History Main / AbuseMistake

* 'Series/LieToMe'': In one episode, Cal intentionally invokes this trope, apparently verbally abusing his daughter over the phone in front of a horrified couple. In fact it was a pre-arranged call from one of his colleagues and he behaved this way while his other colleague observed the couple's reactions in order to determine if they treated their own daughter this way - had that been the case, this behavior wouldn't have seemed out of the ordinary to them.

This is not a matter to take lightly -- but it's worth noting that such mistakes are possible in real life. For instance, people with very pale skin can, and often do, get random bruises from going about their daily business and not even notice it.

* In one episode of ''The Trouble with Girls'' (a James Bond parody about a reluctant MartyStu named Lester Girls), our hero rescues a man from getting tortured by a beautiful woman. However, the "victim" gets mad at him for ruining the scene. What first [[WrongGenreSavvy looked like]] the FetishizedAbuser kind of FanService turned out to be a simple [[SafeSaneAndConsensual consensual]] CasualKink.
* A stock plot in ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse comics: Donald gets a new job of responsibility, and starts to see abuse and attempted crimes everywhere he looks. Chaos ensues.
* In ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'', social workers at school will occasionally notice Robin's various injuries and bruises, and with the truth locked down tight, who can blame them for thinking abuse? Bringing your adopted kid along to fight dangerous criminals is not something social workers would be happy about either.
** Shortly after moving back in with his father Tim gets called into his school councilor's office with a black eye. The woman tries to get Tim to accuse ''Bruce'' of having hurt him even though the injuries only showed up after Tim stopped having any regular contact with Bruce out of costume. He's getting them on patrol as Robin and her assumption doesn't even make sense with the timeline as it would if she'd suspected Jack.
* ''Friendly Neighborhood ComicBook/SpiderMan'': Peter is a high school science teacher whose identity is made public after the events of ''ComicBook/CivilWar2006''. The first time he returns to class, one of his students remarks that she noticed he always wore long sleeves to cover the bruises on his arms and assumed that Mary Jane was beating him.
* During ''ComicBook/TheLeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen Century: 1969'', Mina tries to get information out of Julia Gallion, wife of Oliver Haddo's current incarnation, by having sex with her. Apparently, it was really loud and kinky sex because afterwards, Mina's comrades ask about all the noise. In a variation, Mina lets them ''think'' it was some rough interrogation.

* ''ComicBook/UntoldTalesOfSpiderMan'': After receiving the beating of his life at the hands of Sandman, Peter is so sore that he can barely make it to school in the morning. After being shoved by Flash Thompson, he passes out from the pain and wakes up in the nurse's office. She tells him his whole body is horribly bruised and he's to be sent home right away. To keep his identity secret, Peter has to beg her not to send him home or phone Aunt May. After he leaves, the nurse notes that it's only because she knows the elderly May isn't capable of causing injuries like that that she doesn't report child abuse. She concludes Peter just has a tendency to get into fights and doesn't want a bad reputation to sully his academic record.
* In one ComicBook/ArchieComics story, Archie accidentally gets hit in the face by a doorknob. He spends the vast majority of the story getting lots of sympathy for getting beaten up because no one can believe he could run into a doorknob with his eye. Eventually he gets fed up and bends over by a door to demonstrate how it happened...and manages to give himself a second black eye in the process.

* ''Film/AIArtificialIntelligence'': Gigolo Joe thinks the horrible bruises on Patricia, a first-time client, are the result of sexual "passion," although she has clearly been abused.
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** The episode "Rough Trade" has this happen to Stan. The neighbor sees him drunken and slovenly (he was under house arrest for DUI (Roger's fault) and agreed to do a SwappedRoles with Roger, who does nothing but drink and watch game shows all day) and Francine has a black eye (a stressed-out Roger slapped her) which she excuses by saying she walked into a doorknob (a common excuse). When the police come by, they find pictures of an underage boy in his underwear (Steve, he took the pictures himself on Roger's advice to impress a girl) and a basement full of monkeys (Hayley was looking after them for her animal rights group, Roger forgot to feed them), and they hear Stan angrily yelling "I'm gonna kill him!" (Roger, of course) and come in to see Francine on the floor with another black eye, saying, "It was my fault for leaving the mop out" (She tripped on the mop and ''did'' run into a door).
** In the episode "Let Me Be Frank With You", Francine dresses as a man to spend more quality time with an unknowing Stan. The two become best friends, but a suspicious Bullock gets jealous and finds out the real Frank is in another state. He then orders Stan to kill him. While Stan is about to, Francine/Frank lets something about Francine slip, and it causes Stan to think Frank did something with Francine. He then beats Francine/Frank mercilessly while Francine is more focused and romanticized by his loving monologue about her. Eventually, he realizes the truth and they share a romantic hug. Moments later, a man sees Stan hugging his beaten wife, apologizing for attacking her, and with a gun in his hand. He thinks something is up, and Stan threatens to shoot him. Jon Hamm then appears to give a very special message about butting into other people's business and how something you think could be something is something entirely different.

