What's the use of calling it abuse?

[hotchip]

The other week, a friend I had confided in at length about my experience with uBPDx told me there would be steps forward and back as I recovered, and that 'this is normal in getting over an abusive relationship'.

I didn't necessarily see the relationship as abusive (though certain acts within it, were), but I didn't challenge friend's terminology since the dynamic seemed accurate.

Yesterday, I was chatting to another friend and said something like, it's funny that person used the word 'abuse' although obviously it wasn't. Other friend gave me this look of like, 'are you crazy?' and asked how I could possibly say that after having written out and described the series of events in such detail to them.

I have some complicated feelings about this. One is to wonder whether I've misrepresented or exaggerated in some way. But with both these friends, I've been very careful to set out the facts in detail and at length, including my own misdeeds and mistakes. So I don't think their assessment is due to my 'putting a finger on the scale', so to speak.

A belief I have is that the word 'abuse' should be used carefully and precisely lest it obscure more than it clarify. My own definition involves the repeated use of a pre-existing power dynamic to do harm, and/or actions which both harm another person and entrench power over them, thus creating a power dynamic.

For example, according to my own definition, uBPDx cheating on me was a toxic, harmful act, but it was not abusive. However, belittling and insulting me for being upset about it afterwards, was. To harm someone and then denigrate them for reacting is abusive, as it reduces their ability to identify and protect themselves from harmful acts in future.

I'm curious as to what people think the significance of designating a relationship as 'abusive', is. Is it a moral thing - the harms that came to me were not my fault? I believe this - however, this can also be true for relationships that are not abusive.

Is it a causal thing - there was nothing I could have done to avoid the harm? I think this is incorrect. There was nothing I could have done to save the relationship, but I think there were, in fact, many things I could have done to avoid harm.

Does it imply something about the obligations of other people around me and uBPDx?

Does it imply some kind of judgement about uBPDx?

Is it useful primarily as a descriptive term, or as something almost quantitative - a way of identifying that the harms are ?

What do you think?

[hotchip]

*a way of identifying that the harms are very serious

[CC43]

Hi there,

Abuse might be traditionally thought as physical, but it can be emotional as well.  Take the situation of someone beating their spouse, for example if the spouse stayed out "too long" running errands or waved hello to a neighbor of the opposite sex.  A beating in that scenario would be considered abusive.  But let's say that instead of a physical beating, it's a verbal one:  shouting, insults, false accusations (e.g. of having an affair), threats (e.g. of divorce), a total meltdown.  The spouse might feel that they are subject to a curfew or house arrest, because going out without "permission," or saying hello to another human being, leads to a verbal onslaught.  The "rules" apply only to the abused party, whereby the disordered spouse exerts inordinate control, while the disordered spouse is free to do whatever he pleases.  The verbal attacks are abusive because they are unwarranted, not proportional to the situation, mean, bullying, intimidating and designed to control, alienate and restrict freedoms.  The mere threat of retribution might be enough to bend the abused person's will, and maybe they start to question history and their very identity.

At the end of the day, emotional abuse can be extremely alienating, in the sense that you're not only alienated from family and friends, but also alienated from your true self . . . disconnected from your own emotions, needs and identity, leading to chronic stress and living in survival mode.  Does that sound about right?

[ForeverDad]

And "abuse" would indicate a need to take corrective action whereas "poor behavior" may not be considered to need a strong countermeasure.

Related to this, we often mention that the "acting out" personality disorder traits (Cluster B ... Narcissistic, Borderline, Antisocial, Histrionic) are generally harmful to others while some of the other PD have traits are "acting-in" which tend to be more toward self-harm.

[PeteWitsend]

In my mind the word "abuse" implies a repetitive pattern... whether it's abusing a substance like alcohol, or abusing another person.  A single instance of some sort of negative or hostile behavior toward another is a fight.  It could be a one-and-done event, for whatever reason: to establish dominance, to blow off steam, to right a wrong, to deter someone from doing something, or to steal something. 

He's had a bad day and he snaps at you when you say you're tired and don't want to get dinner out.  Is that abuse?  Maybe not.  It's not great, but in an otherwise good relationship, it's forgivable.  But if it becomes a pattern, then it's abuse. 

Abusive conduct toward another, as I see it, is to condition them to accepting a certain role in a relationship between people. 

I do think the word itself can get overused - or abused if you will - but it has a very real definition, and it happens.

