#my mom is a gaslighting narcissist who never takes responsibility for anything she's done in her life ever

[tonotbelionized]

RWBY’s Handlement of Abuse

Abuse isn’t a topic that’s anything new in media, it’s been handled over decades in many different ways; some done very well and others... not so well. RWBY is one of the many shows that attempts to handle this controversial topic, and goes deep into how it not only affects the victims of the abuse, but also deals with different types.

Physical, Emotional, Mental, even less known ones such as financial abuse, this show actually handles many attempts with clear care and the writers do seem to do their research in this. In my opinion, this research and trying to find out more about this sensitive topic is shown very clearly. I don’t like talking about myself much, but as a victim of abuse myself, I hold this topic very dear to my heart and feel more strongly when it’s written compared to other topics.

So, with that in mind, I’d like to look at the different abusive relationships we have so far in RWBY, and to see how well they hold up in both writing and how they’re seen so in the FNDM itself. 

Adam & Blake

Now, one of the most well known abusive relationships in RWBY is the one between Adam and Blake. It’s been given the most screen time, thought, and it has the bonus of having happened to one of our four protagonists. There is no denying that the relationship between these two characters is an extremely toxic one, and it’s a relationship that has heavily impacted on both Blake and the FNDM as well. 

Even before their confrontation at the end of Volume 3, Blake clearly shows the behaviour and the mentality of an abuse victim. She doesn’t see Adam as this monster, and whenever he’s mentioned by her during this time, she actually uses non-threatening or derogatory words such as referring to him as her partner or that he changed. She never outright talks about what it was exactly that Adam did to her or how he changed. In fact, the closest we had was after Yang was disqualified from the tournament where she explains why she’s afraid to just trust Yang again.

Blake’s journey of learning to live with her trauma and move away from the past is nicely written and I like the fact that it isn’t a straight path to progress. Blake stumbles, she fails and she gets back up again, something that’s great because that’s what most recovery progress is like. The culmination of her proving she’s no longer afraid of Adam at the end of Volume 5 felt earned compared to her reaction to seeing him again before, and it’s a solid moment of Blake doing this with Sun, a friend, rather than carrying on what she was doing before with pushing everything away.

While I’m not a big fan of her letting Adam go at the end of it, given that it just felt like she was letting a terrorist and extremely dangerous person escape just so he knew what it was like to run away, that doesn’t diminish how powerful that moment is for Blake’s character and her whole relationship with Adam. Adam’s short and Blake opening up more in Volume 6 shows use how far the abuse went.

Adam wasn’t afraid to emotionally manipulate and gaslight Blake when he felt she was questioning him too much. He’s emotionally shackled himself to her and clearly won’t let anything take Blake away from him, so when she finally leaves him behind, he believes that it’s her fault that he’s hurting and is unable to see how irrational that line of thinking is. He isn’t willing to take responsibility for what he did, and this carries on to where he would rather kill Blake than let her go again, even dragging Yang into it.

It’s really telling that Adam goes as far as to reject the chance to leave twice. Both Blake and Yang have matured enough to try and push Adam to leave them alone and to move on with his life, but he’s unable to comprehend doing so mentally. That emotional attachment to Blake is still there, and ultimately he died rather than break that bond. It was a cathartic moment for Blake to truly be free of Adam, and the fact that she breaks down rather than be triumphant feels like such a realistic moment because an abuse victim doesn’t just hate their abuser even when they leave.

Getting those moments that were great with your abuser out of your head is incredibly difficult, and it’s clear that even with Adam gone, the damage that he did to Blake’s mental state is plain to see, especially since she blames herself for the plan going wrong on the ship. She’s so used to it being her fault that she can’t comprehend when it isn’t, because to an abuse victim everything is their fault. 

Raven & Yang

Abandonment and emotional abuse go hand in hand, and I’d like to add that while Raven’s abandonment of Yang is a more typical style we are used to in media, where the person ups and leaves to never return, there is another type of abandonment; a series of temporary abandonment where the abuser returns again, only to up and leave when things don’t go as they want. 

The abusive relationship between Yang and Raven is just as impactful as the abuse Blake suffered under Adam, and yet I feel that it’s weirdly brushed off by some people in the FNDM as well as not being given much prevalence when Yang finally confronts Raven, both when she met Raven at the bandit camp and in Haven’s vault.

I don’t like that Yang calls Raven “Mom”, because Raven is not Yang’s mother. She left when her daughter was just born and never did anything to raise her, which is what a parent is. It’s easy to have a baby, but if you don’t put in the effort to actually raise that child in a healthy way, then you are not a parent. On top of that, when Yang finally finds Raven again, she’s very emotionally manipulative of her daughter.

She constantly praises and is open to Yang when it suits her, but as soon as Yang makes it clear that she only wants to find Ruby, not spend time with her, Raven instantly becomes closed off and cold, making comments on that family only visits her when they want something. Not only is this classical emotional abuse, as she’s treating Yang well only when she believes Yang deserves it. Put plainly, Yang is treated nicely when she does what Raven likes. It’s also very hypocritical given how little Raven actually cares about her actual family.

Then the argument in vault further solidifies this. Raven isn’t above calling her mentally ill daughter a scared little girl when Yang starts shaking from her PTSD. She constantly tries to excuse her behaviour, albeit poorly, and Yang rightfully calls her out for not only calling herself strong while showing the exact opposite, but that she killed the previous Spring Maiden to take her powers while also calling herself merciful for doing so. It just paints Raven with a victim complex, that she had a hard life and survived it so her actions are justified.

The main problem that I have with this that I don’t have with Adam and Blake’s relationship, is that there’s no real ending to the fact that Raven abandoned Yang and left her daughter with crippling abandonment issues. Yang starts to touch on this when she asked Raven why she left her and her family in the bandit camp, but Raven deflected the question and it’s never brought up again during this time.

Their only confrontation after is in the vault, but as I mentioned before, Yang didn’t even try to find out why Raven left her. This was the one thing she wanted to find out, something that was built up in her talk with Blake in Volume 2, but instead they talk about the Spring Maiden and then Yang takes the lamp after calling Raven out for calling herself strong. No mention of how her leaving Yang affected her daughter, or even Yang trying to find out why.

