Physically, emotionally and sexually every day by my father for years.
My very first memory is being about 3 years old and having my father, naked, grunting and smelling like sweat and diesel fuel, as he used me as his personal masturbatory toy.
I was held up to the wall by my throat with my feet dangling 2 feet above the ground because my room wasn’t clean enough.
At 14 he got me a ouija board for my birthday so he could convince me I had summoned a demon that could only be held at bay by me submitting to my father sexually.
And yet none of this made me want to torture puppies and kitties, knock over a convenience store, sell crack, become a prostitute, abuse my own kids or become a serial killer. It did make me want to get far far away from my father.
Listening to the news last night, they were reporting on the case of admitted serial killer Gary Sampson. Apparently his attornies don’t feel he deserves the death penalty for his crimes because he was abused as a child. (Attornies also blame his bi-polar disease and substance abuse but the news media emphasized his abuse)
I cringe whenever I hear someone asking for leniency because they had a bad childhood. Child abuse is not a crutch whereby you do not have to be a decent member of society - to use it as such is a slap in the face to all the formerly abused people who have made a decent life for themselves. Also, because of the portrayal of these people as unable to lead a decent life because they were abused, it makes it harder for others to come forward with their childhood experiences lest they be seen as a criminal waiting to happen.
In case you aren’t familiar with Mr Sampson’s crimes click here.
My mother was smacked around by both of her parents, and never hit my sister or I, because “I would never want you to go through what I went through as a child.”
So, yes, I agree—some people have the capability to use a hellish childhood as a forge to make them stronger.
That’s how I feel. I hated everything that happened to me - I would never want to make another human being feel that badly.
Bad things happen every day. People die, houses are broken into, car accidents… can you imagine the anarchy if everyone who ever had something tragic happened to them turned into a criminal?
I agree with your point tanookie, but I also think that different people handle traumatic experiences in different ways.
I don’t think past abuse is a ‘get out of jail free’ card for criminals, but it can explain a lot of behavior.
In other words, I think that it is not used as a ‘crutch’ for some people, but is in fact part of the reason why they’re so fucked up right now, in whatever special way they happen to be fucked up.
But should people not be held accountable for their actions based on the sole fact they were abused in some way as a child?
I agree that not everyone handles things in the same fashion but I think using your childhood and an “excuse” to escape the responsibilities of adulthood and the consequences of your actions gets tossed about WAY too often in our society.
My sister and I grew up in the same home with the same parents and both lived through the hell of their awful relationship. I went to college and grad school (and a fair amount of therapy) and have two great kids, a wonderful job, and a loving SO. She dropped out of school to go on welfare (that’s the way she put it), has been in and out of jail for various reasons and is now a wanted criminal in this state. She claims she’s the victim of her rotten childhood.
I’ve often pondered what it is that makes someone take that attitude, and how two people could have come out of the same situation but turn out completely different. But I’ve never seen myself as a victim and I think my sister does. Maybe that’s the difference.
Explain, yes. Excuse? I don’t think so. The damage former abuse victims inflict on their victims is as appalling as the damage incflicted by criminals who weren’t abused. So why should their penalty be less?
I’m not suggesting that people with pitiful enough backgrounds be given leniency, nor that horrible past experiences justify present criminal behavior.
What I am saying is that the comment, “I was (insert horrible experience here) when I was little and I don’t go around killing people,” is completely meaningless, and is in fact demeaning to the people you’re talking about. Just because you responded to a certain stimulus in one way does not mean that all people will do the same.
Imagine:
I went to Vietnam, and I came away without this so-called “post-traumatic stress disorder.” Sounds like all these people are just using it as an excuse to be so fucked up.
I can imagine that very well. Both my father and my uncle were in Vietnam. Both came back with problems dealing with what happened there. One man decided instead of trying to deal with it he would take it out on everyone around him instead and the other has worked very hard to make his life better.
My point is that we all make choices. You choose your behavior. Like lauramarlane said too you chose to see yourself as a victim or not. I have a brother who decided to emulate my father in every way he could even though he stated he hated him. He chose to quit every job he landed then he chose to steal instead of work. Now he’s in jail. Not because he was beat as a boy but because he committed a crime.
My favorite part of the Sampson defense so far has been where he and his lawyers have tried to blame the FBI for his crimes because they hung up on him when he tried to turn himself in :rolleyes: .
Dude, you drove/walked past HOW MANY Police Stations after that until you were caught? You could have turned yourself in any time, loser. You don’t need the FBI’s help to do it.
I have no criminal record, I have never deliberately harmed another living human being but my abuse did send me to incredibly dark places. I don’t think I made that choice for myself, my mind was broken, many thought irretrievably. Luckily not all.
I am so very aware now that I could have gone into harming others as easily as I stepped into self harm and that is very frightening indeed. Luckily in the end my intense and uncontrollable anger was directed where my abusers wanted it to be, towards myself. Had they other intentions or were less efficient I could have become a monster, my mother did after all.
(this was meant to be included but I hit submit too soon)
I do not want those with histories of abuse to be absolved for their crimes but I think any serious system of justice would include good programs for those who have been hurt and who do not know what to do with it. Rehabilitation makes us all safer.
You also choose you behavior inasmuch as choosing to seek help when you find yourself badly affected by the things that happened to you or choosing to devolve and start perpetuating the same kinds of abuse on others.
Most of the time…
Now, Jeffrey Dahmer was killing animals at the age of six. The abuse he suffered as a child broke his mind at such an early age that there may not have been choices for him. But I know that he is absolutely an exception, especially given the vast numbers of people who trot out abuse excuses for their adult choices. I ache for people whose childhoods were full of devastation and deprivation, but there has to be some effort made to find healing for yourself.
I know this is the pit, but I really want to scream cite!!
Everyone who is saying, “you chose your behavior,” (which I believe is true in one sense… aside from direct mind control, it is your brain making your decisions), I’d really like to see some documentation that abuse/trauma does not lead to crippled psychological conditions.
You do choose your behaviour, it’s just that for some people those choices are harder to make than others.
But the fact that the choice is harder, or that it’s harder to stay on the “right path”, should NOT be a mitigating circumstance when being convicted of a serious crime.
Cite? How about a cite proving abuse causes abberrant behavior? The best I can find are correllations.
Most lifers in prison can find some bad thing that happened to them in childhood. What I don’t see are doctors/lawyers/teachers/nurses/engineers/architects/construction workers/secretaries/plumbers/inventors/ ad infinitum complaining of abuse. Surely SOME of them were, but they perservered, and never used it as an excuse.
Now, to qualify this. My best friend of 25 years was molested as a young boy. We’re still waiting for him to be released from prison. If/when he is, we’ll be there. My friend went through a period in high school 10 years ago where he starting abusing himself by burning his skin.
Trust me, I know about the after effects of abuse.
He is now happily married with 4 kids, owns his house outright in a good suburb, manages a large company, and is decidedly better off than I am (though I still think I won in the better wife category )
Life usually sucks, the key is to find the good things and focus on that. Then, life can be really good.
Sorry for the rant, I hope you all understand what I was trying to say.
One more thing, I lived 4 blocks from Dahmer when he was busted. I know all about the case ( hell, I taped gavel to gavel on one of the local channels. Jeff was by no means mentally unfit for society. He knew what he was doing, he knew it was wrong. Some people are just plain evil. Tragic? Of course. Sympathetic? Only if you’re the ACLU.
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