Is there a self-destruct gene?

[jordanspeeps]

Hey guys,

I’ve been through quite a bit of mental stress during the past year and suprisingly, I have not responded in a way typical of my former reserved self.  In the past month or so, I have uncovered my father’s malignant Nism, (he hid it reeeeallly well) and it has left me with a lot of questions and worries.  I’ve always known my mother was “off” and discovering her NPD in May of last year, was difficult enough, but reflecting on my relationship with my father has left me dangerously raw and concerned. You see, I thought it was my father's relative "normal-ness" that accounted for any "normal-ness" in me.  But now, I’ve come to intellectualizing my own condition.  Will you help me process these thoughts/hypothses?  Please be honest, the more honest the better.  I'm getting much, much, better with handling criticism.

I wonder, Is there a genetic predisposition to giving into self-destructive behaviors and their associated “negative” personality manifestations triggered by great stressors or abuse?  I’m asking, is there a location on the human genome that accounts for
the way an individual responds to multiple adverse events in his/her life?

Are some people pre-programmed biologically to self-destruct/self-hate? 

Granted, most would agree that environmental factors are certainly at play.  Children who grow up in abusive homes, grow up observing and assumings roles presented by their parents.  We can’t help but exhibit what our parent’s showed us within the home, right? Especially our same sex parent. 

If it weren’t completely wrong and unethical,  a study with identical twins could reveal the possibilities:

In some nominal number of pairs of identical twins (matching DNA), both born of completely self-absorbed, NPD parents, one twin each is (HYPOTHETICALLY) removed from said NPD parents at birth. Each of the set of twins are then raised separately in two distinct types of household.  Household type #1/ Twin #1- the original NPD, self-absorbed, abusive household,  and Household type #2/Twin #2- adversely, a typical, loving, empathic, non-abusive, non-N household.

After 18 years, each twin is then sent into the world under identical life circumstances, each subjected to the same multiple stressors i.e., abusive/ bully bosses, employment problems, illness/death of parents, relationship woes, trouble with the law, etc.  (sounds more like an evil, wicked Truman Show. I am only being hypothetical here).

With such compression of major stressors, how would the mental health of each identical twin manifest itself?  Would childhood envrionmental cues and patterns overcome biological propensity to react with self-destructive (some would be considered protective) modalities i.e.:  obsessing, paranoia, unhealthy narcissism, abandonment, attacking others, criminal behavior, lying, stealing, abusing drugs/alcohol, sexual deviance/exploitation, projecting, splitting, denial.   Or would the genetic endowment of the NPD parents outweigh environment, no matter how healthy?

Do you suspect a large likelihood that the cohort of twins raised in abusive households would follow the pattern set before them and manifest abuse upon themselves and others? And In the face of “negative” life events,  what variables would affect the possibility that this twin would maintain good mental health and exhibit positive coping behaviors, despite NPD biology?

Would the twins raised in genuinely/relatively healthy households manifest his/her biological propensity towards abuse and exhibit self-destructive behavior under stress later in life or would they hold fast to their adoptive parents’ child-rearing (environmental cues)?

Are self-destruction/self-destructive behavior patterns passed along generations like alcoholism or diabetes? And what of the twin who has both the genetic endowment and the environmental exposure to abuse?  Is he doomed/damned?

And what about possible mutations/mis-repair to this alleged “self-destruction” gene.  Could damage to DNA on this gene cause a person to then be able to exercise apparent “resilience” in life; expressing healthy behaviors, despite a “negative” environment AND genetic endowment. 

If we located the gene, do you think we could or would want to alter or repair the "self-destruction" gene in order to save the world from such horrible abuses to future generations?  Or could said gene, be nature’s very own way of culling the weak and unfit?

Does/could this address “cycles of abuse” or  apparent “family curses”?

I’ll close with an eerie Native American saying, that’s been stuck in my head for the last week:  “There are two dogs that live in me, Whichever grows the largest, I feed.”  (or something like that...)

I know it’s random, but what do you guys, think?

Tiffany

[Portia]

Wow Tiffany big questions, I love it!  I’m sorry I don’t have time for a big think and reply right now, I’m in cruising mode but I will be back to you. I like this type of stuff. Just for now…..

Are some people pre-programmed biologically to self-destruct/self-hate?

