Showing posts with label Child abuse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Child abuse. Show all posts

Friday, August 9, 2013

Day 346: Parenthood and Corporal Punishment - Scarring/Scaring Tin Soldiers to Death





As I wrote my blog yesterday I was amazed at how many memories I have of Corporal Punishment, even though I was never inflicted the kind of corporal punishment some of my friends had to go through, which left them with blue hand marks on their arms or tied to the table legs in a dining room that had blood marks on the walls from their heads smashed against it.

My mother used to just mainly slap me in the face, hard, I remember specifically the aftertaste feeling of humiliation immediately suppressed and followed by huge waves of hatred and desire for retaliation.

In my experience nothing compared to that feeling, it was intense, I can still recall it vividly as I write.

I am not sure what parents are going for when they hit their children, what I found out among parents with a 'fast hand' is that they excuse their behavior because they opted to do it LESS than it was done to them, this point seems to bring home the desired justification that it's all right, they survived Much Worse and they 'turned out alright' and so you should be what, grateful?

In my neighborhood, a poor neighborhood where parents worked like dogs, corporal punishment was the order of the day, we could hear children screaming and the beatings going on from my balcony as we shared a common courtyard, I have lost touch with many of my childhood friends, the last time I saw them, none of them had turned out as an overachiever, I guess I became one out of my desire to move on, to move out, the fear of having to go under the rule of my mother ever again was so intense that I shone at every job I did, I developed an extensive attention for details in fear of retort ion, of having to face humiliation ever again in my life, my life became a striving for perfection so that I would safely move beyond that lurking danger, the potential for humiliation in any way, shape or form.

Since I am one odd case out of hundreds I can safely say that if parents hope that beatings will mold children into perfectionist or overachievers they are just wrong, I lived in a constant state of tension, when I finished any job I would review it in my mind meticulously, walking all the steps looking for any possible mistake I may have made before anyone else would/could find out about it.
Living with my mother had been hellish, I have once read about how governments and their secret agencies would pick kids to raise them for remote viewing in the military and I found that I fit the profile perfectly, the best kids were from homes like mine, with crazy schizophrenic parents, I developed the ability to see the invisible in my mother's mannerism and behavior, to hear the inaudible in her tone of voice, to see the one gesture out of place in a pattern to always be in the know about her being either on a normal or on a crazy day, so I could adjust myself accordingly, the invisible became visible to me, twitching eye lids, a specific shake in her hands, I was not aware of the sequence of thoughts but was aware of the accumulation signs, she always surprised me with her 'reasoning', she could go from something absolutely irrelevant, like me smiling while watching a movie and turn it into something about herself, something that she claimed I did to spite her, to provoke her, my life became a walking on eggshells in utmost constant -paranoid- awareness.

In my first jobs I became so good that the stress of keeping up with a zero mistake rate was so great that I could never shake it off, even when I went home and the only way I would stop the fear that I may have done something wrong was to numb myself with pot until the next day when I would wear my professional clothes and personality over the wreck I really was and go to work. I almost never missed out on a day of work, I never cut corners, I was the perfect corporate slave and I was willing to enslave others to the same Fear that drove me to perfection, because it worked.

Only many beatings after, one day I slapped my mother back, the ironic thing about that moment was the shock in her face, she became paralyzed and when she regained her voice it was just to tell me how That was inconceivable, how horrible I was, that it was a taboo to hit your parents back, that she had never hit her mother back -whom never hit her by the way except much later in life when she was off once on one of her crazy all-over-the-place ranting and grandma hit her to bring her back here-, normal kids never even thought about it, this specific point was raised many other times in the future when she tried to show me that I was in fact really bad, I even HIT her (she never used the word BACK, because that was Not the point, the point was that she was the only one with Legal Authority to Harm Me and I did not have any, by Law or by God, to try and stop it) what was wrong with me?

