Child Abuse, part 3.1: the abuse eabler
Channel: spiritanvil
Date: 2012-08-21

Abuse enabling is the process whereby a bystander sides with the perpetrator, either in protecting them from retaliation when it arises, urging victims not to retaliate or speak up about the abuse, covering up for the abuser's actions or, at times, joining in on the abuse without being the primary abuser. Their motivations are "keeping the peace", trying to get the problem to go away by denying it exists, and "not wanting to get on the bad side" of the abuser - in other words, fear, self-deception and a lack of anger towards the abuser.

I believe my mother is one such person and will be discussing her attitudes during the next several videos, as well as addressing the issue of abuse enabling in general. I apologize for the rambling nature of the video, but find this rather difficult to discuss. Unlike the situation with my father, for whom my feelings are clear, my stance towards my mother is altogether conflicted.

If there's one thing I really want to emphasize, it's that if you approach an abuse enabler, wishing either to befriend or love them, to "fix" them, or to form a parent-child attachment towards them, you will eventually learn that, because they are abuse enablers, they will either gravitate towards abusers or at best find abusers gravitating towards them. And if you try to get them to stand up against the abuser, even as the abuser is acting against you, they will never take your side (unless you're more of a threat to them than the abuser is).

I found this to be a nice essay on abuse enabling:
http://luke173ministries.org/templates/System/details.asp?id=39548&PID=466820