Baldwin calls daughter a "thoughtless little pig"

[GAP]

Hello to all,

I haven't been posting lately but the Alec Baldwin rant really rattled me on so many levels.  My children suffered far worse verbal abuse from their father but I didn't stop it.  I'm out of the situation but they still get his rants and rages.  They are all over 16 so they can walk away when they don't like how he is behaving but they suffered thru a childhood of walking on eggshells.   It is scary to me that at some of the websites that allow posting about the story people defend Alec's behavior.  "The daughter ticked him off, the mother turned the child against the father, we all have the right to vent our anger ."  There is an entire sick population out there that sees nothing wrong with calling names and being verbally abusive.  Alec's apology wasn't about what he said and how he was sorry he lost control but rather it was that he was sorry the general public heard his rant.  I remember my husband berated me about something ridiculous then realized my friend was there and had heard his abuse.  He apologized for abusing me within earshot of someone else not for the abuse.  I remember being so hurt that he didn't care if he had been abusive but rather that someone had heard it.  It really made the abuse feel intentional vs. rash behavior that you can't control

I asked my oldest if he had heard the tape.  He said his friends were shocked but he had been on the end of much worse tirades.  I apologized for not protecting him better as a child.  The tape also brought back my childhood and my mother's horrible rants on what a useless child I was.  I hope this incident gives more mothers and fathers the courage to take action against their abusive spouses.  I think it would have had a profound, eyeopening experience for me if it had happened 15 years ago.  It would have made it clear that verbal abuse is grounds for zero visitation.

[Gaining Strength]

Gap - I relate to your post.  It is appalling that so many defend him but I am thankful that this has been exposed as abuse.  I suspect there are many, many of us who related to receiving the abuse as your son did, as you did.  You write:

The tape also brought back my childhood and my mother's horrible rants on what a useless child I was.

and I completely relate to this.  My father didn't use language like Baldwin but more like your mother but I did live in a fear of him - not of bodily injury but of complete control and domination and yet I loved him and longed to please him - classic behavior of abused.  Without realizing it I took in completely the message of useless and worthlessness and became powerless.  I suspect that you felt powerless to protect your children but that powerlessness was deeply buried in your subconscious.  Is that possible? - Gaining Strength

PS - since this tape was released I have been having dreams set in childhood where I am powerless and reacting in rage resulting in isloation and rejection.  So much has been stirred up.

[Hops guest]

hi GS, hon.

I just had an odd thought: do you think it's possible that you explore your past wounds so deeply, and linger in them until you've excavated and relived every trace of pain...because in a healthy, defiant way, you discovered something that you're GOOD at, which is suffering? (The followup question would be, do you think you explore your pain because that's your life skill? If that feels true, I think you have other unexcavated skills, so many...)

It was not done in your family. To peel back the surface and dive in. And in your bravery, you've broken out of that limitation.

I also wonder, whether the suffering has become your identity. Does it feel that way?

You aren't a walking wound to me. You're an intelligent, interesting woman, insightful and warm, who loves her son, is frustrated about stuck things that won't move until you move them, and who deals with it all with a lot of consciousness and courage.

Hugs
Hops

[Gaining Strength]

No hops - I explore them in an attempt to get at the thing that has caused me to be stuck.  I have not been able to will myself unstuck.  The Baldwin thing has shone a light on it for me that helps me understand how paralyzing the humiliation was and I experienced it over and over and over.

I go back to it to try to get free.

[isittoolate]

Hi GS,

Remember good old Socrates? "An unexamined liffe is a wasted life" and "There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance."

I have gone gack over my life time and time again in order to come to some answer to what has gnawed at me for almost 68 years. I am different from my sibs. After all my therapy, I realized I depended on the therpaist to dig out the answer, but it was a job I should have been doing myself.

Now I know how disconnected I am from self, how unfeeling from hiding, but I have retraced those steps so many times to get to the bottom of it!

So many times we hear "Stop living in the past". I have always referred to my past as a guidepost, but until I understood it, it didn't help me at all.

Can you see our parents in therapy?

Later
and
Love
Izzy

[GS]

CB I'm sorry you are concerned.  I understand.  The insane thing about the article you site is that it has absolutely nothing to do with the Baldwin situation.  It is about bashing divorced men.

The title is: Alec Baldwin: Monster or Alienated Parent?

but the point of the article is completely expressed in the last paragraph:

The media automatically cast divorced parents in the roles of villainous father and heroic mother. Many mothers are heroic, but so are many fathers. But a divorced mother as the villain? Heaven forbid!

