Come on, fukin people here.Originally Posted by Valkyrie
Reporting abuse
Why don't targets of abuse report their abuse? There are many reasons:
abuse is a betrayal; the target trusted and depended on the integrity of another (eg child on adult, pupil on teacher, subordinate on manager) and that person betrayed them.
The target fears and anticipates, often with justification, that when they report the abuse, they will be betrayed again.
those in authority did nothing to prevent the abuse while it was happening, nor did they do anything subsequently. Very often it was the person in the position of authority who was the abuser. Trust in authority is low, with justification.
the target fears, with justification, that no-one will believe them
disbelief and denial are everywhere; people not trained in abuse and with no experience of dealing with abuse find it easier to disbelieve and deny the abuse
if the target reports the abuse, and initiates legal action, prospects for future employment may be impaired
abusers often operate in networks, sharing information, and even, in paedophilia, sharing victims; sometimes the networks are loose, sometimes they operate covertly within organisations, especially those of a secretive nature
the abuser relies on compulsive lying, Jekyll & Hyde nature, and charm (click here for details) and uses denial, counter-attack, projection and feigning victimhood to evade accountability (click here for details). Charm has a motive - deception.
the target felt fear at the time of abuse and continues to feel fear - fear of violence, fear of loss of job, fear of humiliation, fear of what others will think, etc
the target feels ashamed of what happened, having been encouraged by the abuser to believe that they were responsible rather than that the abuser was responsible
because abuse can be of an intimate nature (eg as in sexual abuse), the target feels embarrassed about what happened and continues to feel embarrassed talking about it now (embarrassment is a function of society's attitudes to sexual behaviour)
the target felt and continues to feel guilty about what happened, having been encouraged by their abuser to believe they were responsible
fear, shame, embarrassment and guilt are how all abusers control their victims; they are instruments of power
the target probably has unusually high levels of naivety which are heightened by the trauma and which the abuser has exploited and continues to exploit; the target may have been encouraged to withdraw from legal action by the abuser feigning victimhood and playing on their target's forgiving chord and other people's sympathies
the target feels bewildered and often still cannot believe that it happened; the target often feels responsible in some way, as evidenced by the nagging thought "Why did I let it happen to me?"
abuse causes trauma which prevents the target articulating what is happening to them.
trauma and fear also prevent the target from being able to find the right words to identify, unmask and call to account their tormentor
abuse causes Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and any thought, memory or reminder of the abuse immediately results in the sufferer experiencing the following PTSD DSM-IV diagnostic criteria:
B4. intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolise or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event
B5. physiological reactivity on exposure to internal or external cues that symbolise or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event
as well as
C1. efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings or conversations associated with the trauma
C2. efforts to avoid activities, places or people that arouse recollections of this trauma
C3. inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma
D3. difficulty concentrating
read it, learn from it, and don't post meaningless bull.
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