The final thing with this is just how selfish Raven is. She willingly lets Yang take the relic despite knowing that Salem would go after her, rather than just closing the vault and leaving. That’s a choice. No one needed to take the relic because no one knew that Raven was the Spring Maiden. The only person who knew otherwise was Cinder, and she was believed to be dead at that moment. The fact that she cried for a few seconds seems to be enough for some fans to say that she obviously cared when Raven hadn’t shown any of that before.

She purposely manipulated Yang, she abandoned her family, she wanted the villains to kill her brother and lets Cinder throw a fireball at Ruby (Yang’s sister and her teammates daughter), and she shows no remorse for this until that one moment. That’s not good enough, and I certainly hope that Yang gets at least some closure in the upcoming volumes.

Jacques & Winter, Weiss and Whitley

The interesting thing about Jacques’ abuse on his children, and his wife, is that it’s one of the few abusive relationships that we see have a different effect on each one of his victims.

First one and the one I actually have least to say about is Willow, but it seems that his abuse of her has the biggest impact because of how much it affects their children. It’s pretty clear that their marriage was very much toxic, but not so much that she would’ve suspected that Jacques didn’t actually love her given Willow’s severe reaction and decline mentally when he confessed that he only married her for her name. 

This beating down of his wife’s mental state and driving her to alcoholism has the negative effect on the children because they no longer have that maternal figure in their life anymore. Willow was a caring mother; she attended Weiss’ recitals, she cared enough to throw them birthday parties and was angry when Jacques was late to Weiss’ tenth birthday, but after that she just stopped caring.

His behaviour with his children is that of a typical narcissist, and that it seems to have an effect on each Schnee child differently. It very much relies on dividing the siblings, playing on the typical golden child vs black sheep, and even then the term golden child is used loosely given how easily they can lose that title if they even step a toe out of line. With that mentality, Winter, Weiss and Whitley have that source of comfort and strength with standing together taken away.

Not only that, but a majority of his abuse comes from that narcissist behaviour. To Jacques, his children aren’t people with their own dreams and feelings and wants, their physical extensions of himself that he can control, befitting that of stocks to a business owner.

Let’s start with Winter. We can pretty much infer that what happened to Weiss had happened to Winter given what she says in Volume 3, that she went through something similar when she left to join the army. Winter leaving home to join the army is a direct comparison to the story of an abused child leaving the household to join the military as a way of escaping that trauma, and even then Winter is not completely free from Jacques because she has to keep contact with him.

It’s likely that moment of freedom she granted herself by joining the army was taken as an affront to Jacques’ power and control over her, he can no longer tell Winter what to do because she doesn’t live with him or rely on him for shelter, so he’s going to do the next best thing he can. He cuts Winter off from her money. It’s a fantastic representation of financial abuse that also affects Weiss in Volume 3, and shows how far Jacques is willing to go just to prove that Winter ultimately can’t escape him so long as she is in Atlas, which she remains due to her work.

The effect this has on Winter is very open and clear. Winter has pretty much thrown herself into her work and professionalism, to the point where, while it’s obvious she deeply cares for Weiss and had been looking out for her sister since they were children, she cannot let herself be free and open with her feelings. To Winter, her place in the military is home because it’s given her that chance for freedom away from her abusive household, away from Jacques. If that’s threatened or insulted, such as her fight with Qrow because he called Ironwood and the Atlas military “sellouts”, she will take it personally and lose her temper because she owes everything to Ironwood and the military.

Weiss is the one with the most affected character because of her status as one of the protagonist. Taking into account all of the material surrounding her backstory, Weiss, like Winter, was treated more as an object or commodity by Jacques, something that he could force to do whatever he pleased. It’s shown in the Mirror Mirror manga where he pushed her to sing at concerts at a young age, even to the point where Weiss was exhausted. When Winter stepped in and told Weiss to rest, Jacques took that as a slight against him and berated Winter viciously, lecturing her on upholding the Schnee name. He cares more about the name than his daughter’s health.

Even in her debut trailer,Weiss had to fight and be disfigured before Jacques allowed her to go to Beacon instead of Atlas. The permanent reminder of that constantly on her face. Even when Weiss finally managed to get to Beacon, Jacques constantly rang hr in an attempt to keep in touch with her, trying to uphold that small amount of power he had with Weiss in another continent. Trying to leave an abuser is incredibly difficult if you still have contact with them, even if it’s something as small as phone calls.

When she didn’t do what he wanted and answer his calls, that same financial abuse that Winter was subjected to happened again, and it’s obviously embarrassing to Weiss that she can’t even afford a meal now and has to rely on friends. That attempt to isolate her through embarrassment is just another effect from Jacques’ decision to cut Weiss off. When she becomes more rebellious and mouths back to him, as well as calling everyone out at the party in Volume 4, Jacques couldn’t handle this kind of rebellion like a narcissist would.

To him, Weiss is being unreasonable and he had given her everything she could ever want, so at this point he would simply take it all away. He can’t handle shame and seems to hold the Schnee name up, despite marrying into it, and when Weiss points this out he finally delves into physical abuse by slapping her. Given her shocked reaction to this, I don’t think she expected him to hit her, pointing that Jacques usually went for more emotional manipulation to keep them in line.

Finally, his abuse of Whitley has pushed his son in the complete opposite direction to his sister. As the youngest and unable to leave through the same way his siblings did, either joining the Academy or the military, Whitley spent his time in the manor with Jacques completely alone and isolated. So, in a desperate attempt to handle this pressure, he’s simply buckled under Jacques’ thumb and does whatever he can to appease his father, just because he’s seen what happens if he rebels like Weiss and Winter did.

Another note is that Whitley was 5/6 when Jacques’ true reasons for marrying Willow came out. After that Willow stopped being much of a part in her children’s lives, so much so that she’s constantly sitting in the gardens getting drunk. Because of that young age, Whitley never had any solid memories of a time where Willow was a more active and caring mother, unlike Winter and Weiss. While it can hurt to remember how someone used to be when they’ve fallen so far, they at least have those memories to hold onto. Whitley doesn’t, and that likely adds more into his isolation.

It seems however, that to a worryingly large amount of the FNDM, that Whitley’s abuse is swept under the rug and not talked about as much as Weiss and Winter’s, some even making him out to be the villain. The only thing that Whitley is guilty of is his poor attitude, and that alone doesn’t constitute to him being a villain or needing redemption. He wasn’t responsible for Weiss being disinherited, and his words to Weiss afterwards just tells us how much Jacques is getting to him.

