Who enabled your abuser?

Pretty much this. In the case of domestic abuse everyone sees family as an inherently perfect infallible structure or it's not abuse if a family member is doing it, only strangers can be abusers!

In my case people told me to get a job since when I was 5yo if I want to live abuse-free life and a 'friend' dissed me when i spoke out about abuse telling me I'm just having PMS...but at the same time he said I shouldn't have children if I'm going to abuse them. Go figure.

Nobody ever did anything to help me. But oh, they're my self-styled friends, kin and countrymen. I ***** on them all.

Too many to list and nobody ****kng helped me

Hello,
I was raised by two sets of parents for a time. My biological parents divorced when I was only 2 years old. My step father was very abusive towards my Mother, then abusive towards me . On a sunday after a visit from my Father my step father interrogated me scaring the **** out of me for hours. My Mother stood by & did nothing. In fact she added to the craziness by hitting me. With my biological father he too did nothing while his 2nd Wife abused me. Often he would repeat the very same destructive things she would say to me. This would go back & forth for a period of time. I thought my brain would swell inside of my head, I would often sweat profusely right through my clothes b/c I would be so frightened by what I was going through. I may have suffered from getting hit on the head as well. So sometimes if I write some stuff on here & It doesn't make sense or sounds off kilter.....well that could be why. My doctor seems to think I may have been hit on the head when I was younger. I remember quite a bit but of course the older one gets there are just some things that happen like at age 4 or 5 or possibly younger that you don't remember. So Dad was a coward ( to put it nicely) and so was Mom. In my Mom's case she could have pulled a weapon out. I know that it sounds controversial but for me I couldn't stand by & see a little child get tormented by some 6 foot 2 inch ex marine.

I'm very sorry no one helped you. I feel similarly.

I've enabled many since early on, am 61. It seems so impossible to leave them, but one can muster the strength/courage/rage/whatnot to call abuser's bluff, lets just say. They're bullies, remember? So cowards in the end. Essential to keep this in mind, when getting free!

Their Parents
And my mother needs no enabler. She's an incredibly intimidating woman. People just stay out of her way out of fear of her.

My mother enabled my father. His parents and many friends also enabled him. Everyone knew something was wrong, but wanted to stay out of it. Every adult seemed thankful that they weren't the one on the receiving end of his ire.

I think mom was always on the edge of being physically abused herself, so it may have been a relief that it was always her kids being beaten instead of her. She was always a witness. Sometimes she was even an informer, telling him things she knew would make him hit us.

To this day, I think she sees herself in me, which isn't a good thing because her self esteem is pretty tragic. She thinks I'm lucky - lucky to have a loving husband, lucky to have a job, lucky to have friends, like I should thank my lucky stars that anyone would have me, which of course makes me feel like I'm totally worthless and awful.

Hi starfruit504, maybe your mom feels lucky that you were strong enough to survive and that you are wonderful enough to look at what was hard in your life and still find joy. There might be a small pocket in your mom, behind her feeling sorry for herself and playing games that martyrs play, that just feels happy that you have good things in your life. I have just come to see that my mom was an addict and that comes with a whole world that had nothing to do with me. I think wives of abusers have their own out of control emotions and behavior that has nothing to do with their children. The only thing I had to answer for was for me to stop being angry I didn't get enough love and to tell myself it was okay to want love and protection from someone out of control.

My mother did, but I enabled it as well by never saying anything although the physical abuse signs she seen the sexual she did not.

One of the worst things about my situation is that my abuser convinced others to abuse me along with him. I've been under constant fire every way I turn. The fact that others were persuaded to go along with him and persecute me is beyond comprehension. I suffered for many, many, years and still living with it. No one will help because it was emotional abuse. I can't move out of state. I am stuck. I hope someone will wake up and see what has really been going on here. The brainwashing was rampant. At least I tried to fight back. Others just stood there without a brain or a soul and watched.

Hi Tried2long, I got to be the devil too. My mom convinced my dad and all my relatives that I caused her to be an alcoholic. I had years of her pushing me out of my family and of everyone shunning me. Then my ex started to do the same thing with my children, turning them against me and saying it was my fault my eldest was on drugs. I learnt not to react because I love my kids but at the same time to draw some hard lines about their behavior to me. I did what I believed was right as a decent human being while trying to figure out how to listen to my son who is addicted. I am going to a therapist to learn how to stand up and communicate clearly but not to head but someone who has dug in because they are scared. I hear you about how hard it is when the abuser spins his story and appoints you so no one looks at him,

It sounds to me like you were put in the "scapegoat" role in your family. None of them wanted to see their own failings and so they began to blame "you" instead. This is what chickens do, they start pecking at a chicken and suddenly that chicken gets pecked on by all the other chickens which is what we call "pecking order". It doesn't mean the chicken that is chosen to be pecked at is a bad chicken either. Primates practice this too, and we "are" primates.

If you happen to be the one that your family members have chosen to peck at, that means the best thing for you to do is distance from them. Know that you NEVER did anything bad or that you were ever really unworthy just because you fell into being the one that was pecked on/ or became the scapegoat.

