Childhood Parental Discipline Or Trauma?

[Justin87]

As a child I grew up in a strict conservative Christian home. My parents believed that spanking and beating your children was a necessary and admirable quality in a Godly parent. A few years ago, my father made the offhand remark about our family that it was the kind of place where “it’s ok to beat your kids”. My mother would carry a wooden ruler in her purse in public to threaten us with to keep in line. Honestly, I think a lot of the spankings have been blocked out. By the time I was 8 most of it had stopped. I remember pulling my pants down. I remember my dad breaking a dowel rod over my older brother during a spanking and also kicking him in the butt. I remember that spankings were always associated with silence and isolation. I have no memories of any of the causes or reasons behind a spanking, I don’t remember what I was supposed to learn or what I had done. My clearest memory is laying on the hardwood floor in my room. My dad walked in and silently flipped me onto my stomach and spanked me with a ruler. When he was done he just stood up, left me on the floor, and walked out. No explanation or comfort. Maybe he thought I should have known why I was getting it. I don’t know. Anyway, I also have a similar memory of when I was older, 10-11 years old of my mom spanking me and my brothers with a dowel rod. Interestingly enough, by this time it was quite an unusual thing to happen. After about the age of 8 my parents approach to discipline/consequences completely turned on its head and became very VERY inconcistent. Sometimes, I would be sent to my room for hours at a time. Other times I would have to eat dinner alone after everyone else had finished. I think the inconcistency really led to a deep confusion for me. I remember claiming that I had done something wrong, when I hadn't, in hopes to be punished. Sadly, during my teen years my parents emotional and physical involvment in my life nearly evaporated. There were no consequences for anything. No real boundaries.

Interestingly, this was the same time that we became involved in an issolated church-group that my therapist now describes as a cult. An even stricter, law and rule centered group that was led by a very likable and disturbed man. He believed in the litteral application of the Old Testament laws (women wearing hats/long dresses, pigs meat being unclean to eat, he would not allow us to celebrate Christmas, even down to stoning a disobedient and rebellious son). This intensely strict religious group, combined with my parents non-existant boundaries at home led to a massive addiction to...*drum roll* spanking porn. As well as becoming addicted to spanking myself. The line between fetish and self-harm is quite blurred here and even after 18 months of therapy I am still confused. It is also confusing to me to think of any of this as trauma. That is a very very new experience for me. I feel myself almost squirming as I write some of this. It just feels wrong. It feels like I am betraying my family and my faith.

I think I need help understanding what the trama is here. There seems to be a lot of things coming from a lot of directions. But it is very difficult to accept any of them as trauma, none of it seems “bad enough”. Some of the themes that are touched on: emotional neglect, physical neglect (of touch from parents), sexual neglect/abuse (lack of sexual information), spiritual abuse (shame and guilt messages pounded from a young age), self-harm (I have literally spanked myself hundreds if not thousands of times including causing open wounds/blood flow.) It’s pretty unbelievable for me to share all of this. Looking for thoughts on what would be considered trauma here. Would this cause PTSD? Is this Complex PTSD?

 

[Lucycat]

I consider what you have been through as trauma.

But, not all trauma causes PTSD.
To get a diagnosis you need to see a health care professional. However, PTSD. Or not, therapy will help you deal with your memories.

 

[Kefira]

I second the advice to get a diagnosis. It sounds like you're in therapy already though, so regardless you're on the right track. Is your T experienced with trauma treatment? No matter what the diagnosis obviously it has affected you and its a really good sign that you've been seeking help.

 

[Justin87]

To clarify, I was diagnosed with PTSD by a Psychiatrist over a year ago.

 

[Chava]

There seems to be a lot of things coming from a lot of directions.

Yes. It's hard but maybe you don't need to nail down the one thing. It sounds like a pretty terrible environment. I also wonder if your parents were ever warm and affectionate, or if your only "connection" was through the discipline. You hint at emotional neglect and no touch. Just the contact through physical discipline. There's a lot wrong with that.

