None of my relatives know about the boards. If they did know, they wouldn’t know who I was. And I am certainly not having kids, because I am scared that I will wind up being like my mom. And I share on these boards willingly. Mainly because I don’t know any of you, and most likely will never meet most of you.
hypergirl: I feel so much for you, because it echoes so much what I went through at the same age. I was an honor role student, accomplished in both artistic and scientific school endeavors, and appeared to be pretty smart and headed to great good things. My secret was that I was steadily denigrated and abused by my Mom. I don’t really want to go on about it, but I sympathize with you. All these many years later, I still deal with the verbal abuse inflicted then, and, unfortunately, since.
I left home at 17, and was pretty much on my own after that. It took awhile to see above the milieu I’d been raised in, but had the fortuosity of good friends and teachers who saw me through a rather rough adolescence. Cutting wasn’t a response to stress back then; bulimia was the adaptive mode de riguer. I see the similarities, though. It’s a coping mechanism borne of despair.
The things I would like to tell you in hindsight of my own experience: Speak up for yourself. Speak up to your mother, and let her know how much she is hurting you, no matter how much she terrifies you. If necessary, have a good friend or relative present. Your mom needs to know that this is not appropriate behavior, for her mental health as well as yours. If that doesn’t work, seek out a counselor, and talk about it. Believe me, it’s better to seek understanding as soon as you can, and not let it hang over you.
If, after trying your best to talk to her and find an understanding, it still seems impassable, realize that you are a separate person with all the possibilites of life in front of you. Your saying that you don’t want to have children because you don’t want to be like your Mom really hits the same chord with me. I felt that way for so long, and finally talked about it to family(well, not Mom). They were aghast. “You are nothing like your mother, and would be a great parent!” I suppose the lesson in this is to realize your own strength, make your own life, and don’t let your Mom’s shortcomings overshadow that. Do keep aware that she’s trying her best, and if that is clouded by her own insecurity, it ain’t your fault.
I hope this helps you a bit. {{{{hypergirl}}}
Dropzone, get a fucking clue. It’s your type of attitude that makes kids hate their parents and resort to such shit as cutting themselves. If not for such horrible parenting, people like hyper wouldn’t need razors.
{{{{{ hyper }}}}} I deeply sympathize with you. Your situation must be difficult, but I implore you to stick it out no matter what. Like I always say, it won’t happen much longer. You’ll soon be rid of her and can do as you please.
Wow, I went from sympathy to anger to a fit of rage and back to sympathy during this one thread.
Ok, for starters, let me say this again: I don’t cut, I have never cut, and I think I’m one of the few people in my close inner circle of friends that doesn’t cut at all.
As for the joke about being around small children, I can handle being around some, just I’m not willing to live with them again.
y’all make it sound like cutters and SI-ers are such bad people. We aren’t that hellspawnish. We just have a different way to dealing with our emotions. I actually have done anything “bad” for 21 days. But still, if you stop cutting, for example, then you’ll find another action to substitute for that coping mechanism, i.e. not eating, eating very little.
Ok, I’ll shut up now.
We already have a thread for this aspect of the discussion. You can find it [ssskuggiii, I wasn’t under the impression that you were cutting. Sorry for phrasing that in a way that implied you were. The joke was actually in reference to url=“http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=52880” I’m not a babysitter! thread.
Oops… forgot the ]
You can find it here.
Well, not a biological parent, if that makes you feel any better. Plus, refer to Digital Muse’s post, a little ways above this one.
Medea’s Child said exactly what I wanted to say much more elequoently and with 100% less insults and swearing. Guess I should have shut up and let you come along first, huh Medea? 
I apologize again, I have recently begun enjoying the wonders of PMS.
I’ll go away now…
Tasha, I’m sorry that you are always guilty by association. Just don’t let any stupid things that we do affect you too much.
Lauren, it’s not that people think cutters are evil, it’s just that a lot of them don’t get it. They are better off too. I didn’t see the appeal for a while, and sometimes I wish that I never found out.
As for everyone else, I know that your lives are/were probably worse than mine. I know that my problems are completely inconsequential and really mean nothing, so I feel horrible for complaining about it.
Okay, so I lied about the last part.
