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Parent Emeritus
Feeling strong-armed by your loved one?
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<blockquote data-quote="AHF" data-source="post: 408627" data-attributes="member: 11180"><p>This is such an important topic. I seem to meet people with difficult children who are manipulative in that they are kind and loving and helpless and then they go out and get a fix or steal Mom's jewelry or whatever. And I think, "If only!" Mine are bullies. They learned it from their dad; perhaps they have it in their genes. And however much we want to stand up to bullying, it wears us down. I find that if I tell other people what my sons actually say or do to me, they are apt to look at me in horror, as if no one would treat a mother that way unless she had done something unforgivable. I have even had psychiatrists bring me into the room with my younger difficult child, trying to prompt him to issue a stream of hate speech at me so they'll have something to work with--and some have been so flummoxed that they've spent hours trying to get me to 'fess up to whatever horrible thing I must have done to create this monster. When it turned out to be bullying plain and simple, one psychiatrist turned to my son and said "You know what? f**k you." Which I thought wasn't good psychological practice(!), but part of me reacted with a weird sort of glee. Bottom line, I think, is that the strong-arming is strategic at first, and later habitual. If the strategy works and their other coping skills atrophy, after a while they have nothing but bullying left.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AHF, post: 408627, member: 11180"] This is such an important topic. I seem to meet people with difficult children who are manipulative in that they are kind and loving and helpless and then they go out and get a fix or steal Mom's jewelry or whatever. And I think, "If only!" Mine are bullies. They learned it from their dad; perhaps they have it in their genes. And however much we want to stand up to bullying, it wears us down. I find that if I tell other people what my sons actually say or do to me, they are apt to look at me in horror, as if no one would treat a mother that way unless she had done something unforgivable. I have even had psychiatrists bring me into the room with my younger difficult child, trying to prompt him to issue a stream of hate speech at me so they'll have something to work with--and some have been so flummoxed that they've spent hours trying to get me to 'fess up to whatever horrible thing I must have done to create this monster. When it turned out to be bullying plain and simple, one psychiatrist turned to my son and said "You know what? f**k you." Which I thought wasn't good psychological practice(!), but part of me reacted with a weird sort of glee. Bottom line, I think, is that the strong-arming is strategic at first, and later habitual. If the strategy works and their other coping skills atrophy, after a while they have nothing but bullying left. [/QUOTE]
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Feeling strong-armed by your loved one?
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