Scarleteen

when i was 10-11 i got sexually harassed by boys in my class on an almost daily basis which fucked me up so bad i genuinely couldn't stand myself for 3 years, felt ashamed of what happened and developed internalized misogyny, and whenever i open up about it, people always make me feel sorta not valid??? like it's always things like, "oh, don't blame them!" "they're probably victims too" and even when i just bring up bullying, people always assume that the bullies have a terrible life going on, which dont get me wrong, those things can be true, but it's never always that.
there's a super common belief that bullies are children that do what they experienced to other kids that, however, are far more privileged and happy in their families than their bullies, and i think this belief is really exclusive and invalidating to people like me who had a pretty mentally abusive home life for quite a long timeand as much as i agree that parents should be blamed for the doings of their kids, it's not always abuse that causes kids to be bullies. often it's the parents discriminative mindsets and/or the kids' uncontrolled exposure to the internet that causes kids to behave this way. and im saying that as someone who is of mixed ethnicity and that same ethnicity got me harassed this bad due to how many people hate it and how it's also a porn genre. it frustrates me bad whenever people tell me to not be mad at the people who did it to me because yeah, they're not entirely guilty for it and their parents are xenophobes that let kids use the internet without controlling them, but they still entirely knew they were hurting me and i think i have the right to be upset about it as it caused me a lot of shame and mental health issues
i just don't like how people always act like bullying victims are privileged aside from the bullying and like bullies are all struggling. yeah, maybe they do struggle, and it's probably common, but sometimes they just target people from minorities that their parents hate and get brutal with it +hear and see shit on the internet. and i also think that being an easy target doesnt mean you're a spoiled child living the happiest house life. yet i see so many portray it like that, it's frustrating.

Chloe,

I'm so sorry that you've had these experiences.

I agree with you, people coming to you with these takes are both not responding to someone disclosing abuse or harassment the way anyone should, and that these kinds of opinions you're talking about about people who perpetrate abuse and harassment tend to be oversimplified (and you have to wonder, is this what they just keep saying all the way down the line, to each of the people they keep saying not to hold responsible?).

Even "blame" here is really out of order. Holding people responsible for their actions and any harm they do -- which all of us are, regardless of our histories -- is the right thing to do, including for those people. When they do exist, no one who has engaged in abuse can break cycles of abuse if they aren't held responsible and don't hold themselves accountable.

Policing your feelings as a survivor also doesn't help anyone, especially you. It sounds like some of the folks you've encountered also don't realize how many survivors keep their feelings about what they survived completely locked up, and how that keeps people from healing.

Is this something you want any kind of help with, like coming up with some standard responses for people who respond to you like this, developing some screening tools when it comes to choosing who to tell, avoiding people like this altogether when possible, etc, or is this more about just wanting to say these things out loud somewhere safe?

i wanted to mostly just say this somewhere safe, but id like some advice as to what to say too!! it just sometimes frustrates me a lot even though im getting over it with time...but yeah id like some advice!!

Hi colugo, we are very glad we could provide that space for you here!

My shift is ending so I’m sorry I am not able to write you a full answer, but I will let the rest of the team know you are waiting for it and someone will get back to you when they can. For now, you might find something in this new series by Heather useful and relevant to your situation: Outspoken: The Who, How, What, and When

I understand.

You know, it's obviously a little different from this, but this part of this series I wrote -- https://www.scarleteen.com/read/abuse/o ... rummy-ones -- gives some information about what to say to people saying boneheaded or otherwise crummy when someone is disclosing abuse to them. Namely, I am thinking of this response or something like it:

“I’m not the right person to say that to or bring this up with. I’m the person this has directly happened to, and I need to be centered here.”

In other words, with responses like you're talking about, the people responding that way are forgetting or simply not understanding that YOU are who they need to center and think most about, not the people who abused you. Those people aren't there disclosing any abuse to them, after all, YOU are. Why are they focusing on someone else instead of you? Why are they thinking you naming your abuse has ANY impact at all on the people who abused you, when that's not a court of law, nor are those people even present?

It may be that with some of those people, you just walk away, which is a perfectly valid response. With others you might say things like I mentioned above. With others still you might want to be more pointed, like, "It feels to me like you're having a hard time acknowledging I was abused and being empathetic with me. I think you centering the people who abused me is something you are doing, probably without even realizing you're doing it, because really taking in that *I*, the person in front of you, was abused is something you're having a hard time handling or knowing how to respond to." Then you make the choice of telling them you don't want to talk to them anymore, or you can ask them if they can adjust how they are responding, if you want to give things another try.

What I'd be curious about is how you're deciding who to tell, because I think much of the time, we just need to do what we can to avoid telling people who might respond like this in the first place. We can't always, obviously, but I think a lot of the time being really picky about who we tell can do a lot of the lifting and spare us these kind of insensitive and wrong responses. <3

(And what do you know, Andy and I picked the same series to link you to.)