By that time though my life was already a mess, I lived on the edge of insanity in a Cirque du Soleil balancing act, I had run away from home at 17, jumped on a train and went to Ireland with the equivalent of 50 USD in my pocket, I cried for most of the trip but when i got there I found out that I could breathe again and when I came back to live with my mother again one year later, that was when I slapped her back during one of episodes while she unwisely insisted on saying 'you want to push me out of the window don't you and laughed while slapping me-, and I did want to, a thought even crossed my mind that unless I did throw her out of that window my misery would never end but I didn't, I just slapped her back instead, it was my 19th birthday, she left the room and came back to throw my bank saving booklet in my face and told me to leave, I took all my birthday flowers, packed my bags and left for real.

There were other issues after this, they escalated into physical violence only twice, once she threw me down the stairs with one of my Hong Kong colleagues following up, for raising the objection that for someone who had so much hatred for a mother that left her as a kid, she was no Snowwhite either, that DID not sit well with her, specifically because it brought up something that she did that she could never blame on me, no matter how hard she tried. 
Still abusive parents have to be told when it's enough, physical violence is a form of (mis) communication, it's the last resort out of frustration, it's empowering and rekindles the sense of ownership parents live in fear to lose - it's a hard one to give up, plus children develop all sorts of copying mechanism to square things out and grow up disfunctional adults as they accept abuse in the name of the 'Loving' Promise of a chance to Survive.

So, this is how we start the life of the children in the world, if they don't bend, we beat them into submission, because we can, because apparently we are their Parents, their Masters, their Owners, without seeing, realizing and understanding that we are just creating armies of submissive weaklings, of tin soldiers who will make Money their God, because after All it was Money that took them out of the Hell that FamiLies really are for the most part, and gave them the Independence and ''Free Choice' to continue Abuse themselves in the name of the Family Construct, because we Honor our Families and this is why we have not yet put an end to our Self Abuse inside and World Abuse outside.

A different Life is possible for All, it's a Lie that we have to learn through suffering or that the best lessons we had came through suffering, I don't remember one good lesson from my suffering if not that I should stop it and that I should never pass it on, but I believed I was scarred for Life, for sure I was scared before meeting Desteni, so much so that I would not allow myself to see that my story was a very common one, that the Abuses of our Parents end up in the Adults that Abuse and that we'll have to Parent Ourselves back into something decent to bring about a world that works for All - to not end up as the jailed/jailers of all others that cross our Path.




Bringing it all Back to Self - Self Forgiveness

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to hold on to the memories of my mother's beatings because that gave me a credit, something I could write on my side under all my apparent Wrongs while my mothers had all the Rights given to her by Money and her power to support me or not, and for failing to see, realize and understand that within holding on to my rights(eousness) within my relationship with my mother, I jailed her back instead of freeing myself and her from the past so that a new future beyond abuse could be created for all

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to remember the physical sensation of being slapped in the face as humiliation, as a diminishment of myself at my mother's hands instead of seeing, realizing and understanding that I was not diminished by the beating, but by embracing humiliation as who I was, by believing that the action of my mother were related to me and not to her, by taking things personally as if I were personally faulty vs admitting that there was something not normal with my mother for fear of being the offspring of someone insane

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to believe that I was one and equal to the feeling of humiliation that I hang on to when my mother hit at me because it made me feel righteous no matter the wrongs that my mother would come up with about me, and for provoking my mother to the point of beating me so I could at least be right about One Point, that she was Wrong about hitting me and within this develop a pattern in which I would push people to punish me when I would deliberately cross lines with my words, so they could be wrong too instead of me being the only wrong one within a relationship equation

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold the times when my mother beat me against her as a way to get my own Rights so I would even out with the Rights my mum held on me all the way apparently to deleting me from existence - and for suppressing the negative feelings I connected to those times instead of releasing myself from them, in fear I would no longer hold a credit, be a creditor and in that would become a debtor, because I saw that the world is based on Money and credits and debts and I decided I would not be on the Debtor side, I would make money so I could be on the Right side of this Polarity Equation and this is why I rose from the ashes of a perceived broken self just long enough to go out in the world and make money, to guarantee myself Immunity and buy myself the Rights that parents teach children they don't have and make them long for, until they long for Money as the God that gives the Rights in this existence and deletes All Wrongs

