I am listening.

Many more are too, even if they don't click recommend. Though I do urge anyone here who reads this to keep listening. Keep recommending these threads.

Keep speaking out.

People are listening.

I hope the victim-blamers take a few minutes to read and understand it.

Last edited Tue Sep 9, 2014, 10:02 AM - Edit history (6)

There are a lot of insidious messages in the corporate propaganda:

You don't support your politicians enough; their failure to represent you must be your fault.

You're such a whiner; you just want a pony.

You're a purist; you expect too much.

You obviously are too stupid to understand the situation.

You have a refrigerator and internet access; why are you complaining?!

If I give you everything, you will lose all motivation to do anything for yourself.

You're lazy; if you tried harder, you would have better politicians.

How dare you criticize your politician; what are YOU doing to make things better?!

You don't compromise enough; you expect everything to be handed to you.

I'm just stripping your rights/controlling your access to information to protect you. It's because I care about you.

You were stupid if you expected anything better than this.

You're ungrateful. You don't know how lucky you are to have me. You're just cherry picking and nitpicking the bad things and blowing them out of proportion.

If you leave me, you'll get something a lot worse, I'm warning you.

You're crazy; nobody is abusing you.

[font color=red]On edit: Adding based on a response below. [/font color]

Accusing the victim of "playing victim." Namecalling is often a big part of that:

You're just "playing victim."
You're "sanctimonious."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/obama-dresses-down-sanctimonious-and-purist-progressives-video
You ratfucker.
You're "fucking retarded."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7574988
You're an "ideologue."
You say I abuse you. You just don't like to hear my opinion about what you are.

And on and on and on....

is also not abuse. You may not like hearing it. But it isn't abusive.

Your need to play the victim ends up twisting the OP and it's really sad.

.... I didn't get nearly as upset at trivializing the issue of abuse as I otherwisew ould have.

Jeebusfreakin'Christ.

You are juror #6, who accuses me of a "right-wing" link that never happened?

I find it fascinating that this is the second time I've been accused of amending a post to hide a right-wing sentiment or a "right-wing" link, with the accuser seeming unaware, or hoping that readers here will be unaware, that edits are easily visible to show that the accusation is untrue.

Here is my response the first time it happened:

35. No, what's creepy is making up this accusation
http://metamorphosis.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4765523

1. Editing was primarily for formatting, to make the post more readable.

2. The two included links were added near the end of editing.

and

3. No other link was ever added or removed, much less a "right-wing" link.

How interesting that my posts calling out corporate politicians and corporate corruption in the party have now resulted in TWO completely false, yet very public, accusations like this, that are so easily disproven.

Fascinating. And more than a little creepy.

What are the odds?

And note how the poster responds by trying to pretend that it's difficult to check and expose the utter falseness of the attempted smear, as though it were necessary to call up each edit separately.

All you have to do is click on the edits, click "show all" to show them all in order, and glance down the page. Links are in bright blue. You can easily see where the two links were added (not until near the end, at the bottom), and you can easily see that any claim of a "right-wing" link being added and then removed is utterly false.

Imagine that.

There was no right wing link in the post when the jury looked at it. That is all they had to know to vote on whether to leave the post or hide it.

Comment, if any, should have been along the lines of, "I don't know what link the alerter saw. However, the post contains no right wing link now, so I voted to leave it."

Besides, the alerter should have to identify the link with which the alerter has an issue.

it's good to have the edits there to expose the behavior here of making an ugly public accusation that has no basis in reality.

I think someone's PC is infected and they are blaming it on DUers. The first post was hidden because of the malware accusation.

I hope someone who voted Leave It will alert on the alerter. Maybe the Admins can straighten them out re: malware.

Also yes - who would call TPM a rw site - and expect it to be believed on DU? Ridiculous.

That's a bit excessive to check for even a jury. That is why I presumed that if you had a right-wing link there, you had now edited it out, and therefore, that was not a reason to hide your post. Hence, I voted to leave your post alone.

Edited to add - the alerter was the one that accused you of using a right wing link. I was sarcastic about the number of edits you had done on your post.

I don't blame you in the least for not checking 22 edits, but your statement should not have been that definite unless you knew for a fact what you stated as a fact.

