severus-thramsay:

I’ve been doing research on why 1/3 of abuse victims become abusers. What’s so different about them?

Most but not all of the victims who tend to become abusers are abused and they are made to believe they are unloved and unwanted.

Most but not all of the victims who end up not becoming abusers do feel loved and wanted. Sometimes their abusive parents are nice to them. Sometimes their abusive parents love them. Those victims find it easier to NOT become abusers themselves. Mainly because they see clearly abuse vs love. They’re able to make comparisons between when their parents have done wrong and when their parents have done right.

There are also other factors like age the abuse started, how long and how strong it was, and then some.

It makes me wonder about Snape’s home life. I’m not saying Eileen didn’t love her son. But for whatever reasons (maybe she was too withdrawn cos of the abuse she might have been going through that she couldn’t actually show her son she loved him and so it made Sev feel unwanted)

I do wonder if Sev’s parents made him feel unwanted whether it was on purpose, unintentionally or both

I wonder how many muggle children he’d tried to befriend that rejected him due to various reasons from his looks to his not so refined social skills.

Before anyone says he wouldn’t have bothered to befriend muggle children he was prejudiced. Maybe. But:

• A child starts wanting to be friends with people from a very young age. So it’s unlikely that Snape at say age 4 and in kindigarden had any fucking idea what was so bad about muggles. Most young children aren’t as sophistically prejudiced as adults are. Their prejudice is basic. I like you. I don’t like you. Whereas adults would have more complicated prejudices. By complicated prejudices we have the extremes like “cos your black” and we have the not so extremes like “you look high are you on mj” (said to me cos I have sleepy eyes naturally) or oh my gosh you are such a weirdo cos of xyz.

My point is I don’t think Snape was old enough to have complicated prejudices like muggles are bad cos of xyz. For Snape it was as simple as I like you. I don’t like you. If Petunia’s unwarranted reaction towards him is a reflection on other muggle children no wonder Snape wasn’t so keen on them.

Also even if Snape didn’t like muggle children most kids would want friends. If muggles were the only one’s avaliable then Snape would take whatever he could. He didn’t actually know about Lily until later on in life.

So yes I do think Snape tried to make friends with muggle children but they rejected him too.

Then at school the only friend who does want him. I wonder if Snape felt a little bitter that they were best friends yet she would hang out with people who didn’t like him.

Harry would NEVER spend time with people who hated Ron and Hermione. You either take him with his friends or you can fuck off.

I’m not saying Lily is a bad person but compare Lily to Harry and if Snape was bitter about it his bitterness makes sense.

But then Snape was hanging out with people who disliked Lily

So the real question is who started it?

Did Snape start hanging around with people who disliked Lily, causing Lily to not care if she hung out with people who disliked Snape?

Did Lily start hanging around with people who disliked Snape, causing Snape to not care if he hung out with people who disliked Lily?

Could it be that neither was being intentionally vengeful. Could it be that neither of them saw any issues in being friends with those who don’t like the other friend? That they thought that as long as they both liked each other that was enough? or at least they tried convincing themselves it didn’t matter if they hung out with friends who didn’t like the other friend but deep down believed otherwise, deep down they believed it did matter, but kept denying it until it all came to the shattering of their friendship?

Before anybody says Lily’s friends disliked Snape cos how he was such a shitty teen, that’s fanon. For all we know they could have despised Snape cos of his looks and cos he’s “snivellus”, we just don’t know for sure.

So if Lily is casually hanging around with people who see him as Snivellus can we blame Snape for not being loyal in making sure he hangs out with people who like Lily?

If it’s the other way round can we blame Lily?

The friendship between Lily and Snape is complicated. It also has a lot of infornation missing where its easy to put Snape in the bad guy category and Lily in the good girl category, or vice versa, without acknowledging multiple other factors. One possible factor being they were in different houses and wanted friends and to fit in with their housemates and before they knew it they were friends with those who didn’t like their other friend. It kinda just happened.

But in a nutshell I can feel Snape feeling unwanted by Lily sometimes.

So Snape feeling unloved and unwanted means he falls into the category of abuse victims who become abusers.

But then you have Harry who felt unloved and unwanted.

Well:

A) Harry was part of the minority. Most unloved and unwanted abuse victims go on to become abusers themselves. If Harry was part of the lucky lot who didn’t, good fucking on him.

B) Harry wasn’t unloved and unwanted his whole childhood. In fact he probably convinced himself his parents loved and wanted him. Then when he was 11 all these other people started to love him.

C) Harry’s friends wouldn’t spend time with those who wouldn’t let Harry hang out with them as well. That strong sense of loyalty is something neither Snape or Lily had for each other for whatever reason

D) Dudley was wanted so Harry had a comparison between abusive behaviour and loving behaviour

So Harry if I’m honest seemed a lot more loved and wanted than Snape ever did.