Thank you so much for doing this writing. It is so important and emboldening. Every time I read about your experience and your father using the term "ungrateful," my mind splits. What were you to have been grateful for? As if you are to feel grateful for the things he perhaps felt grateful for? His father raising him? That kind of feeling isn't passed down. In order to feel grateful to someone, that person should have contributed meaningfully to your life, not consistently stolen from you night and day.
I find myself in a position somewhat related, maybe once removed. My mother experienced her own father forcibly kiss her in the night while she was sleeping. Then the next day when she told her preacher about it, HE leaned in and kissed her. Again, my brain splits. I've felt the ripple effects of this on my own life through her alcoholism (which I understand much more following the recent unveiling of this context). There's the lightning strike. Time to go write!
As a survivor of the “bad” shit, if anything I tend to be hypersensitive to anything I see as CSA. There’s so much that is normalized in our culture hiding in plain sight… and that can be the worst kind of stuff, because we’re led to believe it’s “not that bad” or even “not abuse”. Recognizing and naming these kinds of abuse and neglect can only help incest and csa survivors. There are so many factors that go into how traumatizing something is for someone, and protective factors play a huge role. Even though I’ve got some capital T trauma I’ve benefited SO MUCH from the support of my immediate family and friends, as well as having a financial safety net. Trauma that cuts a child off from their family/caregivers and resources can have devastating effects, imo sometimes worse than more obvious physical violence. Isolation, neglect, lack of support, etc. is really fucking bad.
This actually gives me a lot of hope for parents because if you can just BE THERE for your kid it can make such a difference, even if you can’t protect them from everything.
This post really has really helped me acknowledge the climate of sexual violence and incest I grew up in, even though I've always brushed it off since nothing ever "crossed the line." Thank you.
Thank you so much for doing this writing. It is so important and emboldening. Every time I read about your experience and your father using the term "ungrateful," my mind splits. What were you to have been grateful for? As if you are to feel grateful for the things he perhaps felt grateful for? His father raising him? That kind of feeling isn't passed down. In order to feel grateful to someone, that person should have contributed meaningfully to your life, not consistently stolen from you night and day.
I find myself in a position somewhat related, maybe once removed. My mother experienced her own father forcibly kiss her in the night while she was sleeping. Then the next day when she told her preacher about it, HE leaned in and kissed her. Again, my brain splits. I've felt the ripple effects of this on my own life through her alcoholism (which I understand much more following the recent unveiling of this context). There's the lightning strike. Time to go write!
As a survivor of the “bad” shit, if anything I tend to be hypersensitive to anything I see as CSA. There’s so much that is normalized in our culture hiding in plain sight… and that can be the worst kind of stuff, because we’re led to believe it’s “not that bad” or even “not abuse”. Recognizing and naming these kinds of abuse and neglect can only help incest and csa survivors. There are so many factors that go into how traumatizing something is for someone, and protective factors play a huge role. Even though I’ve got some capital T trauma I’ve benefited SO MUCH from the support of my immediate family and friends, as well as having a financial safety net. Trauma that cuts a child off from their family/caregivers and resources can have devastating effects, imo sometimes worse than more obvious physical violence. Isolation, neglect, lack of support, etc. is really fucking bad.
This actually gives me a lot of hope for parents because if you can just BE THERE for your kid it can make such a difference, even if you can’t protect them from everything.
This post really has really helped me acknowledge the climate of sexual violence and incest I grew up in, even though I've always brushed it off since nothing ever "crossed the line." Thank you.