s/o on childhood abuse that you didn't realize was abuse.

[fairfarmhand]

tmi

[Parrothead]

Both my parents were spankers. Both over the top by anyone's standards today.

 

I spanked dd a handful of times when she was younger but only a couple of swats. I actually realized it wasn't effective when she was 2 and laughed at me when I spanked her.

[Pretty in Pink]

Yes, my family was over the top. I realized that when I was 13. I cannot imagine spanking a child until I drew blood. Wtf?

 

Anyway. I just don't dwell on those things anymore. It used to really bother me when I was younger but I guess I've moved on. Once in a while I still have a dream that leaves me shaken for a day or two. :grouphug:

[fairfarmhand]

Yes, my family was over the top. I realized that when I was 13. I cannot imagine spanking a child until I drew blood. Wtf?

 

Anyway. I just don't dwell on those things anymore. It used to really bother me when I was younger but I guess I've moved on. Once in a while I still have a dream that leaves me shaken for a day or two. :grouphug:

Let me clarify, I was never spanked until blood was drawn, that was my dad, but 30+ licks with a belt would leave some nasty bruises on me and my brothers.

[Tap]

My older sisters and brothers were spanked with a leather belt by my father. I am six years younger than them and by the time I was little, awareness about abuse was coming to the forefront. I wasn't spanked that way.

 

My father was one of 3 boys raised on a dairy farm in the 1920s. (He was 47 when I was born) That is how farm boys were raised back then. It wasn't until someone taught him different that he learned a new way. I don't slight him for that, it just was, what it was back then.

[SailorMom]

Keep in mind I am not justifying any abuse, nor am I condoning the sort of "discipline" mentioned above.... I am very glad that our society now has a much more stringent definition of abuse.

 

However, the cultural norms of societies are very different, and these also change within a society over time. What is abuse now, was not abuse about 100 years ago. Many other kids were disciplined the same way, kids could commiserate with each other... Respected members of society used the same forms of discipline.

 

I was spanked with a belt by my dad, and with a yardstick by my mom (neither anywhere near as bad as being whipped to the point of bleeding). I didn't think of it as "abuse" then, and really - still don't (although I'd never do that). I think this has to do more with the way my parents were outside of this discipline and how they handled other things.

 

I was loved. I was nurtured and cared for. My needs were provided for, and I never felt neglected. In those circumstances, even harsh discipline may not feel like abuse to someone who is disciplined in a way that we no longer consider acceptable. Whereas, had my childhood been different, I may have felt it was abuse all along.

 

My grandfather told me stories of the way his parents disciplined him that would make your hair curl - but these methods were normal then. His friends were treated the same way, and no one thought anything of it. In fact - other parents thought a child was not being dealt with harshly enough if the parents failed to do these things.

 

I think everyone has such an individual experience, there is no way to say what is a right or wrong way to deal with our childhoods as adults....

[fairfarmhand]

what is so odd is that it wasn't until 3-4 years ago that I realized HOW insane that was. I just never thought about it, and then one day my dh and I were talking and I mentioned what a spanking was like in my family. When I told him he was stunned. I still remember the look on his face when he considered someone doing that to one of our little girls. Then I really considered it and it made me sad.

[BarbecueMom]

Opposite here. I didn't realize how much my mother "under responded", to the point of being neglectful. There are giant chunks of my childhood that are so incredibly different from the way she describes them through her rose colored glasses. If anything had happened to me, she would have at best been vilified as a neglectful parent and at worse, arrested. She thought good grades = good kid. Not that simple.

 

I still cannot tell her everything that happened. She'd probably die right then and there. She has no idea how lucky she is that I'm not dead or have a record.

 

ETA: I don't want to make this seem like being a non-responsive parent is similar to being physically or mentally abused by a parent. Not at all. It's just similar in that I didn't realize that sticking one's head in the dirt and ignoring obvious signs of problems wasn't "normal parenting".

