The way I always look at it is: if I was treated by a stranger the same way I was by my mother, I’d have a book deal, a Lifetime movie made about me, etc. (not really, the world treats all “victims” like shit), but because it’s by family, “there must be a reason.” Like the abuse can’t be as random and hurtful as it is…

100% agree that people cannot handle these things, hearing or knowing about them. So many people turn a blind eye and whenever I try to tacitly bring up my abuse as a way to explain behavior (I hate hugs, etc.) I always either get someone “explaining” my mother’s behavior over and over as a way to frame it as “not…

Maybe my experience is different, but whenever I explain that I was a victim of child abuse (awful, awful, basically was held prisoner by my mother, abused), I am not told I’m a survivor. Or a victim. In fact, I am pressured to forgive or the listener explains away the abuse because they refuse to believe a mother…