Transcending My Father's Abuse

https://valspals.substack.com/p/transcending-my-fathers-abuse

by exolymph • 3 years ago

210 166 3 years ago

valspals.substack.com

dmbche• 3 years ago

Thanks to the author for taking the time and effort to have a very heartfelt and deep dive into their personal life - especially on subjects this nuanced.

Their comments on "hurt" rather than bad, and their feeling that they couldn't fight back unless they became "dirty", or just as bad as them, were especially resonant.

Their comments about their dad living through the cultural revolution made me remember the scene in the Three Body Problem where Ye Wenjie confronts the three communist youths that had killed her father many years after the revolution, and they explain that their own suffering and how it brought along her fathers death.

vals_pals_4• 3 years ago

Hey, author here. Thank you so much for taking the time to write a thoughtful comment. I had no idea what the response to this essay would be, so I'm really grateful that you read it in the first place and that the essay moved you.

labrador• 3 years ago

I have a similar father and while I never expect to get an apology, I've found peace knowing it's about him and not me. I stopped personalizing it. He's still trapped in the craziness of the world and those who raised him, while I've found a way to manage it so I am not similarly crazy.

throwaway_abuse• 3 years ago

This hit too close to home that I couldn't finish reading it in a sitting. I had to walk around my apartment a couple of times waiting to relax before coming back to my computer.

I have blanks in my memories too, where my dad told me he hit me (he apologized for it, like in OP). And I remember nothing after "the triggering incident", like in OP.

I also have very bad trust issues now, to the point where it is hard for me to make friends if they insist on having opinions on my life. Relationships have never worked for me, because it takes me forever to open up.

Childhood trauma sucks. Why people take their anger out on innocent kids just trying to understand how the world works in their own ways, is just beyond me.

There's SOO many more positive and healthy ways to raise a child. And realizing that now makes me genuinely teary eyed about all the neural pathways in my brain that were formed or not formed as a result of my parents decisions.

But I'm kind of glad to see so many of my friends being awesome parents, really caring for and listening to their kids. I'm lowkey excited for the next generation, who will be much more open about their thoughts and feelings, and probably more well adjusted as humans.

My pet hypothesis is this will also why the current/next generation is much more open about sexuality / gender / identity, and I expect this to get only more nuanced as science understands more and as people learn to express more. But that's just something I cooked up. Anyone else feel this way?

ternaryoperator• 3 years ago

I too share your sentiments about the upcoming generation(s). The other thing I notice about them is that they're overall far more accepting about differences in race, sexual orientation, gender, etc.

code_biologist• 3 years ago

I would broadly agree with your characterization, with a specific painful exception. In certain very left leaning American communities there is a guilt about or bias against cishet identities. The eager diagnosis of gender identity issues along with irreversible hormone and surgical treatments (great discussion from a former gender identity counselor in this Triggernometry interview [1]) constitute child abuse and medical malpractice in some instances.

I’m a happy cis adult male. I liked painting my nails a lot as a kid. I’m glad my parents just set me up with nail polish and ventilated area instead of bringing sexual identity into it.

[1] https://youtu.be/gbuGMbqjsSw

geodel• 3 years ago

But I'm kind of glad to see so many of my friends being awesome parents, really caring for and listening to their kids.

Hmm, thats kind of reaching. Let the kids grow up and decide whether their parents were really up to snuff. Otherwise it is like wearing "I am awesome" T-shirt and then using it as proof that I am awesome.

irjustin• 3 years ago

I down voted at face value but how?

MichaelZuo• 3 years ago

I agree, it sounds a lot like saying the majority of kids are above average. The Lake Wobegon effect of signalling.

Or maybe that's just my increased skepticism of throwaway accounts talking after LLMs became popular.

ddellacosta• 3 years ago

My pet hypothesis is this will also why the current/next generation is much more open about sexuality / gender / identity, and I expect this to get only more nuanced as science understands more and as people learn to express more. But that's just something I cooked up. Anyone else feel this way?

I'm not sure if it's true or not, but it's something I hope, certainly.

At the same time I think a lot of people are stuck in cycles of abuse that they inherited, and which they themselves are going to pass down to the next generation. And I think to some extent this reflects the inhospitality of the societies we live in.

Anyways, I also wanted to say that I felt a lot of the same things you did reading this. Thank you for posting. I hope you will feel more peace as you get older.

vals_pals_4• 3 years ago

Hey, OP here. I'm really touched that you read the entire piece. I poured a lot of myself into it, so thanks from the bottom of my heart.

I had a different problem with relationships. I opened up quickly enough, but my partners grew up with happy families and didn't understand the level of abuse I had experienced. I felt incredibly alone. If I didn't get extremely lucky and meet a partner who understood how deeply people could be abused, I probably would be single.

In my personal experience, my dad was trying his best but simply couldn't know better. When I think about the challenges he faced -- growing up in the aftermath of the WWII and the communist Revolution, his parents were poor, he immigrated to the US by himself practically penniless, being disdained by white people for being Asian -- I feel overwhelmed by how much he had on this plate. This being said, I am still mourning the happy family I did not grow up with.

I think the current/ next generation better understands that 1.) there is such a thing as trauma 2.) We can work through them so we don't keep harming ourselves and others. I am hopeful that more people can end the cycles of violence they grew up in.

Waterluvian• 3 years ago

I lost my mom in my late teens. My parents were wonderful. Definitely well above average. I owe them so much.

Something that I’ve been discovering is that I have two sections of blanks in my memory: the anguish of her being so sick for years, and the times she lost her cool with me.

Both sets of memories have been trickling back decades later. I’m not sure what to share about it in particular, but in general it has been a fascinating and oftentimes horrible sensation. To suddenly have a memory activate for no apparent reason.

I’m incredibly thankful that my wife is the person she is. I’ll randomly come into the room holding back tears and she immediately knows what it is and what to do.

I think it’s important to speak these things aloud to help further normalize our talking about them.

throwaway093821• 3 years ago

As someone who similarly has Asian parents that have gone through their own trauma in life, this resonates with me. As a younger child, my parents would hit us with clothes hangers, as this was the only method of discipline that they knew at the time. I don't feel like they realize or acknowledge the effects of that.

While interactions nowadays are rarely negative, I've resolved to cut of communication at some point in the future, after I've alleviated my own guilt by "repaying" them monetarily for all they've done in raising me.

I get yelled at most days still, though.

Most of the electronic devices I've owned over the years have been broken by my dad smashing it after getting frustrated over some aspect of schoolwork related to my usage of such devices. Curiously, this seems to happen after he's had a few drinks.

isoprophlex2• 3 years ago

While interactions nowadays are rarely negative, ...
I get yelled at most days still, though

I get the feeling that most outside observers would still classify these interactions as abusive...

lostapathy2• 3 years ago

after I've alleviated my own guilt by "repaying" them monetarily for all they've done in raising me.

