So, this isn’t really a writing post.  Clearly, but I feel like I should point out that this is more about mental health and abuse.  I’ve been dancing around posting about this for a few years now.  I was scared that it would be too triggering or cause a fight in the comments.  Didn’t want people to take things the wrong way either.  Now, I feel like I should bring this up because it is a sensitive situation that more people are going through than one would realize.

This situation is when one person is abusing someone else when other people aren’t around.  It can be physical, but that causes bruises.  It tends to be emotional, verbal, or mental abuse.  For example, always making the person feel like a failure regardless of what they are doing.  It isn’t in a kind way, but cutting and sometimes even yelling.   This keeps their self-esteem low and their tension high, which is what the abuser wants.  That is because the pain they are inflicting isn’t the main goal.  It’s to get their victim to a point where they are on edge and about to blow.  This is why it’s commonly done to people who suffer from anxiety and other mental illnesses that can lead to short tempers.  It all leads up to a single prod in public when the person is at the brink.  Then:

BOOM!

The victim explodes in rage and screams at the abuser with people only seeing this reaction to what they see as a mild irritation.  The audience doesn’t know what has happened behind closed doors.  They don’t know that the person losing their temper has been keeping it under control for days, weeks, or even months while they are mentally eroded.  The abuser becomes the victim in the eyes of everyone, which is the real goal of the abuse.  Now, nobody will believe the true victim if they try to say what happened beforehand because they were the ones seen as the ‘monster’.  It doesn’t matter if they were routinely broken down and belittled.  It doesn’t matter if they were cornered in a room and scolded until they yelled back to make the torture stop.  Nobody saw what was going on and the victim wasn’t in a position to document things.  It becomes the world of a person who lost their temper vs the one who was cowering and acting it up to make sure they were seen as a victim.

It’s a situation like this that makes me wish life was kind of like books.  We can see everything happening to the characters.  Readers know the abuse that happened beforehand and understand why the public explosion occurred. Even if it wasn’t revealed until afterwards, the readers will believe the abused because the author is making it clear that this is the truth.  We don’t have an omnipotent being who steps in to say ‘Hey, that person is lashing out in pain caused by the one you’re defending!’  Instead, the one who got manipulated and couldn’t hold it together gets a taste of public justice since nobody is going to investigate.  Only their real friends and those who happened to see what really occurred will be believed, but the narcissist will have already pushed them away from the majority of the audience.

This reality makes me try to pause when I see a public outburst and wonder if the one screaming is actually the aggressor.  Are they working off a short-fuse or have they been secretly pushed to the point where one prod at the wrong time will cause a scene?  I see it only social media for views a lot as well as in the real world.  Part of it is that the surge of anger puts everyone in the area on edge, which means most aren’t thinking straight.  You might not even realize that it’s going on in your own head.  It gets really bad if someone decides to physically interject and confront the person who has lost it, which makes things worse.  The whole situation becomes a mess with the real abuser sitting in the middle absorbing all of the sympathy and attention aimed at them.

Well, I think I’m starting to just ramble, but I wanted to get this off my chest.  Even taking breaks while writing this didn’t help keep me entirely calm.  What do other people think of this situation?