CCChat-Magazine_Issue-27-Survivors-Speak

away from that black hole means that
there may be very little that is tangible
left.
M: That makes so much sense and so
many will be able to relate. I don’t
know if this is what you’ve found in
your practice but there is a type of
person and I don’t know if they are
sadistic or whatever but there is a kind
of person whose need to control
manifests itself in needing to get
someone to lose their mind and they
get absolute pleasure out of it.
S: Ah yes, where there is pleasure in
seeing someone suffer and that is also
so difficult to accept when it is
so sorry, they bring flowers and are
contrite but actually the most
damaging are the ones that just go
back to normal, as though nothing has
happened. It’s so invalidating, there’s
no discussion of this upsetting
experience and because you don’t want
tension and you don’t want conflict,
especially if there’s children in the
home, so it just goes back to ‘thank
goodness, it’s normal’.
M: That's true, and you ride it out and
think just wait a couple of days and it
will return to normal.
"There’s an emotional element as well, that pull, it’s
an arm of the abuse, that they use your empathy against you,
because you do want things to be ok."
somebody that you love and care
about. It’s much easier to emotionally
make an excuse than to look at things
objectively.
M: Especially when they apologise so
profusely and you want to believe they
have made a mistake and didn’t mean
it. Why is it easier to accept someone
apologising for repeated wrongdoing,
than the fact that someone has done
this deliberately and conscientiously
over and over again?
S: That’s the question of the year!
Because it happens slowly and they
test the waters, so they may call you a
name or comment on what you are
wearing and there’s a myth in society
that the person who is abusive will
then make this big show of I’m
S: There’s an emotional element as
well, that pull, it’s an arm of the abuse,
that they use your empathy against
you, because you do want things to be
ok and those periods of time become
shorter and shorter until incidents are
happening daily and you don’t know
how to make sense of that either,
because you’re questioning yourself
and asking what am I doing
here? With most of the women I work
with, it’s always what’s happening?
What am I doing? Always looking
inside, rather than seeing this person
as the cause.
M: Always looking inside and asking
what did I do? If I’m honest,I still do
that even though I know what
happened, it’s just so hard to accept.
Making The Invisible Visible