(8 votes, average: 4.63 out of 5)
Loading ...Something has been bothering me lately.
You see, I do read the comments people make about my site. Not all of them, mind you, because I eventually get bored reading about […]
Original post: The Mentality of an Abused Child
Something has been bothering me lately.
You see, I do read the comments people make about my site. Not all of them, mind you, because I eventually get bored reading about […]
Original post: The Mentality of an Abused Child
It’s easy to blame the victim, that’s why people do it.
It’s also hard to act on the behalf of another individual. As messed up as a relationship may be with their parents they still love them (to a degree). This is why abused kids get so fucked up, they can’t handle the confusion that comes when the person they love beats them or is otherwise abusive to them.
The recipient of the abuse is ashamed of it and will go to great lengths to hide it. Even if they know they will be better off with their parents in jail, that means two things: 1) society will now know they have bad parents and will thus assume they are bad children, and 2) they will affirm that their parents may not love them.
While the second part may or may not be true (a lot of parents that beat their kids say they love them), but in the mind of the child it basically severs the ties, which is not necessarily for the best especially if they get foster parents that are abusive.
BTW, having abusive parents is probably the best way to become an abusive parent…
Amen.
And I agree with 1 that people are CONSTANTLY blaming the victim. I really think it’s because nobody wants to admit that they themselves are flawed and could very possibly be in the same situation someday. And feel the *exact same way*.
I know where you’re coming from, on more levels than anyone will ever know. But I will say that having lived through a few separate abusive experiences, it has NOT made me an abusive parent. I’m all for discipline, but there’s a big difference between that and abuse. I have broken the cycle. It’s possible. It’s hard work, but it’s possible.
Sure. Victim blaming is easy because the victim is a slow-moving target compared to the abuser. That’s how it works.
V — Good points. It’s never easy to see abuse that’s close to us — it’s hardest of all when we’re the ones doing the abuse, because we’ve got so much emotion invested in our denial process that it’s very, very painful to take that apart and just see the truth.
Nobody is ever responsible for abuse they receive, even if they’ve been out of line in a major way. Abuse doesn’t justify abuse.
Bravo!
Ignorance will always exist in the world, about every topic. Whether it be child abuse or drugs or the best strategies for stopping terrorism or global warming…
But it’s only through people like V, who will take the time to make a powerful argument against the stupidity of the masses, that we can ever make progress, slow, but nonetheless steady progress. We’ve gotten through slavery, we gave women the vote and are slowly bringing them out of the kitchen, we’re squashing what’s left of racism, and just as well the soldiers of knowledge have people like V to thank for covering our flank on the child-abuse front.
Yes, I know that was incredibly corny. ;-)
Interesting coincidence, Damn Interesting just put up an article on a similar subject, “Stockholm syndrome.”
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=840
Damn V, you are absolutely right! I can even say for myself, as I feel about my parents the same. Children always states their parents as perfect, may they be the worst human beings on planet. If my parents did something wrong, sometimes I really tried to find some explanations or excuses. Bitchy. The only real explanation - “noone is perfect”. But parents really should try their best to be perfect, cause someone thinks they really are.
Now I can really tell that my parents were fuckin bad. Divorced when I was 10. Living with each of them for periods I can say, they really dont give a shit about children, people are such egoists. Money keeps the world turning.
Damnit, V! Don’t you know anything? Obviously, from my perspective as an adult who was never abused as I child, were I in your position knowing what I know, I wouldn’t stand for it! You must’ve just been weak willed and stupid and I will forever look down upon you for it.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, my latte’s getting cold and I need to peruse the rest of the blogosphere to find something new to be outraged about.
wow, a question I asked actually inspired an entry…
yeah I was one of those asking, why didn’t you believe Daniel when you were living the same hell yourself…
thank you for your answer. I hope you know I didn’t mean it as an accusation at all (you SHOULD have known! etc) but I meant it as a very honest question, I was genuinely curious to know. For those who have not lived what you have lived, it DOES seem like a contradiction on the surface, but the way you explain it makes so much sense that yeah, now it seems obvious.
and actually, believe it or not, I relate to what you said. I was not abused, but when I “came out” to my family about my agnosticism and left their church (they are devout mormons) what followed was a period of time in which they all but refused to speak to me and I kept hearing about the horrible gossip my mother was spreading about me to all my former friends and relatives.
this is the part I especially understood: “Their anger and hatred might cause them to lash outward, but I can assure you, the lashes they turn inward are far more violent and desperate. Outwardly, they might rage for hours about how much they hate their degenerate abuser (Without actually ever telling you why) while simultaneously secretly blaming themselves for being the cause of their parent’s fall from grace. All teenagers spend a period of time feeling varying levels of self disgust, but a child who grows up with a monster for a parent feels downright self hatred to frightening degrees.”
that was, to a much lesser extent, me…during that time I could tell anybody how awful it was that my OWN PARENTS wouldn’t even speak to me, simply because I had the courage to think for myself and decide my own beliefs. And everyone who listened agreed with me, that was terrible, I was right, they were wrong.
but deep down, yes, I always believed that I was the reason why my mother no longer loved me. I always believed that if I had just done something different, something better, that everything would be better. I believed that I deserved the abandonment.
