Ask Lemmy

I think it's because we are designed with a somewhat blank idea of what love is. We are born with a system that will become love, but we are born with it undefined. It's similar to how we are born with a need for food, but not our culinary culture. It is during our formative years that we learn what love is just like we learn what delicious food is. Btw, in Spanish, when a kid doesn't like to eat a specific food, it's said that they haven't learned to eat it yet. Back to the topic, the part that does come predefined is that we are to attach to our caregivers. Thus, we don't leave them because we are designed to not leave them and have them teach us love.

Another issue is that as children, we don't know we are being abused. What we've experienced in our families is all we know. From the perspective at this age, that's just how life is. There's no reason to leave.

Once we start realizing that not everyone goes through our experiences and that there are much nicer ways of relating to family, we can start recognizing that our familial situation is terrible and we want it to be different. The issue here is that there are only two options. Either you suffer the bad parts of the abuse while surviving on the breadcrumbs, or you lose any possibility of ever having a childhood family. The person basically has to decide to lose a major part of life. That is an immense amount of grief to endure, and they have to do it without the support of family. In these situations, the victim usually just kind of learns to manage the relationship unless there is a major catastrophic event that forces a decision. Otherwise, they're learning how to overcome the frequent but comparatively tolerable difficulties. You'll hear them say things like, "My dad is cool as long as you don't expect him to..." or, "I love my mom, but I know not to..." They're consolations to salvage their one opportunity. The decision is then to either (a) take a humongous hit by losing childhood family or (b) learn to deal with the most recent difficulty. The latter is much easier to brunt.

tl;dr: We don't know it's abuse. Instead, we are taught abuse is love. We are designed by birth to attach to our parents. And once we figure out it's abuse, it's a terribly difficult lose-lose decision to make where one option is addressing a recent issue and the other is nuclear.

fight, flight, freeze and FAWN are reactions to trauma / abuse. If a parent is abusing a child, children don't really have any other immediate option other than to fawn. They don't know to call the police, they can't fight back or run away.

sarcastically.

the "love" part is - as always - difficult to define. its a word widely abused by those who abuse in other ways anyway, while in non-abuse circumstances, "love" is kind of a word without clear definition. In some aspects this is very similar to love itself - as love has many ways and facets to it that can vary greatly - okay, but that possibly is only a thought fed by a lack of a more precise language and overall use of way too generic words.

A young child that is abused might not have experienced love in its short lifetime, yet it might use the word it once heared in different context out of just trying to get word meanings - that is learning to speak - or trying to figure out what could stop the abuser from abusing it, while their abusers might personally use the word "love" instead of "abuse" because abusing others - for the abuser - might be the one thing which makes them feel something that most closely matches what others say about how love feels. For the kid, love then is a wierd word with very contradicting meaning, which in turn would be said to be so by nearly all adults, but mostly for other reasons. Please try to be more precise when talking about serious love questions about abusive contexts =) let me now do a step aside to the literally cold part of the world. One knows snow and ice, but i once read in a documentation that some culture in an icy region has 32 words for different types of ice and snow for their daily use and i assume that this happened due to the need of definition what type of snow to expect 'over there', or maybe "tomorrow" or in discussions where to settle or how to reach a site.. that is having only one word that has to fit-them-all yet beeing so important and prone to be abused(abuse of the word here) it seems to me that the lack of words for defining a bit more precisely if it is loving like a (non-abusive) mother loving like a real friend loving sth like an enthusiast ... could probably have a slightly bigger role in the overall problem than anticipated in general.

but yes, the brain is programmable, you do it when learning to ride a bicycle. Social programming may work differently, but is also possible. See how many people are trained like apes to always shout how great their country is, how civilized etc they are, yet if you really look it, all the lies just stinc horribly and that so called civilisation is very far away from beeing civilised. yet all the programmed apes prodly shout the greatness does not even exist there, but maybe it exists in their dreams (only)...

