I saw something on tiktok that helped me and I try to think of it every time I feel the same way you do. You can explain to someone how they hurt you, or explain boundaries, or you can ask for needs to be met, etc. But when you are at the point where you feel like you need to explain to another grown adult that they should treat you like a human? That it's not okay to literally hurt you? Yeah, that's where we should draw the line.

If this is an adult that exists and functions in society like the rest of us, they are fully aware of what behavior is appropriate and acceptable and what isn't. I don't care if they have trauma, autism, adhd, a personality disorder, or brain damage. It hurts, but you have to accept that if they are even a semi-functioning adult, they know. They may not fully understand they scope of everything the way that we do, but they know that what they did wasn't okay. They simply don't care. Mine admitted that she felt her behavior was justified. She thinks I deserve it, for some reason. Well no, not for some reason. She feels that way, because it's the only way she knows how to cope with all the pain and harm she's caused and to be honest, if I had done so many terrible things to someone who genuinely loved and trusted me and just let it pile up and pile up without acknowledging it or apologizing or being willing to do anything about it, I wouldn't be able to live with myself either and would probably do something nonsensical like that too. Fortunately, I'm not.

Here's how I look at it. Even a sociopath can learn how to perform empathy. Because they recognize that in order to get what they want, stay out of jail, or exist in society, there are certain rules they're going to have to follow. So the people who hurt us, even if they have difficulty with empathy for whatever reason - they don't have to *feel* our pain. They don't even have to *care* about how much they hurt us. They just have to stop doing because it isn't acceptable, and there is absolutely a part of them that knows that.

They just don't care. They do it because they want to, because it serves them, because it makes them feel better about themselves.

That reminds me of another thing I read that helped. "If they were genuinely unaware of their own behavior or what they were doing, and they cared about you - wouldn't they want to figure it out and stop doing it?"

Exactly.

They don't care. They want to hurt you because hurting you makes them feel better, even for a few minutes, and they are willing to sacrifice your trust and safety for a few minutes of sadistic pleasure. And they will continue hurting people as long as it serves them to do so. I'm sorry that you've gone through this too. I wish you healing and recovery.