#childabuse – Exit Rights

“That Didn’t Happen,” Part 2

I’ve continued to think about the abusers saying the abuse didn’t happen. I’ve reached some tentative conclusions.

You see, the narcissist can’t do something wrong. None of us are exactly fond of learning that we were the bad guy in a situation, but for a narcissist, it literally cannot be true. She (or he) is and must be endlessly perfect, or else everything falls apart. So, when she sees “I did that” juxtaposed with “That was wrong,” it’s not just unwelcome news ― it’s a paradox. The entire world has stopped making sense, and she must resolve the paradox before she can proceed.

That’s when the mental gymnastics begin.

For the paradox to be resolved and the narcissist to remain perfect, one of the two premises (“I did that” and “That was wrong”) must be false. If there is no hard evidence, as is usually the case for most domestic abuse, then simply blotting her actions out of her mind ― “What are you talking about? I’d never do that!” ― suffices to remove the action from the space-time continuum and restore the state of her never having done anything wrong, ever.

We can call it denial or delusion or whatever we like, but I think that’s the gist. “I have never, ever done anything wrong” is such a fundamental axiom that it must be defended at any cost. There are several things pointing me to this conclusion.

One is that the other popular defenses for abusers fall into a general category I call “Oh, that was just.” They were joking, or everyone does that sometimes, or the victim didn’t understand the incident, or it was really the victim’s fault. There may be an entire conga line of such defenses, one after the other. Whatever might have happened, it certainly wasn’t wrong. What a silly thing to say!

The abusers can admit the actions happened as long as they don’t also have to admit that the actions were abuse. They can also admit that the actions are abusive as long as they don’t also have to admit that they performed the actions. Knocking down either pillar is enough to let the narcissistic abuser resolve the seeming paradox of having done wrong, so that the world makes sense again.

The other reason I reached this conclusion is that several victims have reported their abusers freezing up when confronted with hard evidence. Some people have been able to force their abusers to face the abuse. This is an elaborate procedure requiring hard evidence, objective witnesses, and situational control so that the victim is completely safe and the abuser doesn’t simply walk away when glimpses of the truth start to become uncomfortable. It’s a difficult undertaking, but some have managed it.

Some of these people have reported that the abusers go though the usual defenses of claiming it didn’t happen and then trying a dozen different rationalizations to make it not be wrong. As the defenses fall one by one, the masks slip, and we begin to see the naked narcissistic rage underneath. If the victims remain calmly confrontational, the abusers then display a new behavior: they lock up. They freeze in place, staring blankly. The paradox has shut their circuitry down.

One such man said that his mother appeared to be suffering from BSOD ― the Blue Screen of Death, an old term for a computer which had frozen and displayed a field of pure blue on the monitor. Another victim eventually left the abuser lying on the floor, supine and speechless.

Don’t worry. They’ll be fine once they’ve slept.

Don’t get excited, either. With a little time to process, they’ll overflow with creative new excuses to explain that the victim overreacted and the abuser was actually perfectly great all along.

“That Didn’t Happen,” Part 1

When I was young, I had jaw surgery which went disastrously wrong. My mother openly mocked and ridiculed me. She had been indifferent to the precipitating problem and to the surgery itself, but flaunted how much she enjoyed the aftermath.

One night, she attacked me because my lower lip was numb and I literally couldn’t feel a piece of spinach stuck to my lip. She repeatedly pretend-asked, “Are you tellin’ me you can’t feel that?” while laughing her head off. I requested, in a civil and normal tone, that she tell me more nicely in the future. The next night, she re-attacked by making an over-the-top, theatrical production out of “telling me nicely” that food was on my lip, with more uproarious laughter at the malpractice victim’s expense.

Every time I timidly mentioned possible legal action or repair work, she smirked at me hugely and said, “You’re not mad at that nice Dr. Scheetz, are you?” She sometimes said that out of the clear blue sky, apparently just to remind me that she didn’t care. At one point she even made a public speech about how kind and thoughtful and skilled he was — and such a good-looking man, too!

She was indifferent to him before he hurt me, so I could only surmise that she idolized him because he hurt me. That was a painful realization. I already knew she didn’t really care about me and that she esteemed people who had hurt me, but going out of her way to exalt someone who hurt me was just plain malicious.

Because my jaw and mouth were no longer as they should have been, since then I have had to swallow hard. This was visible. Every single time I swallowed my own saliva, I had to gulp it in order for it to happen at all. My mother smirked and tittered, repeatedly giggling that I was “just doin’ that,” cracking herself up at the expense of someone freshly maimed by a surgeon.

Because no substantial repair work is possible, I still swallow hard. Every time. Many times a day.

It’s not a lot of fun to be reminded of what your mother is really like by the simple, human, and necessary act of swallowing. What does one do when one’s own bodily function is a trauma trigger?

I have looked into partial cosmetic repair (functional repair isn’t possible). When my mother learned of this, she actually had the nerve to ask if I wanted her to come out and “help” me during the recovery period. I said no, and reminded her of why — and, of course, she attacked. She instantly and viciously denied, then haughtily proclaimed, “I’d never do that!” She is a wonderful person, and wonderful people don’t ridicule the recently maimed, so therefore what happened didn’t happen.

Except it did. You did what you did, you lying bitch. Even if not a single other living soul ever learns of it, it still happened. The truth is true.

The Internet Is Great

I recently followed the tale of a young man, 14 years old, whose mother drugged him and tattooed her own name on his arm while he was unconscious. He asked Reddit for help, and Reddit came through with an outpouring of support and strong urgings to call the police. He did so, and he and his brother were rescued by CPS, while his mother is now jailed. It was a deeply satisfying ending to a story which should never have happened.

This story got me thinking about how important the Internet can be to young people in such families. This poor guy could have called the police right away … but he didn’t know that. People who grow up in these environments have no idea what is and isn’t actionable. No one has ever cared or helped before, so why would they now?

With several hundred adults telling him that this isn’t normal, that the police will help you, that maybe no one had ever listened or helped before but this one was genuinely different, the young man found enough hope to call.

If he had lived forty years ago, with no Internet access, he would have had no way of knowing that his crazy mother had finally crossed a line which would make others care. If he didn’t give up entirely, he would probably have continued timidly telling other people that his mother was crazy and possessive and controlling, and continued receiving big smirks and patronizing “explanations” that his mother loved him very much and only wanted him to be safe.

He would have ended up like me, wandering lost through his twenties, firmly repressing it, and occasionally falling apart from the unresolved trauma, utterly certain that no one would ever, ever care.

The Internet is a wonderful thing.

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.

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.

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.