It's so sad that in the 21 century people still are debating if it's ok to spank a child. In the 21 century everyone should know the dangers of spanking children and every person in power should be doing everything to make sure every child is protected from harm. Would we be debating today if slavery of black people or any other race is ok, fortunately is common knowledge that slavery of another race is cruel and ignorant. Why can't human beings see that doing it to children is even more cruel, ignorant and very dangerous?
I am so sorry it took me so long to answer your letter. First I like to congratulate you for your courage to speak up about the abuse you suffer at the hands of a sadistic teacher.
What she did was a crime, but sadly crimes against children still go unrecognized and unpunished by society at large. You say that your parents did nothing to protect you and they themselves were abusive towards you.
Usually, that’s the case, parents lay the ground and make their children vulnerable to abusers, schools and all society’s institutions are very happy to continue the abuse that parents started at home.
Your parents deserve most of your justified anger for abusing you and making you vulnerable to abusers that crossed your path and for not taking any steps to protect you from an extremely abusive sadistic teacher.
I think it’s great that you are using your support group, a safe place, to start speaking up about your abuse and how you feel.
I feel is very important we feel the repressed intense excruciating feelings of the child we once were towards our real abusers and allow those wounds to heal first naturally before we go into the general public seeking justice, because if we are still repressed and wounded we run the risk of feeling victimized all over again by people that act similar and remind us of our childhood abusers triggering our repressed excruciating intense feelings and making us lose our balance and cool when we need it the most to make a stand for ourselves and other children.
Unfortunately, most people in our society in power positions are wounded children themselves and they don’t want to be reminded of the abuse that is why they unconsciously and compulsively worked so hard to be in power over others, so they would not have to face and feel the abuse they suffered at their parents' hands when they were defenseless little children remaining endless scared little children to face and question their own internalized parents and they use unconsciously and compulsively the same tactics to silence others the same way their parents silence them, but if we have resolved our own repression we will be able to keep our composure when we encounter repressed and unconscious people in power positions.
I did not suffer the extreme abuse you suffered. I was hit in the head and hands by teachers and constantly emotionally humiliated in front of the class for not spelling my words correctly and not giving the answers the teachers wanted to hear, but never went to the extreme of them removing my clothes and spanking me in my bare bottom. What happened to you is completely an extreme abuse of power and is also sexual abuse, because I have no doubt the teacher has some type of sexual gratification by putting your pants down and spanking your bare bottom and for sure she should be brought to justice for crimes against children that are the worst crimes against humanity, but society chooses to look the other way.
You say: “My father was also extremely abusive verbally, emotionally and somewhat physically. I am single. I will remain single so as to not infect anyone with my father's genes. I swore his DNA would end with me but my brother and sister have children so...
I will not have children and wouldn't want to do to them what was done to me. I might be a spanker and wouldn't want to have their sexuality corrupted by these abusive spankings. It wasn't/isnt worth the risk. I've read no books and had no special therapy”
I congratulate you for your courage to see what happened to you -- your fear of passing it into others -- is very understandable and I am so sorry you sacrificed getting close to others and your fatherhood.
I too felt the same way as you and I used to say to myself: the pain stops in me, but it does not have to be this way. Genes have nothing to do with it. We can learn to take responsibility for our feelings and resolve our repression and become open to entering into relationships with people that also have become conscious of their own history and taking responsibility for their own repressed feelings and no longer unconsciously and compulsively do into others what once was done to them when they were defenseless little children.
I suggest you read Alice Miller’s books and visit her website
her books and website helped me resolve my own repression and liberate myself and become a voice for other children.
I wish you courage and strength on your journey to liberation and much success in becoming a strong voice for children still suffering at the hands of ignorant adults.
Sylvie
The misled brain and the banned emotions
The Facts:
1. The development of the human brain is use-dependent. The brain develops its structure in the first four years of life, depending on the experiences the environment offers the child. The brain of a child who has mostly loving experiences will develop differently from the brain of a child who has been treated cruelly.
2. Almost all children on our planet are beaten in the first years of their lives. They learn from the start violence, and this lesson is wired into their developing brains. No child is ever born violent. Violence is NOT genetic, it exists because beaten children use, in their adult lives, the lesson that their brains have learned.
3. As beaten children are not allowed to defend themselves, they must suppress their anger and rage against their parents who have humiliated them, killed their inborn empathy, and insulted their dignity. They will take out this rage later, as adults, on scapegoats, mostly on their own children. Deprived of empathy, some of them will direct their anger against themselves (in eating disorders, drug addiction, depression, etc.), or against other adults (in wars, terrorism, delinquency, etc.)
Questions and Answers:
Q: Parents beat their children without a second thought, to make them obedient. Nobody, except a very small minority, protests against this dangerous habit. Why is the logical sequence (from being a misled victim to becoming a misleading perpetrator) totally ignored worldwide? Why have even the Popes, responsible for the moral behavior of many millions of believers, until now never informed them that beating children is a crime?
A: Because almost ALL of us were beaten, and we had to learn very early that these cruel acts were normal, harmless, and even good for us. Nobody ever told us that they were crimes against humanity. The wrong, immoral, and absurd lesson was wired into our developing brains, and this explains the emotional blindness governing our world.
Q: Can we free ourselves from the emotional blindness we developed in childhood?
A: We can – at least to some degree – liberate ourselves from this blindness by daring to feel our repressed emotions, including our fear and forbidden rage against our parents who had often scared us to death for periods of many years, which should have been the most beautiful years of our lives. We can’t retrieve those years. But thanks to facing our truth we can transform ourselves from the children who still live in us full of fear and denial into responsible, well-informed adults who regained their empathy, so early stolen from them. By becoming feeling persons we can no longer deny that beating children is a criminal act that should be forbidden on the whole planet.
Conclusion:
Caring for the emotional needs of our children means more than giving them a happy childhood. It means to enable the brains of the future adults to function in a healthy, rational way, free from perversion and madness. Being forced to learn in childhood that hitting children is a blessing for them is a most absurd, confusing lesson, one with the most dangerous consequences: This lesson as such, together with being cut off from the true emotions, creates the roots of violence.
www.alice-miller.com
© 2015 Alice Miller
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