You don’t owe them that. “They put a roof over my head and fed and clothed me” isn’t a parent doing good for their kids, it’s the minimum allowed by law. You make a choice when you have a child, and these costs are part of that choice.

inconceivable2• 3 years ago

i think several decades ago, a lot of people didn't really want kids but had them anyway due to societal/family pressure. my parents were immigrants so the pressure was probably double. mentally both weak, and strong. a paradox.

my dad used to hit me until one day i realized i was heavier than him, and threw him onto the couch and raised my fist to hit him, but didn't. he never tried again.

my relationship with them is fine now (i'm middle aged) but i still don't listen to a god damn thing they say about life advice. quite frankly they don't know their ass from their elbow about how america really works and less than zero about growing up here. most immigrant parents don't, even though they pretend to, for some insane reason.

as for me i'm not having kids, and i don't really do long-term monogamous relationships either (i date plenty). i'm sure my parents are disappointed but quite frankly i don't give a shit.

RHSman23• 3 years ago

Having kids forces you to change. And if you don’t you’ll turn into something that is a negative reaction to that stimuli. It’s a massive step to do that change, takes more courage than I have ever had to use anywhere in my life. I would have struggled to do that if I didn’t know what having a loving family meant (they gave me a North Star for love.)

snapetom• 3 years ago

"Of course this is Asian parents," I thought as I saw the Chinese characters.

Every time I read something like this, it's a wave of sadness and empathy, then it's a wave of anger. I'm a generation older than the author, and went through a similar experience with my mother. I witnessed my cousin be thrown against the drywall so hard, he broke it. I'm convinced he has permanent brain damage today due to the abuse he suffered.

I learned from my uncle recently that my aunt and my mother were the product of horrendous and similar abuse from my grandmother. My grandmother, who my mother made out to be a saint.

Every fucking generation, this filial piety bullshit repeats itself.

JKCalhoun3• 3 years ago

It's not just Asians though, but you probably know that.

throwaway_89262• 3 years ago

It's widespread in asian families where the parents grew up poor. Kids are abused by their parents, who were abused by their parents, who...

It's not uncommon for aunts/uncles to turn a blind eye to child abuse. They just don't care because they see it as some sort of rite of passage, or because they view it as something that could never compare to the horrors of the motherland.

My father beat me so I went to my uncle (non-blood) for help and you know what I got? Another ass beating. The culture just doesn't view it as abuse unless you end up in the hospital, because at least you aren't starving to death.

agumonkey4• 3 years ago

My mother worships her parents who had deep issues. Not asian, but also from poor and harsh life conditions.

She suffers from my father's abuse (father who also had troubled parents) and accepts everything cause she has no other solution in her mind. She hates violence and thus doesnt want to fight back(she tries more these days though)

Of course i'm also fucked up. We all try to analyse and understand our parents wounds.. even though it seems fruitless.

A good enough family lineage is a rare form of wealth.

ketanmaheshwari• 3 years ago

My mom hit me badly for not being able to write 2 properly. It has been 40 years and I have not yet forgotten.

throwaway92333• 3 years ago

My parents aren't Asian (I'm not even from the US), but, still, this resonates with me.

My conundrum is that I simply don't feel like I'd be able to cut off my parents, especially my mom. I simply can't imagine a world without her. I would feel lost without her. Even though she may have sexually abused me. Because in the end, who else do I have?

nyanpasu64• 3 years ago

In my case I'm too traumatized to survive and afford a roof over my head without relying on my earlier-abuser parents, even though I want to escape and live with a family of choice. Most things I try to do to change my circumstances results in overwhelming stress or even breaking down in tears, and none of them have been able to materially improve my living conditions or build towards a financially stable future.

agumonkey4• 3 years ago

This is a deep question. Our parents represent too much and too deep stuff in our brains. All our childhood, birth, absolute love.. i struggle to understand how some people can easily cut their parents away. It feels like grief. Very hard problem to solve. Some therapists talk about adding distance as a compromise..

crazygringo2• 3 years ago

If this post resonates with you, there are two books I highly recommend, both by the renowned psychologist Alice Miller [1].

The first is For Your Own Good (1981), in which she describes the "poisonous pedagogy" of emotional and physical abuse passed down from generation to generation, and how we minimize and turn a blind eye to it because we want to follow the 4th commandment "Honor thy father and thy mother" (or in this case, a Confucian equivalent) -- at tremendous cost to ourselves, our own children, and society at large. It is one of the most eye-opening books I have ever read.

The second is her more recent The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting (2005), which is more therapeutic and focused on how people's physical pain and sickness can dissipate when they are able to finally stand up for themselves and their own emotional needs, rather than continue to pretend their abusive parents were actually good.

Alice Miller's first book, The Drama of the Gifted Child (1979) is her best-known, but in my opinion, the above two books show her understanding evolving to become even more sophisticated.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Miller_(psychologist)

browningstreet• 3 years ago

Also: Gabor Mate. He’s got videos, interviews, books. He focuses on addictions and childhood trauma, but his latest book extends his research to society in a broader level. His work is essential.

thenerdhead3• 3 years ago

I keep hoping for a future where my dad and I call every few days, and I can tell him about the decisions I’m navigating or the opinions I actually hold, without him yelling at me when I deviate from his expectations. I find myself dreaming that one day, my dad will call me and tell me that he connected with his own memories of his parents, and now fully understands the magnitude of the pain I endured. We’ve undergone similar pains, he’ll tell me. He got hit for wanting meat, and I got hit for not washing my hands. I’m sorry for recycling that pain.

The sad reality that Miller outlines in her most popular title is that you'll probably never receive this want even if you communicate it constantly. That book really hurt to read. But it is the truth.

AdamCraven• 3 years ago

I would avoid Alice Miller, because she abused her own children[1]. “The body keeps score” I’d recommend instead

[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/True-Drama-Gifted-Child-Phantom/dp/....

thenerdhead3• 3 years ago

By that logic we should avoid most psychologists(think Anna Freud as a complete opposite here). These are all great books, but there’s something to learn from them all. If you read Miller’s most popular book and then her son’s, it will go to show you how difficult it is to break the generational cycle. Or simply put, how much people actually practice what they preach.

crazygringo2• 3 years ago

Her son talks about the paradox of how she raised him abusively, and yet it was only through her books that he was able to heal himself many years later.

The timeline here is important -- her son was born in 1950, and her first book wasn't written until 29 years later.

I think it's much fairer to view her work as a heroic attempt to atone for her own sins. She was abused by her own parents, did the same to her children in turn, and then dedicated her entire professional life to figuring out how to break that cycle. It was too late for her own kids, but she was able to help others instead.

So it's unfair to judge her by saying she didn't practice what she preached, because they came at different times. What she wrote about was sadly informed by her own personal experience.