Unfortunately DarknessIsMyFriend, this problem is within human nature itself. Actually, this behavior shows up in all primates. Yet, also in other mammals as well. Unfortunately, human beings like other primates are VERY malleable when it comes to looking for a scapegoat to blame and affect emotional abuse on and blame and hate.

All X's are bad, it's THEIR FAULT that there is suffering taking place. This isn't just something that can happen within a family, it can also happen within ANY group of human beings. It's interesting when someone is an X and does something bad how that becomes forgivable in that that individual is an X by the group that chooses to follow that X group. Human beings notoriously divide into groups and develop a dislike and "blame" towards another group even when the other group is the same color and religion or culture. Indians fought and killed other Indians, Scots fought and killed other Scots, Irish fought and killed other Irish, Mexicans fight and kill other Mexicans, African Americans fight and kill other African Americans, Muslims fight and kill other Muslims.

If you really stand back and decide NOT to follow but instead stay neutral, you will definitely begin to see the "blindness" of it and how much it exists in "human nature" and how TOXIC it can get too.

Another words, abusers are literally "chickens"? This seems fitting that these abusers who treat people like this have the behavior of a farm animal that the rest of us raise as food. I knew I was right in regarding them as "genetically inferior" because chickens are inferior to humans since we are above them in the food chain and are more intelligent than they are.

I wonder if they taste like chicken too

Lol, glad you are finding some amusement. However, and I am sure you know, what I am describing is the behavior itself that even chickens practice. I have seen horses do this too and I often will choose the one that gets picked on as I have found these ponies to be more gentle and kind and passive which makes them safer to train to be around young children.

When it comes to human beings, often the one that ends up getting picked on is the kindest nicest one. It is these individuals who tend to stand out to individuals who abuse too.

My father was too weak to stand up to her. She would threaten to leave him and he couldn't think of life without her.

I can believe that Travelinglady, and your father most likely grew up in a family where the woman wore the pants which was the old fashioned way of saying the woman was the boss. So, he could not imagine living his life without that kind of structure.

When it comes to asking the question "who enables the abuser", often it can be the victim but only because the victim becomes a victim before that individual even has any skills or life experience to know any different.

Dysfunction is something that is handed down in families and that includes abuse and neglect and often a child that is designated the scapegoat too. Also, a lot of children have been handed these rules and expectations from their parents that NEVER take into account what that child is actually capable of.

Society tells us to love our family, that family is important and that family is celebrated and the one place we are supposed to be loved and feel safe. There is this STORYBOOK fairy tale when often the reality is that one's own family is actually TOXIC for them. When the holidays come around for MANY people it's such a huge reminder of a lot of NEGATIVES and that's why therapists are often the busiest during the holidays.

If a parent tells their child that they will never make it on their own, that they will merely be "dependent" for the rest of their lives. Sadly, the child is deeply conditioned to believe this. When children go to school and they don't get top grades, they are encouraged to believe they are stupid or in someway "not good enough". The children that do well and want to get these gold stars can grow to believe they are "better than or entitled" when in reality, they are not really "better than". Sometimes that's even worse because if that individual somehow "fails" down the road, that person is more likely to be completely "shattered".

So, unfortunately, there are a lot of things in place that enable abusers and often these abusers don't even know they are in fact TOXIC.

So true! I agree.

It was and is my mom.

It would have to be my mom .. I told her what was going on but all she told me was if it ever happened again then she would say something.

In my case, the question is more like, who didn't enable my abusers?

My boyfriends mother primarily-- although he is near 50 yrs old after he was arrested for assaulting me she got his stepdad to fork over thousands to provide a private attorney- even though he was in the same trouble- a felony dv charge against a former girlfriend and mom paid 8,000 for his defense. About midway through the relationship she became aware he was beating me and she responded by reminding me to "try and get along and don't make him mad"--- she also discouraged him from following through with taking a domestic violence intervention class-- she warned him not to do it because it could later on be used against him and told him to go to regular counseling instead if he wanted which isn't effective for batterers.
In short she coddles and enables him. At almost 50 yrs old. She always believes he is the wronged party despite now having gone to jail for beating up two different girlfriends, it's her goal to propagate to others the notion he is misunderstood and people push his buttons and he feels triggered and it's not his fault then if he beats them up.

I was emotionally abused by my step-dad. He is an alcoholic. Her husband would come home drunk and pick fights with me and her. He would get up in my face and try to get me mad. Her husband would push me. One night I got tired of him and I pushed him back. I called the police and went to live with my material grandmother. My mom would excuse his behavior because he was drunk. Her father was a drunk and she dealt with his rage. The enablers were my mom and grandmother

Thank you Open Eyes. I was set up to be the victim by my Mom and my ex and now my children. I was reacting like I used to do, disassociating, defending, and placating. My mind was clear but the words coming out of my mouth and my body posture were saying "F.... You. Are you kidding me." I apologized for my part this year, am trying to listen to what everyone is saying, and am making plans that support my life going the way I want it to. Looking around without anger, I can see everyone busy, not listening to me, and treating me like I am strong enough to not enjoy life. I want to be joyful and they might be surprised how strong I really am when I pursue good healthy things.