Most people have absolutely no fucking empathy for the way it affects you to survive an abusive relationship. Most people have absolutely no fucking empathy for what the symptoms of PTSD do to you.
I had to work various food service and retail jobs right after I escaped a violently physically abusive relationship, and that mixes together just about as well as having to work a strenuous physical labor job right after having both your arms broken. But it was my only option if I wanted to pay the bills and keep food on the table.
Of course customers would get aggressive and hostile with me, of course customers would scream while their faces were red with rage and slam their fists on the counter or even try to physically threaten me. And of course given my very fresh and very untreated PTSD I'd freeze and/or fawn and break down afterwards. Even just moderate aggression like a raised voice or a forceful attitude could send me into freeze/fawn because my brain had just spent years being taught that even something as moderate as a raised voice or a forceful attitude meant I was in physical danger if I didn't back down.
And when my co-workers would witness me freeze up in front of a screaming hostile customer the reaction would range from anywhere from annoyance at how pathetic that was of me to later bragging to me about how much better they would have handled that because they're so much tougher and more assertive than me and needed to preen about that. Instead of even bothering to think about why I might be reacting the way I was or trying to empathize they could only jump on the opportunity to judge me as weak to make themselves feel better about themselves.
Or a friend of mine who I distanced myself from after I saw how she reacted to her sister's behavior after leaving an abusive relationship. Her sister was of course afraid of her abuser and afraid of confronting him about custody matters, and my friend would always talk about how frustrated she was with her sister for being "so childish and such a scaredy cat". She knew her sister had just been abused, but all she could do was judge her sister for being "weak" and get mad at her sister for her "weakness".
I have spent years in therapy and have regained a lot of my confidence and assertiveness that I'd lost from the abuse. But it still stings in all sorts of ways when I think of how people reacted to my behavior after I'd just escaped the abuse. How everyone's, and I mean everyone's, reaction to seeing me freeze or fawn or break down when I encountered aggression or hostility was to judge me as weak instead of having any understanding at all, and this includes people who knew I was fresh out of an abusive relationship.
If someone had just broken their arm and couldn't carry anything with their freshly broken arm, any normal decent human being's reaction would be to understand why they couldn't carry anything with a freshly broken arm, and any normal decent human being wouldn't expect them to. It's widely understood that if you judged them as pathetic and weak for not being able to carry anything with a freshly broken arm, and if you started preening about how you're so much stronger and better than them because you can carry things with your unbroken arm, that this makes you a colossal fucking asshole and a generally bad person.
Imagine if we could actually approach mental/emotional injuries, like PTSD from a physically violent relationship, with the same understanding.
