Your Facebook Friends?

After a difficult week or so of dealing with children, teens and women who have been hurt by those who are supposed to care for and protect them I have found myself more than a little annoyed lately by social media, fake friendships and well-meaning but duped people who can't seem to unfriend the unfriendly.  What I mean is --Why the hell is that person (you know the one who raped and beat your sister in law, or abused your nephew, or the one that told so many lies about you you can't believe your friends and family still communicate with him) on your Facebook wall? Why are they counted among your friends? Why are do they feel welcome at your potluck, or dinner table when you should be visiting them in jail?

Listen, I understand you don't want to be unfriendly. I know you hope you can change them. Maybe you even think you can be friends with everyone and not ever need to take a stand at all. But who do you really think you are helping? Abusers are awesome at making friends and confusing people about the facts. They often play the victim, they seldom come completely clean with their past and they lie! If you know someone was abused and you continue to be friends with their abuser you are not helping either one.If you feel you must invite them to your church, or into your life, then be godly and speak truth and for goodness sake don't play into their victim mentality. Ask tough questions, learn the facts and hold them accountable.

Here is a checklist from Lundy Bancroft (2007) on assessing if the abuser has changed: (sorry about the male references-abusers can be male or female):

• Admitting fully to what he has done
• stopping excuses
• Stopping all blaming of her (or others)
• Making ammends
• Accepting responsiblity
• Identifying his own patterns of controlling behavior and not excusing them
• Identifying the attitudes that drive his or her abuse
• Accepting that changing these patterns will be a decade long process, and not declaring oneself cured
• Not demanding credit for improvements made
• Not using improvements as credit against real accountablity
• Sharing power
• Owning his part completely
• Changing how he/she responds to his/her partner and others grieveness
• Changing his parenting and how he treats the other parent
• Accepts consequences for actions, without feeling sorry for self. Or blaming the law, the judge, the abused or the system in anyway

If you really want to help, push them into treatment, counseling and hold them accountable for what they did. Help those they have left bleeding in the dust. Support those you say you care about by refusing to help the abuser hide behind his/her nice, christian facade.
For me this last week, I was empowered to hear another counselor say plainly to an abusive mother who suddenly showed up to help "care for her daughter":

"I know what you you did to your daughter. And it is reprehensible. If you truly care about her you will get in your car, go back home and get help to fix what is broken in you."