Honesty is not Cruelty: Rejecting the Damaged Goods Label

My 16 year old son went no-contact with his father, my ex, about 18 months ago. Since that time, he occasionally asks me a loaded question, such as “do you think I’m being cruel?” Knowing what his father did and is capable of doing, I have supported his decision.

Recently, he asked me what principle I live by. He gave his own principle as an example:

“If you are behind me, I will protect you.

If you are beside me, I will respect you.

If you are in front of me, no mercy.”

Then as teenagers sometimes do, he quickly launched a ballistic missile at me: “but you’re Christian, so you will just say let God handle everything.”

We had a brief, productive conversation that included my experience that Christianity doesn’t expect us to ignore evil but to use wisdom and discernment. We acknowledge its existence. It teaches us to forgive, but it doesn’t require us to forget. And forgiveness means not pursuing vengeance on your own and allowing it to consume you. We have the justice system for that.

It was a nice mother/son moment, which has left me pondering the issue of evil, or if you are not religiously minded, criminality, abuse, harm to others, disregard for others, whatever you want to call it.

I could take this discussion towards theology, philosophy, or other disciplines.

But, I want to keep this practical.

My son is asking many questions, and some of those questions have been asked for millennia without satisfying answers. 

One thing he is wrestling with it whether he is “different” because of his father’s actions.

This has me thinking about the phrase “damaged goods,” which many victims of abuse grapple with, and I think it is partly because society overall has difficulty pointing fingers at multiple perpetrators. If a father sexually abuses his child, and the mother doesn’t take action to protect her child, she becomes an enabler, an accomplice. Who points the finger at her? Dysfunctional family systems ignore this. Society as a whole ignores this.

Why does society call the victim damaged goods? And it does happen. It has happened to me.

Calling the victim damaged goods is in many ways blaming the victim. Society prefers the narrative of the ‘flawed victim’ because it lets us keep believing that most families are safe and most parents are inherently protective. Naming the perpetrator and the enabler shatters that comforting illusion. It accepts appearances rather than substance.

Look at the linguistics surrounding these topics.

A victim of child sexual abuse is called mentally ill, defective, damaged, broken, scarred, delusional, liar.

A perpetrator of child sexual abuse is called troubled, sick, complicated, misunderstood, or worst of all…the victim of lies.

The language to describe a perpetrator almost begs you to be sympathetic towards the perp.

It took me many years to ask these questions. Just because my grandfather was a child molester and I his victim, why does that make me the damaged one?

Isn’t he the damaged human being, the one committing crimes, the one inflicting harm? If he has the capability to be cruel, why isn’t he defective? If my mother failed to protect me, why isn’t she “different” from animal mothers who have robust maternal instincts to protect against a direct attack by a predator. 

Frequently, I run across an anecdote on social media that goes like this:

“My therapist said, people who need therapy don’t come to us, their victims do.”

We need to reject the idea that we are damaged goods. We aren’t on the clearance rack because of some defect. As victims, we need to assertively embrace this concept, internalize it, and speak out about it. 

Back to my son:

His dad has not been physically abusive. He developed a rare form of dementia when our son was young, and this dementia caused psychosis. We separated when our son was 6 years old. His dad disappeared for years. Then suddenly, he reappeared a couple of years ago. He still had parental rights and wanted to visit with our son. At first, things went well. They had fun. Then little by little, I could tell the relationship was turning south.

One day, my son came home from a visit and announced he never wants to see his dad again. He didn’t want to tell his dad directly, thus putting me in the middle. Dad filed a motion in court for custody. Our son is old enough to have his voice heard in court, so he told the family court mediator, then he spoke directly to the judge. My son got what he wanted, and dad lost all of his rights.

Trying to deal with a person literally out of touch with reality can be extremely disorienting. And it can be extremely emotionally abusive. It doesn’t matter if his dad can’t control it or isn’t responsible for his illness. The effect is the same on our son.

When my son asked me if he is being cruel to his dad by going no contact, my response was, “I think you are being honest with your feelings.”

My son isn’t responsible for his father’s illness. He isn’t responsible for his father’s choices. He isn’t responsible for fixing a relationship that has become unsafe for him.

He is responsible only for being honest about what he experiences.

That may be one of the hardest lessons for victims of abuse to learn.

We are not broken; we are witnesses. We are not defective; we are people who learned survival strategies that once kept us alive and now can be updated.

Honesty is not cruelty.

Setting boundaries is not cruelty.

Speaking truth is not cruelty.

Being harmed does not make you damaged goods.

It means someone else caused harm.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

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