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The Higher Truth

Why do abusers usually say that the abuse never happened?

People unfamiliar with abuse often don’t realize that abusers usually deny the events. Most seem to assume that abusers deny the acts are abusive, but don’t deny the acts occurred. Targets often think this as well, and are surprised and baffled when they try to talk to the abusers and are greeted with a bland “I don’t remember that,” followed by a change of subject.

So why do they do this? If they really believe they never did anything wrong, why won’t they acknowledge the actions occurred?

Ages ago, I read an Issac Asimov story in which a character posited the existence of something called “higher truth.” The example was of a friend who always makes the same lame joke when arriving, and a third person asking the speaker if that was annoying. The speaker said that he should most truthfully reply no, because saying no served the “higher truth” of the man being his friend.

I turned this idea around for quite a while before eventually rejecting it. No, the truth is simply whatever is real, and saying that something else is somehow truer is a potentially dangerous philosophy. Say you like your friend anyway, or say he’s worth it, or just own the fact that you’d rather tell a small lie than badmouth a friend to an acquaintance. There is no reason to invent some secret, inner “real truth” hiding underneath those pesky, misleading facts.

Abusers, by and large, never figure this out. They know for certain that they are wonderful people. Since that’s an axiom, events indicating otherwise would be misleading. Other people learning of these events might be misled into thinking the abuser isn’t great, and that would be incorrect. The events may technically have happened, but acknowledging them would only lead others away from important truths, the most important of which is that the abuser is great.

“I don’t remember that” serves the higher truth that the abuser is wonderful.

The Tragedy of King Lear Isn’t What Most People Think

While reading about children of emotional abusers, I encountered a piece which referenced King Lear’s most famous quotation: “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth / It is to have a thankless child!” The author remarked that nobody seemed to know which daughter Lear meant — and that it was Cordelia. I was quite enchanted by this idea, but looked it up and learned that it was actually Goneril.

Disappointing? Not for long. I was inspired to re-read the play, and discovered something very interesting. If I read the play without the preconceived idea that Goneril and Regan are bad, they … aren’t. They tell their father what he wants to hear, but there’s no malice in it. Until Cordelia turns it serious, it’s just a little game of “Tell me how much you love me, girls.” He may have played similar flattery games before; Lear, Goneril, and Regan all seem to assume that this is a formality.

Goneril and Regan are usually blamed here for being phony. They are being phony, but I find it interesting that Lear requires such phoniness and even seems to believe it. Lear finds it plausible that he really is so utterly great that his daughters love him more than their husbands.

Cordelia, the acknowledged favorite, famously declines to lie. Her speech is colder than I remembered. As I recalled it, it was like “Look, I do love you, but when I marry I plan to love my husband as well. It wouldn’t be fair to him to love only you.” Instead, it really boils down to something more like “You did your duty as a father, including love. I now do my duty as a daughter, including love.” Depending on the actor’s delivery, there may be a sense that the love consists of actions without feeling, and that Cordelia’s honor and respect are driven entirely by duty and not by true attachment.

It’s an unusual case of the Golden Child being the truthteller. That becomes significant.

While Lear was directing this little playlet, two people repeatedly told Lear that he was making unwise choices. Both Kent and the Fool make repeated efforts to get through (and are ignored). Neither of them say that the older daughters are not to be trusted, though. They never state that it’s unwise to give up power to these two in particular — no, they think it’s unwise for Lear to give up external power over his children at all. They suggest that he is reversing the roles of child and parent by letting his children have power … and that this reversal is what’s unwise.

Who modeled parenting for Goneril and Regan? Who showed them how one behaves when one has the power? Why do Kent and the Fool, who know Lear well, both believe that it would be unwise for Lear to give up external power over the children he reared?

Goneril and Regan speak between themselves afterward. They have always known that Cordelia was Lear’s favorite. They express no overt resentment of that, but neither do they gloat that she is cast out. They are simply surprised that she would throw that away. They express no views on Lear’s plan to alternate between their homes instead of maintaining his own, so apparently they’re willing to give it a try.

Lear is a complete jackass of a houseguest. He disrupts Goneril’s court and demands she see him when she’s weary, at his pleasure alone. She even fakes illness to get some peace, but Lear demands she leave her “sickbed” to attend him. His knights pick fights with her knights, and he won’t discipline them. He gives Goneril orders in her own home. She doesn’t confront him until he insults, assaults, and humiliates Oswald, her steward and friend. She may be Lear’s daughter, but she’s also the Duchess of Albany, and she doesn’t have to take that.

Why does Lear hate Oswald so much? What was Oswald’s crime? The pivotal moment appears to be when Lear hits him (he hits lots of servants) and Oswald responds by saying, “I’ll not be strucken.” Kent intervenes to make sure Oswald is humiliated and Lear’s pride salvaged, but Oswald never actually submitted to Lear and never agreed to tolerate future blows. In Lear’s eyes, that makes him an unnatural fiend.