[Notwendy]

I think we assume abuse is done with intent by an evil person. Actually, abusive relationships are not all bad and neither is the abusive person necessarily evil or doing so with intent to harm. Rather, they are cyclic, with the person being caring and loving and sometimes even remorseful in between. This is why they can be confusing. It also involves two people. People wonder why the abused person doesn't just leave, but it's actually difficult for people to leave an abusive relationship due to the cyclic nature of them.

What's the point of naming abuse abuse? It's not to vilify someone or to blame or not blame. It's to not sugar coat it. It is what it is. So call it that.

I think an aspect of the partner in these relationships is sometimes a sense of denial or minimizing the behavior due to the other qualities of the person or the experience. But abuse has an impact and it helps to identify it for the purpose of dealing with it, in therapy.

Friends will have an opinion and possibly agree/take sides but that isn't a theraputic situation. I think therapy is helpful to anyone who has experienced abusive behavior- no matter what kind or severe. The label is more helpful to them in that sense.

 

[Pook075]

To me, abuse is someone repetitively saying or doing something that harms you- and that could be physically or mentally.

For instance, someone lying about something.  That's not abuse.  But if they continue lying about different things and our relationship is completely built on a stack of lies, then yeah, it's abusive.  My BPD daughter comes to mind where she'd ask for $10-50 daily for gas and food, yet she was buying drugs and alcohol.  If I said no, she'd scream and rage about what a terrible father I was.  That was abuse...and not just the yelling part.  The being nice to me part to manipulate me to give her money was just as abusive because it was being done with bad intentions.

There's also one-off abuse as well- which I think we don't have to define.  Hitting, insulting, belittling, manipulating...all that is certain abuse.  But I think we'd differ on when it reaches that level to call it abusive.  For instance, someone pushes me because they're rushing to the bathroom and I'm blocking their way...is that abusive?  Maybe yes, maybe no.  You'd have to see a little bit more of the relationship to really have an understanding.

I'll add one more thing- friends and family usually know better than we do if our relationships are abusive.  We tend to brush off so much as regular daily cohabitating that it all begins to feel normal.  Oh, my partner is moody in the mornings, that's just how they are.  Or, he only hits me when he's drinking heavily, it's my fault for saying something that upset him.  When we're so close to it, we can see something completely different from the actual truth.

Bottom line, if someone is acting in a way that harms you over a period of time, that's abuse.  Everyone has bad days so again, I'm not talking about a one-off incident where someone loses their cool and shouts for a few minutes.  If it happens once, probably not abuse.  It it happens weekly, then yeah...it's probably an abusive relationship.

[CC43]

Bottom line, if someone is acting in a way that harms you over a period of time, that's abuse.  Everyone has bad days so again, I'm not talking about a one-off incident where someone loses their cool and shouts for a few minutes.  If it happens once, probably not abuse.  It it happens weekly, then yeah...it's probably an abusive relationship.

I agree with Pook on this one.  Sometimes I think of abuse as the punishments not fitting the crimes.  The abusive behavior (punishment) seems unreasonable and disproportionate, as well as causes significant harm, rather than serving a legitimate disciplinary, educational or corrective purpose.  Oftentimes the abusive behavior will exploit a power imbalance, financial dependence, or some sort of weakness, such as feelings of fear, obligation or guilt.  Maybe there's no physical harm to you, but rather to your property, reputation, self-esteem or other important relationships.  Maybe some harsh words are uttered, but the level of harm depends on the context, for example accusations made in private vs. in public with the intent to damage your reputation.

You might wonder, how could a seemingly defenseless child or weak person succeed in abusing others but not actually cause any physical damage?  I've seen examples which I call "spoiling" behavior.  Let's say there's a wedding, family funeral, vacation or work event that is really important to you.  A pwBPD could be abusive by staging some sort of massive meltdown, attempting to sabotage an important moment for you.  And it's not just limited to one spoiled moment, but a pattern of meltdowns whenever you face an event that is important to you.  I think that could qualify as abusive, too, if the meltdowns are severe and recurrent enough.  I suspect other readers on this site will know exactly what I mean here.

