5 ms·

But mental/emotional abuse and neglect are perfectly fine? Those can be just as irreparably damaging as physical abuse.

emptysongglass 5y ago
This is what caused me to cut the cord with my parents. My father is a massive criminal, got himself into prison for a large part of my formative years, never said I love you. Mother is untreated borderline, was emotionally abusive my entire life. I spent years of my adulthood trying to find a way to reconcile with them and the conclusion I came to was it's not your burden to suffer for your parents' sins. They will change or won't change of their own volition. But you deserve to survive and thrive in kindness. So much of ourselves is steeped in the company we keep. Choose the company that fosters the better, kinder, wiser you.
dragontamer 5y ago
Ex: I have a (former) coworker who told me his life story. He's homosexual and his parents sent him multiple times to gay conversion therapy. Learning to accept himself for who he is required him to leave his parents: because they would not accept a homosexual child. No sexual abuse or physical abuse in this story, but its pretty clear that he's healthier for leaving his parents. IIRC, he's an only child as well. I'm not sure if he'll be willing to take care of his parents as they get older.
lazide 5y ago
Considering the posters background, they may have just not taken it into account. One challenge with abuse on all these fronts is that there is a huge amount of grey area in all of them, and judgement that would need to be drawn on what is and is not abuse. Sometimes/often it is REALLY clear cut (yeah, someone doing munchausen by proxy on their kids, or beating them, or whatever is clearly abuse). Other times, you'll find a lot of controversy. There was a lot of discussion recently about parents getting cut off from their kids because of rabid Trump support. Is that abuse? From whom? There have also been stories of parents cutting off their kids because of their strongly anti-Trump views during the election. Is that abuse? From whom? Mental abuse can be incredibly subtle, and a key component of many abusers is their ability to convince others around them that they totally aren't abusing anyone and it's that OTHER PERSONS fault. Made even worse by the fact that sometimes the person being painted as the abuser IS NOT the abuser, and it really IS the other persons fault! Sexual abuse and physical abuse can at least be generally judged somewhat accurately from a third party witness/video perspective.
- slownews45 5y ago
  If you've ever worked as a camp counselor for rich kids - the term abuse can work out as follows: "Clean up your crap" = "You can't make me, that's abuse, my dads a lawyer." Is asking someone whose had maid service / cleaners to clean up their crap in a group situation abuse? The other stuff is feeling "uncomfortable" or "unsafe" in situations where you are asked to take the most basic responsibilities (ie, turn in an educational assignment"). Kids will get a school counselor to excuse them from the work because it makes them feel "uncomfortable and stressed".
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    This is an interesting example of subjective versus objective well being. Asking someone to help clean is clearly not a misuse of power (e.g. abuse), but to an ill informed/molded individual, any request that they do something they don’t want to do (homework, chores, work, etc.) can ‘feel’ like abuse to them (subjectively), even though objectively it is not. Most of our society is shifting to focusing on subjective well being over objective well being, so we get these confusing situations. (at least this framework helps me parse these issues).
    - slownews45 5y ago
      It's interesting - because if you work with really rich / spoiled kids, they are sometimes being sent on these summer / camp type programs as a punishment. So some kids have been mowing lawns to try to pay for the program (thinking of it as something super special - which it is), and other kids are being sent as punishment. Reality is underneath most kids are good. Get them out of the environment and if you can get peer pressure going the right way, they'll drop right into it. Seriously, their parents wouldn't recognize them (cooking, cleaning, being very physically active etc). But early days can be a shock to the system. If you've been jetting to paris to shop on weekends, and then are being asked to eat a meal cooked by other kids (no meal choice at all - just one big something) and/or need to cook it, it can really feel like something way out of comfort zone.
  - andrey_utkin 5y ago

This is what caused me to cut the cord with my parents. My father is a massive criminal, got himself into prison for a large part of my formative years, never said I love you. Mother is untreated borderline, was emotionally abusive my entire life. I spent years of my adulthood trying to find a way to reconcile with them and the conclusion I came to was it's not your burden to suffer for your parents' sins. They will change or won't change of their own volition. But you deserve to survive and thrive in kindness. So much of ourselves is steeped in the company we keep. Choose the company that fosters the better, kinder, wiser you.

dragontamer 5y ago

Ex: I have a (former) coworker who told me his life story. He's homosexual and his parents sent him multiple times to gay conversion therapy. Learning to accept himself for who he is required him to leave his parents: because they would not accept a homosexual child. No sexual abuse or physical abuse in this story, but its pretty clear that he's healthier for leaving his parents. IIRC, he's an only child as well. I'm not sure if he'll be willing to take care of his parents as they get older.

lazide 5y ago

Considering the posters background, they may have just not taken it into account. One challenge with abuse on all these fronts is that there is a huge amount of grey area in all of them, and judgement that would need to be drawn on what is and is not abuse. Sometimes/often it is REALLY clear cut (yeah, someone doing munchausen by proxy on their kids, or beating them, or whatever is clearly abuse). Other times, you'll find a lot of controversy. There was a lot of discussion recently about parents getting cut off from their kids because of rabid Trump support. Is that abuse? From whom? There have also been stories of parents cutting off their kids because of their strongly anti-Trump views during the election. Is that abuse? From whom? Mental abuse can be incredibly subtle, and a key component of many abusers is their ability to convince others around them that they totally aren't abusing anyone and it's that OTHER PERSONS fault. Made even worse by the fact that sometimes the person being painted as the abuser IS NOT the abuser, and it really IS the other persons fault! Sexual abuse and physical abuse can at least be generally judged somewhat accurately from a third party witness/video perspective.

slownews45 5y ago
If you've ever worked as a camp counselor for rich kids - the term abuse can work out as follows: "Clean up your crap" = "You can't make me, that's abuse, my dads a lawyer." Is asking someone whose had maid service / cleaners to clean up their crap in a group situation abuse? The other stuff is feeling "uncomfortable" or "unsafe" in situations where you are asked to take the most basic responsibilities (ie, turn in an educational assignment"). Kids will get a school counselor to excuse them from the work because it makes them feel "uncomfortable and stressed".
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  This is an interesting example of subjective versus objective well being. Asking someone to help clean is clearly not a misuse of power (e.g. abuse), but to an ill informed/molded individual, any request that they do something they don’t want to do (homework, chores, work, etc.) can ‘feel’ like abuse to them (subjectively), even though objectively it is not. Most of our society is shifting to focusing on subjective well being over objective well being, so we get these confusing situations. (at least this framework helps me parse these issues).
  - slownews45 5y ago
    It's interesting - because if you work with really rich / spoiled kids, they are sometimes being sent on these summer / camp type programs as a punishment. So some kids have been mowing lawns to try to pay for the program (thinking of it as something super special - which it is), and other kids are being sent as punishment. Reality is underneath most kids are good. Get them out of the environment and if you can get peer pressure going the right way, they'll drop right into it. Seriously, their parents wouldn't recognize them (cooking, cleaning, being very physically active etc). But early days can be a shock to the system. If you've been jetting to paris to shop on weekends, and then are being asked to eat a meal cooked by other kids (no meal choice at all - just one big something) and/or need to cook it, it can really feel like something way out of comfort zone.
- andrey_utkin 5y ago