dydan | April is Child National Child Abuse Prevention Month

I've been struggling all month with trying to write this entry. I'm nowhere near as talented and eloquent as people like

theferrett or

popfiend or any of the other "famous" bloggers out there. I'm just little ol' me. I'm making this entry public because I think awareness is important in preventing child abuse. I'm doing so with the understanding that some of what I may say might upset or surprise people who have known me since childhood (especially people who I might be related to), and while I apologize in advance I hope you understand why this issue is so important to me.

I am a survivor of child abuse.

I dont say this to garner pity. I certainly dont say it to create drama in my life. It is what it is, and it has shaped me (both good and bad) into the adult I have become. I'm not going to cite a laundry list of the offenses that were committed during my childhood and adolescence. Frankly I think that just shifts attention to the perpetrator and she ceased having the right to share space with me a long time ago. And again...I'm not here for a pity party.

What I DO want to talk about is abuse and its impact. Of course, there's physical abuse, sexual abuse and emotional abuse. I dont mean to imply one type deserves more talking about than another, but since my experience is with emotional and (to a lesser extent) physical, that's what I'll focus more on.

Specific laws vary state to state, but Federal law defines abuse as "any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotioinal harm, sexual abuse or exploitation."

I hear a lot of parents complain these days about how kids have all the power and how kids were so much better behaved in the "good old days" when you could beat your child - or worse, how "great" it was back in the day when teachers could beat your kid for you. Now, I'm sure a lot of the people who say these things to me are most likely exaggerating - at least I hope so!

As an adult, I am VERY much aware of just how much children can annoy you, test you and push every single one of your buttons. They can make you so frustrated and angry that you might even want to sell them to the Gypsies for some shiny magic beans. But for me, as I see it, it becomes abuse when you choose to let your emotions dictate your actions.

I have never experienced a point in my lifetime where I thought the beating I was receiving was "discipline". Children are far more perceptive than we adults give them credit for and trust me, they know when you are angry at them. If you are hitting a child, you arent teaching them a lesson unless the lesson you want to convey is to either 1. fear you, or 2. get better at whatever they did so they wont get in this predicament again. And just how many hits does it take to teach the lesson? One? Five? Until the yardstick breaks? When has the child "learned their lesson? When the imprint of your hand is still an angry red welt on the child's skin the next day?

For me however, emotional abuse was the bigger beast. Physical abuse always came across as a primitive act to me. Monkeys beat on each other when their mad, y'know? But if you really, really want to cut at someone's soul and wound their heart and mind, emotional abuse will do it. Trust me, there is nothing more devastating and hurtful than the "authority figure" making you feel worthless.

In my household, there was emotional abuse on a daily basis. Occasionally it was physical, but compared to some of the horror stories I have heard from friends I guess I was pretty lucky. There may be a lot of things about my childhood I forgot, like names of some of my classmates and such, but I havent forgotten what went on at home. Ah yes, abuse is the gift that keeps on giving, like herpes. There isnt a day that goes by that I dont look in the mirror and hear in my head the litany of horrible things I was told. There isnt a day that I dont ask myself if all those things that were said to me were true. It has taken me a lot of years, a lot of therapy and a lot of working and processing things for me to finally get to a point where I am ok with who I am. I dont think I'll ever be one of those incredibly confident to the point of obnoxious type of people. I'm content where I am at right now, which for me is saying a lot considering where I was when I had my nervous breakdown in my early 20's.

I spent (more like wasted) a lot of time trying to figure out the why of it all. Then I got married and found myself the primary caretaker of two children. Hello, Instant Family...meet Miss Not-Emotionally-Ready-To-Parent! There was a lot of dysfunction in the dynamic between my husband and I, between us and his ex-wife and how we all related to the kids. It was a big horrible mess and looking back on it now I see how I was so not ready or capable of bearing the responsibility that was dumped on me. At that point it became a lot easier for me to understand why a parent would get so frustrated and upset that they'd want to beat their child and/or say horrible things to them.

It shames me now to admit this, but I know there were times when I reacted inappropriately towards the kids. I also remember that when those incidents happened they terrified me. I swore for years that when I had children they would not have the same childhood as me, and yet without even thinking about it I heard myself uttering words that cut me to the core when I was a kid. WTF!

At that point, it became a matter of choice for me. I think Parenting is not something we just inately know how to do and its not like babies come with Owner's Manuals. We mimic what we see as children. We draw upon what our caretakers did to develop our parenting styles. So for me, its very easy to understand how the abused child becomes the abusive adult. I dont however, consider that a valid excuse to continue the cycle of abuse. You are the adult. You have years of wisdom and experience under your belt and its really not difficult to see how hitting someone or telling them horrible things is actually harming them. Kids dont have a poker face and its pretty easy to tell when they are hurt and upset. So you choose. As an adult, you CHOOSE to willfully hurt someone. Having a bad day is one thing, but when it happens every day? THAT IS ABUSE.

I may have mellowed about a lot of things as I've gotten older. However, when it comes to this I have zero tolerance. No one will EVER raise a hand in anger to me again. Period. No one will EVER be allowed to make me feel bad about myself again. Period.

Now...if you're a parent, go hug your kid and tell them that no matter what they do or what direction their life takes them, you will always love them. And mean it.