A failure of memory caused by physical injury, disease, drug use, or psychological trauma is known as Amnesia, but Abuse Amnesia is an entirely different thing. Abuse Amnesia is a psychological abuse tactic commonly played by Abusers on their victims in an effort to drive them crazy and invalidate their abuse claims.
All people with abusive personality types tend to situationally abuse preferred abuse targets in private or when no one willing to enable them is looking.
What that means is a person being victimized is not only forced to endure trauma, but after the fact is re-victimized every time they are forced to prove that they have been in some way used, insulted, defamed, invalidated, physically or sexually assaulted, or otherwise abused by an Abuser.
As the person who abuses lies, denies, or minimizes whatever part they played in upsetting or hurting a victim, they call into public question the sanity, integrity, and character of the trauma victim.
While the Abuser sits back and plays the victim, pretending they are being abused by a victim who rightly claims they were mistreated, the true victim is forced to endure not only having to deal with the physical and psychological consequences of abuse but also to suffer being socially shamed and targeted for public suspicion and ridicule.
Toxic parents are the most famous for claiming to have Abuse Amnesia — as if somehow claiming they fail to remember abuse dynamics (especially when presented with direct evidence of crime or people who can confirm a child abuse victim’s claims) means their actions bear no accountability for them because the abusive person simply trivializes.
Pretending not to remember having abused someone like a family member, love interest, or child — knowing full well they abused and are actively lying in order to avoid taking personal responsibility for a moral or legal crime while frustrating, insulting, and leading a smear campaign about the character of their accuser, is a typical move for a person who has an extreme personality disorder.
To claim an Abuser is somehow not civilly or morally responsible for having traumatized other human beings is in itself a crime of the most dastardly and Machiavellian nature. It is also a major red flag that a predator is not simply narcissistic by nature, but instead is more likely to have what is known as the most dangerous personality type.
People who fail to acknowledge abuse claims of victims and strive to invalidate the human rights of a victim to be validated and receive proper social and emotional support after being traumatized are known as Dark Tetrads or Dark Triad in their behaviors.
Dark Triads have comorbid personality types symptomatically expressed as a mix of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Anti-Social Personality Disorder, and Machiavellianism by nurture as well as nature. Enabling such a person to invalidate the rights of a traumatized person to have their subjective feelings be validated tends to produce extremely negative physical and mental side effects for any trauma victim not taken seriously or believed.
That’s the exact reason why so many dark personality types tend to employ the tactic openly when and if confronted by those who they have situationally abused.
Common responses after denying memory of having abused include making gross ad hominem attacks on the sanity, integrity, and character of abuse victims who risk coming forward to confront their attacker or who in some way seek psychological, social, and emotional closure with regard to having been damaged intellectually, socially, physically, or emotionally by their Abuser or Abusers.
It nets gains them all the pleasure of abusing secretively in the first place, then gives them the additional pleasure of watching their abuse victims plead in emotional agony for friends and family members, therapists, police, and court officials to believe them that the Cluster B character truly is not the charming, blameless, harmless, charismatic, and shell-shocked at the thought of being accused person they claim to be.
In all reality, the most common reason why abuse victims risk coming forward to tell their story about having been abused is to prevent the Abuser from victimizing others. As such, claims that victims are making up stories about their Abusers with a sense of spite, anger, malice, or aggression are typical ad hominem character assailing claims designed to undermine the social credibility of honest victims who are doing nothing more than striving to set the record straight, get Abusers help, and protect their friends, family, and the general public at large from being conned and targeted for social abuse by their Abuser.
Pretending abuse never occurred, claiming a victim has no right to subjective memory or opinion, and striving to avoid accountability for crime is a mental abuse tactic used to frustrate and ultimately provoke an abuse victim into publicly displaying rage over the injustice of being lied both to and about, crying or “losing their cool” in front of strangers or clueless family members, and looking as if they themselves are the person who has a temper.
Law officers and court officials should pay careful attention to the personality traits of any person who has been accused of something like sexual abuse, physical abuse, or another form of serious moral crime and take note that those who are typically inclined to deny accountability based on the accused “not remembering” are likely to historically have displayed narcissistic tendencies coupled with an extreme sense of entitlement to look down on or actively abuse others throughout their life.
« Back to Glossary Index