There is a brilliant pamphlet onot the influence of abuse of a mother on children. It's called little eyes, little ears. It's a Canadian study on this aspect.
I like it because it breaks down the influences by age group.
What age did this happen Mutatio?
I asked you to tell me how you saw your own interactions with dad, you described being associated with the feelings and dissociated from the image. You were in third person. I think the aim is to be dissociated in the present from the feeling and to be able to integrate the image into a life story. Otherwise the feeling triggers a response. In addition critical beliefs once identified can be addressed.
I have thought a lot about this and your childhood. I was I it I ally confused until it occurred to me that you were viewing the child as if that wasn't you. In a sort of right brain numbed way.
I think we need to cherish that child and heal him. A great eye opener was the fact you spotted yourself repeating the pattern with your own son, woke up and stopped. That is an amazing and wonderful insight it means you are not your father in any way. You are you. I belive that awareness is going to be key to healing.
Do you see this has seriously influenced you?
As Fo said what is it that stops you healing and forgiving yourself?
I had to take us to a side bar, the last time I worked on this stuff (with Mahhty), it attracted the wrong attention and I felt atracked. This created drama which distracted us and was to me destructive. Additionally if we conclude nothing through our evaluations or if there are personal things that need deleting then we can ask this thread to be deleted.
I have several thoughts and posts already drafted although these rapidly become outdated as I read and research.
Fl
Until we can mourn the past we are doomed to repeat it
What age did this happen Mutatio? My father was a tyrant and verbally was abusive to my mother all of my childhood. He struck her when I was about 10.
Do you see this has seriously influenced you? I think it has in a few ways. I realize I picked up some of his bad habits, they surfaced when I worked for my FIL.
What is it that stops you healing and forgiving yourself? I am not sure, I felt so guilty about my behavior. I am beginning to accept it now. I am beginning to be at peace with it. I guess I was so worried about losing my wife that I got hung up on my part in the marriages problems. My anxiety about my marriage caused me to beat myself up. My father was a blamer, I guess I was blaming myself.
They may feel fear, distress, anxiety, self-blame, guilt, anger, grief, confusion, worry, embarrassment, and hope for rescue.
To quell these intense emotions, they may use various coping strategies.
Children who do not blame themselves for the abuse and who develop helpful coping strategies (e.g., reaching out for help) may well have the best outcomes.
Between incidents Children may try to predict the next incident or believe that changing their behaviour might prevent another eruption of violence.
Unhealthy lessons children may learn from violence against their mothers • violence and threats get you what you want • a person has two choices - to be the aggressor or be the victim • victims are to blame for violence • when people hurt others, they do not get in trouble • women are weak, helpless, incompetent, stupid, or violent • anger causes violence or drinking causes violence • people who love you can also hurt you • anger should be suppressed because it can get out of control • unhealthy, unequal relationships are normal or to be expected • men are in charge and get to control women's lives • women don't have the right to be treated with respect
Elena Cohen & Barbara Walthall (2003). Silent Realities: Supporting Young Children and their Families who Experience Violence. Washington, DC: National Child Welfare Resource Center for Family-center
In the chapters of your life, there has always been blaming of yourself, not just for your own actions but for those from your childhood. The influence of that abuse from your childhood has been subversive and quite dark. Leading you to medicate with alcohol at one point.
Have you discussed this influence with an IC? Examined it to understand how it has affected you?
I know until very recently I hadn't really thought about my own childhood influences much. Really hadn't considered the factors surrounding it. I didn't really have a childhood, I was an adult in a child's body. There was no abuse as in your case, no violence or anger, no proper parenting either.
I once asked glam sis what it was like after I had left home. She said "chaos", there was no structure or heart left, she and little sis just got by and in their turn left home as soon as they could. Benign neglect. Little sis deeply resented me leaving and not taking her with me, apparently she wanted to go with me when I left. Glam sis said they often talked of coming to find me and asking to stay. Glam sis says that little sis deeply resents me for leaving her, we are not close little sis and I.
This has influenced you greatly Mutatio, perhaps you could trace those influences. As a child you were not to blame and yet you did blame yourself. You shouldered the responsibility.
Did your mother ever take action to stop this? She had four children with a man who was destructive. Was that something from her own background?
How do you feel about her?
Did you protect your sisters?
I can read from some of the things you write that you got angry and defiant oppositional behaviour with your father. Of the four Fs of childhood abuse, Fight (anger), Flight (fear), Freeze (numb) and Fawn (apease) then initially you seemed to choose the fight response then turned it inwards. This is deep shame, although there is nothing to be ashamed of.
These were adults in that drama.
I have found it very difficult to find a therapist specialising in this type of childhood FOO and most of them here in the UK deal with children. Largely I have been forced to "get on with it" for lack of resource. Did you ever get help? Was there intervention by schools or authorities?
Was your mother hospitalised?
Pink discussed her father with me once and her oppositional defiance, how her mother eventually broke away. Her route to freedom and I am considering how similar your reactions are to hers. The fight response, taking responsibility and finding yourself blaming your actions on yourself. Know this you were a child and none of this is your issue. Just as the behaviour of my parents and their irresponsibility is none of mine.
As a young adult I read the book My family and other animals by Gerald Durrell and I was struck by his mother's lack of responsibility. Little seeing the parallels to my own life.
That precious little boy of 10, did what he could to be safe. He stood up to his father, he defied him from that point. I have notes on the things you have said. You were quite open with your defiance. He has nothing to regret or blame himself for.