I think, right now, that I really doubt this. I doubt it is there from the moment the chromosomes come together. I think babies in the womb are affected hugely by what mother feels and thinks and what they can hear and feel from outside the body. I think what happens to babies in the first few months is critical. 

If people were pre-programmed to self-destruct…..they wouldn’t live from the outset. They wouldn’t draw breath.

I think some of us have such huge barriers and obstacles in our heads to overcome that we can’t see the way….and if the brain can’t see a way through, it dies. But every molecule of our being is predisposed to fighting for our survival.

In surviving pain and suffering and self-hatred we grow and start to get better.

It hurts like hell. But in hurting we feel, and if we feel, we’re alive

More another day….

[mum]

Hi, Tiff. I have heard that saying (but I get these wrong all the time) like this:
An old man tells his grandson that there are two wolves living in all of us. One is negative, dark, hard, scary and sad. It is bad, mean and cruel. The other is loving, caring, compassionate and safe.
They are at battle with one another. The child asks: which one wins? The old man tells him: The one you feed.

OR something like that.

I saw my neice go through horrible addiction, and her grandmother on her father's side was our town's most well known drunk.
I see my exn husband act like such a jerk, JUST LIKE HIS DAD, and I wonder, is it genetic as well as learned?

Now, I am not a psych scholar, but my ex's family has depression, alchoholism, obesity, panic/anxiety disorder, OCD, NPD, etc, by the bucketful. Including him (a few of them).
I did worry for my children, that the tendencies, genetically, would be for them to pick any number of those things up.
My second husband (who was a "know it all" but knew nothing....and who basically hated kids) used to tell me: "OH, personality is genetic!! You better watch out!!"

When my son was a baby, he did not smile at strangers easily. He stared them down. It was threatening to some people (peope are wierd when babies check them out....geez, he's 3 months old, get over yourself!!!) His dad loved that he made people uncomfortable (like father like son, I guess). I divorced his father when my son was 7.
He is now almost an adult, extremely friendly and kind hearted. He is a brilliant musician, and a mediocre student, that is well liked and he likes and forgives just about anybody. HE is really easygoing.

My daughter was the smiley, cute, Gerber baby, that seemed like the happiest little person on earth. She was a little shy, but mostly pretty easygoing. She is now a teenager (so all bets are off, I guess....maybe I could even disregard how she is now), But she is obsessed with good grades, how she appears, who hurts her, etc. She is still very friendly, but easygoing is NOT what I would call her. She was 3 when her dad and I broke up.

So I try to show my kids another way to do life:  I don't drink, or have alcohol in my house, as my kids' dad has big problems drinking too much, and I can take it or leave it, so I'll leave it. I do not spend time with negative people if I can help it. I got help and pulled myself up out of situational depression and did that change in front of my kids, with their prodding. I think all of these things, help them make choices, WHATEVER their tendencies genetically are, to do life with consiousness and awareness. Someday, my daughter will stop chiding me for "talking all Ghandi" and take on some of it for herself. Maybe.

Anyway, it's their path, including the part about having a jerk for a dad. I bless it and hope they make it fun.

So, I guess that may not have been helpful. Maybe this is more so: I believe we DO have genetic predisposition, and environmental influences affect our development equally or more, depending on the individual. BUT we ALL have choice and the ability to choose. Some may understand this in this lifetime, some may not (like my ex, I am not holding my breath for that....but it's available to him, too).

[Hopalong]

Hey Tiff,
I believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person. (That's one core principle of my church/religion.)

One of the good legacies of my childhood religion was an optimistic faith that any human being can find a way to transformation. (There's will and choice involved...but the option's there.)

Hops

[Brigid]

Tiffany,
I think that genetics and environment both play a part in how a person develops their personality, along with all the other aspects of their life, but I also think that the inherent personality type, i.e., very sensitive, bullheaded, stubborn, gentle, strong, weak, whatever; has a great deal to do with how that individual will process their environment and ultimately choose their behaviors.  I think it matters if you are a first, middle or last born child and the dynamics of the family.  I even think that astrology plays a role in your personality traits.

