Abuse.

Any interaction by one person, or a group of people that causes another person or people to experience meaningless - to them - physical, emotional or psychological pain stops being an accident and becomes abuse when there is a refusal by a person, or a group of people to acknowledge the sufferer's discomfort and suffering. The refusal to attempt to stop or prevent further distress, is my definition of abuse.  A continued use of methods to create change that have never created positive change, or ignoring a situation whilst hoping that it will improve, is neglect. 

What follows is something someone posted to the Drop The Disorder Facebook page. I don't know who wrote this...If it was you, let me know :-) 

Thank you, your writing made me understand how abuse is contained within a 'structured fantasy', that it is sustained by an alternate reality made of compelling explanations that disable and paralyse the victim.

Abusers and oppressors live in a fantasy world that everything is fine and no harm is done. They force their victims to play a sort of theatre to comfort the abuser that their fantasy world is correct. When abusers or oppressors see counter-evidence to their fantasy world, they get defensive, lash out and attack. This can happen because someone intentionally speaks out against abuse, but it also happens if the victim unintentionally shows signs of the harm done to them - for example having bruises or showing symptoms of psychological illness. 

Victims must constantly be aware of two worlds - the real world and the abuser's fantasy world, which they must very carefully walk on eggshells to maintain in order to placate the abuser. In oppressive systems, a whole institution of people work together to maintain the fantasy and develop a complex set of strategies and theories to protect the fantasy and attack/silence anyone who shows signs that contradict the fantasy. 

This fantasy does not have internal logic, and varies from person to person or even from day to day. Victims of oppression must constantly be scanning and keeping track of each individual in power that they deal with, to understand the details of their current fantasy and ensure that they do not contradict it. Today the fantasy might be "The abuse didn't happen" but tomorrow the fantasy is "It happened but it was your fault." Victims must spend a great deal of stressful mental energy keeping track of these fantasies and reassuring abusers and oppressors that their current fantasy is correct.

The real tragedy is that this fantasy world is not just the abusers' fantasy, but also the bystanders' fantasy. Friends, family, teachers, doctors, police, mental health professionals are also heavily invested in maintaining the fantasy that abuse or rape is not happening.  Acknowledging abuse or rape may make them feel obliged to take on a fight they don't want to take on, or consider their role in enabling it. So they also get defensive and lash out when something contradicts the fantasy. This is why victims wear make up to cover their bruises, smile through their depression, and resort to behaviour such as self-harm to release the rage that no one will allow them to express.

And next a quote from Wade Mullen - who describes the nature of the 'alt reality' required to enable abuse:

When someone treats you as an object they are willing to harm for their own benefit, abuse has occurred, and that person has become an abuser. Some of the worst forms of abuse are psychological. The victim may never be physically touched but nevertheless is traumatized by the experience of being emotionally manipulated and held captive by lies, threats, and neglect. A husband can control all the finances in a marriage and use that control to coerce his wife into compliance. This is financial abuse. A parent can destroy the self-image of a child through verbal attacks. Verbal abuse so often targets those who lack the means to withdraw or the power to advocate for themselves. In other words, abuse involves any action that takes power from another in an attempt to use them. And it almost always begins with language...

Mullen, Wade. Something's Not Right: Decoding the Hidden Tactics of Abuse—and Freeing Yourself from Its Power (p. 2). Tyndale House Publishers. Kindle Edition.