Calling all abusive people.

dlowan wrote:

There is a theory around in the trauma field about some of the chronically abusive relationships - you know, where someone ALWAYS has abusive partners - that our neurology is "set" by the experience of chronic over-arousal (as occurs in many homes where wee kidlets grow up with ongoing poor attachment, or frank abuse, or witnessing violence and abuse frequently) and anything less than this is perceived as sub-normal and hence folk seek arousal - by any means. There is also thought to be a special rush when the violence happens - you know - like when a storm finally breaks? - and then there is the experience of the make-up/buy-back phase - also very arousing. (I mean general arousal, here - not specifically sexual - arousal has a technical meaning in psychology and such - though sexual is by no means excluded!)

I'm glad to hear, dlowan, this theory is getting out more, and I really hope research continues in this area. My sister was in abusive relationships from the start, and no prescription drug helped her at all.

I think it's very possible her tendencies became "hard-wired" during childhood. I watched her fight for her life for Years, and no amount of effort on her part (or ours) seemed able to stop her from choosing abusive partners.

No doubt Brooke has known women like this, too. And some of the ones Brooke knew are, like my sister, dead.

Tenoch wrote:

I know how parents treat you as a kid molds how you will be to your kids. But, how much can we blame on our parents. Not all abused kids grow to abuse their own. When can people stop blaming their parents and take personal responsibility.

Tenoch, this annoys me. Did you feel I was denying personal responsibility in my post, or are you speaking of someone else? Did I say all abused kids grow up to abuse their own?

It annoys me because when I was an infant just home from the hospital, my father locked himself & tiny me in a room so he could stick me with diaper pins, just for fun. When I was learning to walk, my father would hold my outstretched hands over my head and slap my face, just for fun. I was tied to a bed and raped by my father when I was four. Well, it goes on like this (oh, did I mention the time he poured gasoline all over me and threatened me with a match?) until I was 9, and my mother divorced him.

It annoys me because, until I stopped speaking to my mother years ago, she said, "Oh, things weren't so bad....You can't blame me for your problems...." She has never once in all these years said, simply, "I am sorry."

It annoys me because I have never abused any person or critter. You've no idea how much effort, how many years of therapy, drugs, and just plain hard work it took for me to recover from this nightmare of a childhood.

And it really annoys me because my parents had FIVE children. Let's see, 2 are dead (one of them blew her brains out after years of being physically abused by men), one is dying of AIDS, one is gay and hasn't had a lover in over 20 years, and then there's me. And guess what....at 43, I'm the youngest, and the only one to have ever married. None of us has ever had children.

Please, Tenoch, think before you write.

Well, my parents abused me, so I can do whatever the f*ck I want."