When I look at my brother and I (two first-born children as we are 10 years apart), we could not be more different from each other, although raised by the same parents.  Although I have lived most of my life surrounded by n men and have suffered the affects of that in my choices of life partners thus far, I do not believe I have anything but basically healthy n traits and with a lot of therapy have hopefully relieved myself of making poor choices in mates in the future.  I had terrible parenting role models, but believe that I am a very good mother with great kids with whom I have a wonderful relationship.  I have an adopted daughter and a birth son and they are as dissimilar as mum's two birth kids, but are both great in their own ways.  I worry about the long-term affects of my exh's behaviors on our children and the legacy he has left them with, but all I can do is maintain a stable and healthy environment for them to model and hope it wins out in the end.  So far, so good.

Ultimately, each individual must make their own path if they have the mental and physical resources to do so.  We can use our family history and life events as the cornerstones to our life plan, but the rest must be filled in by how we choose to handle that history and the events.  Some will get stuck in the pain and not be able to find their way to the light and others will choose to overcome and use the lessons to build a better and healthier life.  Sometimes finding the internal and external resources to accomplish that seems overwhelming and nearly impossible, but I do believe it is possible for anyone able to find the strength to do so.

Brigid   

[jordanspeeps]

Hey guys, thanks for the replies.  It's very appreciated.

Hi Portia,

If people were pre-programmed to self-destruct…..they wouldn’t live from the outset. They wouldn’t draw breath.

.   
 What of miscarried fetuses or stillbirths? Would the hypothesis allow for that?  Also, Thanks for:
 

In surviving pain and suffering and self-hatred we grow and start to get better

That still seems a little counter-intuitive to me, but I am going to go along with my recent decision to acknowledge and validate my own negative feelings/projections when they arise and not stifle or quash them before they have an opportunity to reveal themselves.

it's not so lovely to acknowledge my own pure rage and anger regarding my childhood, but I am becoming more and more determined to learn to cope in more effective ways so that I can advance to a more fulfilling adulthood


Mum, your words are encouraging to me.  I have a 5 year old and I made a promise to myself to somehow break the devastating abuse cycle in my family with her upbringing.  Sometimes, I have no clue how that will happen since, I haven't observed functionality up close, but I get by.  I've always, somehow, managed to get by.  The Grace of God, I'll attribute.   I refuse to do to my sweetheart what was and wasn't done to/for me at her age.  I think of times when I was a girl, trying to figure out how to solve a problem without parents nearby. (There were not only emotionally distant, they were physically unavailable working ridiculous hours that had them both out of the house when we were awake.

 Very much a latchkey kid by age 7, I had to figure out how to prepare meals, clean/maintain a house, wake up in the morning, dress myself, and catch the schoolbus every day.  By age 12, I had figured out what a menstrual cycle was and somehow snooped around in my mother's locked bedroom to locate feminine products and teach myself how to mange my womanhood.  Not allowed school friends, I had to be extremely observant in order to pick up on acceptable social behavior, I'm sure unwittingly making an ass out of myself regularly.  I didn't get fitted for much needed prescription eyeglasses until I was in the 5th grade.  (The school nurse and teachers were furious, I remember). At the age of 5,  I made an verbal outcry to my parents and others that my private parts were burning and  hurting after my teenaged (15-18) cousins "played doctor's" with me in the bed, and it was never acknowledged by the adults of the family.  I think I got a beating for it, actually.

I look at my daughter, now and we talk constantly about her life at school and dance and karate class.  We talk about her teachers and I ask about and try to meet anybody working with my kid.  I'm never far from her.  We clean her room together and although, I've only recently learned, we cook together and share a lot of moments during domestic duties. It's great and easy, because it's new to her, too!  I try to answer any question she has, no matter how redundant it is or how tired I am.  I've never been able to raise my hand to her, despite the daily recreational beatings, I received at her age. But she also, has never really given me much trouble.  She talks when she should be quiet sometimes, but that's hardly worth a beating. I used to get a backhand slap, (rings, nails, and all) right across the lips, when I did that as a five year old.  My little one is reading on a 2nd grade level and is very supportive to the special needs students in the class, according to her K teacher.  With her well-adjusted nature alone, today, I have proven to myself that I can reverse some of what happened to me.  After reading your post, mum, I'm feeling that my daughter's success and continued positive interactions with others will be it's own reward to both her and myself. I find warmth and peace in that thought.  Thanks mum.

