Our most common traits

Our most common traits
Hauser

Hauser

Registrant
Fellow survivors, I have a thought I would like to share with you about our abuse experiences.

It appears to me that we have one particular trait in common far more than any other, and that is, shitty parents.

SOME of us had totally loving and attentive parents that were simply woefully ignorant in their Leave it to Beaver bliss about CSA and male rape in general. BUT I would dare say that most of us had parents that were:

1. Uninformed
2. Uncaring
3. Downright abusive (verbally, physically,
neglect, etc)
4. Simply had no business having kids peried!

I give #4 as a description, becuase I've seen FAR too many parents not have a clue about what and where their kids are and doing.

What do you guys think of my observation? Right? Wrong? I feel that I'm right about this, as simplified an explanation that it is. But I think it merits attention.
 
Hauser,

My case would have to be an exception then. We were and remain an very close family, and I was appreciated, loved and wanted as a boy.

My T says that this has helped me enormously in my recovery as an adult, but the abuser still got to me as a boy. In fact, it was easy for him: he was a Scout leader, an elder in our church, and father of a close friend of mine.

My parents never figured out what was going on, though they did notice my strange behavior. But that was 1960, and in those days parents were still warned about nothing but the old "stranger danger" problem: don't get in a stranger's car, don't take candy from him, and don't help him look for his puppy.

When I told my Dad last November he was gutted. His first comments were that he loves me just the same and this wasn't my fault, followed by "Is he still alive?" My parents and sisters have been incredible in their support, and I know I could not have made it this far without them.

Much love,
Larry
 
i think number 3 kinda includes all the others,yeah thats mom and dad allright,i might add mentaly abusive though
 
I would have to say that my parents were just uninformed. If they had been informed they probably would have figured out what had happened to me. Well, at least my mom would have. My dad and I never had any kind of relationship after my sister was born when I was 6 y.o. and especially after my brother was born when I was 8. The first time I ever remember him telling me he loved me was the day I left home when I was 17. Now, don't get me wrong, he showed his love by taking care of me and providing me with all the things I needed--just without the words.
 
Proteus,

Now, don't get me wrong, he showed his love by taking care of me and providing me with all the things I needed--just without the words.
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Ah, but sometimes the words are what a boy needs so desperately to hear!

My Dad was like that as well. His father, who died before I was born, was apparently a tough and distant person, so my father grew up with that model. He tried very hard to be the best possible father he could for me, but the abuser did us incredible harm with all his lies and tricks aimed at isolating me from my father. I was falling apart emotionally as the abuse got worse, and I just fell for all his shit.

It wasn't until I was in my 30s that this got repaired. My wife sat me down and got me to think about my relationship with my father. I was shocked when she asked me if I didn't love him. It was so hard to tell him I loved him, and at the time I didn't understand why this was so (I had no coherent recollections of the abuse then). But finally I did, he responded, and now I don't miss any opportunity to repeat it. Each time it feels like I am recapturing something that was stolen from me years ago.

Much love,
Larry
 
Hauser,

Looking over the thread again I have to admit that my parents were totally uninformed. But I would also have to say I don't blame them for that. There was just no awareness of the sexual abuse of boys back then. In fact, after I disclosed to my father he told me that back in the 1960s it was assumed that any man who was willing to give his time for a Scout troop (as in my case) MUST by definition be a good guy. There was just NO awareness of the terrible danger posed by adults that kids knew and trusted.

In addition, parents were totally unequipped to understand what was happening in front of their eyes. Here are some examples. My mother would discover my hiding places, stocked with snacks and things to read, and she thought this was a kid's game of some kind. She never thought a thing about the disappearing underpants (I was throwing away the ones that got stained), since my sisters and I were growing like weeds and we always had dogs that loved to run off with clothing items they turned into toys. So she was all the time replacing things like underwear and socks.

The real test came when the abuser got caught. The Scoutmaster caught him and found me in pretty bad shape on the floor almost wild with fear and shock. He wanted to tell my parents but I threatened that if he did that I would kill myself and I was serious. It all gets very complicated here, but the end result was that he took me home and told my parents he was bringing me back early because I had asthma. I ran upstairs to get a shower and then locked myself in my room. Later, when my Mom made me let her in, I didn't want her to touch me or even come close to me. She remembers that night. She wondered what was going on. I clearly didn't have asthma, but I was wild-eyed and very vacant and frightened looking. She remembers me trembling and trying to stay away from her. She didn't know what to make of all this, but I seemed to me okay health-wise, so she decided to respect my wishes to be left alone and thought okay, she will check on me in the morning.

I think if that happened now any responsible mother would have all sorts of alarm bells going off, but back then my mother just didn't have the information she would have needed to put all this together. I really do accept that in a nice respectable middle American community no one would have dreamed up the possibility that a sick predator masking as a Scout and church leader was in fact feasting on perhaps as much as half the Scout troop. Call it naive or whatever. That's the way it was.

Much love,
Larry
 
Hauser,

Like Larry my parents would be an exception.

My first abuser was physical and mental/emotional (a teacher who was friends with my parents from church). It was only much later, long after they had lost contact with him, that I was able to discuss it with them.

