Excuses we make for them…

[Caterina]

I think this is an important thought to hold… It was for me anyway. It’s not an entirely complex thought! But I think it’s still something worth holding on to.

One of the issues I often found myself having with leaving my abuser, was that I kept thinking, he was damaged, he didn’t realise how cruel he was being, he had a difficult childhood, in reality he was just deeply insecure himself, etc, etc… how could I desert him? I need to ‘fix’ him!

This thinking absolves your abuser of responsibility for his own actions.

Think about when people are tried in court and found guilty of some horrendous act – torture, murder, etc. They will often try to plead ‘not guilty through reason of insanity’. But think about it – just how often does that get people off the hook in reality? I’d say not as often as one might think (although criminal prosecutions DO sometimes get it wrong – as psychiatry is a very complex thing). The prisons are full of people who have committed the most brutal crimes, serial murderers, etc. They will quite often be serving life sentences, or, in many countries, put to death. Which ones DO ‘get off’ though? And go to institutions for the criminally insane instead?

I’m over-simplifying here I know. But it’s worth remembering the difference between psychopathic behaviour and insanity. The latter absolves one of responsibility for their actions. Think of insanity as acute schizophrenia for example. People who really have lost all grasp of reality. Then think of psychopaths… people like Hitler may spring to mind. Hitler wasn’t ‘evil’ (I hate that supernatural word), he was psychopathic.

People who are insane have no comprehension of what they have done. It’s like they are on a permanent hallucinogenic trip. Psychopaths know fully what they are doing, and their capacity to plan and execute is, on occasion, genius. The problem with psychopaths is they just don’t care.

Extreme analogy I know! But I think it’s worth thinking about, when you are trying to understand an abuser. They are not insane, they are not evil, they are just missing the human part of their brain that allows them to feel any empathy. All one can do is run away in the other direction as quickly as possible.

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