Survivor Of Sexual Compulsive Disorder With Pstd

[John Wilwerding]

I have a story to share about learning about myself, that I suffered from a Sexual Compulsive Disorder that at times included PSTD. I sought and recieved professional psychotherapy and it has helped but I'm faced living in a world ignorant and blind to the role of society and religion in supporting the abuse I suffered as a child that gave me my sexual compulsive disorder and PSTD. It's painful knowing the truth when most people wish to deny it and not believe me! It's my greatest source of social isolation feelings. My disorder is commonly misnomered as a spanking fetish, since it's so socially accepted and can be percieved to be completely separate from using spanking for punishment with children. That is a false statement as the two are linked and like an obssesive compulsive disorder a sexual compulsive disorder harms the original victim stealing away a part of their productive time living and it CAN recreate the same disorder in the children they spank. It is an insideous form of LEGAL sexual abuse between a parent and their child, experienced as such by the child, while not percieved to be by the parent.

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

Hmmm, interesting subject. My father would spank us with our underwear pulled down, and my T said it WAS sexual abuse, without the parent intention. Because I was at an age where I knew that our private parts should be covered, it was very shaming. The time that stands out to me, was when I got spanked for hiding under the communion table after church! My father expressed guilt when we talked about it in more recent years. I know now that he was in a marriage that was far from happy, was angry inside, and plain just didn't know better!! He is a retired minister, and has survived almost 60 years of an unhappy marriage.

I agree that spanking should not be used to discipline children. But, I spanked my son a few times before I realized how unproductive, and destructive it could be.

 

[jimmy-joe]

Lol we had to depant then dad would lay in with the belt until u learned your lesson. I do suspect some sexual weirdness about him, but my point that I didn't get to very well is that

In my opinion there's a difference between making the kid depant to get spanked and giving them a few swats with a wooden spoon or something pants on.

My reasoning being that just telling your kid something is wrong doesn't necessarily instill a sense of badness about the action, but giving them a few sharp, but not like, idk, all out, swats on probably the least painful spot on their body(there's a reason we sit on them :p) without degrading them will give them a better memory of the action being wrong.

Keep in mind, I'm talking about like, if they stole something or were bullying someone(I've thought about if they did something like seriously illegal, not really sure about that, swats would seem pathetic and amusing then). For the most part I agree, timeouts/grounding/etc is the way to go

p.s. my dad had a soldier for a dad who beat him and his brothers, and he went worse on my bro and I, thinking he could make us better men, so I'm not talking w/o some experiance

 

[jimmy-joe]

Sorry guys my analytical mind got the better of me, but hi John and welcome to this here forum such :D.

was afk when you hopped in to chat

(So keep going, wasn't trying to devalue what you were saying, I have no idea what or how you experianced, and regardless, this site is for you to find support, etc. :))

Although I'd suggest if/when you start talking about your events, to check out the trauma diary section first and read the info there, so that peeps who just wander through can't see your stuff, just cause you don't know who all visits this site

 

[sea]

I don't see how hitting a kid is in any way productive, spanking or otherwise. If you're not hitting them "hard", then there isn't a point in hitting them at all. You're basically saying "well I don't hit them hard, just give them a swat, to ensure they've learned their lesson." Really? Well if it is as little as you say it is, then it is probably just as effective as words could be.

You can't instill an operant conditioning method based on fear and punishment. It turns everything into a negative. "If you do something wrong, you will be punished." It automatically flips it on its side and turns your interactions into the negative spectrum. Whereas, "If you do something right, you will be praised" is a much more effective incentive toward repeating desirable behavior. You want to enforce positive behavior, not exclusively focus on punishing only negative behavior.

It's either pointless ridiculousness ("sharp" swats are just as ineffective as "don't do that", seriously, if you're not actually hurting the kid, there is no point in hitting them at all because the point of hitting them is to deter them from doing the wrong action I.E: by fear) or you're hurting your kid. Because actually hurting your child is the only method that is actually effective in reducing their behavior, because they become afraid of you and afraid of your punishments. Which, I admit, does work. If you want your kid to grow up and be ridiculously f*cked up and traumatized.

