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Who’s had a rough or violent upbringing?
I could wright a book titled Guns Knives Brass Buckles & Soap. The soap bit sounds lame but it’s just as deadly as the rest. Please keep your replies as small as posssible.
Don Wesley 50+
I have done a bit more study about the child abuse in my family
which I feel is worth sharing - It gets right down to basics – Murder and what I escaped, but some didn’t.
Jodi Arias - Twisting tale of love - similar to the story of Don And Denise Wesley
http://innjustice.blogspot.ca/2013/03/jodi-arias-twisting-tale-of-love.html
Mathew Naismith 10+
Really sorry to hear of your dilemma, victims are so often treated worse than the perpetrator because if it wasn’t for the perpetrators in the first place most of the legal fraternity would be out on the streets.
Love
Mathew
Don Wesley 50+
So true. We would then be talking about "abuse of trust" which is corruption.
Don
elizabeth muncey 10+
Mathew Naismith 10+
Thanks for the info………It’s funny, I was working with disabled people for a while who had massive physical & mental traumas to deal with which also included abuse from a variety of sources including the government in how they shuffle these people around, they would start one project then dump it after a while then start up another & so on. Every time the government dumped a program these people felt betrayed & unwanted.
I was tutoring them in woodworking, numeracy & literacy but I wasn’t qualified to do so, according to my boss I was better trained in life skills than other highly educated teachers & tutors in the organisation, I was the man for the job & I did so well until the government dumped the disabled scheme once again. There wasn’t a set program to tutor these people by so I made up my own that worked maybe too well as it made other better trained people look silly but that’s life.
Love
Mathew
elizabeth muncey 10+
Mathew Naismith 10+
It is so sad how we treat our fellow human being; it would be much kinder if we euthanized anyone who is in great distress/trauma than to just kick them around like this.
The problem with me is I am restricted within my abilities as I also have a disability from child hood neglect from the age of six so taking on a project of significants is really out of the question unless I had adequate support & I don’t think that will happen as I’m not academically qualified.
There are so many people out there like me it’s not funny. While working with the disabled I had volunteers come in to assist who also had some sort of disability to cope with, some of them after a while working with me & my clients found work within the disability industry as well. I had one volunteer older than me who was very emotional & unsettled; we gave him the confidents to obtain a job within the disability industry after a while.
My clients weren’t just teaching me but the volunteers that came in to help as well. I had one bloke say to me after a while that he didn’t think much of these disabled people at all before coming here, he too found work within the industry.
What I was supposed to do & what I did was two different things, I was supposed to treat my clients as subhuman if you know what I mean, instead I treated them, within reason, just like I would anyone else in a workshop or class room situation & they loved it. Most of them were very conscious in the way they were & the way they were being treated.
I haven’t had time to read anything else at the moment as I’m presently reading three small books on the philosophical view of the consciousness, mind & brain & the psych which is quite heavy for an unlearned person.
Love
Mathew
Mathew Naismith 10+
Yes it is a disease & it's a disease I will have to be aware of within myself for the rest of my life but I am one of the lucky ones who are at least aware. Random Chance brought up a good point that it’s just not a disease of families but a worldwide disease, very few people are aware of this disease affecting the world globally as it’s no different to abuse in families except it affects a lot more people.
Love
Mathew
Don Wesley 50+
At the gathering an hour later, her nephew announced he could tell me the family secret!
Her father had abused her as a young child. I didn't ask what kind of abuse, but thought it was likely anger.
The family was matriarchal and mother was the head the family. Denise was strong headed and like her mother, so I could understand why he might be annoyed with child who was a little wild and said no to Dad.
A few years earlier all our family of 5, including the 3 boys, had regular weekly visits with a family therapist.
The problem he said was that Denise was acting as the head of family. We are Christians and the family structure was Patriarchal. She only had to live that way he said. A few years later he told me that she was going kill me. Wow, you have to be kidding me. He wasn’t!
It now explained to me why she arm and hand cuts, too frequently, when she gave birth to our first child.
