Just stop!

 I had a different post in mind today and then my oldest kid called me.  He is 30 years old and a husband and a father. He was raised by a whole village of people including me who was his teen mom. I definitely did the best I could but without people like my parents and others stepping into the gap his understanding of life could have been drastically different. I am forever grateful for all of the village.

I raised my older kids in an environment where there wasn't yelling, calling names or negativity in general.  That isn't to say that there were no adverse effects of being raised by teenaged parents that were not together because there certainly were many. What was not a part of life with me was spanking and I let my kids express themselves, respectfully, to me.  They, like me were not raised in an abusive environment.  My parents didn't yell or even raise their voices at each other.  Furthermore, there were no constant relationships that we saw that had those aspects involved in them. From my point of view that is. My oldest son and I talk about the easy things and hard things.  I do not hold things back because knowledge is power.

In our conversation today I realized something that I don't know a lot of people understand.  There is so much disdain about speaking of domestic violence but also putting the label to actions that are seemingly normal.  I don't know that many are willing to admit that getting in someone's face and yelling at them is an act of abuse.  It is called intimidation and that is a mental/psychological abuse. It is looked at maybe, as disrespectful, but not widely as being abusive. "Jokingly" putting someone down like saying oh I see we don't care about the way we look, as an example, is abusive. The goal is to tear that person down in a lighthearted way. How could something light be abusive? Does the abuser know they are being abusive when these are the types of abuse they are implementing? I could never profess to knowing how an abuser thinks but I have a working theory.

When someone grew up with certain things being "normal" they go on and continue to believe these normal behaviors are acceptable.  Growing up surrounded by conflict generally leads to being a grown up surrounded by conflict. That is a normal state of being so it can't be wrong. There aren't any laws being broken so it can't be wrong. My theory is that an abuser doesn't think their behaviors are abusive because they aren't getting put in jail.  This spills over to those that are the victims of abusers or the abusers' friends or associates. They believe that because the abusers aren't in jail then how could there be anything wrong with what they are doing? I don't know if the abuser ever believes they are being abusive if there is not an arrest and conviction, but I do not think they do.  I imagine a person doesn't want to think they are doing terrible things to another person and that most abusers convince themselves that if they are hurting another person in some way, the person they are victimizing has done something to deserve what they are receiving.  Accountability is not a big thing for abusers. The abuser will blame the victim, if they would have listened, I wouldn't have had to do what I did, type of mentality. There is a major danger in this thinking.

This thinking helps to perpetuate the whole idea that domestic violence isn't happening unless there is physical abuse. If you have been reading my other posts, then you know that physical abuse is the last abuse before death, if the victim can't get away.  If the victim does get away from the abuser, then the abuse doesn't end because there are other abuses that can happen from a distance so the abuser can try to maintain control over their victim. Then the victim is being taught that all other abuse is acceptable and not even abusive because it isn't physical nor one specific incident.  That is a dangerous thing because it keeps the abuser in the position of power and victim in the position of submissive. This doesn't begin to clear up in society if the first thing that happens is to question the victim.  Why did the abuser do this to you? What happened that caused them to do this to you? Did you do something that caused you to be in this position? This is letting the abuser off the hook and blaming their victim for the actions of another person. There is nothing that can be done or said that can make a person responsible for another person's actions.  An upstanding person of the community, a leader in business, an officer of the law, a person with no criminal record, a politician, the list can go on of people that are abusive and have a victim they are terrorizing in their domestic situation.  No, a person with a great personality in public is not precluded from being a domestic abuser.  

Stop judging the survivor.  Stop judging others.  Just stop judging.