Chances are if you were afraid of the things your parents did to you as a child, it was probably because they were hurting you, not disciplining you. Your perception of what happened is just as vital as their perception. Especially because by the age where most parents are still spanking their kids, they have already instilled into their children to be private, not to talk about sexual matters, not to expose themselves, to suppress, etc. So already kids will know enough about it to realize they should be ashamed, and when they get spanked, that is what happens. They're embarrassed, they're confused, they're freaked out, maybe they're even hurt if their parent does it far too hard, etc.

Our society is a mess, basically. I see no point in any of it, it can all be achieved just as easily with positive reinforcement and a f*cking time out.

 

[jimmy-joe]

I was only mentioning the punishments cause that was the topic I saw, I definitely agree that positive reinforcement is the overall key.

But there still needs to be negative consequences for breaking the rules. For instance, if your kid starts hanging out with the bigger kids and starts picking on smaller kids with them, grounding them for a week generally isn't going to stop that, they are probably just going to wait a week and go back to their buddies. But if they get spanked (not in a psycho way, not degrading) or idk, let's say they have to work out with you for a while, it instills a sense of apprehension when going back to the playground to smack around the little kid again, or tease him. They now know it hurts, so it makes it easier for them to see that they are hurting the other person.

Positive reinforcement is NOT the only thing necessary to teach a kid to be healthy. I've been to some of my bullies houses(the ones I knew about, their parents never or very rarely punished them[they were also f*cking rich pigs]), and the only other person I've known while kids to get hit by their parents(other than like the occasional slap cause they were screaming at their mom who got f*cked up by her pops) is my best friend, who got the punishments I described, and is NOT in any way f*cked up by them. Because his parents did positive reinforcement, AND spanked him (with a wooden spoon) for the serious things. He's actually a rather upstanding guy, not a super achiever, but he's legit.

The only trauma he has (and trust me, me him and my other buddy grew up together, there is not a whole lot we don't know about each other, except this one is only just now learning how bad my dad was) is from his brother dying in an automobile accident. Otherwise, he is as healthy as any "normal" 22 year old.

I'm not saying I knew everything that went down in anyone's life, but I do know enough to know that children need to know there are negative consequences for bad acts. For more serious offenses, 5 stinging swats with a paddle is not going to traumatize someone unless they have the psyche of a teacup, in which case, don't swat them.

Everyone is different, everyone learns different ways. I was not suggesting anything like hurting your child, I was also not suggesting only focus on the bad things. I was merely talking about levels of punishment.

Trust me, I know very intimately how bad "non-damaging" punishments effect children. There is a vast difference between getting swatted even 10 times for something that grounding/timeouts didn't teach, and getting humiliated and degraded and hurt.

And yes, obviously at some point they are too big for spankings(and most definitely there is a too young for such things, I don't remember how big I was at 5 or 6, but I wouldn't go below that at all), I guess then switch to taking away their iPod for a couple weeks or something? There's no handbook to life, only guidelines and experience.

P.S. I also understand completely that you can't expect your kids to follow the rules all the time, with or w/o positive/negative reinforcement, that would suggest that they are dogs. I'm just saying this shit as a general statement.

P.P.S. Now that I think more about it, probably the best punishment(that sounded bad, but I mean it in reference to something that would make a kid think twice about being an idiot[drugs/cheating/meanness/etc] and make them stronger w/o hurting) would be to make them come with you to do some physically intensive job that they do not like, because nothing is more motivating than avoiding carrying giant rocks to the truck from a couple thousand feet away :D (safety first, but a little hard work won't hurt *evil grin* {I'm going to enjoy listening to my kid whining about cleaning the dog poop :p "new guy" mentality, especially if I have a hardheaded son})

I guess these should have been in a different thread, :( sorry john

 

[RileysMom]

My ex-stepdad used spankings as punishment. He used a belt. He would snap it when he was going to give us a spanking. Many times he would make us pull down our pants and our underwear when he spanked us (my sisters and I). I know he got off on it. I wish we had told mom, but we were young (I was 8 and my sisters were around 3 or 4) and scared. He knew how to use our fear to his advantage. The abuse escalated as we got older.