Lear is also the king, which could change things a bit. One is supposed to obey the king. However, the king wouldn’t normally tell a duke and duchess how to run their own court. It’s the father, not the king, who assumes himself the master of her house. Lear assumes that he should be in charge because he’s her parent, period, end of story. Her house is his house, automatically.

Goneril and her husband disagree.

Goneril never actually orders Lear out — he storms out because he’s not in charge. This is when he delivers the famous lines: “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth / It is to have a thankless child!” Either he gets to beat up Goneril’s staff, or she’s ungrateful.

Goneril and Lear both write to Regan with their respective versions of events.

Lear approaches Regan, who tells him that, um, she kind of believes Goneril and he should go back and apologize. It never seems to occur to Regan that Goneril might be the fibber. She has known both people all her life, and she assumes Lear was really at fault.

Lear goes crazy with the drama, sarcastically kneeling and begging an imaginary Goneril to give him food, clothing, and shelter. He lacks none of those things — he has his own castle, and has luggage and knights in his royal caravan. He means his figurative “deprivation.” Apparently, refraining from hitting Oswald would be the equivalent of begging for crusts. Lear is an all-or-nothing guy; either things are ALL HIS WAY, or he’s being treated badly.

Regan ignores the theatrics and repeats that he sort of owes Goneril an apology. She’s not wrong.

Lear responds by raining curses down upon Goneril. The insightful Regan observes that he might be saying such foul things about her, Regan, during his next “rash mood” … and Lear rather sinisterly says that it won’t be a problem because Regan would never deny him anything.

Regan is impressively unimpressed by all Lear’s dramatic posturing. One gets the impression she has seen a lot of this before.

At this point, Team Goneril pops up. Although Goneril wasn’t pleased with Lear’s behavior, she was still concerned that he stormed off and has come to find him. Lear abuses Oswald some more, yells at Regan for greeting Goneril as a sister, and refuses to return with Goneril even though Regan already said she can’t put him up until she was expecting him. Lear says that he’d rather beg charity from that awful Cordelia or even that awful Oswald person, and that he will begin living outdoors! Now, again, Lear has his own castle, so this is just more crazy drama intended to make his daughters feel bad.

… and indeed, when Goneril says that’s his choice, he taunts her by saying that he’ll be living happily with Regan. He assumes he can steamroll Regan into this, even though she already said no, and so all that stuff about facing the wilderness was 100% drama. Regan declines again — she is not prepared to host him and his huge retinue of knights until the time she had planned, and he can’t come early unless he comes alone.

After more arguing, he swears unspecified but terrible revenge on the two “hags” and stomps off. As the sisters speak, a storm brews. Regan frets that Lear isn’t prepared, but Goneril’s done with Lear’s crap. Each says that Lear could live with her, but he and his knights can’t take over.

Meanwhile, Lear’s knights have all buggered off to some unknown location, probably their own homes. Kent sends for Cordelia, as the loyal Fool tries to persuade Lear to at least shelter with one of his daughters for one night. Lear screams curses at the sky instead. He reviles his daughters for shutting him out, but as the Fool witnessed, they did not. They simply didn’t want to host the knights (who are already gone) and put up with Lear’s abuse. Lear would rather face the storm than accept their household rules. This part is generally known as The Madness of King Lear, but Lear has been a drama llama ever since Cordelia declined to suck up. Is this legit trauma, or just more drama?

Lear meets a man whom he believes to be genuinely mad, and opines for several pages that “unkind daughters” must be to blame. The madness of a random stranger is really all about Lear.

At this point, things get complicated. There are multiple disguises, the B story begins intertwining with the A story, and Edmund’s lies mean that almost everyone is misinformed on at least a few matters. Lear, apparently mad, imagines himself in earlier times — and, tellingly, what he recalls is not love but power. He doesn’t imagine his daughters saying fond things; he imagines making one subject quake with a glance while showing mercy to another.

Baffingly at first glance, Goneril and Regan both start pursuing Edmund and thereby fracture their own sisterly relationship, as well as Goneril’s marriage (Regan has been widowed). Perhaps the idea is that such awful women must have no affection in their hearts for anyone … but Goneril went after Lear when he first stomped away, and Regan fretted over his fate in the storm. Both are still willing to take him in. Neither of them ever actually rejected Lear.

It’s interesting that both of them want Edmund specifically, because Edmund’s the only real manipulator we’ve seen so far. Who do predatory, manipulative men usually target? In our time, at least, they tend to go after women with unresolved father issues.

Let’s examine the play’s ending via a last look at the three daughters:

Goneril is traditionally interpreted as an evil, callous, scheming harridan who betrays and casts out her father, wrests military power from her husband, and brazenly begins an affair with the dreadful Edmund. As we’ve seen, there’s another side to her alleged betrayal of Lear, who repeatedly walked away from her offers to put him up on mutually respectful terms. Furthermore, she starts commanding the military because Albany won’t stop yakking about personal crap and “Honey, could we please focus on the invasion?” isn’t working too well. If we don’t begin with the assumption that Lear is axiomatically good, Goneril isn’t unsympathetic until she begins her affair with Edmund. Even that is more understandable when we recall that Albany has begun telling her she’s not worth the dust blowing into her face.

