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Wren@lemmy.today

Neverending Epstein nightmare — abuse survivors shackled to a life ‘stuck in survival mode’ (www.dailymaverick.co.za)

submitted 2 months ago by Wren@lemmy.today to c/Independent_Media@lemmy.today

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For Bryant, and for hundreds of others still entangled in the late Jeffrey Epstein’s world, the past six years have been shaped by the psychological aftershocks of one of the most notorious sexual abuse networks in modern history.

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[–] Wren@lemmy.today 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The very next sentences are important for context.

It demanded care: not pity, not empathy, but compassion and respect. Not the same recycled questions demanding neat answers. And not the reduction of her life to voyeurism or trauma as spectacle.

[–] mathemachristian@hexbear.net 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Is the author admitting here that she was careless but trying to recycle it as personal growth or am I not reading this right?

edit:

“It’s common for survivors to feel anger, guilt and conflicting emotions long after the physical abuse has ended,” says Riaan van Wyk, a therapist specialising in trauma and relationships. “They’ve been so broken down by the abuse that it has an almost brainwashing effect on them. The perpetrator is particularly adept at controlling them through abuse and intermittent rewards. We call it trauma bonding.”

When I raise the concept with Bryant, her response is immediate and irate. “There were no rewards from Epstein,” she says. “Only pain and fear.”

Yup there it is, pathologising and condescending armchair psychology. That's not "compassionate" or "respectful" but exactly the same recycled questions people have been asking every SA survivor on the news forever looking for a neat answer that always reduces the victim to an academic talking point.

Like Bryant, Epstein’s survivors are not just records of trauma. They are studies in endurance and the complex psychological aftermath of abuse.

and she actually learned nothing with regards to treating others with respect and not as things.

[–] Wren@lemmy.today 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

i have no idea how you came to that conclusion but we all have our own read.

[–] mathemachristian@hexbear.net 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Because why else would she end the interview so abruptly.

Because I've seen these pathologising takes when discussing someone elses trauma again and again.

Edit: to be clear I don't think she is lying, she probably really thinks that she is a nice person that was respectfully asking questions. I'm just saying that this is not the case.

[–] Wren@lemmy.today 1 points 2 months ago

I'm saying the interviewer acknowledged her mistake and why the subject ended the interview in the second paragraph, then used that as the foundation of the article.