Post #4114398

2026-07-26 14:54 UTC

I don’t have any answers here. If you were hoping for a community healing HowTo, you’re not going to find one. But the one thing I can tell you is that the victim empathizing with, forgiving, or making up with their abuser isn’t part of the solution. That’s just how you keep the abuse going.

Replies (1)

@faithisleaping@anarres.family 2026-07-26 15:33

There’s another side to this which I don’t really know how to talk about or even how to approach where, as a victim, you can’t expect the rest of the world not to empathize with that present. “If we’re to have a relationship, you have to hate them too” is a pretty high bar. Sometimes it’s okay and there can be communities where that person’s face is a dart board. But it is isolating because not everyone can or should hate that person as much as you do. (And you have to be careful because hatred can turn toxic in a hurry.) Sometimes healing requires that we build a life in which our abuser is known to all as nothing but a villain but that often means cutting ourselves off from people who we care about simply because they still care for that person.

Open ##4115194