A personality disorder was the explanation which included knives and the child of rage symptoms.
A few months after her mothers death the hidden rage exploded and was vented at me.
She planned with precision how was going to get rid of me. I won’t go into details. But I am obviously still alive and just getting over being lonely.
Please share with any wisdom you might have.
I still love my soul-mate. The abuse I experienced was much different.
Kate Blake 50+
From what you say about personality disorder, needing to control, etc it sounds like your wife was sexually abused by her father. And I'm guessing it was fairly constant sexual abuse possibly with her mothers knowledge? The men who do this are very weak damaged goods hence his wife controlled the family ...
Your five children had therapy, did she sexually abuse any of them? She had to be the ruling matriarch because this is both her way of coping with what happened to her, and also following the example her mother had set all her life.
The rage you experienced from your wife after her mothers death was her pent up anger and rage that her mother never kept her safe in her childhood. Many have strong resentment about this but feel unable to express it until the parent dies. This inability to appropriately express emotions, set reasonable boundaries, etc are a real legacy from years of abuse. The personality disorder is a means of coping with that ongoing abuse, they opt out, disassociate or they just can't deal with life.
There must be some good books to read on this but I haven't worked in this field for some years now. Please find some and you'll understand your ex-wife better. How do you get on with your children now? Is your Church supporting you through all this? How are you coping?
Don Wesley 50+
What you say about sexual abuse does sound more like what it is. It is something I am keeping as my family secret.
I have only three boys, two with Denise, and one I adopted when I was about 23 years old.
Chris, Steve and Mike. It is very possible it occurred with Chris.
I bought our home in 1969 and had it grow around us. She told everyone I was the kindest man she had ever met and kept the same story until about a year before her plan became an action.
She left the home on Xmas Eve of 2008. Then using Court Actions; 5 of them all with small lies
She had me evicted from my own home; from Home to Homelessness in less than 30 minutes, on July 31, 2009. I lived in my car for nearly two years, with temperatures at times 17 degrees below 0.
You can see my story being built on my Blog - innjustice.blogspot.com
My children were told some story; the details I never have been told; strange.
They assisted her in stealing my house and money from me. I have provided the police with all the informations. My home is in Montreal and I now live in Ontario in a small farming town.
I have been to many churches and found good people but, without the presence of God.
I am now representing myself in Court. There is a good chance my home will be returned to me.
In April I will be 80.
Somehow, all those who said I was wonderful, now never communicate with me.
It puzzles me.
Oh yes; one day last summer in the Wesleyan Church the pastor prayed for a miracle that my wife would re-join me.
Peace
Love
Don
Random Chance 30+
Mental/emotional/psychic abuse, to me is longer lasting, more damaging and harder to deal with.
I remember being forced to stand still, had to be still so I wouldn't die, and have bullets fired from high-powered rifles,
as close to my head as possible. I could feel them through my hair, on my skin, all while begging and pleading for the shooter to stop.
My father held a knife to my throat while he told me he was going to kill me and break into my bedroom where my mother was hiding, and butcher her. At 16 I had to talk him down, talk him through it and keep my mother safe.
Later, I tried to kill my father and failed, twice, for which I felt a failure most of my life.
Crazy-making was common, such as coming home, finding my mother all bloody and hiding in the closet and asking what happened? My father told me, "nothing, and don't you ever tell anyone!" Well, if nothing happened, why can't I tell anyone? Crazy-making. He used to hit me and then laugh about how much "I hurt his hand!" because he hit so hard.
This started at age 6 months and believe it or not, my older brother suffered the worst of it. Mine lasted until I left home in my late teens. The Church and religion back my parents.
In1988 I was watching a program on TV and there was a quote which went like this: "Parents are a child's worst enemy." I thought it absolutely sickening and ridiculous. Now, 25 years later, I realize and believe it is 100% true.
I see it everywhere. Here's one way I see it:
The victims are like all victims of any kind of long-term abuse. They identify with the abuser or abusers, & they support their abusers invasions of other countries, they support and tolerate the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent people and children, and they enjoy the fruits stolen from other lands and peoples, which produce great amounts of collateral starvation, poverty, inequality, slavery, disease, excruciating misery & death.