* An early episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' ("Home Sweet Home-Dum-Diddly-Doodily") features Bart, Lisa, and Maggie getting placed into foster care when Lisa has no shoes (because bullies took them to play KeepAway) and Bart has a case of head lice and is wearing a potato sack (because he let a monkey climb on top of his head and the school had to burn his clothes), and a social worker is called to investigate. They find the house a mess (because Marge went with Homer to a day spa instead of her usual housework), Maggie drinking out of the dog's water bowl (because she could) and wearing a sign that reads "I'm a stupid baby!" (because Bart stuck it on Lisa as a prank and it somehow found its way on Maggie), Grampa [[SeniorSleepCycle asleep on the couch]], and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking the toilet paper hung in the "improper" overhand position]]. Marge and Homer didn't actually neglect the kids, but to the social workers, they looked like unfit parents and had to take parenting classes in order to get their kids back from their foster parents, the Flanders family.
** The episode "Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind", Homer wakes up with no memory of the night before and sees that his family is missing and Chief Wiggum came over due to a domestic disturbance and that Marge had a black eye. Homer soon remembers seeing Marge on the couch with Duffman and believes that she was having an affair and he had hit her in retaliation. As Homer is about to commit suicide, he remembers the whole story, which was Marge planning a surprise party for Homer with Duffman as hired entertainment, and the black eye was the result of trying to open a champagne bottle and the cork flying into her eye.
* {{Invoked}} in the ''WesternAnimation/Sealab2021'' episode "Bizarro," in which Captain Murphy reacts as though Bizarro Debbie were brutally torturing Quinn when it is obvious to absolutely everyone else that they're having enthusiastic sex.

* ''ComicBook/{{Spawn}}'' has two little boys (one of whom would grow up to become the Redeemer) whose abusive father claims to the other churchgoers that they play a lot of tackle football. Until Spawn violently murders him, that is.

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': In one episode, Brian sees a battered woman leaving Quagmire's house and, in an attempt to bond with Quagmire, compliments him on the rough sex he must have just had. Quagmire coldly informs Brian that the woman is his sister, who's visiting him to get away from her abusive husband.

** A common culprit for this trope is cats with hyperthyroidism, a condition which puts their metabolism into overdrive and therefore causes them to look thin as rails even when well-fed.

* Series/DocMartin had a middle-aged husband who kept coming in for bruises, and started hiding oil burns. When Martin finally tried intervening by bursting into his bedroom, it turned out to simply be a couple trying out BDSM, and the good Doctor was forced to help him get untangled from the his harness.

* ''Series/{{Sisters}}''. Second-youngest sister Georgie's therapist queries whether she had been molested by anyone, citing that it is frequently a cause of the depression and anxiety that she's been battling. That very night, Georgie apparently has a flashback of her father touching her inappropriately. Within weeks, she's not only convinced that her father repeatedly molested her, she accuses her mother of turning a blind eye to it and her sisters of being in denial as well (when they repeatedly deny being similarly abused), claiming that it would explain the myriad of problems that ''they've'' had, accusing her husband of being unsupportive, and ultimately cutting them all out of her life, all with her therapist's encouragement. Only months later, watching one of her sisters, a doctor, examining her ill son, does she realize that what she remembered was not her father abusing her, but ''examining'' her, as he was a doctor as well. She's horrified to realize that the whole thing was a ploy by [[PsychoPsychologist her therapist]] to isolate her from her loved ones and ultimately seduce her.

* In ''Fanfic/TheUndeadSchoolgirlDeadPulse'', Shoto's own history with his abusive father causes him to assume Bakugou is a DomseticAbuser towards [[GenderFlip Izuku]]. While Bakugou is a former bully, he's also Izuku's best friend and is concerned both by how casually she harms herself and that she's so painfully naive that she attempts to befriend everyone she meets, including those she really shouldn't.

* ''Series/AnimalPlanetHeroes'' occasionally has cases where the animals weren't actually being abused. Usually, they're shown for breathers after enough of the ''real'' abuse stories.

** A common culprit for this trope is cats with hyperthyroidism, a condition that causes them to look thin as rails even when well-fed.
* ''Series/{{House}}'' has several of these.