Edited February 8, 2012 by BarbecueMom

[GWOB]

I always knew it was abusive and overboard. I knew other kids got spanked, but no one else showed up at school with busted lips, bruised ribs, welts from the back of the knee to the bum, pinch marks everywhere, etc. My parents told me it was completely ok to be hit with clothes hangers, vacuum cleaner attachments, belts, brushes, fists, because they were disciplined that way and they turned out all right. We won't even go into all the verbal and emotional abuse. And I'm only 31.

 

Now, I did recently come to a realization that my parents made extensive use of the CIO method when I was a baby. They used to tell me stories of a friend of theirs coming over, sneaking into my room, and trying to comfort me as I screamed myself to sleep while my parents smoked illegal substances.

 

My poor long-suffering parents just cannot imagine why I live far away and haven't called them in months. The poor dears.

[*********]

My parents sometimes spanked me out of anger. I do not do that; it's called abuse.

 

I say 'sometimes' because some of the spankings I got were discipline, and some were because they were mad. They didn't have good control over themselves.

 

I knew, even as a child, that hitting your child with a belt because you were angry at them is unacceptable. How did I know? Because it was never spoken of outside of the home, it was always done out of sight of others, etc.

 

I knew it was wrong, but I was too scared of my parents to say anything to anyone about it.

 

And now, if I were to confront them with it? I don't know what they'd say, honestly.

[Anne in CA]

I was neglected once I hit school age to the point of what would be considered abuse by most parents on the board. Not by CSD probably, but I remember several near misses on accidents that would have been tragic and my parents would have been held accountable.

 

Interestingly my parents were good parents of small children, but once we hit school age they both felt their work was completely done:001_huh: It was possibly more standard '70's parenting though. The difference was, we lived on a cattle ranch in the middle of nowhere, and we were unsupervised! It may sound like paradise, but it was more like Deliverance.

[Impish]

I knew about the physical abuse.

 

I left home at 15 w/bruises and welts w/the pattern of my Dad's belt stamped into me.

 

He was charged, but the police didn't photograph my injuries, and my mom lied in court, so there was no proof that the assault ever happened.

 

It was the mental/emotional abuse that took me a long time to figure out...and still realizing some of it now.

[Alphabetika]

My older sisters and brothers were spanked with a leather belt by my father. I am six years younger than them and by the time I was little, awareness about abuse was coming to the forefront. I wasn't spanked that way.

 

My father was one of 3 boys raised on a dairy farm in the 1920s. (He was 47 when I was born) That is how farm boys were raised back then. It wasn't until someone taught him different that he learned a new way. I don't slight him for that, it just was, what it was back then.

 

 

Interesting; my father-in-law (dh's stepfather) was also a farm boy (30s and 40s) and was severely switched by his MOM (not his dad) after having to choose and cut his own switch. This went for his brothers and sisters as well. He once told me, "In my house it wasn't safe to be bad." My dh remembers his stepdad still spanking him and his brother when they were teenagers! Other than this he is a very gentle person and wonderful with his grandkids.

 

I was spanked by both parents, but judiciously, and this is the way we've used spanking in our home. I would say that I dreaded spanking much less than I dreaded having my parents displeased or ashamed of me. What some of you are describing in your own childhoods definitely sounds abusive and I'm so sorry.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Alphabetika

[bnrmom]

I was spanked about 3 times as a kid - I disagree with this discipline, but I don't consider it abuse.

 

However, what I didn't realize until I was much, much older, was how emotionally abusive my father was (and still is). That has had a much greater and lasting effect on my life than any of the spankings.

[ThatCyndiGirl]

[QUOTE=SailorMom;3590970]Keep in mind I am not justifying any abuse, nor am I condoning the sort of "discipline" mentioned above.... I am very glad that our society now has a much more stringent definition of abuse.

 

However, the cultural norms of societies are very different, and these also change within a society over time. What is abuse now, was not abuse about 100 years ago. Many other kids were disciplined the same way, kids could commiserate with each other... Respected members of society used the same forms of discipline.

