I don't like when people try to 'comfort' victims by saying "Your abusers are secretly miserable and insecure they can barely live with themselves".
Firstly it's because it feels like another push to feel sorry for them, to center them in how we're supposed to feel. It forces us to have empathy and compassion and ignore what they did to us, and how we feel as a result. What does it do for me if my abuser is presumably miserable. It's likely they'll try to take it out on me.
Secondly, I don't believe that. I've witnessed abusers getting absolutely everything they want and I can tell when they're smug, satisfied, happy and enjoying themselves. Any time they're not in a good mood, they're a danger and will do anything, including torture and gaslighting, to feel good again, to get another hit of that satisfaction. Watching someone derive deep satisfaction from hurting me and then being told they're actually miserable deep inside feels like gaslighting. Yes they might have felt a bit frustrated if they didn't have someone to torture but then they would select the next most vulnerable target right away and gone to town. Their life is an endless, reckless and cruel chase of pleasure where they never even check the trail of trauma and devastation it left on other people's lives.
So no, I don't think they're miserable, and if they were, that doesn't please me. I don't get a vengeful thrill from thinking someone is secretly suffering. Make it so they can't torture anyone. Make them miserable by depriving them of victims. Make them shut up permanently so their victims could speak out. Put them in jail. Tell everyone what they did. Outcast them. Make them feel ashamed with themselves. That would make me feel better.













