Stop Defending Your Abusive Family

A victim’s plea to the families of abusers

When I say stop defending your abusive family I mean it for both inside and outside victims. If your family is abusive to you, don’t make excuses for them, stand up, and be prepared to distance yourself. If you know someone in your family is abusing others, don’t put yourself in the position of abusing by proxy.

“People who side with your abuser and shift blame on you are no different than your abuser, toxic is toxic, even by proxy” — Unknown.

Abuse by proxy is the use of other people to stalk, threaten, harass, control, or manipulate the victim. Abusers are addicted to abuse. Abusing their victims on their own is not enough so they pull in other people to do their bidding. Abusers often come from abusive backgrounds and their families will not only side with them but probably have generations of practice.

Victims of abuse don’t know who to trust, abusers deny and blame the victims to the point that they begin to blame themselves. The mental and emotional health of an abuse victim is hanging by a thread, making it easier for outsiders to believe the abuser, and adding to the damage of abuse.

What is abuse?

One thing that perpetuates abuse is that so few people know what counts as abuse. Physical abuse is more obvious and can range from pushing and shoving to beatings and the use of weapons. Psychological abuse is less apparent and much less understood.

Psychological abuse includes manipulation and control. Manipulation can be very subtle and seem harmless to an outsider who isn’t aware of the hidden messages. Psychological abusers will claim “they’re only trying to help” or “they don’t know why their victims are reacting.”

Emotional abuse in intimate relationships can include lying, denying a victim’s thoughts and emotions, blaming, and cheating. A very common form of cheating includes developing emotional and intimate relationships and using the hidden relationships to discredit their victims.

Psychological abusers are unstable, self-interested, play the hero and victim, and most often isolate their victims from the world. Oftentimes too, a victim will self-isolate due to the shame and psychological damage of the abuse. The following power and control wheel outlines common abuse tactics. The wheel was developed in 1979 and updated in 1984 so please excuse the gender bias.

Along with cheating, abuse by proxy was my abuser’s favourite tool, once he couldn’t get a hold of me he tried every possible avenue to continue the abuse through strangers, the few family members who would side with him, the local ambulance, family violence services, and even the police. Fortunately, many of the services he tried initiating could see through it all and quickly ensured my children were protected.

In family court, my abuser’s family wrote a 16-page affidavit full of lies, denials, excuses, and elaborate stories that eventually saved my family. Four family members, a father, sister, mother, and stepfather, seemed proud of the fact they had meetings to conjure up fairy tales.

“The lies we live will always be confessed in the stories that we tell” — Orson Scott Card.

The abuser even got his doctor to write a letter that stated he would support my abuser in court. The lawyers felt the doctor had acted irresponsibly having supported the abuser without knowing any of the facts. Also, the letter only proved the abuser was still making up stories that did not match the facts and it verified he was both deluded and still trying to abuse me through other people.

Their fabrications saved my family because it demonstrated that they had no interest in protecting the children and their only goal was to discredit me and my family. Despite the hate that family court lawyers get, I believe they genuinely want the best for the children.

Maybe it is easy for me to defend family court because it worked out well for me. Maybe I was lucky to get the best lawyers in town, not because of money, but because they’re the lawyers that the family violence support services use where I live. Maybe I was also lucky my abuser’s family seemed unaware of their self-interest or even that their behaviour was abusive, so they dug their own holes through the process.

I do wonder what it must be like to know that you have an abusive and violent person in your family. I wonder would I defend them or want to protect people from them.

I believe I would choose the latter and might even get myself in trouble with my violent family member because I just won’t have it. One family member in my abuser’s immediate family keeps his own children away from them too; his determination inspired me throughout the court process.

Abuse is so normalized in many families that many ignore it, make excuses, lie, and deny the violence that permeates their lives. The lengths the abuser and his family went to for self-preservation were extreme; nothing could prevent them from continuing their attacks, not even the opportunity to get to know the children.

The court heard how difficult it was for the abuser and his family to make time for the children because the two that were employed had unstable work hours and expected special treatment, they even felt I should cover their costs because they had financial difficulties. Every time an arrangement for supervised visits was made, they would make excuses for not being able to make it.

Eventually, they stopped turning up to supervised visits. Unfortunately, they hurt my children by leaving them waiting for visits without explanation and contacting the court to say they no longer wanted to supervise because the children’s father was not interested in seeing them. Rather than replying to me and sorting it out like adults, they contacted the court and demonstrated their inability to make reasonable decisions.

As one final blow, the abuser’s mother contacted the court requesting that I had a drug test. I said I was glad to take a test and my lawyer contacted the mother to let her know the cost because there was no indication that I was on drugs so she would have to cover the cost. Also, the lawyer knew it was yet another one of many attempts they made to provoke me. Sometimes I wish she did cover the costs.

Denying abuse when there is clear evidence proves that the abuser is not prepared to take responsibility. Furthering irresponsibility by blaming their victim's borders on delusional. Abusers that can not take responsibility for their actions are not safe because they will not be responsive to treatment. Blame is abuse in itself.

When you’ve been putting up with violence for too long, you end up losing trust in yourself and others, you may even believe there is something wrong with you so provocation is easy.

Abusive people kick people when they are down and run when victims stand up. So whether your family is abusive to you or others, do the right thing, break that cycle and stand up against violence.

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Thank you for reading❤.