351: Y'know...
No one that I know talks more cogently about abuse than
copperwise.
Me, personally? I still hesitate to say I was abused, because I compare it to more extreme situations, like the one with domestic abuse
copperwiseis describing. That, to me, seems far more damaging than what happened to me.
But... it's kind of like saying that horrible disfiguring burn scars all over your face are worse than on your arms, isn't it? The dynamic is different, and one can be more successfully hidden, but either way you're still scarred.
And I didn't have that fear. My sister wasn't evil; she was taking out her anger and frustration on me. Does that mean she didn't take away something very important to me, and something over which I am still obssessively defend? No, absolutely not. Like we were discussing in Ethics today, Kant would say that if the intent is good then the action is moral; but Mill would say that it doesn't matter what you intended, the consequences of your actions are still bad.
And what is it that was taken from me?
Dignity. Being thrashed against the wall and pounded with degerent jugs and once a pan doesn't leave one feeling very dignified.
Control. I had to start beating myself violently, just so I could have some sense of of control over what was happening to my own body.
Which brings me to--
Safety. I became *severely* paranoid that she was going to kill me. This stems from when I was 13 and she almost *did* (on accident), trying to stifle my screams by covering my mouth and pinching my nose, pinning me to the ground. I got pretty hysterical at times, so she did this again--several times.
It was at this point that I tried to kill myself.
This was at least as pathetic as all the other things that were going on. My parents weren't doing anything about it--my father didn't try very hard, I didn't think, and my mother played herself as much a victim, like there was nothing *she* could do.
Then again, I was obnoxiously adamant that they kick her out. She only moved out when we moved to a new apartment and she just moved in with a friend. This was several months after aforementioned suicide attempt, during which she ceased mostly, though there was one particularly scary incident in which she actually attacked my Dad, while I continued to meerily stroke my pancake batter.
At any rate, I call this incident, "I Lived for the Sponges". I always get a real kick out of it, because it sums up my entire life philosophy. I have to be joking about all this because... well, if you can't laugh at your own misfortune, what *can* you laugh at? You either wallow in despair or you... make fun of yourself. Y'know? *shrug*
At any rate, I was in quite a state, as you can imagine, so I somehow decided it would be wise to take a butcher knife to my stomach. I suppose there was significance to this: when I was five, I nearly cut my finger off with (an even bigger) butcher knife; hated my big stomach; oh and this was in the kitchen, which has strangely always been the scene of my suicidal episodes...
Anywho, at this point I'm feeling delightfully emo, tears and shaking knife, all that good jazz. Now, depending on the version I'm telling, I either come to this Grand Philisophical Epiphany... or the sponges rise out of the sink and do a song and dance.
Basically, I realized--or the sponges told me--that I had to stop letting people affect me negatively. This is obviously an important psychological thing for self-identity, but one would assume, logically, this would be beyond the point. Shouldn't the realization have been, "Well, I guess I better get some outside help now."
No, that came earlier in the story (I left it out :P). Intervention, back in March, did nothing, and this came in April, I think. But back to the realization--as far as suicide is concerned, this was my moment of reflecting on what made it worth it to live. And it worked for me until November, when we moved, mainly because I decided to extricate myself, emotionally and psychologically, from my sister's control.
I'm still not sure how it all worked out--I tend to think it was because it wasn't really her intention to systematically abuse me, it was mostly outbursts, often precipitated by me arguing with her, but not always. The incident on Christmas was especially alarming, because I simply sat on the couch to read, and she felt I was invading her space, so she attacked me quite violently in front of everybody. (Oh, and on Thanksgiving, while I was cooking dinner for everybody, beating me with a pan, again for a similar reason... she had no room at the time technically, so she was crashing out in the livingroom, ergo her frustration.) Oh, and when I sat down with them while they (my sister and Mother) were watching a movie, and she got mad at me from just "inviting" myself, as if I was imposing and were not in fact a family member.
But that of course gets into the more expansive dysfunction of my family and I've rambled long enough...
The entire point being, I'm still getting over a lot of those scars, but to say I didn't get anything out of it... well, our traumas make us stronger, I think. And it strengenthed my own sense of self and dignity and what I want to do with my life, so...*shrug* Of course, it also brought out the sullen, passive-aggressive anger in me, but that's just a general teenage thing, right? ;P
copperwise.