It gets fuzzy because discipline can certainly go too far. I don't condone spanking. But what I think of as physical abuse is the discipline that crosses into terrorizing, leaving marks, happening often, or happening unexpectedly out of parental rages (that's how I usually got it). Dowel rods and breaking things on/over kids crosses the line (I've been that target too). So you can probably consider that abusive. But is all abuse = "trauma"? I don't know. And does all trauma = PTSD? No. So it really depends on the person diagnosing and a closer look at what was going on, the threat, and how you felt or responded...and what your symptoms are now.

Did your diagnosing therapist consider this physical discipline the trauma in your PTSD diagnosis? All of this might not seem "traumatic" because it's what you grew up in, adapted to maybe somewhat, and didn't know any different. Do you feel desensitized or numb to those memories? Does it relate to your current PTSD symptoms, do you think? For example, I'm always on edge and I trust nobody. I'm also dissociative around certain triggers. It's hard to know what is what, but the symptoms and work in trauma therapy can help piece things together...I have a clearer idea of how my different symptoms connect to different traumas (I have early medical traumas and also later sexual assaults also, but I think the environment in my home set the tone for self harming and my really isolative existence as an adult).

 

[GWhizz]

Kinda reminds me of this: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/christian-parenting-handbook-train-up-child-ceri-504981 how religious extremists can lose touch and go too far.

As you've been diagnosed, I think the point is that you're questioning whether your traumas were significant enough to constitute a diagnosis of ptsd. You need to ask your T and your psychiatrist this question. Find out what trauma, was it one major one or multiple traumas that mounted... Do your symptoms match the diagnosis? You may feel you have the symptoms but not the criteria to meet a traumatic or life-threatening event. Or you may feel you had the trauma but don't have the symptoms of ptsd now.

Only you can talk to your T on this and ask to get a more thorough clinical assessment if you feel the diagnosis may be inaccurate. I mean you need both the assessment and the written tests to conclude any thorough assessment and substantiate diagnosis.

Best of luck.

 

[falling_wave]

I think it is. My family used religion as justification for abuse as well. I believe there is some aspect of spiritual abuse as well which causes manipulation and harm.

 

[RussH]

There is a difference between discipline and abuse. What you endured is abuse.

As for PTSD; it is not the severity or the quantity of the abuse,but how you process it, or don't process it that brings about the PTSD.

 

[TonyG]

Sounds like a normal house to me If you grew up in the sixties, I used to cop that at home and went to a catholic school where the brothers would use the cane if you didn't do homework or talk in class, I don't see it as trauma,
I have a friend who had a father who would hold a gun to his head so he would eat his vegetables, That's traumatic,

 

[Melody coates]

are you and i related? because your childhood experience is almost identical to mine. the only difference is that my mommie dearest used pieces of lumber not a ruler. she had a collection of them because she was constantly breaking them from hitting us. she was very unpredictable and terrifying, flipping out over the littlest things. i also had to witness my siblings being terrorized as well.

 

[shimmerz]

I didn't think my stuff was traumatic either. I rhymed stuff off to my T that must have sounded like something out of a Stephen King novel like it was nothing. No emotional attachment. That sometimes is part of the traumatic experience.

Perhaps part of the purpose for your therapy will be to get you to 'connect' to what has happened to you as a child and how that is affecting you now. You seem to see the correlation logically, but not so much emotionally. Best of luck to you.

 

[dnp]

Sounds like a normal house to me If you grew up in the sixties, I used to cop that at home and went to a c...

I think it is a completely different experience getting beat by someone who is raging wildly, sadistic or a complete lunatic, than someone who is relatively normal. We had regular beatings at school with the paddle and ruler, very forceful ones that broke the ruler, but it wasn't the same experience as being a prisoner day after day to someone who is cruel, openly sadistic and flies into rages at every imaginary thing. To me, getting a gun put to my head would have felt merciful. Why is that traumatic? A quick death is much better than what I was expecting. I would have killed myself except I believed at the time that if I did I would go to the lowest level of hell. Nowadays I'm not sure where I'll go but it still keeps me from killing myself.

With OP his cult sounds really creepy (no offense). I wonder what kinds of people his parents were to join a cult like that. Maybe they were really disturbed people. I don't see how you can judge his situation without knowing the full story. Cult abuse is often associated with trauma. Did you grow up in a cult? If not, how can you judge his experience?