The Body Keeps the Score (by Bessel van der Kolk) is another great book, but it's about trauma generally, and especially things like PTSD. It doesn't focus much on specifically parental abuse the way the blog post, and Alice Miller, do.

turtleyacht9• 3 years ago

To the folks here, do you remember your childhoods at all?

Of the memories you have gathered up, do the vivid ones center around loud, violent interactions (like yelling)?

I ask because I don't remember a lot of my childhood, except some vivid memories around things being my fault. Being blamed for things.

I love my parents. They did everything for me. But my memories of happiness are in photos and more recent events. Decades ago are just, well, empty. Take lots of pictures, y'all--and recordings!

Thank-you.

sva_• 3 years ago

I remember quite a lot about my childhood.

You ask about yelling, I vividly remember how when my father shouted at me/my brothers, the glasses in the kitchen would vibrate against each other and make a clanking noise whenever he finished a sentence, and we'd just sit in silence. Sometimes even the doorbell would start making noise from his voice.

But I also have a lot of good memories, and I can luckily say that my father has turned around when I got a bit older. I think my parents lacked the maturity to have children at their age.

turtleyacht9• 3 years ago

The maturity bit hits hard. I know some of my weaknesses, and as always I turn to books. But when they are childrens books and they have good advice--and I wanted them to be better at it than me--it's like, I didn't acquire these tools myself, either.

When the books are teaching (or admonishing, in my case) both of us, it's better than nothing I guess.

swader999• 3 years ago

I don't have much memory before ten years old, in my fifties now.

turtleyacht9• 3 years ago

I have a picture of me standing in the snow, thick coat and the squares of a wood-and-paper door behind me. But I don't remember the floor inside, or the ceiling, or anything else. My own room, the environs around. Nothing else. I must have been just a couple years old, even.

mkoubaa• 3 years ago

Early thirties, probably less than 10 memories of my childhood

turtleyacht9• 3 years ago

Yes, it feels like that. They come and go. If I write them down, maybe I will know for sure whether they are a dozen or less.

Who knows; maybe reflecting on one is a doorway to others...

alisonatwork• 3 years ago

This is a bit of a tangent from the original topic, but I've pondered the same thing. I'm often amazed by how clearly some people appear to be able to remember events that happened when they were very young. For me, I barely remember stuff that happened even a decade ago, much less when I was a child. The mortifying memories probably stick longer than the pleasant ones do, but ultimately they all fade. It used to bother me, especally when sharing with partners who found it a reason to pity me, and for a period I wondered if I actually had some kind of trauma that I was hiding from myself. But eventually I stopped caring, because worrying about holes in your memory is just wasting time you could have spent thinking about things that are productive or entertaining or actionable in the present. I have come to think that my mind just works a bit differently to the folks who are more focused on their past. For me, now, I accept that if something no longer appears useful, it gets garbage-collected. Doesn't mean it wasn't worth experiencing in the first place, just means I acknowledge it was a fleeting moment of joy (or pain) and that's fine. I would be a lot more worried if I started losing actually-important memories like language skills, motor skills, general knowledge and so on.

turtleyacht9• 3 years ago

Nice, I like that. I'll embrace the memories I do have, and be thankful that I haven't lost the functional stuff. After all, those same sources could be used for inspiration and purpose.

Some memories though, physically stop me for a second. I have to blink them away, like phantasms to dispel. Those I would want to face head on. I always promise myself I will conquer them by writing or drawing them; someday I should have a certain list of them.

JKCalhoun3• 3 years ago

I'm more like you. My father though is someone with a bizarre (to me anyway) encyclopedic memory. I am quite convinced at this point that some people just store differently than others.

benatkin• 3 years ago

I remember a lot of stuff, especially since the third grade, which is when my primary career aspirations formed, that persist to this day.

turtleyacht9• 3 years ago

That's awesome. It's nice when one can remember the why and when. I hope to "awaken" my kids somehow, so I'd like to try different activities. School already has dance, music--even robotics later on.

Just something they can feel like they own and can be interested in. Folks around me have their thing, and I'm just floating around. I have books for most things, but haven't dived into most of them.

devinprater• 3 years ago

Oh wow. I thought I was the only one. Like I wasn't abused, not to that extent, but I remember my parents fighting, or the time my mom hit me because I couldn't spell a word, stuff like that.

turtleyacht9• 3 years ago

Thanks. I should try to collect them. Maybe like an exercise in mindfulness? There are certainly only a finite number of them. Not all are bad. Maybe there are insights in them.

Instead of "problems" as "opportunities," it could become "trauma" to "healing."

retrac• 3 years ago

A while ago, I walked through the park, that backs on to the house where I grew up. And I was struck with a shift of perspective. I remembered being up by the house in the yard. The perspective had been different, once. That little wooden board, had once seemed a formidable wall, and the garden was like a jungle I had once been scared to go into. I can step over it all in two big strides now. Except I don't really know. It's very hard to pin down anything specific. Is that really a memory of being in that garden? Or just what I know must have once been true? Things are less hazy after about the age of seven or so. I still dream about being in class in primary school sometimes, the oddest little recollections about people I haven't seen in decades. But it is certainly fading with time. Becoming the sort of reconstructions that must have been true.

turtleyacht9• 3 years ago

Before age five, maybe a few memories. A handful (or less) with each decade so far.

More and more, I'm feeling sorry I didn't keep a daily journal.

RHSman23• 3 years ago

These long term memories evolve into something else as the act of viewing them from that point of time (with all that comes with it) changes how they are. That’s what strikes me when I get those spooky memories.

JKCalhoun3• 3 years ago

When I go back far enough in my memories I feel as though I once lived in another place, not just another time. I've tried to explain this to my wife and she doesn't get it. I tell her that it was another world in 1967 in my earliest now-fleeting memories. Stores were different, the streets were different, everything was different. In less than a decade though everything would change, would be like it is now.

That is how it feels at least. Much closer to a dream. Perhaps instead dreams and my earliest memories are one and the same.

turtleyacht9• 3 years ago

Probably someday, we'll see VR/AR of those same places, and folks will be able to walk, ride, and smell everything nearby several times over in the span of the road trip.

"But we've already been there!"

"Yeah, but not in real life you haven't."

Or, instead of brand new places, people relive the same ones with different--injected or modified--memories.

throwaway83j342• 3 years ago

It might be worth exploring that with a counsellor. Good ones will offer a free session and you’re not doing any wrong to try out a handful of intro calls. Best

leashless• 3 years ago

Trauma and Recovery by Judith Lewis Herman is the standard academic psychology reference text for understanding CPTSD.

It is worth 5000 self help books.

Aleksdev2• 3 years ago

Thanks! They have it on Audible for anyone else who is interested.

monero-xmr2• 3 years ago

My father was quite abusive to myself and siblings, and now we all cut off contact, but he refuses to accept any responsibility for his actions. Everything is someone else’s fault, he’s the victim, everyone is teaming up against him, etc. If you take the checklist for narcissistic personality disorder he hits all of them spot-on. Really nothing you can do but become estranged and raise your own children better.

tomcam2• 3 years ago

we all cut off contact

I had to do that too. Stay strong.

fugalfervor3• 3 years ago

My mother has NPD. That disorder is very hard on the children.

