Abusing The Abused: A Survivor's View Of Abusefic
by Deslea Judd
Abusefic is a cornerstone of X Files fanfiction, and little wonder. In a universe featuring damaged men and women who have been abused in almost every physical and emotional way, fiction dealing with abuse in the past or the present is a logical progression. But how do we write abuse in fiction in a way that is compelling, meaningful, and responsible?Deslea R. Judd is a fic writer and an abuse survivor, and she comments for Working Stiffs on the ethics and issues surrounding the genre of abusefic.
I am an abuse survivor. That isn't the earth-shattering reality some people think it should be - it is, after all, a reality I've lived with for twenty-six years - but it is, to some extent, a defining one. It colours how I view the world in which I live, and it colours how I view the people I encounter, not only in life, but also in fiction.The specifics are not so important to this discussion, but I give them in brief, simply to give some structure and context to my comments. There are many different kinds of abuse, and many kinds of survivors, and I don't claim to have experience in them all.
In my case, the perpetrator was female and in the grip of psychosis.The abuse consisted of brainwashing with the content of her delusion, the withholding of food, the denial of basic education, verbal threats of murder-suicide, and imprisonment.It lasted, in varying degrees of severity, for ten years. Physical abuse was relatively uncommon, but I was brainwashed into believing that I had been or was in danger of being sexually abused, so in a sense I grew up as a survivor of sexual abuse, though that was not factually the case.
One thing worth considering is who we write as an abuse survivor.Almost universally, the victim is an obviously damaged person from an unhappy family, such as Mulder.This is not necessarily a bad thing. It is a plausible storyline, when executed well. But what about Scully as a victim of incest perpetrated by her father? It's unthinkable, isn't it? Scully adored her father, and they were such a happy family. But that's the way it often happens. Scully has some hallmarks of an abuse survivor - she is a perfectionist, and has a tendency to seek out damaged and damaging men.I'm not saying that Scully is a survivor on the show, or even that we "should" write her as one - I don't think our responsibility as authors extends to political correctness, only to authenticity - but I am saying that we as authors need to ask who we are writing as a survivor of abuse, and why we see them that way. Is it because of how they relate to people? Is it because of their morality, or how they behave?
This brings me to my second concern about abusefic. Abuse is often used in fiction as a justification for a character's bad behaviour. I am thinking specifically of the type of fiction which holds, essentially, that Krycek (for instance) is a cold-hearted killer as a by-product of past abuse, so he can be absolved, and seen as a misunderstood nice guy.(Incidentally, I am of the opinion that Krycek *can* be plausibly written as a misunderstood nice guy, but not like this). Now, there's a fine line there, because an abuse history does produce a hell of a lot of dysfunctional tendencies - it's a whole different way of viewing the world - but ultimately, unless the person is damaged beyond the capacity of making any free choices, there is still a basic moral capacity. That capacity may be damaged, but it is almost never irrevocably absent. Abuse survivors are victims of their pasts, but they can and usually do remain powerful people able to make good moral choices.There are situations, as in Lorelei's exceptionally written post-abuse fic Shaken, where that capacity is radically compromised; but it's the exception rather than the rule. To routinely, thoughtlessly write an abuse history as a blanket absolution for a character's crappy moral choices is a cop-out that really disempowers abuse survivors.It is also a lazy shortcut around dealing with what a character does and what that means in the context of who s/he is. Understanding and absolving are, or should be, different things.
Having made those comments, I would like to offer some thoughts now on good ways of thinking about writing abuse in fanfic. Before we consider the thought processes of writing, we need to make a lot of mental space and time for the piece, and the characters. Abusefic is a draining thing to write, whether we're survivors ourselves or not. Writing fiction is a little like channelling - we get into our characters' heads, or rather they get into ours.Our characters might not be "real" people, but for the duration in which they occupy our mental processes, we live their experience and their pain. We have to be committed enough to the story to be prepared to accept that.
