Am I the bad guy?
(Nimue)
CW psychological abuse
It isn’t always easy to tell. If you are a person who feels compassion and values their integrity, then you will take onboard negative feedback and try to do something about it. What do you do if someone starts telling you that you are a bully, an abuser, exploiting them, mistreating them, acting dishonourably…?
It’s a popular tactic with abusive people, to blame the victim and call the person they are mistreating an aggressor. This can happen overtly, and it can also be achieved with more subtle gaslighting techniques. If a person always responds to you as though you’ve attacked them, they may have you questioning your own judgement and trying to fix problems that don’t exist.
All of this can be both distressing and disorientating. So, how do you tell if you need to do better? How do you tell if you are the problem?
If a complaint is genuine, it should make some kind of sense. It should be possible to identify exactly what the problem was so as to tackle it. In a healthy situation, if a person calls you out over something they should be reasonably clear about what the issue is. If you’ve triggered them then you may have to wait a little while for clarity, but that clarity should be available, especially if you’re asking them to explain in a way that is not of itself threatening.
Handling other people’s triggers can be tricky and challenging, but it is possible. If a person communicates their needs to you, then you can take that onboard and act on it. If you’re doing that, or totally willing to do that, then you’re ok. We all mess up. If you can own it and genuinely try to do better than that’s as good as any of us can hope to be.
Of course abusers can’t give you a clear explanation of what went wrong. They will keep it vague. You are bullying them. You are unreasonable, rude, uncooperative, unkind – broad attacks and never enough specifics that you can work out how to do better. If you ask for clarity they will make out it should be obvious, and that your failure to see the problem is a you-issue.
Well-meaning people will try and fix things when something goes wrong. It doesn’t matter which side of it you are on, that holds true. If withholding information about how to fix things gives the other person more power in the situation you should probably assume this is deliberate.
It’s worth being alert to this as someone who might see such situations from the outside, too. While it is a good idea to start from the premise that we should listen to and believe victims, it’s also important to be alert to the ways in which abusers often play at being victims. Always consider the power dynamic in such situations, and if in doubt, act in a way that will support safety. Don’t be tempted to attack someone on someone else’s behalf, because you may well be on the wrong side of the situation. In genuinely unsafe situations, attacking the abuser will increase the risk of them further harming the victim.
