Abusers are not made abusers by their mental illnesses, but rather by their choices to not deal with their own issues, and make them everyone else's problems instead.Started with the point, now here's the explanation:Aight, so I've seen a lot of people refer to their abusers as their "bipolar mom" or "BPD dad," and as someone who was diagnosed with bipolar very early on (and contrasted with one of my abusers in my life- who I WILL be mentioning in this), this is incredibly demeaning.My issues with my abuse, were written off as me needing to "take my meds" and never looked at. So no one ever thought to ask why I suddenly became so angry (covert incest), and even I didn't understand why. I bought into that, and it was furthered when my stepfather and mother decided to take advantage of said anger in their own ways (more on that in a bit). But more so, having been diagnosed, I know to work on myself and check-in with myself when I know something's not right about how I feel, and that has only grown better with experience and time.I will be the first to admit, I am guilty of abusing my youngest brother. And I've chosen the manner of dealing with it that I believe will disrupt his life the least, as he made it perfectly clear my apologies mean nothing to him anymore. He sides with my abusers, and I'd finally gotten away from all of them before I realized it. And he is the only one I don't fully blame for their negative opinion of me. (He's become... interesting since I left). And I know about him, because I low-key keep in touch with one person from that life, because she was the only one to acknowledge anything was happening to me- also my mother is hell-bent on turning her into the new me).So HERE'S the crux of it: Your abusers were not abusive because they were mentally ill. They were abusive because they forced you to deal with it, instead of getting help.STORY TIMENo matter what he says, my stepdad is the most clearly autistic person I've ever met in my life, and one of my most sadistic abusers in a way that actually stemmed from that. That observation comes froma) the fact that we learn more about people on the spectrum as information developsandb) the fact that I have more meaningful relationships, and for longer with people on the spectrum than people who aren't. And I listened to them, and I learned to adapt to some of their needs to be a better damn friend. Yes that is tokenism, it is also true.When my stepdad became a part of our lives, dinner changed instantly. No cheese on anything ever-even if it was only the part we would eat, and didn't touch anything on the other half. No bones in meat. Ever. No skin on meat. Ever. No red meat. Ever. No popcorn. Ever. The only pasta allowed was spaghetti or angel hair, and everything else was completely forbidden. When I was about 11 I cooked dinner and he refused to eat it because of the "cooked tomatoes." I had put them in at the end, practically as a garnish. There was so much more, but we'd be here all day.But here's the fucked up part. I have massive sensory issues from my GAD- particularly when I'm stressed. He was the one who told me what was happening after we went to Dave & Busters as a big (step)family meet-up. The noises, lights, lack of space, completely overwhelmed me and I ended up crying my eyes out in a mini-breakdown from it.My stepdad is also hard of hearing. But he doesn't like wearing his hearing aids. So he bought a sound bar, which delivers movie-level quality to your normal-sized living room. I'm not kidding when I say that we would turn it down super low if we wanted to watch TV at night while others slept, and half the time the bass would still end up shaking the house, waking others up.But when he was watching, oh Jesus H did he turn that thing the HELL UP. Remember my sensory issues? Half the time they're limited to just sound. Which isn't as much of an issue when I can walk away. But the kitchen is downstairs and as a human, sometimes I cook food. Which then obviously has to be watched.Now I don't like TVs on around me, due to being completely ignored for them when I was making it clear I needed/ wanted to speak to my parents growing up, and most people who know me, know that.So I would cook with the TV off and enjoy the silence, and sometimes I liked to listen to NPR (which he always yelled at me to turn off, since he didn't like how it sounded). But if he wanted to bully me around, he'd come downstairs while I was cooking, turn that sound bar way, way up, and tell me I didn't need to be down there while I was cooking- even if it was for my mother in Thanksgiving prep. And he'd assert something absurd like, "Well I'm eating down here! I can't eat this upstairs!" and given his brutish nature, I was too scared to point out that I'd seen him eating crackers with butter on his bed, in his room more times than I can count.We'd be eating dinner "as a family" usually because I made it, and he'd turn that thing on, and when I wanted to leave the table- particularly when citing the sound- he'd yell at me that "This is family dinner, so sit down!" Anyone else was free to leave as they wished.Forcing me to listen to hellishly loud sound, with the knowledge of how it affects me is very literally torture. I felt like my brain would explode and melt out my eyes, it hurt so bad.My stepdad is a fucking autistic trainwreck. He refuses to acknowledge it, except maybe for the one instance where he mentioned a "learning disability." When he came into our lives, he started preaching the most fucked up "'people don't need meds" bullshit, that with a little toxic masculinity push, got both my brothers off their meds for their respective illnesses.The point is that he won't acknowledge areas where he needs to work on his own issues. We had to adjust everything for him. If I said anything about cooking, and told him I needed the space and he didn't, he'd approach me the next day and tell me how I was a "drama queen," and it was always very obvious that it was in my best interest to agree. But god help you if you whistled.My stepdad could have addressed his own issues, and not made every one of them our problems instead. He could also have- Idk, not deliberately tortured me by denying both his and my own mental illness issues?Y'all, he chose it. He chose to be an asshole. He chose not to address his flaws. He chose to make addressing his flaws tabboo.AND THAT'S WHY HE WAS ABUSIVE. NOT BECAUSE HE'S AUTISTIC.So please god, if you got to the end of this, stop making it out like your abusers' mental illnesses are the reason they were abusive. It's because they decided to make their problems yours, instead of working on their own damn selves.And please stop making it harder for those of us with those illnesses already having trouble being heard, and having it used as prime gaslighting material. We're trying too, and now abusers' problems are making ours worse, and when you do that, you're the conduit.Also, honest to god just have a problem all-around with the reason for a person's assholery being misattributed. But that's a post for another day. via /r/CPTSD https://ift.tt/3j6xauw
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