r/abusesurvivors

How many sane, intelligent women have been painted as unstable just because they threatened to pull the mask off someone else’s bullchit?

Too many to count.

She asks one question too many in the meeting and suddenly she’s emotional.

She sets a boundary and suddenly she’s difficult.

She tells the truth about what happened and suddenly she’s crazy, bitter, dramatic.

It’s an old trick.

When you can’t argue with the facts, you attack the woman delivering them.

Call her unstable so people stop listening to what she’s saying.

Call her too much so she learns to be quiet next time.

But here’s the thing: clarity makes people uncomfortable.

Accountability feels like an attack to people who benefit from silence.

And a woman who sees through the lies is dangerous to systems built on them.

She isn’t unstable.

She’s awake.

She’s done pretending.

She’s done smoothing it over.

And the world would be a lot safer if we stopped labeling honesty as hysteria.

And started calling it exactly what it is: courage.

By, Keishara Yinqen

Hi everyone.

Just wanted to share something as a male DV victim. The person I once loved strangled me when I called 911. I felt myself go. And I couldn't hit her at all. I was just unable to. I had to lie there feeling like she was taking my life away.

Later, former mutual friends who heard about it called me a "pussy" for not fighting back, for not being able to hit the person I loved, even as she was trying to take my life away.

I hate how this society treats submissive men like disposable trash. Like if someone abuses you, you're expected to outmatch their violence

Sorry that I can't hit the people I love

Sorry that when people hit me, I cry and beg them to stop

Sorry that you say men need to stop being toxic but when they're abused, you tell them that they should have been stronger than their abuser

Just wanted to let it out

It feels good to let it out

Don't worry I'm safe now

But I will never forget being strangled, and then being told it was somehow my fault because I didn't fight back

I feel anxious in my whole city and new social circles. I have a high mistrust towards meeting new people up to the point of refusing to say my name when introducing myself.

That's the result of almost all of my social circle having not believed me, relativized, ignored, or blamed me after months-long relationship abuse I had endured. I fought for months getting people from my social circle to believe me to no avail. They simply wouldn't believe a man (= me) could experience relationship abuse and domestic violence by a woman. Today I learned this is called “secondary victimization”.

Also, whenever I'm at events where I could accidentally see some of those people, I get intense nausea and distress.

Do you think this is curable? A psychiatrist recommended me to visit an in-patient trauma hospital (voltunarily).

my brother abused me when i was a child. i was maybe 5-6 years old and he is 5 years older than me. i disclosed the abuse to my mom in private a few weeks ago. i knew she would blame me, question my memory, invalidate my experience, etc. which she did. she normalized it saying “it’s a part of development.” now, my brother is getting engaged. my mom wants me to go to the engagement and bring my children. i said no. she told me im tearing our family apart, she said its a false memory due to past drug use, and that i have no right to keep my less than 2 year old daughter away from her uncle. all day today i have been blamed, gaslit, and told that this is a false memory that ive created and magically remembered during my college years due to drug use. my mom asked why i didnt disclose it sooner (by her response im sure you can assume why). all of this to say - she’s telling me to confront my brother. he’s about to get engaged. wtf do i do? and why is it on the survivor to even do ANYTHING especially confronting their abuser? my parents are not speaking to me and my mom literally told me she is angry with me. i’m 27 yo and live at their house with my children.

I was going to get a protection order against my ex, I had all the evidence and paperwork ready, then they call me and tell me they are suicidal, I got sucked in and then other stuff happened too that was so painful and I felt trapped in that situation that I attempted suicide, now I’m so depressed I feel like giving up on everything, they have evidence of me initiating contact with them and they said they’d use it against me in court, so what’s even the point of trying anymore, but I’m so scared that next time they hurt me it’ll be the last because I’m so fragile rn

Also I have no friends, I’m alone, and maybe I can be friends with my ex, they seem like they might be getting better, they are sober now, and maybe if we just don’t date or anything and have a purely platonic relationship it’ll make them hurt me less, atleast then I’ll have a friend I can rely on who can be there for me, atleast I won’t be isolated anymore, maybe I need them in my life rn

Today is the wedding, I am obviously not attending.

