RES: Social

Yes, it is helpful to tell stories about how the cycle of abuse really works, but not because they’ll refute or replace the romanticized fantasy, or destroy its appeal. They won’t. What they’ll do is similar to what an out-of-story reality check or an “abusive relationship” tag will do: they’ll say “hey, when this does happen it’s actually pretty awful.” And they’ll go beyond that to give people models for what shit looks like and possible ways to deal with it. They’ll do that even if some of their edges are filed off and some of their agony is distilled into drama, which is why it’s the opposite of helpful to lump everything you think is flawed/ambivalent/insufficiently realistic into the “romanticizing” category and try to exterminate it all. That actively suppresses resources that might actually reach people who are into the romanticized stuff and have picked up distorted ideas about abuse, whether from the fiction itself or from the culture they were raised in.

All of the abused child’s psychological adaptations serve the fundamental purpose of preserving her primary attachment to her parents in the face of daily evidence of their malice. By developing a contaminated, stigmatized identity, the child victim takes the evil of the abuser into herself and thereby preserves her primary attachments to her parents. Because the inner sense of badness (shame) preserves a relationship, it is not readily given up even after the abuse has stopped; rather, it becomes a stable part of the child’s personality structure. Similarly, adult survivors who have escaped from abusive situations continue to view themselves with contempt and to take upon themselves the shame and guilt of their abusers. The profound sense of inner badness becomes the core around which the abused child’s identity is formed, and it persists into adult life.