If you've been living with an abusive or toxic person, it's likely you've faced DARVO tactic of abuse at least once. Ever stood up for yourself only to be accused of being abusive and having to defend yourself, or comfort your abuser about it? You've been darvoed.
DARVO stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. This tactic is what abusers use to avoid being held accountable for their actions. The accusations shift the focus from their original offense to discuss the imaginary offenses the victim has done instead, making it extremely hard to hold the abuser to their original deed. It also enables the abuser to receive sympathy and compassion, often even from bystanders, and sometimes from the victim themselves, after being called out for abuse.
For example, you recall an incident where your abuser has called you an offensive insult. You bring it up, and they respond with 'I never said that', and you know they did, but for the sake of the argument, you give a little way to allow that maybe you remembered it wrong (you're being gaslit). Next, they accuse you of imagining things, being crazy, making things up only to hurt them, and claim you're actually doing this to abuse them. They attack your credibility, your sanity, and find more and more outrageous things to accuse you off, making you busy with defending yourself, being outraged at the lies, and unable to stick to your original grievance.
Being accused of being abusive while you're trying to hold someone to their actions, will make it harder to try to address it, harder to argue, and harder to feel that you're correct in doing so. The point is to make you doubt your experience, doubt your sanity, and never try to hold them accountable again.
DARVO is specifically often used by sexual offenders, who are ready to deny it, and on top of it, accuse victim of 'wanting it', or 'making it up on purpose only to smear their name', and then shift the focus to attacking the victim's credibility and morality, so they're no longer able to be held accountable.
Abusers playing the victims and shaming the actual victims is a powerful and effective technique, it's extremely difficult to counter, especially with abusers who know what accusation or insult will work to trigger you, and to cause you an emotional flashback that will make it unable for you to think clearly or hold them accountable for anything. You will be called to justify and explain your own behaviour, when you're already in a vulnerable position asking for explanation and justice for yourself.
The only way to counter darvo is also the only way to counter the most of abuse – having support and community on your side. One person will not be able to shame and gaslight you if you have an entire community behind you, supporting your cause and understanding exactly what happened. During the argument, the best you can do is to refuse to get side-tracked by the accusations, and shift focus back to what the abuser has done, regardless of how much they try to deny and reverse it. It's not always possible, especially if you're experiencing a flashback during it, in which case the best thing to do is to get distance, and to no longer interact with the abuser personally if possible.
Abusers trying to frame the past situation differently, insisting it was a 'misunderstanding', 'not how it happened', or 'they remember it differently', is also DARVO, and part of trying to discredit your memory and your senses of the events in your life. If it had happened differently, you would have remembered it. If it was a misunderstanding, it would have felt like one, it wouldn't have felt like abuse. You know exactly what happened and how it felt. Abusers indulging into long stories about how what you accuse them of hurts their feelings, or triggers them, is especially effective type of darvo attack, where they aim at your sense of guilt and compassion, to drop the accusations and comfort them for being called out for hurting you. You are always, in any situation, correct to call them out. If the truth will kill them, let them die.
Sources: choosingtherapy, banyantherapy, wikipedia
