I don’t know who needs to hear this but men not doing the work to try to process their trauma and instead letting it repeatedly harm women who are close to them... is actually a type of widespread gender based violence and abuse.

Because this is so common, women are often always having to clean up from the impacts of how men’s trauma marks and impacts their lives while many of those men just keep enacting and perpetuating the harmful behaviors and harming more women. While not reckoning with the harm.

Many of my friends talk about this. About the ways they have to be patient and understanding and help guide men towards healing even... as those men are harming them. To be hurt but also to feel like the only way you will stop being hurt is if you guide a man towards healing

And this is deeply and structurally unfair. To have to not only be harmed but then to feel responsible to help a man grow because he is not self aware enough to see both his own issues and how those issues and behaviors could deeply hurt others in advance or afterwards isn’t okay

Men need to do much much better here. Much better. Because I’m tired of this bullshit and so are all my female friends. I’m sick of being grist for the mill of men’s education of managing their trauma ethically and gently in relation to women.

GET. SOME. FUCKING. THERAPY.*

And when you think you’ve gotten to a better place... get some more. And when you think you’re done... ask the women in your life if you are.

* I realize not everyone can afford therapy but there are books that you can read from the library.

Some further thoughts on how trauma might work in the world and relationships if we weren’t ashamed of our trauma and actively worked to protect others and ourselves from our trauma in order to break the cycle: https://twitter.com/a_h_reaume/status/1289558612969316352?s=21 https://twitter.com/a_h_reaume/status/1289558612969316352