Pook mentions a possible example of abuse, where a BPD child will lie/manipulate/exploit parents for money, typically to buy things that the parent didn't intend, such as illicit substances.  Demanding money for school but not actually attending classes is an example.  Demanding money or a co-signer for housing but then abandoning or destroying the property might be another.  Asking parents to buy a cars/auto insurance and then repeatedly crashing them while driving under the influence might be another example.  I'm not talking about a genuine mistake or accident, but a pattern of manipulation, deceit and exploitation over time, with a heavy dose of blame-shifting too.  In addition, there's a total lack of accountability and responsibility on the part of the abuser.  The relationship feels completely lopsided:  all take and no give.  And that is abusive in my humble opinion.

[hotchip]

Thank you for your insights all! What we've got so far:

Abuse is 'unwarranted, not proportional to the situation' and also 'designed to control, alienate and restrict freedoms' (CC43)

It indicates 'a need to take corrective action' (ForeverDad)

It 'implies a repetitive pattern' that 'conditions [the abused person] to take a certain role in a relationship between people' (PeteWitsend)

It is cyclic (NotWendy)

It is 'repetitively saying or doing something that harms you' (Pook)

It is a 'pattern' and entails behaviour that is 'unreasonable and disproportionate, as well as causing significant harm' (CC43)

It seems like what we're coming back to is the idea that abuse involves repetition, that it conditions or shapes the relationship in a particular way, and that the harm is serious/ disproportionate.

In the case of uBPDx, there was an ongoing pattern of him describing and defining me as 'cruel' and 'horrible' for actions that were not cruel and horrible at all. He would use guilt if I was not perpetually available for his emotional and logistical needs.

For example, if I was in bed and did not want to fix his computer problems at that particular time, he would go into an audible monologue about how he was 'alone. I am completely alone. And I just have to accept that...' He would tap me on the shoulder in the middle of my doing another task on my laptop, and if I didn't respond would accuse me of wanting him to '________ off'.

We worked together and for a period, I was extremely burned out, and said I didn't want to talk about certain aspects of work at home. He would manouveure round this by saying something like, 'oh, you'll never GUESS what I did about [work related action here]... oh, yeah, I'm not supposed to talk about it.'

Over time, and in response to this environment, I became snappy and irritable - for example, he asked me if pulling a USB stick out had damaged it and I shrugged and said 'I don't know' in a 'don't bother me' tone of voice. He described this as me being more horrible to him than anyone else, ever, in his life.

I ended up internalising this view - I genuinely believed my actions were cruel and horrible - it took weeks of friends explaining to me that it was not proportionate.

There was some other manipulative behaviour from him, and one highly toxic and harmful action from me.

Basically, uBPDx was extremely mentally ill and depressed for much of our relationship. For a several month period, he would express suicidal ideation to me at least once and often multiple times per day - we're talking at least a hundred times and likely more. Sometimes this would be in situations of acute distress, at others it would be quite casual.

I found this somewhat traumatising, especially having lost a close friend to suicide previously in very proximate circumstances, and told him this. His response was - this is basically verbatim - 'ngl, this makes it harder for me to come to you if I'm suicidal'.

I assisted him to gain eligibility for medical appointments, but he sought no appointments and did not even look up information about what was available. I also encouraged him and directed him towards free services such as mindfulness classes.   

He also stated that the reason for his suicidality was his strong commitment to certain moral/ ideological values, which he and I nominally shared and were the basis of our relationship. (Apologies for being vague here - it's a very specific situation).

Some months later, I found out that he had severely violated these ideological values and did not see it as a problem. In my anger, I shouted '________ing kill yourself!'. Immediately after I retracted this ('No, no, don't kill yourself').

I believe my action here was toxic and harmful. It is toxic to tell a mentally ill person to kill themself, under any circumstances. If it was repeated or became a pattern, this would be abusive. I did not repeat this action. I never said anything like that to uBPDx again.

My action was also reactive to a a particular context - being constantly exposed to suicidal ideation, asking not to be, and having that request rebuffed. It did not reflect me setting up a cycle of getting power over another person. In fact, I tried *not* to be the person who was solely responsible for or relied upon by uBPDx in his poor mental health.

For these reasons, I believe my action was toxic rather than abusive.   

uBPDx continued to express suicidality and enact mental health meltdowns directed at me throughout the relationship, in one case spending 3.5 hours spiralling and telling me things like I was disappointing to them. He also got in my face and almost yelled that he was thinking of hurting himself, then berated me for not reacting appropriately. ('I'm telling you I want to hurt myself, and you're not reacting! You're supposed to be the person closest to me and you're not reacting!')

