Abusers can often tell, that what gives them the power over another person is just them owning a piece of property, a house, financial and economic hold over this person. They know that the only thing that enables them to control a victim, to punish them and keep them unable to escape, is that the victim has no other house to go to, no other source of income, no other survival resources.
So they’re not going to sit still and watch as the victim attempts to gain friends, a job, resources, piece of property. They’re going to do all in their power to sabotage it, stop it, or have it work in their favour.
For example, if the victim is acquiring friends (whose houses could be later used as a refuge), the abuser will attempt to sabotage or break it, either by monopolizing the victim’s time, giving them chores and jobs and time-consuming activities they have to do, away from friends. Or by telling the victim, that they’re universally unlikable, that their friends are not real friends, that they’re secretly judging and consider the victim a burden in their life. They might also go the route of suddenly needing the victim’s all time, being jealous, sick, feeble, needy, anything to stop the victim from reaching out and forming connections with the world.
If it’s about the money, the abuser will either find a way to claim a part, or all of the victim’s new income, or they will try to get the victim to spend it, by withdrawing the money the victim would usually get for necessities. They might sabotage the job by causing new trauma which will keep the victim incapable of work, they might steal the money, break something so the victim would have to replace it, or, they will try to talk the victim into putting the money in a place where they won’t have access to it, like in a joint account, savings account, a gamble, an investment. They will make it sound like a smart thing to do; then, the victim can’t go anywhere as their money is out of reach. And once the money is within reach, the abuser will find a new joint venture for them to spend it on, so then again, the victim would end up spending the money on increasing the abuser’s property, rather than for buying their own. The abuser will convince the victim that doing otherwise, would be very stupid.
In order to escape the sabotaging abuser, the victim has to somehow organize savings, a new place to go, new social connections, new experience and income, practically overnight, or completely in secret. This is why it often feels hard or impossible, it’s not a matter of taking your stuff and physically getting out, they make sure you have nowhere to go. They make sure you’re either unaware, or too ashamed to go to a shelter, that you’re looking at homelessness if you turn your back on them, because they made sure you have no income, no access to resources or social connections.
And I’m not saying that the escape is impossible because I did it, and others have too; it might take years, it might take risks and secrecy and fighting with the abuser over and over again for the right to privacy, for the right to keep your own money somewhere they can’t reach it, sometimes it takes enduring violence, putting your life on the risk only for the escape. I’m saying you’re not guilty for having a hard time with it. It’s not happening because you’re incapable, or lazy, or don’t know how to get anywhere in life. It’s not because you’re bad at getting friends, or a job, or income. It’s not because of you. The abuser is actively standing in your way at the every step of it. But they won’t be able to do that forever. Nobody can keep another human being where they don’t want to be, forever.
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A Case Study in Using Tumblr Blaze to Collect Survey Data
A little while ago, I ran a very niche survey about the vernacular names used for a specific type of North American bug, and I used Tumblr Blaze to try to get more survey responses. I figure that others who’d consider using Blaze to promote surveys might want to know how it went, so here's a graph of the number of survey submissions, with the “Blazed” periods highlighted in dotted orange:
Additional details below the cut.
Response Numbers: Between 4/17 (when I first posted the survey) and 4/30 (when I analyzed data for it), I received a total of 291 responses.
There were 14 responses in the first 24 hours after I posted the survey (before Blazing the post related to it). For all subsequent days that the post was not Blazed, I received between 0 and 2 additional responses. By contrast, I received 145 responses during the first Blaze period and 110 responses during the second Blaze period. It isn't possible to definitively know exactly how many responses can be attributed to Blazing the post, but from this data, I'm comfortable assuming that it's a large majority of the responses.
The Blazed post: I exclusively advertised the relevant survey on Tumblr, and with one, specific post. The post itself was nothing fancy—just a quick description of the survey and some emojis, basically. It looked like this:
I’ve left the survey running (although I don’t promise I’ll analyze new data for it), so if you would like to complete it, you may do so here (NOTE: the survey contains a photo of a bug). Current results for the survey are also available here (NOTE: the results post also contains a photo of a bug).
