On projection

“…Everything a man cannot courageously accept about himself is projected onto his mother, or his wife.  Or onto any random woman walking down the street.”

— Monica Sjoo and Barbara Mor, The Great Cosmic Mother

When you’re arguing with a man and he’s accusing you of all kinds of crazy shit that you know you didn’t do, he’s projecting his own qualities onto you.  He’s actually guilty of all that crazy shit, but he can’t accept it, and so he shoves it off onto you, or other women.  Men do this because they “other” women, because women aren’t quite human to them.  To them women are blank slates ready to reflect anything men project onto them.

You see this in rape, porn and sexual exploitation in general;  men think it’s sexy and hot, so they project this onto women.  Then they pressure women to go along with the script.  They actually believe their own projections and if a woman doesn’t go along with the script, she is presumed to be lying, attacked and punished.  That’s why women who object to porn are labeled “repressed”. That’s why rape victims are not believed, or are dismissed as “asking for it”.

On abusers

“This broken individual desperately needs to feel invincible, to win, and be in control. Being wrong, having to “give in,” give up, or to place another’s needs before their own is unacceptable.”

— Dr. Irene, “The Abuser“

On gaslighting

From the 1944 film Gaslight. (Source)

Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse in which the abuser tries to undermine his victim’s sense of reality.

“The gaslighter’s overall goal is to modify evidence then falsify information for the purpose of making their intended target(s) question their own recollection, memory, analysis, and perception of events and/or behaviors. In other words, they reject reality and substitute it with their own for personal gain and entertainment. In short, they enjoy inflicting psychological pain onto others and will stop at nothing to psychologically abuse their targets in order to get their own way. So what is it that they do?  The primary behaviors are listed as follows:

On abuse

Untitled by M.K. Hajdin

Abusers want to keep abuse secret, so they can stay in control.  If the victim of the abuse starts to speak out, connecting with other people who’ve had the same experiences, and recognizing the patterns of abuse, the abuser starts to lose some of his power.  So the abuser says, “Don’t you dare tell anyone.”  The abuser says, “You’re a liar, no one will believe you.”  The abuser says, “You are crazy, no one will believe you.”  The abuser says, “You’re a manipulator, no one will believe you.”