What victims are told to believe: "If anything goes wrong, it must be our fault."
We may feel guilty about violence done to us because we are taught that our job is to make men happy, and if they aren't, we--not they--are to blame. Many of us heard from our parents, "Boys will be boys, so girls must take care"--the message being that we can avoid unwanted male attention if only we are careful enough. Blaming the victim releases the man who commits violence from the responsibility for what he has done. Friends or family may blame the victim in order to feel safe themselves: "She got raped because she walked alone after midnight. I'd never do that, so rape won't happen to me" or "She knew what she was doing when she went out with him/ started a relationship with him."
WOMEN ARE NOT GUILTY FOR VIOLENCE & ABUSE COMMITTED BY MEN ON OUR BODY, IN OUR MIND, AND SPIRIT. THIS VIOLENCE HAPPENS BECAUSE OF MEN'S GREATER POWER AND THEIR MISUSE OF THAT POWER.
(We have used the male gender for the abuser - yours may be female!)
It is not our fault you are so right. I was being stalked recently (im hoping hes gonna stop because i called the cops on him) and my family blames me. It hurts so much that his disgusting actions are leading to my parents blaming and opressing me. Im so distraught I just dont know what to do. Im trying to heal by talking to my friends but I dont know how much that will help when its my family that refuses to support me and be there for me. It just hurts and scares me more.
ReplyDeleteI needed to read this today. I'm a CSA survivor and no one wants to hear/believe what happened to me.
ReplyDeleteI got so tired of being blamed for my almost ex's actions and abusive behavior. And after he left out home almost 2 years ago, I was the one still being blamed. Amazing. Yet truly so sad.
ReplyDeleteMy father sexually abused me from the age 9 to 15. I recently have had open conversations with him about the subject. I expressed the pain and trauma he has caused me. I feel broken and my marriage suffers because of my sexuality issues. My father thn told me that he never saw me as a victim and thought it was just something we did together. I cannot even articulate how this makes me feel. I do not even know how to respond to that. I feel abused again. Instead of taking responsibility for what he did he put it on me - like it was something I wanted or asked for. This is sooo painful and I am not sure how to proceed.
ReplyDeleteThis is in response to the jleebeckham comment and well, all of them really.
ReplyDeleteThe past few years have been eye-opening years for me in so many ways. So many horrific things have happened and even using the words to tell you about it wouldn't convey the emotional rape and soul-destruction. But what God has allowed me to learn is this: people with the brain functioning of a psychopath truly have no idea about reality. They have no clue! Oh, and one more very important thing, THEY ARE COMPLETELY EVIL, THERE IS NOTHING GOOD IN THEM!
What you said jleebeckham about your dad seeming to think it was a "shared" thing is so very horrifically typical of psychopathy. My dad too has no idea the damage he did to me (not sexually). He used me as a slave to clean his house, make him look "normal", kept me fearful and raped away any self-worth I might have had. To hear him today, he was the best father. Said I had all the freedom to do whatever I wanted to and that he was the benevolent one, always just humble and blah. It is amazing to hear this but it no longer surprises me. All the rape he did to my emotions and soul have done nothing to him but have forever damaged me.
This is why I continually "talk" about psychopathy. It needs to be put out into the open. There's the newest update on this info on Youtube in a four-part video series titled "BBC Horizon - What makes us good or evil?" See, your dad is most likely nothing more than a person who has the brain functioning of a psychopath. They may seem to be normal and look normal but they are unable to feel the necessary human emotions such as love, empathy, gratefulness etc. Their brains don't process these things.
The thing I have discovered is that this is NOT uncommon at all. I will go out on a limb here and say that it may actually now be the majority of people not the minority. We will never know until we start honestly checking for it and this can be done with an MRI set up to check for this.
This website has changed my life. Go back over some of the other articles. You will soon see that you are NOT alone and that a few others see and understand.
One of the latest books about this subject is titled "The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry" by Jon Ronson. It is worth reading. When I was looking up his stuff on-line I had come across a video interview he did with some journalist. The journalist ended up having a psychopathy test done (MRI I think) and low and behold this journalist was a psychopath. I couldn't find it to post it here, but it's out there somewhere.
I've posted this before but want to reiterate: IT IS REALLY BAD PEOPLE! Psychopathy is utterly destructive to us non-psychopaths but all the good in the world done to and for psychopaths has no lasting effect on them and they ALWAYS want to harm others. It is simply the way they are. 2 Timothy 3:1-5 "1But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.
I think this may go back to the projection post or even the psychopath post. These guys are not capable of taking responsibility. I think in my case, I was taught at a very early age that everything was my fault. I think that Freudian stuff about how you copy the relationship your parents have, is right. I saw how my mother submitted to my father and I learned that to be "normal". But the truth is, I don't have to take responsibility for my husband's wrong actions against me. I don't ask him to manipulate me and yell at me. I don't ask him to keep going when I say no to sex with him. I don't ask for the mind games. It's really about him being in control but it's not my fault he's a control-freak.
ReplyDeleteThe video with the interview of Jon Ronson, where the journalist turns out to be a psychopath is on Youtube and it's titled "The Psychopath Test" and it was uploaded by GhostWatching on Jun 2, 2011.
ReplyDeleteI'm really going through it right now. I finally had the currage to tell my husband after months about being attacked. I couldn't talk to him and I was so afraid of him a using me of lying and he's done it all the blaims me. He says it's my fault. He says his life is ruined now. He is gonna leave me He said hes done. I just can't wrap my mind on how horrible a person can be after all that I been through to accuse me. I'm beyond messed up in the head now.worse than ever. I wish I never told i wish they would have killed me
ReplyDeleteIt's been about a month since my ex an I broke up. He moved on to his next victim literally the next day. I recently just had my iPad stolen from my bedroom at my house. Out of everything in my house that was the only thing. I don't want to think he could do something like that but he is also very passive aggressive. Everyone believes it was someone who knows me an my house. Could this be a trait of a sociopath/narcissist?
ReplyDeleteMy ex beat me to where I almost died. We have 2 children. His family is now blaming me thay my nagging snd bugging him made him do it that it's all my fault and since he is in jail I should lose my kids. I'm so hurt by these people I once called family. THEY are calling my land lord snd billing companies to see if I'm paying my bills. They want me to suffer. WHy? WHy? I don't understand why
ReplyDelete