Blaze information: Both times that I Blazed the post, I purchased the second tier level (which provides 7,000 estimated impressions, although in both cases, the actual impressions ended up being ~10k, per the post-Blaze summary reports). I also opted to specifically target a US audience.
Data quality: One worry I had about Blazing my survey was that I’d get a bunch of joke responses or (worse) harassment, but that fortunately did not happen. I can't know for sure just how honest any individual respondent was, but the overall pattern of results was plausible and suggested there wasn't any widespread bad-faith responding. One respondent gave a clear joke answer, but that was it.
Conclusions: It’s hard to express this honestly without sounding like an ad, but I had a generally positive experience Blazing my survey. As someone with a very small blog, Tumblr Blaze helped me get enough survey responses to crunch some numbers on my (perhaps aggressively niche) project idea, which I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do. I didn’t receive a staggering amount of data or anything, and the response rate I got might not be worth the cost for all projects, but it served its purpose for me. All in all, I'd say it's at least worth considering for anyone interested in running an informal survey without having a pre-existing audience to lean on.
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Things abusers do to sabotage you from leaving, or 'Why you can't just leave':
Parental
convince you that you couldn't survive without them and you wouldn't be able to support yourself or make it out there alone
refuse to teach you survival skills, find excuses like 'you're too clumsy, you're not capable, you wont be able to do this'
convince you of 'catastrophic events' that would take place if you were out there; homelessness, starvation, social rejection, failing at everything, financial struggles, kidnapping, murder
convince you that the world is a scary place and you'd be a failure and dead 'in the real world'
traumatize you to the point where you struggle to get thru the day, which now also makes it seem like you wouldn't be able to make it on your own
talk you out of finding work, tell you about awful things that would happen to you if you went and found a job, try to make you to 'work for them' or at least in the close area
if you find work, they claim a part or entirety of your income, making sure you don't have escape money
regularly make you feel ashamed of not being able to be independant, and letting you know that only people who are able to be independant deserve to have freedom and place out in the real world
guilt-trip you to feel like you owe them caretaking because they raised you, so you're owing them to stay and take care of them instead of living your own life
Emotional
complain about how 'everyone abandons them' in order to make you feel like you're just 'one of the bad ones who betrayed them' if you think about leaving
every time you try to leave, they overwhelm you with a new incident, sickness or drama that makes it seem like you're abandoning them in the middle of a tragedy
act overly attached to you, making sure you know that if you left, they wouldn't know what to do without you, and they'd be heartbroken, but still they refuse to respect your boundaries
convince you that you're "all they've got", you're special and unique to them, only you can understand and help them
love-bomb you until you're attached and bonded to them to the point where leaving feels unimaginably painful because you'd be losing your closest person in the world
begging, pleading, acting like they gave you no reason to leave, promising to change, promising to do anything you've wanted to happen for a long time, making you feel like things are just about to get good and like they regret everything bad they've ever done
launching an attack on your persona, pointing out every time you did something 'bad' and insisting that you're actually the worst of the two, so you can't blame them for anything
guilt trips; reminding you of everything they've done for you and how ungrateful you are, reminding you of all of the nice things you've said about them before, asking if it ever meant anything, accusing you of being heartless if you go, of never loving them, of mistreating them, accusing you of being toxic, deciding you're hurting them on purpose if you leave
deciding you're leaving because of their specific problem/situation/disability/illness that you've always been considerate and supportive about (another guilt trip)
say it's "your fault they'll never get better" with whatever you were helping them with
deciding you only want to leave because of your unhealthy trust issues or 'you push people away' or 'misinterpret things because of your trauma' and asking you to be honest with yourself
asking you to explain in detail why you feel the need to leave, only to attack your reasoning and explain it all away and minimize it to make it seem like you have no good reason for leaving
tell you that 'nobody will ever love you again' if you leave
threaten to expose your most vulnerable secrets if you leave
threaten to hurt themselves if you leave
Psychological
gaslight you into doubting whether you're abused, to the point where you feel like you're exaggerating, going insane, remembering things wrong, and unsure if the problem is you or them
time an event of abuse specifically when you're trying to work on something, or you're immensely stressed and trying to meet a deadline, so you'd be too overwhelmed with fear/anger/grief, and can't make your work in time