If he doesn’t go against his father, he’s rewarded, but if he behaves like Weiss and Winter, then he too will be punished. An abuse victim still trapped in their home will do whatever they can to survive, and unfortunately for Weiss, Whitley doesn’t have the same escape options that she does or the connections outside of the family.

Marcus & Mercury

There isn’t any onscreen time where we witness this abuse firsthand, but the effects of Marcus’ brutal treatment on Mercury is prevalent even after he killed his father. Mercury has been impacted severely both emotionally and physically.

Having been installed to be an unfeeling assassin by Marcus, showing any sort of emotional vulnerability is impossible for Mercury, and the one time he does talk about the things he went through to Emerald, he does so in his own way and reacts very badly when Tyrian reveals to be listening in to his troubled past. Even going to the point where he tries to attack Tyrian because he wasn’t taught how to handle his emotions in a healthy way.

He shows little sympathy for Emerald’s confusion and fear over not knowing what is right, but that’s not to say that Mercury doesn’t care at all. It’s likely that Marcus’ told him that, as well as relying on his semblance, feeling normal emotions like fear, empathy and love is weakness, and even likely beaten it out of Mercury. This leads a very emotionally disturbed teenager.

Now with the physical part we get some very disturbing reminders of what Mercury went through with his father. The first thing is that the fight between them ended up costing Mercury his legs, forcing him to wear prosthetics. That’s a very much blatant reminder of how far Marcus went, and not only will Mercury have to wear prosthetics for the rest of his life, but the pain both physically and mentally from the action will always stick with him. 

The second part is even worse. Marcus practically took Mercury’s semblance, something that’s considered the very essence by the characters in RWBY, and Mercury canonically sees this as his father defiling him. Mercury is constantly reminded that he will never get his semblance back, unlike Jaune and Roman who simply didn’t unlock theirs, and pushed him to work harder than anyone else to get where he is. Both of these physical injuries serves to tell the audience just how much Marcus’ abuse of Mercury not only remain, but stick to him as well. 

Cinder & Emerald

Similar to Jacques with his children, Cinder is shown to not really care about Emerald outside of her Semblance, in fact only taking Emerald into the group because she was useful to Cinder’s plan. She plays on Emerald’s past as a street orphan by promising companionship and never having to go hungry again, something that Emerald desperately craved. 

The main aspect to this relationship that makes it interesting is that, as of this time, it’s still an abusive relationship that the victim is in and wants to stay in. Emerald deeply cares about Cinder, and going off Mercury’s observation, sees her as the mother figure she never had. This devotion Emerald has runs so deep that she doesn’t ever question how Cinder treats her and reacts violently when Mercury straight up tells her that Cinder doesn’t care about either of them.

It’s at the point where Emerald doesn’t even consider her relationship with Cinder toxic. Everyone else knows that their relationship with their abuser in question was at least not good, even Blake in the early volumes because she knew that she had to get away from him despite her still coming to terms with it all. Emerald, however, is portrayed as the victim that doesn’t even think of themselves as a victim.

It reminds me of a video I watched recently. Here’s the link for anyone to watch, but it basically explains the type of abuse that doesn’t actually get shown all that much in media. Most abusive relationships portrayed have the abuser as a sadistic villain who abuses their victim because it brings them joy, and the victim knows that they’re being abused but are too scared to leave. It can be how the relationship is towards the end, but hardly any abusive relationship in real life are like that.

Cinder doesn’t accept any rebellion from Emerald. Like Jacques, she slaps Emerald and tells her to remember her place when she simply told Cinder that they didn’t need Mercury. To her, anything that Emerald says that isn’t her submissively accepting Cinder’s rule is something that needs to be snuffed out, even with physical abuse if needed. 

While Mercury works for Cinder as well, this abusive relationship doesn’t affect him like it does Emerald, mostly because he isn’t in a delusioned mindset where he believes Cinder actually cares and he doesn’t need anything that Cinder can give to him. Their relationship seems strictly professional, Cinder needed an assassin and Mercury had the skills to do the job, as well as his underlying fear of what’s beyond his life that was forced on him. To Mercury, there is no need of approval or companionship from Cinder that Emerald wants. 

Salem & Ozpin

This is the relationship that mirrors so much to the abusive relationship between Adam and Blake, and yet it weirdly doesn’t get much screen time pointing out how toxic it was, rather spending time portraying Salem’s backstory and Start to Darkness. Seeing how Ozpin was treated by his wife is pretty much ignored not only by the cast but also the FNDM, with some people even going as far as to deny that it was even abusive to begin with.

Even before she threw herself into the Grimm pools, Salem was not a good person. After Ozma died, she went to demand that the Gods brought him back, not thinking for a moment about what Ozma himself wanted, and when the Gods constantly brought him back to life and killed him over and over again, Salem is not angry at that. She only fights against them when the God of Darkness took Ozma away from her again, demanding that they give him back. It shows Salem to actually be pretty selfish and unable to comprehend that what she wants may not be what’s actually best.

The good thing about this is that the story explains why Salem is like that. She’s not selfish to be selfish, she was sheltered away in a tower for all her life and as a result, was never taught proper coping mechanisms when she inevitably faces death, loss and grief. Not only that, the Gods’ behaviour towards her did not help matters. Rather than actually caring that she was hurting and help Salem, they treated her very much like a child throwing a tantrum and punished her in the cruelest way they could.

The thing is that this selfishness carries on after she and Ozma reunite. She canonically manipulated Ozma into acting like gods to lord over the new humanity, and when he started showing doubt she turned the blame on him by saying that he wanted it. Even when Ozma, who is derailed by the show and fans for keeping secrets, comes completely clean to Salem, she does not extend that courtesy and keeps what happened with the Gods a secret from him. 

Eventually, when Ozma no longer wants to be a part of her plan or let her use their daughters to remake the world in her image, she attacks him and kills their own children. Salem shows no remorse for this, she knew that her children were there long before she attacks and she does so anyway. This just shows how little she cares about her own husband and children if they don’t toe the line with her. It even extends to her blaming Ozma for the fighting by telling him that they finally had freedom, seemingly holding resentment that Ozma didn’t want to be with her. After that, she burns Ozma alive.

The whole war between her and Ozma, even to her admission, is her want to watch everything that Ozma worked for burned to the ground. The only thing fueling Salem at this point is spite, just like what was fueling Adam after Blake left him and the White Fang. To her, Ozma has thrown away everything she worked hard for and that selfishness and inability to comprehend others’ viewpoints come into play.

