GENRATOR

Quote by Audrey Emmett

Clarice Lispector, from “Raging Against the Typewriter”, Selected Cronicas (tr. Giovanni Pontiero)

no such thing as wasting your 20s your 20s are for recovering from whatever the fuck happened to you as a kid so that youre ready to get weird with it in your 30s

i hate when people say, "you need to forgive to heal/move on". no I do not. that motherfucker doesn't deserve my forgiveness + you can't forgive someone who's not sorry. they were supposed to protect me but instead they permanently damaged me. they do not deserve my forgiveness.

Why boundaries don’t work with abusers

You’ll often hear that to combat abuse, all you need to do is set up some proper boundaries! Say no, tell them to stop, and then everything will get better. Here’s several reasons why this does not work.

Abuse is not a problem of poorly-set boundaries, even if it looks (on a very surface level) as if the victim is ‘letting’ it happen, the reality behind is that the victim’s choices were already taken away; it’s possible they faced violence in the past for 'not letting it happen’, or they’ve been threatened, blackmailed, groomed, and stand to lose a lot if they attempt to oppose the abuser on any level.

Abusers don’t only cross the 'invisible boundaries’, the ones that are negotiable and differ with every human being, instead they go for the natural boundaries nobody could violate 'by accident’. Such as: touching you when you’re clearly uncomfortable with it, humiliating you in front of others, regarding you as their property/servant/toy, implying or directly stating you’re not good enough, disgusting, stupid, physically assaulting you, threatening, blackmailing you. Imagine if everyone had to explain to everyone that it’s crossing the line if they’re publicly humiliated, physically violated, insulted or belittled repeatedly; we don’t have to do that. Because these are pre-assumed boundaries everyone in society is obliged to respect by default. If abusers violate them, it’s not because they 'don’t understand this is wrong and harmful’, they do it because they know they can.

Abusers also do a great deal of sabotage to bypass your boundaries, such as enforcing terror if you fight back, isolating you from support, triangulation, grooming you to believe you’re bad if you have this boundary, pretending the boundary is hurting them, convincing you the boundary is hurting you, or brainwashing you to believe you have no right to boundaries at all. They’re also in position of power over you and can take things away from you if you insist on a boundary – putting you in position where you have to choose between a boundary and your home, food, job, transport, medical care, security. They will make sure it’s impossible for you to defend your boundary before they attack it.

And lastly, you are not responsible for the abuse regardless of whether you set any boundaries or not. The problem was never in you 'not fighting back enough’; it’s in the abusive behaviour of a person who repeatedly hurt you. Good people will not abuse you regardless of boundaries; they will not violate your consent without paying attention what it does to you, they will not isolate, humiliate or threaten you. They will not try to exploit your vulnerability or use any lack of boundaries against you; instead, they’ll ask if it’s alright, they’ll check if it’s okay, if you’re hurt. Good people will not use your reluctance to set boundaries as a 'gotcha! Now I can do whatever I want to you’. They will care about not abusing you.

Telling someone to 'just set boundaries’ in a situation of abuse is the wrong thing to say. Shifting responsibility on the victim, and minimizing abuse as 'boundary setting issue’ is the exact opposite you want to do. Nobody gets abused due to lack of boundaries, responsibility for the abuse lies 100% in abusers targeting vulnerable people they can trap and traumatize. If vulnerable people had a simple trick to not be vulnerable anymore, they would have done it a long time ago. You will do much better to acknowledge this reality, get outraged at the abuser’s despicable and cruel actions, acknowledging the victim didn’t do anything to deserve or cause this, and staying consistently on their side.

Do you think it noble to keep giving your love to someone who mistreats you or who shows very little appreciation? Is it honourable to tolerate years of emotional neglect pretending to “not give up” on someone? Continuing to tolerate abusive or unloving behaviour from someone is neither noble nor gracious. Psychologists call it trauma bonding and fear of abandonment, and is toxic. Give your time and love to those who show appreciation and reciprocation. You shouldn’t have to beg your partner, or anyone, for love, attention and appreciation.

one of the things that people don’t really address about trauma recovery is that the more you heal, the more there is resistance to keep on going. the more aware we are of what we went through, the more difficult are the truths we have to live with and accept.

Wish I could numb it all away.

Sometimes you have to leave family, friends and lovers standing in the mess that they refuse to heal from, while you continue healing. When you’re mentally, spiritually and/or emotionally evolving, your spirit won’t allow you to stay with people who hold your soul in traumatic bondage. Release them, because not only are they holding you back, you’re enabling them too. Let them go!

Treka L. House

Am I trauma bonded to an abuser?

Trauma bonding is intense, survival-based human feature that makes us cling to another human being who we feel is protecting us from danger/isolation/terror and keeping us alive. Due to it being so primary and intense, it’s almost impossible to detach from this person and walk away, even in the instance of abuse. Trauma bonding is connected to the Cycle of Abuse: “tension building, the incident (abuse), reconciliation (honeymoon), calm”. Going thru cycles of intense and dramatic events, that are difficult to explain or understand or even perceive correctly due to intense emotions, will cause you to bond to whoever is with you thru it, even if the other person is the source of the trauma.

Here are the symptoms of being in a trauma bond to an abuser:

Loss of identity

Bond

Cycle of Abuse

Escape and support sabotage

If you see yourself in 5 or more of these points, it’s likely you’re experiencing, or have experienced a traumatic bond with an abuser. This isn’t your fault, as these bonds are planned and manipulated by an abuser, they actively work to make you feel loved, safe, protected and bonded to them, so that by the time you start realizing the abuse is real, you’re already too attached to get out. They are likely to gaslight you to get away with the worst of abuse.

Trauma bonding is a method of torture used on war prisoners; their primary instincts to attach to another person in the face of trauma is used to force loyalty and obedience. If this was done to you, it is not a small deal, it’s extremely traumatic, and breaking free takes a lot of distress and anguish. The symptoms listed above are not all of the symptoms, feel free to add more.

Wiki (read more)

i love sunsets, i love discovering new music, i love stargazing, i love walking, i love the smell of earth after it rains, i love coffee, i love the smell of books, i love quiet afternoons, i love open windows, i love the underlying flavors in food, i love poetry, i love freshly baked bread, i love painting my nails, i love flowers growing through cracks in the pavement. etc etc

— Unknown

From "Two Letters That Were Not Sent" - Laura Redden Searing