A few years ago there was a case in Nevada involving a boy and girl who were badly abused and kept locked in a bathroom for five years. Their three siblings apparently had fairly normal lives. The grandmother was the mastermind of the abuse, but the children’s mother and stepfather went along and did nothing to protect them. There didn’t seem to be any reason why these two children had been chosen for abuse, other than that the boy had a speech impediment. The grandmother claimed the girl had an eating disorder, but her only problems with food seem to have developed after she was locked in the bathroom and starved for days on end.
What stuck in my mind was that the girl, after being rescued, said she hoped she’d be able to see a Harry Potter movie for the first time – she and her brother remembered listening through the door to the rest of their family watching the movies on the TV in the bedroom.
Had all the children been badly abused the story would have been more horrifying but perhaps less shocking. This family was capable of treating some of their children decently, but not others. I remember at the time trying to think of how the grandmother managed to justify this to herself. The two abused children were neither the oldest nor the youngest in the family (the girl was the second oldest, and the boy the second youngest), IIRC they did not have the same father, and each had at least one full sibling with the same father who was not abused. So it doesn’t seem to have been a case where hatred of the father was being taken out on the children, or that the children were born before/after the family wanted kids. The grandmother may have convinced herself that these two children were “bad” and deserved the abuse she subjected them to, but there doesn’t seem to have been anything approaching a coherent reason for it.
It really doesn’t surprise me that this happens. There have always been families in which one child is clearly favored–or not. It makes sense that this would extend to the extreme of abuse. No matter which way you slice it, though, it’s very tragic. On top of the general pain of abuse, it no doubt adds another level when a child is the only one singled out – it seems like being singled out would only further validate the child’s mistaken belief that there was something bad or wrong about them and they deserved it. I imagine it would be very hard to liberate yourself from a background like that.
Although not being allowed to watch a movie is far from the worst thing that happened to the children in this case, I think this is why it really got to me. The two kids could hear their whole family just a few feet away doing normal fun things. They knew their siblings got to eat regular meals, go to school, play outside, and watch movies. They knew the adults in their family were capable of treating other children decently, just not them.
Word to what olives said. I have someone really close to me who is the product of an abusive childhood-he bears scars but is amazingly non-angry about it. Those scars are buried deep and come out in a rather different way than the usual messedup-product-of-abusive-home scenario (the opposite, he is actually extremely successful which allows him to hide his issues). But some of his memories of the abuse are really fragmented. The physical and verbal abuse also are hazy though he remembers that the sibling was subjected to more physical abuse and he was singled out for more verbal bashing. I don’t doubt that any of it happened, though and sometimes I think he has deliberately made the situation hazy for himself to be able to focus on things like studying etc… He has no interest in reconstructing the past but I will say that if he were to attempt it I’m sure other members of the family could pick on a specific “fact” and claim it happened differently.
I’ll also say this-he is still in “amiable” contact with the parent who inflicted it on him (he feels responsible for taking care of his parents because the other sibling who was subjected to much worse physical abuse cut off contact). It is AMAZING how his parents, both the abusive and absent one, have whitewashed what happened back then and flatout deny or make excuses for the specific vivid instances he is willing to remember. Down to the point where they tell him it wasn’t that bad-which is probably the only thing that upsets him as I think the only way he could forgive them 100% would be to receive an acknowledgement of what happened.
I am kind of flabbergasted that they look back on that and say “no, it never happened” especially since they have the evidence of one sibling so angry about it that s/he refuses to talk to them. In this case there was/is a serious mental illness involved, which I think allows him some amount of forgiveness. But the incomprehensible whitewashing is what happened keeps him from doling out that forgiveness 100%.
Another great example-Augusten Burroughs mother seems to act like she didn’t subject HIM to the worst childhood ever. And the Glass Castle woman-what about her parents? People who are seriously mentally ill and selfish assholes don’t really have the introspection and self-awereness to figure out how they are ruining other people’s lives. Everything is filtered through their crazy.
This is incredibly true in my experience. My Mother does not possess the psychological resilience necessary to truly comprehend the impact of her actions on my life. It’s almost like, in her mind, the only real person in the universe is her. When she’s outraged or hurt about damage to others, it’s because it concerns her – ''How dare they do that to my brother? How dare they say that to my father? She even once screamed at my stepfather, ‘‘I’m sure you really DID abuse my daughter– just to hurt ME!’’ I will never forget the day I realized this about her. I was in the hospital for depression. When I called and told her, the first words out of her mouth were, ‘‘Why? What did I do?’’ Then she came and sat down with the doctor and proceeded to unload on him about how difficult all this really was for her. I won’t forget the sad way the doctor looked at me. His expression seemed to say, Well that’s one mystery solved.