....

 

 

People may not have considered it abuse, but it WAS and IS still abuse. If you hit an adult you can be charged with assault because, for an adult, we acknowledge it for what it is, but children are given LESS consideration because for some reason children deserve to be assaulted. :001_huh:

 

It doesn't matter to me that otherwise respected members of society hit their children. It only points to how messed up our society was and is.

[SweetMissMagnolia]

don't remember much about when I was little but I remember that my sd didn't like loud noise or to be disturbed when in the middle of something....I don't think my mom would have ever let him spank me.....

[frugalmama]

I never realized growing up that my father was controlling and emotionally abusive. While he never laid a hand on me {or my mother}, he constantly isolated my mother and I and controlled contact with her family and friends, and contact for me with friends. He threatened guys who tried to date me with a shotgun {I found out later}. He listened in on phone calls, and caused reasons for hanging up - he needed something and would yell for it until you hung up. Even when he was on his deathbed, he still controlled.

 

He is passed now, and life without him is interesting. We are still adjusting - it's been 6 months. I cared for him until he passed from complications of strokes and Alzheimers.

 

I do blame him for my issues with men - I sometimes wonder had he let me date and be around boys more when I was a teen, would I still have these issues?

[DaffodilDreams]

I was aware that things were not right before I left that house, but I cannot remember at what age I really knew. They knew it was wrong, too, because I was constantly told not to tell anyone else "our business" or I would be taken away and worse would happen to me wherever I ended up. The physical abuse was bad enough. The emotional abuse is what really messed me up. I still have to struggle to overcome the stuff in my head. For the longest time, I was afraid to ever become a parent for fear of becoming like them.

[lynn]

Does anyone consider teasing a child to tears a form of emotional abuse? It may have been my personality but I hated being teased as a kid. My dad was a teaser. I would get so upset because he would not stop until I was in tears. Other adults told me it was nothing to get upset over but it bothered me to the core. As an adult when I heard him starting to tease my kids I'd stop it immediately even if my kids thought it was fun. I am guessing my siblings tuned it out better than I did.

[joannqn]

I figured it out pretty early. The last time he hit me with a belt, I was 14. When he was done, I told him that he would never hit me again or I would report him. He never did hit me again. From that point on, I was no longer afraid of him and fought back. It wasn't unusual for me to yell back when he went off or was wrong in any way.

 

It took until my senior year of high school to learn that he was an alcoholic. In a way I knew it was a problem but I didn't realize it wasn't normal to drink the way he did.

 

Dad is now sober and made his amends years ago.

[butterflymommy]

Pretty much my entire childhood :001_smile:. I don't know how I survived... honestly don't. I can only think god put me through this so that I could protect my own children and be a kind mother to them.

[JessReplanted]

Yes - not physically, but emotionally. :tongue_smilie:

[Scuff]

We knew it wasn't right. But while we were spanked as children, I wouldn't consider us abused until we were older. Middle school years. Maybe that had something to do with it.

 

Honestly, though, as an adult I've learned things about their childhoods that make ours look like a trip to Disney World. It's a miracle they managed to do a decent job raising us, even though it was a bit screwed up sometimes. And I'm not making light of our upbringing. It was emotionally and physically abusive. But the things my father's mother and mother's father did to them were truely evil. I think they tried the best they could without really knowing how to do it.

[KrissiK]

I can see now how a lot of people are so against spanking. I was spanked as a child. With a belt. But only 3-4 spanks. It stung at the moment, but there were no lasting effects, other than my feeling that I wouldn't be disobedient again.

 

To the OP, I would definitely recommend some sort of counseling. Some churches have lay-counseling progra,ms. I went through a program like this once when I couldn't afford "real" counseling. Of course you sign a waver, but I felt it really helpful. I was paired with a woman who had gone through the same "issue" as me, but was further along in healing and we just talked, she listened, gave some helpful advice.

