r/therapyabuse

The title.

As someone who thinks about suicide all the time and has for years, I really wish i could express it, and when I do, it be taken lightly. Thats my normal. Id like to might light of whats normal for me. Maybe even a joke here or there.

I do not want to be told to go to therapy for it. I do not want to hear that word. Mentioning therapy is the least helpful thing you could do.

Who writes this dialogue? It feels like mental health "rules" are written by people content with living in the world as it is today. You gonna listen to what would be helpful for me or speak for me and call me offensive to people like me, lol.

My therapist was such a good dude. He was really relatable and I loved how honest he was with me, how he made me feel seen and cared for. I remember feeling rly attached and trusting him, like truly trusting him.

But after that he started making me work on something that was clearly not working for me, however he kept making me do it, and i kept going cause I trusted him.

Outside of that the few conversations we had were really good, and I kinda miss them now, but I also never wanna do that kinda therapy again or with him.

Things definitely started souring towards the end, but I still cherish what it was like at the start. I guess at first I saw the perfect front, and at the end I saw who he really was.

Anyone else ever felt the same way?

I've been critical of our cultures emphasis on therapy as a cure all solution for all of life's difficulties. I want to believe that we are capable of solving more interpersonal issues with both personal and collective effort. Many people have the notion that all people critical of therapy are abuse apologists.

I'm curious if any of you have experience with a toxic person being healed with little or no therapeutic intervention. Whether it was a friend, family member, lover, or yourself, I'm interested to hear.

Just think about it: the overall realm of psychology is based off the individual mind.

And the cures, or so called "cures", are based off of making the individual happy, even if it means cutting people off that they care about.

And the most "healthy" mind is based off of values of western individualism. Whether you're "autonomous". Whether you have "full freedom (American style)".

And its the most fucked up bias that psychology refuses to touch.

He made me do somatic work when it clearly wasnt working, and id keep telling him that but hed keep making me do it.

Unfortunately I had trusted him, so I kept going.

I ended getting super obsessed with somatic work, and forceful, and it ended up making me feel more dysregulated, dissociated and disconnected.

I suffered for so long, I isolated myself from friends cause I was so embarrased, and I wasnt even able to do my work. I dont think Ill even be able to properly graduate from uni.

He messed everything up for me, and I was on such a good path before then.

I really wanna go back in time, and I wish I had a different therapist, or simply someone to talk to whod actually care. I feel so sad. I had so much promise. I just needed the right help.

Can anyone share anything to comfort me? I feel awful.

I feel like it’s more common in therapy culture for the therapist to treat their patients like they are dating them. Sometimes the patient has no idea of this one sided ordeal and sometimes they may feel pressured that this is more than therapy. But conveniently for the therapist, they can act this way and pull back anytime and act like nothing happened or put it on the patient. An easy way to avoid accountability if you make them mad, don’t see them that way, reject their advances or want to stop seeing them.

I recently disclosed to them that I felt disrespected by them and told them how I felt. Their answer was that they were glad I could be honest with them and that it was good for the “therapeutic relationship.” It wasn’t even a fake sorry that I made you feel that way. Mind you they baited me into giving them a reaction and attention after trying to get me to get personal with them and talk about something I didn’t want to share with them. So for them to give me this response it was almost like a sarcastic, forced like yeah you’re going to be in a relationship with me. I already said I don’t see them that way. To me, they only care about how they feel.

I don’t have a therapeutic relationship with this therapist and I really don’t believe it’s a real thing. Just a therapy culture lingo that benefits the therapist just like transference or countertransference. It’s show the therapist can do their fuck shit and then not take any accountability and you‘re just supposed to deal with it while it’s happening.

”A therapeutic relationship is a professional connection between a therapist and a client that is based on trust and respect. It creates a safe space where the client can share openly while the therapist provides support, guidance, and helps plan treatment goals." So really if you have none of those things, like it’s not professional. There is no trust or respect. There is no safe space. You can’t or don’t want to open up to them. And the therapist is providing you nothing and mind you they violated everything in this so called therapeutic relationship so like ?

