Did you get bullied?

[P.F.Change]

Like you, becoming a mother altered my perceptions. i stopped thinking in terms of "I had a golden childhood"  ( damnable die - true propaganda) and wondered why I whispered softly to myself "I will NEVER use a belt on this beautiful sweet little girl" I will never belittle her call her names, steal her accomplishments. I won't laugh at the things she thinks are important. I won't deride her when her choices don't coincide with mine. etc It meant then asking myself Why am I even thinking about those things? I wasn't ready to answer that then

I really got a lot of healing from learning to nurture my "inner child." All of those things we want to give our own babies, we also have to learn to give to ourselves. When you're ready to think about little Ziggidy, maybe imagine going to her and giving her the kind of comfort and love you would want to give your own child. Actually talk to her. It really made a difference to me and helped me resolve a lot of pain. I learned that my needs matter and I can make myself safe. It goes with Step 7 of the Survivor's Guide.

[Turkish]

This is a sticking point with me. "It was the 80's". That does not make  it validate-able. if you think about it, this is a mere 15 years after the famous Dr Spock child rearing book was a best seller and many recommended practices were undertaken by that generation.

For me more the 70's. The worst physical abuse was 77-79. A lot of my friends were 'disciplined' the same way -mostly with a belt but it was not till a couple of years ago that I discovered that the use of the belt was different on most of them than us. For instance I asked my husband ":)id you ever get belted as a kid?" He laughed and said "Yeah, but we were pretty rebellious - coming in from the paddock two hours late, running off instead of doing chores." then I questioned him further - what was a belting in your household? It turns out that him and his brother were hit with a belt twice on two occasions across jeans-clad butts. They both didn't think it really hurt and they both consider that they got away with heaps of stuff without more than a lecture or a telling off.

i compared that to the traumatising publicly humiliating stuff my brother suffered - Dad would absolutely go into a blind red rage and disappear somewhere just mechanically yelling and methodically pounding him. On more than one occasion he was copping it for something he did to me and yet I'd be leaping on my dad's back trying to haul him off.

Blind rage... . dissociation. I think the abuser's own abuse trauma triggers and they lash out at the targets most convenient and accessible: us.

I remember my mom used to tell me when she was spanking me the "I do this because I love you." Even at 5 or whatever, I remember thinking it didn't make sense. She started with her hand on bare flesh ("If it starts to hurt me, I know I'm doing it too hard". She soon transitioned to the belt on bare flesh.

I was always smacked, though. I think that was worse because at least the belting and spanking were "planned" and there was some explanation offered, no matter how odd. I can never remember, though, what thing I did wrong that I deserved those. Washing my mouth out with soap for swearing, yeah, those times I remember! I think the smacking around, often in public, was worse.