[angela in ohio]

I think things look worse the farther away you get from them. For example, my dbil has all of these terrible memories of his childhood, and his other two brothers and mother all tell him that none of it actually happened. It is usually somewhat based in truth, but then he adds a lot to it. But he has built it up more and more over the years, because he thinks about it all the time (he has a social work degree. :001_smile:)

 

Maybe you remember it as worse now because of the time that has passed?

 

(I mean this as a possible source of comfort, not as a denial of what you feel.)

[jenncslp]

Yes, it took a long time and a lot of counseling for me to realize what I went through was abuse and call it that. :grouphug: to all of you that dealt with the same things.

[ravinlunachick]

Has anyone else figured out that their family of origin was over the top unhealthy as an adult and gone...WOW! I can't imagine treating my kids like that now that I have kids?

 

Yes. As my kids age and my oldest hits the ages where certain very memorable abuses occurred, I find myself being shocked again and again. Most recently, I've had trouble dealing with the fact that my father never stood up for me at any point.

 

For example, when I was 6, my mother whipped me with a switch and left welts that bled from my behind to my ankles on both legs. We walked for nearly a mile, with her whipping me continuously the entire time. I couldn't sit down for a week. My grandma cried when she saw me. But no one did anything about it. My father walked right alongside my mother while she was whipping me, and didn't make it stop.

 

I think my very gentle, loving dh would knock me silly if I did that to my kids. He sure wouldn't stand by and say nothing.

[Mommyfaithe]

Opposite here. I didn't realize how much my mother "under responded", to the point of being neglectful. There are giant chunks of my childhood that are so incredibly different from the way she describes them through her rose colored glasses. If anything had happened to me, she would have at best been vilified as a neglectful parent and at worse, arrested. She thought good grades = good kid. Not that simple.

 

I still cannot tell her everything that happened. She'd probably die right then and there. She has no idea how lucky she is that I'm not dead or have a record.

 

ETA: I don't want to make this seem like being a non-responsive parent is similar to being physically or mentally abused by a parent. Not at all. It's just similar in that I didn't realize that sticking one's head in the dirt and ignoring obvious signs of problems wasn't "normal parenting".

 

This was me too....as little ones she used a strap if we annoyed her....:confused:...and teens they ignored us.....to the point where I was abused ( not sexually, that GOD), by my brother and abused by othersnin worse ways by my brother's friends. My parents chose to ignore bruises, burns etc....even when I begged not to be left alone with him.

 

Neglect, abuse...uh-huh....sad....

 

Faithe

[Photo Ninja]

Growing up, I assumed that the emotional/verbal abuse I experienced from my alcoholic father was normal, and that all fathers behaved that way. I was in middle school before I realized that not all fathers drank alcohol every waking moment at home, and I was in high school before I realized that what I endured daily was emotional and verbal abuse. When you grow up a certain way, you have no other standard by which to determine normal and appropriate. My mother accepted my father's behavior and didn't stop it. I think it was because she didn't want to admit it was happening. By ignoring it, she didn't have to admit it was happening or do anything about it. She brushed it off , told me not to be bothered by it, and that it was my fault for getting my father upset, etc. Basically, she blamed me instead of him. His teasing was relentless and cruel, he constantly criticized, called me names, cussed at me and was emotionally and verbally abusive.

 

My father only hit me once, when I was in high school. Once I was able to start breathing again (he knocked the wind out of me), somehow I got the strength to tell him that if he ever hit me again, or if I ever found out that he had hit my brother, I would call the police and have him arrested for child abuse. He went ballistic, and I seriously thought he was going to hit me again. Actually, at that moment, I was hoping he would so I could call the police. I stared him down and stayed cool as he screamed and cussed at me and told me that I would be treating my mother horribly if I did that. I told him that he would be the one hurting my mother because he committed the abuse, and that I welcomed the opportunity be removed from home to go live with my grandparents. I also told him it would only be until he was found guilty in court and put in jail, then I could move home and live with my mom again, and then I could go the rest of my life and never have to see him again. For the first time in my life, I realized that I could have some power over him. Many times after that, he looked like he was going to hit me, even raised his hand, but I would just stare him down and he backed off physically. He was still verbally abusive, but never hit me again, and I don't think he ever hit my brother. Evidently he believed me that I would follow through.