Can you forgive him, can you look at a picture of that wonderful child ano feel proud of him?
I took a picture of myself at a similar age, a studious little girl with glasses and unkempt frizzy hair. Later she had bad acne as well. I just simply gazed at her image and knew I loved her she had done well for others. She had survived her childhood. She was strong but without boundaries. She appeased the adults around her by filling the gap. I remember once an adult family issue occurring and I resolved it by insisting the adults get around the table and discuss the matter. They did and I brokered the peace. I was 13 years old.
Have you a photograph of yourself, can you relate to that child? Can you go back and protect him? If you had been you as you are now, what would you have done for that child to protect him? What actions would you have taken?
There is no doubt I would have said to my younger self, be a child, here is space for you to play and to be with friends. Go out have the life of a child, life is for living and enjoying. There will be time for work and responsibility. If another lays their burdens on you, hand them back. Their circus, their monkeys. I would not have carried the burden of a WH who gambled drank and womaniser. Blaming me for his actions. All of this is meant to teach me. That is why I was drawn to Di story so much I think. She accumulated, hoarded others responsibilities, with a H who spent his days as if he were a teenager in game play. Di was brave enough to put down the burdens, I hope she can repair her R in this new spirit, her H appears not to be wayward just immature.
These are the thoughts I wanted to share with you today.
Fl
Until we can mourn the past we are doomed to repeat it
Have you discussed this influence with an IC? Examined it to understand how it has affected you? We are getting into the schemas of my childhood, abandoment, subjugation.
Did your mother ever take action to stop this? She would stand up to my father and they would argue. She defend us.
She had four children with a man who was destructive. Was that something from her own background? No, many times she said she wished she had never met him. Other times she said she wished she had taken me and went back to Germany.
How do you feel about her? I love her, she did the best she could with an abusive man.
Did you protect your sisters? They didn't really need it. It was my mother and myself. He expected my sisters to do what he wanted and they did.
Did you ever get help? No, it was never quite that bad.
Was there intervention by schools or authorities? No
Was your mother hospitalised? No, by the time I left for college she complained that her nerves were shot. He only hit her once about when I was ten.
Can you forgive him, can you look at a picture of that wonderful child and feel proud of him? Yes, it was not my fault.
Have you a photograph of yourself, can you relate to that child? Yes, I had a good childhood except for my father and his abuse.
Can you go back and protect him? I would tell him it's not your fault. That he should not take the anger he feels for his father and turn it into shame of himself.
If you had been you as you are now, what would you have done for that child to protect him? I would tell my father not criticize his son, not to verbal abuse him and not to verbally abuse his wife.
What actions would you have taken? I would have intervened so he understood that what he was doing was not acceptable.
Thank you V for your effort to help me straight out my closet. Your thought, that I took my anger and turned it into shame of myself is brilliant. It would explain some of my other issues.
That would be wonderful. Are you doing the same list for mum?
A friend of mine has an academic brother and he has undertaken a review of the FOO of being in care and a package of books arrived today for me. A lot of research papers on FOO issues.
One paper that struck me by Hamish Caynham on relationships with mothers when fathers are abusive. How this can escalate abuse if the father feels jealous of his children (especially the eldest boy). It's possible that in some sitches dads project their feeling about mum onto their wife. Unable to distinquish between the two, they feel they compete for their wife and they treat their children with great hostility. I wonder if this is a factor with your father. Did you sense he was competing with you for attention?
My big concern here is actually the family pet being abused, mainly the implication this was done to frighten his children who would feel powerless to intercede. We lost a goldfish and the whole family had a burial ceremony and planned a rose bush in honor. This was a goldfish!
V
Until we can mourn the past we are doomed to repeat it
Are you doing the same list for mum? Not at this time.
Did you sense he was competing with you for attention? No, it was a simply case of him being an a$$hole wanting things his way, a petulant tyrant.
"the family pet being abused, mainly the implication this was done to frighten his children who would feel powerless to intercede" The dog ran away and it took a while to get her back. When he got her home he took his frustration, anger, rage, what ever it was, out on the dog. It was about his not getting what he wanted. He was a coward and a bully forcing his will on the things in his life. He did the same thing to me only he used his mouth and not a fist.
Here are some of memorable moments that I remember with my father. I am not sure why these moments stand out but they do. I don't want to put them in any order.
~ my father punching the family dog with a closed fist after running away, in front of me and my friend.
~ my father yelling at my mother and imposing his will through bullying and name calling.
~ my father forcing me to do extra school work every Saturday morning to make me smarter.
~ riding in the back of our car, my parents arguing and him hitting her and giving her a black eye.
~ calling me a "son of a b!tch" in front of my mother.
~ telling my mother he made the money and he would decide, she had no choice.
~ often yelling at my mother and making her cry.
~ when I was about 3, telling my father I felt nauseous while he watched TV, he said go to your mother. I proceeded to walk around the whole apartment throwing up and making a mess in almost every room in the apartment as my father watched. Then having to listen to them fight over my fathers lack of help.
~ I remember many times feeling very embarrassed by the way my father behaved, his tantrums, his behaviors.
~ hearing my mother say that she wished she never met my father.
~ watching my mother defend her children from my fathers bullying.
~ my father was playing catch with my sister one day when I got home from playing with my friend and I asked if I could play too. My father said no. My sister was using my mitt and I was angry, so I took it from her and went inside. I got about 30 feet away and my father threw the ball and hit me right square in the back of the head.
That's the typical kind of behavior my father exhibited while I was growing up.
