Childhood Parental Discipline Or Trauma?

[dnp]

Also want to mention that age 18-19 I volunteered in the ER at the top trauma center in the state. We got all the gunshot wounds. People bled and died around me all the time. Sometimes I had to clean up the blood. Didn't faze me in the tiniest bit. Also at 23 or so saw a man get split in half after a car accident, his legs were 10 feet away from his body. Felt terrible for him but zero trauma.

Blood and death don't faze me in the least but I don't go trolling the forum sections of people with those experiences to tell them how trivial I think their traumas are.

 

[Eleanor]

Discipline (correction) is always within the child's control. If the child doesn't know why they are being punished, and/or cannot control whether s/he does the thing that elicits punishment then it is not discipline, it is simply abuse.

Violent physical abuse is traumatic. Even if you are used to it.
Neglect is damaging in ways that are hard to see. It is also a form of abuse.

The thing about developmental trauma is that it prevents the child from doing and learning the things that children need to do to be happy healthy adaptive flexible adults.

I'm so so sorry your childhood was so confusing and terrifying. Having the people who are supposed to love and protect you from the wolves... turn into the wolves while inside the house. That is an awful thing.

 

[fyredrift23]

@Eleanor Thank you for what you said, it was all very eye-opening for me (and I hope others as well!). I've never heard that about discipline and developmental trauma before. Honestly, I'm very new to the idea of developmental trauma itself, so lots of learning goin on round my way, lol

@Justin87
I think what you experienced with your parents has traumatized you in a way that has most overtly revealed itself in the spanking fetish you spoke of. It sounds to me like your parents' spanking and hitting you coupled with their lack of showing you affection have effectively contributed to "crossed wires" in your brain. Like, I think your mind, quite naturally, was taught and led to believe that affection and demonstrations of love are intertwined with spanking. Spanking's an "attractive" thing, a "good" thing that can, therefore, be a turn-on.

Instead of spanking and hitting being associated with something neutral or negative, it's been connected with something positive, and, further, something that can be seen as acts of love. It seems like your mind bridged a very logical gap from being attracted to positive, good, acts of love to sexual pleasure.

 

[user27357]

there are some great points being made here regarding the different effects of the same discipline depending on cause, control over and reaction to the event.

I personally was damaged by physical discipline when it was being doled out for my normal reactions to the death of my mother. My father didn't accept normal grieving as anything other than self pity and saw the only route to healing as being the complete acceptance of a new cult religion he had brought home with his new wife after only a few months had passed after my mom's death. I was 11. I rejected the new cult. I was beaten for it.

being spanked for typical kid stuff at an earlier age didn't do me any real harm at all. After age eleven, when the beatings were intended to save my eternal soul and came for things like expressing sadness about my mom's death or being nostalgic about my life before the religion or even getting caught talking on the phone with friends from the old neighborhood, that's where the damage was done.

same spankings and physical violence, different results.

like the difference between being in a car accident when you were speeding or texting or drinking and driving as opposed to being in a car accident when you were parked waiting for a red light and clobbered by someone else that was speeding, texting, drinking.

 

[Neverthesame]

. 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.

There is nothing a child can do that is "wrong", that necessitates beating them with a stick.

 

[user27357]

There is nothing a child can do that is "wrong", that necessitates beating them with a stick.

Agreed.

I would say that swatting my kids when the lack of corrective action could result in a worse consequence and a hard and lasting impression needed to be made was not only OK, it was an act of love. Running ahead of us in a parking lot got my kids a swat. climbing the bookcase. teasing a dog.

I never used a tool of any kind and only used a clap on the behind to bring their attention front and center so we could cut through to their little cores with the necessary information.

I am sure there are those that will disagree, please don't expect me to defend this view any further. I won't debate with you, My kids are healthy happy and got through to adulthood without so much as traffic tickets. Better a swat on the behind than getting hit in a parking lot or crushed under a bookcase or mauled by a dog.

Cause and effect is an important lesson.

Effect without cause is where the damage comes from.

 

[Neverthesame]

@enough I just wanted to clarify a little bit. I don't personally have a problem with what you said. I was raised in a similar manner to what you described. I don't feel any resentment towards them for it. I'm grateful actually, as I feel it was discipline, not abuse.

I also know that it was a parenting decision my parents did not take lightly, as my mother comes from an abusive home. She was very keen to break the cycle, to only apply what forms of corporal punishment were deemed necessary and healthy in the 1980's. Whether there are any forms nowadays, I have no idea, like you, I have no desire to debate it either.

The only times I recall either of my parents laying a hand on me, I had earned it. Never left a mark, nor do I recall it even being painful. Sure got my attention though. Would I do the same with my kids if and when I have any? I don't know. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I really need to stop posting when I am sedated. Lol. Oversimplifying things I am I am.

 

[rightkindofme]

I'm sorry you had those experiences. What is traumatic to one person isn't to someone else so I won't evaluate your trauma for you. You have every right to have strong feelings about your life, permanently. It's your life.