My husband is a child behavioral psychologist, and while he rarely sees egregious emotional abuse (he works primarily with OCD, Tourette’s, and a little bit oppositional defiant disorder and ADHD), he finds that getting parents to acknowledge their role in their child’s behavioral problems is the hardest part of his job. They think they are going to plop their kid down in front of him and he is going to do magic psychology shit and they don’t want to hear that they have to change their own behavior in order to help their child. It’s frustrating even on that level.
Weren’t you told that might be one of the root causes of your epilepsy-style medical problems (I don’t remember the exact diagnosis)?
Yes, by my neurologist who recently passed. In all fairness, I also hit myself in the head when I was a child, and the actual cause of my epilepsy can’t be known. It’s just a hell I’m glad is over with. After I wrote about my Mom in this thread, I thought, “Right. So that’s why I don’t need to feel guilty for ending our relationship.” It’s easy to forget how things were sometimes.
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Can I vote that everyone in this thread needs a hug?
I’ll take it, thanks. Right back at ya.
Hugs are nice but I want to buy all y’all lots of booze.
Both of my children are South Korean adoptees. ManCub™ is 27, FemBot™ is almost 26. Both had the classic Mongolian Blue spots at the base of the spine. Hers was MUCH darker than his. He arrived first by about 16 months. Prior to his arrival ( about 3 months ), we were given printed documentation regarding this condition and were instructed to meet with our Pediatrician prior to the arrival day. If we didn’t have a Pediatrician yet because this was our first child, we were told to find one and have the meeting.
This would avoid the horrific situation of having your new child placed into your arms and 24 hours later being arrested for beating him. No clue what other states required, but in 1990 New York State required that a newly arrived adoptee be seen by a Pediatarician NO more than 24 hours after arrival in the United States.
Fortunately, in both cases, the Pediatricians had seen plenty of Southeast Asian babies and were well-versed in the Mongolian spots. They were both glad to see that the Agency had provided thorough documentation.
Jeez. Adoption is stressful enough without adding the fear you’ll be branded an abuser.
Yep, I had a therapist who had worked with abusive fathers in prisons, some who had killed their kids, and he said the basic difference is that most of them were just “unlucky” in that when they threw the kid against the wall, the child impacted the wrong way and died. Many more parents, including my father, happened to not kill any of us, but just because of luck.
For people whose greatest fear at night as a child was getting too cold rather than not waking up, it’s hard to understand the lasting impact growing up with such a legitimate fear.
And the impact of emotional abuse.
My cousin worked for a while as an investigator and said that looking back, my family was as bad as it gets. They just didn’t have a strong CPS back in the 60s.
That was no doubt our case, although my father was never offically diagnosed.
Yeah, we did family counseling until it became apparent that the problem wasn’t the kids. . .