Which is more cruel?

[kylew]

Let me pose a question...

Woulld it be more cruel to day by day watch an eight-year-old boy starve to death, with nothing to nourish him?

Or...would it be more cruel to give him one taste...just one taste of a thick juicy steak, and then sit back and watch him starve to death...satisfied that the boy now knows what he's missing and craving..but can't have?

I hope my metaphor isn't lost on anyone.

 

[Jessie P]

I would prefer to have never known the taste and die not knowing. Yes it may have been a glimpse at pleasure, but that just leads to longing for something that you know you will never have.

Just my thoughts

 

[KMCINVA]

I think for me I would rather have starved to death instead of tasting the steak of the abuser. It created a life of confusion. By having tasted the abuse caused the death of the me as a whole. Two emerged, one who saw love in the abuse and the other that was repulsed.

Tasting the steak without hope of life only destroys the soul.

Kevin

 

[C. E.]

That juicy steak was my childhood, until I became the juicy steak for someone else. Childhood ends. Sometimes too soon. We don't get redo's.

 

[KL]

It's certainly not lost on me. I live in the past and mourn for it. It's hard not to regret, to not want a redo...seeing as we can't...I don't know.

I'm plagued by the abusive memories, both good and bad from two separate abusers.

Conflicted mind, heart, and soul.

...my childhood ended, but was it really "childhood?" Did I get to participate in a normal way?

I don't know....silver lining, silver lining...ah...hopefully one day find someone that makes me feel loved. Maybe that can be the juicy steak now. Maybe someone who makes me feel that needed...

 

[traveler]

This question reminds me of the old saying, "better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

I don't know what to think about it. I can think of pros and cons to the arguments on either side.

but I do know that I used to spend a lot of time and energy going round and round in the game of "what if?" Ultimately, it did me no good and arguably, it may have done me a fair amount of harm.

I eventually got to the point where I decided I had to stop running around in the circle that had become a rut and accept what had happened and deal with it. Though that has not "fixed" everything, it has brought me greater peace than I had known before. I can't change the past - I can only try to make the best of my present situation - in hopes of making the future better.

Lee

 

[kylew]

It's not so much a longing for a re-do. For me this is about gaining a perspective on why I've struggled so much with the after affects of neglect and abuse when my story isn't all that violent, or traumatic. My greatest pain is not from the csa itself, but the rejection and abandonment I felt afterward. Was I so bad that my hero wouldn't even look me in the eye or speak to me for weeks or months afterward?

It was cruel that he treated me with so much contempt in the first place. It wax cruel that he couldn't make time for his little brother to be my protector and a good role model. It was cruel to give me a taste of something so intimate, albeit harmful, that gave me a sudden sense of acceptance. And it was cruel to pull the rug out from under me and sentence me to a life of confusion and isolation, leaving behind an insatiable craving for his touch....never to be felt again...not even in a healthy, brotherly way.

kyle

 

[king tut]

Let me pose a question...

Woulld it be more cruel to day by day watch an eight-year-old boy starve to death, with nothing to nourish him?

Or...would it be more cruel to give him one taste...just one taste of a thick juicy steak, and then sit back and watch him starve to death...satisfied that the boy now knows what he's missing and craving..but can't have?

I hope my metaphor isn't lost on anyone.

I'm not sure that I do understand your metaphor.

Are you talking about attention from your abuser- how you felt abandoned when he moved his attention away from you? So not a physical/sexual want, but a feeling of emotional abandonment, being discarded?

I don't understand what you mean by "steak" in your analogy?

 

[kylew]

No...you got it right. I was only eight, so what did I know about sex? However the physical contact was a big part of it too. Physical affection was lacking in my home and there was always something in me that craved to be touched. Still is. Physical touch is still number one in my "love language" list...which I know is not the case for a lot of survivors but somehow that remained intact for me. So the whole deal was like the "steak" for me. The "act" for me wasn't unpleasant or painful at the time, the greater pain was the abandonment I felt afterward, which was even further compounded by the shame I felt once I later realized what that was really all about.

I realize to some "steak" was common-place and not such a good analogy. I was maybe 12 or 13 before I ever had my first taste of steak. Beef pot roast was the best we could do with eight mouths to feed on my dad's meager salary. Oh, and we walked 12 miles to school, barefoot each day...uphill....both ways. Okay, so maybe it wasn't quite that bad. But once I tasted that T-bone that my grandmother had sprung for to treat the whole family....pot roast didn't satisfy my craving anymore.