Thread by @caitoz

The People Haven't Risen Up For The Same Reason Abuse Victims Don't Leave Their Abusers

“People say, ‘Oh, it can’t have been that bad, because she would’ve left.’ And it’s like, no, because it was that bad, I couldn’t leave.”
~ FKA twigs on Shia LaBeouf
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-people-h…

There was a great exchange in a recent interview with singer-songwriter FKA twigs regarding her relationship with actor Shia LaBeouf, who she is currently suing for "relentless abuse" including assault and sexual battery.

"Because it was that bad, I couldn't leave."

This is what so few people understand about abusive relationships. People see friends and family members stuck in relationships that are obviously horrible and say "She should leave him! Why doesn't she just leave??"

Those who have escaped abusive relationships know how intensely hurtful this question is, how violent it feels to have it inflicted upon you by people who are supposed to be on your side and supporting you. It feels so violent because you have perspective that others do not:

Abusive relationships aren't just one partner doing cruel things to another. If they were, there would be no relationship: there'd just be a woman getting assaulted one time by her boyfriend and then immediately leaving.

You're being caged psychologically, and you're kept too confused and off-balance to even be aware that that's what's happening. So you stay where you are, just as surely as you would if you'd been placed in a physical cage.

https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1361519346749636611

This is why people stay in abusive relationships, whether it's abusive relationships with significant others or abusive relationships with empires.

As a collective, we remain in our current relationship with abusive power structures because we are collectively kept confused, off-balance, insecure and unsure of ourselves, as a critical element of our collective abuse is mass-scale psychological manipulation.

And make no mistake, it absolutely does not have to be this way. The difference between our relationship with the oligarchic empire and FKA twigs' relationship with Shia LaBeouf is that we are far, far bigger and far, far stronger than our abusers.

But the dynamic is the same in both cases: we are being victimized by manipulative abusers. The manipulation is part of the abuse. It is not our fault that they cage our minds like this, it's theirs.

The good news, of course, is that people DO leave. They DO escape their abusive relationships. The light of truth cannot remain hidden forever, and sociopathic manipulators do not understand the depths of human experience well enough to block it out.

If you have a loved one who's in an abusive relationship, you draw attention to what you are seeing, you let them know that you're there for them, you trust their inner wisdom to find a way to escape someday, and when they do you're there waiting for them with the engine running.

When you have a collective that is in an abusive relationship, you draw attention to the abusive dynamics you are seeing, you trust humanity's unfathomable depths to produce an escape route, and when the time comes to rise up, you are there at the ready.