And this happened to me as an adult, after a reasonably happy childhood! The difference between me, and someone who was actually abused - well, it has to be all the awful things I felt, magnified by a million.
so, V, I’m sorry. I consider myself corrected, I get it now. And it really is so obvious that I’m surprised with myself that I even had to ask.
A very simplified version of what the V as a kid might have felt about Daniel could look like this:
“You’re obviously not being abused (you’re allowed to leave the house, play with others, etc.), so why should you possibly want to kill your dad? I was really abused, and I don’t, so you must be lying! Or some psychopath, but I don’t want you to be because I like you, so you must be lying!”
The ever-over-rationalizing human mind.
I applaud this post. People really don’t know what it’s like to go through this kind of shit and especially when you point out how we are raised to view our parents as perfect.
Sometimes I find that I am beating myself up for not doing more when I was growing up especially when I think back to my mom and step-father saying “If you call social services we’ll make for damn sure there’s a reason for them to be here” and then follow it up with “You don’t question your parents, in the bible it says honor thy father and thy mother”.
Until you’re in it, people have no right whatsoever to pass judgment.
I understand the thought process of an abused child.
1. They blame themselves
2. I was so scared that if I told anyone, then dad would leave my mom and that would REALLY make things nasty.
3. They make up stories at school about scratches on the neck or bruises or whatever to protect the one who did it.
Without trying to sound trite, I was abused, or at least I thought was until I read your site. Now I think I might have been “punished harshly”, because it pales in comparison to what you have been through.
I remember it started in kindergarten (earliest I can remember anyway). My mom sitting on top of me, I was on the floor, and she would cover my mouth and nose with her hand until I passed out.
I can still remember screaming and our little wiener dogs getting all excited and biting me on the face while it was happening.
One day we were in the basement doing this, and there was a door to the back yard there, and it was left open. A small boy came in and saw what has happening and all I cound was yell at him to leave.
When I got older, it evolved into what she actually called “stomping into the ground”, because that is how it started. She would knock me on my back and then start kicking and stomping, then she would get on top of me and start choking me and spitting in my face, all they while saying “you knowwhat people do when they hate someone, they spit in your face!” and then she would spit and scream she hates me. She would continue to choke me until I passed out, and would come around to her slapping me in face and asking for an answer to a question I missed when I was out.
I remember riding home on the bus every day, with a knot in my stomache, sick with worry about what I was going to get in trouble for when I got home. I hated christmas break and never complained about being sick so I did not have to stay home.
I looked forward with total excitment to the time my Dad would come home from work, because all beatings would always end before he got home and never took place while he was home.
This went on until I moved out at 18. It became less frequent when I had turned like 15, but still happened every now and then.
For a while after I moved out, she told me that if I did not forgive her for what she did, I was going to go to hell (yes, after she found religion when I was in the 4th grade, she started saying it was because I had a demon in me).
Now she has admitted to me while she was crying that she was wrong and asked me to forgive her, to which I told her I already had a long time ago.
I am happily married (10 years now) with two beautiful daughters, one 8 and the other (step daughter, but still my baby) 13. The only issue I have is I am not sure where the middle ground is between to easy to hard on them. They are, after all girls, and I cannot bring myself to be too hard on them.
I blamed myself when I was a kid, and now I am not sure who to blame, but it certainly is not the “worlds” fault.
I remember that lack of understanding about my parents and I still have a depth of self-hatred that I try to ignore.
I also knew other kids that had like me or worse. It was all I knew for the longest time so I was sure it was normal. EVERY family had to be like that once the company was away.
Having grown up now with a slew of problems my parents aren’t the cause of, I have tried to understand they did the best they could with what they had. But your right in that it was years before anyone was able to tell me that it wasn’t my fault. It was years before anyone suspected anything. I still struggle with seeing myself as a broken person.
I don’t know if there is anyone to blame and I don’t know if comparing atrocities creates healing. I know I can relate and every time I hear I’m not alone helps the loneliness all the while creating fear.
The whole point of this comment is: Thank you.
trace- that’s abuse. you were abused. and that sucks. and i’m sorry. we shouldn’t compare our own experiences to each others’, or to V’s. they were all different, and they were all awful. and none of us deserved any of it.
sadi- i thought it was normal when i was child as well. i thought everyone’s family must be like ours. i can’t remember when i figured out that wasn’t the way it was. i can remember the “your mom is so nice,” comments. i can remember thinking, “she acts completely different at home.” i was 8 at the most (possibly 6 or 7,though. it was elementary school) at the time of this memory.
i hope that there is a hell so that anyone that abuses a child burns in the fiery pits of it.