I would like to return to the old fashioned notion that the term "abuse" does not refer to things like violating terms of service, disagreeing with someone, or even (more controversially) situations in which you have a misbehaving customer. I think it's wildly offensive when a company like Midjourney refers to making comedic images of the Pope and Donald Trump as "extraordinary abuse."
I would like "abuse" to mean things like being beaten within an inch of your life by someone who is supposed to love you, or being told you're worthless by someone you see every day for years on end, or otherwise facing a pattern of domination and control. And I think that if these sorts of things have not happened to you, or you are not a therapist, you should probably try to keep the word "abuse" out of your mouth whenever you can.
One of the biggest problems with using the word "abuse" is that narcissists have appropriated the term. You can't know who's actually at fault or if both are at fault or to what degree, because what if it's just someone with a swollen ego who's sensitive to criticism or someone can't accept their fair share of responsibility in a conflict.
I've noticed that narcissistic women will often go straight to calling things abusive. Men will be made fun of for saying that they were abused, generally-speaking, so I've noticed that they do it less.
My extremely, extremely narcissistic roommate who I mentioned at the very, very start of this dream diary, would label anyone and everyone who so much as looked at her funny "abusive." It's an effective way to avoid thinking about your own part in human dynamics and to avoid trying to find a solution that satisfies all parties. You're just the victim. You deserve everything--all the apologies and all of the changes in behavior, and you don't owe anything yourself.
Then you have someone like me, who actually has been beaten to a pulp by her dad, along with many other things therapists tend to label abusive, and I wouldn't even accept from a therapist that I had an abusive childhood, partly because it seemed like a term only melodramatic narcissists exaggerating the truth would use.
It's just a slap in the face of anyone who has actually experienced domestic violence when narcissists or people sitting comfortably in bureaucracies appropriate and manipulate with the term in order to create shock value that's more likely to get them what they want. And it makes it harder for people in actual domestic violence situations to take the term seriously and recognize what's happened to them.
So that's my hot take: The term "abuse" shouldn't refer to both a woman getting splashed with acid by her ex-boyfriend and saying something that just triggers someone's ego. The difference should be obvious, but unfortunately, with this word, it's not.
