Author Topic: Having Trouble - Imagining Abuse in Most Families  (Read 2271 times)

penelope

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Having Trouble - Imagining Abuse in Most Families
« on: September 30, 2006, 07:07:06 PM »
hi guys,

It is my nature to be honest..and I hope no one with non-abusive parents takes this wrong, as this is about me not you k?

Since learning about N I'm having a difficult time imagining ANY non-abusive families really exist.  I mean, lots of people around me claim their families were great, but I can see (or imagine) problems.  It's like I'm having trouble admitting that what people say, might be their reality, and that things were OK.

Is this 'Normal'?  I mean of course, normal for us - the folks here with N parent(s) - to think this?  :wink:
If so, and you can relate to this denial of denial (which is what I feel people are in), how long did it take you to come out it?  In other words, I think this is just another step on the way for me, as I've come out of denial about my own family, I'm just wondering about all families now.  I think I'll need proof that non-abusive families really exist to believe it, in other words?

help,
bean

mudpuppy

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Re: Having Trouble - Imagining Abuse in Most Families
« Reply #1 on: September 30, 2006, 07:18:16 PM »
I think people tend to extrapolate their own experience, whatever it is, to the entire human race.

mud

reallyME

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Re: Having Trouble - Imagining Abuse in Most Families
« Reply #2 on: September 30, 2006, 07:30:26 PM »
Hi Penelope...been a while since I posted

this caught my eye in passing thru.

I believe your feelings are extremely NORMAL...because of what you've endured, it is hard not to be suspicious about other situations and families.  I do not find your viewpoint strange at all...it is very normal and understandable.

How to deal with it?  Through time, you may come to really get to know some people's families and see that there are not unhealthy responses or reactions coming from them...maybe then you will be able to believe that every family was not filled with abuse, neglect or spoiling of a child.  Maybe not...but either way, the truth is still in the telling and in whatever has been shown to be true through experience and observation of each family.

Hope that helps.

~Laura

moonlight52

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Re: Having Trouble - Imagining Abuse in Most Families
« Reply #3 on: September 30, 2006, 07:39:59 PM »
HI Pb ,

My hubby had a very "normal" childhood.
He grew up in a big house with his grandma ,his wonderful mom (I LOVE VERY MUCH)
2 Auntie's that were school teachers and 3 sisters and a dad that was surrounded as my hubby was with females.It was great for both of them .
Lot's OF LOVE AND THEY DID NOT GET AWAY WITH ANYTHING AND LEARNED TO HAVE MUCH RESPECT FOR FEMALE GENTLENESS.

That's what he has told me and I see no dysfuntion between siblings and they love there parents much.
I do think my hubby had some teenage trouble with his dad but really in the normal range.

MoonLight
ps he was a lucky ducky in childhood  :D


Certain Hope

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Re: Having Trouble - Imagining Abuse in Most Families
« Reply #4 on: September 30, 2006, 09:33:24 PM »
Hi, Pb,

  I think it gets pretty tricky even trying to define "normal" vs "abusive"....  alot of it may be in the eye of the beholder, so to speak.

Hope

moonlight52

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Re: Having Trouble - Imagining Abuse in Most Families
« Reply #5 on: October 01, 2006, 05:57:50 AM »
Hi All ,   

My measuring stick is physical and verbal abuse .

My hubby was encouraged and experienced no physical abuse seems like heaven to me .

And I am glad he had this kind of childhood .His moods are stable and he has compassion for what we have been thu together.

Not easy for either one of us.His childhood compared to  mine was what I would call normal he had a voice.

Much Love, :D :D :D

moon

It is all perception and eye of the beholder .But to me no physical abuse and he was not demeaned  and could speak up and was encouraged to do so.WOW  8)

penelope

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Re: Having Trouble - Imagining Abuse in Most Families
« Reply #6 on: October 01, 2006, 05:51:13 PM »
thanks moon and laura.. I know this, sometimes.  Other times, I cannot imagine there are normal families out there.

mud - you might be right  8)

hope, I guess that's how it is for my b/f.  I can see some abuse in his family, but he doesn't see it that way.  I guess I'll let him believe that then.   :?

thanks guys, this really helps.  I had a really rough night last night.  Minor setback.  It happens when I'm thrown into new experiences, I think.  I had to travel for work, and I think being away from home was sort of upsetting for me.  Also, when I got back, my b/f seemed to be in a really crappy mood, and I needed him to be kind and loving, but couldn't express it.  We've been in disagreement about his brother (who was just diagnosed with prostate cancer at 50) for awhile...and I still think he's been untreated fairly in the family, and that may have something to do with him only telling me about the cancer???  but I guess maybe I should just ask him:  hey, is there a reason you only told me about this, that you'd want to share..of course..