One could portray Goneril as evil and scheming, sure. One could also portray her as a woman who grew up under the sway of a hardcore narcissist, married for political reasons, eventually stood up to her father for her friend’s sake, endured her husband’s verbal abuse while trying to mobilize to defend the nation — and finally decided all those people could go hang, perhaps while breaking into a chorus of “It’s My Turn.”

At this point, Goneril believes that there are two people who care about her: Edmund and Regan. She then learns that Edmund has been two-timing her … with Regan. Regan responds to the same discovery by pathetically offering Edmund bribes, but Goneril walks off. We’re later informed that she has poisoned Regan and stabbed herself, fatally in both cases.

Goneril is done with all these jerks.

Regan, too, is usually viewed as a cold and immoral woman. Again, I see less evidence for that than most assume. She is similar to her older sister, but softer and more timid — she worries that Lear will turn on her as he has turned on Goneril, and she also worries about Lear being out in the storm, after he rejects her offer of shelter. She seems to have a decent marriage, with her husband indicating both affection and respect with lines like “My Regan has it right.” She is willing to kill to defend her husband, though he dies from his wounds anyway.

After his death, though, Regan has trouble coping with the press of events. She tries to help against the invasion, but even Oswald comments sardonically that “Your sister is a better general.” This may be why she is such easy prey for Edmund — like many women with father issues, Regan feels she NEEDS a man. When she learns that her new man is also courting her own sister, she offers him all her land and money if he will only keep his promise to marry her. When that doesn’t pan out, she suddenly feels very ill.

It’s not clear when Goneril poisoned Regan, but she hasn’t really had a chance so far. When Regan becomes too ill to function, she probably hasn’t had the poison yet. I’m reminded of another famous old English work, “Lord Randall,” in which the dying young lord repeats, “I am sick at my heart, and I fain would lie down.” Lord Randall died from a combination of poison and a broken heart, and I believe Regan does the same.

And then, of course, there is Cordelia. She’s traditionally regarded as the only good daughter, and she does indeed come through for Lear. The daughter who truthfully stated that she was motivated by duty, not fondness, came back to do her job as a daughter. Edmund gets her killed by tricking Goneril into signing a letter, and Lear very publicly dies of a broken heart as soon as a suitable audience is available.

One wonders what would have happened to this crew if Edmund’s schemes had failed earlier. Lear burned through Goneril’s patience in well under a month; how long would he have lasted with the not-into-pretense Cordelia, in a land he didn’t rule? Cordelia is supposed to be the loyal daughter, but their reunion was brief. How long would it have lasted?

Did Lear actually learn anything from all this? If he had lived and moved in with Cordelia, would he have been able to accept her and her husband’s mastery of their own house? Or would he have decided he was now basically the king of France, since his daughter owned France and he owned her? He might have found himself on a boat back to Britain in a week.

The tragedy of King Lear was not his death but his life. If he hadn’t been so certain that everyone must always adore and honor him because he was himself, he would have been fine.

In all likelihood, so would everyone else.

A Theory on How Targets Are Chosen

How do abusers select their targets? It’s a great question. There are some obvious prerequisites: the targets must be unable to defend themselves, and must lack other defenders. In a family, though, there are often multiple safe-target candidates. How does one person get picked as the garbage dump for an entire family, even an entire extended family?

Sometimes it’s obvious. There are cases where a child is targeted for a characteristic (such as being the wrong sex) or an action (such as standing up for another target). Often, though, it’s much less clear. The targets wonder sadly what is wrong with them, but are sure something must be. What causes a family, sometimes even an entire extended family, to designate one person as a free target for everyone else?

I don’t know of any proper research on the subject, but observation from the field indicates that it’s dangerous to be more able than a toxic person. It’s common for outsiders to perceive that the target is smarter, prettier, kinder, more talented, or otherwise “better” than the primary abuser, despite the abuser’s insistence that the target is inherently awful.

So are they “just jealous,” just like the old cliche about schoolyard bullies? I don’t think it’s quite that simple.

The insightful Issendai, over at Down the Rabbit Hole, says that narcissistic abusers often think that other people’s actions are about them. For instance, if a child does something which annoys her, she takes for granted that the child did it to annoy her, or if her sister says something which angers her, she assumes that the sister said it in order to anger her. Since she’s the main character of the movie, she takes for granted that others’ actions orbit around her.

Now consider a little turn of phrase people sometimes use with envious-but-sane friends. “Oh, come on. He’s not being smart at you.”

Your sane friend will laugh and agree, but the narcissist doesn’t understand this. If a child in the family is smarter (e.g.) than her child, or than she was as a child, she thinks the child is being intelligent at her. In her mind, since it’s all about her, he won that scholarship and attended that Ivy League school just to outshine her and make her feel bad. What a jerk! She is completely justified in her constant digging and needling.

