“Just”: The Abuser’s Secret Weapon Of Reduction.

It is just oranges.

After years of abuse, I can tell you a few things about abusers. Today, I want to focus on one core talent abusers possess- their ability to REDUCE abuse.

How? You ask.

Let me help: You are not crazy. It is in the language. Something very subtle and you will not recognize it quickly-

They use the word, ‘just’.

One time, I asked my abusive ex once to please make food as I was coming home from work, hangry. I hadn’t eaten all day. I just needed food in me. I felt it was a small ask given that he was home all day at my place for a vacation. Let me also add a little detail- I had been cooking all the time for him. Doing the dishes- doing everything to make him comfortable and I would have done this too but, it was such a small ask.

Please boil the 2-minutes packet noodles for me. That was it.

Well, it wasn’t it because he did not do it. When I expressed my annoyance, he blew it up: why are you angry? It was just noodles.

But, it wasn’t just noodles. He knew it. And in time, I came to know it.

Abusers have a way of reducing their behaviours to ‘just’. The ‘just’ is also expressed by them in a manner that comes off ridiculous to a 3rd-party listener and is intended to also shut you- the abused, down. Even though it wasn’t just how it went down and your expectation was quite sane.

The abuser will take an event where you imploded and make it a ‘just’, that lights up the abused as the abuser and the abuser as the victim of unreasonableness.

I look back through the 8 years where I was abused and I see a long list of ‘justs’.

It was ‘just’ a birthday cake. ‘Why are you acting all crazy about a birthday cake?’

But, in your heart, you know it wasn’t ‘just’ about the birthday cake. It is about the fact that year after year, you go all out for their birthdays because they love it when you do. Year after year, they tell you how amazing you are because you outdid yourself for them again. But, year after year, you also have that heartfelt conversation with them about how you love it if they will do something- anything, for your own birthday but they never do. On your birthday is chocolate cake- when you hate chocolate cake. It is chocolate cake- their favourite cake. It is chocolate cake and there isn’t even a card. It is chocolate cake and for that, they expect applause.

When you express annoyance, it becomes: just about the cake.

“Just” is a handy language for abusers who conveniently forget that your implosion isn’t about the event but about a laundry list of events.

‘Just’ is a gaslighting tool that creates much paranoia and doubts in the abused. For years I listened to my abuser tell people about how I overreacted because of just this or just that, I watched people agree with them because it was just that. In my gut, that knowledge never went away and in the end, I knew I had to get away because it just was never going to get better.

Thank you for reading.

My name is Adaobi Okwy. Please turn on Email Notification for my next post. Also, Buy me coffee?