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to be ashamed of my mother beating me because we were not the kind of family where beatings should take place as my mum was educated and played the piano and within this for believing I was one and equal to the shame of being beaten

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to feel proud about keeping my mouth shut about my mother's beatings because it gave me a leverage over her and proved I was better than her because even though she was crazy I covered up for her, which made me good while she was bad instead of seeing realizing and understanding I covered up with the same intent of accumulating credits and ammunition for when I would have to shoot her out of my life, for when I would bring up all her Wrongdoings and in one single swoop even out all my perceived wrongdoings until we would be squared and I would be out of her home

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to believe that there was something wrong with me when my mum would beat me and state that she knew it was not 'me' but the 'devil in me' asking me to do the things she did not approve of, and for splitting myself up in personalities that carefully selected what she approved of from the devilish ones, according to her desires, losing touch with my own accountability for my own actions that could be blamed on the devil first and then on the environment, on external forces and ultimately on my parents so I would not have to be accountable for my words, thoughts and deeds if I accepted the split my mother offered as an excuse, instead of learning about consequences within a timeline so I could make informed decisions about my behavior and the consequences I was willing to live
I forgive myself that I failed to see, realize and understand that I led myself from abuse to self abuse and from self abuse to World abuse through Money and my participation within it and within my unwillingness to see that unless we live in HarMony Money will do Harm and within this for not stopping myself and investigating why and how we gave Money the Power to Harm, so we could feel safe in the dysfunctional world we were born and become a part of


I commit myself to let go of all memories that are related to my mother's corporal punishment and to investigate if and where I am still invested in my own victim-hood, so I can release myself, take my power back and stand as a Self Responsible part of this world to become Part of the Solution for MySelf and All of Existence, Equal and One.


to be continued with how this intertwined with my participation within and as the World System.
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Monday, September 3, 2012

Day 137: Step Back Dirty Lousy Kid



I don't know yet how this memory is connected to the 'Good Master' memory, yet after I wrote the blog the other day it kept popping up, from wayyyy back, an episode that I could hardly remember, amazingly so since it must have taken me extensive effort to suppress it for life and put it away somewhere well hidden within my filing system.

The memory is of when I went to summer camp and I got lice. I did not like to go to summer camps as I missed my mum and I did not like to interact with kids I did not know, which were all of them as I got to summer camp without knowing anybody at all.

Private Summer camps were a novelty in Italy, the Government ones were started by Mussolini, to allow parents without means to send their kids to the seaside on Government expense and lasted all the way throughout the seventies, until one lousy government after another kept taking money out of the till until there was nothing left for social policies.

My mum worked for General Electric, she was a happy slave there since GE provided an absolutely unheard of lifestyle, she had moved there from another avant-garde company called Olivetti, those Companies that were born in the 70es believed that the well being of their employees was crucial for the good functioning of the system, these were the golden years of employment, employers offered benefits to keep their good and loyal employees, until they understood that they did not have to do that, making them FEAR to not be able to support themselves and starve to death could replace all benefits and make them save plenty money, and yes, fuck the well being too.

So, I went to one of General Electric summer camps for a few years in a row, I staid 2 turns, everywhere my mum could send me for summer as long as possible she would do so, to keep me off the streets. I particularly hated staying for 2 terms as that meant I would see the first turn of kids leave after 2 weeks to return home, got to wave them bye bye as they boarded the bus all neat and cleaned up to be returned to their parents, and would stay behind with just a few 'lucky ones' waiting for the second turn load to arrive.