Laura, I'm glad you checked in cause I was wondering how you were doing.  Are things improving with hubby, about the same, or how is that going, if you want to talk about it. 

hugs,
bean
« Last Edit: October 01, 2006, 05:54:30 PM by penelope »

Certain Hope

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Re: Having Trouble - Imagining Abuse in Most Families
« Reply #7 on: October 01, 2006, 06:51:17 PM »
Hi again, Pb...

 Been thinking on this question alot and I realize... I never thought of my parents as abusive in any way. To me, it was just the way they always were and I accepted that. Then again, I never suffered any blatant physical or sexual abuse, which is an entirely different story, I think.  Seems like alot depends on what people are accustomed to and how sensitive they are... remember Teartrack's post re: highly sensitive people? Some folks just seem to be able to take alot more in stride; just like there are different levels of tolerance to physical pain, I s'pose the same is true re: emotional suffering.

  Once we really get to examining people close up, intensively, I think it'd be impossible to find anyone with an entirely clean slate where it comes to health in relationships. Makes sense to me that for those of us who have delved into the depths of human misbehavior, we'd be far more tuned in to any nuance of it around us. For myself, I don't want to be quite that sensitive and I'd like to look at it as a stage I can go through as I uncover and heal and then develop a bit thicker skin so that I don't go around hearing abuse bells and whistles constantly. Also, re: your b/f... I think that in general, men are much less attuned to the more subtle nuances of emotional activity, so they just plain don't see alot of what goes on just beneath the surface.

One thing I know for sure is that we can't put other folks into our shoes and try to tell them why they ought to feel bad about their familes... cuz if they don't have a problem with it, I'd rather get to where they are then try to bring them into my way of seeing things.

Hope

gratitude28

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Re: Having Trouble - Imagining Abuse in Most Families
« Reply #8 on: October 02, 2006, 12:14:41 AM »
Hi pbean,
I feel the same way. My husband's family was definitely "disfunctional," and is,but they do love each other... Still it was far from "normal." I can think of very few people who have what I would call a normal family... I know I have created a "normal" family!!!! Well, except for the fact that we have an odd sense of humor and like weird foods... :)
Love, Beth
"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable." Douglas Adams

teartracks

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Re: Having Trouble - Imagining Abuse in Most Families
« Reply #9 on: October 02, 2006, 01:37:15 AM »


Beth,

Your family with its wierd humor and odd foods sound like heaven to me.  I know a day like yours and your kids would be absolute heaven to me.

I feel so utterly static.  I eat healthy, but a meal I never have.  It's usually small bowls full of the odd things I eat.  But I don't have any little ones pinging off the walls or tipping the tables in the restaurants or wanting me to push them on the swing.   Ww used to make one of those super big bubble sticks that would make bubbles the kids could walk into them.  Of course they would burst, but oh the colors and the fun.  Enjoy normal wherever you can find it.  Sounds like you guys are pretty regular folk...the salt of the earth. 

kindest, bestest hugs to you and the kiids and special hellos to hubby whose mission makes me feel safer!

teartracks

October

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Re: Having Trouble - Imagining Abuse in Most Families
« Reply #10 on: October 02, 2006, 05:56:16 AM »
hi guys,

It is my nature to be honest..and I hope no one with non-abusive parents takes this wrong, as this is about me not you k?

Since learning about N I'm having a difficult time imagining ANY non-abusive families really exist.  I mean, lots of people around me claim their families were great, but I can see (or imagine) problems.  It's like I'm having trouble admitting that what people say, might be their reality, and that things were OK.

Like many other people here I grew up believing that my home environment was normal, and that it was pretty much the same for everyone else as it was for me and my two brothers. 

In 1997 I had my first meeting with my first counsellor, and he exploded this myth for me, by asking, did I really think that what I was describing to him was actually normal.  It did not take long to realise that, actually, it was barking mad.  I would sooner cut of my right hand than do to my daughter what my parents did to me and my brothers.