I have to run, but I'll address the other replies when I get another moment.  Thanks again, guys.

Tiff   

[longtire]

Tiffany,
I grew up in a house where my parents denied all emotions.  No discussions.  No talking.  No hugging or kissing or cuddling.  When I was struggling with my emotions and described my experiences, they just looked at me like I had 3 heads.  They told me I would have to figure out what to do about "it" myself.  The subtext message I got was that they had no idea at all what I was talking about and it was so foreign to them that they couldn't even help talk it through with me.  (Actually, in hindsight, that WAS the case, just not for the reasons I believed at that time.)

So, I blamed myself.  Hey, if these emotion things aren't coming from my parents, it must be some kind of birth defect.  In fact I am not even human.  No matter how I try to get rid of these feelings, they keep coming back and I can't control them.  I don't fit in with these clueless, emotionless human beings who don't realize how much of the time they are hurting others because they don't even see them.  Like a planet full of ghosts.  I am an alien on an alien planet and I will never fit in here.  I just have to try to find some way to cope with the cosmic mistake of being born on the wrong planet.  (Don't think I'm exaggerating here.  I truly believed all these things.)

Now, with the benefit of 2 or 3 decades and a lot of learning, I understand what I did much better:

• First, I love the little kid in me for doing such an awesome and awe-inspiring job of taking care of me then.  He did things that still amaze me and that honestly were well beyond his years.
• Second, I accepted all the responsibility and blame for the problem of not fitting in.  This was much safer than admitting my parents were not competant and were emotionally not present.  Obviously now, I realize that they just didn't have the awareness or the skills to do this.  I didn't do anything wrong.  I was a perfectly "normal" little kid in a barren family.
• Third, since it it was my fault, I had all the power.  It was not up to them, it was all up to me and I didn't have to wait on them.  I didn't have to be held back by their limitations and fears.  The dark side of this is that I was telling myself that I was better than them.  "Well, if this is what puny, worthless human beings are, than I am better than that."  (Wow, I kept writing this in present tense and having to correct.  Still some work for me here somewhere.)
• Fourth, since I am an alien without any alien parents to guide me, I can, and have to, decide what to do on my own.  On the good side, this gave me the freedom to find some strongholds in myself to be myself and not limit who I was.  The huge downside is that this further isolated me from other people.

The truth is that I am a human being with all the same strengths and flaws.  I was never an alien.  I (little me) created all this fantasy in my head.  It was a way to explain a confusing and depressing (literally) situation.  It was a way to decide what to do next, since I felt so unconnected and without help.  It was a way to feel powerful and in control, when I really felt completely powerless and without any ability to have an impact on the world.  I could still have an impact on me.  It was a way to survive, but not to live.  It didn't matter whether it was right or not.  It was functional in the sense that it gave me hope and direction.  It was obviously NOT functional in the sense that is had no connection to reality.

I did survive a difficult situation.  With God, therapy, reading, self-awareness (sorry mudpup  ) I am learning how to LIVE!  I am no longer willing to just survive.  I give huge credit to the little me that did what he had to do to preserve "us" until the adult me was able to take over and make the reality based changes that truly take care of me.  But, all that is a long answer to your post.

The short answer is:  Everyone does the absolute best, spare NO effort, leave no rock unturned job of taking care of themselves as children in difficult circumstances.  I believe that no matter how maladjusted, hurtful (to others), self-harming, or just plain ineffective, all of these things came out of the need to survive a tough situation with insufficient help.  For the lucky ones of us, at some point in our lives, we ask, are required, or are offered the help we need to wake up and change the things that don't actually help us.  For the unlucky ones, they cannot break out of the negatives of the cycle.  They can't find or don't trust the help that is available to them.  Their sense of who they are reamins locked in the mental self-views that they formed to survive.  Can they change?  Yes, just like everyone else!  What does it take to get them to be willing to change?  I don't know.  I am grateful everyday that I somehow feel into the first group.  I still don't know why.  I'm not comfortable with the answer of "luck," but that may have quite a bit to do with it.  I do believe that any health-seeking behavior, no matter how tiny, continues to build and will unravel our self-defenses, given enough time.  I don't think any of this really answers the questions you posed, but is a little different way of looking at things.

