The Pukiche Girl Child Foundation

The mind of an abuser

The Mind Of An Abuser

“An abuser is someone who causes harm to others, it could be sexually, emotionally, verbally, financially or physically.”

Whats make an Abuser abuse?

Abuse has to do with control and power, you find out that a lot of times, abusers don’t abuse people who they can’t control, their victims are usually people who they may have identified as preys who they can feast on, people they can control or people they have power over. 

The need to control someone else has a lot to do with how they feel about themselves, they don’t feel powerful within themselves, hence they look to see how they can gain that externally. They don’t have a healthy relationship with themselves internally, some have personality disorders which could be as a result of a dysfunctional situation when at developing stages of life., sometimes dysfunctional pasts experiences lead to dysfunctional behaviours. Sometimes, victims have unhealthy personality construct such as low self-esteem, that is why victims and abusers come together because they function in a very dysfunctional way 

Research shows that abusers often come from unstable home environment, they may have seen or witnessed a lot of violence while growing up so they come from a place of not knowing what ‘healthy’ looks like, for them normal is abnormal because they’re not used to it.

So, a financial abuser may not understand boundaries, they may not understand that they don’t have right to control someone else’s finances or have no right being entitled to someone else’s valuables maybe because they grew up in an environment where one parent constantly steals the other’s money 

Research also shows that abusers are often victims of abuse themselves not always but it is sometimes, abusers are often victims who are overcompensating to gain the power that they have lost in the past

Another possible cause of abuse is emotional neglect, when young they didn’t receive the validation, love and attention that they needed to develop a healthy sense of self. This leads them to search for this validation in abusing others. 

An example will be a bully in a secondary school, who was emotionally neglected at developmental stage craves for this validation by making other feel low just so they can feel powerful or make their victim feel how they feel inwardly, they gain attention from doing this especially from their peers, they feel powerful, loved, in control hence their behaviour is reinforced 

As a result of being emotionally neglected, being abused, growing up in an abusive environment, these abusers develop low self-esteem, the abusive and over controlling behaviour is a compensation for lack of self-worth they have internally, so to feel secure, they need a victim to control. 

In some cases, abusers realize that their abusive behaviour will push them away so they start to make up by buying gifts, flowers, book trips, being overly caring or protective to the victims just so they don’t leave, this taps into their fear of abandonment and rejection they felt growing up so they do all they can even promising it won’t repeat itself again just so they don’t walk away. This behaviour keeps the victim in the relationship and keeps the abuser in the position of power.  Abusers may seem strong on the outside, but internally they have a very weak sense of self. 

As a victim of abuse, it is always best to seek help to recover else the vicious cycle continues, it is not your place to fix anyone who abuses you, you don’t have the power to do so, doing so only keeps breaking you further 



 

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