I do not wish to hijack a MPSIMS thread, nor do I really wish this to be considered a pitting of Ghanima - but this post should be addressed, and the subject matter is such that it’ll probably end up in the Pit eventually anyway, so I’m hoping to save the mods some thread-moving.
I would NEVER dismiss the damage that can be done to a child who is molested or abused. There is NOTHING worse than being a child hurt by an adult. We’re all on the same page on that, yes? OK - but:
It is possible to not only survive abuse or molestation, but also to become a completely “normal” person as an adult. The cycle does not always continue. I’m not at all happy about the width of the brush here.
Without going into too much detail, I was physically abused by my stepfather for years, emotionally abused by my stepfather, my father and my stepmother, and molested by a cousin. I survived and even thrived - and I’m happily married with a great kid, a wonderful life and very little baggage, considering.
Please do not make the assumption that we’re ALL fucked up bad and for life. It diminishes the hard work we’ve done to overcome our pasts.
I often wonder how much of the bad reaction some have to being abused is because people expect the victims to have a bad reaction. The pressure to feel as if you have been ruined for life must be intense.
I hate it when someone hands out a terrible prognosis for a non-fatal condition. Most people can overcome horrific pasts to become decent, functioning, happy people. Many even become better than the person they would have been had not the tragic events occurred.
I don’t see why this has to be in the Pit. This seems like a really feel-good type of story to me, “**Ghanima ** mistakenly thinks that all child-abuse victims are fucked up for life. Well, I’m living proof they don’t.” That is essentially what you are saying, isn’t it? It should be in MPSIMS.
Especially since I don’t necesarily think what **Ghanima ** said is entirely wrong. Yes, I understand you made it, and many others do, but just taking the one sentence you extracted, yes there is a lot of baggage that needs to be worked through. The fact that it can be worked through is one thing, but it is there.
Possibly. But, given the nature of the topic, the language, and another recent thread in MPSIMS which upset some people, I’d rather have erred on the side of caution.
Still, it’s at least mildly Pit-worthy. To feel as though I should defend my own survival and mental well-being based on someone else’s preconceived notion of what my life COULD be like bothers me.
There is also the possibility that someone who is an abuser could try to justify him/herself based on the fact that NOT all who are abused turn into dysfunctional adults. (We’ve seen similar things happen whenever spanking is discussed here.)
I have arrived, at last. I admit that my statement was based on my rather limited experience. I only know two people who lived through abuse/molestation, so I did make a rather sweeping generalization, I suppose. If I apologize, does the pitting still count?
I had the same raised-eyebrow reaction to that statement that I imagine LifeOnWry did. I wonder, though, how sure you are that you only know two people? Have you polled every adult you know, every relative and friend and coworker and neighbor? It’s not as if most folks walk around with the big Survivor mentality, constantly referring to abuse they suffered growing up.
We’ve had quite a few threads on just how common or uncommon it is and the general consensus is always that far too many kids are abused and way more than folks initially realize. So chances are, you do know more than two people, the rest just haven’t shared the details and aren’t stuck on what happened to them.
You know, statistically, you almost certainly know more folks than that who’ve been molested. A lot of people don’t share that information with a lot of people.
Which means that the ones who are together, and who’ve worked through their issues to become happy, healthy adults are not obvious. Which might be why it appears that way to you.
See, the trouble with tabbed browsing is it lets you open a thread, read it a bit later, and then post something, and what you posted has already been written by a more quick-fingered Doper.