Since that time it has been a very slow, very difficult journey of learning about what my family is, and how deep the abuses go.  It is like investigating a family tree - the further back you go the more you find, and you never reach the beginning.  Because of this, I have learned not to blame anyone, because nobody actually chose to start this, or to become abusive.  But I have also learned, and this is the hardest of all, to make a stand and not allow anything to continue if I have the power to stop it.

In relation to other families, it would be easy now to assume, as you say, that every family is abusive.  But I do not think this is true.  There are no perfect families out there, and God knows, my own small family of self and daughter is far from perfect.  But the difference between abusive families and those without abuse is, I think, not perfection but respect.  My d knows that even though I get ratty, and shout, and nag, and complain, at heart I respect her, and her opinion.  Once I stop the nagging, I will listen to what she says, and I will very often act on it, and allow her view to prevail.  Not because she is necessarily right, but because her voice is important, and sometimes it is right for me to act as she wishes, in order to demonstrate that.

So if we are looking for the perfect non-abusive family, then no, there are none.  None where everyone is perfectly respectful, perfectly loving, and perfectly harmonious at all times.  But if we are looking for families without secrets, without lies, without blind abuse of one another, then yes, there are some.  And it is people such as you and I who will build them, bit by bit.   :)  This is now our new normal.

penelope

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Re: Having Trouble - Imagining Abuse in Most Families
« Reply #11 on: October 02, 2006, 10:09:37 AM »
thank you October,

that was wonderful to read.  I feel as if you've given me a gift this morning.   :)

And there's a little soft glow in my heart now, cause you understand.  thank you.

I guess there are some hurts and misgivings in every family, but at the end of the day, if there is respect for one another, than there is love.  I see what you're saying.

hugs,
p bean

October

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Re: Having Trouble - Imagining Abuse in Most Families
« Reply #12 on: October 03, 2006, 10:22:54 AM »
thank you October,

that was wonderful to read.  I feel as if you've given me a gift this morning.   :)

And there's a little soft glow in my heart now, cause you understand.  thank you.

I guess there are some hurts and misgivings in every family, but at the end of the day, if there is respect for one another, than there is love.  I see what you're saying.

hugs,
p bean

 :lol:  If you were an abuser, with denial switched on, you could easily have read my post and not understood a single word of it.  You would most likely have thought, what is she on about, there may be the odd person here or there who mistreats their children, but the vast majority of people are not abusive, and I certainly am not.

The interesting thing about having been enmeshed with such people for so long, is that now I have escaped, it is possible to 'see' their world view, while they haven't got a clue what mine is, because it is in a whole other language.  One of, as you recognised, respect and mutuality. 

 :D


Portia

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Re: Having Trouble - Imagining Abuse in Most Families
« Reply #13 on: October 04, 2006, 06:55:15 AM »
Hi Bean

Just random-thread-reading here. Wondered if you asked the theoretical question up front and then got to what’s bothering you most? and why not get straight to the point...doubting the validity of your feelings/thoughts? Don't!  :D The most interesting part for me is:

I can see some abuse in his family, but he doesn't see it that way.  I guess I'll let him believe that then.   

Umm. Yes. You have to “let” him believe that because you can’t do anything else, like force him to see it your way? All those folks that say “my childhood was very happy” with a kind of strangled pride, watch out for them! Those that say, “it wasn’t perfect but we were loved and happy” are probably being honest. I think.

my b/f seemed to be in a really crappy mood, and I needed him to be kind and loving, but couldn't express it. 
Possible tough idea coming up: Maybe he needed you to be kind and loving but he couldn’t express that and the only way he can express such things is by being crappy? I guess he was in a crappy mood coz you’d 'left him alone' and he was ‘punishing’ you for doing that? Or has that just happened to me? :?

We've been in disagreement about his brother (who was just diagnosed with prostate cancer at 50) for awhile...and I still think he's been untreated fairly in the family,

You think his brother is being treated unfairly and your b/f doesn’t think that?

and that may have something to do with him only telling me about the cancer??? 
His brother told only you and b/f feels he should have known first? (Sorry I haven’t kept up to date).

but I guess maybe I should just ask him:  hey, is there a reason you only told me about this, that you'd want to share..of course..

Go ahead! Do it! If you want to. Nobody will die from you asking a question. Go for it. Keep asking questions. Find out the truth, that is, the truth according to whoever is telling you. More facts/opinions = greater grasp on 'reality' 8)

(((((((((((((((bean)))))))))))))))