Over the thousands of years after that fight, she does everything in her power to further terrorize Ozma. She turns his allies against him, she has her minions destroy his school and kill his Huntsmen, and in her song Divide, it’s basically a song gaslighting Ozma with Salem blaming him for everyone dying and saying that their blood is on his hands. There is no difference between that and Adam’s line “Why must you hurt me, Blake?” after he dismembered Yang. It’s classical abusive move of having the victim blame themselves for things that weren’t their fault.

Just like Blake, Ozpin is clearly affected by this abuse under Salem. He can no longer trust people, and he even goes as far as to blame himself for everything that goes wrong even when it’s not his fault, just like Blake does. He has such a low view of himself that he admits he’s made more mistakes than any man, woman or child on the planet, and the show at this point hasn’t had Ozma begin to talk to anyone about this even after Team RWBY saw what his life with Salem was like. 

I certainly hope he gets the support he desperately needs in the upcoming volumes, because the writing regarding everyone dealing with this knowledge is questionable at the moment. 

Salem & her followers

Just like with Ozma, Salem is canonically manipulative with both the show supporting this and the writers in the Volume 6 commentary. She is especially harsh with Cinder and Tyrian, given that she spends the most time with them in Volume 4 especially, and you can see how differently the two react when around her. 

Tyrian is utterly devoted to Salem, putting her up on a pedestal as a goddess, and Salem isn’t afraid to use this devotion against him in cruel ways. She dangles hope in front of him when contemplating over his failure in capturing Ruby, even though he stung Qrow who was by rights and purposes, going to die. However, when Tyrian seems more hopeful that he’s pleased her, Salem snatches that glimmer away and leaves him to have a mental breakdown.

Cinder on the other hand is completely quiet, and even when she can talk again, doesn’t have her attitude from the volumes before. When Salem snaps at her while training, Cinder visibly cringes. It’s pretty clear from her character and mentality that Cinder was someone who was so devalued and powerless in the past that she is willing to do anything not to be put in that situation again, even put up with Salem’s treatment of her.

Just like Salem, Cinder had become a victim of the cycle of abuse, and while Salem is no longer a victim, Cinder has swapped one likely abusive situation for another one. It even carries on into Volume 6, where Salem treats Cinder being outcasted from the group like a child being put in time out. It’s very infantalising and mentally damaging to Cinder, but Salem seems to treat it as adequate punishment for Cinder failing her. No matter what one feels about Cinder, no one deserves to be abused. 

Despite their less screen time together, Salem’s behaviour even extends to the other members of her group. She physically assaults Hazel after the failure at Haven for simply accepting the blame, and shows little care for Tyrian getting caught by the table when she threw it. Given that the writers confirmed that she has a different way to getting to each member to do what she wants, and we’ve seen that she uses Tyrian’s devotion against him, it’s not a big stretch to assume she uses more physical means when Hazel eventually does cross her. 

Her way of getting to Emerald is even through fear. She’s made Emerald so afraid of what she could do to her that even just asking has Emerald quickly giving up someone she cares about deeply, and that kind of emotional manipulation is a classic abuser tactic.

Blake & Sun

Now this one has raised probably the most controversy in the FNDM, and I can see why. No, the relationship between Sun and Blake is not inherently abusive, nor is it any way evidence that Blake is an abuser on level with anyone else that is mentioned in this post. She’s not malicious or hurting Sun because of some slight against her, even though that’s not the only type of abuser and we’ll go into further detail in a moment. 

The problem is that her behaviour towards Sun during Volume 4 is abusive, and it’s the worst written abuse in the entire show in my opinion.

The main thing that makes me say that is I’m not even sure if the writers intended to make these moments in Volume 4 abusive, but whether they intended for it or not doesn’t negate the fact that these scenes very much read that way, and it makes me uncomfortable to watch through even to this day. It’s not even just one fight where things got so heated that Blake lashed out, it happened multiple times over the course of the volume.

The first time is the boat. Sun was in the wrong for following after Blake like he did while she was still reeling from her trauma at Beacon, but that did not mean she was in the right to slap him across the face and then slap his hand away later on in the boat. She wasn’t in danger, Sun wasn’t threatening her and they weren’t even arguing, Sun was happy that they just survived a Grimm attack. Blake had a right to feel scared and angry that Sun basically followed her without her knowing, but that does not give her the right to lay her hands on him.

The show does this worse by playing it off as comedy. RWBY has a problem with playing some scenes for comedy when the exact same thing happening to a different character is framed as dramatic. Most slapstick comedy is scenes like Ruby and Yang fighting in the room in Volume 1 just before their exam, or Winter smacking Weiss on the head because she was rambling about things that she didn’t ask about. Blake hitting Sun here is not slapstick, but it’s played as such and that makes me very uncomfortable.

The next one is probably the worst offender of the bunch; the argument on the balcony. Once again, Sun was in the wrong for intruding on an intimate moment between Blake and her father, someone she hadn’t talked to in five years and thought that he hated her, but it wasn’t any malicious reason for Sun doing it. He had information about the White Fang that was urgent for Blake to know, because as he said, the White Fang would still go for her even if she didn’t go after them. 

Should he have waited? Yep. Does that mean Blake was in the right for slapping him in the face twice? Nope.

On top of that, she goes one step further and breaks his phone when he tries to show her a photo of the White Fang member he found in Menagerie. She threw it off the balcony. 

And the last scene is when Sun wakes up from being unconscious. He almost died, and yet Blake sits there and immediately goes on about herself and why she constantly runs away. It’s not bad for her to explain to Sun why she ran away, but the problem is that she doesn’t even bother to ask him if he was alright or at least tell him where he was before going into her rant about her friends getting hurt about her. The other problem is that we already know why she ran away, it’s all she ever talks about. She ran away so that her friends wouldn’t get hurt, she ran away because she believes it’s better to be alone, she ran away to think for a while after the Fall of Beacon.

Her whole speech in this scene gives us no new information and comes at the cost of portraying Blake as a very unsympathetic person. Even when Sun tries to comfort her despite being injured, she tells him to shut up and shouts at him. She towers over him aggressively with her hands balled up into fists, and you can clearly see Sun flinches now because Blake has made it clear to him that when she’s upset or angry she hits him.

And just like Salem, Blake’s behaviour makes sense. She’s stressed and scared and likely feels just as alone as she did when she first left the White Fang and Adam, only now she knows that Adam is explicitly coming after her and everyone she loves. Her past abuse at a young age means that Blake likely doesn’t understand how to healthily deal with negative emotions while in a relationship, something that Miles pointed out.