regularly having intense violent or dramatic reactions to your harmless behaviour, making you feel like you can't predict what they'll do if you leave or how that could end for you
support your codependency on them, or financially support your addiction, so you feel tied to them and have to go back to them in order to feel normal again
undermine and trash your work, imply or outright say your work is stupid, meaningless, badly done, and not worth doing, trying to discourage you from working
verbally assault you and criticize your work to the point where you start to feel anxious and upset whenever you're working, making work a trauma trigger for you
punish you for 'lying to them' if you fail to mention something, making it clear that you will get hurt every time you make any move they don't like, which makes it even more scary to leave
threaten to make a suicide attempt if you leave
threaten to hurt you if you leave
threaten to report you and try to get you imprisoned for a real or imagined crime if you leave
threaten to have you admitted to a mental institution (or any other kind of institution) where you'll be even more controlled
threatening your family members, loved ones, friends, and/or pets, saying horrid things they would do to them if you dared to disobey or leave
threaten to find you and drag you back and hurt you if you try to leave
say outright they're going to kill you if you ever leave, or that they'd rather have you dead than gone
Social Isolation
create insecurities in your behaviour, repeatedly imply or claim you're too loud, obnoxious, sensitive, crazy, stupid, clueless, demanding, nagging, until you're worried that everyone is secretly judging you and the world feels against you
take apart your appearance until you feel too insecure and lose confidence in socializing or meeting new people, constantly feeling like you need to 'fix yourself' first
demean and condemn your personality, appearance, social standing, finances, capabilities, to the point where they decide you can't do any better than them and you should feel lucky anyone is tolerating you at all
inflict punishments on you for socializing or hanging out with new people; break your things, throw jealous tantrums, ask why they're not enough for you, go thru your things, rage
violate your privacy and take away things you need in order for them to control when you're allowed to have them
smear-campaign you; spread lies about what you were like to them so everyone sides with them, and blames you and tells you what to do (exactly what the abuser wants you to do)
turn your family members and friends against you, and make sure they'll be unnaccepting of you and refuse to help you if you try to leave
Physical
Physically assaulting you if you do something they don't want you to do, making it clear they're going to hurt you for any attempt at leaving them as well
Physically assault you if you try, or say you're going to leave
Inflict injuries on you that will prevent you from working/being independent
Stalking, making it known they can always find you and seek revenge if you dare to leave
Influencing other people to stalk you and let him know where you are and what you're doing; making you feel like you're always being watched and always surrendered by their influence
hurt themselves physically if you make an attempt, or even say that you're leaving
attempt suicide if you make an attempt of leaving
attempt at murder if you try to leave
Financial
create and maintain a financial situation where they are the only one having income, and they're able to control how much money you get to spend
withhold financial knowledge from you so you'd be clueless about their finances, and managing finances in general (you can't get an idea of how much money it takes to get thru a month)
refuse to give you your right to keep your money separately from theirs
create financial trouble that you have to solve, taking up all of your savings in the process
take your money without asking, and the amount you'd never consent to, and they give you excuses and pretend it was 'necessary'
accuse you of 'spending irresponsibly' as an excuse to confiscate or control the money you have on your person (or in your account)
throw a fit if they find out you have any money on you that they're not aware of/have approved of (if you borrow or win or earn money that they didn't give you)
make sure you're overwhelmed with tasks and problems and emotional trauma, to the point where you don't have a chance to get out and find a job, or go and look for resources for getting out of abuse
stand against you getting more education, or starting any new activities with people around you (making sure you don't get any social connections that could lead to a job)
get you fired from a job by spreading lies or calling in and harassing the employer about you
forcing you to spend any money they know you have saved up, so you'd have no money to plan escape
It is NOT EASY to leave, and statistically it takes several attempts to leave an abusive situation. Be aware that it's hard because they're sabotaging your every step, not because you're not doing enough. Abusers often wont show their abusive side until they're absolutely sure that you have nowhere else to live, and no other place to go. All of the things on this list are psychologically damaging, and terrifying to live thru. All of this is abuse. Nobody has the right to tell you this is your fault. Keep trying. Keep fighting.
If you're struggling to leave an abusive situation, here's an article on How to Leave an Abuser.
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