From: bear@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU (Bear Giles)
Subject: Re: Abuse
Organization: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Adminstration / Boulder Labs
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 23:52:30 GMT

In article <1992Aug14.050244.21482@spdcc.com> dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer) writes:
>In article <cloister.713760488@milton> cloister@milton.u.washington.edu (cloister bell) writes:
>>>"It" isn't "abuse", "it" is "his problems".  His mother was worried that
>>>psychologists were going to blame her for his problems.  Even the most
>>>committed student of abusive families has to admit that not all problems
>>>are due to environment or one's upbringing.  Some people have mental
>>>problems of their own making, or they just come that way due to bad genes.
>>>Sometimes there's no one to blame.
>>
>>i don't think that's true in this case.
>
>Hard to say; I'll let Bear Giles judge.  I was making a grammatical
>point; namely, what antecedent the "it" had.

Actually, you'd have to ask my mother what she meant several years ago.
I'ld lay very long odds that she meant "a child's problems" rather than
"sexual abuse" because her abuse was _much_ more subtle than that.

>>his mother's statement really makes me
>>think "i wonder what she has to hide?"  if she knew she were not guilty of any
>>abuse, why would she say that?  she would know it wasn't going to happen to
>>her.
>
>I think this is dangerously fascist thinking.  In fact, people who aren't
>schooled in psychology or who aren't sophisticated and whose only exposure
>to such stuff is from tabloid TV might well say something like this
>and be perfectly innocent.

It wasn't an innocent statement.  But it wasn't what most of you expect,
either.

A central mind-fuck of hers is that she is playing the script "all men in
my life abandon me."  After all,

1. her father died unexpectedly when she was young (5 or 6).
2. her first husband ran off after she bailed him out of jail, shortly
   after they were married.
3. her second husband (my father) was never home: he was away many nights
   working as a fireman, or at a second job.
4. her second husband was never around when he was home: he did not do
   things with his family (wife-and-children), he visited relatives with
   his new family.
5. her son will be ungrateful and abandon her.

The last one became a self-fulfilling prophesy: she not only expected me
to 'abandon' her, she encouraged it without realizing it.  When I first
moved away from home (for the first 1-1/2 in college I lived with my
parents and commuted) I took "too long" to find a roommate after I decided
to move near campus.  One day she said "Well, haven't you moved yet?!" in
a hostile tone... although she still got all stuffy when I actually moved
a few weeks later.

I now believe her "they always trace it back to the parents" had absolutely
nothing to do with me, but rather was her setting the stage for the final
act where her ungrateful son abandons her.  BTW, when I understood her
script I did "abandon" her because I realized she would not be "happy"
until I did abandon her -- she would push me away until I did abandon her.
No sense in us both being miserable.

Last I heard she's doing the same thing to my father.  They semi-retired
a few years ago, but at the same time my father is applying for Social
Security he is also looking for a full-time job... I strongly suspect
because my mother is making him too uncomfortable since he isn't playing
the proper role and abandoning her.

If anyone has any ideas how to enlighten such a person....?  All of my
attempts have been met by interlocking defense mechanisms.

>What parent hasn't felt regret for the choices they've made wrt raising
>their children?  What parent might not worry that some choice they've
>made could have contributed to their child's problems today (just as
>parents like to take credit for their children's successes.)  I find
>it amazing that you're just assuming the worst on the part of this person
>you know absolutely nothing about.

Intuition can frequently lead one astray, especially if you have
been tightly focused on something for awhile.

But any parent who reacts to a child having severe problems (and many
highly visible elements go back to middle school) with:

  "It's not my fault!"

instead of 

  "Is there anything I can do to help?"

clearly has her priorities screwed up.


Bear Giles
bear@fsl.noaa.gov