Rabia Mayet | rabiamayet@radioislam.co.za

25 September 2024

5-minute read

Abuse can happen within a family home, in the workplace or even within the extended family circle. In order to change the narrative, society needs to cultivate compassion and form safe spaces for people who are being abused.

Malees Jogiat, also known as a “disrespectful empath” for her straightforward approach to abuse prevention, and herself a victim of abuse within a marriage for 14 years, is an educator working alongside NGO’s to teach people about the broader implications of abuse and how it impacts on the lives of people.

There is a common misconception that abuse is only physical or sexual. Studies show that abusive tendencies start from childhood with most abusive personalities developing in the teen years in the form of manipulation, gas-lighting, and bullying. Some abusers come from households where they themselves were abused, or they saw their mother being abused, or they come from a household where they are put on a pedestal or given too much power by their mothers who themselves cannot get what they need from their husbands. Abusive people have a very low self-esteem and poor self-image, with many of them exhibiting narcissistic behavioural traits. They may start of as the victim but then turn into the perpetrator. Abusers also have abandonment issues. If their victim tries to leave them, they will stalk them, manipulate them, and do everything they can to draw them back in.

With the concept of victim blaming, abusive people work on their victims and make them confused and nervous when they are around the abuser, causing them to forget about themselves. The abuser twists the situation to get sympathy; they isolate their victims and make them the bad one. The victim’s actual brain is impacted by the abuse and see they their abuser’s behaviour as “normal”. They are trained to believe that the abuser is right and they get blamed because they are the ones who appear emotionally “destabilized”. It is essential to identify the things from your childhood that makes you a target for an abuser.

Abuse is like a “drug addiction” – the brain is very invested in keeping the person in the status quo so the brain tries to make all experiences “less painful and more enjoyable”. This causes the victim to keep trying to get back to the good feelings, thus trapping them in the cycle of abuse. Women in abusive relationships go back on average 7 times after they have left the relationship. The abuser has trained his victim to believe that he is right and she is the “crazy one” who is at fault. Malees stated “It’s not actually the time that determines it, it’s the support that determines it.” If a woman has a good solid support network who are educated, understanding, and know how to hold space for them, it is easier for them to “plan to exit” the abusive relationship. But victims often feel so sick when they leave an abusive relationship that they are drawn back in order to relieve the pain they feel. This is when the support network comes into play – individuals who make the victim understand that going back will just cause the cycle to continue, and make it clear to the victim the implications of what has been done to them thus far.

We need to be brave enough to ask the right questions. As a society, we can make the change when it comes to abuse by:

1. Creating awareness – if you don’t know what you are dealing with, go and find out.
2. Figure out why the person is upset.
3. Don’t walk away – sit down and ask questions in order to find out who is the victim and who is the abuser.
4. Education is key.
5. Stop questioning the victims’ actions instead of getting to the root of the problem and finding a solution.
6. The media should highlight the nuances of abuse
7. Influencers should be incentivized to talk about abuse.
8. Highlight personality traits of abusers from high school level in order for kids to identify what might be happening in their own homes.
9. Create a more compassionate society; open up circles within families to have open conversations.
10. Hold an open space for people to talk within friend circles so victims learn how to share their problems.
11. Have these difficult and vulnerable conversations with our own children.

Malees shared what it feels like to be abused and then made to look like the perpetrator. It is “not easy”, she said, and she made “a lot of noise”, developing an activism personality. Initially, people thought she was attention-seeking when all she wanted was to be heard and get someone to understand what was going on behind the scenes. She was abused as a child but it was even more difficult for her when she was abused as a mother of four, because she had to balance what she was dealing with and what her children were feeling at the same time.

Abusive character traits of parents are usually because of their own history, and they need to learn to deal with how they were raised. Narcissistic parents cannot recognize their own abusive tendencies and use their children as toys, holding them responsible for their emotions. Children become emotionally unavailable and eventually end up in abusive relationships themselves, “normalizing abuse” because they don’t know any different and are unaware as to how normal households function.

Because most cases in South Africa deal with post-abuse cases and very few spaces deal with or pre-empt abuse, there are very few success stories and court cases get dragged on for way too long. The media exacerbates harmful behaviours by giving impetus to people with narcissistic personality traits. South African social media is very focused on SA culture. Social media has isolated the youth more than ever before, and because negative behaviour is being viewed in a bubble on their own personal devices and given a grandiose spin, these youngsters tend to play out these behaviours in their own private spaces and not understand why it is wrong. It is time for society to change the narrative and start dealing with abuse.

Listen to the full interview on the New Horizons program with Faaiza Munshi.