I am grateful to my wife, and for my son. We are doing things better for sure.

monero-xmr2• 3 years ago

Out of all the traits, I think an inability empathize - simply to put yourself in someone else’s shoes - is the defining characteristic. Whether you are dealing with a child, a spouse, a service worker, a friend - the afflicted cannot understand how someone else feels. The “me” focus is overarching and permeates all thoughts and actions.

One memory sticks out that perfectly encompasses his malady, is when my wife cooked a big meal for a gathering which included in-laws, friends, and neighbors. When she announced dinner was going to be served, he filled a plate with food and ate by himself at the table, before anyone else had sat down or been served. When asked later why he did that, he came up with a few reasons which essentially were “I was hungry”.

I’m leaving out all manner of physical, emotional, manipulative, financial abuse he inflicted but the above anecdote is such a pure distillation of the lack of social grace combined with intense self-indulgence.

squokko• 3 years ago

I looked up NPD... what would you say is different between "having NPD" and "being a colossal asshole"?

justinclift• 3 years ago

Wow, that's pretty much exactly the behaviour of my mother.

Also cut off all contact due to it too.

mise_en_place• 3 years ago

The scariest thing about having abusive parents is that you end up becoming like them. It took me many years to understand why my relationships would all fail. In hindsight, I was emotionally abusive to a lot of my partners. I will not offer an apology for it, as that just feels hollow and empty. All I can say is that I am trying to be better.

ted_bunny• 3 years ago

Can you say more about how you leanred about that one? Feeling at square one.

faangguyindia• 3 years ago

At some point you become self aware, for me it came after a girlfriend of 6 years just left one day.

I went through lot of anxiety after that. But i realized where it was alll coming from, it's as if I always knew how to act better in hindsight but when I was facing the situation I almost always couldn't do anything good.

Not that she wouldn't have left if I was good, people leave all time for whatever reasons. But I could still have been nicer to her I feel, she was also similar to me so it's not like she was always nice to me but I could have shown her better.

knaik945• 3 years ago

For some people, hearing an apology means something even if you feel like your words are hollow and empty. I had a difficult upbringing too, but I have never repeated the mistakes of my parents in my own relationships. I wonder if that difference is related to how early someone realizes that their parents shouldn't be treating them this way. It's harder to recognize certain behaviors when you don't know what to look for.

aaplok• 3 years ago

Could it be that you won't apologise because a part of you fears that the apology might be used against you?

The recovery process will necessarily pass by trusting people again, and making yourself vulnerable to them. That is the only way you can experience that they behave like normal human beings who won't exploit your weaknesses.

RHSman23• 3 years ago

‘All I can say is that I am trying to be better’ There is a lot more in your reply but I hope that you find the way to locate the ability to remove those shackles.

kristiandupont• 3 years ago

This reminds me of a line in Bojack Horseman (a show that you might enjoy if you haven't watched it, it deals with these issues):

“You do this thing where you don’t think you can ever be forgiven, so you don’t apologize, but I can’t forgive you if you don’t say you’re sorry”.

An apology is only hollow if it's not followed up by any action.

_p2kl• 3 years ago

I was just about to write the same thing. No matter how much I understand my parents, or how much I progressed through years of therapy, I hate myself when I'm doing the same things I hate in them. My therapist says the progress I made so far is tremendous and I can't expect myself to progress much faster and I should be proud of myself. However no matter all the progress if I keep causing suffering on people I love. It's really hard to forgive myself sometimes and I keep wanting to run away.

jancsika• 3 years ago

tldr; Author should find a therapist if they haven't already.

I can perfectly imagine that friend saying "you're making excuses for him," and the frustration both the friend and author have at not seeing the situation from the same vantage point. I can feel the friend's frustration at the gravity of the situation somehow not getting through fully to the author. (As well as the author's frustration for the friend not grokking the complexity of the relationship!)

The thing is, there may well be feelings and contradictions that the author must-- when they are ready and willing-- sit with and somehow start to confront and understand, regardless of what those feelings are. As someone who hasn't dealt with physical abuse, not only would be it difficult to know how to help a close friend through those feelings, but there's a good chance I'd actively guide them away from confronting them. "You're nothing like him," or, "but you were just defending your sister," etc. I don't want a friend to feel those things! And even if I knew they need to go there, how in the world would I know when it's time or how to safely encourage them to confront them?

There are things that feel wrong that are part of the right process, and plenty of things that feel right which don't help you heal. A therapist who specializes in child abuse can help the author by guiding them through this, with practical experience and without judgment.

throwawaylifez2• 3 years ago

My dad would make me pick, the belt or the wooden spoon. I'd pick the belt because a) fuck him and b) it would be over faster.

I used to think this was normal, that every kid got this.

He'd punch me in the arm, in the chest, smack the back of my head to 'toughen me up'.

One night I had a car accident, I called him from hospital (I was fine) he asked how the car was, how bad was the car? Who did I hit? It dawned on me that he'd never asked if I was ok. I hadn't said anything but "Dad I crashed the car".

Years of abuse that I would hide and no one would know about, except my mother who put up with it and never stopped him.

Now he has very serious dementia, in a care facility on his own, still healthy but completely not himself. He cries and my heart breaks. He asks me to help him die because he forgets who I am, but I remember everything.

moneywoes• 3 years ago

This this takes me back, having to lie in school and the library all the time about the cause for all bruises and cuts

Didn't say a word, always felt the alternative of foster care was much worse

Now, I'm paying for my mother's husband's rent

Doesn't help that saying the word abuse has men ostracized in my community

sigh

hypertele-Xii• 3 years ago

I got to choose the belt my dad would use to beat me with until I stopped crying and didn't make a sound. A wider belt had more mass to slap, but a thinner one stinged like a whip.

Part of sadistic narcissists is building these mind games where you only get options for how to lose, never any to win, so you feel helpless and trapped.

The only winning move is not to play.

inconceivable2• 3 years ago

my dad didn't use tools but if given the choice i'd probably have flipped a coin as a fuck you.

thenerdhead3• 3 years ago

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

-Philip Larkin, This Be The Verse

throwawaylifez2• 3 years ago

They tuck you up, your Mum and Dad.

They read you Peter Rabbit, too.

They give you all the treats they had

And add some extra, just for you.

They were tucked up when they were small,

(Pink perfume, blue tobacco-smoke),

By those whose kiss healed any fall,

Whose laughter doubled any joke.

Man hands on happiness to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

So love your parents all you can

And have some cheerful kids yourself.

- Adrian Mitchell

revolvingocelot• 3 years ago

Given the sibling comment, I feel the parent needs some explanation, and the full poem! Larkin's poem came first, then the one in the sibling comment.

