Comments | _survivors_: Silence is Consent

sapphiremoon76 in _survivors_

Silence is Consent

Aug 29, 2007 01:58

A friend of mine tonight told me that she thinks killing dogs is worse than killing humans or raping women. She says women aren't defenseless but dogs are.

She's said other things about rape that make me furious, but since she has been a survivor herself, I have tried to deal with it. But, tonight, she went so far as to say a woman who drops a rape ( Read more... )

invalidation, victim-blaming

Comments 17

eastertheatre August 29 2007, 07:39:22 UTC

I don't know anyone like that, but if I did, I would do exactly what you did. There is no way I would let this person continue to be in my life. She doesn't care about your feelings or take them seriously, and that seems like just the tip of the iceberg of this person's problems. You are totally justified in not talking to her anymore.

eastertheatre August 29 2007, 07:40:56 UTC

I just want to add that all this sounds like she is rationalizing and trying to justify her own abuse in order to avoid the pain, and if she were to come to me with that realization and apologize, I would be her friend again. But not the way she is acting now.

sapphiremoon76 August 29 2007, 18:09:19 UTC

Thanks. It's so hard to turn my back on other survivors, but I'm facing the anniversary of this event and it happens to also be my birthday. And she knows this and picks this time to lay into me...again. I'm done. It is very nice to be able to come here and find a kind of sisterhood in cyberspace that is elusive in the real world. And I guess I have to accept that sometimes survivors turn into abusers rather than deal with their own issues and I'm not turning my back on a survivor but someone who wants to drag me down with her. We've been friends for 8 years, but this is just over. I have to love me and I was doing a lot better before I saw her last night. Thank you.

femme_f August 29 2007, 09:36:23 UTC

Oh gosh, no, I really hope you stop thinking you're being too hard. I think it's not healthy at all to have someone like that in your life (I have similar experienceds, but it didn't went as far as with you). You take care of yourself and stay away from her.
And I agree with eastertheatre, she probably does this to avoid her own pain, but she hurts you with her behaviour, so it's bad for you nonetheless.

sapphiremoon76 August 29 2007, 18:13:05 UTC

Thank you. I am done. She's sent me 35 text messages overnight telling me all kinds of ridiculous stuff about how I want to be a victim and its a man's world and there's nothing we can do blah blah. I told her she is a traitor to us all. It sucks when we love people who we can't love, you know?

not to be blunt, but... blueserenity22 August 29 2007, 15:17:49 UTC

FIRST: Don't have associations with that woman.

SECOND: I've told this story before, but I had a situation once where a guy had said that at least the girl had "learned her lesson (since/if) it hurt". I started yelling at him in the middle of the restaurant and threatened to mace him if he ever said something like that again.

So do I think you're over-reacting? No. :)

I have to disagree with eastertheatre on one point. Even if she apologized, I wouldn't be her friend again. Why? Because she's already made all of these hurtful decisions towards you, showing you that she doesn't respect you (by being friends with that other woman, and by her comments). I have a BIG thing with respect. A simple, "I'm sorry" wouldn't cut it with me. I'd just cut my losses.

However, I know not everyone's the same. I just hope you make the decision that will keep you safe and happy and balanced :) ♥

Re: not to be blunt, but... sapphiremoon76 August 29 2007, 18:21:44 UTC

Thanks for validating my feelings. I feel silly needing it, but this is almost the anniversary of the kidnapping and I just needed people who know what I'm going through to tell me I'm not being a bad friend. I don't think I can forgive her if she asks me to saying that she is a victim again -- that is what she has done every time this has come up. And I don't want to this time. Thanks for helping me toughen up. :)

Re: not to be blunt, but... blueserenity22 August 29 2007, 20:55:00 UTC

No, I understand and if you're unsure it always helps to get other people's perspectives :)

And she shouldn't be using the "victim" card. That's low. Especially when she's being detrimental to YOUR healing. That to me says that she just isn't a healthy person to be around.

Re: not to be blunt, but... sapphiremoon76 August 30 2007, 04:11:15 UTC

I hate the victim card too. She sent another text today saying "you wanted to pick a fight and you turned a fight about a dog into a fight about rape. its all about rape with you and your fine and i'm in crisis." and she said she'd never talk to me again and that she's tired of playing a game with no rules and good riddence to me. The rule seemed clear to me - that i don't hang out with rapists or their buddies. I turned off my phone with no intention of reading anymore when my mom called and said the cops had come and taken her away from work for felony warrants in Kentucky. (My mom works with her.)She's a fugitive for identity theft. Can you believe that? Maybe she and Michael Vick can be pen pals. Or Kobe.

Thread 5

sistahraven August 29 2007, 15:42:49 UTC

If I had someone like this in my world, I wouldn't talk with them again either. It's one thing to have a different opinion, even a drastically different opinion on some things, but it's another when it clearly crosses over into victim blaming.

I could even follow a bit of her logic, though I disagree... but to disbelieve the "probability" of you being raped multiple times? She obviously has never read a book. Survivors are *often* abused repeatedly in their lifetimes - the cycle of abuse is a tough one to break out of no matter what type of abuse you experience.

I agree with the others - she's using victim blaming as a means to express her own guilty feelings about being a survivor. She's projecting her own self loathing onto other survivors instead of facing and processing her own pain and learning to love herself.

sapphiremoon76 August 29 2007, 19:03:00 UTC

First, I'd just like to say thank you, sistahraven, for creating and/or moderating this forum. When I woke up this morning, I didn't want to get out of bed. Well, I thought I could get out of bed and start drinking or take a tranquilizer, but that is not how I've been dealing with this, and I don't want to start that now. I really can't write when I'm drinking at 9 am, you know? But knowing that there might be some kind of help here gave me something to look to instead and here it was ( ... )

sistahraven August 29 2007, 19:24:07 UTC

:) You're welcome. While I can't take credit for this community's creation, I'm glad that the space myself and my co-mods through the past 20 months has been supportive and therapeutic. Whenever survivors band together, there's such strength - like you said, it's US against everything instead of ourselves against everything. PTSD and flashbacks and depression seem less overwhelming when we know we have support ( ... )

sapphiremoon76 August 30 2007, 04:04:35 UTC

I understand what you are saying about the difference between being in a crisis and being manipulative. Ironically, a strange twist of events seems to have relieved me of my problems with this woman.

I can't believe this happened today: she was arrested for 6 counts of felony identity theft. She's been wanted in Kentucky for months, but she moved to another state last year hiding from the charges. She was arrested at work. She works with my mom, so mom told me the story.

I'm really stunned. I feel a little guilty because I'm kind of relieved that she can't bother me anymore, but she's someone I have loved for a long time and walking away from her felt like the right thing to do, but her life is ruined. She was a fugitive on six felonies. I don't think that once she's extradited she'll be able to get bail. I think she's going to be in the prison for a long time. It's really weird that this all happened at the same time. I'm just stunned, and I wanted to tell y'all that.

Thanks for being so cool to me. :)

Thread 6

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sapphiremoon76 September 1 2007, 05:36:36 UTC

Thank you. It really sucks because she studied psychology, so she really knew how to manipulate people. But, I don't really have to cut her out of my life because she was arrested for six counts of felony identity theft wednesday night. She's been back in town for about a year, and she's been running from these charges since. From what her cousin told me, she won't be getting out of prison for a long time. She won't even be in prison near me because she is being sent to Kentucky. By the time she gets out, I'll have moved far, far, away from here. In the last few days, I've realized just how poisonous she was for me, and I'm wondering what I can do to avoid getting so close to someone like her again.