This may be why grey rocking, though difficult, is so effective. The self-focused abuser doesn’t realize that she’s getting no information because you don’t want to hand her ammunition. In her self-centeredness, all she knows is that you’ve stopped thinking, saying, and doing all that stuff you did to annoy and anger her. She may even think that she successfully taught you a lesson and put you in your place.

Medium chill could have a similar effect. If you chatter about TV shows and never mention your work or social life, the abuser may back off because you’re no longer “flaunting” your success and “boasting” that not everyone hates you as much as the abuser does. She assumed that was what you were doing, since that was the effect your harmless statements produced in her.

It’s a delicate dance. What if the too-smart target accidentally says something insightful about the TV shows? What if a third party compliments the too-pretty target within the abuser’s hearing? There is no such thing as true safety when forced to interact with an abuser.

Still, I believe that understanding this process can be useful. It’s no substitute for getting out and getting away, but we may have fewer abusive interactions if we realize that they believe literally everything we do is done while thinking of them, the center of the universe.

The Astrologers

A 20-year-old tells a story which conflicts with that of a 50-year-old. The younger person is assumed to be lying.

A 40-year-old and a 15-year-old volunteer to help with a skilled task. The older volunteer’s help is accepted with gratitude; the younger volunteer is assumed unskilled and dismissed with “You’re too young.”

An office manager has been having trouble with a 24-year-old worker calling in sick for dubious reasons. He decides that from now on he will hire older workers, who are sure to be more responsible and reliable.

There is a name for the belief that the time a person was born determines that person’s personality, character, and behavior. That name is “astrology.”

There are still those who practice more traditional astrology, with many different heavenly symbols in different signs and houses, letting the traditional astrologer create a portrait which may not be accurate but is at least multifaceted. The everyday astrologer, on the other hand, simply thinks that earlier birth is better.

There doesn’t seem to be any real consistency or sense to this astrological system. The same 28-year-old can be assumed right in conflict with a 12-year-old and assumed wrong in conflict with a 60-year-old. How can she be both certainly better and certainly worse? What information does the birth-time-only horoscope really give us? It tells us nothing about her as a person, only about how we should regard her when she’s interacting with others. It’s not about her as a person; it’s about her status relative to other people.

One wonders what the astrologers would do if confronted with a pair of twins in conflict. Would they be able to use facts and case merit as tiebreakers, at least? Or would they have to consult the birth certificates and learn which was born first, to determine which one was just slightly inherently better?

Get Out, Get Away, Get Better

These are the three steps I regard as vital to recovery. This is a high-level overview — there is lots more to be said about each, and several other minor points as well. This is the basic roadmap, though. Without these three things, you’ll probably never be free.

GET OUT

If your parents are bad for you, the first step to improving your life is to leave their home. There are palliative steps you can take while still under their roof, but there won’t be major improvements until you’re out of the toxic environment. Before worrying about fire damage, put the fire out.

Please note that this doesn’t just mean sleeping somewhere else or not spending time with them. I sometimes see statements like “I want to go completely NC except for them paying my rent,” and once even “I’ve been NC for a year and a half, though we still live under the same roof.” That’s not how independence works, and independence is the first step. If you’re not taking care of your own needs, you’re not out.

Some people escape to someone else’s home. It can be a godsend to have an understanding grandmother who’ll let you move in with her, but I don’t regard this as a permanent solution. What happens if your parents convince her that you’re exaggerating? Or if she turns out to be just as bad? Or if she decides after three days that this isn’t working for her? By all means take advantage of Grandma’s kind offer if you need to get out right now, but keep planning a path forward for your own life. You’re not fully out yet.

Moving in with a girlfriend/boyfriend can be okay if the two of you want to live together anyway. Otherwise, it’s not a great escape method. Most relationships end eventually, and if you share living quarters prematurely, you’re greatly increasing the stress on the relationship just as the two of you upend your lives. This is, however, a fantastic approach if there’s a strong, stable relationship.

Be very careful about accepting any sort of “help” from the family you’re escaping. Even if they fought your escape tooth and claw, they may suddenly turn around and offer what looks like assistance. It isn’t. In healthy families, parents often do assist their fledgling offspring, but controlling parents can’t be relied upon when they decide they’ve “had enough” and it’s time for you to stop your foolishness and submit to their control. If they believe that they are the arbiters of what decisions you’re allowed to make, then letting them “help” is handing them leverage.

GET AWAY

If your parents are 100% on the neglectful side of the spectrum, this part may not be necessary. If moving a few blocks away is enough for your parents to decide that it’s not worth the effort of bugging you, you might as well take advantage of that — but be prepared for the fact that they may suddenly develop an interest in your life when it diverges from their plans and control. They may have ignored you only because they took for granted that you were permanently theirs.

For most of us, a geographical divide is a huge help in placing and enforcing a socio-emotional one. Your parents can’t harass you to eat dinner with them every night if you’re two thousand miles away. If you aren’t present, you won’t have the perpetual hassle of saying no and making it stick, doing it again the next night, doing it yet again the next night, doing it three dozen more times, giving in because you’re just so damn tired, standing less firmly, being dragged back more often, and somehow it ends up that all parties assume you’ll always eat under your parents’ control, while you wonder what happened. If you’re far away, that sort of gradual wearing-down is much harder for them, so make sure you have that advantage as soon as you can arrange to move to a distant city.

