Writing Emotional Abuse Through a Fantasy Lens
Emotional abuse is a strange thing. It’s insidious, by which I mean it’s hard to explain what it is and why it’s detrimental to someone who has never lived through it. Physical abuse is horrible and inexcusable but most everyone would agree that it is abuse. When there’s no bruise to point to it’s hard to make others understand how painful and traumatizing your experience is. You might describe it in detail and give dozens of reasons as to why it’s harmful but some people will never grasp what you’re saying. No matter how convincingly you describe the unicorn, they will only ever think it’s a horse.
(3 Tips for Addressing Serious Topics in Romance Novels.)
After you have heard multiple people dismiss your trauma—they say you’re overreacting or you’re too sensitive or you must have misunderstood—you start to think, “Is it all in my head?” When third parties hear your account and still side with your abuser, you could be forgiven for thinking that the fault is in your memory and/or your perception rather than your abuser’s behavior. It’s natural to feel isolated, like you’re living in a different reality, maybe even a fantasy world.
In my book Magic by Any Other Name, my main character, Georgette, has grown up in an emotionally abusive home. Her mother Hazel has spent all of Georgette’s childhood minimizing her daughter’s feelings and belittling her while her father Michael barely acknowledges her existence. Georgette is so desperate to escape this treatment that she travels clear across the country to put it behind her and yet breaking out of the isolation that abuse has imposed upon her proves much more challenging.
Throughout the book, she struggles to call her mother’s behavior “abuse.” Twenty years of daily manipulation and put-downs have made that environment normal for her, so much so that she finds it difficult to outgrow her past. This is true for many emotional abuse survivors, myself included. We may want to break away from the pain of our upbringing and we may want to have normal interactions with others but doing so does not come naturally to us.
By placing Georgette’s story in a fantasy setting, I heightened the sense of isolation that emotional abuse survivors feel. For an ordinary person escaping their abuser, connecting to the rest of the world can be nerve-racking. Is this person being nice to me because they want something? Are those people laughing because of something I did? Is it okay for me to exist in this space or is someone going to get angry at me?
Georgette has these thoughts as well but her isolation is on another level because she has grown up in a world interwoven with magic, a world invisible to ordinary people. She fears being part of the witch community because her family are prominent members of it and she wants to avoid them at all costs. However, because of her magical background, she has less in common with humanity than the average person and thus has a harder time connecting to it. She like, most survivors, has to relearn how to interact with the world around her but in her case, she has two worlds to contend with.
Even in those moments when Georgette sees opportunities to integrate herself with the magic community or the regular world, she’s hesitant to do so. In her mind, as in the minds of many others, taking the chance of being part of society means running the risk of being abused again and she simply doesn’t feel safe letting her guard down in that way.
Check out Alison Levy's Magic by Any Other Name here:
(WD uses affiliate links)
There is another feature common to a lot of emotional abuse survivors that a fantasy setting highlights beautifully. When survivors disentangle their lives from the influence of their abusers, they often find that they gradually become more confident and more comfortable in their own skin. Living with abuse is very emotionally stunting; being constantly told that your feelings are wrong or overblown can result in you quashing your emotions before anyone else can notice them. Once you are free to have your feelings and even—gasp!—express them without fear, you may find that long-suppressed aspects of your personality begin to emerge. While it may be frightening at first, growing into the person you could have been all along, the person you were meant to be, is a magical experience.
As Georgette slowly gains confidence in herself, her abilities as a witch also rise. Like many survivors, Georgette is plagued by her abuser’s derisive voice in her head telling her that she’s weak and that she shouldn’t waste time trying to improve herself. Early in the book, she is cowed by this voice, believing everything it says. But as time goes on, she starts to disregard the voice and to push herself harder to see what she’s capable of.
Separated from her family, Georgette begins to transform into the self-assured, powerful witch she would have become sooner if not for the abuse. Though she still has a lot of healing to do, by the end of the book Georgette has found the strength to brush aside that scathing inner voice and speak for herself. Coming into your power can be a rough road but the result is pure magic.
Healing from emotional abuse is a difficult process. But while the road is long and fraught with obstacles, the rewards are immeasurable. In my book, Georgette has only begun her journey but she has already grown by leaps and bounds. My use of a fantasy setting serves to accentuate both her struggles and her successes as she gradually learns to stand tall, to say “no,” and to weave her magic with confidence. May we all, in our own time, make such progress.