I just realized something that sounds simple, but it changes a lot.
It is not normal to punish people for the things they did in survival mode.
I am not talking about calculated cruelty or people who enjoy hurting others. I am talking about the reactions that come out of emotional abuse, mental overload, years of pressure, and a nervous system that has been on red alert for too long.
The stuff that never would have happened if someone had been safe, regulated, and supported.
The problem is the system looks at behavior and stops there. It does not look at what built that behavior. It does not ask what kind of war that person has been living in, or how long they have been white knuckling reality just to stay here.
So when something finally snaps, the response is punishment.
Charges. Jail time. A permanent label.
And when the victim does not want to press charges, the system steps in and says, too bad, we will do it for you. The only choices become punish them hard or let it all go and pretend nothing happened. There is no middle ground where we actually help the person who broke under pressure.
We treat the breaking point like the whole story, instead of the moment that proves a bigger story has been ignored for years.
What if that exact crisis moment is actually the clearest sign that help is needed, not just discipline?
What if the reaction you are punishing is the same reaction that kept them alive in a home, a relationship, or a body that never felt safe?
If we only punish what people did in survival mode and never look at what pushed them there, we are not protecting anyone. We are just proving that help is conditional. You only deserve it if you can suffer quietly, never slip, never act out, never show how bad it really is inside you.
We say we care about mental health. Then we criminalize the symptoms of it.
If we really wanted fewer victims and fewer offenders, we would treat those explosive survival moments like alarms, not evidence that someone is just evil and hopeless. We would ask what cracked and how to stabilize it. We would build a way out that is not just a prison or a shrug.
Punishment might stop the behavior for a while.
It does nothing for the war that created it.