The Apology Relational Abuse Never Gives You

Netflix is a respite from a long week of seeing clients. I want to plop on the couch and shift into laughing gear. I want a break from stories about men abusing women—most often women being victimized. The abuse is a double whammy when the offender blames the victim for the offense, a way of shirking accountability. As a therapist specializing in relational trauma, I hear this almost daily from people seeking help for narcissistic abuse.

"If only they would acknowledge the pain they cause me. If only they would apologize and mean it and be the change they promise."

As a seasoned therapist, I'm pretty good at not taking their pain home with me. I take three days off in a row and focus on self-care.

Some comedic levity—a nice way to slip into the weekend. Netflix is featuring a stand-up comedy show: Louis CK's new special. I look no further. I'm curious and excited. It's been years since I've had a fix of Louis's lewdness and self-deprecation. He was my go-to comic, but he got in trouble and was banned for really bad behavior. I look forward to seeing how he'll deal with his publicized illegal kink, take accountability, and make me laugh as he works vulnerably, which might be a not-so-funny but meaningful reckoning for why he disappeared from view. 

I hit PLAY.

Louis CK disappeared from public view in 2017 after The New York Times published allegations from five women who came forward with accounts related to CK's sexually inappropriate behavior, including Louis asking two female comics he'd invited to his hotel room under the guise of coaching their comedy careers. Before these two women had removed their winter outerwear, Louis asked to masturbate in front of them and, without waiting for consent, undressed, jerked off, and ejaculated on his stomach.

WHAT?

When this story erupted, I was an exuberant fan looking forward to anything Louis does. His comedy hit my funny bone. But after this, to me he's no longer a performer; he's a man who violates women. He's smart. He's strong. He's climbed a mountain to reach the top of the standup world. But he's not smart about how to control his exhibitionistic self when he needs a hit of extra power. Comics live for the laugh, for their audience's response. He's honed his craft so that he's invited to take the stage whenever he wants. But that wasn't enough. He gathered an extracurricular audience of two.

I hit PLAY.

I need Louis to healthily expose his shadow self. I want him to speak about how it's never enough. There's never enough of being seen. Never enough of getting off by people clamoring to watch you. Never enough of feeling powerful and famous. I'm excited to see how his newfound wisdom grapples with what is no longer in the shadow. It’ll be healing, for Louis, for me, and all victims of abuse.

I hit PLAY.

He doesn't come out of the gate with it. I keep watching him do what he does so well. It ends. I'm disappointed. Did I miss something? Had he already shown this public exposure of his apology and his healing process? I started to dig. I wanted to know what happened after the NY Times article. I watched the 2023 documentary "Sorry/Not Sorry" about Louis CK's behavior that got him in trouble. In the film, the women he violated talk.

I also learned that Louis CK made a public statement the day after the NY Times exposé. He admitted to his behavior and acknowledged "wielding power irresponsibly." He expressed regret but offered no apology or indication that he intended to seek help to avoid repeating the offense. I am surprised that nine months later he was back on stage giving surprise performances, as if nothing had happened.

As I watch his newest one-hour show, I wait for accountability, but the show ends. And I'm angry. He sidestepped his abuse—his abuse of his victims and now of all women. It feels like a deliberate dodge.

What he did with the women was abusive, and shirking accountability for it is also abuse. Years ago I wouldn't have had the reaction I do now. I have been abused similarly to how he abused his victims, and in ways that were more physically violating. I was shocked, and I stayed silent. I have abused others with insensitivity and lack of control, and for that I'm sorry and have apologized. I have learned. Years ago, I was blind to the abuse—as both the victim and victimizer. Now, through my own self-examination and abuse-healing journey, I can identify manipulation of power to harm another for the edification of ego or behavior to veil the offender's insecurity and shame.

So, Louis bounces when it comes to being vulnerable publicly. But what about Netflix? How is it that in all your high-level meetings about contracting with an abuser, you missed this elephant in the room? Did everyone in those meetings only see dollar signs, not the victims? Did you not discuss how you are colluding with a known wealthy, famous exhibitionist whose only punishment was a short period of time outcast, therefore losing income?

My default response when being abused is to withdraw, to freeze, to appease, to avoid making it worse. The women in the hotel room with Louis report being in a freeze when he exposed himself to them. That reaction is familiar.

When abuse is happening, we do what we have to do to survive. But after the freeze thaws, we face a choice about what to do. That choice is where the story turns.

I think of another man, from the same industry, the same era, forced into the same reckoning. Dan Harmon isn't a stand-up—he's a showrunner, the kind of comedy mind who builds the rooms other comics work in—but he came up in that same world, trained in the same instinct to turn his interior life into material for an audience. For two years, he pursued a writer on his own staff, Megan Ganz, while controlling her paycheck and punishing her when she didn't want him back.

His first attempt at an apology was a text message. Sorry for being a bad boss. Short. General. She said she felt nothing.

Then #MeToo cracked the culture open, and he went back to it—not with a lawyer-approved paragraph, not with a publicist's statement dropped the next morning. Seven uninterrupted minutes, unscripted, on his own podcast. I was attracted to a writer I had power over because I was a show-runner. I knew those feelings were bad news. I did the cowardly, easiest, laziest thing you can do with feelings like that—I didn't deal with them. So I made everyone else deal with them. Especially her.

He didn't rationalize his way into innocence. He said, plainly, that if she hadn't said something publicly, he'd have kept getting away with not thinking about it.

Ganz forgave him. Publicly. Called it a masterclass in how to apologize.

This is the version I wanted from Louis. Not regret stamped onto a press release the morning after, cost-free and already halfway to the exit. I wanted him to sit in it the way Harmon sat in it—out loud, without an hour of honed material to hide behind, without a stage between him and what he did.

He didn't do that. Nine months of quiet wasn't a reckoning. It was a timeout. That's the version I kept waiting for through Louis's whole hour, and it never came.

I'm not lulled into a blissful giggle after Louis's show ended—I'm mad. I'm mad at the system, the 'cancel culture' system, the whole system; CK himself, his agent, publicist, and Netflix are colluding in the violation. It's business as usual. Louis, you lost me as a fan. How you hurt and continue to hurt is unforgivable. And shame on the system for supporting the 'miss' of this Netflix special and pretending accountability doesn't matter.

If you find yourself saying over and over…

“If only they would acknowledge the pain they cause me. If only they would apologize and mean it and be the change they promise."

…and are looking for a therapist in California or Arizona, I specialize in healing narcissistic abuse.

→ Book a free 15-minute consultation at cynthiaeddings.com