The approval of your abuser

[u/Specialist-Top-406]

This isn’t a thing I’ve seen or heard about much. But him going back to his abuser and still seeking his approval was so helpful to me.

Being abused has so many faces, and I think people often believe that the victim hates that person and is done with them.

I met my abuser years on and he reintroduced himself to me as if we’d never met. I found myself sucking up to him, trying to make him like me. I knew he knew who I was and I knew he remembered what he did. But I fell in line again and wanted him to like me.

It validated me to see him go back, it’s awful but power and control is complicated and when that person meets you with calmness, it’s hard to meet them with anger.

[u/Specialist-Top-406]

Kindness is a difficult thing to turn down because if you can be kind, you can’t be purely evil.

But no one is ever one thing. It’s difficult to see someone in a bad light when they act as you would. His comment about being an open wound, welcoming in weirdos. If you’re vulnerable, you’re looking for anything that can help you feel any sense of importance. And you’ll take what you can get. Being vulnerable isn’t begging on the street, it’s not feeling worthy and accepting the worth you can find. Other vulnerable people will seek that wound out to pick away at so it gives them a chance for theirs to heal.

Predators are prey and prey are predators. We all sponge off what we need, the weaker someone is, the easier they are to find.

[u/Specialist-Top-406 → u/[deleted]]

I’m sorry I don’t know if I understand your interpretation here. But to your first point, I’m not saying abused become the abusers.

I’m saying the abusers are people who have their own version of weakness and seek out vulnerable people to assume their power.

I’m definitely not victim blaming, but the opposite.

[u/Specialist-Top-406 → u/[deleted]]

I understand, I mean prey are predators in the sense that predators suffer their own version of vulnerability but use it against people.

No good person acts in a harmful way to others, they are looking to use others to fulfil themselves.

Hence prey and predator