How I mirrored My Mother's Physical Abuse

[Turkish]

Warning... . this post may be triggering for animal lovers.

I've posted before about how I used to get smacked around quite a bit as a kid, something most of us here can probably relate to, such that I was always walking on eggshells expecting to be smacked.

My mom, in the only money making scheme that generated income, used to raise and breed small purebred dogs. This started when I was around 6. The dogs, naturally, were not immune to the same smacking around that I got, as I remember she was always hitting them when they misbehaved (translation: were being dogs).

When was 17, and I finally had a real roof over my head after living from 12-17 in the woods (first unfinished barn shell, then a camper). It was at this point that I realized that the dogs were acting the same way towards me that I acted towards my mom. They would cringe like they were going to get hit when i went to pet them. We loved them, they all had names, I had alternate "pet" pet names for them, and it wasn't anything like animal torture or anything (like my mom didn't really hate me, neither did I hate them, they were good company away from my mom, actually).

Being calm and stoic, my mom first noticed this trait in my when she adopted me at 2.4, I still had anger issues. I remember the last and worst incident that shocked me into changing. That sumer after my high school graduation, I was 17 and still stuck at home. I actually wanted to move out, but my mom put it into my head that I wasn't a legal adult until i was 18. I think on some level I knew that I could have moved out if I had wanted to. Her behaviors were becoming increasingly erratic. I was even more angry, detached, and probably a bit desperate, even spending as little time at home as possible.

We had a couple of Tibetan Spaniels. Beautiful dogs, with kind temperaments. I remember one of them trying to get in the house when I didn't want it there, so I tossed her out the front door. It was less than two feet off the ground, and only about two feet of distance, but she landed wrong and ended up on her head. "Tibbies" have very short legs. I saw instantly that I had given her a concussion, and I cringed out of guilt and felt, "Oh, God, what did I do?"  I cared for her for a while, and she slowly came out of it. Sunshine had no external damage that I could tell, but I knew I had crossed the line. I didn't tell my mom, of course.

In the weeks that followed, Sunshine was walking around, eating and such, otherwise healthy, but she was tired, and slept a lot more than she had previously. I knew I had caused some kind of permanent damage.

I had a motorcycle that summer, and rode out a lot on our dirt road to the main highway to go to work and do other things. I remember riding out the half mile to the highway, on the sun dappled dirt track under the trees and narrowly missing Sunshine, as she was napping in the middle of the road. I got out to the main highway and realized that I had forgotten something at home. I raced back along the dirt road and felt a little bump. I instantly realized what had happened. Sunshine, our little tan-colored Tibetan Spaniel, had moved. I stopped my bike, dropped my helmet and cradled my poor little dog, who was slowly dying.

I realized the magnitude of what I had done, and though it was an accident, I was still the cause of Sunshine sleeping in the road. It was then that I never hit another our our dogs again, and coincidentally, the last summer my mom every smacked me (when I raised my hand by instinct, she yelled, "what are you going to do, hit your mother?" 

25 years later, I still feel guilty about Sunshine. And I realize that I do have that anger within me a bit, and though I've never smacked our kids, I do have those triggers still buried within somewhere. Thanks for letting me share and I hope I didn't traumatize any dog lovers.

Turkish

[lucyhoneychurch]

Well... . I've read this through a number of times. I really don't know where to begin, Turkish.

It had to be hard to write.

I can hear alot of deep shame and regret in your words.

I had issues with the idea you were 17 and doing this to a dog, any dogs, no matter what you'd been dealt from her.

17 knows better, is what I've always believed.

Sorry, that's just what's coming out very honestly.

I got lost about the "stoic" thing - your mother was being stoic? or this was a trait in you as a newly adopted child?

I would like to hear more about what that might mean... . stoic in a child that's been through an adoption process could also be a glaring case of shock and numb trauma.

That could so account for anger issues in any child or teen.

What I am going to say you will just have to maybe absorb - that dog would've gone to a vet if I'd gotten impatient and physically tossed it out the door at 17 or 13 or 10 - no matter the consequence to me. You had enough time as the days dragged on to ask another adult someone anyone to help you get the dog examined.

I understand how scary it has to be to look back on this event. But at this point I am thinking how scary it was for this poor animal.

And then I get the feeling - uh, really don't know how to answer about running over it. No animal can possibly feel like "a little bump" when you strike it with a motorcycle. You saw the dog driving out to the road.

This whole thing just really upset me and maybe I should've waited to respond but I think you've had 25 years to feel miserable and I am NOT trying to add to that. The dog that saw me through every awful stinking day of my existence from age 10 when we got him at 8 wks as a puppy to right before I left for college when he died at age 7... . he heard all my heartaches. So I can't really go there with dogs bearing the brunt of your pain or your mother's and living like this.

I hear how difficult it was for you in those conditions. All the more so if you'd had four legs and no verbal skills.   :'(

I want to send you a hug   and say I am very sorry... . and I am very sorry for Sunshine, I know she's forgiven you a long time ago... . dogs are like that.

That's about all I can manage right now.

Thank you for sharing such a big thing with us.

[Turkish]

Naw, you are right. 17 was old enough to know better. I can take the criticism. That was 25 years ago, too. I honestly didn't see her on the way back since she had moved when I passed her on the way out, and the road was sun on brown-yellow dirt and shade. She was the same color as the dirt. I felt like crap enough, and having raised to many dogs, I saw many die from natural causes, a mother dog getting loose taking out another mother's puppies, one that wandered off the property and got hit by a car. etc. I became numb to loss. I felt even more horrible when I realized that Sunshine probably wouldn't have been in the road napping had I not damaged her previously (she wasn't non-ambulatory, just a little slower), thus the point of me writing this.

As for the stoic thing, I was just that way when my mom adopted me. My mom was my 4th different home/Caregiver since birth. I never went to her for comfort when I cried, just did it to myself off in a corner. That changed, and later my mom was surprised how quickly I attached to her, especially given the dysfunctional behaviors we saw in other adoptive families.

[lucyhoneychurch]

I was thinking that was what you meant about stoic... . that you sort of had just had to shutdown as a baby/toddler. I know a woman in my community here raised in an orphanage in Morocco, she's about 60... . my god... . she is funny, resolute, kind, loving, sense of humor - and talks about the utter deprivation of being a little girl in a place like that back then.

You've had 25 years to filter it through the "crap happens" lens and I know it can seem like our childhoods had their extra awful share.

Some Russian siblings were adopted locally, and I thought about the physical comforts that might even be pretty weird - like hot water to bathe in... . I was a little sad that their names were completely changed, as their Russian ones were really elegant and lovely... . but that would be the adoptive parents choice. I hear they are doing well.

Your story is full of chips and broken pieces but I think we glitter a little brighter sometimes for all the fractures and flaws.

[HappyChappy]

I honestly didn't see her on the way back since she had moved when I passed her on the way out, and the road was sun on brown-yellow dirt and shade. She was the same color as the dirt.

Turkish You clearly did not have any malice aforethought. It was an accident. I also had a motorcyle, and with a helmit on - I can see how easily the Sunshine accident can happen.

If you're brought up in a War Zone, you get hit by shrapnel. We're products of our enviroment. What comes through here is that your human side, your kind side, needed to air this story. Had you been malitious, or Narcisstic - you'd have never given it a second thought.