And even then, Blake is not inherently abusive. Her behaviour in Volume 5 has her and Sun’s relationship much more mutually respected and healthy. Even when she was frustrated she no longer took it out on him, and it’s good to see that after the mess that was Volume 4, but it’s how it’s handled that still bothers me.

Blake never learns that she shouldn’t be treating Sun like that. She’s called out by Sun for pushing her friends out and to let them help, but that’s not pointing out that she’s copying Adam’s own behaviours. It would’ve actually been a good and realistic arc given that it’s called the cycle of abuse for a reason. Blake realizing that she’s doing to Sun what Adam was doing to her and actively making the choice to do better, not having someone just tell her, would have been interesting to watch compared to what we got.

I feel like the FNDM can’t see this as abuse because Blake isn’t like the other abusers that we get in RWBY, and outside of Volume 4 her behaviour is not abusive to anyone. Even then, it’s understandable why she acts that way but that doesn’t mean how she acted can just be swept under the rug by both show and FNDM. It’s an ugly part of her character that should be acknowledged, and just because it happened doesn’t make her this evil being. Abusers can learn, and they can most certainly change, and that’s what Blake did.

I just wish the writers did it better.

So that’s it for all the abusers and their writing in RWBY. Overall? The writers certainly can handle this topic with the care and dedication it needs, and I’m actually happy with what we were given. Unfortunately, the ones that they did stumble one are pretty egregious and just leave me with a bitter taste in my mouth regarding those characters.

All I have to say is that abuse can come from different sources, and that media could do well with showing this difference. Abusers are often portrayed as one-dimensional bullies that torture their victims for laughs, while this is far from the truth and leaves people with a twisted version of what an abuser is, but I don’t think RWBY does that. Even when they stumble, they’ve written characters out to be just that; characters. Although we have more stereotypical abusers like Jacques, we also have those who come from pretty sympathetic backstories, even though we know that it doesn’t excuse their actions, such as Adam and Salem.

And really that’s the message I hope people do learn and use it to protect themselves with. You are hardly ever going to find someone who is so obviously an abuser; what makes them so terrifying is just how human they can be, and that sometimes they even have this twisted sense of love and reasoning over abusing their victims. Rarely it’ll be for sadistic reasons, but rather that they’re protecting their loved ones or that because they help in the victim’s dreams or goals that it makes their treatment of the victim okay, but it never is.

No one deserves to be hit, or made to feel like trash, or have their possessions broken. Everyone deserves love and companionship. Either way, thank you all for reading!

[cameoamalthea]

What is Jester’s Relationship with the Traveler, and is it Healthy?

TLDR: Sorry this is long, I’ll put this at the top. They are best friends, he’s not a father figure, he’s her best friend and maybe idealized crush. He did not groom her. He did not gaslight her. He failed to communicate, failed to take responsibility for the pain that lack of communication caused her, did not actually apologize, and for many, many reasons, they do not have a healthy relationship.

I noticed the chat during C2E103 seemed split between describing Artagan as either gaslighting/abusive “boyfriend” or narcissistic “father figure”. Since Boyfriend and Father are two VERY different things, the first question is: 

What exactly Jester’s relationship with the Traveler?

The Traveler is her best friend. While some viewers have described Artagan as Jester’s Father figure because she grew up without a Father, the text does not support that interpretation. 

Jester first describes the Traveler in C2E08 she says, “I mean, yeah, sure. I worship him, sure. He’s more like my best friend.” Later, in that same episode, she prays to him because she misses him and worries he might not like her now that she has new friends, “I want you to know that you’re still my best friend and if you want me to be alone I will be if that means that you’ll be here.” The text is explicit that she sees him as her ‘best friend.’ 

Then in C2E17 we get this scene:

LAURA: I take a bite of my caramel apple, and I go walking down.

MATT: You hear a crunch sound and your hand shakes for a second and you look down and a mysterious secondary bite was taken out of the apple.

LAURA: (gasp) I lick the spot.

(groaning)

SAM: You’re making out with your god? Gross.

MATT: They have a special relationship.

Jester licking the spot where the Traveler took a bite of her apple seems like she’s attempting an indirect kiss.. Sam picks up on that, questioning if Jester makes out with The Traveler. Matt comments they have a special relationship. (This scene is already pretty creepy, you guys, but it would be a MILLION times creepier if she thought of him as a father figure.) 

In C2E42, Jester talks to the Traveler about her crush on Fjord. “Traveler, how do I make a boy like me?” After the Traveler offers some advice, Jester asks, “You’re not jealous, are you?” And after the Traveler says he’s not, Jester still tells him, “You’ll always be my number one love.” This exchange adds credence to the reading that the Traveler is not only Jester’s best friend but, like Fjord, a romanticized crush. Her best friend, her number one love.

In C2E56 we learn that Jester first met the Traveler 15 years ago. “He was, you know, like my age when he came to see me, and then we hung out and we were like best friends hanging out for a long time” The Traveler was not an adult male ‘father figure’ to Jester as she was growing up. He was another child her own age. In conclusion, to Jester the Traveler is her best friend who grew up with her. 

2) The next question: Is this relationship healthy?

NO, it’s NOT

During the Traveler’s first on-screen conversation with Jester in C2E09 Matt gives the following description. “There in the dark space of the hood, you can see the familiar verdant irises looking back, and the warmth fills you once more, the comfort that kept you comfortable so many years alone in that room.”

Jester grew up, for years, alone in a room. That is not healthy because children need socialization. They need to be around other people, including other children. Jester’s Mother loves her, but keeping her isolated like that was not healthy. 

She needed a friend and the Traveler gave her that. The issue is, children need more than one friend. Jester’s only relationships growing up were with her Mother and with the Traveler. From childhood to her early twenties she’s only had two people in her life, and the Traveler and her Mother. He’s her only friend. It’s no wonder Jester is attached to the Traveler and insecure in her relationship when it changes.

Once Jester begins adventuring, he is not there with her constantly. In C2E8 she worries that he might be upset that she has other friends now and tries to assure him she’s still his best friend, even offering to be alone again if that would make him come back.

