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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 14 of 14. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by lostforwards on October 1, 2005, at 11:42:41
Are abusers aware of the abuse they inflict on others? Is it possible for an abuser to be completely unaware of what they're doing to others in their life?
Posted by Poet on October 1, 2005, at 12:42:18
In reply to abusers, posted by lostforwards on October 1, 2005, at 11:42:41
Hi lostforwards,
My brother/abuser doesn't seem to have any awareness of the psychological damage he did to me. He is still my mother's baby boy and she certainly can't see the ill tempered abusive jerk he is. Now, Poet, tell us how you really feel.
My father sees what a jerk my brother currently is, but either ignored or wasn't aware of what he did to me growing up. My mother would never see baby boy do anything wrong, so that's a lost cause.
My experience says no to abusers recognizing their abuse, but that's just me.
Poet
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...
Posted by lynn970 on October 1, 2005, at 17:46:51
In reply to abusers, posted by lostforwards on October 1, 2005, at 11:42:41
>Are abusers aware of the abuse they inflict on others
In my opinion, if they dont know, they dont want to know. They are in denial.
My mom told me that she was sorry for everything that she did but she followed it up with "But you were such a bad child" I think the abuser finds reasons/excuses for their actions.
I may have been a little strong willed, but like my husband said, "I did not deserve the beatings and the verbal abuse."
If I was such a bad kid, how come I was never on drugs, and the ONLY man that I have ever had sex with is my husband?
So to answer your question, Yes they know.
Posted by rainbowbrite on October 1, 2005, at 18:18:54
In reply to abusers, posted by lostforwards on October 1, 2005, at 11:42:41
It depends...
Some people are evil and have one goal in mind and that is too torture or inflict pain on another person. They get full enjoyment out of watching another suffer. But then there are the people who lose control, Im not making excuses for them but in those cases the person truely does regret and tries to rationalize what has happened. In short, I think more often an abuser is so f*cked up themselves that they don't realize the impact they are having on the abused.
Posted by daisym on October 1, 2005, at 19:37:45
In reply to Re: abusers » lostforwards, posted by rainbowbrite on October 1, 2005, at 18:18:54
I asked my therapist a long time ago if he had ever treated an abuser. He said no, not that he wouldn't, but that they usually didn't show up in therapy unless court ordered and he didn't do court ordered work. I wondered how he could work with someone who did that, knowing how destroyed I am, and his response was that IF in the course of therapy a person grew to trust him and revealed this, he wouldn't abandoned them anymore than he would abandon me, as long as they weren't still doing it. He said he wasn't sure he would take a case knowing this is what they were coming to him for. Then he asked me if, perhaps, I could be hoping that someone like my dad went for help, found it and was "cured." I didn't realize I was hoping this until the words got said.
I've thought a lot about this (haven't we all?) because it just seems so incredible that someone could not know they were hurting someone else. But at least with csa, I think that love and sex and violence and need and loss of self-control get all tangled up. I don't think there is any thought given to whether this is messing up the child at all. I think it is true that the abuser rationalizes their own behavior or is remorseful until they lose control again. And again.
I hope to get where Racer is -- but I'm no where near convinced that I didn't play a role in all of this, not the least of which was not telling. And the fact that it happened to my sister, though not as bad, just kills me. Too many "if onlys" to cope with. I wonder all the time if he is sorry -- does he feel bad when he sees me? Is that why he left? Does he remember at all? And I think that it really, really stinks that I have to live through it twice -- then and now -- and he doesn't seem to give it a second thought. My therapist tells me it is common for abusers to put their own guilt and bad feelings into their victims (hate that word). My dad protected me from my mom finding out I was bad...he always told me he would. Now THAT was confusing -- was he hurting me or protecting me? Did he know he was twisting things or did he really believe I was the one that was bad? I'll never know the answer to that.
The other interesting dynamic is how abusers were often abused themselves -- so why wouldn't they know better? I remain on high alert around my own anger so that I never turn into that.
Posted by fairywings on October 1, 2005, at 23:37:58
In reply to Re: abusers » lostforwards, posted by rainbowbrite on October 1, 2005, at 18:18:54
> It depends...
> Some people are evil and have one goal in mind and that is too torture or inflict pain on another person. They get full enjoyment out of watching another suffer.My dad was like this, and my current T said that he was sadistic. I think he knew what he was doing because he was so good to my sister and seemed to get some sort of sick "enjoyment" out of abusing me. On the other hand, I was abused by two others who learned from example. I don't think they ever knew, one should have, the other I don't think ever knew any better. One died never suffering from it, the other is living in their own tormented hell from the abuse they suffered themselves. It's all so terribly twisted and sad. I thank God I can get therapy and that I have found a good therapist.
fw
Posted by lynn970 on October 1, 2005, at 23:41:29
In reply to Re: abusers » lostforwards, posted by rainbowbrite on October 1, 2005, at 18:18:54
Posted by frida on October 2, 2005, at 2:16:11
In reply to abusers, posted by lostforwards on October 1, 2005, at 11:42:41
Hi..