I found out I can quit therapy and I think I’ll be much more happier and successful. I won’t have to waste my time or energy on them or “making this work“ which is a lie in therapy there is no making anything work. You’re just dealing and tolerating this person who is in the position of a therapist that you don’t really like, who isn’t helpful and who is mean and sometimes borderline abusive, it’s just what you’re “supposed to do”

Therapists can make or break you sometimes. They can make you worse or cause you to have other problems you didn't have before. Instead of getting therapy, you are learning unhealthy things and dealing with an unhealthy person. Selective therapy picking should be a real thing for most patients, not just anyone can be your therapist nor should they be put in a position of power and trust. Sometimes they’ll just get off to it when you open yourself to them. A patient should be told before even starting therapy with someone there is no such thing as “the right fit.” It should be basically be broken down like, hey there may possibly be a therapist that can be good and that could help you or benefit you but it’s similar to the analogy of a needle in a haystack. So you either spend your time trying to someone or you don’t even waste your time.

Disclaimer : I am not talking about clinical consensus on diagnosis here in this post. This thread is more about public discourses and social change.

I've been thinking about how public discourses surrounding mental health now push us as a society to favor Therapeutic Ethics instead of legal and moral framework of ethics.

An argument by Martin (2006) that Therapy Culture (therapeutic ethics was the term he used), overtime, slowly psychologizing virtues and pathologizing vices. I started to reflect about the implication of 'mental healthiness' becoming a new virtue, since before therapeutic ethics gain dominance, we used to rely on sin system which is a spiritual economy (where sin and bad karma are a form of debt). The sin system worked for awhile in theocratic society. We went through a pretty big change after secular moral philosophy gain dominance.

I also think of a paper by Hallett (2025) when he proposed that legal process should made it clear that insanity defence should be valid only if a person clearly lack the ability to control himself, and other 3 criterias (such as lack of knowledge, and inability to reason, and so on).

We also have Thomas Szasz himself in 2011 criticizing insanity defence. Szasz thought that insanity defence take away the human dignity to be judged as a moral agent, and it take away a person to be taken accountable for their misbehaviors.

Although some might think of Szasz's argument here as ableism, I think it could also be anti-determinism. Szasz thought that we should not remove human agency from someone with a mental health diagnosis.

With more and more research trying to connect psychiatric diagnosis with genetics, it makes sense how more diagnosed people start to see how their behaviors and feelings are out of their control. This also extends how diagnosed individuals using the deterministic argument that their behaviors are outside of their control, and misbehaviors (in a case that there is some self-control) are to be categorized as the inevitable results of their diagnosis.

If you read to this point, yeah, I think this is an extension of insanity defence, but now it is also outside of courtroom, while the criteria gets less strict about agency.

Take for example, gossiping. In the sin system, gossiping is an unacceptable behavior. And now we get frustrated people feeling OK with destroying someone's reputation and livelihood while justifying it as a harmless venting, and some might argue that gossiping is a tool by the marginalized to fight authority (which is an ok Anthropological perspective), but a simple fact now is that Therapeutic Ethics might be more dominant in terms of moral claims that other form of ethics.

Take a case of Jason Arday, for example, which is highly politicized to the point that we couldn't possibly know the truth. There is this argument by a group of mental health professionals that claimed that Arday should be immuned to criticism of dishonesty since neurodivergent brains recall timeline and facts differently. While what happened to Arday by the hands of media outlets was truly terrible, to claim that factual integrity should not be expected from someone because they are neurodivergent, stretch the 'extended insanity defence' further. But if we are to look at the situation again without making an assumption based on this deterministic view, it might be rational to judge fairly and finding the truth about the plagiarism claim, and it might be easier to look at behaviors and facts without assuming underlying therapeutic causes.

I take this sort of argument seriously and think about them. What if we as a society is now stretching it too far? People are now more confused about accountability. The moment a criminal was revealved to be bullied, somehow, many would quickly feel sympathetic and express that the criminal in question are a passive victim of circumstances (again, this not to victim blame, but to highlight how misbehaviors and unethical behaviors could now be explained away by this framework).

Therapeutic Ethics also work against someone with a diagnosis who can control themselves (despite protecting those who 'have no control'). Let's say that Jane is in a bad mood 40% of the time she's at work, and she received a diagnosis that fit well with mood-related disorder. But if Jane has some self-control left, that same extended insanity defence effect would not be applicable on her. Jane might be labeled 'toxic' or 'mentally unhealthy' and so on.

Let's think of 3 scenarios for Jane here.

1. John takes Jane's diagnosis at face value and believe that Jane should be immuned to both criticism and demands for accountability.

2. James takes the moral route and think Jane still has self-control enough to be held accountable. James see Jane as an adult who can make her own choices, and Jane has a potential of improvement or to feel less suffering.