In short, Amerikans.
Don Wesley 50+
You have experienced the unthinkable; the stuff we see in crime movies.
I can only imagine the pain you have suffered. Man-made-suffering, which should be avoidable but is not.
Where and when will Justice be delivered.
Peace be with you Random
Don
Random Chance 30+
Justice won't be delivered. It's as simple as that. My life has not been as bad as others I know of and see wherever I go. That gives a bit of perspective at times, which can help.
The reality is that over time, there have people, organizations, and other forms involving humans, in which horrible, horrible things have been done to others. The perpetrators lived their lives, many of them never being found out, made accountable or ever stopped, in some cases. The victims lived horrible lives, lives sometimes forever ruined long before they got to live them, eventually died, and that was that. Those who hurt others also died, but without ever having to account for their actions.
People want to believe there will be some kind of justice in some "next life". I understand that wish, but it just ain't so. There is no way to prove any of it. It is just wishful thinking, another form of
d..e..n..i..a..l.......Don't...Even...No...I...Am...Lying
I personally don't believe in such things as karma or hope.They are both false to me. I abhor lies and prefer the truth no matter what it is.
I have one thing I know and I trust it completely. I have found through my own experience, that it seems most people don't really trust what it is they say they believe in, particularly when it comes to a nightmare.
Don Wesley 50+
Hi Random Chance, every word you say is powerful; the story, I feel is angry and that is OK with me.
Your statement above in Quotations is one that is also mine.
Every little lie makes a persons whole story untrue.
The whole truth is simple, others are so confusing, they waste precious time explaining.
I have been pressing for Justice a long time now and I will keep doing, until I'm gone.
But every word I write, here on Ted or in my Blog, or in my emails and on my computer will survive me.
Along with memories of those who have greeted me with handshakes. The kids in town who shout from afar "Don .... Don, I remember. I remember my grand children and see them no more.
Yes medical people say I now suffer from PTSD. Man-made suffering. We can do something about that; it is called teaching. God tells me, get up and go Don. It is not a big stretch to believe he can tell me. Think of the other built in instructions we get up and do. My fingers are doing the writing now.
With awareness and caring
And until soon
I leave you with emotional love
Don
Kate Blake 50+
And you are absolutey right, violence is violence in any form. Aggression in the home, another country, anywhere leaves deep scars. And part of that control/abuse is making the victims feel like dumb crazy idiots as this stops them from reporting outside the family. Your father, like most, effectively shut you children and your mother up from ever complaining outside the family.
How are they now? How did you get through it? What were your techniques to survive such outrage? Please remember others will be reading this that may still be caught in such situations and they will need some tools and encouragement to survive and eventually escape.
Random Chance 30+
I had no techniques for surviving it. Perhaps, leaving my body is a technique of survival. I have read it is something that younger people do and to varying degrees.
I know that I didn't know I had a mind until I was almost 20 years of age and was totally surprised when I realized that. But I also knew (had no words, no one to talk to, no understanding of it, hard to explain), by the time I was 5 that I was a completely f _ _ _ ed up human being. I just knew it. Over time it would reveal itself to me but it always was automatic, immediate and all consuming. It's been that way for all my life.
What I finally realized is that I never had me. That was destroyed between 3 and 5. Still don't have me. Never will have me. I don't know who that is. When people call my name I still wonder who in the hell are they talking to?
At least I finally know that now. I am filled with rage, hatefulness and unforgiveness and I know that is what I will leave with. That will not change. That is the residue of it all. That's my pile of dust.
I did many years of therapy, workshops, spiritual practices, belief in God, giving myself to God and over time my life worsened and never got better.
I finally realized from experience that after visiting the bottom of the abyss, why hope is false, faith is no different than hope and knowing is the only thing to trust.
I can only sum up this life, this way.
The mind creates the abyss, and the heart must cross this.
Apparently, I fell in.
