#not believing abuse survivors and excusing abuse

It’s not okay to tell a child who is telling you about their abusive parent, or abusive relative or sibling, to tell them in return ‘oh they care about you deep inside, they just don’t show it’.

That is not what the kid needs to hear. That kid put faith in you that you’re going to be on their side, understand they’re hurt, they’re scared, they feel hated, they’re starting to doubt the goodness of the person who hurt them, they need a safe space to express their pain, a confidant to hear and understand their part of the story, and they need help in order to not become a victim of this person’s abuse again.

And instead, you tell them, ‘Disregard your feelings, and conclude that this person, who hurt you and turned against you and used their power to abuse you, trust that this person actually deeply loves you, and what this situation needs is you having more understanding and tolerance because this, is actually love’. Nobody needs to hear this. No body, ever, needs to hear this.

Because this will, in fact, move the kid to consider that maybe there’s still love in this relationship, and yes maybe their abuser isn’t so bad, and maybe they should give the abuser another chance, and see deeper into their actions to find love they so desperately need in order to feel safe and accepted. And inevitably, they’ll fall victims to the abuse, again, and again, and again.

What you taught them, is to accept abuse as love. You told them it’s acceptable for the people in their life, to abuse them as a ‘misunderstood’ expression of love. You told them to treat abuse as one would treat love. You discouraged them from getting away from the harm, you failed to protect them, you failed to even validate their situation and their feelings, you failed to recognize that this is unacceptable, that they don’t deserve to be harmed, that it is not okay for someone who is supposed to love them, to abuse them. You taught them to accept anyone who hurts them, as a person who secretly cares. You gave them a push to tolerate this in their future friendship, relationship, marriage. Because how wouldn’t they forgive and understand it from their friend or spouse, if they did with a family member?

You put a situation of abuse in the context where the abuser doesn’t have to stop, but the vulnerable victim needs to put their feelings of hurt away, and ‘understand better’ that this is a form of love. That means the victim is the one who needs to take responsibility for the abuse, bear it, forgive it, and assume this is okay. You didn’t even explain to this child that they don’t deserve to be harmed. That hurting them is unacceptable. You went on as if suffering harm is normal and expected for this child’s life. You told them to endure it and failed to put them out of the harm’s way.

This is what enabling looks like. This is what siding with the abuser looks like. This is grooming, neglect, emotional abandonment, investment in abuse to continue. Nobody needs to hear that. Nobody needs to be reassured that the abuse is okay because their abusers love them.

What we need to hear is that this is unacceptable. That it was wrong to do this to you. Someone checking if we’re hurt, if we’re alright. Someone telling us they’re going to make sure we never suffer this abuse again. Taking our words seriously and making sure we’re protected, and we no longer need to worry about it happening again. We need a moment of grief for what we went thru, and to be asked for forgiveness because we weren’t protected, we were left to the mercy of a person who went on to hurt us. We need to know that people will be on our side, and find abuse as horrible and harmful as we do. We should hear that the person who loves us wouldn’t do this. That even the person who hates us doesn’t have the right to do it. Our feelings should matter. Our pain should be addressed.

That’s how you’d raise a person who understands their experiences matter and their feelings and safety have value in the society. To do it any differently is neglect and invitation of more abuse into a child’s life, as if that life is the least important one and reserved for taking damage. We do not exist to be sacrificed for families to stay together. The moment we’re put into harm’s way for the family’s sake, it’s no longer our family.