Physical & Emotional Abuse Support Group
Abuse is a general term for the treatment of someone that causes some kind of harm (to the abused person, to the abusers themselves, or to someone else) that is unlawful or wrongful. No one deserves abuse, period. Abuse can be emotional, physical, or sexual.
Do any of you think abusers can be good people who just happen to be abusers or does being an abuser disqualify you from being a "good person"? Many of my abusers seemed like good, nice people so I'm grappling with that debate. What do you guys think?
Long answer, it depends on your definition of "abuser" and of "good person".
Example...can someone that's hit another person in anger a hundred time be a good person? Will it make a difference if I tell you the person is 3 years old? What if they're 5? 15? Will a disability like Down's Syndrome or brain injury matter?
What about a fetal alcohol child, who's now an adult, with the mental maturity of 10? (And there's more of those than people acknowledge.)
Traumatic Brain Injury from sports (football, soccer, diving, gymnastics)?
Dementia? Stroke?
A good person for 80 years, then gets a stroke and hits, spits, kicks, swears, Are they a bad person?
Personally, I don't think that it's about "being a good person"...it's about behavior and keeping others safe. If you go blind, sorry, you can be a good person, but it's no longer okay for you to drive.
And as good of a person as you otherwise may be, if you hurt others...you need to be prevented from doing so.
Love doesn't count, wishes don't count...only behavior, what one is actually Doing...counts.
Most abusers do "seem" good. They are good actors. They know how to use their "goodness" to fool people into thinking they are "good people." imho, abusers are deeply wounded and/or disordered people. However that does NOT excuse their abusive behavior - ever. Unfortunately most abusers know how to be "good" for just long enough to keep their 'source' from leaving.
Why (or what causes) an abuser to abuse is of little consequence. As is how "good" they are. Everyone has flaws. What matters is abusers almost always and consistently revert back to being abusive. Sadly the chances are slim to none that an abuser will change for the better permanently.
For me, the question ended being, how much longer do I want to spend the precious moments of my life with someone who is nice one minute and abusive the next. When someone is nice and then abusive, and then nice and then abusive, the abuse is the price we pay for their "niceness." AND when they are nice to everyone else but abusive to you behind closed doors, are they really nice?
So it is up to each of us to decide if its worth the price it stay.
I will add that the longer one stays with an abuser, the more dysfunctional they become. And if they have kids, the kids learn what they live and grow up to live what they learned. That's how the cycle of abuse continues.
If they are doing these things they are a bad person
They will make out they are good to others to keep them happier on the inside and to get what they want etc
Their friends even if they see cctv footage will all insist he is good, respects women so gentle not like that and the rest of society for various reasons will remain silent.
They all will allow you to think someone who is harming others is a good person
There are some deeply troubled who sincerely wish not to abuse and might change given better circumstances and always being exposed and attacked back for it, might learn to stop
But I doubt it
Being grey about this, has made me tolerate a lot of bad behaviour in my life and being black and white has had new ditching them fast and more isolated
The social game is to say everyone you like is a good person despite evidence to the contrary and to help your mate really believe they are a good person and to convince others they are great. After all they aren't hurting you....
I personally do not believe anyone can be an abuser- a controversial idea I know that not everyone will see things this way. Abuse is about Power and Control. There are behaviors which may be labeled abusive-such as calling someone a name (verbal abuse), screaming at someone (no one should be screamed at), or given the "silent treatment," and so on. But in my mind, there is a BIG difference between a difficulty in coping which may cause anyone to engage in these behaviors and someone who engages in these behaviors as a part of a campaign to subjugate the will of the other person. BIG difference there to me!
In my life there have been times I've engaged in an abusive behavior. I lost my temper and said something nasty, I had poor life skills to deal with stressors, I've been unable to cope with my emotions and kept silent, But I am NOT an abuser, even when I engage in these behaviors (which are NOT okay to do no matter what the cause). When someone's end goal is to control even the most mundane, innocuous, seemingly kind gestures can be abuse.
This misunderstanding drives me a little crazy, because I believe it is a big reason why emotional abuse especially stays covert and people don't talk about emotional abuse. EVERYONE on occasion can do the things I talked about, yell, say something mean, ignore bids for attention, and so on. That does NOT make the person an abuser. So people tend to be dismissive of emotional abuse because they think, "Well, I've told my kid the other day to shut up when I was on the phone and they were fighting, I don't think I'm an emotional abuser-therefore the person who told you to shut up isn't either." Not knowing of course, that when the stressed out mom who told her fighting kids to shut up felt horrible about it, apologized, generally doesn't talk that way to her healthy happy kids is not the same thing as the emotionally abusive mother in law who told her daughter in to shut up a the dinner table in front of everyone to send a message that her opinion doesn't matter and what she says is worthless. These are two totally different women, even though it's the same behavior - different motivations.