I seem to remember this was my first year at summer camp, my time at summer camp was spent shuffling around and crying myself to sleep in the big rooms we shared with lots of kids as those rooms reeked of orphanages pictures I had seen and imagined, I used to write home, in every letter I would write 'don't forget to come and pick me up', as the fear of never returning home was something I lived with during the whole stay, every year, everywhere I went, this was due to twice having been forgotten due to a misunderstanding between my mum and somebody else supposed to come and pick me up, a stain that tainted the trust in my mother to effectively remember about me when I was out of sight, I used to write as well 'wait to have fun until I come back', for the rest I was forbidden to write 'I miss you like hell 'and why the fuck did you put me here with these kids I don't even know where I am lined up and asked to do 'social activities' like learning songs and basically be puppetered around against my will and my desire to just be left alone". The Minders told me that this would upset my mum too much and make her sad.

My mum wrote to me every day, she would put a candy for me in every letter and I felt luckier than the other kids because everyday when they called for the mail I had a letter, while other kids did not and that was just about the only upper hand I managed to have during my whole stay. A meagre satisfaction

For the rest I was not particularly graceful as I was always taller than the other girls, did not have feminine or fashionable clothes or anything that made me stand out, which gave me a sense of being inferior to other girls and all the kids in general.

When I went to summer camps with the nuns, they played for us Albinoni's Adagio' which in my memory is the saddest, most tragic music I have ever heard and always moved me to tears before sleeping even when I was much older. The careful Merciful Choice of the frustrated Nuns, I always saw that music played to make us sleep as a point of Child Abuse as many of us sniffed our way through all the tune until we fell asleep.

SO back to first year in summer camp, not fitting in, scared of all the other kids, and during my first year, first turn, I got lice.

This event was a shocker, while we were waiting to go through the combs of the nurse, someone said that only dirty kids had lice and I remember sitting there hoping and praying that I was not one of them. But I was. I do not have specific memories of how they organized to separate us, just of the courtyard in which they took us and cut our hair very short, my hair was a point I hang on to since I was a kid, I was always rolling a curl between my fingers with my hair and I remember the feeling of the hairs between my fingers, silky like a texture I really liked, like velvet, a tactile pleasure, it was not a point of vanity, as my mum was never remarking on my appearance and was always running, so she did not have the time to shampoo my hair and put the balm on it like grandma did, appearance was of no concern to me as a kid, it was just that when they cut my hair in the courtyard I felt marked, like now everyone could see and would know I was one of the kids who had lice.

They made a pile of hair in the courtyard and set them on fire, I remember the burnt chicken smell and the shame, a shame so big that I wanted to dig a hole and disappear, plus a sense of powerlessness, that it was all over, nobody of my family was around to tell everyone that I was not a dirty kid, I thought that I had shamed my family as well, no one explained to us about lice and how it happens so I used that comment as my only source of information and built myself a story of shame and guilt. And then blame, I blamed my mum for putting me there with the lousy dirty kids that infected me, for not putting balm on my hair that maybe would have kept the lice away as some kids did not get them, were they the ones better looked after than me? There was for sure something wrong with me, and with her, she was my mother, where the fuck was she in such a tragic moment of my life?

When we were checked again and I cried the nurse told me that actually lice only pick clean heads, I don't know if it was true or not, but I remember the relief as I turned myself from one of the dirty kids into one of the clean ones and felt better about myself. For days the picture of the hair burning in the courtyard haunted me, my own little holocaust, something I did not have a context to understand, I never liked short hair after that and I never wanted to remember.

My mum was informed and came to visit the first weekend after this 'hair cut', I was still dragging myself as if I had been violated, silently angry at her, she told me I was cute and I cried, I vented some of my anger but not the shame, I could not wait for the turn to change and bring in new kids, fresh flesh that had not seen what they had done to me and to my hair and that would never know that I lived through such a shameful moment and survived, diminished and smaller but with some well adjusted suppression everything would be fine and forgotten.

Throughout my Life, every time someone told me after that that I did not wash something properly or that I had a stain on my clothes I would react in shame, I was obviously not good at taking care of me, I should get someone to do it on my behalf, maybe this is the link to the Good Master as I never stepped out of that Shame and the desire to never again feel like the little lousy dirty shameful kid and if that meant getting myself a caretaker to do what I was unable to do, then so be it. Stick a Mental Note on my To DO List.

Self forgiveness to follow tomorrow with self corrective statements




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