Kate Blake 50+
But you have survived! You have not committed suicide, which many do! You have done everything possible to heal, but as I've said elsewhere you never forget but unless you learn to forgive - that is the only way to end the anger and hatred.
While you cling onto those you can never heal, and your death too could by quite agonising ... Resolving things allows for a more peaceful, comfortable death! Anything unresolved haunts us on that death bed.
You have your life, your contributions here on TED are truly worthy. You are a good man with a good heart so just relax into that. Have you ever cried? Sometimes this helps release pent up emotions, write it out, jog it out, find your own way to resolve the issues.
Mathew Naismith 10+
This is a good point you bring up about global abuse, it makes what my siblings & I went through menial & it is in a way to the global problem.
I think certain cultures & certain social levels do have an abusive hereditary problem, if you look at a poorer country or family the abuse is usually local but for example you have a multinational or a multinational country their abuse is going to be more widely spread.
I personally don’t really believe that parents are a child’s worst enemy as it can go either way, my wife had caring loving parents however some parents are very much a child’s worst enemy.
Love
Mathew
Random Chance 30+
a survey in 2009 revealed that more parents in America, are lying more often, about more things, to their children. At early ages, I believe lying is the beginning cause of mental illness, which Americans suffer from in large numbers.
According to the last Comorbidity Replication Survey that I read, more than half the American population is suffering from mental illness and it is spreading and growing. This next point is amazing. This mental illness now begins at age 11. It can and does, go 20 years before being noticed, diagnosed and treated. This means that most Americans are extremely mentally ill (they are neurotic which is believing in things that are not real) but cannot recognize it because everyone around them is ill.
It begins with parents who may not physically harm but are doing even greater damage to kid's psyches, and that is child abuse. They look normal and the refrain they use for the BS they teach is, "it's for the good of the child."
Lying to children in their early years creates a split in their psyche, it is my theory. That split is a small, beginning split from reality. Being split from reality is known as psychosis and it can and is, manipulated later on in life as adults. This manipulation widens the crack, effectively splitting people further from themselves and thus, further from one another, which is very crucial politically.
Think of it this way. An animal that cannot or does not trust its instincts, will perish almost immediately, at the nature of another animal.
A human that cannot or does not trust its instincts, will become mentally ill and eventually go insane.
Insane is to not know the difference between right and wrong, good or bad, true or false.
A description of insane behavior is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. i.e. voting
Wm. Casey, Head of CIA 1981 "We will know when our program of disinformation is complete when everything the American public believes, is false."
Kate Blake 50+
Never had one case in isolation eg where the parents hadn't been abused themselves. The fact that you and your brother survived, and that you Stopped passing it on is something to be hugely proud of, this is really monumental stuff. Usually people hold much hate and anger and just pass the abuse on.
A spiritual path is far more constructive but you never ever forget - learning how to forgive is another matter. But it is truly the only way to Heal!
Mathew Naismith 10+
I have a brother & sister who have carried it on but funny enough my eldest brother who copped the worst of it is fine maybe because he became a reborn again Christian which was hard to take when he went into a bible bashing mode but it saved him & his family from further abuse.
The funny thing is some people think abuse only happens in feral families, we weren’t feral just an everyday so called normal family. It was so funny when people came to visit, my parents changed completely but after the guest left it was back to normal, it’s funny to look back on.
Love
Mathew
Kate Blake 50+
I never thought it only happened in feral families - my worst cases came from well-educated people or 'church' folk. Maybe this is one reason I am very wary of people who have to announce they are 'christian' - if they really were it should be obvious from their behaviour? Too often I have found people perpetuate their own illusions when they have to proclaim something loudly ...
Yet the Church saved your brothers family, and you stepped aside to look and learn that one doesn't have to repeat ones family of origin mistakes. Did your wife help with this also?
Are your parents still alive? Did you ever have any kind of resolution with them?