[Mommyfaithe]

Pretty much my entire childhood :001_smile:. I don't know how I survived... honestly don't. I can only think god put me through this so that I could protect my own children and be a kind mother to them.

 

:iagree::iagree:

I look back...and I see just what a strong person I really am. I cringe thinking about what was done to me....and no one stepped in....AND everyone knew. Everyone. My aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors, they ALL knew. Even my teachers knew and never said a word. How could you miss hand print welts on a neck, or burns in a line up someone's arm. I didn't cover it....I knew no one would protect me. You learn how to be strong, and you learn you have to defend yourself, because no one else is going to rescue you.

 

I still don't quite get it, except in was the 60's and 70's and no one talked about these things then.....

[Mommyfaithe]

Yes. As my kids age and my oldest hits the ages where certain very memorable abuses occurred, I find myself being shocked again and again. Most recently, I've had trouble dealing with the fact that my father never stood up for me at any point.

 

For example, when I was 6, my mother whipped me with a switch and left welts that bled from my behind to my ankles on both legs. We walked for nearly a mile, with her whipping me continuously the entire time. I couldn't sit down for a week. My grandma cried when she saw me. But no one did anything about it. My father walked right alongside my mother while she was whipping me, and didn't make it stop.

 

I think my very gentle, loving dh would knock me silly if I did that to my kids. He sure wouldn't stand by and say nothing.

:grouphug::grouphug:

[goldberry]

My older sisters and brothers were spanked with a leather belt by my father. I am six years younger than them and by the time I was little, awareness about abuse was coming to the forefront. I wasn't spanked that way.

 

 

This was my situation. My brother and sister got spanked with a belt pretty seriously. I was 10 years behind. By that time my parents realized that wasn't ok anymore. I wasn't spanked at all, I think a swat maybe once.

 

My sister still holds it against my dad. I don't blame her for that, but at the same time, I'm not sure I blame my dad either. In his mind, he was doing a lot better than his own dad. And he did change when more awareness came out about it.

[Liz CA]

Wendi :grouphug:

What a hard road. I hope you have found healing - not just in a cliche sort of way but that you have come to the profound realization that you are worthy of something so much better and grieve what you didn't have.

[Mommy22alyns]

Yes. I'm 33 and only admitted to myself two months ago that I was abused, not just physically. I was spanked on a bare behind with a belt most typically, once with a wooden board. I'm not even going to get into what my mom did to me as a teenager.

[Jaybee]

Reading these posts really makes me sad. I was spanked, but I was not abused. My parents did not lose control, did not spank excessively--and it was effective for me. It made me mad, but it was effective. They did not abuse me emotionally or verbally, either. The only thing was that I felt like my mom was not encouraging enough, but she apologized when I was a teenager, saying that they did not have a lot of the parenting books/helps when we were small (60's), and she thought she was helping us strive to achieve, rather than making us feel we couldn't ever be quite good enough. Her apology cleared the hurt, and we have had a close relationship for many years now. I guess I have taken that blessing for granted.

[MamaT]

Opposite here. I didn't realize how much my mother "under responded", to the point of being neglectful. There are giant chunks of my childhood that are so incredibly different from the way she describes them through her rose colored glasses. If anything had happened to me, she would have at best been vilified as a neglectful parent and at worse, arrested. She thought good grades = good kid. Not that simple.

 

I still cannot tell her everything that happened. She'd probably die right then and there. She has no idea how lucky she is that I'm not dead or have a record.

 

ETA: I don't want to make this seem like being a non-responsive parent is similar to being physically or mentally abused by a parent. Not at all. It's just similar in that I didn't realize that sticking one's head in the dirt and ignoring obvious signs of problems wasn't "normal parenting".

