The Baited Hook

Abusers often play nice one minute and slam you the next.

A lot of people will close their eyes to the slamming and focus only on the nice -

partly because we have a bias towards 'positive thinking' in our culture that puts a stigma on thinking otherwise,

partly because of 'amnesia for abuse',

partly because we may believe we are obligated to endure abuse for various reasons,

and partly because the slamming is scary.

It's frightening to think that someone who is so sweet to us one minute can be so savage to us the next, and really mean that savagery.

So we convince ourselves that the sweet stuff is the real person and the slammer is 'just a mood', 'just a phase', 'just the alcohol talking'.

But with an abuser, it is always the other way around. The slammer is what's real, and the sweet stuff is just bait.

Hunters may put out salt licks or other forms of bait to lure an animal within range of their blind. Fishermen bait their hooks. They do this because it makes it easier to get dinner on the table.

Abusers are hunters and fishers too, but they hunt and fish people and psyches, and they're all poaching. The unwary and unprepared, the innocent and unsuspecting, end up as lunch. Possibly for years; sometimes for a lifetime.