***

  They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   
      They may not mean to, but they do.   
  They fill you with the faults they had
      And add some extra, just for you.

  But they were fucked up in their turn
      By fools in old-style hats and coats,   
  Who half the time were soppy-stern
      And half at one another’s throats.

  Man hands on misery to man.
      It deepens like a coastal shelf.
  Get out as early as you can,
      And don’t have any kids yourself. [0]

[0] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48419/this-be-the-ver...

pengaru• 3 years ago

I first heard this poem back in the late 90s in the form of an Anne Clark MP3:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asVf8Zpw1tA

ilkke• 3 years ago

Thanks for sharing. It took me way too long to 'get out' but I instinctively figured out I'm never having kids years before understanding why.

yarg10• 3 years ago

My parents didn't like me as a person, I don't remember why.

My mother once said to me "When you were a child I thought you'd grow up to be the next Adolph Hitler.".

My father's version was "You couldn't have had a brother because we couldn't have another one of you.".

Both punished me for not being the person they wanted me to be, not only was there very little overlap between my personality and what they wanted, there was bugger all overlap between what the two of them wanted individually.

I ended up with a compromised façade of a personality that I'm still trying to peel away.

ITB• 3 years ago

Were you a troublemaker ?

kevviiinn• 3 years ago

Are you victim blaming ?

isoprophlex2• 3 years ago

I vouched for this, also considering yargs comments... but this comment is on pretty thin ice. If you want to avoid that in the future, maybe it helps to make your comment more substantial instead of a single sentence which can easily be interpreted as malicious.

watwut5• 3 years ago

Unwanted kids often end up ones. They act out to get attention and because they needs are not met.

yarg10• 3 years ago

Yo, dang: ITB got flagged and killed for a fair enough question, anyway I can vouch for his comment?

ITB > Were you a troublemaker ?

I might've been a bit of a disagreeable cunt, but I was never fucking Hitler.

yarg10• 3 years ago

Regarding the question of victim blaming (a comment also brutally murdered), sometimes it's a sane question to ask: if you never look into the contributing factors of a situation you can never stop it from happening again.

Put your pretensions about the sacred nature of life aside and understand that children are a pain in the arse to have, and the disagreeable son of disagreeable parents even more so.

But I maintain to this day that I was never really an arsehole.

Also, if people stop having kids we're going just as extinct as if we have too many. Learn a bit of moderation.

Considering that, we need to make having kids a more viable option than it is (and for a lot of the most useful people in society).

knaik945• 3 years ago

From my experience, people that respond with that kind of question aren't asking in good faith. They struggle to sympathize with the fact that parents can make mistakes and be wrong. I also don't agree with you that the implied question about victim blaming is sane to ask when the victim in question is a child, and the power imbalance is so large. I am under no illusions about how fun children are to raise. I can't say for sure what the intent behind the questions were because I didn't see them, but I personally do not give them the benefit of the doubt.

carabiner• 3 years ago

The apology she gets from her dad is extraordinary. I'm quite sure my parents will not apologize even on their deathbeds.

toomanyrichies• 3 years ago

33 years later and I'm still waiting for my dad to apologize for trying to convince 9-year-old me that he was justified in hitting my mom.

Hearing the author's dad apologize to her made me happy (and, if I'm honest, a tad jealous). I hope the apology is genuine and, on top of that, he takes action to make amends.

tomcam2• 3 years ago

I was abused by multiple family members. Zero acknowledgment, complete denial on their part. Made me doubt reality.

AnimalMuppet• 3 years ago

To the one who said he was sinking, in a post that was deleted[1]:

First thing: Your condition is not your fault. I'm going to say that again, because you may need to hear it more than once: Your condition is not your fault. You don't need to feel shame for what it not your fault. It's misplaced.

Please, overcome your reluctance to see a therapist. You deserve more than slowly sinking until you drown. You deserve to heal, to live a life that is actually living.

Is there anyone at all, from work or a bar or a church or a neighbor or anyone you can turn to, and say, "Please help me find the strength to go to a therapist. Please go with me to the office the first time so I don't back out. Please help me remember that this is not my fault, and that I don't need to feel shame in seeking help."

If there's nobody else, tell us your location. Someone here will probably be around, and willing to go with you, if you're willing to accept help in that way.

Please, please, please. Find a way to get help. You're worth more than this.

[1] Yes, I remember the author's username. I'm withholding it out of respect for their privacy.

knaik945• 3 years ago

One of the hardest truths I've had to accept is that pointing things out to them doesn't help. I have spend a lot of time and energy trying to rationalize their thinking in some way, but I think it's a fool's errand.

I would similarly struggle to remember specific events, and at one point I even started voice recording them yelling. But showing them later only lead to more attempts at gaslighting and victim blaming. However, it was eye opening to see 3+ hour long runtimes on the voice memos that I couldn't remember anything about.

Emotional abuse is every bit as harmful and affects your brain in the same way as other kinds of abuse.

I hate people that try to apologize or convince you that they deserve forgiveness because they meant well or "they're your parents/family". It gets hard to push back without being disrespectful. And regardless of how old you get, the power dynamic of parent and child follows you. After a while you stop sharing completely.

Separating their behavior from who they are as a person is the hardest thing I've had to do. But it's the first milestone in rebuilding a relationship and helped me seperate myself from their behavior. Being aware that their behavior is a consequence of their upbringing earned empathy from me, but I think forgiveness requires empathy in both directions. I think it's equally hard to accept that you hurt someone you love.

Cultural norms can cause a lot of people to stay quiet, even if they decided to cut all contact, because talking poorly about your parents is seen as one of the worst things you can do. Regardless of what that thing was. I couldn't finish reading it in one sitting and I still had to skim parts of it. But I appreciate this being writted and shared publicly.

Aleksdev2• 3 years ago

The crazy thing about this, is growing up and realizing that not everybody was raised like this.

I sometimes see kids screaming back at there parents. If I had ever done something like that there would be a funeral.

creakingstairs• 3 years ago

The crazy thing about this, is growing up and realizing that not everybody was raised like this.

I just remember going to a friends place and being bewildered at overflowing trust and joy in their normal interactions. At first, I thought it was because I was there as a guest. But turns out they actually enjoyed being with each other. Really opened my eyes up to what a family could be.

streakfix• 3 years ago

Kids are like puppies, in that they will start following any pair of feet they see, since they don't have a frame of reference. You could argue that giving them a good frame of reference is the most important job of a parent.

obs_throwaway• 3 years ago

This was very hard to read through, and it brought up so many difficult memories from not just childhood but well into adulthood.

My father would alternate between verbal abuse, physical abuse and the worst, emotional abuse. This started when I was very young, in primary school. Coming from an Asian family, we were all expected to be our best and to do our best in school, and getting anything less than the best grades was considered unacceptable. The consequences would often be harsh verbal beatdowns, curfews and extra classes.

