Member-only story
When Abuse Makes You Think You Hold the Power
Unfair blame breeds a sense of responsibility — and keeps you stuck.
Several days ago, I attended a lecture about domestic violence. The topic drew rather limited attendance, but the small size of the audience had the benefit of opening up a lively and raw discussion. Some women in attendance had worked for nonprofits. Others had experienced abuse themselves. I was in the latter category. And while it’s been over a decade since my last abusive relationship ended, something very clear crystallized for me while I sat there contemplating. Something that had never quite been clear to me before:
Abusive people aim to make you feel like you are in control.
Which breeds a very false sense of empowerment in the victim.
And that’s a huge part of the problem.
Abusive relationships don’t usually start off abusive. If someone punched you in the face on your third date, you’d probably realize something was very amiss and walk away, confident in your assessment that your date was out of his/her/their mind. (Which is precisely why they won’t; abusive people are masters at knowing how to play the mind.)
However, most often, abuse starts with subtle put-downs and gaslighting — easy to dismiss as simple…
