So glad to see true insight into toxic and abusive people ~ Lilly Hope Lucario

This is insight that I know and have been voicing for a few years now. Shannon Thomas is one of the mental health professionals, that gets it. She does not make excuses and rationalise in the same way many people choose.

Shannon has an amazing book, I highly recommended. I was honoured to receive a special acknowledgement and have my Website and resources recommended in her book. Shannon is a God send to many, including me.

Her book is @ https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Hidden-Abuse-Recovery-Psychological/dp/0997829087/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1470438802&sr=1-2

If being abused was the reason for people to become abusers……. then every victim of abuse would become an abuser. And that is NOT the case.

Many victims of terrible and heinous abuse, neglect and abandonment…. do not become abusers. In fact, the compassion gained and the desire to never willingly hurt another person, is something I treasure in all the abuse survivors I see who become empathic and kind people.

Being abused, is not an excuse for being an abuser. Having a personality disorder like narcissistic, sociopathic, psychopathic disorders, are not an excuse to be abusers. These disorders, do NOT render someone incapable of stopping themselves abusing others. These disorders to not force people to be abusers. They make ‘choices’ to abuse others, and they do know it is wrong. They do know right from wrong. They are not insane.

I see there is more talk about how mental illness, does not make someone violent and mental illness, needs to stop being used as the excuse for abusive and violent behaviour.

It may be the easy road to say abusive people ‘can’t help it’ and blame mental illness, or blame trauma history for being abusive…….. but it not the truth.

People may delude themselves that they are being compassionate in their rationalising excuses for abusive behaviours…… but it is not compassion when it based in irrational and untrue beliefs.

People make choices. People have free will.

The fact is, some people like hurting others.

They feel better when they hurt others.

They are rewarded by their behaviours.

They want to avoid accountability. 

This is why they choose their actions and why they will continue and often fail to stop.

16 year old rape victim, told by Baptist Church – to apologise to the rapists wife.

Pastor Rapes Teen And Church Demands She Apologize to Her Rapist’s Wife

From the article…

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An Ohio church has demanded that a 16-year-old rape victim apologize to her attacker’s wife, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Columbia Baptist Church, based out of North Olstead, has forbidden the family of an unnamed teenager from attending their services until she apologizes to the wife of youth pastor Brian Mitchell, 31, for being raped by her husband.

The girl said that she had come to the church looking for spiritual guidance, and that she looked up to Mitchell, whom she saw as a mentor. Mitchell started sending her increasingly frequent text messages, eventually complaining to her about his wife and their marital problems.

Mitchell then sexually abused her on at least two separate occasions.

“I did not give him permission,” the girl wrote in a letter which was read at Mitchell’s hearing. “I clearly said ‘no, I didn’t want to.’ I felt like he tricked me.”

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It is not uncommon for victims of abuse by church people, to be treated appallingly. Especially by the more right wing, fundamentalist churches.

It is disgusting and abhorrent to treat a rape victim in this way.

To further abuse her by expecting her to apologise to the rapists wife…….. is abhorrent.

It is emotional and spiritual abuse.

And sadly, far too many churches, support victim blaming and shame shifting and choose to treat the victim badly and ostracise them, and protect the abuser.

I’m aware of how many child sexual abuse victims, are blamed for the sexual abuse, by suggesting the victim manipulated the ‘poor adult’ into abusing them. I’ve seen many times, the victim described as being the one who groomed the adult and then treated like they are the perpetrator and the rapist is treated like the victim. It is shame and blame shifting as it’s worst.

This is exactly what the head minister and son of the paedophile predator at the Hillsong Church, did to the victims of child sexual abuse. The victims were blamed for ‘enticing the adult’.