Physical punishments were common, and they would usually involve a cane, stick, or belt. I was convinced I was getting away easy because the 'crime' I had committed was always super-serious, a grave and punishable offence, something like telling a lie or not doing my chores, so yeah it would be the death penalty were it not for the large-hearted compassion of the man administering the punishment.

It later turned more to emotional abuse as I had learned to start tuning out the pain and feelings and switch to a sort of zombie-mode when it came to the punishments. The emotional abuse would pain a lot longer and eventually started triggering mild to severe depressive episodes. As a male child we were told to tough it out and be a man.

As an example, the expectation on me was that I would study in a particular medical program after school. I was not remotely interested in medicine, I didn't do well, and did not get through. I chose another discipline that I liked. I am in my fifties now, but I still remember this incident very well. The summary of the comments was "I am ashamed of you, you are a failure, you have made me lose face." That stung harder than I would have expected, and it still takes a bit of effort to let go.

He had this way of changing his personality depending on the audience. To our close relatives, he would appear as the model father doing everything in his capacity (and beyond) to do good for his family, and that narrative was unquestioned and accepted by all. This was not completely without a basis, since he had supported his four siblings through a difficult childhood. The mask would drop when there were no outsiders around. Even after he died, everyone who came to pay their respects had good words to say.

As I graduated, I decided to quickly move out of home and leave the country, so I took the first chance I got and left. The abuse turned mostly emotional after that, and there's a lot I am leaving out here. I still had to keep in touch with family due to other reasons but by then I had evolved my way of coping.

The man is now dead and gone, I have not a single photo of him, nor any of the letters he had written to me. Later when I hit my late forties and would have a few deep conversations with mom, she would slowly tell me how hard it was to have lived with him for nearly six decades. She had many career opportunities that she was made to give up in order to "be the mother that a family needs", it was for the sake of external appearances. There was no physical abuse towards mom, but there was so much emotional abuse I couldn't deal with. Perhaps I took the cowards' way out and left the country, but in my early twenties I didn't know what to do.

I still have dreams (nightmares?) where he and I are face to face, arguing vigorously, stirring up all the wrong emotions, but there's not much I can do about that except to remind myself that it's just a dream, and to let it go.

So yeah, this type of abuse can really mess a person up. I'm coping now with proper guidance, letting go, meditating, and staying aware of unwholesome thoughts as they come up. It is a hard journey but I (we) need to make that decision and take charge of our feelings and actions.

vals_pals_4• 3 years ago

Hey, author here. I appreciate your reflections here. One of my motivations for writing this essay is that the difficulty of Asian family dynamics is rarely talked about, despite it being something that many of us seem to face.

I have dreams about my dad as well. Just last night I dreamt that he was beating me, and I kept screaming "help me, help me!" in my dream, except no one responded. Always hard to remind myself it's just a nightmare in the moment, when the scene is so visceral.

I think you hit the nail on the head with coping being a hard journey that is still in our locus of control. I wish you (and me!) lots of grace in navigating the Asian kid journey. Think I'll always be navigating it.

One thing I wonder about your dad is what his childhood was like. I wonder what sorts of pains he grew up with, such that he took it out so violently (physically and emotionally), on you and your mom.

Thank you for reading through and for writing such a thoughtful comment. I'm really grateful for it.

agumonkey4• 3 years ago

Anybody know about the innards of traumatic memory and flashes?

infpeace• 3 years ago

A simple summary is that the traumatic memories don’t get fully processed, which means the recalling of them is different to other memories.

It’s possible to help these memories fully process, which changes the recall into something less vivid and overwhelming. For example with EMDR or somatic experiencing.

Trauma and Memory by Peter Levine explores this, as well as The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk.

agumonkey4• 3 years ago

Thanks, gonna grab these books

oska2• 3 years ago

Just an observation : The apology text from the father was unconditional. The reply from the daughter was conditional appreciation.

tinycombinator• 3 years ago

I think your observation is phrased in a way that implies the father has done something entirely selfless and the daughter has done something relatively selfish.

The reply from the daughter was an attempt to set a clear boundary while also showing appreciation and support for his change. I think setting boundaries like this is a perfectly healthy thing to do, including/especially towards family members.

oska2• 3 years ago

I disagree that my comment was phrased to imply anything; I made a conscious effort for it to be as objective as possible.

I'm completely fine for my comment to prompt people's own takes, as you gave in your second paragraph, in response to my observation.

hayst4ck5• 3 years ago

When you deal with narcissistic people or people without empathy, you learn quickly that things like unconditional apologies are not from a place of being sorry but from a place of manipulating behavior and actions.

When you cut a person out, you are removing their power over you. They apologize to get power over your emotional state back.

The narcissist doesn't feel empathy for you. The apology is meant as a transaction, not an expression of guilt or an admission of wrong doing.

That's why when you test the apology ("you'll stop this behavior that results in me feeling bad") the test fails.

watwut5• 3 years ago

It was not conditional appreciation. It was unconditional appreciation of the apology followed by rules for relationship.

People are entitled to set and enforce boundaries. Given that dad is abuser, this one is very healthy one, because it allows the daughter to keep her freedom.

hayst4ck5• 3 years ago

I always felt pretty different. I was never really "abused," but I grew up always feeling more connected with people who have divorced parents or with an absent father. Mine was right there, he drove me to soccer, how could I listen to Everclear and Linkin Park and feel emotionally attached to it? I was the model of middle America. As I grew older I always felt closer to "outcasts" and misfits. My general feeling of disconnected-ness and being different followed me wherever I went. I always felt different. I always felt like there was something wrong with me. I never understood why.

After reading online about what a great book Running on Empty: Overcoming your childhood emotional neglect was, while also feeling like I was running on empty, I decided to read the book. It felt like a biography. It made so much make sense and helped me understand why I've had the feelings I've had most of my life.

Abuse almost always comes with emotional neglect. As time moves forward I imagine most physical wounds heal, but the emotional ones are the wounds that don't heal so easily.

Here is the authors website with a relatively short read and I think anyone resonating with this HN article will probably feel "seen" by it: https://drjonicewebb.com/the-painful-secret-many-people-live...

jdkoeck2• 3 years ago

Hi, I don’t know you and I may be completely wrong, but consider that, rather than OR on top of being emotionally neglected, your may have a personality with high neuroticism that facilitates “fatal flaw” thinking. Know that neuroticism is, like personality traits in general, partly inherited. It’s up to you to evaluate how much of your problems can be chalked up to nature and/or nurture.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism

techwiz137• 3 years ago

I just read this, and I fit the bill perfectly. Nothing has explained what I am more than the article you just linked.

bloqs2• 3 years ago

Anyone interested in the Big Five,(which unlike Myers-Briggs, has actual data behind it) can do a free one here from the creator. Note - it doesn't work accurately if you are depressed, and yes, it requires you to be honest. https://www.personal.psu.edu/~j5j/IPIP/

rkagerer• 3 years ago

It resonated right up until using the terminology "Fatal Flaw". From that point on I just found the term too distracting and it felt insulting.

