Do abuser know they are being abusive?

I believe they do know. I have been in the vicinity of several in one way or another. One was a husband who called me asking me to help him get his wife back after he had abused her, telling me I have no idea what he had been through when he was a child. Another was a boyfriend of my neighbour who had slammed her up against a cinder block wall because he was looking for the money he asked her to hold for him so he wouldn’t lose it all and have none to get back home with. She was only doing what he asked of her which was to hold it and not give it to him except for when he was needing it to return home. When she did as he had instructed her, he became violent. Another was a neighbour of my brother who was holding his girlfriend’s child hostage as he held a gun. In all these cases they knew what they were doing was wrong. But consciously they were unable to override it and do the right thing. When the subconscious feels threatened it will either go into flight or fight mode. In that case it is virtually impossible to overcome the subconscious and what it makes us do to protect ourselves. When our subconscious is triggered by an event that creates a flashback to our past we do what we need to do to survive. I’m not condoning abuse or making excuses for it. I’m only trying to relay what I have learned about human nature and why it is difficult to overcome and people continue abusive behaviour. It takes rewriting what our subconscious was trained to do so our subconscious doesn’t continue those patterns. For some they find a way to do this instead of taking on those patterns they learned from their environment, and they grow up and are not abusive. For others they seek help to try and stop what they know is wrong. For others they can’t get passed what their subconscious learned in how to protect themselves and getting help is interpreted as another threat. It’s a viscous cycle. The last of these are the ones who repeat their pattern of abuse even though they know it is wrong, it is something they do in reaction to what they see as a threat. I know it doesn’t make sense when you consider some of the situations like an adult abusing a child. And what I’m talking about here is physical and mental/emotional abuse not sexual abuse. To me sexual abuse is altogether different than emotional abuse. But I still think they know it is wrong when sexual abuse is involved.