Saturday, July 25, 2009

Little Red Riding Hood

*Minimizing*

It may be hard to believe now, but up until when I started blogging (end of
2005) I didn't think my childhood had been that bad, and I didn't understand
why my brother would have killed himself or why I was having a hard time
emotionally. Part of it was that I thought I had, in part, caused most of
what happened. The rest of it was that I had convinced myself it wasn't a
big deal. I kept thinking about when my mom dragged me to her therapist and
he told me, "You are being physically, verbally, emotionally,
psychologically, and sexually abused." But then he didn't report it to the
police, he just told my mom and my mom told my dad and my dad hit me. The
message I got from that was, "I'm telling you what's happening so you can go
make it stop" not "this isn't your fault" which is probably what he was
intending. When adults did acknowledge the abuse, they never seemed to
actually do anything about it, so I thought that meant I was supposed to
respond in some magical way that would fix it, and I was just stupid because
I couldn't figure out what that was. Like, "Hey idiot, you're being abused,
what are you going to do about it? Just because I'm an adult and I could do
something, I'm not going to because this is your problem and not a big deal
anyway."

I'm going to blame my mom for me thinking that way, who blew me off when I
tried to talk to her, told me I "broke up the family" when I called her from
foster care, and to this day, thinks I could "handle it" and I'm so "strong"
for being the family punching bag (taking the heat off her) and I was the
one who told her I was "fine" when I was lying on the floor bleeding, with a
concussion. Yes, I am still bitter. Dammit, you'd think after all these
years she could stop holding me responsible and blowing it off, but she can't. And you'd think
I wouldn't care what she thought, but I do. Dammit dammit dammit, she pisses
me off. This is why the confrontation thing doesn't always bring you peace.
They may just say things that make you even more frustrated. When the abuse is minimized, it may seem to make it easier to deal with (or forget about), but it means your feelings are not acknowledged as legitimate and reasonable under the circumstances. There is a disconnect between how you feel and what you are telling yourself about the situation.

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