uhhh yeah…i sure hope it is
Even if they say “they didn’t mean it”, they’re still responsible for what they did.
Even if they say “they don’t remember it”, they’re still responsible for what they did.
Even if they say “you’re delusional, I would never do that, you made it up”, they’re still responsible for what they did, and for trying to gaslight and invalidate your memories.
Even if they say “I didn’t do it, and even if I did, I would be right to do it”, they’re still guilty for what they did.
Even if they have excuses, they’re still responsible for what they did.
Even if they act like it would have been crazy to expect from them to act any different way, they’re still responsible for what they did to you.
Even if they come at you with an entire agenda of how you should perceive what they did so it actually “benefits you”, even if they insist they did it for your own good, they’re still responsible for what they did to you, and for lying about it.
Even if they cry about how much it pains them to be accused of hurting you, they’re still responsible for what they did to you.
Even if they cry about how much they love you and how they did it all out of love and never meant to hurt you, it’s still their responsibility for what they did to you.
Even if they act like what they did shouldn’t have hurt you and you’re the one responsible for taking damage, for being sensitive to being abused, it’s still their responsibility for what they did to you.
Even if they blame you for what they did to you, they’re still responsible for what they did.
Even if they insist someone else did it to them too, even if they insist they had it worse than you, even if they say it’s a cultural thing, they’re still responsible for what they did to you.
Even if it was long ago, and they act like you’re wrong for remembering such old wrong doing, it’s still something they did, and they’re still responsible for doing it.
They can lie and deny and accuse and blame and invalidate and gaslight. It doesn’t absolve them of responsibility for what they did. It doesn’t absolve them from guilt.
Nothing can absolve abusers from responsibility for their own actions. Nothing.
Abusive parents force you to hide things you would otherwise never have to worry about hiding, because you learn that they can flip out about anything, make a scene from anything, misunderstand one detail and go insane over it. So you don’t tell them about anything you can avoid, and you try to deal with things yourself as much as humanely possible, which takes the burden of taking care of you from them, and onto your shoulders.
This is dangerous as well because you don’t tell them about a friend who did something horrible to you, you don’t tell them about a sociopath who tried to groom or touch you, you don’t tell them about horrifying heartbreak you feel when someone abandons you, you don’t tell them when your world is falling apart because you know that at best, they’ll be uninterested, at worst, they will tell you it was your fault and you deserved it.
Living in secrecy becomes normal and when you develop trauma symptoms it once again feels like it’s your fault because you never said anything, you never told them how much they were hurting you, you didn’t speak up and open up about your problems. But how in the world would you? You know if you had, all that you would get is insults, blame, threats, guilt and shame thrown in your face, how could you possibly take that on top of having trauma symptoms? You can’t, it’s not worth risking. Suffering in silence becomes your only survival option, and you watch your heart break a little more every day that nobody cares that you’re breaking apart.