And Now, a PSA Regarding Abuse

dogbearinggifts:

I know this is different from the sort of stuff I usually post, but this has been on my mind for a while. As I’ve browsed certain fandoms on this site, I’ve stumbled across a common argument. One person, usually an abuse survivor, says they believe a character was abused, citing signs and personality traits that echo their own experiences. Another person, who was usually not abused, will say “No, they couldn’t have been abused,” and then cite one misconception or another. 

And as an abuse survivor, it bothers me. 

I know that in many cases, the character fans argue over is controversial to begin with. One that comes to mind is Draco Malfoy. Those who argue against the abused!Draco headcanon might have good intentions—in many cases I’ve seen, they feel as though fans in favor of the headcanon are trying to turn a racist asshole into some precious woobie—but the problem is that in doing so, they’re talking over actual abuse survivors. When they say “No, he couldn’t have been abused because no abused child would say ‘My father is going to hear about this!’” or “An abused child wouldn’t know that parents are supposed to protect their kids,” they’re discounting actual survivor stories and perpetuating the myth that there is only one correct response to abuse.

So, I’m going to address some common fallacies brought up in these types of arguments. 

1. “They couldn’t have been abused. Their parents spoiled them rotten.” 

My dad is a self-made man, the type who started at the very bottom of the ladder and worked his way up. As such, I enjoyed a childhood that became progressively more comfortable. I wore nice clothes, got a car on my eighteenth birthday (an old car, but it was still a gift I couldn’t have afforded on my own) and not only did my mom cook dinner at home every night, but when she learned I had food sensitivities, she began buying only organic and all-natural ingredients. When I wanted to paint my room purple at age 13, my dad took me to Home Depot to look at paint samples, then came home and painted my walls the exact shade I’d chosen. 

This was thrown in my face at every turn. 

If I ever disagreed with my parents, even over something trivial, or made a joke that they found offensive, I was treated to a tirade of verbal abuse beginning with a litany of all the things they did for me, how they never got such nice things at my age, and how ungrateful I was for them. These “lectures” usually ended with me in tears—not because I was a sensitive brat (as they claimed) but because they knew every one of my sore spots and pressed and pressed until I couldn’t take the pain. 

2. “If they were abused, they wouldn’t know that parents are supposed to protect their kids.” 

My parents treated me like shit. There’s no other word for it. I vividly recall one time when I did something that made my mom angry. I think I interrupted a lecture about my grades (I had a B in math, which was Absolutely Unacceptable to them) to say that I was trying as hard as I could and a B was the best I could do. She found my tone disrespectful (in reality, it was probably more desperate than disrespectful) and left me to my dad. I’ll never forget what he said: 

“The way you treat your mom is like if some rich guy found a homeless man on the street, gave him food, new clothes, all the money in his bank account, signed over the deed to his house and gave him his car, then asked for a ride home—and the homeless guy said ‘Nope. Get your own ride.’” 

That was normal, coming from my parents. It was normal for them to wound me as deeply as they could over trivial matters. And yet when my mom learned I was being bullied and the school was basically sweeping it under the rug, she was ready to rain down righteous fury on the entire administrative staff. She was livid. She treated me like garbage when I annoyed her, but when someone else hurt me, it was time for hellfire and brimstone. 

3. “They’re too sassy/not sassy enough.” 

This is a misconception I had, before talking with other survivors. See, in my household, compliance was the only way to survive. The only way to get through the day without being subjected to hours of verbal abuse was to do whatever my parents wanted, as soon as they wanted it done, and do it with the biggest smile I could muster. As a result, I internalized the abuse. For years, I thought that whenever my parents sat me down and railed about how selfish I was, it was because I really was a sinful, selfish brat. 

As a result, Harry Potter’s sass toward the Dursleys struck me as unrealistic—because in my household, it was. Had I shown my parents half the sass Harry showed Petunia and Vernon, I would have been grounded for a year and verbally abused every morning before I went to school. Then I spoke to other survivors, whose situations were different from mine, and heard that “No, sass was how I survived.” 

This brings me to….

4. “Their situation doesn’t read as abusive.” 

There is no universal experience of abuse. As Leo Tolstoy once said, “Happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” 

There are multiple forms of abuse—verbal, physical, emotional, psychological, sexual. Each one of these carries profoundly different psychological consequences, and these consequences are determined in part by the severity of the abuse, other circumstances in the home, role of the abuser, and the personality of the one being abused. 

In other words, no two abuse survivors are alike. Two siblings can have the same parents and experience the abuse differently. 

Which leads me to….

5. “They don’t act like an abuse survivor.” 

Tom Card, Michael Westen’s former handler on the show Burn Notice, summed it up better than I could: 

“Imagine that you’re holding onto two bottles and they drop on the floor. What happens? They both break. But it’s how they break that’s important. Because, you see, while one bottle crumples into a pile of glass, the other shatters into a jagged-edged weapon. You see, the exact same environment that forged older brother into a warrior crushed baby brother. People just don’t all break the same, Mrs. Westen. Just don’t.” 

The “environment” to which he refers here is a home with a violent, alcoholic father. Michael, the older brother and protagonist of the show, fought his dad at every turn, joined the military, and eventually the CIA. His younger brother, Nate, became a compliant people-pleaser, blaming himself for a string of failed relationships. 

In conclusion: If you don’t think a character was abused, fine. That’s your opinion. But don’t talk over abuse survivors to get your point across. And do not, repeat, do not assume that a character who does not fit your preconceived notion of an abuse survivor was not abused. 

Because people don’t all break the same way. They just don’t.