but now to answer the question with what i personally think:

while the mind is still developing to actually come into existance, conciousness still is a rare visitor as it comes into play and drifts away again without having a way to make it stay, one has only few things randomly choosen that can be directly remembered and huge parts of time inbetween conscious moments which start with a fast-forward in time while the inbetween is like the memory of a bad dream, blurred, not in order etc, but yet is the actual reality consciousness then stepped into. Stepping in of not yet developed consciousness may also have an incontrollable timing of stepping in-and-out, making decisions very urgend to do before blurrtime starts again and consciousness stepsl out. While not having consciousness at hand alltime, one can - during conscious times - only act or even think so little until unconscious time of "instinc-only" starts again. Again in nonconcious time contra-abuse actions cannot be performed or even thought of. body screams in pain, making the abuser causing more pain to victim which causes body to scream more until finally passing out. however thinking how to get out is only available in moments when the currently developing consciousness actually steps in again which can be quite short and not so easy to predict when that happens or when it ends again.

In later stages where consciousness - while not fully developed - at least is nearly alltime available -that is until passing out of course- actions can be adjusted to like not(!) crying in pain when waking up from passing out (while still beeing abused though) so to disrupt this specific downward spiral of screaming-is-punished-by-more-abuse.

In later stages when beeing able to observe the little hints of psychological instabilities of the abusers and their "abuse triggers" a "profile" becomes visible -that is when the victim has sort of a years long running statistics about that broken abusers "personality" not because the victim wants to make statistics but because of intentionally forgetting things is just not yet available to the under-stress-developing personality / brain functions of the victim as same as also intentionally remembering things (in general or circumstances related) too is a not yet available brain function. Also some parts of a more developed brain hide horrible experiences from consciousnes while other parts try to reach the memories to not only complete development but also to maybe find solutions to get out of the danger by analyzing memories of what happened when and why, when did it stop and maybe what caused the stop so one can start to handle it somehow. So it all forms a rather horrible yet "luckily incomplete" statistics done under stressfull fight against oneself then later called maybe hust "experience" or trauma etc. while the victim should learn to cope and handle and develop its own body or brain functions or even personality, to prepare for life, it is >500% overload-occupied with learning to cope with the junkyard of the abusers "personality" to prevent the small quantum fluctuations in the inbalances of the abusers psycholigical radioactive mess to avoid at least passing out due to abuse. trying to prevent the abuse is then the only available way of trying to survive, which is also instinct driven and surviving is n1 priority of the child, that is if course unless the child develops suicidal thoughts as a result of abuse. If and only if the victim somehow survives this mentally and becomes capable of doing the splits (mind, not sports) it is then eventually able to try to analyse how it could be possible and plan ahead solving the problem by maybe leaving forever or maybe finding other solutions, beeing on a constant lookout for what might bring security instead of learning to live or enjoying life let alone build up his life. Children don't know what possibilities society in general offers or the risks child"care" offices pose to them (neither the other way around). They only rely on that little they know which is only their own experience and the "experience" of all ancestors combined and inherited in "instincts", which are both unreliable in such cicrumstances: instincts are sort of predictable by adults and often abused by abusers thus bad to rely on in an abusive context when still a child. The own experience is still very little, likely poisoned by abusers and logic (brain instinct?) also needs all relevant variables to make good decisions while the lack of experience causes a lack of knowing what variables would be relevant or do exist at all also again likely beeing poisoned by abusers. Decisions are made out of the visible(!) possibilities which are likely also intentionally reduced overall by abusers for this very reason maybe by cutting the cholds connections to others, telling the child that those neigbours were very evil persons etc.

Some types of abusers intentionally destroy their victims believe in themselves. this makes it very hard or impossible for the victim to get out on his own, sometimes the victims mind may even start to think (what narcisists heavily work on to achieve) that the current abusive situation was the best possible outcome of their life, which then stops the "want" of leaving the abusive context as result of the psycoligical trap the abuser intentionally layed.