ETA:

And then, you followed up your jury duty with a post on this thread strongly implying you knew for certain that she had linked to a rw site.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Thank you.

Notice how the abuser takes NO responsibility for the pain (s)he's caused. Blames the victim.

My (kind of an asshole, but not truly abusive) ex-husband referred to my "fat bitchy ass" once when we were having a fight. Yeah, not cool at all, and he realized he'd pissed me off (though that part of what he said actually wasn't what made me the most angry, and I told him so later).

But when he apologized, he owned up to it -- "I'm sorry I called you fat." Not "I'm sorry you were hurt that I called you fat". Still sucky, but he admitted HIS behavior was wrong, not my reaction to it. (Edit to add: an abuser, on the other hand, would either have not apologized and had a civil conversation after a fight, or when they tried to apologize would have put the blame on the victim for being oversensitive.)

That's what should happen.

That's what a non-abusive relationship fight looks like.

Not "Well, if you go see her, I'm just going to go to the titty bar then." (Yes, real quote.)

Translation. I am not sorry at all. I am an accuser and you, the victim, are the accused.

and that's if any kind of apology enters into it at all.

It's hard to understand if you haven't been in that situation or a friend/family member. What you described is a pattern than happens quite a bit. It's awful and the victim needs all the help and support and understanding she can get.

Of course their targets would have nothing to do w/ them. It's gradual. It escalates over time.

In the time I came closest to an abusive relationship (he'd just gotten to isolation and was attempting control, had not yet put me down much), the man ardently pursued me. Flowers on the first date, always buying me things, etc. He made me feel like a queen long before he started trying to own me.

effectiveness of public policy towards women in this country is hampered by the fact that no one's really bothered to figure out what it's like to be one.

it's not just luck I dated for 40 years and never had a single guy treat me like that - abusive men steer clear of me and I stay away from them

Telling the story of leaving a man who tried to control me has scared off more than one guy who I suspect realized I wasn't an easy target.

And yes, I left long before it hit the physical violence stage, because I knew the warning signs, thanks to it happening to my sister -- another person who never thought she'd get suckered in by an abuser. She didn't even want to admit that he finally hit her and that's why she left -- she just said she saw him hit his mother and sister. That was true as well, but she felt shame for having fallen into the trap, even for a short while. But she told me how it started, and I'm grateful.

All it takes to fall in love with an abuser is to be a caring person who gets tricked by a manipulative asshat. It's not the victim's fault that she was deceived into thinking he was a nice guy. They try very hard to come across that way.

I am gone

That is me.....I am well aware not all are like me

I stopped talking to an ex-boyfriend when he told me to, but it was because I knew I needed to anyway and I could kind of understand that.

It was when he told me I couldn't see a woman I considered to be a second mother, solely because she didn't like him, that I put my foot down.

Experience is a great teacher.

I am a very independent, assertive woman, from a non-abusive upper middle class family background, well-educated, martial artist, etc.

Nevertheless, I found myself in an abusive relationship 15 years ago. He was Prince Charming until (literally) the day we moved to another state and I was separated from my friends and family and became somewhat financially dependent on him. It was like Jekyll and Hyde - just shocking, like an alien had taken over the body of this person I thought I knew and loved. It was one of the most surprising, awful things that ever happened to me in my life. I never saw it coming at all, and I would never have said (now or then) that I was the type of woman who would have been targeted by that kind of man.

It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it, but it's like you're shell-shocked in the beginning, like it makes so little sense that you spend a lot of time just trying to figure out what is going on and how you can fix your relationship with this person you think you are in love with. It's not like it happens and you wake up instantly and say, "hey, I'm being verbally abused and I should be a strong woman and leave!". It's often a very confusing situation and it takes a while to figure out what is going on, especially if it isn't physical at the beginning. We're taught to take responsibility for our part of our relationships, and when your abuser is telling you the fights are your fault, a lot of people spend time trying to figure out how THEY can do better instead of immediately going straight to the truth of the situation.

Anyway, pretty soon after it started I started saving money in a secret bank account, and I left him six months later. Sadly, the damage was already done by that point. There was some physical abuse toward the end, but mostly it was progressive emotional abuse. The bruises healed fast, but the emotional damage left scars that will never heal.

