this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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TW: suicide

Don't want to hurt abusers, but I do want to be able to hurt them and choose not to. I think it'd help me if I gained the ability to imagine physical vengeance. I want this to end in forgiveness.

It's long been unsustainable for me to be a martyr. I waste my life away in maladaptive daydreaming where I imagine helping my past abusers. I've attempted suicide over the grief of past events, which gave me CPTSD and OCD.

I've had multiple physical abusers, and can barely imagine hurting them. I need to build the ability to imagine attacking. I think if I can imagine hurting my attackers and physically punishing them, including just for my own vindictive fun, then maybe I can gain the ability to actually forgive them.

Currently, I imagine giving them what they want, and then magically figuring out a compromise with them where they change their minds and stop being an abuser. (Like dating someone who sees me as a piece of meat, and using the relationship to change their mind so they're not a shithead anymore.) I think that's not actual forgiveness, it's just bending to their will. I cycle through these maladaptive daydreams of self-sacrificing for the benefit of the inhumane, and waste my life in suicidal grief. I'm skipping something crucial...

...I realize cannot truly forgive without making a choice to not hurt them. I think I need to first imagine brutal vengeance. Not to act it out, but as a step to expressing myself differently before I attempt forgiveness.


A friend has also been trying to train me in MMA, but I won't hit for real. I won't spar with them even though I know its good for me. I just imagine stopping danger through compromises that don't actually exist.

One session I hit a bag for real. I was down to punch after someone had attempted to assault me days earlier. Being vindictive seriously helps, and imagining torturing and annihilating the predator was a huge help.

___

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[–] ProfessorOwl_PhD@hexbear.net 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I saw Renfield (2023) the other night, which deals with abuse and overcoming it by depicting Dracula and Renfield's Master/Familiar relationship as one of toxic dependency and abuse.

Despite Nic Cage's hamminess it capture the emotions and events that abuse involves really well, treating them very seriously despite the comedy around them. It also gets extremely violent with abusers (and cops, and the mob), with ludicrous amounts of blood spraying all over every fight scene.

The biggest downside of the film is that one of the major characters is a cop, but it is only one good cop among a bad bunch.

I can't honestly say it will help you with processing your abuse, but it depicts taking revenge on an abuser and isn't too heavy, so it might be a place to start.

[–] voight@hexbear.net 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I find it disgusting you're wasting time watching movies while we're out here building socialism.

EDIT: Sarcastic reference to something you said