pyrrha-la-folle:

yourfriendlyscop:

Here we go

I’ve highlighted things I have felt, and things my mother did, and under the “Understanding Abusive Relationships” I’ve also highlighted things I experienced as a racist, fat-phobic, ableist bully.

Under “Basic Rights in a Relationship” I highlighted rights my mother violated.

Sometimes I need to see things like this to realize that my abuse was real and wasn’t me just feeling unreasonably entitled to better treatment; self-blame is sometimes the worst part

One of my friends was in a textbook abusive relationship once, this girl would make things up to get him angry at his other friends so she could alienate and isolate him from everyone but her, she would end every night by making ridiculous demands and escalating them every time he fulfilled them until it was finally His Fault For Ruining Things, whenever they broke up she would just happen to cross paths with him everywhere he went in the City of Los Angeles until they got back together.

And the funny thing is this happened in front of everybody for years, How Terrible That Bitch Is was a regular topic of conversation among our circle whenever she wasn’t there, and it wasn’t until I dropped acid one Halloween and had an existential crisis that I connected the dots and thought to bring it up with him.

She was the only person I’ve ever gotten physical with out of anger, I literally don’t recall it as volitional but I grabbed her by the throat, immediately felt terrible about it, and then in shock went to an afterparty where I was roundly toasted. Later he fondly recalled that moment as being a big morale boost seeing someone stand up to her.

For a long time she’d threatened to fake a domestic violence case on him if he tried to break up with her and at the end when it was clear he wasn’t getting back together this time she did, and had him jailed though didn’t end up pursuing the charge.

So when I hear people say that We Must Prioritize And Protect Survivors through things like mandatory arrest laws and the suspension of various rights tied to restraining orders issued without adversarial trial, well.

Also I knew a girl in college who had falsely accused someone of rape, I know this because she told me so in a four-hour soliloquy about her life history that certainly did not skimp on terrible things that people had done to her. It does bother me that if she hadn’t recanted and pushed to trial, rape shield laws might exclude from consideration the fact that she bedded 130 guys that year, many of them by walking into their rooms and taking off her clothes. Not because it would establish her as an unrapeable slut, but because it’s a pretty key data point in understanding that she desperately needed attention and validation and had a tendency to seek them using the bluntest tools at hand.

So in conclusion those are the experiences with women and abuse that make it very difficult for me to adopt the Proper Line On Women And Abuse.