* ''Comicbook/UntoldTalesOfSpiderMan'': After receiving the beating of his life at the hands of Sandman, Peter is so sore that he can barely make it to school in the morning. After being shoved by Flash Thompson, he passes out from the pain and wakes up in the nurse's office. She tells him his whole body is horribly bruised and he's to be sent home right away. To keep his identity secret, Peter has to beg her not to send him home or phone Aunt May. After he leaves, the nurse notes that it's only because she knows the elderly May isn't capable of causing injuries like that that she doesn't report child abuse. She concludes Peter just has a tendency to get into fights and doesn't want a bad reputation to sully his academic record.
* In one ArchieComics story, Archie accidentally gets hit in the face by a doorknob. He spends the vast majority of the story getting lots of sympathy for getting beaten up because no one can believe he could run into a doorknob with his eye. Eventually he gets fed up and bends over by a door to demonstrate how it happened...and manages to give himself a second black eye in the process.

* In ''Fanfic/BadIdea'', [[WesternAnimation/YoungJustice Wally]] arrives with a broken nose from trying to vibrate through a wall, but Artemis (who had an abusive father for much of childhood) believes he received it from one of his parents.

* ''FanFic/TheFlashSentryChronicles'': In the Season 6 chapter "Spike's Heartbreak", Spike arrives at Carousel Boutique hoping to spend his day off with Rarity. He quickly realizes something isn't right when the door is unlocked, Rarity doesn't seem to be around, and a lot of furniture seems to have been knocked over and lazily put back. He hears a noise coming from Rarity's bedroom and what he thinks is Rarity screaming in what he assumes to be pain and quickly rushes to "save" her. He bursts into her bedroom and finds her laying on her bed with [[spoiler:Lightning Blitz]] on top of her, kissing her neck, with both of them shocked by his sudden appearance. Spike tackles [[spoiler:Lightning]] off of Rarity in anger, thinking that he was trying to rape her, and attacks him. Rarity quickly pulls Spike off him though and explains he wasn't doing anything she didn't want him to do, and that the two of them are a couple.

* In the ''Manga/CardCaptorSakura'' ContinuationFic ''FanFic/ShadowOfTheDragon'', Sakura gets her face slammed into a locker door by the [[{{Poltergeist}} vengeful spirit]] of Reiko Ichimai, who blames Sakura for her death, leaving a bruise on her forehead. Since ghosts are InvisibleToNormals and Syaoran was the only other person present at the time, Teikei, the school disciplinarian, initially assumes that Syaoran attacked her until [[CameraFiend Tomoyo]] provides proof that he is innocent.

* ''Series/TheMiddle'': In "The Scratch," the Heck family quickly throws their garbage together to get to a passing garbage truck in time, and Frankie accidentally scratches Brick's arm with a beer bottle. At school, Brick innocently informs a hall monitor that his arm is scratched is because mother hit him with a beer bottle, and soon Frankie and Mike have to explain themselves to the police. The police send a social worker to the house, and the family desperately tries to look wholesome (and teach Brick not to be so BrutallyHonest).

* ''Series/IntoTheDark'': In "[[Recap/IntoTheDarkS2E12BloodMoon Blood Mon]]" the police naturally believe Esme is abusing Luna after they find him in their basement inside of a cage. Her insistence on him being dangerous and demand he be locked up in a cell after they get into the police station [[NotHelpingYourCase only make her look worse]]. She's actually doing it to protect them from Luna, whom she dearly loves but is a werewolf and the full moon's near.

** ''Fanfic/CrimsonAndNoir'': When Plagg states that all he wants is cheese instead of a proper meal after their first Akuma battle, Marinette asks if anyone had hurt him in the past if cheese is the only thing he desires. Confuse by the question, Plagg bluntly answers that cheese is all he needs.

** ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/25927015/chapters/63016108 Crimson and Noir]]'': When Plagg states that all he wants is cheese instead of a proper meal after their first Akuma battle, Marinette asks if anyone had hurt him in the past if cheese is the only thing he desires. Confuse by the question, Plagg bluntly answers that cheese is all he needs.

* In ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' season 7, Donut goes over to Blue base to give Caboose a message from Tucker, but collapses from dehydration. While Caboose takes care of him until he wakes up, the rest of Red team comes over to the base looking for Donut. Caboose tells them he has Donut and is keeping him comfortable until he tells him some things, but Sarge interprets all this as him holding Donut hostage and torturing him for information.

* In the ''Series/TheUntamed'' fanfic ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/27999810/chapters/68583954 In Your Hands]]'', Yanli stumbles while getting to bed and Jin Guangyao catches her. As she bruises easily, her wrist has a bruise the next morning. Madame Jin assumes he's hurting her.