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In Reply to: Re: Why is reinterpreting past experiences considered a negative thing? posted by Perry on October 22, 2007 at 14:20:38:
Look, I'm not particularly dumb, but I was beaten regularly, even sent to hospital for it, electrocuted, molested and raped, and I thought it was all just a part of what you do to children. At most I didn't like it and thought it should be wrong, but "wrong" was a big word and little children like me didn't get to decide if something was wrong or right. I figured it was just "wrong for me" because I didn't like it, but not that it was universally wrong. Adults knew I didn't like what they did to me, but just because I didn't like something didn't mean it was "wrong." There were lots of things I didn't like that were "for my own good." Hitting me till I bled was one of them. It's all very confusing for a child. You don't automatically become aware of universal human rights and children's rights when you're an abused child.
And that was growing up in the system. How about if you grew up in a place where your own mother told you to go spend some love-up time with some creep like it was all normal, and more than normal, it was even sanctioned by God?
How could you be so heartless as to chuckle at such claims that people didn't know they were abused? Sometimes even abusers in the group didn't know what they did was abuse, until they got out! I should know. I'm one of them. I joined as a teenager and with my background I didn't know the harsh punishment I was taught to mete out on my own children was abuse.
And for the record, none of this was hyperbole.
