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Luqman's avatar

as a pakistani reading this, that immigrant example was uncalled for. lol.

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Isa W's avatar

A lot of excellent points here. I also think one of the issues at play here, with the "abusers thrive in secrecy" framing, is that not all kinds of openness are equal, or equally helpful here. Your examples illustrate that well. And to be honest, it's not uncommon for people who've had their boundaries transgressed against to struggle at times with intuitively ascertaining where social boundaries should lie. There can be a bit of a skewed sense of who is or isn't a "safe" person to trust, or when a person is demanding an inappropriate level of openness.

I don't say this to victim blame, just to draw attention to one of the things that serial abusers (consciously or unconsciously) can pick up on quite easily. And it doesn't necessarily just result in abuse either! Sometimes, the negative results of this are more along the lines of the "open" abuse victim struggling with feeling chronically rejected and dismissed- because they're being transparent with people who are not equipped to *do* anything with this information, as you touch on in your last para.

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