3. Jake takes Jane's diagnosis as a stigma. Even when Jane is in a good mood, Jake would assume her to be in a bad mood. Jake interprets Jane's normal human fallable acts as a sign of illness. But Jake thinks Jane should be immuned to both criticism and demands for accountability.

Out if these 3 scenarios, John and Jake might look at Jane through a lens of 'illness' where Jane's actions are outside of her control. James attitude sounds the most judgmental, but it is the only scenario where someone does think of Jane as a human being with agency, and some level of control over her life.

The tension I am facing after thinking on this topic, is how our culture wish to promote mental health as a right, but somehow, the attitude of Therapeutic Ethics itself has a tendency to make someone with a diagnosis believe they will not have agency (or less agency) over their own actions.

Therapeutic jargons are now inflated into everyday use of language. Trauma and abuse are now something almost every individual who are into Therapy Culture claimed to possess. And I think it escalated to the point that some experts even claim that "almost everyone carries unresolved trauma" (Gabor Mate, for example), while they fail to define the term in accurate ways, and trauma ended up being correlated with all sorts of physical conditions such as migraine, hypertension, and so on.

And I began to look at this with awe. Now it's a common belief that almost everyone has unresolved trauma. Now it's common to think of a person with diagnosis as someone who shouldn't be seen as a moral agent. And now we somehow buy into a culture of seeing ourselves as a passive victim of a pre-determined condition.

As much as experts try to maintain an apologetic stance by saying "many mental health conditions are normal human reactions" to combat stigma, there has been a real observable social change from the early 2000s to now in the 2020s, that slowly reduced the role of moral ethicsin favor of Therapeutic Ethics.

As the title suggested. The question here is "Are we replacing classic morality with therapeutic ethics?" and if we are, at what cost?

I have been part of a Clubhouse program for 3 months.

The motto of a Clubhouse program is: Member choice. Everything is voluntary, you come & go as you please, participate how you want. There is a "work ordered day" where you do unpaid work that you choose. Also meetings/fun activities. They help you get housing, a job, social skills. Staff are not above members. They drive you to & from.

There is 37 standards they must adhere to in order to bill Medicaid.

When I first got there? I thought it was so awesome. Fun activities, hanging out with people, doing busy work like scanning documents or working in the store. I felt a sense of purpose/belonging. I wasn't depressed, & I was doing something more meaningful than laying in bed. Finally had friends/a girlfriend. I was really happy. It kept me from being abused at home, too. It also provides me help with my disability case.

But little did I know how sinister/messy things are underneath. Since I've been here things have progressively spiraled downhill. Members are quitting or showing up less than they used to.

Examples of incidents in 3 months:

1. Work is becoming less voluntary. We are being scolded for downtime/socializing, told to find "meaningful work" instead even if there is none. 2) Staff "A" made fun of a girl's seizure disorder. 3) All staff mock, belittle, talk shit about members who are struggling to participate, or make excuses for other staff. 4) Supervisor has actively *yelled at me* & *threatened me with a suspension* for walking away repeatedly. 5) Supervisor also made fun of my girlfriend for not being able to paint something correctly, until she was visably upset. 6) Today, our supervisor scolded me anonymously in a group meeting for touching my girlfriend in romantic, non-s*xual ways, & for my behavior outbursts. 7) My girlfriend was scolded for being 5 minutes late to a meeting by staff "B" (once again, member *CHOICE*) 8) There is blatant favoritism among staff & members. Some members are allowed to get away with anything, while others are always scolded or humiliated in front of others.

Everything that is said seems to be backhanded, with therapeutic or social work training being an after thought.

I am generally becoming more defiant & aggressive the longer I stay here. Me, and other members, are losing interest in participating in the program. The more rules that are imposed, the more we are scolded, the less we want to work on anything at all. I'm afraid to even take downtime to relax at this rate. I am starting to dread the program.

It honestly just feels like playing pretend or being in high school.

Freud himself said that he wanted to make therapy the new confessional. And now therapy has become the new church. Therapy culture preaches that you must tell your therapist everything. The therapist is a higher being, incredibly moral, and would never hurt or betray you. Therapist as god. Confess your deepest and darkest secrets. In fact, you must!! You must share every one of your deepest thoughts and secrets or this superior being won't be able to help you.

If you are attracted to the therapist, tell him or her. There's no way it will end up badly because, remember, he or she is as perfect, a superior being, incredibly moral.

Therapist as the new Higher Power.

What do you think?