[mum]

Jacmac: just a thought: As souls, I agree we enter this earthly life in an agreement: which parents will fulfill our learning purpose, etc....but could it also be that we also are given/or take, certain bodies with genetic predispositions (alcoholism, depression) as well?  If it is all for learning (which I do agree) then the genetic "uphill" some of us go, may well be part of the big picture.
But I am not particularly certain that Karma is "what goes around, comes around". I think that is a western take on it. I think it is not so cut and dry, or necessarily a "pay back" or judgement the universe makes that we pay for again and again until we get it. I would love to think of Hitler having some sort of pay back....and as a child, I thought the firey hell I learned about in church would suit him fine. However, I still do not think he necessarily became the abused as a payback lesson. It doesn't fit with a loving God or Universe of love at all... even for the darkest evil, I am not sure the return is more evil.
It might be nice to think so, and though I do believe there must be some sort of karmic debt to pay, I'm just not so sure it works that way at all. Maybe he is just a cockroach, over and over....never moving higher to God.   Still wondering.

[mum]

Hey, Tiff, forgot to reply to you....I am glad anything I said is helpful. I never know....I just ramble, I think. You sound like a remarkably good mom. Don't ever doubt it. I know what you mean about not even believing how someone could hit a child...any child, but especially one they love. It's just nonsense and a sure sign the parent has no creativity and no self control. My own children would just cringe if I raised my voice, so I could not imagine why anyone would need (or want) to raise a hand, when all I had to do was change my tone (oooooh, the lecture's coming...!)

It always reminded me of the horses I used to ride who had "tough mouths" because someone had constantly pulled at the bit. They were numb to it after a while, and then the trainers would say they are no good to ride, unless you like beating a horse, because the subtle hand movements required to communicate through the bit, were no longer felt.... I figure it's like that with kids. What have you got left in your "arsenal" of teaching tools, if you bring out physical punishment for ANYTHING.
As a teacher, I have seen so many "tough mouthed" kids, whose parents have lost them. The kids are numb.

Well, I got on my high horse, sorry. Tiff: You are showing your child what love really looks like. That's a parent's job: to teach love. Bless you.

[dandylife]

Sticking to the topic of voicelessness, I must assume you mean by "self-destructive" behaviors those that the N presents.

These traits are instilled in childhood. It happens when the child is attempting to differentiate itself from it's mother/primary caregiver. When things go wrong here, things to terribly wrong.

Your questions screams out, "why?" Which is the ultimate question. Why must people be self-destructive and other-destructive? Yes, there's usually a "reason" that can be traced back. But at the time that the wife, the child, the loved one is getting raged at, told they are worthless, devalued and lied to, what does it matter?

The question I ask is, "what now?" How do we change this terrible situation?

[Hopalong]

Jac, Tiff, Mum, I think you are EXTRAORDINARY mothers.
Longtire, you are the human spirit .. infinite.

All of you are inspirations to me, and in no shallow sense.

Thank you.
Hops

[Portia]

I really like your thread Tiffany. So I wrote a big reply.

I believe that every child is born to live productively. People are not born evil, they are made to behave in evil ways as a direct consequence of their early childhood.

I’ve read an awful lot of Dorothy Rowe, Alice Miller and various psyche books in the past couple of years. One thing that comes through clear as a bell is:

people will think and feel and act according to how they were treated as young children and how they interpret that treatment.

Alice Miller does a great job looking at the childhoods of Hitler and other dictators. Everything has a reason. Nothing is ‘gratuitous’. The phrase ‘gratuitous violence’ is a contradiction.

It seems that a child treated cruelly needs only one caring, mirroring witness to grow with some sense of self. And that creates the ability to transcend their need to act out their abuse.

Many experiments with twins have been done. Lots of incredibly cruel stuff was done to children in the first half of the last century in the name of scientific enquiry. I guess much is still to be uncovered about what was done. What we do know about is bad enough, to me.

It’s only very recently (last 40/30/20 years) that we’ve come to know (or perhaps admit to ourselves in certain countries and cultures) so much more about how babies develop and what is harmful to them.

