BusynMember
Well-Known Member
This has been on my mind a lot lately, partly because I know of experiences of this and partly because, maybe because I suffered from childhood abuse, I read a lot of books about children who were SEVERELY abused. Not sure why I'm attracted to this type of book and am kind of embarassed that I am. Maybe I feel better knowing that some had it worse? But I cry when I read these books and feel so badly for the victims...not sure why I do this.
My thinking: So many adult children were severely abused as children and I mean beaten, abused sexually, locked in closets, not fed, etc. Unfortunately, this is not as rare as we'd like to think. Yet almost all the time, when the adult children deal with their parents, and many continue to have relationships with them, they will do anything for them, unlike our entitled difficult children who treat us like dirt. An example is a memoir I read where the father was a total monster. He ran his son down with a car. Son lived, but father twisted it so that the cops blamed the son and put the son in jail. This is the author's perception. Yet when this hideous man got very sick and was alone the daughter rushed to take care of him and make sure he was comfortable (he was more likely to PUT her in the hospital than to take care of her). I read this in book after book.
I had a co-worker at Head Start whose father beat her bloody, and her sibilngs, and now he lived alone. Whenever bad weather hit, they rushed over to tend to him and when he was dying of brain cancer, this co-worker wept like a baby for weeks. Since we rode in a bus together, it was just her and me and she had confided his abuse to me and I believe some of it was sexual. But now, as a 35 year old adult with kids of her own, she acted like he was Father of the Year and so did her siblings. I don't know if all of them did, but some did.
I knew yet a woman in one of my self-help groups whose mother treated her like the bad one in the family and was very emotionally abusive. She was the one who took care of her when she was older, even though her mother continued to abuse her, even striking her from her wheelchair. The favored siblings did nothing for this woman. She would cry that even though she was taking care of her mother, her mother still talked to her like garbage. She was also in her 30's, maybe close to 40.
Any thoughts? Anyone else wonder?
My thinking: So many adult children were severely abused as children and I mean beaten, abused sexually, locked in closets, not fed, etc. Unfortunately, this is not as rare as we'd like to think. Yet almost all the time, when the adult children deal with their parents, and many continue to have relationships with them, they will do anything for them, unlike our entitled difficult children who treat us like dirt. An example is a memoir I read where the father was a total monster. He ran his son down with a car. Son lived, but father twisted it so that the cops blamed the son and put the son in jail. This is the author's perception. Yet when this hideous man got very sick and was alone the daughter rushed to take care of him and make sure he was comfortable (he was more likely to PUT her in the hospital than to take care of her). I read this in book after book.
I had a co-worker at Head Start whose father beat her bloody, and her sibilngs, and now he lived alone. Whenever bad weather hit, they rushed over to tend to him and when he was dying of brain cancer, this co-worker wept like a baby for weeks. Since we rode in a bus together, it was just her and me and she had confided his abuse to me and I believe some of it was sexual. But now, as a 35 year old adult with kids of her own, she acted like he was Father of the Year and so did her siblings. I don't know if all of them did, but some did.
I knew yet a woman in one of my self-help groups whose mother treated her like the bad one in the family and was very emotionally abusive. She was the one who took care of her when she was older, even though her mother continued to abuse her, even striking her from her wheelchair. The favored siblings did nothing for this woman. She would cry that even though she was taking care of her mother, her mother still talked to her like garbage. She was also in her 30's, maybe close to 40.
Any thoughts? Anyone else wonder?