Me, personally? I still hesitate to say I was abused, because I compare it to more extreme situations, like the one with domestic abuse
copperwiseis describing. That, to me, seems far more damaging than what happened to me.
But... it's kind of like saying that horrible disfiguring burn scars all over your face are worse than on your arms, isn't it? The dynamic is different, and one can be more successfully hidden, but either way you're still scarred.
And I didn't have that fear. My sister wasn't evil; she was taking out her anger and frustration on me. Does that mean she didn't take away something very important to me, and something over which I am still obssessively defend? No, absolutely not. Like we were discussing in Ethics today, Kant would say that if the intent is good then the action is moral; but Mill would say that it doesn't matter what you intended, the consequences of your actions are still bad.
And what is it that was taken from me?
Dignity. Being thrashed against the wall and pounded with degerent jugs and once a pan doesn't leave one feeling very dignified.
Control. I had to start beating myself violently, just so I could have some sense of of control over what was happening to my own body.
Which brings me to--
Safety. I became *severely* paranoid that she was going to kill me. This stems from when I was 13 and she almost *did* (on accident), trying to stifle my screams by covering my mouth and pinching my nose, pinning me to the ground. I got pretty hysterical at times, so she did this again--several times.
It was at this point that I tried to kill myself.
This was at least as pathetic as all the other things that were going on. My parents weren't doing anything about it--my father didn't try very hard, I didn't think, and my mother played herself as much a victim, like there was nothing *she* could do.
Then again, I was obnoxiously adamant that they kick her out. She only moved out when we moved to a new apartment and she just moved in with a friend. This was several months after aforementioned suicide attempt, during which she ceased mostly, though there was one particularly scary incident in which she actually attacked my Dad, while I continued to meerily stroke my pancake batter.
At any rate, I call this incident, "I Lived for the Sponges". I always get a real kick out of it, because it sums up my entire life philosophy. I have to be joking about all this because... well, if you can't laugh at your own misfortune, what *can* you laugh at? You either wallow in despair or you... make fun of yourself. Y'know? *shrug*
At any rate, I was in quite a state, as you can imagine, so I somehow decided it would be wise to take a butcher knife to my stomach. I suppose there was significance to this: when I was five, I nearly cut my finger off with (an even bigger) butcher knife; hated my big stomach; oh and this was in the kitchen, which has strangely always been the scene of my suicidal episodes...
Anywho, at this point I'm feeling delightfully emo, tears and shaking knife, all that good jazz. Now, depending on the version I'm telling, I either come to this Grand Philisophical Epiphany... or the sponges rise out of the sink and do a song and dance.
Basically, I realized--or the sponges told me--that I had to stop letting people affect me negatively. This is obviously an important psychological thing for self-identity, but one would assume, logically, this would be beyond the point. Shouldn't the realization have been, "Well, I guess I better get some outside help now."
No, that came earlier in the story (I left it out :P). Intervention, back in March, did nothing, and this came in April, I think. But back to the realization--as far as suicide is concerned, this was my moment of reflecting on what made it worth it to live. And it worked for me until November, when we moved, mainly because I decided to extricate myself, emotionally and psychologically, from my sister's control.
I'm still not sure how it all worked out--I tend to think it was because it wasn't really her intention to systematically abuse me, it was mostly outbursts, often precipitated by me arguing with her, but not always. The incident on Christmas was especially alarming, because I simply sat on the couch to read, and she felt I was invading her space, so she attacked me quite violently in front of everybody. (Oh, and on Thanksgiving, while I was cooking dinner for everybody, beating me with a pan, again for a similar reason... she had no room at the time technically, so she was crashing out in the livingroom, ergo her frustration.) Oh, and when I sat down with them while they (my sister and Mother) were watching a movie, and she got mad at me from just "inviting" myself, as if I was imposing and were not in fact a family member.
But that of course gets into the more expansive dysfunction of my family and I've rambled long enough...
The entire point being, I'm still getting over a lot of those scars, but to say I didn't get anything out of it... well, our traumas make us stronger, I think. And it strengenthed my own sense of self and dignity and what I want to do with my life, so...*shrug* Of course, it also brought out the sullen, passive-aggressive anger in me, but that's just a general teenage thing, right? ;P