I was reading about ‘swaddling’ clothes today. Swaddling was like a body bandage that restricted the baby’s movements from the neck down, from birth. Swaddling was used in many countries including Italy in 1930s to make the mom’s life easier. A swaddled baby is like an inert package that can be placed anywhere and will not move (cannot move). Swaddled babies were hung up on hooks to keep them out of the way of filthy floors, to allow mom to get on with her work. Swaddling was ‘believed’ to help the limbs grow strong and straight and that a baby left naked would behave like an animal and grow up to be less than human. I found this quite shocking information.

Anyway. It’s only recently that we’ve started to really believe that children are aware and react to their environment from before they’re born.

In the case of the twins, I’d imagine that a twin taken at birth and give a loving home would not grow up to be an abuser. A baby bonds with the mother face it is given. Given a constant loving mother figure (and it does not have to be the bio mom) and a loving environment, a baby will grow to trust, love, and become a secure, confident, loving self.

The brain is not finished at birth and everything that happens to a child in the first year to three years is critical in how that child will be.

I believe genes have a minimal effect on personality! I haven’t read anything about this, it’s just what I think from watching people and hearing about their pasts.

Genes are basic building blocks biology. The brain is a hugely complex thing running on electricity and stuff I know zero about. Brain research is fascinating stuff. When we’re born our brains are almost like blank slates (but not totally blank) ready for all the programming to take place. I see our brain at birth as having the Basic Operating System (as in computers). It tells our bodies how to breath, move, eat, recognise a face shape etc etc. As soon as we’re born the programming starts and we load lots of new software, rapidly. The basic system responds to certain stuff – physical touch, loving looks, loving sounds, mirroring faces and starts laying down networks for future thoughts and feelings.

Chemical and physical genetic predispositions are not the same as thoughts and ideas. It’s thoughts and feelings foremost that make us abusive, maybe a chemical imbalance second. But the brain produces its own chemicals and given a certain stimulus, it will change its own balance. It’s such complex stuff.

All this is my own interpretation of stuff I’ve read mixed with my own opinions.

If people were pre-programmed to self-destruct…..they wouldn’t live from the outset. They wouldn’t draw breath.

What of miscarried fetuses or stillbirths? Would the hypothesis allow for that?   

I’m not sure I understand what you mean here? I think if babies are miscarried or born dead (and not from medical or other mishap) then the baby had something ‘wrong’ with it. It wasn’t viable.

In surviving pain and suffering and self-hatred we grow and start to get better

That still seems a little counter-intuitive to me,

Why? If we don’t survive that stuff…..we continue in self-hatred and suffering don’t we? If we go through the pain…it lessens and is replaced with something better. If we stay in the pain, we only feel pain. We have to survive the pain to grow. By surviving the pain, I mean going through it again. Doing the original pain work as it’s called by some.

but I am going to go along with my recent decision to acknowledge and validate my own negative feelings/projections when they arise and not stifle or quash them before they have an opportunity to reveal themselves.

I don’t understand Tiff! I see it as you simply disagreeing with me, I don’t see projections or anything else. It’s okay to disagree. I like to know why and what it is I don’t understand. But I don’t want to be pushy either. What you say and what you respond to is your choice. No explanation necessary in some ways….sorry can’t express exactly what I mean here, except to say: say what you feel, please.

it's not so lovely to acknowledge my own pure rage and anger regarding my childhood,
 
Nope it hurts like hell. That’s how it works. I think it must be true to say that everyone who changes for the better – grows, becomes more self-aware – experiences terrible pain. Who said it was lovely? I say it stinks but there’s no other way.

but I am becoming more and more determined to learn to cope in more effective ways so that I can advance to a more fulfilling adulthood

Coping. I don’t want you to cope. I don’t want anyone to cope. Coping is not dealing, is not solving, is not changing. Coping is continuing in the same place and fighting the ‘you’ inside that wants to yell and scream at what was done to you. It’s valid to feel pain and rage and anger. Therapy is one of the best places to do it. If you can do it with one person who listens to you, believes you and doesn’t judge you but allows you to revisit that pain….that’s how the pain lessens and is replaced with better understanding and a more realistic set of emotions (realistic emotions for adult life).

Coping is about scabbing over the wounds, covering them. Talking about advancing to a more fulfilling adulthood is talking to prop up your sense of false self. That’s my interpretation. I’ve done it and continue to do it. When I get threatened, I become so darn ‘right’ about what’s right for me. I get very ‘adult’ when I’m threatened.

