It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that I was abused, because my mother was SO good at hiding it, and at making sure that no one would believe anything I told them. And I knew kids who had it worse, and I felt like it wasn't appropriate to class my childhood in the same terms as theirs.
As an adult, in retrospect, knowing what I know now about parenting and healthy interactions, I can acknowledge that although it was mostly emotional/verbal abuse with occasional physical abuse disguised as "discipline", it was still abuse.
**hugs**
I heard a lot of this shit, too, growing up. I'm glad you're calling it out.
-- A (who is just grateful that I managed, through research, observation, doing my damndest not to repeat my parents' mistakes but not just reflexively doing the opposite of everything they did, and sheer force of love for my daughter, not to fuck up raising her. But it was the conscious work of many years, rather than any kind of "natural instincts," because the only patterns I had to fall back on were bad ones.)
As an adult, in retrospect, knowing what I know now about parenting and healthy interactions, I can acknowledge that although it was mostly emotional/verbal abuse with occasional physical abuse disguised as "discipline", it was still abuse.
**hugs**
I heard a lot of this shit, too, growing up. I'm glad you're calling it out.
-- A (who is just grateful that I managed, through research, observation, doing my damndest not to repeat my parents' mistakes but not just reflexively doing the opposite of everything they did, and sheer force of love for my daughter, not to fuck up raising her. But it was the conscious work of many years, rather than any kind of "natural instincts," because the only patterns I had to fall back on were bad ones.)
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