Domestic Abuse

[KanadaHye]

Re: Domestic Abuse

That's the good part of having an older brother... after watching him get punished, you learn not to do what gets dad angry...

[Haykakan]

Re: Domestic Abuse

That's the good part of having an older brother... after watching him get punished, you learn not to do what gets dad angry...

I was that older brother/lucky me.

[Pedro Xaramillo]

Re: Domestic Abuse

Some cases yes, the child who was abused grows to be abusive themselves. My father is a perfect example, he was abused in every way imaginable by his father and I myself come from a highly abusive childhood whereas I have been put into the hospital countless of times from my own father. One particular incident he had me pinned up against a wall while pushing the kitchen table into my stomach with all his strength resulting in blood pouring out of my mouth. It took my 6 siblings and my mother to pull him away. As a child and well into my early teen years as well I recall my father beating on my siblings and my mother as well. When my mother was pregnant with my youngest sibling, my father and her were arguing and he grabbed her hair, threw her on the ground and threw a heavy solid wood wardrobe closet right on top of her. She was rushed to the hospital. There was plenty of verbal abuse too. I got the typical words of "You fat, ugly useless piece of s***, your never going to amount to anything in life." etc etc on a daily basis. My point is that regardless of having being beaten on physically as well as emotionally I have turned out quite alright. I would never ever beat my own children or call down upon them and neither do my siblings. I suppose who you become is a result of how you deal with the personal issues that develop from being abused...

Welcome back to the forum Rachel
The way I think it differs is (and I am not sure, Siggie will be able to say if I am right or not as I don't know too much about psychology) is whether you deal with the issues or not, I think alot of people who beat their kids after being beat too is that they often repress the issue, and repressing it only makes it grow stronger, thereafter the rage builds and they start to become what they detested as those issues were never sorted.

I am sickened to my stomach by what your dad did to you, thats horrific and I am glad you managed to survive that, it takes a strong person to do that and you should be proud of that, lots of people don't survive stuff like that and you did

[SilverLining]

Re: Domestic Abuse

There are a number of psychological theories that try to explain why the cycle of abuse continues. According to Engel's Breaking the Cycle of Abuse:

It can be considered a learned belief or behavior, in the sense that your family passes down sets of beliefs or values that may encourage abuse, even if its on a subconscious level. This also ties into how we're socialized with gender differences. Women are generally brought up to be passive and inferior to men, which can lead women into staying in relationships that are not healthy. Whether female or male, abusive parents leads us to become doubtful of our own judgment, and teaches us to become victims.

The abuse alone creates its own subset of beliefs that we subliminally convince ourselves to be true. Victims of abuse often start to blame themselves when things go wrong; they believe others needs are a priority over their own; doubt their own perceptions and beliefs; become naive when considering other people's motives; and perhaps the most common is that they attempt to meet the needs of other people before their own, with the belief that no matter what the consequences to themselves or what they might be sacrificing to satisfy the other party, their own needs are not as important as that of others.

This ties into the counterpart of those people who, instead of becoming passive as a result of the abuse, become the aggressor who carries the abuse further. In this case, people start to blame others for their own missteps; believe their own goals and needs are superior to all others and forsake all to fulfill them; believe they have a right for their needs to be met regardless of what the consequences are to others; develop a heightened lack of trust in other people and believe that all others want to cause harm or hinder them in some way; underestimate the abilities of others and overestimate their own; often defend themselves and their actions no matter what the consequences; view their partners and/or children as property; and believe they have the right to demand that others do as they wish, and if the other party refuses, they become the enemy.

This doesn't mean that all of us who were abused will become victims in other relationships, nor does it mean that we will become the aggressors who prey on others. However, the fact that we've grown up with abuse increases the likelihood that we have the capability to become the monsters who traumatized us, (73% of abusers were abused themselves), or to set ourselves up to be in the same situation in other relationships. By choosing to marry a partner or be with someone who is similar to our abusive mothers or fathers, we subconsciously make an effort to overcome the previous experience with the idea that if we did things differently this time around, we could prevent our loved ones from abusing us.

For example, the subconscious mind may think "If I can only do things differently this time, I'll get my mother (or father) to stop abusing me," or "If I can just be patient enough or loving enough, I'll get my father (or mother) to love me." According to Engel, it doesn't matter that your partner is really your parent, as long as its someone who acts or looks like them. As long as it feels the same, the subconscious is making an effort to cope.

Violence is a learned behavior, and when people are brought up in households to believe that it is normal, they revert to those tendencies they witnessed in order to cope with their relationships and their lives. Violence in the household perpetuates the notions that it is normal for the people you love to hurt you; that violence is an acceptable way to handle conflict of any kind; and that living in fear is a common human condition.

We probably have better protocols set in place to protect abused animals than we do for people. It breaks my heart to see that abuse has become an all too common aspect of most of our lives. Some of us have overcome it and developed into stable individuals who carry on, while others of us might still be dealing with abuse in their daily lives. It's disheartening that those who have given life to us, can also be the ones to perpetrate so much havoc and pain in our lives. Although the scars and bruises of physical abuse can heal, the after effects of it along with the emotional and psychological abuse will never leave us, no matter how well adjusted we become.

[Haykakan]

Re: Domestic Abuse

I think understanding what abuse and violence do to you can help you deal with it better. If you know that the violence you were exposed to earlier in life can lead you to commit violent acts on others then you can watch out for such feelings and try to control them vs not knowing and just acting out what comes naturally to you. I control my rage very effectively because i know its there and i understand why it's there. As a matter of fact you would really have to push the wrong buttonns many times over to get a violent reaction out of me, i would argue that most people who have not been exposed to violence as childeren would react violently before i would. Perhaps this is overcompensating on my part but then again if i give in and release the rage within it is much stronger then that of others. Early in my teenage years i did not have this understanding and self control thus i nearly killed two people. These incidents made me realize that i gota keep my urges under controll and under controll they have stayed. I think being beaten has a slightly different effect on people based on the gender of the person doing the beating and the person recieving it. Understanding and knowing why you have violent urges do not make the urges go away (although over time i feel they have diminished) but they do allow you to control them.