> What circumstances do you feel abuse is good since you don't believe it should be labeled bad.

I'm not saying that abuse is good. I think that anyone who understands the concept of abuse understands that abuse is bad. That isn't what is at issue, here.

The issue is one of whether we label certain events 'good' or 'bad' or whether we simply describe them and their effects.

'My mother tormented me' has a very different feel to it than 'my mother yelled at me a lot and hit me'. It can hurt to be yelled at a lot and hit - I'm not denying that. But was my mother a *tormentor*? Was she an *abuser*?

Whether she was a 'tormentor' or 'abuser' or not seems to not follow from a neutral description of what happened and from a neutral description of the effects that her actions had on me. We can agree that she hit me and she yelled at me a lot. We can agree that that had many harmful effects on me. One was that I became shy around people because I expected them to hurt me. There are others, too. We can agree about the many harmful effects on me and still... Disagree about whether she was an 'abuser' or 'tormentor' or not. Similarly... We can agree that I felt hurt and small and scared and that that had many negative effects on me... While (at the very same time) disagreeing about whether I was a 'victim' and about whether my present symptoms signify 'traumatization'.