I think people are really, really different in how they react to things--I mean, just think of how different the personalities of the people you know are--so it's hard to make up one rule for how to approach people, but I feel like in general, anything that's very painful to people, they're going to be touchy about, and probably it takes time to build up trust and friendship to a point where they feel like talking about it. But yeah, reading about people's experiences is definitely a way to get a sense of how it is for some people (the ones who process their feelings by writing blog posts about them).
I was never abused either, and what surprised me in a deep way, when I did get to talking to people who had been, was how love could be mixed in there. I imagined that I would just *HATE* the person who abused me, and for the people I talked to, there was definitely anger and maybe hate, and yet they sometimes really loved the family member too. It was hard for me to wrap my head around and definitely increased my sense of how complicated people and relationships can be.
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Date: 2026-05-30 11:53 am (UTC)I was never abused either, and what surprised me in a deep way, when I did get to talking to people who had been, was how love could be mixed in there. I imagined that I would just *HATE* the person who abused me, and for the people I talked to, there was definitely anger and maybe hate, and yet they sometimes really loved the family member too. It was hard for me to wrap my head around and definitely increased my sense of how complicated people and relationships can be.