I M Perfect lady

"On top of the abuse and neglect, denial heaps more hurt upon the child by requiring the child to alienate herself from reality and her own experience. In troubled families, abuse and neglect are permitted; it's the talking about them that is forbidden."         http://adultsurvivors.blogspot.com/

Let's see if I can draw a picture as to what this is like.  It is like you exist, but you can't talk about your existence, you are there but silent, moving around but not allowed to talk about it….a ghost in your own life. Where what happens in it, isn't allowed in it.

And then we wonder why children who were abused are not able to be rational, that they can't see what is going on in their lives. They have been taught to not see…to permit abuse, but to be silent about it.

That means, anything can be done to them and they will not speak up.

Silently permitting.  

Here is another paragraph that struck a cord in me…

"Children don't innately know how to repress their spontaneous responses. They have to be taught, and troubled parents are perhaps the best teachers of all. There are three iron-clad rules in the abusive home: Don't talk. Don't trust. Don't feel. To break any of them means risking rejection or punishment."

Living a life that leaves out trust, feelings and talking, leaves very little to work with. It is how we are to be in our home.  How can you be 'natural' if you leave out feelings and how can you relax without trust?  

When I did bring in my feelings and began talking about them, I was rejected.  They will say I left, and perhaps it feels better to know that. But, what I know is that no one wanted to hear how I felt…and in order to be myself, I had to go.  Their rejection of my truth made it so.  I could stay, but not bringing in my feelings and certainly there would be no talking about it.  

Here is another great one;

"The child's sense of guilt and responsibility is useful to the abusive parent, who believes he isn't abusive..that it is the child who forces him into being abusive. The non protective adults want the child to bear the guilt so they won't have to face the harm their neglect is causing. So…the dance of the violent family begins: Children are responsible for adult's behavior…adults are responsible for nothing."

It isn't hard to imagine this, I have lived it.  This is exactly how it goes.  No adult is willing to be responsible.  Neither sees that it is NOT the child who is causing the abuse in the home. 

A violent family is one where the adults are out of control and blame the child…a child who is unable to stop, for he/she is little and has no power.

Imagine, blaming the abuse on the powerless.

Yet, this is done repeatedly until the 'powerless' one flips this around in their heads and sees where the real fault lies. It isn't a child that causes child abuse.