When we had our son we opted for timeouts, taking away toys or tv time. He has gotten a spanking a couple times, but it is very rare. They have never been more than a swat. I think what has been key with us is that we always sit down with him and talk to him at his eye level. We explain why he's in trouble and that if he does it again he will have to go in timeout again. It has worked for us.

Personally, I think that timeouts and such will work for a child IF the parents are willing to work hard on it. There has to be follow through. You have to be consistent. It's hard work.

That's my opinion anyway.

 

[Artemis]

In NZ it is illegal to spank your child, and I am happy they brought the law out and gave me an opportunity to change my old thinking. I never hit my daughter, ever. I am a full time mom and I spend a lot of time teaching her and guiding her. We have a relationship build on mutual respect. I believe any form of spanking is abusive and breaches the natural trust which a child should feel with their parents. Children should be taught what is right and wrong and why. Not made fearful of being hurt and humiliated should they cross their all powerful parents. Also a lot of parents just say no to everything, even stopping a child from natural learning processes and hitting them for it. This is not natural or right.

 

[sea]

There are a lot of different ways to discipline that don't involve hitting or spanking. Hitting your kid isn't something that absolutely must be done. It is not the only thing that will teach them their behavior is wrong. It simply requires consistency and dedication. A lot of parents don't seem to realize this and they think "Oh well, a smack will tell them it isn't appropriate esp if it's serious" but it's like, if a kid is going around bullying or stealing or getting high...there is a problem there, and that problem is with You as a parent.

Chances are it's the way you're treating your kid that is causing them to act out like that in the first place. Unless they have some kind of disorder such as CD, ODD, RAD, etc - in which case hitting them won't solve anything anyway. It is absolutely unnecessary. If your kid is behaving so badly that you feel like the only way that getting through to them would be to physically impose on them in some way, there is a chance that you need to examine your whole home and family dynamic in its entirety, or to examine what is happening in the child's life such as problems at school, possible outside circumstances, etc. Kids who don't have any actual behavioral disorders or conduct disorders do not behave like that unless their environment has taught them to do so, unless they are acting out in some way as a result of feeling hurt, because they feel powerless, because they have low self-esteem, because they have issues in attachment, etc.

Anyway all this is just my opinion but I really don't think it's necessary in any way. Also I just totally realized I am being argumentative on someone else's introduction thread ARGH Lol :barefoot:, I am sorry.

Anyway welcome John and I am sorry you experienced this. I agree with you in full that it is not necessary. I'm not sure I agree that it is sexual abuse (I wouldn't classify spanking as Jimmy highlighted it as abuse anyway, but like I have stated several times, I do not think it is necessary and the same lessons can be achieved in other, less upsetting ways) as sexual abuse is typically done for gratification (if you aren't getting gratification out of it, you aren't sexually abusing anyone), but I do agree that it is unnecessarily sexual and humiliating, even if the parent is ignorant about it and is not getting gratification, and that it can be used as a form of sexual abuse. In any case once again welcome and I hope you find what you are looking for here.

 

[Deaf Global Nomad]

Welcome to the forum, John!

Thank you for your mind-opening introduction. I have definitely learned something from your openness.

I hope you find the forum helpful. You might also like to check out the sexual abuse sister site to this forum.

Take care!

 

[Froggie]

Welcome to the forum. As Deaf Global Nomad so well put, your introduction was very mind-opening. The thought should almost be put in some form of media to make people think twice before spanking. I found you quite brave to open up about this. Hope this forum will give you the comfort and support that you need and deserve.