Also leaving abusive circumstances always is risky, and one should be thoughtful about risky decisions in general, right? Obviously abusers already are ok with substancially harming the victims body, mind, life and soul. Also they usually fear to face consequences (not sociopath or psychopath they don't fear consequences), some would rather completely destroy the life of their victim than facing the consequences of their actions. Narcisists would probably make the friends of the victim believe the narcisist was the victim and the victim was the offender, deliberately destroying all friendships A sociopath would probalby cause unimaginable damages of any type to the victim not preventing even damage to himself, while a psychopath would maybe kill the victim for any reason including removal of evidences. Considering all of this does not make "leaving" abusive situations an easygoing task but a decision that can possibly and realistically end very horrible. Additionally victims might fear to get similar punishments from others when telling the truth so in fear might not even tell the truth when help would really be at the tip of their nose. Then saying weird things could be such an instinct kicking in and maybe not(!) a thoughtful decision. Saying such things (out of trained fear) that protect the abuser or even add insult to the victim itself (as trained by the abuser that the victim always has to insult and calling itself beeing responsible for all bad things or face even worse punishing) might also affect the victim to start to believe really untrue thing about itself. Most people struggle to get out if a single devils-circle, but what if a second circle was added?

this is part 1..

Who you love is ultimately up to you. Some people still have love for their parents despite strictness, others might place the bar lower than you describe. That isn't to say I encourage physical discipline, I'm only saying people have different priorities. I probably faced what people today would call an unacceptable category of discipline, but either way was and am too distracted by how I mention society treats me to care.

Sooooo, I have a ton of info here, but I’ll keep my point short and sweet.

Depending on the age, we HAVE to.

Because rejecting a parent is death. You’ll find that 7 year olds will make excuses for and defend abusive parents, because rejecting a parent is rejecting safety, housing, food etc….

And while that may be less true when you’re 18, some of that programming never leaves you, even if it should.

… so it just becomes a personal tragedy.

I made a post talking about my personal experience.

This post is more of a safety check. As a couple of other people pointed out you don't have to. And if the abuse is continuing, focus on your safety first.

I didn't speak to my father for 6 years. When he came back into my life, I think he understood that he couldn't take the relationship for granted. And that if he treated me like shit, I would never talk to him again.

I don't know that he really changed. But he does respect my boundaries now. Even if it's more out of fear of the consequences than compassion for me. And trying to understand and forgive has helped me to develop more compassion.

But I had stopped the cycle of abuse by setting a firm boundary with him. And that had to happen before any sort of trust could be rebuilt. And to be honest, that was his job. He needed to respect my boundaries to earn my trust. Trust is earned it's not given, after all. And without safety and trust, love can't flow.

So yeah, don't put it on yourself either. You are the victim of abuse. Restorative justice, such as making amends, rebuilding trust, and ultimately hoping that love can be there again, that's the job of the person that did the damage.

There is no requirement that you do. I'm completely unsure why people believe that you must allow shitty human beings in your life because they are family. Fuck that! Allow people in your life who make your life better. If that's family, that's great, if it's not family that's completely ok also.

It's been difficult for me. I find understanding helps a lot.

I view a lot of the abuse and family violence that I both experienced and witnessed, as a sort of generational shame and resentment, partially due to poverty and Catholicism. Coupled with jealousy of people born into more privilege who lived in our community. And a healthy dose of substance use to cope with the above feelings, primarily in the shape of alcohol, but also a lot of stimulant abuse in the family.

It helps a lot that my father has softened quite a bit. I don't know that he's completely changed in the sense of understanding how he has hurt people. But he seems to treat his current wife well, and with all of the male children out of the house the cycle of abuse seems to have stopped. And he has acknowledged how he's hurt me when I've brought it up, at least generally. And been supportive and not abusive since I turned 18.

I've also had to do a lot of personal work, a lot of self-discovery. And a lot of work with an excellent trauma therapist using IFS and EMDR, along with a meditation practice at home.

And all of that said it's a process. Sometimes my trauma gets triggered and I'm right there as a 12-year-old pissed off at him again. Which is to say give yourself some grace too.

we don't. well i don't. it's individual, but you loaded the question, so it's hard to answer it correctly