He abused me for 10 years non stop, yet this is not enough to stop their "love". I don't wish them happiness, because their happiness is made out of my suffering. I wish no daughter or son has to see their parent marrying someone that abused them, it is a kind of personal hell. It really fucking triggered my cptsd last month but today I am trying to make myself busy with my work (i am a pet portrait artist) so I don't lose my mind :) I hope in the next universe I get a mother that puts me in the first place.

I (20F) used to have a boyfriend (20M) when we were both 18. I'm sure he SA'd me a couple times, but there's a situation I'm still not sure about.

He was my first boyfriend and sexual partner. On our first date we went to a park. We were sitting on a bench in a more private area and he took my boob out of my dress and put it into his mouth. I didn't protest and say anything, but it felt extremely weird and I didn't want to mess anything up on our first date, so I just agreed to do it.

I still feel really uncomfortable about that situation. I regret not saying anything but at the same time I feel like he exploited me and put me in a position where saying no would be difficult because 1) it was still a public space and it would feel like making a scene and 2) I didn't want to make our first date feel so awkward and just destroy it

I’ve known him for a large part of my life ~15 years. We just got married and have been married for 4 months but within the past 4 months we already got into two physical altercations with each other. The first time he wanted my laptop to use and I didn’t give it to him so he aggressively snatched it out of my hand and I tried taking it back away from him but he wouldn’t let me and so I scratched him and ripped his shirt and he was pushing and shoving me to take the laptop away from me which resulted in bruises on my body. Most recently, we were driving home and he wanted me to go to a lounge with him and his friends. It was late and I was tired we had just gone to see a movie I told him to drop me home and then he can go. He got furious why I wasn’t going that I should do something for him, he was calling me names calling me a fat bitch and so I took out my phone and said I would record him and he snatched my phone out of my hand while driving and threw it under his seat. I was so angry I spilled soda on his head which was in the car and threw his phone at him. Then, on Friday and Saturday he proceeds to go out with his friends until late. I looked up on ChatGPT if I should divorce him. He went thru my phone while I was in the shower and sees this and gets livid. I told him if he does it even one more time I’m filing for divorce. To mock me he takes my headphones and throws it across the room and doesn’t even pick it up. On sunday again he’s out with his friends. When he comes home I was on my laptop and I saw he was signed into his Gmail so I went thru his search history and I saw several things where he was looking up how to find single moms who wanna get laid Reddit, he’s fall funny and good personality okay looking would he get a one night stand, how to find one night stands in nyc Las Vegas or Miami if you have a table. I also saw this in his search history on ChatGPT once before. Does he have a problem?? I was livid and confronted him about this and was furious so I slapped him and things escalated from there. He said that he would never cheat on me, it’s like a milf thing like porn. It’s things he searched cuz he was at a low point. He blames me. At the end of the night he ended up slapping my arm and bruising my other arm. He went into a psychotic rage and threw my things across the room. Took a knife and put it in my hand pointing it to his stomach telling me to kill him. We haven’t spoke since. He’s always coming home late now. Monday morning he showed me the scars. Where do I go from here? It was very difficult to marry this man bc our parents weren’t accepting due to religious differences and now we finally have it and we completely destroyed the marriage collectively. What’s gonna fix it? Where do we go from here? I am open to any and all solutions

I don't know if this is allowed here, but I need to form a safety plan. I'm looking for advice from folks who have formed one, or been involved in some way. Also looking for resources.

(Unfortunately, I felt like I recieved no useful help from my local organization.)

I was trafficked as a child and I’m still trying to work my way back into society as a normal person but I will never feel like one, I feel like a caged animal who has escaped and is not meant to be free.

since my rape I have major trust issues with everyone. I finally felt comfortable with someone and decided to date him. I was comfortable enough to kiss him but he goes for more. He starts fingering me and say no multiple times and I have to literally freak out for him to stop. why was saying no over and over not enough. I have to break a bottle over your head like wtf. why is it so easy for people to just be so aggressive. He apologies and plays it off and I end up feeling like shit as if I am in the wrong.

I cant tell if its me or other people sometimes.

is this normal? i read substack’s by women who have experience physical violence from former partners. i was never hit. never had a bruise. any slap or choking was in a joking laughing sort of way - not intent to harm me. i invalidate my abuse due to the lack of physical violence. please tell me im not alone in this. is this normal? does any else experience this? i know what i experienced was real and WAS abuse. why can’t i accept that it didn’t have to be worse in order to be real?