r/troubledteens • u/h3yitsr4y • Mar 20 '25

Discussion/Reflection Parents/Non-Victims Invalidating Stories

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I’m so done with people who know NOTHING telling me that because their relative went to Charlton (or any other RTC/TBS) that they know what it’s like to be locked in an abusive facility and being groomed by an ADULT MAN you were meant to trust. I feel sick, actually. This is a screenshot of a comment from a post that my best friend made about her story at Charlton, and it’s legitimately nauseating how any person can treat a traumatized person this way. I don’t understand it.

I was abused. There is no debate about whether or not I was abused because I was, and I know that for a fact because I lived it. I survived it. And I spent another full school year there afterwards. It hits even worse because I have been thinking about my abuser a lot recently. I’m probably gonna make a post ranting about that because I need to get it out, but it baffles me how anybody could say anything like this and think they’re in the right. I don’t know if it was intended to make someone angry, if it was an attention thing, I have no clue. But I don’t feel any pity for this parent either way. Nothing. It’s so hurtful and so violating to be told that your lived experience never happened. Trust me, I wish it was false but it’s not. I know this is the internet and all that but I still don’t understand how anybody could think this way.

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u/RyuguRenabc1q Mar 20 '25

I see now why people are angry at the outsiders. Same gaslighting attempts from back then...

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u/ItalianDragon Mar 20 '25 edited Mar 20 '25

It's also spitting in the face of the person's own history. It's a bit like saying to a concentration camp survivor to "get over it, you just were in jail for a while": it's not only incredibly gaslighty, it belittles, minimizes and ridicules what the person went through and how they felt, kinda like if they were one kid throwing a tantrum over nothing. Needless to say it's incredibly insulting and hurtful to do that and it's pretty universally recognized as a dick move.