My GF’s mother has hated her from day 1. She wanted a boy, had a girl, didn’t like that apparently. She apparently belittled her and lashed at her for most of her childhood+teenage years, along the lines of “you’re not perfect, Mommy is. Why can’t you be perfect like Mommy ?”. It’s grown to insane levels of estrangement : she won’t talk to her. She won’t say a word to her kid, she won’t even be in the same room with her. She won’t allow her to ever enter her brother’s home (which the parents own). Her little sister is in a similar boat, although her spirit got crushed early on and she just hangs her head when Mommy’s being an evil bitch from Hell… Heartbreaking, really, and it’s no wonder they’re both more than a little bit messed-up.
Another girl friend of mine has parents issues : her mother loves her big sister but dislikes her, and her daddy resents her for being fucked up (he left them around the time she was born, then came back when she was 15-16. It’s all her fault she’s anorexic, lacks self-assurance and has daddy issues of course :rolleyes:). Last I heard of him, he was trying to “forgive her” and learn to like her. Well golly-gee, that’s noble of you, fucko.
Isn’t this illegal? At least without some kind of court proceeding? I thought that was the whole point of the teenage “drop-offs” mentioned earlier: legality.
My “adopted” sister’s hubby was told by his father at his mother’s funeral that he never liked him and that his other two sons are more important to him.
I wasn’t aware that I was making an ‘Argument.’ As far as I’m concerned we’re all sharing less than comfortable experiences in the hope that they will help others who are dealing with or have dealt with the same sort of upset.
Oh, yeah, the whole “forgiveness” deal. I had a friend in college whose family was going to therapy after his youngest sister was raped. He quoted his mom one day while we were talking: “The therapist told me I needed to start forgiving. Yeah, I forgive myself for having raised ungrateful bastards like you two.” (meaning my friend and his other sister) :mad::mad::mad:
I really don’t know, to be honest. All I know is that she moved in accross the street with the librarian from her school because her mom, stepdad and new half-sibling didn’t have room for her.
I seem to recall that the librarian was getting child support from the mother, so I assume that something was worked out.
It might not have been legal, but illegal stuff like that happens a lot. When I was 17 I left home, I ended up crashing with my grandparents for a few weeks and eventually I moved in with my young and single aunt. At first my parents were paying her money to take care of me but after about a month of this, my Mom had a temper tantrum and took my driver’s license away so I couldn’t finish high school. She came right into the school counselor’s office and cut up my license in front of both of us, saying, ‘‘I don’t care if you ever graduate.’’ So, I legally emancipated in order to get my license back. In my state, one of the criteria for legal emancipation against the consent of the parents is that they aren’t financially supporting you. At the time I emancipated, they weren’t… however, my Mother also said in court that she neither approved nor disapproved, so who can say how the judge made her decision?
I’m just saying, things like this happen often enough that the law recognizes it as a good reason to emancipate.
My Mum was the eldest of seven and received quite unequal treatment at the hands of her father.
While they received money to go ahead and study at university, a loan of money for cars, houses, etc, Mum was told (over a bag of chips) that she should get a job in an office, secretary or the like.
Fast forward a few years, Mum is the only daughter to have met a pretty decent fellow to marry, settle down and have some pretty decent (IMHO) kids with. Her sisters manage to find a selection of fuck ups to marry and divorce, Mum met the favourite son in law.
No rationale has ever been given for his behaviour, none at all. I find it unfathomably stupid.
This thread confuses and saddens me. I didn’t have the best parents in the world, but I was never abused or neglected (as far as I know). I just can’t wrap my head around the idea that not only parents can and do outright despise their own children, but go so far as to blatantly heap love upon some children while damn near torturing others.
Growing up in a situation like that must have some devastating psychological effects that I can’t even begin to fathom. My heart goes out to all in this thread who have survived this sort of undeserved hostility and grew up to be good and productive people. Would some of you please go into a little more detail on what the lasting psychological effects were and how you coped and overcame?
I saw a documentary last night on Diane Downs that was positively chilling. SHe shot her 3 children because they were a drag on her social life and blamed it on a carjacker. The truly disturbing part was that one of her daughters survived the attemped murder and was in the hospital on life support drifting in and out of consciousness. When her “mother” came to visit her, the docs and nurses became alarmed that the child seemed terrified of her mother (elevated respiration, heart rate, look of fear in her eyes, etc) and when Diane saw this reaction, she asked the doctor to pull the plug since “Christie is brain dead”.