Hyper, pretty please don’t think that? It’s not true. Just because people’s problems are diffrent doesn’t mean they are any more important. You have every right to feel violated and complain. In fact, I say do it often, its theraputic. 
Complaining, that is. Feeling violated=not good. Bitching and moaning about feeling violated=good
Though reading through a journal was rude by hypergirl’s mom, I’m sure she did it out of concern.
I will not deny that I’m mentally ill, and I think anyone else who cuts is mentally ill also. No, hypergirl, I’m not calling you a loony, but maybe you need help. As much as I hate to admit it, I do need help, and I’m currently getting it.
My mom and I trust each other, because I tell her almost everything anyway. However, she has snooped a few times, but she only finds things by accident, and I believe her, because it’s true; one time she found the lyrics to some music I listened to and was angry at the obscene words. She showed it to me when I got home, but let me keep the cd since she did buy it for me for Christmas. :rolleyes:
The one time her snooping was effective was that fateful day. She had been cleaning up papers by the computer and happened to glance at one in particular, a letter I wrote to my ex boyfriend, mentioning my cutting problem. (This is all mentioned in that big thread I wrote a while back, “my parents found out”) Anyway, Mom got worried sick and put me in therapy. While I acted hostile towards her for doing this to me, I’m sure it’s for my own good. I’m glad she found that letter, because I could have gotten worse if she hadn’t known.
dropzone is right; if I was suicidal, I think I’d want my mom to know, though I wouldn’t want to outright tell her. Heck, I did attempt suicide once, and she didn’t even know about it. Maybe if she had read my journals she would have understood me better (yes, I keep journals but the “deep” ones I keep under lock and key, while the more “shallow” ones I let lay around my room because I don’t give a damn who sees them) and had gotten the help I needed earlier, before I turned more into a wreck.
And hypergirl, if I was your mom and knew you were a cutter and found razors and broken glass in your room, I’d probably throw a fit, too.
This isn’t true, Civil. As for me, my cutting has nothing to do with my parents (true, I become depressed many times thanks to Dad, but it’s not his fault he has fucking cancer and is dying). I love mine very much and would have loved to have had the bravery to tell them about my problems before Mom found out my problems herself. And I think it’s really sad when anyone hates their parents, with the exceptions of constant verbal and/or sexual abuse from them. Hate in general is an awful feeling. I don’t know if I’ve ever truly hated anyone. I hope the day never comes.
dropzone I am extremely glad that you are not my father, and that I do not know you. (Reference to page 1.)
“Chattel”. That’s the word he used. Chattel.
Gaaa!!! Of course it doesn’t make me feel any better! Parenting is parenting. Biological means you share some genes along with your responsibilities. Step parenting is a very important job - just as important as parenting.
As for DigitalMuses post, I’m not going around saying cutters are bad people. Read my post from the top of this page. I was a very dedicated cutter at one point. Not suicidal, but creative as hell. (Oh yeah… wait… we’re not hellspawn) Anyway, very creative. I won’t go into details because I don’t want to give anybody any stupid ideas.
You’ll also note that I didn’t tell anyone to stop cutting. What I said was that cutting is an indication that something is wrong and that ‘something’ should be looked into and dealt with. You want things to get better, you get better. Cutting does not make anything better. It is a counter-productive coping mechanism.
To restate: I get it. I get it a lot better than you may think. As for the ‘appeal’… I get that too. But just because something seems appealing, doesn’t make it ok. As for having discovered the appeal of cutting, and wishing you never found out… well I guess it’s too late for that. But it isn’t too late to start taking some responsibility for yourself and your life.
Well, it’s all relative. Compared to the folk in the ‘burn ward’ at the local hospital, I’m doin amazingly great! But my life is still far from where I want it to be. Being content with ones lot just because others are faring worse is pretty foolish, if you ask me.
Welfy has the ticket here. Listen to her.
Boris, that’s one word. One word out of a bunch of posts. If you are going to focus on one word, you are going to miss the point. Oops, too late!
Actually, that one word is critical because it sums up the LEGAL, not to say moral or sensible or “nice,” status of children: a form of property with few rights and priviliges beyond those of the family dog. Anything beyond food, shelter, education, protection from violence (physical OR psychological), and clothing appropriate to the weather is at the sufferance of the parents. But preventing violence by the child, against herself, is included.
