To think crying abuse after mutual toxicity is a form of emotional manipulation?

[OneOpalSnake]

If you screamed, hit, or lied too - you weren’t just a victim.

Has something happened, are you okay?

I’m okay, thank you - just reflecting on some patterns I’ve seen and how people sometimes reframe things after the fact. It’s a heavy topic, I know.

Screaming/hitting/lying is a very broad spectrum though

It's not "mutually toxic" to lie to an abuser to protect yourself. Its not "mutually toxic" to scream in response to their needling and be at breaking point

It becomes mutually toxic when the lies are there to manipulate them but not protect yourself, when you scream at them before they do anything

Someone has to be the instigator in any abusive relationship. If the recipient displays behaviours in response that also happen to be abusive, that's reactive abuse. It doesn't mean their partner wasn't abusive, and it isn't 'crying abuse' - the key indicator is whether they would have displayed those behaviours if their partner wasn't abusive in the first place. Which, really, only they know the truth about that.

It's a complicated question and will obviously vary a lot for individual cases. But I broadly disagree with the statement in your OP. There can be degrees of abuse, and sometimes a victim of abuse is pushed to the edge but is still overall a victim.

Maybe. Difficult to say, it’s messy. Amber Herd and Johnny Depp spring to mind.

FWIW and if relevant, I have recently seen a meme on social media about “reactive abuse” (which isn’t a recognised category of abuse to my knowledge). It says:

‘Reactive Abuse is when somebody pushes you until you act out of character, then shame you for your reaction. If you hold a match to a candle, sooner or later it will burn’.

I have to say that to me, as somebody who is fortunate not to have been abused, it sounds like utter bollocks and a masterclass in not taking responsibility for your own behaviour.

But, I can also see that for people who are trapped in an abusive situation that they don’t have the power to leave, it could be a very real issue.

What if you scream because they're coming towards you with a bread knife?