Mathew Naismith 10+
Now you’re going to find this funny…..No we didn’t help my brother through this however in saying that we did keep in touch & we spoke about the family a lot but I also did this with my second eldest brother as well, I suppose really he didn’t seem as aggressive with his step daughters but that could be for other reasons as well
Being brought up on the country I think religious people where just as bad as anyone else they just covered it up better.
Now for the good bit……Yes my parents are still alive & yes I have tried to reconcile with them but you see I was always the one who brought out the ugly side of our family by trying to talk about it & was accused of causing trouble in the family. They will not face what they have done especially my mother. I did have a chat with my father down the street a while ago as my sister & mother weren’t around, my dad was nearly in tears while talking to me.
The strangest thing is I would have shot my father without giving it a second thought if he belted my mother even at 9-10 yrs , we did, on occasions, have a good time with them when they were calm.
Another strange thing is they knew but they didn’t know what they were doing at the same time, they just didn’t want to face what they were doing as this would have put them in the same shoes as there abusive parents. You know the thing is I understand however abuse is abuse & can never be forgotten as it’s hard enough to just give!!!
Love
Mathew
Kate Blake 50+
Your mother and sister sound like they are too damaged to move forward. Pray that one day they will face their demons and heal in time to come - because I can tell you these people usually face massive confusion and fear at the time of their death! I worked in hospice care for many years, specialised in death and trauma, trauma of childhood abuse, war, rape, etc
Mathew Naismith 10+
My eldest brother had a knife held to his throat also he was belted that much he stopped breathing & even then he was still belted. I came close to shooting both my parents at the age of 8-9 years of age, one bullet narrowly missing my mother’s head. We had holes in doors & walls because of parental rage. I was suffocating while I had a cake of soap stuffed down my throat & so on it went.
But in saying all this I also understand my parent’s plight while they were growing up as well, abuse just leads to more abuse.
Love
Mathew
Fritzie Reisner 100+
That soap thing may have been more common than you might think. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washing_out_mouth_with_soap
20% of students at one Massachusetts College in 2006 reported that that punishment had been used on them.
Mathew Naismith 10+
Washing out the mouth with soap was just rubbing the soap on the tongue or in the moth no down the throat, I was choking on it because it was in my lungs, I thought I was going to die but what got me was the look on my parent’s face, utterly no remorse but what seemed like enjoyment.
My parents went through simular treatment; they really didn’t know any better especially when they lost it but I stopped that rot with me with a fair bit of effort. Maybe that’s why a turned towards the spiritual who knows so something good came out of it!!!
Love
Mathew
Fritzie Reisner 100+
While abuse and other parenting habits often repeat across generations, I think it is probably just as often that a child reacts as you have by rejecting these sorts of punishments for their own kids.
Don Wesley 50+
I can understand the danger. My wife and I had almost a perfect marriage until 40 years had gone by, and I can say I began to learn about rage and the need to kill.
We are talking about murder. I have since spent 4 years my time learning all about it.
We are talking about what is called an evil mind. All of us need to be aware that its there and can remain hidden and rise into conscious suddenly, after many years have gone by. We should know even before marriage and about a family secret. I would still have married her and could have done something to heal her. What do you think about more knowledge before marriage?
Mathew Naismith 10+
Utterly agree Don……..So many people want to bury the past without facing it, it’s a hell of a lot easier in the long run to face it first up than let it fester away.
I didn’t get married until I was forty because I still had issues myself to deal with. I told my wife before we got married all about my family & myself, anyway we were engaged for about eight years so she knew me & my family well enough or so she thought. She spent every day for a week before we got married crying about what my parents & sister where doing to disrupt our lives as much as possible. Just after that I finally turned my back on my parents & sister, if I didn’t do this I most probably would have lost my wife.
This sort of thing can either tear you down or build you up, I chose the latter as anything else is futile.
Sorry to hear that you went through what you did, life‘s not fair at times.
Love
Mathew
Kate Blake 50+
Telling your fiancée before marriage and then distancing yourself from the relatives that continued to interfere. They are damaged goods and unless they face their own demons they cannot heal and move on, like you have done.
Don Wesley 50+
Love
Don