That is not a healthy attachment. Note, the Traveler does not ask her to leave her friends or put him first. He comes to her later that night to assure her that he’s with her. In Episode C2E09 when Jester is upset because she hasn’t received a care package from her Mother. The Traveler tells her that her mother doesn’t know she’s here yet, but comforts her by reminding Jester that she has her friends.

The Traveler wants Jester to have friends. Her insecurity in the relationship does not seem to come from him. Jester is insecure because she’s only had two people matter in her life, and her Mother just asked her to leave because she couldn’t protect anymore. The fact that Jester is anxious when the package doesn’t arrive because Beau is skeptical about it is telling. Jester knows her Mother, the Mighty Nein do not, but their doubt that Jester has a Mother who cares and will send her money is enough to get under Jester’s skin.  She hasn’t had enough secure relationships to feel confident in the relationships she has, and that’s not healthy. 

As for the Traveler, I have seen some argue that he “groomed” Jester. Grooming is a term coined to describe predatory behavior by child molesters and sexual abusers: “Grooming is a process used by people with a sexual interest in children to prepare a child for sexual abuse. It is often very carefully planned and it can take place over weeks, months or even years.” (source) 

As Jester is not a survivor of child sexual abuse, it is likely that people using this term to describe “a predatory tactic that is meant to build a deep emotional connection” (source) that the traveler used to manipulate Jester. 

Except, that Traveler is not someone who has a plan, especially not a detailed, drawn-out plan required to groom Jester into starting a cult to gain power. Such a scenario would also require a lot of steps and for factors outside his control to go right. 1. Find an isolated child. 2. Hope she stays that way and that her mother doesn’t send her to boarding school or something. 3. Appear as a child and keep up the act to become childhood best friends 4. Hope she jumps to the conclusion you’re a god without you ever telling her that 5. wait for her to grow up and become your cleric. 6. Hope that her belief will give you divine powers 7...profit?

That scenario is giving Artagan way too much credit. He doesn’t like work or responsibility. He does not think about what he’s doing or the consequences. He is not capable of patiently crafting a decades-long scheme, he’d get bored way too fast.

More likely this happened one, not so well thought out choice, at a time. In C2E94 the Traveler explains, “I am the Traveler, but it was not always this way, for when I traveled here, it was a world before me where I was without burdens, without responsibilities... amusing myself by leaping into every whim with glee and purpose. And one day, I met a little girl...This little girl and I found a kinship….and she saw me as a god. So for her-- for you-- I donned the mask of one.”  The Traveler further clarifies, “I didn't intend for this to be what it was”(C2E95). 

The Traveler, on a whim, decides to make a little girl happy. What does she want? A friend? He can’t create a friend for her or change her circumstances short of kidnapping her, so he polymorphs himself into a child her age and becomes her friend. 

In C2E95 the Mighty Nien postulate that he took on an appearance to get close to her.

YASHA: So he, but he wasn't a real little kid when he met you, that's how he befriended you.

FJORD: He made himself appear that way.

Which, if true, would be creepy. However, given the Traveler does not have a motive or want anything from Jester, it’s likely Artagan polymorphed himself and body and mind became a mortal child. (my guess is a younger version of the half-elf Keelyn that he based on Keyleth) He’s an immutable immortal being, impossibly ancient and eternally young, he’s never been a child or grown-up before, and it might be fun. 

That is the sort of ‘on a whim’ thing that tracks what we know about Artagan from campaign one. A twink in leather says I can’t die; his response is ok I want to try killing you then. Why? He’s never done that before and wants a new experience. He lives for new experiences and probably really enjoyed being a child and growing up with a best friend. 

Then when Jester started to see him a god, he became that because he doesn’t want to disappoint her. That isn’t healthy either. Relationships based on trying to be what you think the other person wants instead of hoping someone likes you for you don’t work out. If he had been honest, I’m sure Jester would have been happy to have Artagan the Archfey as a friend and would have been thrilled with her cool Warlock powers if he offered them. He does not want to risk disappointing Jester with the truth. When he does reveal the truth, and Jester asks if they’ll still be friends, his answer is, “If you'll have me." (C2E95).While this wording may simply suggest he's carefree and not possessive, it implies that he did not know if Jester would still want to be his friend.

Having godly powers also lets him give Jester abilities that help her. When Jester asks if she can contact her Mother in C2E09 he responds, “I think the more deeds you do, the more lives you change, the more confident brats you break-- She'll find you”. He wants her to grow his faith to become powerful enough to learn the spell sending and talk to her mom whenever she wants. 

However, growing in power means he is stretched thin. “While such faith granted me power beyond what I thought possible to achieve, I was being spread too thin across those who I'd taken under my wing. I thought to bring them all together, to unify their causes and perhaps forge a community under this banner, my banner, our banner.” He devises the plan for Traveler Con after slavers kidnapped Jester while he wasn’t looking. Part of his motivation likely is to find a way to manage his followers so he can be free to be there for Jester.

It likely the Traveler has never had a friend before either. He describes his past and his experience with gaining followers as “Eons of living for only myself, I found a new joy in helping others” (C2E94). Jester was his forest experience with caring about another person.  Neither Jester nor the Traveler had other friends. They grew up together with only each other. Then Jester went off into the world as an adult, made other friends and he tried to be what she wanted and still wants to be her friend but he does not know how to be a good friend. 

That does not mean their relationship is abusive. Many point to the conversation in C2E103 as evidence that Artagan is gaslighting Jester, but that is arguably not the case .Gaslighting means “to manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity” (source) Gaslighting goes beyond failing to validate someone’s feelings “I’m sorry you feel that way” to actively invalidating their feelings e.g. ‘Why do you feel that way, you have no reason to’. The phrase “I’m sorry you feel that way” is known as a “non-apology apology”. Such phrasing can be used to gaslight as it “may imply the person took offense for hypersensitive or irrational reasons.” (Id.) 

However, a non-apology in personal relationships is not always gaslighting. “Statements that use the word "sorry" but do not express responsibility for wrongdoing may be meaningful expressions of regret. But such statements can also be used to elicit forgiveness without acknowledging fault.” (Id. Emphasis Added).

Not taking responsibility for how your actions impact others is manipulative, wanting forgiveness without accepting fault and realizing what you did wrong so that you won’t do it again. Artagan is ABSOLUTELY an irresponsible person. He hates responsibility and is actively working on getting out of his responsibilities (which is ironic, working to avoid work). He has never had to take responsibility for anything, even feeling regret may well be against his nature as a fey. 

