Sunday, April 25, 2010

Some of my FB friends joined this stupid group and it just set me off. I posted,

I'm highly offended by the group " IF I SPOKEN TO MY PARENTS HOW KIDS TALK NOW DAYS I`D BEEN KNOCKED OUT." (nice grammar, by the way) If you think it's such a great way to be raised, why aren't you beating your kids? Clicking "like" on that group and condoning that a parent disciplines in that way is nothing to be proud of. It doesn't teach respect. Speaking from experience, it teaches fear and resentment.

It made me wonder if I'm ever going to be able to deal with all of the crap that happened with my parents. I think back to all of the dysfunctional crap that went on, and I think about how twisted my parents were that they did all of those things. I can't even imagine hitting C with a belt, punching him in the face, grabbing his entire head of hair and yanking it, pinching his arms. I don't even like the few times that I've smacked his lips and have regretted doing it.

I get so angry that my parents think that they are justified in what they have done, and don't see it as abusive. Because of that, I have doubted myself for years and years and don't know how to talk about it, or what to do with all of that processing. I guess I'm still looking for validation that what they did was wrong and that I have every right to be mentally messed up about it.

I also hate hearing from people who have no clue what I have lived with, who try to preach forgiveness to me. My parents are not capable of having a healthy relationship. I've done the forgive-forgive-forgive thing. Nothing changes. And, now it isn't just me, anyway. It's C. And I'm almost grateful to autism because that is what gave me strength to break the cycle. Because I knew that C processes differently and has to be disciplined in a non-conventional way, I did not buy into my parents' idea of discipline. I doubt that I would have been as abusive as they were, but I know that I would have felt the pressure to live up to their expectations of how C should be. Hell, until we got his diagnosis, I did feel that way.

I know, without a doubt, that C will grow up and thank us for the way that we raised him and all that we did for him. He already shows his love for us and understands why we do the things that we do. He is becoming such an amazing little guy. (Little. Ha! He's 4'2"!)

I just keep praying that God shows me why I've been through what I have. Maybe this is it.