I think arguably one of the only things worse than ignoring / denying a victim of abuse is accusing them of being the abuser. Especially given the fact that most abusers use tactics like “you made me do this” or the old “you are abusing me by calling out my abuse bc it makes me feel bad”. The victims who escape those situations often face a long road in their ‘next life’ of internally focused paranoia and constant moral inventory taking; afraid that setting a boundary, or being firm (or being in a bad mood even) is behavior that is too reminiscent of how their own abuser acted. Trauma altering the ability to differentiate. Having to muck through the dense fucking mud of “Am I a bad person, and that’s why this happened to me? Maybe it was all my fault…” A truly devastating phenomenon.