IMHO the version of "suicide prevention" that social media and therapists like to promote only really exists to put a very weak bandaid on the problem and make non-suicidal people feel better. I feel like every September people wanna share these tasteful infographs with hotline numbers to their stories and on reddit, with everyone stressing "You're not alone! Please reach out!!! The world is so much better with you in it :)", but the moment you actually wanna have a real conversation about the actual factors that underpin suicide it's all crickets.

We have so much research that poor economic factors, previous exposure to traumatic events and social isolation all contribute to suicide but that research gets ignored in favour of shoving people off to private psychologists that charge them through the nose for a 1hr session and tell them to get over their trauma or bad financial situation using breathing exercises or some shit. And if you dare mention you have any thoughts of suicide in these sessions, you run the risk of being sectioned, where you're essentially forced into a hospital psych ward against your will and monitored around the clock until they've determined you're not a "danger" to yourself. I've been detained in a hospital before for suicidal ideation years ago and I mean it when I say it did not suddenly encourage me to have a come to Jesus moment where I realise that life was worth living all along. Quite the opposite in fact, I felt I wasn't listened to, my pain belittled and ignored, I was forced to strip naked (while on my period mind you) to check for weapons which left me feeling humiliated, and at the end of all that I was discharged with no help offered other than a ward psychologist who I had to regurgitate my entire life story to all for her to respond with "It sounds like you're going through a lot" without offering any help or solutions.

REAL suicide prevention looks like housing affordability, better social safety nets and welfare, third spaces that allow people to connect with one another without the expectation to spend money, food security, emphasis on community engagement and belonging, acceptance of people who identify as LGBT+, better PTO and workplace/school cultures that don't reward burnout, and most of all, the actual willingness to do some bare minimum emotional labour for your loved ones instead of of accusing them of "trauma dumping" because they wanted some support over their pet dying.

I wish the culture around discussing suicide would change so that it's not heavily coated in shaming language (eg: "Everyone will be so sad if you die!") and pivoted towards discussing how to hold space for someone in your life going through something difficult and addressing the broader societal ills that end up encourage mental harm and suicide, but the cynic in me feels like nothing is ever going to change in this regard, because that would require people having an ounce of empathy or social awareness and that seems to be in short supply in the modern culture.

I worked with a therapist for eight months. They were described as a “clinical social worker/therapist,” and their Psychology Today profile listed 21 specialties, with trauma, PTSD, anxiety, and life transitions among the primary ones.

I later learned that they had received their LMSW only five months before I began working with them. My childhood and adult life included significant trauma, including CSA. About three and a half months into our work, I asked specifically about their experience working with CSA survivors and learned that they had none.

Over time, the therapeutic relationship became increasingly strained, and I began to realize that I was being retraumatized by what was happening in therapy.

During the eight months we worked together, I was never told that my therapist was practicing under supervision. I wasn’t given the supervisor’s name or contact information, and I had no idea that this person had any involvement in my treatment.

After I contacted the practice to raise concerns, the supervisor stepped in and instructed my therapist to have no further communication with me. That was the end of an eight-month therapeutic relationship. There was no final session, no termination conversation and no opportunity to speak with my therapist again. It was abrupt and final.

That is the part that hurt most.

From my perspective, the focus immediately shifted from what had happened to me and how I could safely transition out of the therapeutic relationship to protecting the practice from liability.

I was given the names of three clinics as referrals. I understand that a “soft handoff” isn’t always possible, but at that point I was deeply distressed and in no position to start calling clinics and vetting therapists on my own.

The aftermath was severe. For approximately eight months, I experienced profound depression and suicidal ideation. I was badly hurt by what had happened, and the idea of trusting another therapist seemed almost impossible.

I have only recently begun working with another therapist. They can see how significantly the previous therapeutic experience and its abrupt ending affected me, and rebuilding trust has become part of the work itself.

I’m particularly interested in the role of the supervisor here. When a client raises concerns about harm occurring in therapy, is abruptly cutting off all communication between therapist and client an appropriate response? How should a supervisor balance concerns about the practice with the welfare and continuity of care of the client?

And for clients: has anyone experienced something similar, where a therapeutic relationship was abruptly cut off without a final session or termination conversation? What did the aftermath look like for you?

I’m not sure if this is the right place for this, but I couldn’t find a better one, and it’s been bothering me for a bit.

Last year I had psychological testing for both autism and ADHD. The testing itself was fine. It was very infantilizing, but since I had to take the kid version (I’m 16), I assume that’s normal.

