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Do they know damage? Or do they know wrong?

Posted by Racer on October 1, 2005, at 15:15:58

In reply to Re: abusers » lostforwards, posted by Poet on October 1, 2005, at 12:42:18

First, I suspect that there are multiple answers to this, as different abusers will have different reactions to their behavior. Some probably do know that they're doing damage to their victims, and hate themselves for it. My guess is that that's a small percentage of them...

In my case, the man who molested me ADMITTED that he molested me -- and other girls -- but basically did the "she's overreacting/we were just playing/she didn't get hurt/she started it" sort of thing. And then, when I did report him for the abuse of other girls when I was 19, he went to my mother to try to get her to help him 'make it right' with me, telling her how he'd gotten to be such good friends with other girls whom he had molested. The underlying message seemed to be that that was the 'healthy' response to his 'making it right.' My reaction, of course, was by definition unhealthy, since he really was innocent of having done any damage at all...

(Gee, and I thought it was healthy of me not to need to go along with him once I'd grown up and was no longer helpless... Just shows how ignorant I am, huh?)

I suppose there are sociopaths who know that they're damaging their victims, but don't care. If I had to guess about the majority, though, I'd say that most of them probably rationalize it. They do what they do without regard for the consequences for their victims, but then they make excuses so that they don't have to think badly of themselves. Does that make sense? That's my guess.

You know what, though? I think at this point I want to minimize the power I give to my molester by wondering how he felt about what he did. Instead, I am trying to accept my own feelings about what happened. I've gone through 30 years of feeling shame and guilt and anger -- now I want to learn to feel that what happened was done TO me, and not something I somehow caused, or should have been able to avoid, or should have been able to stop by fighting back more effectively. (That's been a big part of the shame all along -- that I wasn't strong enough to fight him off me. That I wasn't able to do anything to protect myself. That I couldn't even 'make' my mother protect me from him.) He can rot in [you know where], I want to get away from thinking about him at all, and learn to comfort myself, absolve myself of guilt, etc.

Sorry, got to musing again...


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poster:Racer thread:561587
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20051001/msgs/561652.html