Look I was abused by someone in academia which shares a lot of similarities with writing communities (and often overlaps tbh) and I can tell you this:

1. someone who is abusive to one person is usually really awesome to everyone else

2. you're probably friends with an abuser because the thing that sucks is: abusers are usually super charming. they're funny and personable. they're great conversationalists. they're interesting and easy to get to know. that's how they attract victims.

my abuser was super popular. students and colleagues loved him. he was funny and smart and he made you feel important and special. he was good at drawing people in, at being friendly and solicitous. and for most people that was all there was to him. just a good guy.

not everyone

3. Victims aren't ever perfect.

Look I was 19 and in a deep, dangerous depressive spiral because I felt like I'd done something horribly wrong by, idk, somehow tricking a 39-year-old man into wanting to fvck me. I APOLOGIZED TO HIM.

I literally went crawling back to him because I felt like I needed to. Because he was good at making people feel that way. Which, again...abusers are GOOD at this shit. They're good at knowing the ways in which their victims are weak, and exploiting those weaknesses

I maintained a relationship with him for the rest of my college career DESPITE people who knew what he'd done telling me I was a fvcking fool.

I was a fvcking fool but I was also a victim. I wasn't perfect but I was still a victim. The abuse still happened.

4. Abusers aren't 100% evil.

They can donate money to great causes. Write awesome books. Produce important scholarship. Build orphanages or nunneries or whatever.

They can have wonderful relationships w/others. They can be great friends.

They're still abusers

5. Victims can be bad people.

A victim can be someone who steals from babies. Who never answers phone calls or returns messages. Who flakes out all the time and makes bad choices and does questionable things

They're still victims.

6. Abuse is about power as much as it is about sex

Abuse is about someone in a position of power taking advantage of someone with less power. Someone well-known assaulting someone unknown. A professor fvcking a student. Those relationships are defined by power

And the power dynamic is often entirely enforced by the silence of others. It's so easy to keep quiet about a powerful abuser because there's nothing to lose. You're not a victim. The abuser is your friend! No one's gonna listen to that nobody. The situation can go away!!

Mostly?

It does.

My abuser suffered literally no negative consequences while I was very publicly removed from his class in a way that made it OBVIOUS something specifically related to me had happened. It was a Thing for a while then it went away and no one cared

7. Speaking up means challenging not only an abuser but the entire institution represented by the abuser

In my case it was a university. But it can be anything, even a loose affiliation. Like a group of writers.

When speaking up, you're trying to push against an immovable force

You're a little tiny object against a faceless force and that force finds it immeasurably easier to just keep existing rather than set a bunch of rusty gears in motion to change.

Protecting the abuser is easier for the institution than paying attention to the victim. That requires little to no change in direction. Keeping the professor and losing the student is so much easier, so much cheaper, so much more effective.

Believe me. I know.

8. People will defend their friends

Look this is human nature. If you hear your friend abused someone your first instinct is going to be NO WAY THEY WOULD NEVER

And then maybe you'd think about it and say WAIT I WAS THERE, IT DIDN'T HAPPEN THAT WAY

You're going to view accusations through what you believe about your friend and you're gonna come to your friend's defense and you're gonna discredit the accuser because this is what people do.

And it sucks. It really, really sucks

Because victims can understand the impulse. Victims know they have little importance versus their abuser, if their abuser is your friend. Victims know how little they matter. Victims realize they can tell the truth and it honestly won't make a difference.

9. People are gonna ask victims "well what should we do? throw [abuser] in jail?"

no, I just wanted to make sure my abuser couldn't hurt me or anyone like me ever again.

That's all I wanted.

We obviously can't like, remove people from society like that. We can't stop them from writing, or speaking, or whatever. But we can choose not to support them. We can make our own statement when it comes to consuming what they produce

10. Apologies hurt more than they help

Apologies are for the abuser, not the victim.

The victim would prefer the abuser just....go away. Not splash themselves everywhere to show off how SUPER VERY SORRY they are

Apologies keep the abuser in view. People talk about the apologies. People debate the apologies. People make a big deal over the quality of the apology and demand a different, better apology. It's a never-ending cycle of apology-tweaking while the victim just quietly dies inside

11. You wanna help victims?

Support them

12. If the victim is a writer buy their books; if they're an artist buy their art; if they have a ko-fi or a Patreon subscribe; if they ask you to donate to whatever charitable cause donate. Center the victim. CENTER THE VICTIM.

13-Infinity. CENTER THE VICTIM

Somehow this last part gets ignored most often. We're so busy tripping over ourselves on apologies and affirmations that we forget what abuse actually COSTS in terms of actual real things like time and effort and health and money.

My school should've refunded me

Like seriously. Try and mitigate what's been lost by offering concrete support. When victims speak out they are hurting themselves again and again and again.

Help them. Really. Help them.

Ok welp that's all I'm psychologically equipped to deal with right now. You can help me help cats if you'd like: https://twitter.com/ellle_em/status/1259945800379117570?s=20