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Thread: This rationale demonstrates part of the exact stereotyping victims face that got us to a crisis - the idea that once victimized, you become too damaged to be able to see rationally and clearly, and your input is no longer trustworthy.
Those who lack expertise and experience are notoriously terrible at understanding abuse, abusive dynamics, warning signs, or care for survivors.
While one's status as a survivor does not automatically validate everything they say, survivors have insight that most people lack.
While one's status as a survivor does not automatically validate everything they say, survivors have insight that most people lack.
This insight often includes the ability to recognize warning signs, explain victim responses that seem counterintuitive to non - survivors, and educate on trauma and after care. All dynamics that the general public lack knowledge of, and handle poorly.
Yet survivors are immediately written off as unable to speak into these very dynamics. Assumed to be too damaged and broken to think or act rationally. Immediately ignored and sidelined, presumed to be "imposing their situation on everything they see."
Their input is reacted against, automatically, rather than considered. Their personal knowledge written off as a disqualifying liability, rather than asset. This means that when survivors identify legitimate problems or concerns, the general public often reacts.
And that knee-jerk reason and assumption leads the public to react against the very dynamics they missed, that leads to abuse, further enabling abuse and abusive dynamics.
One of the primary reasons I never told about my abuse was because I knew as soon as I did, anything I said in the advocacy world would be immediately viewed as less trustworthy. I would no longer be seen first as an attorney, I would be seen first as "damaged victim".
No matter how much a survivor heals, no matter how much education, expertise or knowledge they possess, they will always face the battle of first being identified as "victim" and therefor less trustworthy.
Society screams for us to heal and move past it, but insists on identifying us by it, no matter how much we do.
And thus the valuable insight and knowledge that could help culture change, is reacted aga a priori, rather than heeded.
Don't define us by our abuse.
And thus the valuable insight and knowledge that could help culture change, is reacted aga a priori, rather than heeded.
Don't define us by our abuse.
