Surviving Emotional Incest

giving love to trauma survivors whose trauma made them friendlier, more open and loud.

giving love to trauma survivors whose trauma made them paranoid and aggressive.

giving love to trauma survivors whose trauma made them kinder, softer and more sensitive.

giving love to trauma survivors whose trauma made them lose guilt, shame, or empathy.

giving love to trauma survivors whose trauma made them gain more guilt, shame, or empathy.

If you’ve ever had to deal with an abusive person in your life - like an abusive parent or partner - you’ve probably wondered what made them treat you that way. If you understand why abuse is happening, the thinking goes, you might be able to figure out how to make it stop. 

So why do abusers do what they do? Do they have anger issues? Drinking problems? Past trauma? Personality disorders? Do they just need to get in touch with their feelings and learn how to communicate better?

Nope. 

Abusive behaviours come from abusive beliefs. Abusers - whether consciously or unconsciously - hold specific beliefs about relationships that drive their behaviour and allow them to justify the horrible things they do. Even if your abuser has never put their beliefs into words, you’ll probably recognize a lot of these abusive beliefs:

You are responsible for my emotions. It is never my responsibility to reflect on my emotional reactions or learn better coping skills - it’s your responsibility to stop doing things that make me angry or upset.

I must act on my emotions. If I am angry, I am going to lash out. You have no right to criticize me for that, and it’s not my responsibility to learn to manage my  emotions - you have to stop making me lash out at you. Asking me not to act on my emotions is controlling and wrong.

You will always be responsible for my emotions. Even if the relationship ends, you will continue to be responsible for my emotions, and I will expect you to continue to prioritize my feelings.

If I have feelings about something, it’s my business. If something you do or think causes an emotional reaction in me, then I have a right to get involved or tell you what to do. My feelings must be the priority. You don’t have the right to tell me that it’s none of my business. 

You must judge me on my intentions, not my actions. If I didn’t mean to hurt you or scare you, then you don’t have the right to be hurt or scared. No one has the right to try to hold me accountable unless I meant to hurt someone.

I get to decide what your intentions were. If you hurt me, you meant to hurt me. If you make me jealous, you meant to make me jealous. Nothing you do is ever accidental or unintended - everything you do is intentional and malicious, even if it was a response to something I did.

My feelings are genuine; your feelings are manipulation. If I’m upset, my feelings are real and important. If you are upset, you have an ulterior motive - you’re just trying to be manipulative and get attention or sympathy for yourself.

You have freedoms because I allow you to. Every freedom you have in your life - like wearing what you want - it’s because I generously allow it. I expect you to be grateful to me for that. I have the right to take those freedoms away whenever I want, and I expect you to obey.

If you set boundaries with me, you are mistreating me. If you really loved me, you wouldn’t set boundaries with me. You are doing this to intentionally hurt me, which means I don’t have to respect those boundaries.

You holding me accountable for hurting you is worse than me hurting you. My pain at being called out is worse than your pain at being mistreated. If I feel bad about something I did, I have already been punished enough. You trying to discuss the issue or hold me accountable is just your way of abusing me.

If I apologized for something, you have to forgive me. If the relationship has ended, you have to reconcile with me. You don’t get to ask for more time apart or more discussion of the issue - once I’ve apologized, the matter is closed for good.

The relationship is not over until I say it is over. So long as I want a relationship with you, you must have a relationship with me. Your feelings are irrelevant. Even if we have broken up, you must remain available to me so we can get back together in the future. Not wanting a relationship with me means you are mistreating me or being immature. 

I am the authority in this relationship. I am smarter and more perceptive than you. I know what is best for both of us. My version of events is always the correct one. I have superior judgement, taste and opinions. If you question me or disagree with me after I’ve given you the correct answer, you are disrespecting and mistreating me, or you are simply immature and incapable of knowing what’s good for you.

I have the right to control you. It is my absolute right to decide what you do and who you associate with. You have no right to disobey me. I am owed obedience and control; if you don’t give me those things, you are wronging me and cheating me out of the relationship I deserve. 

If you resist my control, I am allowed to do whatever I think is necessary to get it back. Once you’ve resisted me, I am justified in whatever I do to regain control of you. I am not responsible for my actions when you resist my control; you forced me to do it, and it’s your own fault. 

I should be your main focus. Everything else in your life comes secondary to me. When you make decisions, my feelings should be your first consideration. You are expected to make sacrifices for me and put me at the center of your life; I am not obligated to do the same for you. 

