After Abuse: On Rebuilding the Ability to Trust

[emberleo]

I wrote most of this up for a student of mine who has grown so much in the last few years, but still has those days where it seems like nothing ever goes anywhere, and it's just not worth it. I learned whatever of this is true both from my own personal experience and from discussing such topics with other friends who have their own histories. Two

Comments

[emberleo]

Going over my own idea belatedly, I want to point out for anyone reading now that I don't feel this accounts for conditions of Institutionalized Privilege. It's intended to model the response to personal abuse.

In the context of things like sexism, racism, etc. what I think perhaps a person may realize at stage 4 is that while the system has a bias against them, it also has a bias against other people in their category, and that the bias can sometimes be worked around or overcome, because it's not conscious, it's systemic.

However, I have a lot less experience with this part of the question, not having felt particularly abused for the ways in which I'm a minority myself, so I don't trust that I have the right idea in this case.

--Ember--