Because I know my rights and duties as a parent, and my children’s rights, does that mean I am a bad parent? Does it mean that I take advantage of my rights, even if I have no cause to suspect my daughter of anything? Does it mean that I open her files on our common computer? Does it mean I don’t avert my eyes when I close a personal file she happened to leave open? OTOH, would it mean that I still would not do those things if I had reason for concern? Would a responsible parent ignore any means of learning information he feels is critical to the continued survival of his child? A resounding “NO!” is the answer to all of those questions.
Parenthood requires a degree of discretion that seems lost in the world of absolutes inhabited by some of the people here. Life is full of gray areas, people, and you may not always agree with another person’s interpretation of a situation. That does not make the other person evil. However, you are all intelligent people capable of seeing all sides of an issue. You will find, as you grow older, that the black and white issues will start to gray out. I hope that a continued discussion of issues will serve to continue the education of both parents and young people as to the needs and desires of all of us.
It saddens me to have to repeat all this, especially since the princpals in this discussion have already worked out their differences in the Pit. I thought it was over last week.
Just a note on the “if you give trust you will get trust” line of BULLSHIT.
When I married my husband, he had three kids living with him.
One was a girl.
We trusted them all implicitly. We talked openly with them about their problems. When they came to us, we didn’t yell and rant; we tried to work out reasonable solutions.
We kept the lines of communication open.
Then my stuff started coming up missing.
Then her friends’ parents’ stuff started coming up missing.
Then she started sneaking out every night. Found out for SURE by hiding a baby monitor in her room and putting the handset under my pillow, so I could hear her come back in through her window at 6:00am.
She was 15.
Come to find out she had stolen jewelry, birth control pills…been taking liquor from us and sneaking it to her friends’ houses…shoplifted from one convenience store so many times that the clerk offered to buy her what she wanted so she wouldn’t have to call the cops; been dropping acid and smoking dope every night…fucking half of the guys she knew…
And then she came to me in tears because hub and I were having problems, and before I came along he molested her.
She said.
So I left immediately. I took my baby (my only kid at the time) and her and immediately found a friend to stay with, because there was no way I was leaving a pubescent girl in the house with a sexual abuser.
Then she started embellishing.
And embellishing.
Went from “before you came he kept showing me his penis” to “he used to put my hand on his dick…he’d want me to kiss it…I didn’t know any better”
To: “He kept trying to get me to sleep in his bed every night…”
Honest, trustworthy, good, sweet, loyal daughter.
Who never had any trouble speaking openly with her father and openly showing him VERY natural affection.
ACCUSED HIM OF FUCKING RAPING HER REPEATEDLY OVER MOST OF HER LIFE.
She was lying, by the way. We talked, got back together, and shipped her to her mother’s because WE HAD FUCKING HAD IT.
Her brothers went to see her that summer. One asked, “Why did you do all that stuff?” Her reply? “When you GROW UP, you’ll understand.”
She ended up dropping out of high school. Getting knocked up by a 17-year-old before she was 20. She’s married now, living in a trailer with no heat or phone with her mother while her oh-so-awesome barely-18 husband works a stylin’ job at Hardee’s. She came to town a few months ago and walked all over my mother-in-law before even SHE, with infinite patience, got sick of her shit and kicked her out.
I sympathize with anyone who’s being emotionally abused, having lived in a house in which no affection whatsoever was displayed to me for the entire 9 1/2 years I lived there. To my half-brothers? Of course. To me? Hell no. However, this whole “trust build trust, trust your kids, all kids are wonderful little angels who never ever do anything wrong without being given cause by their horrible awful mean nasty evil parents” line of bullshit makes me want to vomit, having seen it proven very, very wrong in my own house.
Moderator’s Notes:
Civil Defense, please do not place your rants in this forum, and especially in this thread, again. If you’ve read enough of this to feel the need to blast dropzone for his comments, I’m certain you’ve read enough to have seen my prior warnings. It would behoove you greatly to take heed of that warning. I will not tolerate behavior of the type you’ve displayed in this forum. As dewt has helpfully pointed out, there’s a more proper place for comments of this nature. Thank you.
That’s perhaps one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever gotten on the board. Thanks. blush