I was 13 when I first told an adult I was being abused.
Nothing happened.
I wasn’t rescued — I was reprimanded, punished, for speaking up.
I was younger when I was first touched inappropriately by the son of a family friend. I was grounded for it, told not to make up stories.
This list is comprised of the ten most common things people said to me after I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in 2012.
Edit Sept 15, 2024: I have updated this post to be easier to read and include my perspective now, 12 years later.
1. “Stop making yourself out to be the victim.”
Victims of abuse are victims.
Society has this icky, gross attitude about actual victims, where they expect us to not be victims when we are.
Acknowledging one’s legitimate victimhood isn’t “victimizing” oneself. It’s accepting that something did, indeed, happen TO you.
This idea that people who escaped abuse and “survived” need to consider themselves “survivors” is grossly ignorant of all that which entails abuse victims.
2. “Stop living in the past.”
Abuse victims who struggle with living in the present well after experiencing abuse likely have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Those who experienced abuse in childhood likely have complex-PTSD (CPTSD).
3. “One day, you’ll be able to close this chapter in your life and forgive.”
Stop pushing abuse victims to forgive their abusers.
Forgiving abusers absolves them of their bad behavior. It doesn’t hold them accountable. This is the expectation society imposes upon abuse victims and survivors of abuse.
Not only is it no one’s business whether I have forgiven my abusers, it’s up to me to decide whether that’s what I need to do in order to forgive them.
And you know what? It is and it isn’t.
I can forgive them and choose to keep them out of my life.
4. “There are other people who have it worse.”
So, you may not know this, but this is a form of a superiority complex.
Believing this, regardless of intentions, instantly places you above people you think “have it worse” — whatever it is.
It puts you up on a pedestal by implying that you have a better life because you meet certain conditions, and everyone else who meets those conditions MUST think they, too, have a “better” life.
It’s a really gross, stinky attitude to have on life.
Life isn’t about comparisons.
5. “She’s your mother.”
“You have to forgive her.”
“You’ll always love her.”
I used to think this, too. The more I spent time away from my biological mother, the more I realized she wasn’t motherly.
She’s the woman who gave birth to me and never let me forget that
- she could have aborted me,
- I stole her childhood, and
- she cared more about possessing me than who I was.
My mother treated me like property, lording me over my father. I’m not giving his behavior a pass here, so don’t misunderstand — this post/part isn’t about him.
I was valuable to my mother because of child support from my dad. She also liked how being known as my mother boosted her social status, made her look good as a person, because of who I was myself.
You know what she’s been saying about me for the last ten years?
- That I self-harmed and tried to kill myself because my boyfriend dumped me. 🙄
- That I got knocked up by a drug addict who got me hooked on drugs and ran away to have the baby.
- That I’m in a mental institution because I want to hurt everyone.
- That I’m in the liberal LGBTQ+ cult and in desperate need of saving.
- That I think I’m autistic and lying to everyone for attention.
All the while, her husband likes posts by women between 18-33 who look like me and my half sister on Elon Musk’s Twitter. They both stalk my blog, she leaves comments dead-naming me to say that all I have to do is reach out and she’ll get me the help I need.
That’s not what a mother who loves their child does.
Mothers who respect who their children are don’t do that. Mothers who want to be in their adult children’s lives respect their child’s boundaries without guilt-tripping.
Mothers who seek to control their children behave this way.
6. “You can’t be hurting as much as I am.”
“My boyfriend abused me for 2 years, and I’m over it. You’ can’t be hurting as much as I am.”
Comparing traumas doesn’t work, because you can’t compare them.
However, if you want to go there…we can. Two years’ worth of abuse from a boyfriend is different from whatever other abuse someone may have experienced.
For me, it was my entire upbringing and well into adulthood. 💁♀️
7. “I feel sorry for you.”
😒 Sympathy is not empathy.
8. “Just ignore them.”
“Just ignore them. What they’re saying doesn’t matter and isn’t true, so stop letting it affect you.”
Hearing something, on repeat, is a form of conditioning. It changes you. You may have heard of the term “brainwashing” — this is it.
9. “You just want attention.”
“You’re just telling people what happened to you because you want attention.”
I share my story because I want
- to prevent this from happening to someone else
- to let people know this isn’t okay
- to help other people realize similar things happening to them isn’t okay
- people to stop getting away with abuse.
10. “They said you’re lying.”
“You’re lying. I know [insert name(s)], and they said they never abused you.”
People who knew never did anything about it.
I know what happened to me. I know what happened to me. I also know that, if anyone knew I would actually be this loud about it, I wouldn’t be alive.
According to Texas State Law, I was abused. From this document, the following applies to me:
- Abuse definitions 1A-1F
- Neglect
Abusers never think they’re abusing. They scoff at the idea of calling their actions “abuse” and their behavior “abusive”.
They convince themselves their victims “made” them do it and that they, the abusers, are the victims. Abusers turn the situation around onto their victims, so their victims are perceived as the abusive ones by third parties.
This is called reactive abuse. It’s a form of emotional abuse.
Abusers think their behavior is rational and “normal”. They probably even had the same behavior done to them, reinforcing the idea that it’s “normal”.
The difference lies in the narratives.
Abuse victims focus on being believed while blaming themselves. The scale tips towards their own guilt or is more balanced than it tips towards their abuser. A victim of abuse may sympathize with their abuser.
Meanwhile, abusers engage in smear campaigns. The goal is to discredit their victims so they have no one left. Abusers want people to think their victims are “crazy” liars, because this keeps them in control.
Society often sympathizes with abusers and believes them to be the victims, whilst vilifying the real victims of abuse.
This is why leaving abusive situations is so damn hard. This is why victims of abuse return.
This is why forcing the “survivor” label on us is ignorant and insensitive.
This is why you should think before saying these things to someone who’s experienced abuse in their life — or say nothing at all.
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