I've talked about this with my T since my father abused me for many years, since I was little till he died. :-(
My view is that he did know that he was causing pain but that he viewed me as an object, not his daughter, or a little girl or person. He enjoyed watching me suffer. He truly enjoyed hurting, humiliating me. He never showed any regret, not even the moment before dying. For him, I had caused everything for "being the way I was". He didn't care about the damage he inflicted on me for more than 10 years. He really didn't care. And never thought that it was "wrong" of him or that he was damaging and breaking me inside forever. He couldn't avoid doing what he did, and he enjoyed it through the years. It was what I deserved. I think he truly just didn't care about the damage, and he never ever regretted it or thought that it could have been wrong. Not even when he was dying.
Now, reading Daisy's post, I feel scared that if my T were to treat an abuser as a patient it would hurt me so much :-( I guess I'll have to ask her if she would. It brought tears to my eyes just to imagine.
As it has been said, maybe some abusers are aware (at moments) about the damage they are causing, but I don't think they are the majority.I think people who torture and abuse others that way don't think they are doing something wrong.
sorry I'm rambling.
Frida
> Are abusers aware of the abuse they inflict on others? Is it possible for an abuser to be completely unaware of what they're doing to others in their life?
Posted by alexandra_k on October 2, 2005, at 8:41:08
In reply to abusers, posted by lostforwards on October 1, 2005, at 11:42:41
> Are abusers aware of the abuse they inflict on others? Is it possible for an abuser to be completely unaware of what they're doing to others in their life?
I think... That different people probably have different motives / reasons / rationalisations.
I think that a few really have no idea. Classic case of people who molest children and believe that that is an expression of love. They really do not seem to realise the harm they are doing.
Some probably feel that they are the victim. They have been victimised (by society or whatever) and so they believe they are justified in retaliation.
Some seem to lack empathy.
It is hard...
But I think these people need help.
I'm grateful that some people try to work with them.
But there aren't enough people doing that...
There aren't enough.I used to help out sometimes at this place. It was for kids aged 7-15. Kids who had been kicked out of the schools in the region. The program got government funding to run educational programs because kids that age need to be in school... Most of them had severe substance abuse problems. Some of them already had a history of assulting / sexually abusing others.
Some of them did not realise the harm they were doing.
They used to run group therapy with them.
They could hear how those behaviours affected their friends (including the girls) who were there. Most of them really had no idea...And some of them... Just didn't seem to be able to feel empathy. When they could get away with kicking the crap out of someone, or abusing or taking advantage of them in some way then they would. But the converse of that is that they also seemed to have a similar lack of regard for themselves and their own wellbeing. They might go out and pick fights and get the crap kicked out of them and they would just kind of brush that off.
It is like they really believed...
That life was about the survival of the fittest.
And they weren't really under any illusions that they were the fittest or anything like that...
But that was pretty much how their ethical system worked.
That one was justified in screwing people over any way you could.
And one had no right to complain if someone else screwed you over.I guess most of those kids...
End up properly in prison once they come of age.
But the point...
Is in trying to reach them before that.Some success...
With puppies.
Or something living.
If you can just get them to care about the welfare of something....
Get them looking after it...
Then try to generalise from thereBut its hard work.
I'm glad some people do it
I'm glad some people can do it.
Posted by lostforwards on October 2, 2005, at 8:49:56
In reply to Do they know damage? Or do they know wrong?, posted by Racer on October 1, 2005, at 15:15:58
> 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?Yes that makes sense. I think that's typical of abusers.
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...
Posted by lostforwards on October 2, 2005, at 13:49:54
In reply to Re: abusers -trigger, posted by daisym on October 1, 2005, at 19:37:45
> The other interesting dynamic is how abusers were often abused themselves -- so why wouldn't they know better? I remain on high alert around my own anger so that I never turn into that.
Even if they know better, I think certain behaviours might be very reactionary and seem out of their control and appear only when they're under stress.
Posted by B2chica on October 3, 2005, at 10:15:31
In reply to Re: abusers » lostforwards, posted by Poet on October 1, 2005, at 12:42:18
i'm with poet on this one. my abuser(s) included my brother and like frida said i think he viewed me as an object not as a person. i was his personal experimental toy. and he and his friends could do what they pleased. somtimes it's like he lead the others to do the things to me, he was RIGHT THERE and didn't stop things. i still feel numb saying this, not hate, not disugust, not hurt...just numb. i think he may remember but he's never tried to make amends and his personality pretty much acts like he does No wrong and he's the smartest person in the world.
yes my brother was mother's little angel, i almost always got the blame. and i 'knew' if i said anything i would get whipped and blamed (as my brother would tell me).i think some are aware but don't see it as abuse, almost like they don't understand how it can even be considered abuse.
b2c.
Posted by terrics on October 4, 2005, at 20:26:26
In reply to abusers, posted by lostforwards on October 1, 2005, at 11:42:41
What a good question. I'll ask my husband. lol terrics
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