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wilwheaton:

furiousgoldfish:

Abusers are
generally great at something called “manufacturing insecurity”. It
means, even if you’ve never been insecure about something, abuser will create
an insecurity about it, solely for the purpose of emotionally manipulating you.
Meaning, when you’re not doing, saying, or thinking what they want, they have a
go at your “insecurity”, triggering your pain, fear, guilt, shame,
everything they taught you to feel, as a way to teach you that this pain is
what you’re going to get if you fail to obey them.

It’s not exactly
hard to manufacture an insecurity (provided you are cruel and vicious), all you have to do is take a social norm and
convince a person they aren’t good enough in one or all departments. You
convince a person they’re too loud, too fat, too ugly, slow, naive, gullible, stupid, lazy,
selfish, sexual, provocative, demanding, and that this is the reason why they
will always fail, it’s a reason why they keep getting hurt, it’s a reason why
nobody will ever love or care for them. It’s utterly cruel, and an absolute
lie. Deviating from the “norm” in any way is not a reason of any of
those things, if you’re getting hurt it’s because people are hurting you, if
you’re unloved it’s because people around you refuse to show affection and
care. These things cannot be the individual’s fault, it’s always the
environment setting person up for pain. And abusers already know this. But they
make a step to convince a victim it’s all their fault, everything others do to
them, their fault. And even worse, that they deserved being hurt.

This kind of
nonsense blaming everything on unrelated trait of individual can lead to a
person getting terrified they could have somehow caused horrible things just by
being themselves, that it’s impossible to even predict what might happen to
them just because they’re “this way” or another. It creates an
atmosphere of panic and confusion, and they find themselves seeing no way
forward but to accept guidance from abuser. Abuser then pretends to know what
victim is to do in order to avoid pain and failure – of course, only up to the
point when abuser decides to inflict pain on purpose, to control and
manipulate.

You’re not stupid
if you fall for this kind of trap, it’s designed to work on people who are
self-aware, who work on getting themselves better, who are trying their
hardest. You don’t even have to lack confidence, abusers will take a confident
person and eat their confidence away. And once caught in this situation, it
might be hard to believe that someone would stoop that that kind of cruelty and
lie to you while knowing perfectly well that you are good, that there’s no
reason on earth to criticize your traits, that you have nothing to be ashamed
of. That you haven’t deserved any of it.

“if you’re getting hurt it’s because people are hurting you, if you’re unloved it’s because people around you refuse to show affection and care. These things cannot be the individual’s fault, it’s always the environment setting person up for pain. And abusers already know this. But they make a step to convince a victim it’s all their fault, everything others do to them, their fault. And even worse, that they deserved being hurt.”