How far is far enough? That’s relative. It must be far enough that your parents won’t make the trip frequently and won’t demand that you make it frequently. For most toxic families, “too far to drive” is far enough. However, there some hardcore ones who demand that their grown children fly “home” every few weeks to keep the kids from getting away completely, and a job or college abroad can be a golden chance, especially if the time zone is different enough to limit telephone contact. Don’t be ashamed of using such artifical barriers until you’ve got real boundaries in place.

GET BETTER

So, you became independent, and you moved far enough away that they aren’t breathing down your neck. Good for you.

I’m afraid you’ve still got another battle ahead of you.

At this point, either right away or after a few years, many of us decide to put the past behind us, move on, and stride boldly into the future instead of dwelling on the past. For some, it even works. Most of us, though, find that we are carrying around a lot of damage. Because you got away, your parents won’t be able to use your troubles (real and imagined) as excuses to force you back under their control and hurt you more — but you’d still be wise to deal with the damage already done. Everyone’s different, but a common pattern is to try to build a life, only to find old problems roaring back in middle age because we never shored up the foundation.

You could use help. Unfortunately, you’re still too young to be taken seriously. Age prejudice can greatly hinder your recovery.

At some point, you will want to talk about your past. You’ll know when you’re ready. Even if at first you feel pretty private about it, you’ll probably feel bolder and more able to speak truthfully after a little time has passed. I suggest great caution before doing so. You see, you’re still facing our society’s tremendous age prejudice. Most people — including therapists — won’t take you seriously. They’re likely to focus on “helping you understand” that your parents are wonderful people who only love you and want what’s best for you.

Therapy can be useful, but the therapist must understand developmental trauma and neglect. In my experience, most therapists are reluctant to admit that they don’t know much about a particular area — they tend to start a verbal tap dance about how they work with many different problems in many areas, etc. If the therapist won’t give a clear, direct answer about training and/or experience in this area, I suggest assuming the therapist doesn’t have any and looking elsewhere. Otherwise, it’ll be a few weeks or months of indulgence and then it’s back to “All parents love their children so much!”

An online support group with active moderators is the best first choice, IMO. Reading other people’s stories will give you a clearer perspective on your own. They won’t know your age unless you give it, and since most others are there for the same reason, you’re less likely to be greeted with dismissal and condescension when they learn that you are young. A support group can also help you decide what kind of therapy might be most useful for you.

The age prejudice has drastically lessened by age 30. If you haven’t been able to find solid professional help before then, it’s well worth trying again. At that point, most people will automatically believe you. It sure can be a frustrating meanwhile, but don’t lose sight of the fact that you already got out and got away. You’re awesome. They couldn’t keep you down.

Your free, happy life is out there waiting for you. Go take it.

Vampire Slayer (part 2)

Last time, I spoke of controlling parents simply making up imaginary troubles (“the vampire in your basement”) for their “troubled” children to have, when the only real trouble is the false accusations. That led me to reconsider some personal events. Yes, my mother spotted multiple basement vampires when I first got away, and used them to hoover me back in, and tried similar manipulative tactics later. There was one incident which led to my finally putting her on LC, and that was when she tried to use my then-infant son.

It turns out that a really dedicated basement vampire hunter can spot the vampires clear across the country. She started by pretending that I was feeding some unspecified substance called “that spicy food” to my son, who was just beginning to eat solids. This was a lie, and I repeatedly told her the truth that I did not, but she stuck to the script by ignoring that and continuing to complain loudly and often about “That spicy food! That spicy food!”

For the next step, she went to some Indian doctor local to her (I’d long since fled the area) and asked if people in India fed spicy food to babies. She then called me to boast of what she’d done. “He said no, they don’t,” she proudly and happily told me.

Right through the phone, I ripped off her head and rammed it down her throat and out the other end.

I still hadn’t fully realized how delusional she was, but I did know that she was not dragging my son into her crap. No matter what I had to do to prevent it, there was no chance at all that she would engulf my son in that. Without even thinking about it, I drew a verbal sword and beheaded the real vampire. When I looked back during my thirties and forties, I concluded that it’s much easier to stand up for our children than to stand up for ourselves.

Today, as I look back again from age 50, I finally realize … that I was her child. So why did she do that in the first place?

I’ll never know. Since she never admits the existence of anything which doesn’t flatter her, there’s no way to get to a discussion of motives.

At the time, when she revealed she was planting stories that I abused my son, I ended the dutiful weekly phone calls and annual visits. She tried mightily to hoover me back, but I stood firm for both myself and my son. I’ve paid only a couple of duty visits, with my son always directly supervised either by me or by his father, and phone calls are limited to catching up every month or so.

I have been vampire-free ever since.

The Vampire in Your Basement (part 1)

I’m worried that there may be a vampire in your basement. I’m sure I’ve heard spooky sounds, and I can’t help noticing that there is never any direct sunlight down there.

