Not believing abuse victims has much to do with our own fears

“But why didn’t you speak up?”

Whether we know it or not, admitting that misfortune can befall any one of us is one

of the most painful acts. We have developed quite the knack for distracting ourselves

from the dangers of life so as to avoid this admission. As relationship therapists, we

often confront one of these dangers: relational abuse, including sexual abuse and

other forms of domestic violence. In this article, we will be discussing how a specific

cultural trope can actually act as a shield against the discomforts of life: the tendency

of some to, when told about revelations of abuse, immediately doubt the victim and

retort that “if the claims were true, they would have said something sooner”. This

cliché is destructive both to the victim and on a larger scale when normalised. Before

we explain how this is a self-pacifying tendency, let us first actually answer the

question.

Simply making an act illegal does not prevent it. People make choices when they

believe the benefits of them outweigh the risks. Much of how we make this

judgement depends on what we have learned, in various complex ways, from life

experience. To over-simplify the issue, for illegality to deter an abuser, they would

have to believe that they are likely to be caught, and the consequences are likely to be

sufficiently negative to negate any possible “benefit” of abusing their partner. For

those consequences to happen, those responsible for enforcing the law have to act —

and even in places where abusive acts are illegal, for various reasons this does not

always happen. The process of enacting those consequences can also be rather

complex; think of publicised cases in which people avoided consequences not

because the authorities were convinced that they did no wrong, but because of a

technicality in how the matter was conducted.

As a victim, having to undergo that process, recounting details you would rather

forget, relentlessly answering questions and submitting to other procedures, while

people deliberately attempt to mislabel you as a liar, has a real effect on your brain’s

state. You can literally only attend to and process a limited amount of information

before you start to become compromised. This is not a choice. Before long, it may

well make it difficult for you to remember details or retell your story faithfully, which

is the perfect opportunity for doubters to confirm their belief that you were indeed

lying and make it all the more difficult for you to achieve justice. The same

difficulties can appear in conducting your personal and professional life, and affect

your sleep and appetite, and all of these issues can worsen each other cyclically.

Then there are the real social consequences of being a victim. In some communities,

people get blamed for being victims, usually because admitting that the abuse

happened would also mean admitting that the particular community allowed it to

happen. People are punished or expelled from their families — which for many,

especially minors, means being homeless. Even if a minor is placed in state care,

whether their experiences there are any less abusive is a game of chance. When you

are aware of these realities, you may well decide that the aftermath of the abuse is the

least of your problems.

Do false accusations of abuse happen? Of course they do. But arguing with such

certainty that accusations are true or false based only on what we find in the media or

on the Internet is fallacious. That information has been transmitted at least once

between people. Mistakes happen. People make interpretations rather than viewing

the events factually. People make assumptions. What makes any person conclude

here that they know the facts of the case?

The answer is that it creates a sense of (albeit false) security. We all know that life is a

dangerous and unpredictable event. Our minds hate unpredictability and insecurity,

so to compensate, we invent ideas to falsely reassure ourselves that the world is

actually safe and predictable. When we believe a “truth” based on a mere dearth of

evidence, we are telling ourselves a comforting lie: “I know what’s real and what isn’t.

I won’t be fooled. I’m safe”. When we deny others’ bad experiences, we are telling

ourselves another comforting lie: “these horrible events don’t actually happen. I’ll be

safe. This is just another exaggeration.” Often, we do this because we feel the need to

deny our own bad experiences with a third comforting lie: “what happened to me was

justified; this world wouldn’t be so evil as to do it to me if it wasn’t. I can just choose

not to let it happen next time.”

Bad events can happen to any of us. As a trauma and mental illness survivor myself, I

empathise with how difficult it can be to persevere after adversity. We can not find

guarantees in life, but we can seek hope, encouragement, and growth. Our team of

counsellors are steadfast in hearing your story and helping you to find those virtues.

We are here to help.