We need to establish in our own minds, even if it is never clear in the story, what kind of abuse our characters suffered, and when.The "what" is less important than the "when". A battered wife and a battered child may come out of the home with the same basic level of shock-trauma; but the child will normally sustain much more lasting damage to the personality, simply because her or his personality is still developing, and that development is short-circuited. Similarly, a child who stole food to survive will often sustain more damage to the long-term capacity to make moral choices than an adult forced into prostitution, because those compromises were made while the values system was still developing (though the adult will probably experience more emotional torment). From that we can work out exactly what problems the survivor has as a consequence.Most will come, one way or another, under the heading of post-traumatic stress disorder; in addition, survivors of sustained, long-term childhood abuse by a primary caregiver will show many of the symptoms of post-traumatic personality disorganisation (sometimes known as borderline personality disorder). You can find out more about both these conditions elsewhere on the web. Post-traumatic stress is less likely to result in being plagued with conscious memories, and more likely to result in general unwellness and dysfunction. A traumatised abuse survivor might collapse in shuddering sobs over a terrible memory - those things were lived with, usually by dissociation, and they continue to be lived with now - but she or he is more likely to do so over a long bus queue or a rude clerk; something concrete and current from which there is no mental escape.
Also important is the "who". Who abused? Who allowed the abuse to happen? Who else was or wasn't abused? The first is obvious in its implications for the abuse survivor; but the other questions are also significant. If the abuser was a parent, did the other parent allow the abuse?Or does the victim secretly believe s/he allowed it, whether or not that's the case? Was a sibling abused? If so, does our primary character feel guilt? If the other sibling was not abused, why not?Was our primary character (in her or his own perception) "better" or "worse" than the other sibling, thus accounting for being the chosen victim? Does our primary character fear becoming an abuser her- or himself? Has that resulted in any decisions about childrearing (for instance, not to have children)? Does our primary character's partner, if there is one, share those concerns?
How do our primary character's loved ones fit into all this?Do they even know that there is an abuse history? If so, what impact does this have? How do they understand the impact on the survivor? It is quite likely that loved ones will perceive the survivor's personality and recovery very differently to the survivor. It is equally likely that loved ones will sometimes - even often - behave in a way that is not therapeutically helpful. Despite the best of intentions, living with a recovering survivor is hard work; and the survivor's recovery does not, cannot, must not dominate the interactions of the household. And that's how it really works as a companion to a survivor: sometimes you get it wrong, sometimes you don't get a choice, and sometimes you get it right. And hopefully that's enough. Indeed, that may be true of us as writers, too
I have spoken up until now of recovering survivors. I would like to speak now a little of recovered survivors. Much like "recovered alcoholic", that's a misleading term, because a survivor of childhood abuse never has the same psyche as someone who was not abused. But there does come a time when one's abuse history is not the defining focus of one's life. It is always a (maybe the) defining factor - a factor that significantly affects how one acts and how one thinks - but there comes a time when we survivors see ourselves as something more than survivors. There comes a time when we can see ourselves as parents or spouses or good people or people of talent or people with flaws. There comes a time when we don't consciously see ourselves as radically different from everyone else, even if psychologically we are.That isn't really healing, but I think it's the closest thing to healing available to survivors. Not every abuse situation has a happy ending, but if you can convincingly write your survivor as coming through the worst of the fire, it's an empowering thing to do. That said, it also takes bravery to write a sad ending, because that's reality, too.
Writing abusefic is a stressful, painful, and also rewarding experience. It is a true labour of love; and a willingness to tackle it indicates real integrity in the author. Whether you're a veteran of this kind of fic or just starting out, if you face it with a willingness to do it authentically, then I wish you well.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------Deslea R. Judd is a professional freelance writer. In XF fandom, she writes mostly mytharc novels with a special emphasis on supporting characters, and is a three-times Spooky finalist. She maintains Blondie's Ratcave, a Krycek/Marita site, and Beyond The Basement, a supporting character image archive. You can read her fan fiction at http://fiction.deslea.com, or see her XF artwork at http://artistique.deslea.com.