I tell you that I’m very concerned and going to investigate. When you tell me there is no vampire, I say that you don’t know how to identify vampires and are probably under its mind control anyway. I try to barge into your home to investigate, and when you prevent me, I tell everyone else that your defensiveness and secretiveness only strengthen my suspicions. If you aren’t protecting a vampire, why can’t I perform inspections of your home?

I plead that the vampire could hurt your children. When you repeat that there is no vampire, I tearfully point out that they’re only innocent children and you should protect them … but you keep saying there is no vampire. It’s shocking that you care more about protecting the vampire than about your own children, but that’s mind control for you. Good thing I’m there.

I warn others that you’re under the sway of a vampire and refuse to accept help. It’s sad, but they need to know. The others appreciate how concerned and caring I am, and regard you as a pretty sorry case for causing me all this pain with your stubborn pridefulness. I’m a wonderful person, and I’d be happy to stand back and watch you live your life correctly if you would just live your life correctly, but I’m simply too loving and caring to stay on the sidelines while you ignore the vampire.

The other people I told about your vampire problem go on to tell more people. The stories begin to filter back to me: “Is it true about the vampire?” “Oh my, I just heard about the vampire! You are so brave!” These stories confirm that I am very right to be worried about the vampire — other people are noticing it, too! That proves I was right! — and my worry justifies any actions I take. From pitching garlic cloves onto your lawn, to sneaking a priest onto your property to bless it, all the way up to hiring a team of stake-wielding housebreakers to do what really needs to be done, it’s all good. If you object to any of these actions, it’s more proof that you really need my help. If you weren’t hiding anything, why would you mind? You’re too mired in vampire mind control to know what’s good for you. I know best.

Some of my actions might seem a little intrusive and controlling in other situations, but this isn’t an ordinary situation. You need my help, even though you won’t admit it. All of my actions are more than justified by my tremendous worry.

There’s just one problem: I made the vampire up.

Does it make any sense for me to claim that I’m worried half to death about something that I made up myself? Spooky sounds are subjective, and all basements are dark. Since I have no sensible basis for my claims, how terrified can I really be?

Because most people don’t believe vampires are real, the above scenario wouldn’t play out literally. It doesn’t have to be literal to be very, very damaging and to wreak havoc on the target’s life. Young adults escaping from controlling families may find themselves accused of having basement vampires. Common ones include addictions and eating disorders — these play well because we’ve all been societally trained to believe that “denial is part of the disease,” so anyone denying these things is actually proving that they have them. Suicidality goes in and out of fashion, but makes a great basement vampire when it’s available — who would ever question a mother trying to save her child’s very life? Lots of things can be spotted in the basement. There are only two requirements: that the accused can’t fully prove it false, and that it would require monitoring and control by some other party … and by the greatest of good fortune, the loving parents are right there, ready to resume custody.

Once the stories have been planted, “proof” tends to arise. Daughter wearing long sleeves when I say she should wear short sleeves? It can’t possibly be laundry day; the only possible explanation is that she’s hiding emaciation or scars (the only explanation varies, depending on which story has been planted). My spies tell me my son had a beer during the day when I say alcohol is only for after sundown? It’s irrelevant that he was at a wedding; he denies daytime drinking and his lies are more proof of his addiction. It’s as if I pointed out that your dog is scared of your basement, so there must be something frightening down there, and when you correctly replied that many dogs dislike basements, I used that as another example of your lies and defensiveness. Since so many things can be twisted into evidence, there’s no way for you to win.

Some escapees, who haven’t yet realized that they are at war, may try to reassure the “concerned” people with evidence of the truth. It will never be good enough, and they will find ways to twist it against you. For instance, if you point out that you don’t meet the diagnostic criteria for X, you may hear that it’s “significant” or “very interesting” that you know those criteria, even if you only learned them to defend yourself against the charge, and that being well-informed about X is a sign of having X. If you allow them to root through your cupboards and drawers to verify that there are no signs of Y, they will find signs of past Y somehow, and will expect unfettered access to all your spaces in the present and future — if you object to them also rooting around in your closet, for example, it’ll be taken as proof that you’re hiding Y in there.

The only long-term method for coping with basement vampire hunters is a nice, big swath of geographical distance. If that’s not immediately achievable, sincere laughter is probably the best response. If the hunters are persistent, a cease-and-desist order might be necessary until the move can be arranged. However, you should never, ever try to assuage my concern with reassurance and evidence, because there was never any real concern about you in the first place. I made the vampire up, remember? If there is any real worry at all, it isn’t about vampires; it’s about the fact that you appear to be getting away from me. Like everything else, it was never about you at all. It was always all about me.

Essentially, a suspected vampire in the basement provides a good, virtuous-sounding excuse for a controlling person to trample a target’s boundaries. If you let me into your basement to check for vampires, I’ll never leave your house again.