That’s not healthy. Artagan should have taken responsibility. Because it doesn’t matter that he did not mean to scare Jester, he did scare her. He scared her so much that he brought her to tears. When Artagan realizes he’s upset her he says:

“Please don’t ever think I’m not looking out for your best interests.” 

“Oh dear thing, I don’t mean to put you through this.”

“I’m sorry if you felt abandoned.”

This phrasing is not taking responsibility. He did put Jester through this and it hurt her, he did leave her in a situation where she feared he would abandon her and doubted if he was looking out for her best interests because he did not communicate. 

That said, the conversation does not cross into gas-lighting because he does not invalidate the way Jester feels. On the contrary, he validates her by saying, “You’re right, I should have been a little more forthright with you with information.” 

This belated realization does not change the fact he put Jester in danger without her informed consent, and she calls him on it, screaming that she’s there for extra days, meaning more danger, because he did not warn her. When she realizes she’s yelling at him, she apologizes, but he says, “It’s alright.” He does not invalidate that she’s upset or question her yelling at him. Instead he focuses on addressing what’s upsetting her i.e. fear of losing her memory and being left on an island enslaved to a monster, reiterating “I would have come back.”  And Jester knows it’s the truth because he has promised her to come back and in this fantasy fey rules context, that means he cannot break his word. 

Making that promise is taking action to address her concerns. Not only does Artagan validate her feelings, but he also takes active steps to address her fears by giving her what she needs, clearly communicated assurance. Again, this is a Binding Promise, a fey promise is like a devil’s contract, it’s deep unbreakable magic and not something a fey would give for nothing, but he does, freely, because he recognizes that she needs assurance that he will look out for her. 

Note: In real life, promising is not enough because actions show change. It is important to remember that abusers aren’t 100% awful all the time. Abuse is often followed by a honeymoon period. If someone hurts you saying you need more than words, you need demonstrated change beyond the honeymoon period. However, in the context of analyzing this scene, Artagan making a promise is itself an action taken. 

He has a long way to be a good friend and what he did was wrong and his initial responses do not take responsibility. That is a red flag. An actual apology would have been:

“I did not plan to leave you here. I always try to look out for your best interests. I’m sorry I was not more forthright with you with information and put you in a frightening situation. I’m sorry for scaring you. I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry I have not been there for you in the way you need.”

And while he did take responsibility and acknowledge what he did wrong, he didn’t accompany that with an I’m sorry.  To me, that comes down more on the side of flawed character rather than an irredeemable gaslighting abuser.  Admitting you were wrong and the other person is right is the opposite of gaslighting and Artagan did that. 

That does not mean this relationship is Healthy. In terms of being a friend, Artagan has no experience, and the fact he’s a fey makes him a very bad choice of friend. If you’re of a kind where vows are binding learning to speak open and honestly might be a challenge. Fey also lack empathy so he will have to rely on Jester to tell her why she’s upset and to set boundaries. Communication, setting boundaries, interpersonal-effectiveness, in general, is a skill, and Jester never had many friends, so she’s still learning too. 

[mormonmommyphilosopher-blog]

My Abuser

I have gone back and forth for years about whether I ever wanted to share about my abuse in my blog. Today, while eating breakfast, it hit me, and I realized that I needed to. Not just for myself, but for anybody whom is currently going through what I am, or maybe is still being abused and doesn't know what to do about it.

My abuser, like most, was someone very close to me—a family member and someone I felt very connected to. However, the relationship was toxic, and was for my whole life. Only 3 and ½ years ago did I finally face my abuse, and my abuser, and end the relationship. The abuse was going on for over 21 years. And before it started with me, it happened with someone else—until that person realized she was being abused and got out of the situation—and then it transferred to me.

So much of what kept me from sharing my abuse story, is that sexual abuse, like mental illness, is still something that is taboo to talk about. But here we are.

To start, my sexual abuse was not all physical. To clarify beyond that, the abuse wasn't even physical molestation. My abuser molested me mentally and emotionally, by talking about my body, in teasing, joking, and praising my physical beauty—my breasts, my “voluptuous” shape, my sex appeal, and also about his body—how well-endowed he was, his sexual experiences, what turned him on, etc.

The physical touch only accompanied the verbal abuse—resting his hands on my waist/hips, rubbing and squeezing my things, and hugging me so tight that my breasts pressed hard against his chest. The last straw with the physical touch was at a family Thanksgiving party.

At every chance he got to hug me, I was sitting down, and he would slide his right hand, fingers spread, groping, all the way up my left thigh to my bottom. My husband, Jack, watched in horror as this person was grooming him to see how far he could push the limits without Jack intervening.

However, because this person was so loved and defended by me my whole life, Jack never reacted. Only after I was sobbing on the way home from the party and couldn't let Jack even put his hand on my shoulder to comfort me, did he tell me that I needed to tell this person how I felt.

The rest of the way home from the party in Perry, Ut to our home in Layton, half an hour away, I spent my time writing a letter over social media messenger to this person about how I felt. I told him how uncomfortable I was and about how I couldn't even let my husband touch me because I was so upset. My letter was met with an apology that I felt the way that I did, but that those were not his intentions and that he only ever had the purest intentions toward me.  

After this incident, I decided to speak to a therapist to help me figure out what to do. Especially where, not only was this family member sexually abusing me, but had started grooming my 3 year old daughter.

At parties or visits, he would take my beautiful, little blonde, blue eyed daughter away from the group so that he could be with her alone—whether it was in her room, outside, or another room in the house, he wanted to be alone with her, and felt entitled to be.

Not only this, but the dirty jokes and teasing about my body started coming out while my daughter was around. He doted on her. He gave her gifts. He praised her for everything she did. He posted pictures of her on social media of them spending time together and about how beautiful she was and about how they must be kindred spirits and must have known each other in the previous life, etc.. Anything that I ever posted about her on social media, he would go on and on about her to the point that several people reached out to me and my husband to be wary of the way he was acting toward our daughter and that it wasn't normal.

For awhile, when my daughter was about 18 months old, I went back to work and even let my abuser babysit her, even though I knew what he was capable of. I don't know why I trusted that he wouldn't do anything to her, but these narcissistic abusers are very capable of persuasion, making your fears about them seem petty, and even that you, yourself, are the one in the wrong. There's a word for that—it's called “gaslighting.”

I still beat myself up for letting my abuser tend my little daughter, and then just letting him be around her for as long as I did in general. I don't know if he ever touched her, and there have never been any indications, that I noticed, that she was ever abused. Regardless, I will still never forgive myself for letting him be alone with her.