 

This was my mom most of the time. The rest of the time she was physically abusive. She would go for days not paying attention to anything I did. She didn't care if I stayed out all night, coming home obviously hung over, as long as I made straight A's. Then something would set her off, always something that had nothing to do with me, but I was the one she took it out on. She came home from work at 11:00 one night when I was about 14 (she worked shift-work), dragged me out of the bed by my hair to beat me with a belt. I had left the cloth in the sink when I washed the dinner dishes. I never knew when it was coming. The way she remembered my childhood was completely different.

[fairfarmhand]

I was spanked with a belt by my dad, and with a yardstick by my mom (neither anywhere near as bad as being whipped to the point of bleeding). I didn't think of it as "abuse" then, and really - still don't (although I'd never do that). I think this has to do more with the way my parents were outside of this discipline and how they handled other things.

 

I was loved. I was nurtured and cared for. My needs were provided for, and I never felt neglected. In those circumstances, even harsh discipline may not feel like abuse to someone who is disciplined in a way that we no longer consider acceptable. Whereas, had my childhood been different, I may have felt it was abuse all along.

 

tmi

[SailorMom]

[QUOTE=SailorMom;3590970]Keep in mind I am not justifying any abuse, nor am I condoning the sort of "discipline" mentioned above.... I am very glad that our society now has a much more stringent definition of abuse.

 

However, the cultural norms of societies are very different, and these also change within a society over time. What is abuse now, was not abuse about 100 years ago. Many other kids were disciplined the same way, kids could commiserate with each other... Respected members of society used the same forms of discipline.

....

 

 

People may not have considered it abuse, but it WAS and IS still abuse. If you hit an adult you can be charged with assault because, for an adult, we acknowledge it for what it is, but children are given LESS consideration because for some reason children deserve to be assaulted. :001_huh:

 

It doesn't matter to me that otherwise respected members of society hit their children. It only points to how messed up our society was and is.

 

 

 

I don't know how to make this post right - but I'm quoted, and then I tried to quote ThatCyndiGirl's post...

 

ThatCyndiGirl

Please read and actually pay attention to my entire post.

[Lucky_Texan]

Does anyone consider teasing a child to tears a form of emotional abuse? It may have been my personality but I hated being teased as a kid. My dad was a teaser. I would get so upset because he would not stop until I was in tears. Other adults told me it was nothing to get upset over but it bothered me to the core. As an adult when I heard him starting to tease my kids I'd stop it immediately even if my kids thought it was fun. I am guessing my siblings tuned it out better than I did.

 

:iagree:

 

Teasing is fundamentally hostile. My husband was totally picked on by his dad and brother. And still is. My FIL tries to tease my kids, so far my oldest daughter just tunes him out and distances herself. It's sad that he's missed out on so many good opportunities for relationships because of his inability to communicate.

[elizabeth]

I always knew it was abusive and overboard. I knew other kids got spanked, but no one else showed up at school with busted lips, bruised ribs, welts from the back of the knee to the bum, pinch marks everywhere, etc. My parents told me it was completely ok to be hit with clothes hangers, vacuum cleaner attachments, belts, brushes, fists, because they were disciplined that way and they turned out all right. We won't even go into all the verbal and emotional abuse. And I'm only 31.

 

Now, I did recently come to a realization that my parents made extensive use of the CIO method when I was a baby. They used to tell me stories of a friend of theirs coming over, sneaking into my room, and trying to comfort me as I screamed myself to sleep while my parents smoked illegal substances.

 

My poor long-suffering parents just cannot imagine why I live far away and haven't called them in months. The poor dears.

 

I am so sorry this happened to you.:grouphug:

[Joanne]

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug: To all of you.

 

There was dysfunction in my home. The abuse was passive - allowing my much older sisters tease me at levels that were toxic.

 

I was more neglected/under responded to than anything. I do remember being slapped across the face once for calling my Mom a name. Not the best response, but it was a moment of abuse, not an example of chronic abuse.