The Magic Lawn People

When I was a teenager, my mother wouldn’t allow me to leave the house alone. I don’t mean that she forbade potentially dicey activities — that never even came up. She became angry if I simply wanted to go to a movie or some other innocuous thing. She insisted that it was only right and proper to do things “with people.” Apparently these mysterious “people” were going to just magically appear on the lawn, since I wasn’t allowed to leave the house to meet any.

Who were these “people” really? Someone I knew from school? Nope; my mother threw a horrible, snarling fit the first time I tried to arrange to have some ice cream with a friend without Mama sitting there too. She fought tooth and claw against any school friendship I tried to form.

So who were they? If nobody from school was acceptable, and I couldn’t go to a public place to meet anyone else, and the magic lawn people hadn’t turned up yet, then the only way to do things “with people” was to do them with the others already in the house.

In other words, she really meant that I should only leave the house to do things with her.

One of my mother’s cousins waited for the magic lawn people. Over the decades, she turned from her parents’ child into their nurse. The magic lawn people never did show up, and she went through her own old age alone.

One of my own cousins waited for them as well. In her fifties, she’s still waiting for them to show up and doing activities only with her mother. But hey, at least she only does things with people.

I chose to move out instead. About three years after the “I take for granted that you’re too slutty and delinquent to eat ice cream without me” incident, I packed and left. No magic lawn people were involved. I did it myself.

Years passed, but I still felt a little bold the first time I walked up to a movie ticket booth and said, “One, please.” It was, of course, a complete anticlimax; the cashier didn’t bat an eye, and why would he? I think that was the only time I’ve seen a theater movie alone, but in retrospect it seems significant. I am allowed to do that, and there is absolutely nothing immoral or scandalous about performing an activity when I’m not “with people.”

I’ve observed something similar happening to other people as well. Most abusers know not to say outright that they themselves should be the center of all things, so they come up with euphemisms and misdirections.

A common euphemism for the self is “family.” These parents often tell their children that family is the most important thing, family is what counts, family should be the center of everything. Since the kid’s only starting family is the family of origin, what this means is that they, the parents who are speaking, are important and count and should be the center.

A variant is “what really matters” or “what’s really important” or some such. This never means work, health, or even religion — it always translates back to “family,” which, again, means the parents themselves. In their own eyes, they are what really matters.

We know that they really mean themselves because they often continue this even after the children have spouses and offspring of their own. An escaped child who declines taking Mom to lunch because he’s attending his son’s soccer game may get a response of “You are wrong to neglect your family. Family matters. Don’t forget what’s really important.” Just as my friend didn’t count as a person, the man’s son doesn’t count as family. She means herself.

However, they may not know that they really mean themselves. This is not a self-aware bunch. They may genuinely believe that they are sagely teaching the importance of socializing, of strong blood ties, of having one’s priorities straight. My mother probably genuinely believed that she would have allowed me to leave the house to meet a friend, if only I weren’t so untrustworthy and terrible and everyone she didn’t choose weren’t so awful. If asked, I doubt she would have stated outright that her goal was for me to be a friendless spinster. I doubt she even had a goal for me which considered my own experience — her experience was what mattered. There’s no way to know, but my guess is that she herself didn’t realize that her controlling behavior narrowed my choices down to her and the magic lawn people.

Fighting Two Dragons

Young people in bad families are battling two dragons at once. One is the abuse, and the other is our society’s age prejudice.

Older teens usually focus on getting themselves out of the abusive situation, but children and younger teens usually seek help from other adults. They seldom find it. They’re more likely to be laughed at for their silly lies. People who weren’t present will confidently claim to “know” that the abuse isn’t real and the abusers are wonderful.

Most children begin by telling someone else in the extended family how their parents really treat them. Grandma or Aunt Jane will then betray the child’s trust, by smirking and tittering at her foolishness or chewing her out for making up such awful things. The child tells another relative or two or three, who repeat the process. The child lacks the understanding to realize that they’re all part of the same sick system and have an interest in preserving it.

Many children give up at that point, but some children may also tell teachers and other adult presences in their lives. That’s when they encounter the other dragon. These people aren’t part of the sick system, but they’re unlikely to care. It’s much, much easier to listen to age prejudice and decide that they’re just silly, stupid children who are telling lies because they’re irrationally mad at their loving, kind parents. A woman reporting that her husband called her foul names and shoved her might not find much real help, but people would at least pretend to care. Age prejudice allows us to dismiss mistreated children entirely.

We’ve made an inept attempt to address this problem with so-called mandatory reporting laws. In theory, some people (teachers, doctors, some others) must pass children’s reports of abuse on to CPS. These laws didn’t even exist when I was young, but I hear from the trenches that they haven’t helped much. Some simply ignore the law, since they “know” that all children are silly and bratty and deceitful. Even if the law isn’t ignored, CPS probably won’t help unless the child has been beaten bloody — and maybe not even then, since any lie the parents tell is likely to be believed. A more likely outcome is that the child will be viciously punished for telling.

I’m always a little disgusted when I hear, “Why didn’t they tell anyone they were being abused?” They almost certainly did. Since they were nothing but lowly children, nobody cared.

