Hey, I feel like I've seen you write about how to help someone who's currently in an abusive situation, but I couldn't find any posts specifically about it? Do you have any general guidelines?
My Golden Rule advice on how to help is to try to do the exact opposite of what an abuser would, on a deep level.Â
(Iâm going to use âsheâ meaning the survivor for short hand in the following, not to assume gender or pronouns, just for brevity in explaining)
abusers think they know what she needs better than she does
allies acknowledge that she is a smart, competent person who knows her own life and deserves autonomy over it Â
abusers think for her and tells her what she should think and should want
allies think with her, and ask her what she thinks and wantsÂ
abusers isolate her from other people and decide who she can see and who she canât
allies respect her decision to see whoever she wants, and donât enact social punishments for making âwrongâ choices
abusers tell her that her emotions are wrong and she needs to stop feeling them
allies validate her emotions no matter what they are, and reaffirm her right to feel them
abusers argue with her to win, and to establish their version of reality as correct
allies argue with her (as will happen sometimes) with the goal of reaching a shared understanding, and to establish a common reality that makes sense to both your experiencesÂ
These things seem simple, but when you really commit to them, theyâre genuinely hard in practice. Itâs tempting when she argues with you that her abuser really loves her to try to assert what you see as the truth (that theyâre abusive) and to assume she needs to be corrected because sheâs not thinking right, but all youâd be communicating to her is that everyone thinks sheâs stupid. Itâs tempting to say âif you go back to them, Iâm not going to keep visiting youâ in the hopes that sheâll stay out, but it will only end up cutting her off from you as a resource. Itâs tempting to imply that she shouldnât love her abuser because they donât deserve it, but it would only be implying to her that you donât respect her emotions and sheâll stop trusting you with them.Â
The key is not to be the savior who can swoop in and get her out of there (as much as thatâs probably the fantasy of both you and her at some points).Â
The key is to be a force that reaffirms her selfhood and autonomy consistentlyâvalidates her reality, emotions, boundaries, and needs, and is part of a safe, consistent, reliable support networkâ so that if and when she decides she wants to leave, she can trust that feeling and she has the resources to actually make it happen.Â
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