The feedback session, though, was a HORRIBLE experience. She told me I was diagnosed with autism, but not adhd, then I asked her why.

She immediately says she was “on the fence” about diagnosing me and “had to consult other psychologists and her supervisor.” Apparently my self report exceeded criteria, my teacher report missed the cutoff but had some symptoms, my parent report said I had no symptoms, my clinical interview showed I met all symptoms, and the space bar test showed mild hyperactivity. I feel like it should also be noted that my parents denied any symptoms beyond “occasionally” on every single form, so their responses are not exactly credible.

She then said, and I quote, “It’s four against one, sorry.” Then mentioned that she would’ve pushed harder for a diagnosis, but I “didn’t need it.”

I’m sorry but what the fuck.

I asked her what she meant by that and she said that kids get stimulants without an adhd diagnosis ”all the time.”

To which I flat out said, “I think that’s illegal.”

And she replies “Well, then how do I have kids walk in here on Adderall before they’ve been diagnosed?”

And I’m like “Girl I don’t know???”

Then I kinda started crying (not my proudest moment) and she was really condescending like “Mmmhmm… It’s ok to have big feelings… 🥺”

Then I told her again that I feel like I can’t get help without a diagnosis.

And she goes ”Hmmm, but that’s not true.” Then eventually scolds me for crying and tells me I need to “remove myself and calm down.”

Flash forward almost a year into my autism diagnosis. I’ve gotten ZERO help besides my current therapy (different psychologist) that has gone nowhere. The only reason I am still in therapy is because my PCP didn’t want to refer me for a second adhd opinion if I wasn’t.

My PCP put me on SSRIs ”in the meantime” since the waitlist for another testing is MANY months and I’m getting depressed, but all they’ve done is kill my anxiety-fueled motivation so now I can’t get anything done and my head is always foggy.

I don’t know if this exactly counts as abuse, so sorry if it doesn’t, but it made me feel shitty.

Trigger warning this post describes violence

went to a therapist due to chronic stress and he basically told me to just focus on gratitude instead of being depressed. There are people starving in Africa type advice.

It was really shitty bc it was my first time seeing a therapist in like 6 years. I survived the troubled teen industry and my therapist there was emotionally and physically abusive . So going to therapy in general gave me flashbacks and for example I won’t enter a therapists office if they have a black couch or if they have a sign like “today I choose joy”

I was abused all my life growing up with a sadistic mother and a dad that refused reality beyond belief past insanity and a sister that got everything. I tried to be independent but was sabotaged all the way. My dad put all these negative ideas and lies into my therapists all crying about how terrible I am and now I can’t even seek therapy support. I ended up with a therapist with borderline personality disorder. She kept claiming that I was power seeking and it sounded completely insane but I tried to see where the fick she was coming from and I was completely abused. Now I’m an old man at 32. No college. No friends. No job. Losing my memory. Disabled from all the severe abuse. Alone in a tiny room. My parents are all happy living their lives traveling and raising my sisters child and getting to live the life that they never got to live in a third world country while I rot away in the bedroom shed in the backyard and they don’t even let me go to the grocery store with them or anything. And I tried to reach out to some people that might be able to help me but I have an abusive friend that knows my parents and told the other friend group some of my personal details and he’ll probably just lie to those people and I won’t even have those friends to be around. A lot of them don’t even like me but it’s better than being completely isolated alone. I feel like I’m losing my memory from all the trauma from my parents, the mental health system, and my friends. My parents completely control everything and treat as subhuman. This friend treats as less than human yelling and throwing things at me. They’ve all lied to my mental health people and I’m scared to go back because they treat me like I’m a monster, a liar, won’t treat me seriously, etc. I’m extremely hypersensitive. I don’t know what to do.

There were a number of things that she lied about. I already read through it once and it fucking aggravated me. Now, I need to read through it again and take some notes so I can make a complaint to the board about her lies.

Reading my file just gives me proof that a therapist's empathy is fucking fake AF. Their notes are written to protect them; not the client.

It also makes me feel like a fucking lab rat and not as a human being that needs help.

I wish I never went to therapy. A coworker was pressuring me to fucking go after my relatives unalived themselves last year. I care about my relatives dying, but I wasn't so depressed over it to the point where I needed therapy. I fucking hate people saying: "go to therapy!!" for everything fucking thing.

I wish I never gave into the peer pressure.

I'm so fucking angry.