This leaves children in bad families in an impossible position. Their guardians, who are supposed to take care of them and protect them, neglect and target them instead. If they seek help elsewhere, they’ll quickly and consistently find that the whole world automatically sides with the abusers and may even aid them. They are likely to be targeted for other abuse (e.g., school bullying) as well, since they have no protection. This, too, will not be taken seriously by anyone, since they’re only children.

The clear message is that they are inherently worthless, they deserve to be treated badly, and no one will ever care about them. By the time they’ve aged enough to be taken seriously, it’s often too late to undo the worst damage.

Children can’t fight two dragons. When a child sees a dragon, his young-mammal instincts tell him not to draw a sword but to seek help. When he does, instead of a knight, he finds another dragon. Society not only doesn’t help with his family’s abuse, it re-attacks by laughing at him and insulting his integrity. Meanwhile, his uncaring family won’t help with any outside problems he has, and will re-attack him if they learn of any. He’s entirely on his own, all the time, in all situations.

The child doesn’t know there are two dragons. From his point of view, it’s all one giant dragon of everyone hating him and treating him badly. He concludes that nobody will help him because he doesn’t deserve it. What else could he conclude?

As he ages, he’ll try some steps to improve his own life. Both his family and society will fight him at every turn. His job applications won’t even be considered. Most employers will discard the application quietly, but if he applies in person, he’s likely to be openly laughed at. He’ll be told to focus on school — a dismissive remark masquerading as sage advice from an elder. School doesn’t help his situation at all, but age prejudice means that nobody will care or even wonder about what’s driving him to seek work. He’s still on his own.

An extremely clever and able young person may be able to generate an income, perhaps by posing as an older person online. He still can’t move away, because nobody will rent to him. Age prejudice tells landlords that he’s “too young” to be responsible, despite the facts that he’s already running a business and that plenty of 40-year-olds have trashed apartment after apartment.

Some people even tell the young that it’s illegal to rent to them. It isn’t — shelter falls under “necessities of life” and is therefore a valid point of contract at any age — but there’s not much point in explaining this to people who will only laugh and tell him to focus on his studies.

Some young people try to sic one dragon on the other by contacting CPS, hoping to escape to foster care. This seldom goes well. CPS is unlikely to help unless she has obvious physical injuries, and maybe not even then. Some young people have resorted to faking such injuries, but tricking a dragon is a dangerous game. If she’s caught, her real motivation will be ignored. At a minimum, she’ll be smeared as that awful person who told lies to send her loving parents to jail because she was mad that they wouldn’t let her go to a party. And that’s just the minimum. The maximum is appalling.

Desperate young people, unable to move out, may run away instead. They will be treated as bad people victimizing their assumed-wonderful families with their irresponsible rebelliousness. Age prejudice means that nobody will wonder why they were driven to such an act. If anyone even pretends to ask, it will be only to supply a dismissive answer like “He was mad that they punished him.”

It’s astonishing and maddening to consider how much more seriously I am taken now that I have gray hair and lines around my eyes. The same reports which once elicited smirks and titters now garner responses like “That is pure evil right there” and “That bitch has got to go on a permanent basis.” These are literally the same reports of the same events. The only difference is that I have aged enough to be believed.

All of this being the case, we can’t really address child abuse without addressing age prejudice. We must relax or eliminate the laws preventing young people from beginning independent lives, so that the more capable ones can simply walk out the door. For the others — and those are the majority, especially when the effects of the abuse are considered — the most important change is for us to collectively stop assuming that everyone born less than thirty years ago is a pathological liar.

The other important change is to stop thinking that a little bit of abuse towards children is okay. Imagine someone claiming that a husband isn’t a batterer because he only intimidates and slaps and shoves his wife, never anything really abusive. Absurd, isn’t it? But we’ll happily accept that a parent who hits his children with a board is merely “paddling” them, and even tell ourselves that it’s good for them, or that at worst Dad is a little old-fashioned. Similarly, overt mockery and ridicule are downgraded to “teasing” when done to children, pathologically controlling behavior is dismissed as “concern,” etc. Because the targets are only lowly children, we don’t have to care. We care about child abuse in a vague, abstract way that we can apply to stories in the news, but never apply that to anyone in our own lives. It never occurs to us to apply the same standards of decent treatment to children that we apply to literally everyone else.

Even when the abuse is extreme, our age prejudice tells us that the children are exaggerating if not outright lying, and the parents were probably right to be annoyed by whatever those liars are leaving out that makes it all their fault. They’re only children, so it doesn’t really matter anyway. We downplay abuse to mistreatment, and then dismiss mistreatment as fine. Both should stop.

If such a person tells the truth at 35, jaws will drop. If he tells the truth at 16, he’ll be assumed a liar or even gaslighted with claims that his parents love him and he’d see that if only he weren’t too stupid to understand how great they are.

A young person in a bad family is caught between two dragons, and neither will help against the other. They often team up. When you’re trapped in a cave with a dragon, and another dragon guards the cave mouth to keep you there, what do you do?

You get burned. Horribly burned.