STOP FUCKING BLAMING THE VICTIM

DISCLAIMER:  I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist, and am not speaking from a professional standpoint.  It is my understanding of these issues as a survivor.           

Learned Helplessness is not actually about being helpless.  It is a process of cognitive, emotional, physical, and spiritual deterioration.  Learned Helplessness acknowledges how abuse changes a human being.

            People are often dismissive, disgusted, and scornful toward the term learned helplessness, reacting with an indignant, “No one is ever helpless.”  Some even display anger toward the victim, rather than holding the perpetrator responsible.  Some launch smear campaigns to make victims of domestic violence and sexual assault appear to be masochistic, whores, liars, and crazy.  Their integrity, pasts, reputations are all called into question.  Often, more of the focus is on whether the victims is to be believed or not.  Victims who stand up and speak out against what has happened to them are at risk for being ostracized and blamed for their abuser’s actions.

            Abuse can weaken even the strongest person.

            Why would we tell a person who has already been broken that they are at fault, or are weak for being changed by violence?  Why would we not offer our assistance and compassion?  Why would we not attempt to educate them on the cycle of abuse, Battered Women’s Syndrome, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Stockholm Syndrome, codependency?  Why wouldn’t we attempt to understand that a possibly abusive past could have laid the groundwork for the path that led them there?  Instead, we often judge and assume it the victim’s flaws in character, or bad decision making skills that have caused their current circumstances.