My will will be complete on Tuesday and I'll be gone from this world. I can't wait to be free from therapy abuse.

Basically, my mental health has nosedived over the last couple months. I realised i need someone who is there to listen and give guidance and help with meltdowns, but who is not a licensed psychologist.

Anyone got advice? Anyone that can give recommendations on people or services that helped, that are not in the psych system?

I terminated with my therapist after a confusing and painful dynamic, and I’m looking for some outside perspective on how she handled things.
A while ago, I confessed to her that I had developed strong erotic transference toward her, and that I was also experiencing a lot of shame about my attraction to women in general. Instead of handling this clinically and helping me process it safely, a pattern of severe boundary violations started happening or at least I’m overthinking it?

Seeking Validation: When I told her my feelings were fading at one point, she laughed and asked, “you are not into me anymore?”

Romantic Hypotheticals: She told me that we couldn't be together because she is "older" and because “she was not my type” based on comments I made about how I would like a woman to be

Teasing Her Sexuality: When I shared my shame about liking women she was leaving suggestive comments that she could also be bi or lesbian

Using Guilt to Keep Me: I tried to terminate once, but she guilted me into staying by saying "therapists are human too and get attached" and telling me how sad she was that I wanted to leave. After that, therapy completely devolved into a confusing "friendship."

When I decided to terminate she accepted but did not offer a final session.

After 4 months I have stared thinking about her less, but I am still cycling through a lot of grief, bargaining, and self-doubt. I find myself wondering if she's thinking of me, or if I could have just "contained" my feelings better to save the relationship.

Has anyone else dealt with a therapist who used your transference to feed their own ego? How did you untangle the confusion and rebuild trust in your own intuition?

self produced ug rap about the mental health industry and moving through trauma

There is this assumption that the client should tell the therapist everything. This feels so weird and creepy to me.

If a client tells a depth therapist that he or she doesn't want to talk abou something, , the therapist will still keep asking questions, such as, "What makes you not want to talk about it?" "What would it be like to talk about it?" "How can I help you here is you're not willing to talk about difficult things," etc. etc. Pushing the boundaries.

The same therapist will demand personal boundaries. For the therapist, no means no, but not for the client.

Why does the client have to tell the therapist everything -- every secret, every bad experience? Why does the client have to tell the therapist if they are angry at them, or "in love" with them, or attracted to them?

There is no other relationship where we are pressured to tell the person everything.

A thought I’ve been workshopping are similarities between marginalizing people’s (I.e., bigots, racists, etc) perspectives of the people who they marginalize vs the patient-therapist relationship. 

Marginalizing people think they are arbiters of objective truth, and if you don’t see their truth about you as an objective fact, there’s something wrong with you. 

An example re marginalizing people: fatphobes tend to feel personally offended when they see a fat person who loves themselves because the fat person isn't supposed to accept their “deficit”, they’re supposed to see themselves as “defective” as the fatphobe sees them. “How dare they not understand how inadequate and (especially if they’re a woman) unattractive they are? They should be hiding their body, not flaunting it.” 

An example re the patient-therapist relationship: the therapist discounts the patients thoughts and experiences and essentially pushes the patient to adopt a perception of themselves that is equivalent to the therapist’s perspective of them. “It’s important that I get them to understand the truth of their problems, which I, as a person who has known them for a few weeks, can dictate. They must see things the way I see them in order for the ‘treatment’ to stick. And if they disagree with my perspective, that’s even more proof of their illness.” (Disclaimer: I don’t think this would apply to people in denial of things like addiction, harm they’ve done, or psychological symptoms like delusions or hallucinations)

In the end the outcome is the same: either agree or be wrong. Misogynists demand that women recognize the “reality” of their inadequacies and place in society, and any woman that doesn’t recognize that and act in accordance to the misogynist’s expectation is faulty and needs correction. Racists demand that Black people recognize the “reality” of their inferiority, and any Black person that doesn’t recognize this and defies the racist’s expectation is an existential threat or “uppity” and needs correction. I’m sure there are other examples for other marginalizations, but I’m only using examples that apply to me personally. 

The essential thought can end up being: “This person who I view as less than human thinks of themselves as a complete and worthy human being, and needs correction”.

One way I know if marginalization is occurring is how they respond to new evidence. There is no amount of evidence that can change their mind unless it comes from people not within the group they’re marginalizing. Even then, theres a limit, that one thing would be the exception, but they’ll still keep the other rules.