If they called it anything else (eg. "unrealized vulnerability") it might have been more digestable.

lbotos• 3 years ago

I’m being sincere here, is this satire?

It seems like you’ve found the fatal flaw in the fatal flaw definition.

hayst4ck5• 3 years ago

FWIW, I agree that the terminology is unpleasant and reeks of internet language-isms like "the top 10 ways...". I feel like there is probably a book or MBA like class that teaches that this is the way to promote your articles online. I also agree that that language feels like it's for a lowest common denominator audience.

The book is pretty mechanical and straightforward and generally doesn't include language like that. The voice the author uses in the book is professional voice and not internet voice.

The one exception is this "fatal flaw" idea which is more or less the thesis of the authors book: Childhood emotional neglect results in feeling like if someone really knew you, they wouldn't like you. The author doesn't bring the term out in the first 10 chapters after which it is well founded.

The term itself is used to mean: "a character trait possessed by a hero that ultimately leads to their downfall." And through 10 chapters she did a pretty good job of showing that neglect does indeed lead to feelings which lead to "downfall" like consequences.

low_tech_love• 3 years ago

So basically whatever it is that is wrong with you, it’s your family’s fault?

em-bee6• 3 years ago

pretty much

hayst4ck5• 3 years ago

Subtle art of not giving a fuck is a mass market book of questionable value, but it has one chapter with a core truth for the human experience.

The chapter was on the dichotomy of blame and responsibility. You can choose a strategy of blame or a strategy of responsibility for the problems in your life, but only one of them is going to be productive. Blame can help soothe you, but blame is just emotional masturbation. Responsibility is painful, but taking responsibility is the only way to make progress.

My dad deserves blame for a neglectful childhood. He deserves blame for a lot of the experience of depression I have had in my life. He deserves blame for his complete lack of empathy. No amount of blame is going to modify my condition. No amount of blame is going to fill the holes on my life. The only way I will feel better is taking responsibility and being accountable to myself for my own emotions. I can't change the past, but I can change how I act now.

I think psychologists use the idea of locus of control. Does the world happen to you, or do you happen to the world? If life happens to you and you are purely a victim of circumstance, it's hard to imagine putting in work to improve the conditions of your life if you don't have a lot of control over it. Even though you often can't control what happens to you, you can control/influence how you react, and through that it's possible to imagine improving your situation.

Just like you would probably struggle with math if you never learned math as a kid, you would probably struggle with emotional regulation if you never learned emotional regulation as a kid. If a kid doesn't know algebra by college, that's not the kids fault, that is a failure of their education or their parents, the kid doesn't know math is important to their future or that math is missing from their education.

steine65• 3 years ago

Sorry for the pain you went through. I suffered subtle trauma as a kid. Some examples were verbal anger from father, lack of a model of a secure relationship since parents hated each other in private, no empathy, and rare sympathy, between all family members. We basically didn't care about each other but put on a facade of a happy family with others. Recently I came across Attachment Theory which describes types of insecure relationships compared to secure ones. Combined with some professional therapy, it has been enlightening and relieving understanding my issues. A long journey ahead. Reading about Attachment Theory is my recommendation for anyone feeling similarly.

hayst4ck5• 3 years ago

Your life sounds similar to mine, and with few words, I think you've described emotional neglect.

I've found myself to be quite avoidant. I found attachment theory before I heard of neglect, and I found it to explain my relationships pretty well. I actually think I found running on empty while looking into attachment theory. I feel like it adequately explained how I came to be so avoidant. Based on your words, I am pretty confident that at least one of her stories of neglect will hit hard.

mettamage• 3 years ago

Haven’t read the post yet but I think Bessel van der Kolk’s book The Body Keeps The Score is related reading. I just finished it. Amazing book, it has helped me in understanding that I need to go back to my memories and see if I can feel a sense of agency and safety over them

pgayed• 3 years ago

After all, I had no right to chastise him for yelling when I was screaming at him myself. Maybe I had the temper problem, not him.

I don’t know what I want to call this fallacy. Maybe tit-for-tat fallacy.

One person’s bad behavior doesn’t “annihilate” or vacate the other’s. They don't “cancel out”.

The tactic is (reflexively) used to derail the interrogator and change subject.

“Yes, it is true I am also verbally abusive but right now we're talking about your verbal abuse.”

It's not that this line of reasoning works with the abuser but at least it's a reminder to oneself what's being attempted.

moffkalast2• 3 years ago

At another point, he said that he’d truly changed and hadn’t hit anyone in the past ten years. “That’s literally not true!” I responded. “You hit me in 2020.”
“But I promise you, your mom and I never wanted to hurt you. I thought I was trying my best. I’m truly sorry.”

This is when you have to realize that the person is a sociopath who will say anything to get what they want, even pretending to apologize. When they seem earnest they're still pathologically lying because the malice goes beyond intentional but becomes casual, as that's just who they are. And people wonder why we have trust issues.

The unfortunate reality is that these sort of people also get very far in life, since nature and society love go getters without morals or conscience.

knaik945• 3 years ago

Sociopath is the wrong word to use, and that is the crux of the entire post. There's nothing so clear cut in this kind of situation. The parent isn't strictly trying to get something from the child with this apology. I think the parent is having their own internal struggle between validating the stuggles the child faced and understanding they were part of the cause. They lose sight of some things because they have an "ends justify the means" mindset. In a sense, they were okay being the "bad guy" so that their child was set up for the best future possible.

moffkalast2• 3 years ago

Yes if you believe what they say, then sure. I don't.

throwaway_739492• 3 years ago

I'm sorry but I couldn't finish the article. Every incident described in the article is so similar to my childhood, that I was becoming restless, agitated and getting tears of anger and frustration in my eyes frequently. Even as I'm writing this, I'm half crying because I'm revisiting my childhood memories. My step father was almost exactly like the one described in the article. Always yelling at me, hitting me, threatening to kill me, beat me, kick me out of the house, starve me, lock me in a room. He'd even tell me that he wished I'd die. And every time I protested, I'd get my teeth kicked in. And my mother was right there, watching. She didn't raise a finger to protect me. Sometimes she'd blame me for this, telling me that I make him angry and that's why he hits me. She was also abusive towards me. I didn't know what I had to do to keep her from getting angry at me and hitting me. My protests were also met with "You're ungrateful" or something similar as well. My step father would constantly make mistakes and then blame me when consequences hit him. And my mother would actually take his side. I clearly remember several instances where he gave me incorrect information by mistake and then blamed me for not doing what he asked properly. This would then lead to him calling me useless, a burden, leach etc.