If I spend money on you or do something for you, you are in debt to me. You spending money on me or doing things for me does not erase your debt to me, and I am never in debt to you. You are indebted to me for as long as I decide. I may decide that your belongings and earnings also belong to me, since I allow you to have them. I may also decide at any time that you owe me for gifts I gave you, even if they were meant to be gifts.

I am not abusive, and you are not allowed to tell me otherwise. I know what abuse is, and real abusers are significantly worse than me. If our relationship has ever had any good times or positive moments, it can’t possibly be abusive. If you accuse me of being abusive, you are the one abusing me, or you have been led astray by bad influences. 

Relationships should be effortless (for me). I am owed a relationship that is peaceful and requires no real effort from me. It is your job to make sure we have that kind of relationship. If there is any tension or conflict in the relationship, it is your fault, and you are depriving me of the relationship I deserve to have. 

Abusers and victims alike often buy into the narrative that abuse is rooted in anger issues - after all, abusers are frequently angry, and anger is an issue that can be treated. But this narrative just isn’t true. Abusers aren’t abusive because they are angry. Abusers are angry because they are abusive. 

A non-abusive partner is not someone who has learned how to control their rage whenever you spend time with your friends or get home 15 minutes late from work. A non-abusive partner just doesn’t feel any rage in those situations. An abuser’s rage is firmly rooted in their beliefs about relationships - they feel entitled to a relationship that meets their impossible expectations, and when they inevitably don’t get it, they bubble over with fury. Whether they know it or not, they have firmly entrenched beliefs about how relationships should be, and those beliefs are at the heart of their abuse. 

This is similar to the thing about how someone drowning in 7 feet of water is just as dead as someone drowning in 20 feet, and that's very true.

First panel: a ring of dandelions framing a pale green circle with text. The text reads “I hope you heal; a tumblr post illustrated by Maia Kobabe; @ redgoldsparks. Text by prettypositivity, i-dont-believe-in-perfect & lilbutch.

Second panel: A raccoon sitting on its hind legs, holding a dandelion up to its face, with its eyes closed. It’s upper body is haloed by a yellow circle. Text written in red reads “I hope you heal from the things no one ever apologized for.”

Third panel: A raccoon with its back facing the viewer, looking at a dark grey blue storm cloud. Text written in dark blue reads “I hope you heal from the things you don’t want to talk about.”

Fourth panel: A raccoon curled up among a field of dandelions. Text written in red reads “I hope you heal from the things no one else knows you went through.”

It IS a parents responsibility to take care of their child.

Someone said in a tag that they wished they could hear more about parents that fall in that category, because they feel like what they went through “wasn’t that bad” and that they must therefore be overreacting against their parents. So here’s an example of a parent that tried and still didn’t do well enough: my dad.

I really believe that he loves me and wants to help. But he grew up in an emotionally abusive/neglectful family, and he doesn’t know how to demonstrate love, so I grew up with very little kindness or warmth from him. He is EXTREMELY awkward. There’s a photo somewhere of me cuddled up next to him on the couch, watching TV. It was a rare enough occurrence that my mom took a photo of it. And he doesn’t have his arm around me or anything. He’s just sitting there, awkwardly. Because he doesn’t know how to show love.

He has also struggled with depression a good deal of his life, and is extremely risk-averse. He has a temper, and would blow up on me for little things. He was overprotective: I always asked my mom for permission to do things, because she would say yes and he might not. He is often very self-centered and often seems to forget that I am an independent human being who might want and need different things than he does: he often doesn’t seem to like that I have my own beliefs and opinions. I blew up on him once for buying me a replacement laptop that was not at all what I needed, because he didn’t consult with me AT ALL on what I needed or wanted from a laptop. That might seem like a little thing to get mad about (”After all, he bought you a laptop! Shouldn’t you be grateful?”) but the problem is that it was an event sitting on top of years and years of other experiences where he did what HE thought was best for me instead of what I actually wanted or needed. He ordered a new laptop again for me recently, and this time consulted with me carefully on what I wanted, so he took my criticisms on board, which is good. But the bad experience still ended up in my trauma memories because it was just one more example of him not understanding that I am a separate person with my own needs and wants. He TRIES to give me what I need, but he doesn’t bother to ASK what that is first.

When I was growing up, he also constantly did things FOR me–even when I WANTED to do them myself–instead of guiding me through doing them myself, giving me the impression that he didn’t think I could do them on my own. As I got older, when I turned to him for help, he often left me high and dry. He would refuse–sometimes angrily–to help me when I came to him for help. So he destroyed my self-confidence and made me dependent on him, and then punished me for being dependent on him when he didn’t want to help.