[GAP]

CB,

I'm sure my husband is totally sympathizing with poor old Alec, he rips into the kids whenever he feels they disrespect him (look at him the wrong way, accept a second soft drink at dinner without checking if it is free refills, won't do what he wants when he wants, don't run over to see him when they arrive in town).  The problem is when people hear news stories they see it from their own point of view.  Sure, we all yelled at our kids, maybe even said something we didn't mean.  If you don't understand narcissim and all the classic signs this situation exhibits you could feel bad for the alienated Dad who is fed up with the controlling and crazy Mom.  If you've lived with a narcissist that tape was all to familiar.  Dad feels disrespected therefore rage.  His message is about how he feels, you've humiliated me for the last time, you won't treat me like this again.  His apoligy was not to his daughter for the hurtful things he said and his anger management but that he was sorry it had been released because having the tape go public could hurt his daughter, his message didn't hurt his daughter it was the release of the tape that hurt his daughter, he is a gem.

Although the tape has dredged up bad memories it has also reminded me I choose not to be part of abusive relationships anymore and although my kids are still dealing with their dad they are in a much better place in that they when they are with me it is peaceful, loving, supportive and fun.

GAP

[Margo]

I'm real hesitant to point fingers at either parent as the N apparent, in this scenario

I'm not, Margo. 

I would agree with you if he had called his wife a pig--I probably wouldnt have even bothered to read the story because I don't give a flip about celebrity name-calling.

But he called his daughter a pig.  There isnt any amount of crazy-making that my NH could do that would drive me to call my child a pig.  My NH used the excuse that I "drove" him to bad behavior.  Nonsense.  We are all responsible for our own actions.

Amy Carmichael said once that if a glass is full of pure water, jiggling it will cause pure water to spill.  If it is full of poison, then jiggling it will cause posion to spill.  Or as someone else famous once said: man speaks out of the overflow of his heart. 

Baldwin not only verbally abused his daughter, he threatened her with more of the same (or worse?) when he saw her next.  Sorry, no excuses.  No mercy.

CB

I'm not excusing him.... I think I'm reacting from the fluff and stuff in the news when Kim and Alec were both terrors during their courtship and subsequent marriage and break up.  They were, neither of them, nice people in those reports. 

If my husband took my girls and consistently turned them against me.... consistently made it impossible for me to have scheduled phone contact when I was really looking forward to it....... I'd lose my sanity a bit, for sure.  Not saying I'd verbalize it to my child but..... I'm not Alec and I don't know where he's been, KWIM?  He may be an N.... he may be a victim responding to an N, mixing his dd up with Kim in his craziness.  I don't know and I'm very sad for the child.  If Kim is an N or something similar.... then I'm doubly heartbroken for the child.  I think it's very common for parents to rip their children apart in a divorce.... mother's included.  That custody dispute always smacked of both parents conducting themselves poorly.  Margo

[Margo]

I'm real surprised to see Alec all over the place giving interviews and chatting up his relationship with dd.  How horrified she must be!  Is he trying to save his career and public image..... or his relationship with his dd?  Margo

[towrite]

Boy, abusive Ns really hate the revealing daylight, don't they???

towrite

[Gaining Strength]

At the risk of being confrontational I want to address your post at reply#37 Hops.

you discovered something that you're GOOD at, which is suffering? (The followup question would be, do you think you explore your pain because that's your life skill? I also wonder, whether the suffering has become your identity. Does it feel that way?

It took several days for me to realize that my reaction to your words was shame.  I do think that it says something about you rather than me but it was quite jarring and silencing to read a post that repeatedly (3 times) identified me with suffering.  There could really be no good intended by these jabs.  The words are quite demeaning and for one who has suffered shame from my very inception they tend to reinforce that sense of being flawed to the core. 

Why on a board about voicelessness would you accost anyone for expressing their own deep pain?  That seems so odd. 

[Hops guest]

GS, I am so very sorry.
Looking at the phrases in bold feels like an insensitive slap to me too.
Good god.

I had an observation, but that was so blunt and clumsy. You are right it's about me, and it was largely projection. Damn. Please forgive me if you can.

I have strong memories of times when I identified so very strongly with my overwhelming emotional pain that in a sense my pain WAS my identity. And at that time, it almost felt like a skill. I was GOOD at facing and enduring and describing intense and persistent psychic pain. I think it's one reason I became a poet, because that was the first experience in my life where I felt full acceptance of myself, and all I had to express. Not the pretty stuff, but the real.

For me to have such an unaccepting reaction to yours, is a true failure. I'm very sorry. Thank you for telling me, for helping me see.

with love,
Hops

[Gaining Strength]

Please forgive me if you can.

Absolutely - what a remarkable response - so full of kindness and validation.  A reflection of your incredible goodness and inner strength.  Not many people in this world would have responded the way you did.  Thank you. - Gaining Strength

[isittoolate]

well

It can work both ways

I can see that MY identity has been  my all time dysfunction and I have been covering it up, yet I'm still one person.

What does this mean about ME?????????????????????

Thank you both

Izzy

EDIT:  I think????

[Gaining Strength]

EDIT:  I think????

That's too deep for me to figure out Izzy.  I think! - Gaining Strength