Quote Originally Posted by Alleo View Post
Because often those vicitms are already at a bad place in their life before this happens, trust a person for months, do one mistake (like you only really need to sent one picture) and then are confronted with other people they trusted that said that this is just drama and they should just take it, have the abuser say to them that he/she might kill himself if they go and thanks to all the actions over time they might not have many people left that they can confine into. All of this while already suffering from depression and other attacks. IMO it is not good to go to them and start to blame them for it too. You dont need to sugarcoat anything, you simply just need to be there for them and if that all is over, you can still talk about the mistakes. But imo not when the person is already at their worst place.

Also again its always easy from the outside and as a hindsight to point out the bad stuff. But those people often dont even notice these things because they trust the person and because the person tries everything to have their trust.
I don't mean to be dismissive but none of what you said here has literally any bearing on what we're talking about.

Support and criticism are not mutually exclusive, in fact I would say the best support is almost always accompanied by some constructive criticism. Hearing "I love you" from someone who you likely already know cares about you is of minimal consequence in the long run. I'm not ignoring that people still need that kind of reassurance in the moments following a traumatic experience, simply stating that it isn't the people offering them who are giving the best or most useful support.

You seem to have this misconception that a victim of abuse accepting responsibility for their own safety somehow also adds blame to them or lessens the burden of blame on the abuser. The abuser is still 100% to blame for the abuse, it would not happen without them. Asking the victim to examine their actions and understand mistakes that they made does not mean you don't understand that.

Since you seem so focused on people being in such a delicare state of mental health after such an experience I ask you this as well - they are very vulnerable at that point, right? So if everyone just smothers them with love and affection and they don't understand that they've done something wrong what's to stop the same situation from arising again immediately after? Those who want to take advantage of others flock to emotionally unstable people.

I watched this happen to my mom as a kid - we were in a domestic violence shelter from one boyfriend of hers and she would meet a guy, move out into his house and repeat. Instead of focusing on herself all she seemed to get ingrained in her mind was that men are bad, not that perhaps she wasn't properly vetting the men she chose to immediately enter committed relationships with and rely on. No one called her on her mistakes until the third go around and it was me at 13 years old.

People learning from their mistakes is often the only bit of good to come out of any bad situation and they can't be left to their own devices for that to work. Introspection is not a natural state of being, especially not the sort that examines personal error after an already traumatic experience. Your brain wants to insulate you from the bad thoughts naturally, this is why victims of forcible rape or extreme physical trauma often don't have clear memory of the incedents. All of this contributes to the need to force that uncomfortable self examination, especially when it can be most impactful.