“Why doesn’t she just leave?”
This is what we ask victims of abuse when they don’t leave their abuser. It is a question I have (shamefully) asked my loved ones before. And when it happened to me. I found myself in a situation where I endured emotional abuse and I didn’t know how to answer my friends when they asked. Hell, at the time I didn’t understand why I stayed. I just kept going back. Even when I knew I shouldn’t.
There’s a psychological explanation for why victims stay — fear of the unknown, guilt, control and the intoxicating promise of reform. Over time, these dynamics convince victims that the abuse is either deserved or survivable. Leaving is not simple for those trapped in abusive relationships. Furthermore, it doesn’t help victims to ask why they won’t leave. It just fosters feelings of shame. It isolates them and makes reaching out even harder.
Turning survival mechanisms into moral failures does nothing to keep victims safe. And it is time that, as a culture, we start prioritizing safety over scapegoating victims.
The way we respond to victims doesn’t disappear when the abuse is fictional. It just gets louder. Even fictional victims trapped in abusive dynamics are rarely given grace. This is something I have noticed based on reactions seen online.
Hulu’s original series “Tell Me Lies” follows a turbulent relationship between characters Lucy Albright and Stephen DeMarco, spanning over the course of eight years. They first meet in college and manage to remain in the same friend group past graduation. The show is now in its third season with many fans up in arms wondering the same thing about Grace Van Patten’s character: “Why won’t she just leave?”
Fan reactions reveal that, as a culture, we have not evolved past victim blaming. In fact, we don’t just love victim blaming, we revel in it. Some fans of “Tell Me Lies” have gone far enough to say that Lucy is just as bad as her abuser.
“I can’t stand Lucy,” one fan said.
“She’s miserable and manipulative,” another said.
“All she does is piss me off!” said yet another.
When viewers argue that Lucy is “just as bad” as Stephen, they’re mistaking her fight-or-flight response for cruelty. When in reality, Lucy — and every person who has been in her shoes — is simply reacting to her partner’s hostility.
What gets lost in these conversations is that abuse is not always loud. It is subtle, cyclical and deeply confusing. Oftentimes, abusers will be cruel one moment and affectionate in the next. The constant push and pull rewires a victim’s sense of reality. Apologies feel like hope. Brief moments of tenderness feel like proof that change is possible. Outsiders see a clear exit; the victim sees a maze with moving walls.
As a survivor, I can say there is an unrealistic fantasy that our abusers will one day revert back to the kind, charismatic individuals we fell for. We don’t realize until it is too late that the abuser’s “dark side” is them showing us their true colors.
One thing I learned after my experience is that trauma alters the way we think. Because we are so focused on surviving, we’re less likely to make “rational” decisions. Leaving isn’t so simple when our bodies see that option as a threat rather than a path to safety.
Shows like “Tell Me Lies” resonate because they portray that messy gray area. Lucy is not written as a perfect victim. Perfect victims don’t exist. She makes mistakes. She hurts people. She sometimes participates in the very chaos that harms her. But imperfection does not disqualify someone from being a victim. Expecting flawless behavior from someone navigating trauma is just another way we deny them empathy.
When audiences label Lucy as “annoying” or “miserable,” they may believe they are critiquing fiction. In reality, they are rehearsing the same judgments that real survivors hear every day. The media becomes a mirror, reflecting how quick we are to withdraw compassion when a victim does not behave the way we think they should.
And maybe that discomfort says more about us than it does about Lucy. It is easier to believe that victims stay because they are weak, dramatic or selfish than to admit how easily anyone could fall prey to manipulation. Blaming the victim creates distance — a false sense of safety that reassures us that we would never make those choices. But abuse does not target only the naive or the broken. It targets human beings who crave love, connection and belonging.
Shame and judgmental attitudes never helped victims escape abuse. At least it never worked for me. Luckily, I had friends who were patient enough with me to listen, to remind me that I didn’t deserve to be treated badly.
I can’t imagine how much longer I would’ve been enticed by my abuser if I was isolated and had no support system.
If we want to shift the culture away from victim blaming, we have to start with the questions we ask. Instead of “Why doesn’t she just leave?” we might ask, “What makes leaving so hard?” Instead of mocking fictional victims for their choices, we can use those narratives to practice empathy and deepen our understanding of coercion, trauma bonding and emotional dependency.
Stories shape the way we talk about harm. They influence whether survivors feel safe enough to speak or too ashamed to be heard. When audiences respond to characters like Lucy with contempt rather than curiosity, we reinforce the silence that keeps real victims trapped.
No one deserves abuse — not the chaotic one, and not the fictional characters we use as stand-ins for real human experiences. We can critique storytelling without dehumanizing the people whose realities those stories reflect.
Because at the end of the day, the question is not why victims stay. The real question is why we are still so uncomfortable offering them compassion.
What is especially striking about the online discourse surrounding “Tell Me Lies” is how quickly viewers turn discomfort into condemnation. Instead of asking why Lucy feels trapped, some viewers rush to prove that they would never tolerate Stephen’s behavior. Social media rewards these harsh takes. But by turning Lucy into a punchline, viewers flatten a complicated portrayal of emotional abuse into a morality test designed to fail.
There is also a gendered expectation hiding beneath much of the criticism. Female characters are still expected to be likeable, self-aware and morally consistent even while enduring harm. When they fail to meet that impossibly high standard, they are dismissed as “toxic” rather than recognized as traumatized. Male characters who inflict violence are often framed as complicated or charismatic; women who respond to that chaos are framed as exhausting.
This double standard matters because fiction shapes empathy. The language audiences use to describe Lucy mirrors the language real survivors hear from friends, coworkers and even strangers online. When we ridicule fictional victims for staying too long, loving too hard or reacting imperfectly, we rehearse the very responses that keep real people silent.
The most “radical” cultural shift we can make is this: believe survivors, extend grace to complicated victims and recognize that survival doesn’t look clean, simple or heroic. Sometimes it looks like Lucy. Sometimes it looks like someone we love. Sometimes, it looks like ourselves.
Sabrina Hossain is a staff writer for The Express. Follow her on X @WritersBlock678.
