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Old 10-31-2017, 12:34 AM   #80
Leo656
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Join Date: Mar 2003
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This repeated insistence that an abuser automatically deserves honor and loyalty from their victims, simply by way of having spawned them, is SO f*cking wrong and insane.

Have you been inside a mental hospital, or even group counseling, "sir"? Have you seen, up close and personal, what the kind of abuse you're advocating does to its victims and their mental health? Do you have any idea how dangerous that "But they're your father/mother..." line is, and how it can push people into killing themselves?

Because I've gotten to know some of those people pretty well. And your attitude is toxic. I've listened to people - often women - talk about how they've felt "trapped" by their abusive circumstances, like nobody understood or cared about them, and how they were told over and over by their "family" that they had no choice but to accept the abuse and keep suffering - because after all, "They're your parents!" And a LOT of those people would honestly rather be dead, than show their worthless scumbag "parents" even the tiniest bit if "honor" or "respect". A lot of them DO try to kill themselves, and some of them succeed. Because all that bullsh*t does is reinforce the belief that their situation is hopeless, and that they don't matter.

It's not right that they feel that way. Telling them, "You HAVE to love and respect your parents, even if they treat you like sh*t," is part of WHY they feel that way. It's belittling them, and devaluing what they've been through. You're telling them that some ceremonial nonsense about "family" and "blood is thicker than water", counts for more than what they've been put through.

You. Are. Wrong.

Meanwhile, as others have pointed out, your very definition of "Respect" is warped. Firstly, Self-Respect comes before any other kind; if you don't respect yourself, you simply can't respect anyone else. Abuse robs people of their self-respect; justifying the abuse digs an even deeper hole. "Showing respect" to the person abusing you isn't actually "respect" at all, because again, the victim has been stripped of any self-respect, until they find a way to no longer be a victim. Thus, anything they show to their abuser is NOT "respect", it's merely platitudes, given in the hope of a respite from the abuse.

SO. First, the victim has to find a way to regain self-respect, and remove themselves from being a victim. Then, IF they choose, there can be a period of forgiveness and healing, and following that, POSSIBLY things can mend enough for them to once again show love and respect to their abuser, IF they wish it. But that's the only way it works, and it's entirely up to the victim. It is NOT a matter of, "Well, they're your parents!" No. 100% Wrong.

Since it's kind of to the actual topic of the thread, I'll use myself as a case in point. When I was a kid, I went to school with "suspicious" bruises often enough that DYFS was sent to the house several times. My mother sometimes got drunk and threw bottles and things at me. One time she tied my hands and feet with belts and then beat me with a thicker belt. We didn't have a single wooden cooking spoon in the house by a certain point, because she'd broken all of them over my back. My father once slammed my face onto a windowsill because I was taking too long to get ready for bed. Another time, when I was late for school, he chased me into the neighbor's house, beat me bloody with a long, thick branch, threw me in the car by my hair, drove me to school and pushed me out of the car onto the sidewalk, bleeding, in front of a bunch of people, then drove away, cursing at me.

There were lots of other stories. I lied to the school staff and DYFS because I didn't want to get put into a foster home. Plus, a lot of family members told me I "deserved" it, so I believed them. After a couple years of therapy and counseling that the school paid for, I saw things differently. Because the thing is, I wasn't getting hit because of anything I did wrong; they were just drug addicts, and I was just "in the way" by my very existence. Answer the phone for a bill collector? That's a beating. Accidentally hang up on Mom's drug dealer? That's a beating. And so on and so forth. It took a LONG time for me to realize they were completely wrong, because I'd been told otherwise by a lot of people.

After I turned 12, I got fed up and decided nobody was ever going to hit me again. The next time my Mom tried to use the belt, I took it from her and hit myself with it until I was bleeding all over; it scared her so much she never tried it again. After she died, Dad got worse on the drugs and turned mean. I didn't care. He liked to try and throw punches; I made him a promise, for every one he threw at me, he'd get two back, and mine were harder. I kicked my father's ass MANY times over the years, because he was an asshole and I am not a victim.

Now, this might sound crazy, BUT, through all of that, he and I DID reach a point of reconciliation and respect, but only AFTER he'd changed his ways. For his part, he told me many times that he respected and admired me for being someone who would never back down and always stand up for myself. And he did have a lot of admirable qualities as a human being, such as being extremely hardworking, very intelligent in certain areas, extremely generous - BUT I wasn't going to give him any credit for that sh*t while he was smoking crack, stealing all my money and trying to kick my ass! Once he was forced to change his ways, we were able to finally reach an understanding. NOT before.

I also respected him for being honest enough to admit that he never really "got" how to be a parent and that he probably wasn't cut out for it. Most people don't have that level of self-awareness. But that in itself was another huge step; all my life, while he was abusing me, it was "You're just a lousy rotten kid, and we never should have had you!" Later on, it was, "You didn't do anything wrong; I just never wanted to hear what you had to say (about the drugs and abuse), and I never figured out how to do what I was supposed to do." But even getting to a level where he could admit that, changed our entire relationship. Without that, we may not have reconciled.

Point of fact, his other kids skipped his funeral. One of them posted on Facebook that they were glad he was dead. I, the one he did way worse to, way more often, for many more years, was the one who was able to reach an understanding with him. Go figure.

SO, yeah. Call me an expert on the subject. That's why the whole, "Love and respect your parents no matter what, even if they're horrible" BS pisses me off. Because it's ignorant and dangerous. I've been on all sides of it; it's 100% up to the abuse victim how they engage their abuser. And if they say, "F*ck them, I don't care if they're my parents, they're dead to me," then that's entirely within their rights.

Try and be a little more respectful of THEM, please. Nobody on this Earth commands respect, simply because of who they are. To say they do is wrong. Period.
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