My second abuser (sexual) was a stranger. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time ("right" for him) and these were the days when child-proofing consisted of "don't talk to strangers". I never disclosed what happened to my Dad (now deceased) and do not wish to do so to my Mom (76 years old).

I know that, had I disclosed the abuse at the time, my parents would have been supportive and would have sought help for me (including finding the perp). The reason I know this is because of how accepting they have been as I told them that I am gay and HIV-positive.

Now 46 years old I am primarily responsible for my recovery and any further abuse to which I may (or hopefully not) subject myself.

Kenn
 
All four, excepting 3, because I know they loved me, but just didn't know how to.

They let my older brother mentally abuse me, and my father always believed him when he did things and blamed it on me, to take the beating.

Whats new,

ste
 
Not my parents, as a child me and my mother were very close, my Dad was usually preocupied by his many hobbies, but he was still a pretty good father, I cant really fault him. Although we dont get along so much now (mainly because I wanted my own independance) we still stay in touch.
 
My parents were loving and overly religious and they (particularly my mother) never saw anything they didn't want to see, so it doesn't surprise me that they didn't see this happening. Well, actually it does surprise me. Why did they not wonder why that little boy of 5 to 8 years old quit talking during that time? I mean they wondered but they didn't see. I guess I'd have to say they were uniformed and religiously disfunctional.

Dale
 
Chalk me up for #4. With a liberal dose of #3, tho ShadowK's point about mental abuse is important. It was that more than anything that sent me off into the dragon lair.
 
My parents:

(1) Physically abusive
(2) Emotionally abusive
(3) Physically neglectfull
(4) Put up a good front to outsiders
(5) They were owners (I was their property)
(6) Distant in the extreme

And perp brother took advantage of all that. They have a lot to answer for.
 
My parents were classically shitty, controlling, deprecating, competitive, as well as mentally, physically and sexually abusive. The worst of it all was in between the abuse there was chronic neglect, weird because of our nice house, family name, and my schooling. But behind this it was chaos, and to survive I pretended I was the luckiest most priviledged kid in a school of many lucky and privilidged boys. They are still the same . . . downright shitty and out right deprecating/abusive. They have not changed. They tell me I am crazy, making this up, trying to find a place to hang my own problems . . . . that I should grow-up and stop blaming others. I don't talk to them really. Especially not my dad, my main perp. It is a loss, but the loss of a fantasy and the acceptance of hard reality. The kid inside still wants their love and approval but the adult knows to stay clear. They are sick and damaged and I'm a risk for them, shedding light in dusty corners they are committed as a group to avoiding. My saving grace was my extended comunity which in general was open and loving. I grew up in other peoples houses, and learned respect from other peoples families all the while pretending all was fine as home . . . thank God the pretending is over.
 
One thing (of many) that inspires me about threads on the MS site is how I will follow a thread as it starts, and then see something in it, usually brought up by something someone else says, that is important but escaped my attention previously.

This is one of those cases. In this thread so many guys are dealing honestly with the painful question of how their family life as a boy ties in with the abuse they suffered. It's difficult to face that, but essential. After all, if we cannot admit difficult truths to ourselves, how can we possibly recover?

And perhaps it's better when the truth is out there in the light of day and the brothers it affects can look at it and say: "I was not to blame for this."

This post, by the way, came to my head after I read how Jonathon ends his comment above:

thank God the pretending is over
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What an incredible truth that is. Truths like this may be painful, but the world of truths is the only one where we get to really live our lives as we were meant to do.

Much love,
Larry
 
jon wow dude you nailed it ,it was the loss of a fantasy wasnt it? why do i feel like i lost a father ,when in truth i never had one to lose?
always willing to give him one more chance to change. the little kid in me would love to hate him ,but hates loving him . shadow
 
Jon, you made a statement that could apply to loads of us.
Yes, I remember feeling sad in a friends house as his parents and family were so cool.

I used to constantly seek approval, as I felt like the underdog of the kid world.
Of course there were kids who were also hurt around me at the time, and some of them could not fight back.

My old house number 8, and that is my unluckiest number, because getting out of there was like falling from Hell, because I was 17yo, and went to live another place, far from the memories as needed.

When I see that old house, I see a young family in there, an often wonder whether to ask them if it is haunted, because thats what I felt like living there.

ste
 
My parents and whole family are wonderful people, and never I have felt unsafe or unloved by any of them. My abuse occured when I was away of home for sport training, and I think it is more it can happen that way, when you are 11 or 12 year old and living in dormitory room. But never will I say anything bad of my parents or anyone in my family.

Andrei
 
I think that my parents were uninformed . and to wraped up in there own lives to pay much attion to what the children were doing .
My father was a drunk . and he worked for CDF.
(California division of forestry ) .and was neaver home .
My Mother got so wraped up in religon . that she would go to church and leave the children at home . I was about 12\13 at the time . and the rest werw a little younger .
I think that children should have some supervision until they are about 18 . when they are about 15 they tend to find trouble . I am not saying that they need to be guarded like a 6 year old . but some one should know where there are at at all times and be able to contact them .Children do not come with Instructions I think that they did the best that they could at the time I love both of my parents . age 72 & 75 .
My life may of ben difrent. if I ghad closer
supervision
 
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