Kai Cheng Som: "9 Ways To Help You Stop Being Abusive"

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

(Note: in the translation of the text, the word "abuse" was used, which I prefer not to use in Russian because it is not clear to many. Abuse is all forms of violence, from verbal to physical. Most often, the term is used in conversations about "unequal position "- ie, abuse is also an abuse, during which a more privileged and less vulnerable person takes advantage of his position. The term is common in feminist and queer publics, and therefore is used in this translation. Information is useful not only for spouses and sexual partners, but also for parents, acquaintances, comrades in activism, etc.)

I sit on the bed and start typing (most of all I love typing on the bed), and part of me yells, "Don't write this article!"

This part of me still feels the deep fear and shame that surrounds the topic of abuse and violence in partnerships - a topic that is taboo in many communities. People rarely talk about rape and abuse, and even less often they talk about people we know and care about as rapists and abusers.

Perhaps one of the worst fears of almost all of us is that we are afraid that we might become abusive - that we ourselves could be these villains, these monsters in the night.

Nobody wants to be an abuser. And no one wants to realize that he has hurt others, especially when we ourselves have often been hurt.

But the truth is that abusers and survivors almost never exist in the faces of completely different people. Sometimes those who are hurt are hurting others themselves. In the rape culture we live in, it can be difficult for some of us to distinguish the pain we feel from the pain we inflict on others.

Seven years ago, when I was just starting my apprenticeship as a support worker for survivors of partner violence, I was sitting in a training seminar during which someone asked if our organization could provide support to a person who abused their partner and who needed help because he wants to stop this bullying, but does not know how.

The answer was sharp and immediate:

- We do not work with abusers. Dot.

Then I thought that this is fair. After all, the organization was created to help survivors of abuse and rape, not those who bullied them. The only problem was that I was haunted by one question:

- What if the person is both an abuser and a survivor at the same time? And who can help such an abuser if we refuse him?

Note: in this article I will not talk about whether there can be such a relationship in which abuse will manifest itself on both sides. This is a topic for another conversation. Here I want to write about the fact that people who survived in one relationship can themselves become abusers in other ways.

Seven years have passed. As a psychotherapist who has worked with many "recovering" or "former" abusers since then, I continue to seek the answer to this question. The fact is that there are very few resources and organizations that are ready to help people stop being abusive and / or know how to do it.

But don't feminists say, "We can't teach people not to be violent, but we can teach people not to be violent?"

And if so, doesn't this mean that we should not only support people who have experienced abuse, but also teach people to stop being abusive?

When we learn to recognize within ourselves the ability to harm others - when we recognize that we all have this ability - our understanding of talking about abuse and rape culture changes dramatically. We can move from simply “realizing” the abuse and “punishing” the abuser to preventing abuse and healing our society.

Because, as they say, the revolution starts at home. The revolution begins in your home, in your relationships, and in your bedroom.

Here are nine steps that will help you, me, and all of us to shake off our abuse.

1. Listen to the survivors

If you have been an abuser, the most important - and perhaps most difficult - is learning to simply listen to the person you have harmed. The same goes for situations where you have harmed several people.

Listen without trying to defend yourself.

Listen without trying to evade or make excuses.

Listen without trying to minimize or deny the blame.

Listen without trying to bring the whole story down to you.

When a person tells you that you bullied or hurt him, it is easy to mistake it for an accusation or attack, especially if it is your partner or any other very close person. Very often at first it seems to us that we are being attacked.

This is why so often people who have hurt others tell their accusatory victims:

- I didn't mock you. You are the one making fun of me, right here and now, making such accusations against me!

We find ourselves in a cycle of violent conversation. This is a script written for us by the culture of rape: a script in which there can only be heroes and villains, right and wrong, accusers and accused.

But what if we perceive the information received about the abuse as an act of courage on the part of the survivor, as his gift?

What if, instead of reacting immediately, trying to defend ourselves, we just listen, really trying to understand exactly what harm we have done to the other person?

Everything changes when we start looking at these stories in terms of love and information, rather than in terms of accusation and punishment.

2. Take responsibility for the abuse

After you've listened to everything, you must admit your mistakes and take responsibility for the abuse. This means that you just have to admit that you and only you were the source of physical, emotional or mental abuse against another person.

To make a simple analogy, it's an apology for stepping on someone's foot. There may be many reasons why you could do this: you could be in a hurry, you could just not watch where you are going, or perhaps no one told you that you should not step on other people's feet.

But you just did it. It is not someone else - you are responsible, and you must find out about your mistake and apologize.

The same goes for abuse - no one, I repeat, no one except you is responsible for the violence that you have shown towards another person: not your partner, not patriarchy, not mental illness, not society, not the devil himself.

Many factors could have influenced your becoming an abuser (see point above), but in the end, only I am responsible for my actions, and only you are responsible for your actions.

3. Accept that your reasons are not excuses

There is a very common and terrible myth that people who harm others do so simply because they are bad people - because they enjoy bullying others, or because they are “sadistic”.

I think this is partly why so many people who in the past were abusive (or still are) are opposed to using terms such as "abuse" and "abuser" to describe their actions. In fact, very few people become abusive because they enjoy hurting others.

Based on their experiences as a psychotherapist and support worker, they can say that people most often become abusive because of their own suffering or because of their own depression.

Here are some of the reasons I've often heard of abusive behavior:

I'm lonely and isolated, and the only person I'm living for is my partner. So I can't let him leave me.

My partner hurts me all the time. I just hurt him in return.

I'm sick, and if I don't make people take care of me, I will die.

