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I'm getting sick of perfect victim narratives. Besides being emotionally manipulative - look at this cherubic little angel who's abused by a cartoonishly evil malefactor and cry! CRY! - it feeds into wholly inaccurate ideas of what kids who have been abused are actually like.
External reactions run a gamut from withdrawal and disassociation (this was basically me until I was about twenty) but one thing I can tell you: people who were abused as kids almost always have inner lives marked out by extreme anger and rage. I sure as hell did.
And the thing is that this winds up being used as justification not to help - "well, that child reacted to a bully by going into a screaming rage so clearly they're just a monster and there's nothing further to investigate" - and so the whole thing continues on and on.
Know what it is? Isolating. In the extreme. Nobody is in your your corner, nobody takes your side. You don't do well at school because teachers see you as "acting out" and it's not like your parents will help with homework - or that it feels like there's any point to it anyway.
And this doesn't just go away. In a lot of ways I've got better since getting out of that toxic environment but it's still left me with general emotional coldness, and an attachment style that's simultaneously needy while also deeply distrusting of other people.
The point of all this is: abuse in our society is extremely common and most people have no idea how to deal with it - and need to feel justified in doing so even when they do.
Cartoonish portrayals of both victims and perpetrators are deeply, deeply, unhelpful.
Cartoonish portrayals of both victims and perpetrators are deeply, deeply, unhelpful.
To use it as an example only because almost everybody knows it: the Dursleys in Harry Potter never laid a finger on him - but everybody reading it could see how very toxic his home environment was.
My parents actually did hit me, but they were "respectable" so nothing happened.
My parents actually did hit me, but they were "respectable" so nothing happened.
Abusers aren't cartoon cardboard cutouts.
Someone who is charming to your face could be going home and screaming at their partner an hour later. My mother was intelligent, charming when she wanted to be - and dedicated enough to finish a PhD.
She also nearly killed me.
Someone who is charming to your face could be going home and screaming at their partner an hour later. My mother was intelligent, charming when she wanted to be - and dedicated enough to finish a PhD.
She also nearly killed me.
And the thing - the really screwed up thing - is that I can deal with being hit. I can deal with having scars on my head and my neck from stuff that happened to me. Those fade.
But the damage done by spending twenty years feeling worthless and alone? That's harder.
But the damage done by spending twenty years feeling worthless and alone? That's harder.
And I am a broken record on this but the school system feeds into this. There are good teachers. Kind, empathetic ones. Genuinely, my head of year from year nine through eleven is the reason I'm still alive.
But as a *system* it fails abused kids over and over and over.
But as a *system* it fails abused kids over and over and over.
Hell it fails anyone who doesn't fit into the narrow criteria that it demands: rote memorisation of a selection of topics, total obedience to commands given, rigid adherence to schedule, sitting still and being quiet for hours on end.
I don't remember a damn thing I learned in school.
I remember the system isolating, humiliating, and demanding things of me that I just could not provide. I was a child. I didn't need public humiliation. None of the other kids who struggled along with me did either. It's cruel.
I remember the system isolating, humiliating, and demanding things of me that I just could not provide. I was a child. I didn't need public humiliation. None of the other kids who struggled along with me did either. It's cruel.
But what I do remember is the two or three teachers who - powerless as the system made them - I think understood what was going on and why I acted the way I did. Why I would hit myself, why I saw myself as worthless, why I lashed out when I'd finally had enough.
I remember them quietly overlooking that I hadn't done my homework because I'd been locked in my room with no computer all night. I remember them taking time out to talk to me - not as a pupil, a subordinate, but as a human being.
I know that in that regard I was lucky.
I know that in that regard I was lucky.
I don't know how many things I was shielded from because those couple of people had it in them to care.
But I will remember that kindness and that understanding all my life.
And it breaks my heart, truly, that it is not only rare, but actively discouraged.
But I will remember that kindness and that understanding all my life.
And it breaks my heart, truly, that it is not only rare, but actively discouraged.
It takes a long time to put yourself back together.
People who've been abused can be prickly and unpleasant and can lash out.
I'm not saying you should take it all on the chin - you need to look after yourself, too.
But don't be cruel. No matter how much the world demands it.
People who've been abused can be prickly and unpleasant and can lash out.
I'm not saying you should take it all on the chin - you need to look after yourself, too.
But don't be cruel. No matter how much the world demands it.