In hindsight, I believe this was controlling as it used threats of self-harm to demand or elicit a particular reaction from me. The meltdown also started basically apropos of nothing - just before, we'd gone out for a nice dinner.

There were other meltdowns - he would frequently ascribe his negative emotional state to me. A common quote was, 'I feel only anger, and YOU made me that way.'

 

 

[ForeverDad]

You will find frequent mention of BPD "FOG" on this site and elsewhere.

• Fear ... of threats, pressure, intimidation, disparagement, etc
• Obligation ... which doesn't let us see the dysfunctional relationship objectively
• Guilt ... if we decide the relationship is unhealthy, since we are indoctrinated "It's All Your Fault!"

[Pook075]

My BPD ex would often feel down and depressed as well, and her answer to feel better was running off to save someone else.  That could be helping her parents do something, one of her brothers, one of her friends, our kids or one of their friends, someone in our extended family, etc.

And on the surface, you'd think that's a good thing, making time to help others.

At the same time though, as her mental illness got worse over the years, she was always on the run when she wasn't at work.  Sometimes the kids were with her, sometimes not.  But she was gone almost every waking hour for nearly a decade in our marriage.  Entire weekends would disappear when we had clear plans.  And if I said something, I'd always get the same answer, "But my brother needed me."  "But my dad wanted me to go with him."  But that woman that I work with wanted me to come by."

So I'd ask, "But what about our plans?  Five weekends in a row, you've disappeared."  Or it was something like, "We've talked about doing this other thing for six months now."

Sometimes it was something simple, like getting groceries together.  Other times, it was visiting something new in our area or fixing something at home.  It was never anything major that I couldn't do alone, but I'd wait all of Saturday on the promise, "I'll be home in an hour or two" and then most of Sunday as well.  The weekend would just vanish with me waiting and waiting, so I wouldn't start anything big because she'd be home any minute now.  Yet she never arrived until 8 PM, 10 PM, or whatever.

Does this sound like abuse?  Maybe no.  But once it happened 10 times, 100 times, 1000 times, I was just as trained as the family dog to sit and stay, to be a good boy.  It was absolutely an abusive pattern and I couldn't see it or understand what was actually happening.

Now, if my wife wanted us to do something and I said I was too busy, it was a very different story.  She'd pout around the house and make it known what a disappointment I was.  Or if I spent a few hours with a friend on occasion, I'd get texts and attitude once I returned home.  That's because we always did what she wanted to do when she felt like being in a relationship with her husband.  It was a massive double standard and I couldn't see it....because abuse requires screaming, hitting, and stuff like that, right?

That's why some of this is so hard to define- it doesn't look like what we'd call abuse by the traditional definition.  Yet it's just as damaging mentally when you're in the middle of it all and it's certainly an abusive pattern.

[Notwendy]

I think the term is most useful to you, in context of what you wish for in a relationship. Since this one has ended, what can you learn from this?

Some forms of abuse are obvious- physical abuse that leaves marks,  injuries, is obvious. Emotional and verbal abuse is still harmful but hard to prove or even see.

Abusive behavior may not only be in a romantic relationship. It can be with friendships, co-workers, employers, family members.

Where I began to understand what abuse is is when a local DV shelter was selling T shirts for a fundraiser. The statement on the shirt simply said "Love Doesn't Hurt". It didn't define abuse, but made the point that if someone is feeling hurt a lot, and often, in a relationship, or friendship, maybe that relationship is not good for that person.

I think in all relationships, there's some times where someone is hurful to the other person. Maybe they are tired and irritable and say something snappy to them. It's when the hurtful behavior is frequent, or cyclic, and crosses the line- saying something snappy vs name calling, cussing, constant criticism. It doesn't matter what the definition is. If you find yourself feeling hurt a lot of the time. If your partner dismisses it with more criticism "you are too sensitive" or blames you for it- you don't have to accept this.

Whatever anyone calls it- the behavior and dynamics in your relationship with your ex were hurtful to you. It's not only about blame- it can be an observation for you to make a decision about. Labeling your ex's behaviors as abuse doesn't affect your ex but it can be something helpful to you- so if you experience them in another relationship you can decide- this isn't good for you and end it rather than let it go on. You can believe you deserve to be treated decently in any kind of relationship. You are the value in identifying it- you are worth it.