to my parents house (she might have stayed 10 minutes tops) before concluding I just bruise easily and nothing more. He was smart enough to know exactly where to draw the line to inflict maximum damage without getting the law involved.

Nobody outside of immediate family could accept I was being physically abused because I, a 6'4" male was accusing a geeky Chinese kid, a short quiet kid and a gothic kid who kept to themselves 99% of the time of physical abuse. I am certain if I accused the big black kids (who incidentally treated me reasonably well) there would have been an immediate reaction. I imagine there are many domestic situations (perhaps this bully's wife?) out there that we never hear about and naturally assume the victim is just emotional and/or mentally unstable because the abuser is a pillar of the community. Dare I say it but a close male relative is likely one of them.

^ Also that the abuser is very friendly or sincere to everybody else and therefore they judge the abuser to be a decent character. Or they even feel sorry for the abuser or praise them for appearing to put up with the abused person. Appearances are very deceiving, it bothers me how incredibly unimaginative people generally are. Heck I learnt that at school when my school bully appeared genuinely lovely to everyone else even made some teachers ask me, "Why don't you make an effort with her? Come on, she's a nice person". Eventually people saw her true colours when she fell out with a couple of (keyword) popular kids and slapped one of them left to right.

Yeah, I had a situation involving a popular, star athlete at my college. I told one person. Unfortunately, it turned out that this person was a friend of his although I didn’t know it at the time. By the time I went back to college after taking a semester off, I heard people talking behind my back (once when a couple of them were seated behind me in class, they were intentionally loud so I would overhear), saying that I was spreading this malicious lie around and that I must be an awful, drama-seeking human being to do so.

I told one person, on one occasion, and in the strictest confidence, not even my family knows.

I kept entirely to myself that final year, made no friendships or kept any I had, but graduated with highest honors.

I have to wonder how many of these abusive types are covert narcissists.
The stories above reminded me of this video

Thanks for replying but what are you talking about??

Because some of us feel so lacking in self worth and self love we expect it from someone else. And anything is better than no attention. I am constantly trying to programming my brain to stop holding on to people, even friends. Nobody in this world is my friend, except maybe just one person.

I suspect that some (though by no means all, of course) emotional "abusers" are just people who have never been taught how to be assertive without being aggressive. Ditto for at least some (though by no means all, of course) victims of emotional abuse.

Many, perhaps most people deal with interpersonal tensions (which inevitably arise between almost any two people if they are around each other long enough; perfect harmony is rare if it exists at all) by (1) being aggressive/abusive, (2) trying to ignore it, (3) dropping subtle hints, or (4) being passive-aggressive.

I think a lot of problems could be solved if everyone were taught how to be assertive without being aggressive. This wouldn't cure hardcore narcissists/psychopaths/etc., of course, but I think it could eliminate a lot of everyday emotional abuse and could also make it easier for a lot of other people to refuse to put up with emotional abuse.

We as autistic people need the people in our lives to be assertive (but not aggressive) with us, due to our difficulties with picking up on subtle hints.

So, if everyone were taught how to be assertive without being aggressive, this would be an example of autistic-friendliness with a curb-cut effect benefiting society as a whole.

Screaming out loud on WP ...... I agree ...!

what's the problem with this?