How do you handle dealing with people who don't take abuse you have suffered seriously?

I don’t associate with people who do things that hurt me. I encourage my children to do the same.

If you are dealing with issues from your past that are painful, it’s often safe to work through these issues with a professional. Even the people who love you may have a difficult time dealing with this. It’s helpful to not expect them to handle this in any particular way. And in many cases, it’s best to set guidelines for what you expect when discussing such matters (“I just need you to listen.”, for example).

Regarding this site you are visiting – if you find that you feel worse due to interactions there, it’s likely that you should stop.

You need to find someone you can really trust and only share such things with them. Anyone that uses this shit against you is beyond contempt. It is so hard to be honest and open when discussing these things. It takes amazing strength to disclose the abuse. If the person you are sharing this with doesn’t measure up, ditch them

Unfortunately, some people just aren’t very empathetic or understanding of abuse. You don’t need those kinds of people in your life. Being abused is a humiliating and demeaning experience and leaves a feeling of shame. Other people should just listen and provide contact information for local shelters, support groups and national help lines.

Don’t tell those people about it. I know you can’t predict how someone will react when it is the first time you are opening up to them, but once you know someone lacks understanding move onto someone who is more sympathetic.

You said a site you use, are you talking about online friends? Online is risky, because you don’t really know most of the people. Plus if you are young, adults might see something differently, and simply be trying to give you perspective, but it feels dismissive of your feelings. Or, if you are a woman a man might have less chance of understanding. It really depends what it is. Some abuse there is no grey area.

I have no idea what type of abuse you are talking about, but there is the possibility that what you caused you to feel abused wouldn’t cause the same feelings to someone else. I know I have that sort of discrepancy with my husband. Not that he abuses mean, I mean how others have treated me feels abusive and if they did the same to him he wouldn’t feel abused.

If people use my vulnerability as a weapon against me, I don’t have them in my life. It sounds as though you misjudged these people. Now you know what they’re like, I’d limit or cancel contact with them. People can only treat us as we allow them to treat us. You can reject their behaviour and cut them off.

I think it is really hard to answer this question without knowing the details. My SIL talks about her ex husband using things she revealed to him against her to hurt her feelings, and from my perspective he is trying to make her aware of what she continues to do and point out to her why people say those things about her. It’s different, because it was not about how she was abused, but rather how she acts, thinks, and what she says.

My situation is not about abuse but was hurtful in a similar way – my ex never once took my health problems seriously. All because he had an aunt who had inflammatory bowel diesease and wasn’t horribly ill with it. He could not get it through his skull that cases vary from person to person and that my case was extremely severe.

Given that most of my teenagerhood was spend fighting for my life against that disease, it was pretty offensive not to be taken seriously.

I ended up just not really talking to him about health things, because I always felt that in his mind he was thinking that I was just being overdramatic or whiney. Which was stupid, because being sick had been a huge part of my life. My life which I was trying to invite him into.

We didn’t work out.

^I’m so glad things didn’t work out. You already fought one battle with your condition, you shouldn’t have to battle to be taken seriously about it.

Thank you. He was an ass!

It seems to me that many people simply don’t want to hear about these kinds of things. It scares them, and they find some way to dismiss it.

It’s tough to deal with this, on both sides. I had a friend confide in me about some abuse. The hurt, frustration, pain and rage are hard to handle for both of us. I hope I helped them. But it is an awful experience.