But, thankfully, I got out. And I am never going back. The only person in my entire family that I trust is my eldest sister. She's the only reason I tolerate the rest (from far away). Otherwise I'd have left the country and cut all ties with them. All I needed to hear was "It's ok to go against the wishes of your parents". My counsellor told me that in the second of our 8 sessions when I voluntarily checked myself in a psychiatric hospital because I'd been depressed and suicidal for the last decade (since I was 14). I've never looked back since.

My childhood has left a massive imprint on my personality. I have severe trust issues, generalized anxiety, repressed emotions. But I can say with absolute certainty that my life has exponentially improved since I left my home behind.

vals_pals_4• 3 years ago

Hey, OP here. The abuse you experienced was terrifying. I'm really sorry that you went through it. I am glad you got out.

In my case, I feel comfortable trying to make amends with my dad because 1.) I feel pretty certain about my boundaries and 2.) I think he actually wants to improve. But he didn't want to improve until I had shown him firsthand that I could completely cut him off without looking back.

I think there are many parents who, even if are backed into a corner and given chances to improve, will not. It sounds like your stepfather is one of them. I wonder what his childhood was like, and what pains that he endured, in order to treat you so terribly.

I think what matters most for any individual person is getting ourselves to a state where we feel okay and happy about ourselves. How that process unfolds depends on the person.

Take care.

throwaway_739492• 3 years ago

I didn't understand this comment and I realized that I was missing some context. So I finished the article. Please know that I was not, in any way, trying to tell you that your father's apology is hollow and you should turn 180° and run. I was just venting and sharing my experience with my step father.

I don't know how to interpret your father's apology, but I do know how I would interpret my step father's (if he ever got around to giving one, he's a textbook narcissist). I'd never accept it because he will never truly feel sorry for his actions. He will apologize because he'll need something from me and this would be the only way to get it. Or to build his public image of being extremely pious, true, dedicated, sacrificing father. I will turn 180° and run.

throwawaymay77• 3 years ago

I am in no way trying to invalidate the anguish that the author or people in this thread have suffered. I simply want to share my experience with having parents that beat me in a culture where it is commonplace.

I grew up in a Muslim country where I and everyone else I knew received the same level of physical punishment as part of the general parenting strategy. Some call this normalized child abuse - when I moved to a Western country for work and discussed this type of upbringing with others, they claimed I was abused and oblivious ("repressing"), and they seemed shocked at the fact that it didn't bother me or that it hasn't affected my relationship with my family. If I had been the only person receiving beatings and everyone else at my school was telling me I was being abused, I may have also deemed my father to be a monster, but I assumed the punishments were justified.

Someone may take this to imply that whether you see your parent as a monster or not depends on the context (on whether it is culturally acceptable or not) and that there is nothing inherently damaging about receiving beatings. Others may conclude that cultures where beating children is acceptable are barbaric and their children do indeed suffer lifelong trauma but manage to cope (if they do not seem to have been affected). I don't have enough data to draw any conclusions myself.

However, and this is my man point, a charitable view of the issue may at least make a distinction between parents who are intentionally hurting their children because of their own issues, and parents who believe physical punishment (or any form of a strict, stern upbringing) is a valid method for raising your children. Is it possible that the father of the OP, being Chinese, thought he was doing the right thing at the time?

One interesting thing I noted is that even in Western countries, beatings are more common and accepted in certain groups. Some Black and Hispanic friends of mine have joked about how hard their parents beat them, but I have yet to meet a White person who thinks of beating children as anything more than abuse.

bigbacaloa• 3 years ago

In the US South when I was growing up it was common for white parents to whip their kids with a belt.

However, in every culture where this kind of beating is common there are parents who do not engage in it, who recognize that violence is the weakest form of authority.

atoav• 3 years ago

This kind of punishment was very common in most western nations two or three generations ago as well. So if you talk with people from my father's generation it is very common to hear stories of physical punishment by parents and teachers.

Fifteen years ago the common opinion there was "well it didn't hurt me because everybody got it". Only, people realized that it actually did hurt them, they just buried it deep down. They realized that the "strong hand" of their elders was actually a sign of weakness. If you cannot guide a kid without beating them, you are an utter failure as an adult.

pavlov• 3 years ago

“I don't have enough data to draw any conclusions myself.”

The field of psychiatry exists to collect this kind of data and draw conclusions. Doctors agree that physical abuse is traumatizing to children. Not all of them certainly, but a significant amount.

Think about whether you’d want to perpetuate this kind of treatment onto your own children. Would you hit them knowing that there’s a non-negligible chance they’ll be working out that treatment decades later with a therapist? What would you actually gain by doing that? There’s no productive reason to hit children. If the only justification is “I was beaten too”, then you have the power to stop the cycle.

febusravenga• 3 years ago

I don't believe psychiatry here. Life is tough experience in many aspects for most of us. We experience many forms of abuse not only physical, psychical too .... But psychical is harder too prove and measure. How they quantify all circumstances and decide that physical violence was determining or significantly more important here? Most people can't even recognize or name psychical traumas they live through...

We all just grow scars and being traumatized by ever new experiences whole life. Which was worst?

You will have immediate reply to what will say here. I was beaten - not too hard in my early youth. It was common in our times/area my parents weren't hard on this. I don't blame them.I'm completely fine with this. I didn't beat my already teen children.

What I remember more was schaming by peers and or aunt's, whole catholic environment and other variations of minor - would would say - psychical violence. I was very shy and awkward for most of my life most probably thanks to this and not few beatings. But beating is easy to name, detect and measure.

Physical violence is easy to beat boy in whole spectrum of violence.

Edit: typos on phone

jstarfish• 3 years ago

they claimed I was abused and oblivious ("repressing")

Leading the witness...

I once had to fight with a therapist who tried to coach me into admitting similar when nothing remotely of the sort even happened. It was surreal, and happened right around the time of the Ramona "repressed trauma"/"false memory" mess (same school of thought?). The Ramona one must have been the only therapist brazen enough to be caught doing it because she certainly wasn't alone.

From what I've seen since, "repression" has become the retcon of psychology...commercialized gaslighting and externalization.

If you're deluded enough to think your parents didn't abuse you, that's just because you're not remembering it right. For just $150 a session, I'll show you how your parents are to blame for all your failures.

skc• 3 years ago

One of the cruel ironies of the human experience is that making children is almost as easy as breathing.

Not everyone that can procreate, should. Stories of parental abuse enrage me to hyperventilation and I had a good childhood.

unc0n• 3 years ago

This sort of childhood trauma occurs in many societies, among people with varying backgrounds. But I think it is more prevalent in societies with more sacred cows, where eg fathers, and elders, are told they are in an elevated position by dint of who they are, and thus they must be obeyed, and must seek not to lose face. When you foster these pockets of power, one should not be surprised that power often corrupts. Until Chinese (by here I mean the ethnicity, and not the nationality) society (and other societies with similar power structures) can look at itself critically and understand the full implications of such cultural imperatives, tackling the epidemic of abuse will be an uphill battle.

Transcending My Father's Abuse

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