I hate all these threads with internet armchair bad-asses proclaiming what they would do if they were Ray Rice's fiance, and "she's an idiot", and "why doesn't she just leave him", and "she's in it for the money", and "no abusive man would ever target me because I'm too cool for that". It's more complicated than that. It's always more complicated than that. Neither you nor anyone else in these threads (not even me) knows for sure what her motivations are, or what her situation is actually like.

I keep hoping that maybe one day we might get to a point as a species where we could just have compassion and love for other people in terrible life situations, without all the judgment, gossip, and just world nonsense.

The only person who has a right to say something like that is the victim that finally got out.

And I don't hear many of them preaching.... more like begging, pleading, and then finally saying "Tough, I'm sorry you won't listen, guess you'll just have to learn it the hard way, like I did. Call me when you do. Love you."

child molestors don't necessarily pick kids they think they can molest. They groom them into being kids they think they can molest. It's a process. Same thing with many abused women. Also as I said, it's complex. Money is often a factor. So are kids.

very well stated...

as soon as he hit her and saw her drop to the floor. Not that remorse would have excused his behavior -- but he would have shown some remorse if this was a first time thing.

As it is, he couldn't have cared less, except for the fact that he had to get her out of the elevator somehow. His behavior immediately after hitting her proves that this was an ordinary thing for him.

Sickening. It looked so routine for him.

Just hearing about it, they could make mental excuses for him. Maybe it was an accident. Or maybe he "lost it." Or maybe she started it. And afterwards he felt bad, and she forgave him-- so everyone else should, too.

But when you see the video, it is so blindingly obvious that this was no big deal for him. He didn't seem concerned at all -- except for the problem of getting her out of the elevator.

What I really have to "laugh" at (read barf at) is media today.

They are going on and on about how the NFL should not have had to see the video. Meanwhile, they are going on and on about it today in a way THEY did not do before seeing the video. The hypocrisy is nauseating.

he beat her on their wedding night, to show her what he would do if she ever cheated on him.

Sometimes, it's almost "how do you do."

At the time I heard this, his wife had already left him--and I was about 11 years old. So, I just internalized the story and the horror she must have endured during their 25 years of marriage.

BTW, when they married, she was 16 and he was somewhere in his thirties. Fortunately, he never remarried.

But he'd been fucking with her self-esteem from the moment they met. Women who already have poor self-image are more particularly vulnerable, and it might escalate to violence sooner.

But notice it happened once he thought he "owned" her -- not before.

However, like many women, she had no idea how beautiful she was. She thought she was "unfortunate looking."

I'm glad the wife got away.

you are dead on! I feel bad for her as I have been there. I do understand the love she has for him. If she could only fast forward her life....... Then she would get it.

where abuse is not only present, but also justified--and often in the same way that her abuser justifies it. Then, of course, she is exposed to a society in which many people, including those with power and prestige, downplay or even excuse abuse.

Oh, and then she might also admire famous women whose partners control or abuse them, yet who stay with the abuser or go back after having left him.

Even now that we finally have some public discussion and condemnation of such abuse, the condemnation is nowhere near unanimous, so she is still receiving plenty of messages excusing or justifying her abuser--and quite a lot of messages blaming *her* for everything.

Blaming the alcohol and not taking responsibility for abusive behavior. You're right, it doesn't start out with a fist to the face, it starts out and gradually builds up to that. I remember thinking that I needed to behave and not give him a reason to get angry at me, especially when he was drinking. As if his actions were somehow my fault, or that I could control them by being 'good'. I felt trapped, walked on eggshells, yet didn't leave because he had a way of playing on my sympathy. He needed me and I loved him so much (or at least thought I did). I'm not that person anymore.

Good post.

Reading your quotes makes my stomach clench, I recall those all too well. Your friends are ugly or stupid, you deserve better, don't see them anymore now you have me, etc etc etc etc

People who haven't witnessed domestic abuse don't understand how insidious and manipulative the mechanics are. It is often nearly impossible for the victim to leave, even after they begin fearing for their lives.