I feel very bad, and the only way to relieve this pain is to hurt myself or other people.

I didn’t know it was called abuse. People have always treated me that way. I just behaved like everyone else.

If I don't create another person, change him, no one will love me.

These are all serious, real reasons for abuse - but none of them are excuses. None of them are capable of "whitewashing" abusive behavior.

The reasons may help to understand the abuse, but they cannot justify it.

Understanding this will help you transform guilt into understanding and justice into healing.

4. No need to play the "sacrifice competition"

As I mentioned earlier, the abuse and bullying model is often viewed on the basis of the "abuser or victim" principle. People believe that someone who has experienced abuse in some relationships cannot become an abuser in others.

I have noticed that social justice movements and left-wing communities tend to transfer social analysis to interpersonal relationships, suggesting that a person belonging to an oppressed or marginalized group can never publish against members of a privileged group (i.e., that a woman can never bully a man, a colored person can never mock a white person, etc.).

But both of these ideas are wrong. A survivor in one relationship may be an abuser in another.

Privileged people really often become abusers due to the fact that society allows them to use additional opportunities, but any person can be an abuser in relations with any other person under successful (or rather “unsuccessful”) circumstances.

When we become abusive, it can be easy for us to “get out” by playing in the “victim competition”.

“I can't be an abuser,” you might want to tell us. - I survived the abuse myself.

Or:

- The abuse that I experienced is much worse than the one that I subjected you to.

Or:

- I could not mock you, because you are more privileged.

But the survivor can also be the abuser.

Everyone can be an abuser, and no amount of simplification and comparison cancels either this fact or our responsibility.

5. Give the initiative to the survivor

When talking to someone you bullied, the main thing is to give the person who experienced your bullying space to express their needs and set boundaries.

If you've bullied someone, it's not up to you to decide how the healing and justice process should go.

Instead of trying to "solve" everything, try asking the person questions like: What do you want right now? Is there anything I can do to make you feel better? How often do you want to communicate with me now so that you can move forward? How do you feel right now, during this conversation? If we are in the same community, how should I plan my time so as not to interfere with you, being in the same place with you?

At the same time, it is important to remember that the needs of survivors of abuse can change over time and that the survivor may not always understand what they want.

Being responsible in dealing with a survivor means being patient, flexible, and thoughtful during dialogue.

6. Meet face to face with the fear of awareness

It can take a lot of courage to face the truth and admit that you have hurt people.

We live in a culture that demonizes and coarsens abuse. And perhaps the point is that we simply do not want to accept reality and admit that abuse is so widespread and that almost anyone can be an abuser.

Many people drive themselves into a corner by denying abuse because, honestly, most people are very scared to face the real and imagined consequences of accepting responsibility.

There are real risks as well. When violence occurs, people lose friends, their community, jobs and opportunities. The risks are especially high for marginalized people - I am talking in particular of blacks and people of color, who usually face harsher and more discriminatory judgments.

There is nothing I can do to make this harsh reality easier.

I can only say that when it comes to ending the abuse, it is much easier to face fear than to live with it all your life. And truth brings much more healing than living a lie.

When we admit our own responsibility, we prove that the myth of the "monster-abuser" is a lie.

7. Separate guilt from shame

Shame and social stigma are serious barriers that affect emotions and prevent many of us from recognizing that we are abusive. We do not want to admit that “I am the same person,” and therefore we deny that we could hurt someone.

Some people think that those who hurt others should feel ashamed - after all, abuse harms other people! But I must admit that there is a difference between admission of guilt and shame.

When you admit your guilt, you regret what you did. When you feel ashamed, you regret that you are you.

People who have harmed others must admit their guilt - guilt for the particular type of harm they are responsible for. They should not be ashamed of themselves, because then the "abuser" will become part of their identity.

Then they will begin to believe that they, in themselves, are bad people - in other words, abuser.

But when you start thinking that you are an “abuser,” just a “bad person who hurts everyone,” you miss out on opportunities to change - because you cannot change who you are.

If you accept that you are a good person in your own right who does bad things, you will open the door to change.

8. Don't expect someone to forgive you

Admitting guilt and seeking forgiveness are two different things. It doesn't matter how much you admit your mistakes - no one is obliged to forgive you, and even more so the people towards whom you have been violent.

In fact, by using the “admission of guilt” process to force the person to forgive you, you continue to be an abuser. Because then the abuser is in the center, not the victim.

Don't try to get forgiveness by taking responsibility. Instead, try to understand how we harm others, why we harm others, and why we need to stop doing it.

But…

9. Forgive yourself

You must forgive yourself. Because you cannot stop hurting other people if you continue to accept the harm to yourself.

When a person is violent, very often this person is very bad, and he sees the only way out in violence towards others. Many find it difficult to admit the hard truth about the abuse and their guilt. It's much easier to blame society, blame other people, blame those we love.

This is more a problem of the society itself than of individuals. It is much easier and more convenient to build high walls between "bad" and "good" people, and close the mirrors, in which many can see themselves as abuser, with some kind of abstract scarecrow.

This may be why there are so few tools (like this list) that can help you recognize your guilt.

It takes courage to take responsibility. To get on the path of healing.

But when we decide to do this, incredible opportunities open up before us: they can open up to everyone. Everyone, one way or another, is capable of changing. And knowing this can give you courage.

Kai Cheng Som is one of the authors of Everyday Feminism. She is a Chinese transgender woman, writer, poet, and performance writer based in Montreal. She has an MSc in Clinical Mental Health and provides psychotherapy services to marginalized adolescents in her community.