There can be a lot of abusive behavior in religious relationships and I have met a lot of women, and some men, who were told they were weak for being victims of any type of violence. And that being what was labeled as weak was also their own fault.

I think Lundy Bancroft offers some new perspective and ways of making change happen in a healthy way. I'm still reading and slowly understanding and it helps putting some past experiences, also in cults, into perspective. He doesn't seem to be love bombing.


[lundybancroft.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/2021 04:34PM by mesche.

Hi, I've been reading one of Lundy Bancroft's books lately too. I think it is useful to help put abusive relationships into contexts. The book I was reading seemed rather awkwardly gendered but it's very useful to think of control tactics and the way that some of them can relate to social roles.

I don't think being abused is a weakness at all. I was in abusive situations continuously until the age of around 30. If you think of how much strength and loyalty someone must have in order to stand by their abusers and continuously work to fix everything in a world where they are under constant stress, the idea that that is any kind of weakness or stupidity is laughable. Anyone capable of enduring abuse over the long term is doing it because they believe that such endurance will lead to positive outcomes eventually (they'll finally make their angry partner happy or will bring about a new Eden on earth, or end social ills for the good of humanity, etc). It isn't a weakness to see the best in someone or something, and to continue to believe in it even as you endure the worst behaviour that person or group has to offer.

But it also isn't weakness to reach a point where you turn around and think, "no, none of this is going anywhere, it's just endless pain, I can't fix this person or save the world or achieve whatever task I've set myself, it is too much, and my goodness and self-belief is being exploited here. Their goals are not my goals, I am in the wrong place."

I think abuse generally happens to kind and supportive people. The thing that struck me most about LB's writing is the way abusers twist everything around so that they are the victims, so it is always the other party who feels that they are guilty and responsible. So I think we're most susceptible if we have the most empathy and really desire to be good people, no matter what everyone else is telling us about ourselves. If we didn't care, we wouldn't endure it.

(Of course, as soon as we try to leave an abusive relationship or group, we get called evil by our ex-people and weak by wider society. Survivorship is invisibility.)

Most people who get abused do not havesolid boundaries or enough self respect.
Like we have been abused verbally, emotionally since childhood.
Or those who are too trusting and empathic.
The we also start abusting oursleves through nasty inner dialogue, eating or emotional disorders...
So the healing must be mostly focused on a healthy relation with self.
To become a protective parent and bodyguard of ourselves.
I now would never allow one single word of abuse. I face my abusers. I also faced the abuser within myself.
I carried the helpless little kid with me into a great part of adulthood.
Now I have no tolerance nor humility for abuse or dictatorship.
However even those with self respect and solid boundaries can get hypnotized by cults.
Even if they do not allow abuse within the cult, they still get used and manipulated in other ways.
I know a girl who has boundaries as solid as titanium and yet she slaved for a few years for our slave master guru.
Under austere conditions.