Threats Of Physical Violence To A Child

[Pietro]

Yes. A child, especially a very young child, cannot easily differentiate between "kidding" and "seriousness" -- especially if it's of a very brutal nature.

A lot depends on the context, but this can easily be emotional abuse.

 

[Hope4Now]

I'm looking at the wheel again today. I need to stop freaking about all this stuff and just SEE it and ACCEPT what happened with me. That it happened to me. It happened a long time ago. That other traumas just built on the developmental trauma. That I have had PTSD and dissociation my whole life. You know, 18 months ago, I rolled my eyes at the bodyworker who suggested I see a trauma therapist. "Really?" I said, "I mean I had a rough time growing up, but I wouldn't say I was traumatized." I thought trauma applied only to people in the most extreme of life threatening situations...like maybe my near-drowning when I was four was traumatic, but certainly not x and y and, etc. I suppose in my head child abuse wasn't traumatic unless the kid ended up in the hospital or something. I realize now how convoluted my thinking was. I mean, I even reported some families for far less than stuff that happened to me (I was a mandated reporter at one time).

Looking at this wheel, I'm realizing that my definitions of other things are just as rigid as the way I'd thought about trauma. That pretty much everything in that wheel and more happened to me...mostly by parents, but later too in my life. It's as if I have had a different set of criteria for myself than for other people. Because somewhere along the line early on, I separated from my self and lost it. What a strange thing.

Now I'm getting in touch with it again...working hard to believe I have a self...(I believe it when I feel like I'm in my SELF, but not when I'm in other parts).

I wonder whether making a list of all the stuff I remember would be helpful so my parts could all see it and maybe someone could help me make some sense of it.

Oh, sigh. I am rambling and I must leave to take my mother to her doctor :wtf::yuck::nailbiting::meh::grumpy::eek::depressed::dead:.

I'm so glad all of you are here! It really helps.

 

[Deleted member 28942]

@Hope4Now don't be too hard on yourself. Denial is part of developmental trauma and we all go through it. By reading the posts here I keep finding more and more stuff to work on. I sometimes have to stop and say enough for today, one step at a time. Writing a list is useful. I write a lot so I don't forget. You are on the right path it takes time. Hugs.

 

[Hope4Now]

Not to beat the proverbial dead horse, but I want to share a mother-daughter/PTSD moment that happened a few hours ago. I'm curious what goes through people's minds when they read this.

Some people on the forum know that I am responsible for my 86 year old mother who was one of my childhood abusers (it feels so weird to write that, but I guess it is a true label). She lives in assisted living, but is in poor health and has slowly creeping dementia. I am the only family/friend she has. I made a conscious choice to stay in her life (attempting to be detached) because I believe in responsibility...so cutting her out of my life is not an option. I have been somewhat successful with keeping boundaries.

So today, I took her to the cardiologist. In addition to checking her heart, I asked him to look at a flesh wound on her very swollen legs because the visiting nurse had told me a doctor needed to look at it. I covered my eyes because I didn't want to look at it. Don't get me wrong...when I have to I deal with wounds and injuries, I do, but it is so stressful for me and I have a hard time getting the images out of my mind for weeks or months after. So, since I was already shaky and sitting in a doc's office, I opted out of looking. My mother started haranguing me..."What's the matter with you? Get over here and look at it. You need to look at it! Now! What's wrong with you? You're not the daughter I know. Stop being ridiculous. Look at it..." And on and on and on. I continued to avert my eyes and just say no, let the doctor deal with it, but I found myself shaking ever more and spacing out in a weird way.

It struck me later that these are some of the same phrases she would yell at me when I did not act or feel the way she wanted me to as a child. She is the queen of mind games (that never happened...you're making it up...stop being ridiculous...what's wrong with you...you're no daughter of mine...no daughter of mine would act that way...), criticism, and publicly embarrassing me. But then when I react at all, or I try to ignore her, she gets angrier and louder. She's relentless. I just looked at the doctor and rolled my eyes. He didn't quite know what to do. Later, I told her how much she had hurt my husband's feelings when she cursed him out on the phone the other night. She said, "Well, so what. He's a big boy. I don't care." Oh, and she also went on her tirade today about how this PTSD "or whatever you call it" is something "you've done to yourself."

Yipes. Everyone thinks this is dementia. It's not. She's always been like this and nobody really gets it. I manage her fairly well and I know the difference between the dementia and her regular personality (as in when she calls in the middle of the night and thinks it is morning, or today she said she had been married twice..."once to the alcoholic and once to that other man" LOL!).

Am I really being stupid by continuing this relationship the way it is? Is she being abusive to me? Is it abuse if I'm just reacting to it with child parts even though I know I'm fine and she's not going to hurt me?

I really don't know. That seems so stupid to say, but I don't. I don't know FOR ME what is abusive and what is not. I don't think I have ever known.

Sorry so garbled. Just needing to think out loud and get some feedback, I guess. Thanks.

 

[Recovery4Me]

:hug::hug:

Verbal abuse is insidious. This example was given to me by my T once but it is hard...so forgive. Grooming and conditioning adheres to many levels in our body and our mind when done over the years. A frog placed in a pot of tepid water will stay as the flame is slowly turned up and be boiled to death. The frog just tries to adjust to survive...not understanding it can not.

We have been trained slowly over time, to handle the heat as the insults are turned up. These for example:

d, "Well, so what. He's a big boy. I don't care." Oh, and she also went on her tirade today about how this PTSD "or whatever you call it" is something "you've done to yourself."

Now, imagine a soft loving household and this being stated. How much shock would they have? However, to the person suffering all these years from the evil queen of banter...just one more pot-shot to make us cringe.

Acceptance is looking at the 'heat' under the cooking utensil. Standing back, not having to judge the cook, not having to 'jump' the time needed for the processing...just slowly coming out of the fog and turning off the flame of confusion. Easy steps...label it for what it is...verbal abuse.:hug::hug: No further step is needed until you are ready.

 

[desiderata310]

ok.. started to get a little.. something there and quit reading.. I am familar with this form of abuse. Very familiar.
I was threatened both as a child and an adult. I learned quickly but that doesn't mean that I still didn't pay the consequences of doing something wrong or just being in the path of someone's wrath at the wrong time.

Being threatened as a child/teen/adult/whatever is in someways just as bad or worse
I think my therapist called it operant conditioning. We were joking when he brought it up. He had his dog, Buddy in the room and I usually have dog treats with me for my dog. Buddy KNOWS this and regardless of whether I give him a treat or not, he will behave for me in a much more positive manner than he will for most of my therapist's other clients because of this. I've thought about this a lot since he brought that up. I haven't talked to him about it... just... it stays in the back of my head, especially when I see Buddy.

It works the same way for people. If you get smacked hard one out of three times that your dad raised a hand to you for a month, he would only have to use the threat to get you to mind. Of course, if you know that there's the possibility of being hit and that scares you, it's has the same effect.

@FridayJones said it well

Abusers twist and warp everything good.
I married one. There's not a thin line between love and abuse. But a damn chasm.
Might look the same from the outside, but the devil is in the details.

I know this too well. It's also hard to figure out when you're standing right in front of it. Staring at it in the eye.

"You AGREED to this when you married me. You knew this and you LIKE it."
*sigh*
So much more there that doesn't belong in this thread. I'm going to retreat for a bit.
Long and short... yes. It's abuse.