Four months after the Thanksgiving incident, I finally wrote my abuser a letter to cut ties with him. Before you read on, be aware that it is somewhat graphic. I have edited to censor names.

March 11, 2018

It is with so much pain and sorrow that I begin this letter. I'm not even really sure where to start. After months of deliberation, the last two weeks of discussions with my therapist, making lists, soul searching, scripture study, prayer, and the last two days of an emotional breakdown of battling my strong answer given weeks ago from my Heavenly Father versus my natural, temporal emotions, I have come to the very difficult decision to ask you to no longer be a part of mine or my family's lives.

I never want to see you again. And it's not because I hate you. Lord, help me! It's because I love you so much! I love you unconditionally. And I know that if I saw you, all of the good times would come flooding back, and I would want to change my mind! But as much as I love you, I have to remember my first priority. And that is to my family. To my little girl and being her parent. Her protection is my responsibility.

After what happened this last Thanksgiving, among other things, all of the memories of you saying and doing inappropriate things started resurfacing in my mind. I decided that I really needed to talk to a therapist about it. I've talked to Jack and a couple of close friends about some of the things that you have done in the past and none of them have been able to understand why I keep seeing you and especially why I keep taking risks with [my daughter]. I think Jack has always just trusted my judgment and figured that I would keep [my daughter] safe and not let you and [my daughter] be alone together. But when he found out that you like to have “one on one” time with her as often as you do, that really worried him.

From an early age you exposed me to a lot of sexual information. You let me watch sex scenes on TV and in movies. You told me about the birds and the bees in graphic detail. Once, right after I sneezed when I was a little girl, you told me that sneezing was an eighth of an orgasm. You told me what the “get yourself a spin cycle” joke meant from the movie “The Great Outdoors” when I hadn't even asked what it meant. You told me a story of a lady who used to put peanut butter on her vagina and let her dog lick it off in her kitchen and one time her husband and all of their mutual friends walked in on her. 

You told me that you had the biggest penis of all of your brothers and then told me whom ranked next all the way down the line. You told me that I had a “gum drop” nose and when I didn't understand what you meant, you explained it to me that it meant it looked like the head of a penis. You showed me a container of something once, and told me that that was how big your penis was.

 When I was in the third grade, I tried on some new pants and you told me that my butt looked good in them and that all the boys in my class would like how good my butt looked in them. After puberty you talked about how I had a nice heart shaped butt, and big boobs like my mom. Since then, most of the inappropriate talk has been about my breasts and their size. How I'm a “poor girl” because I have my “mom's curse.” “Ample food supply for [my daughter],” etc..

 When I was about 16, [my sister] and I were changing in the blue room at Grandma's house, and [my brother] was being a punk and kept knocking on the door to bug us, but we kept shouting at him to tell him that we were changing, when all of a sudden someone barged in. We thought it was [my brother], but it was you. Later you said that you didn't see anything except for my butt and the side of my boob.

 You told Me and [my sister] that you “knew” that I shaved “downstairs” and that she didn't when we were teenagers. There are many other situations, but these are just a few of the examples off the top of my head.

 You have also touched/rubbed my thighs on many occasions. It used to really bother [my high school sweetheart] and now it really bothers Jack. I have asked you stop both the inappropriate talk and touch before and you haven't. Not only that, but you have switched the issue back onto me as if I am the one with a touching/privacy problem—that I am just a “private person.” 

I won't mention all of the other things that I have heard that have happened with [the person you abused before me], [my sister], and with [my brother] on the matter of sexual inappropriateness. This is not what this letter is about, however I think that they are some things that you should personally reflect on and try to repent for. 

Again, I love you unconditionally. I've obviously been able to overlook all of those things up until this point because we have continued to have a close relationship where we talk and visit each other on a regular basis. But what happened on Thanksgiving shook me to my core. Not only was your hand continually sliding up my thigh with every hug you gave me, but there was also the fact that Jack saw what was going on, noticed how upset that I was, but didn't feel like he could do anything about it because of how much I get after him about needing to be nice to you. I cried the whole way home, and couldn't let Jack touch me at all for the rest of the night.

 I will always remember the good times, I promise. I will remember watching Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings with you. I will remember our discussions about books and music and movies. I will remember the camping, hunting, and fishing trips. I will remember all of the special, little, nice things that you've done for me, [my daughter], and Jack.

 I will remember all of the choir concerts and programs that you've come to. Don't think for a second that I have forgotten all of these things! I have shed so many tears in coming to this decision. And I know you love [my daughter]. I know you love her so much. And I am so so sorry. But I am doing what I believe is best for her. Because you care about her so much, I know that you will understand me doing everything that I think is necessary to keep her safe. My heart is as heavy as I can ever remember it being right now.

I love you so much. And I always, always will.

McKell

My letter was met with anger--accusing me of being crazy and a liar. I was told that no one would believe me, that I knew what I was doing was wrong and that it would break my grandma's heart to know that I could do such a thing.

I took his response as confirmation that I was absolutely doing the right thing. Not only was my abuser a pedophile and a sexual pervert, but a narcissist as well. And even just getting out of a relationship with a narcissist is a healthy step in the right direction.

I meant to keep the situation quiet and continue to have relationships with the rest of my family members on that side of the family, but my abuser took the matter to as many family members as he could and tried to convince them of my insanity and dishonesty. It breaks my heart to say that very few believed me, and that most everyone took his side, and I was ostracized from my family. Does it hurt like hell? Yes. Do I regret it? No. I know with all my heart that I did the right thing. I know that I'm protecting myself and both my now 6 year old daughter, and my 2 year old daughter as well.

About 6 months to a year after I cut ties with my abuser, he got in trouble for child pornography. At that point, a few people who were on the fence about whether to believe me or not, decided to believe me. However, surprisingly, so many people still believed him over me, even though I had never done anything to make them think I would lie about something so serious, and he actually has a track record of dishonesty, laziness, and stealing, among other things.

If anyone who has read this is going through what I've gone through, I am so sorry and I feel for you. Keep going. Know that you're doing the best thing for you and that is perfectly alright. If anyone who has read this and is currently being abused, I urge you to get out of that toxic relationship/situation. It might be so hard, and even life altering, but you're life will be so much healthier. You will feel safer. You will be happier, I promise you.

McKell Hadlock