I don’t want to become an adult in the sense of some closed-off, repressed, control-freak. I want to become more of a child with a bigger sense of curiosity and playfulness. I want to become happier with the universe! I don’t want to be ‘adult’ in some ways of interpreting that word. However, with more freedom to be playful and free, comes an additional commensurate level of self-responsibility. I take full responsibility for my self, my thoughts, my feelings, my actions. That’s pretty big stuff and not everyone wants that level of responsibility. Many people want to be told what to think, feel, do and they stay that way, pretty much as children.

I read how you are with your daughter and want to say: you’ve passed the line of being abusive, do you know that? You’ve recognised what happened to you as wrong and in doing that, you’ve rejected it. Many people don’t, they simply do exactly what was done to them, they can’t see any further than that and they will defend their actions because they want to protect their internal images of their (loving) (in fact hating) parents. That’s denial.

You’ve grown beyond what was done to you. You’re a great mother. I think you maybe need to grieve the life that little 5 year old Tiff had, because it was cruel and terribly hurtful.

You have already stopped the cycle of abuse by recognising it for what it was. Cycles continue when nobody steps off the wheel: you’ve stepped off.

((((((((((((((((Tiffany))))))))))))))

[darky]

an interesting question. i think yes.the reason i think this is because both myself and my sister were both brought up with an n mother. we have lead our lives similar. i have 3 children, i have one child with adhd and asd, one child with aspergers syndrome and one "normal" child. my sister has 3 children, she has twins with aspergers and adhd and one "normal" child. i have really tried to deal with issues i am faced with, i dont see problems only hurdles, there is always a way over them. i refuse to be beaten or consumed.

my sister on the other hand, god love her is struggling to keep her head above water. she has always struggled with depression and 2 years ago when our mother devalued the pair of us, the "selfdestruct" button was pushed on my dear sister. since then, she self harms, the bulimia is out of control and she has turned to alchohol.
so in answer to your question, i think there are some that are more suseptable to "self destruct" than others.

[Brigid]

Portia said:

people will think and feel and act according to how they were treated as young children and how they interpret that treatment.

I don't think this is always true.  I have a family member with 2 adopted children.  Both were adopted as infants very early on.  Both children were raised by loving parents, in a good community, with religious influence, and a large extended loving family.  The oldest is a boy, now 22 years old, who had a birth father who ended up in jail and had multiple problems fitting into society.  By the time the boy was in high school, he had become a bully, suspended from school multiple times, had pulled a knife on his parents and sister and literally had the family afraid for their lives.  They had him evaluated by many different psychologists, put him in therapy when he was still in middle school, had him on meds for various diagnoses (adhd, depression, etc.), and spent a great deal of money trying to turn him around.  Once he was 18 they had to give up because he wouldn't have any part of their help anymore and since he was legally an adult, they no longer had any control.  He has a good chance of ending up just like his birth father, despite being raised by excellent role models who did everything they could for him.
The daughter is 19 and doing great and was relieved when her brother moved out of the house as she was afraid of him.

So, since you didn't qualify your statement with any disclaimers regarding inherited mental disabilities, I thought I would tell this story.

Brigid

[Portia]

Hi Brigid, thanks for your post. Interesting example and one that makes my brain fuddle….why did he grow up like that? There must be reasons…

I don’t know about inherited mental disabilities – I mean, don’t our professionals still argue about whether or not schizophrenia is innate or acquired? Our understanding of mental ‘disabilities’ – autism, dyslexia and so on – is increasing all the time. I take disability to mean brains that do not function in the way that most of us (here, culturally where we are etc) expect them to function  ie. abnormal for want of a better word.

Perhaps the son has a disability of some sort that has not been diagnosed, or has not been discovered yet? (but that doesn’t mean it’s caused by a gene does it?)

It is very interesting: how old were they when adopted? What happens to us when we are very small – or even in the womb - can have a huge impact. Were they adopted from different families?

I sense you making the connection between the son’s behaviour and the father’s behaviour, but does that mean it is inherited? (I kind of have too much hope to believe that, but am waiting to be shocked all the time by new evidence…..which makes me wonder…if we got the evidence, "yes, some people are born evil" what would we do with it….)..