beccafromlalaland wrote:
a partial reply

0:- Wrote:



I disagree, by the way with your definition about abuse and spanking,
and the intent of parents.
“I don't feel spankers are abusive, that they are misguided in their
parenting..”

That reads, if you go on, as an excuse for yourself. You don’t want,
apparently, to think of yourself as having abused your children by
spanking them.

If you hit them to cause them pain, which you did if you were a
“spanker,” then you abused them. It’s not complicated, and it does not
allow for excuses. You did it. Admit. Decide not to do it. And move
on.




You are absolutly correct. I don't want to think that I abused my son,
I did the only thing I knew how to do at the time....that was to spank.

Yep. But you are now facing what you know is the truth. That's hard, and
courageous. Nothing like Doan's decade long hiding from it.

Maya Angelou Said, "You did then what you knew how to do and when you
knew better... you did better!"

There isn't a word in it that suggests you have to make excuses for
yourself. Ms Angelou gave a day-long seminar at my college many years
back. Or I should say, we gave a daylong seminar for her. Most
interesting women.

You know of course how abused she was, and the tragedy that struck her
dumb for part of her childhood, right?

We talked with her in seminar about it before she wrote about it as I
recall.

There is no sense in beating myself up over what I did, calling myself
an abuser would only bring me more pain and guilt than I already feel.

Really? Why not do it, have the pain, and be done with it, instead of
try to dodge it? You abused. It's not the end of the world. Everyone has
mistakes they make in life. What comes next is equally or sometimes more
important.

You appear to not be indulging youself in doing to your children what
was done to you. What more can you ask of yourself than that? Don't you
understand the importance of that simple fact?

You have gone someplace your abusers could not go. And not even our
little friend Doan here can go. Or at least so far.

Instead I choose to Know better, and Do better.

Seems like that to me. Of course this is a very limited medium so I have
to guess a lot from just your few words, in comparison to the life you
experience outside this place.

The Ladies at GCM have
been immensly helpful to me in stopping the hitting, they are my
lifeline right now. There are days when I can barely cope with the
stress of it all, perhaps that is why I lash out here, I'm feeling
stressed angry vulnerable, and You are an easy target because I know
you will return comment with as much venom as I sent it, therefore
giving me excuse to be rude and mean again.

Happy to be of service. And I'm not being facitious. I mean it.

Not the healthiest way to
deal with my emotions...

Who says? Might it not be exactly where you want to be at this moment?
You are moving forward. Doan is where he was a decade ago. Still hiding.

but effective until you come back with
something like what you said above and hit the nail on the head,
reducing me to a pile of snot and tears...thanks ;-\

You have to be kidding me. You expected to come here to be comforted?

You were abused. It was not and is not your fault you were. What you do
now is yours and yours alone, to do about that abuse. You can perpetuate
it on others, or you can end it with you.

So, if this is not the "healthiest way to deal with" your "emotions"
then why do it? I have to ask you: what are you doing here?

"Hitting the nail on the head," as you say, may be what you are looking
for. Possibly you are here seeking something a support group usually
cannot give. They usually offer "shelter," but rarely the hard and
uncompromising truth that seems to be part of healing and overcoming a
problem. They have their place in your schema.

And why would you feel guilt and pain if you are doing what you best
know how to do?

One of the most powerful and effective means of moving through a
challenge in one's life is not to hide from any unpleasantness connected
to it. Abusers aren't evil horrible weak people, unless they refuse to
face up to it and work to change. You appear to be doing the "work."

Using me as our scapegoat for YOUR guilty feelings is non-productive. It
keeps you from facing what you did, and moving on. And I have no trouble
with you being rude and mean to me. As you've said in an earlier post,
I'm an adult.

I disagree with your assessment about this not being "the healthiest way
to deal with" your "emotions," though.

Why not consider this part of the process. Right along with your support
group? If you aren't ready for this yet, then so be it. But ... and I
say this with regard for your feelings ...

Stop whining. You know you were abusive. It's not new or unusual and it
IS a product of your own life experience. That's the toughest part for
folks sometimes. If you admit you have been abusive, then you have to
face that you were abused. Doan can't do it. He's weak.

I sometimes think it's far more insidious for those that were less
abused. YOU can see you were, and know sooner that it was real and you
didn't deserve it. He, and those like him that were "spanked with love,"
are trapped. And he has the added handicap of being so intelligent. None
can better construct excuses and rationales so well as the more
intelligent.

You've already moved decades past him in getting a handle on this
problem. He probably looks strong to you, but in fact he's in denial and
practicing it by being here all these many years, running the same self
deluding numbers, over and over again. It's darned hard word to maintain
such a high and thick facade. I pity him.

He doesn't question himself like you are doing. He doesn't allow himself
to face the pain. This is his "support group" for his maintainence of
his self delusion that he's alright and his parents were alright.
Neither is true. By battling me and others he props up his beliefs that
protect him from ever facing that childhood pain. He denies there was any.

YOU are alright. Because you are fighting. He's given up. And was made a
coward by his parents. Bright, intelligent, and using it all to maintain
his protective facade.

You may have to leave, as a step in your work, but you'll be back here,
or somewhere similar, as you take further steps to grow where he cannot.
He can't heal, because he'd have to admit to the abuse he suffered at
his parent's hands.

YOU can, because of a sad, but important advantage.

My guess from a few things you've said is that you were seriously
abused. One thing victims of more extreme abuse have that those with the
more subtle and less accessible and identifiable abuses of "safe
spanking," is that YOU have little to NO doubts about what happened to you.

In a way I feel far more sadness and pity, if that's the right word, for
him than for you. You have the advantage. And apparently more strength.
He was tricked into believing his abuse was "right." You know better.

You are using your capacities and strengths to face it. He's using his
to avoid it and seal himself off from it. "It" being the betrayal of the
pain causing parent.

If that were not so what would he be doing here for all these years? And
still no change?

Becca, I can't predict which way you'll go as far as this ng is
concerned, but obviously you are moving in the direction best for you
and your children. Feel free to contact me privately any time you like.

Don't let yourself be taken in by those you are leaving behind. For all
his slick smarminess and patronizing stroking of you my guess is your
instincts won't let you down. Not if you suffered abuse as a child.

Such folks have a built in **** detector that kicks in....just like
yours did when you 'got mad' at me for hitting the nail on the head. You
just identified what you were looking for, I believe and can smell the
stink of the patronizers.

You know perfectly well that's what you were looking for. Someone not
committed to providing "safety" like a support group. Looks like you
found what you wanted. And your kids are that much safer for your
courage in coming to this much tougher place to be.

Best wishes.

Kane
--
Isn't it interesting that the more honest an author appears to be,
the more like ourselves we think him. And the less so, how very
alien he doth appear? Kane 2006