Association with abusers

I know that abuse has been generational with my abusers as has mental illness, and I'm sure that's made a big difference in how we interact with one another and how they learned to interact with the world.

To an extent I've talked with one of my abusers about some of the things that happened, and the answer that was most striking was, "I was doing the best I could." I truly believe that the person who said this believes this with all of their heart, and that their upbringing probably makes them think that what happened was the best thing to do in certain situations. I know for a fact that they were abused mentally if not physically and forced to do horrible things as well as witness them. This is what they grew up with. It was all they knew. That doesn't make it right to pass it on, but it makes it pretty darn hard to escape from what you know and trail blaze. I know now that we're nowhere near the abusers we're starting to learn things like that people don't always want something in exchange for being nice or helping you. We're starting to learn that people can be good simply for the purpose of being good and that being hurt mentally or physically isn't just something that comes with life.

Now, we've been around for a while and we've been in and out of serious therapy since the early 2000s. Add that to the rest of our life and you've got a pretty decent chunk of time where we only knew what the abusers taught us. Even now that we're realizing what was programed into us and what actually is a part of the real world at large, we question it. Last year, one of my coworkers gave me a gift during the holiday season simply because she likes me. She didn't expect anything in return. At the time that made me very suspicious, and even now if that happened this year, I would have to check ourself and remind ourself that this isn't what we know because what we know isn't the norm. We have to say that this is good, and it's okay.

On a more internal level, we definitely have parts that are hurtful to us. They abuse us in all sorts of manners that we learned from growing up in the household we did. As a group we are still learning how to treat each other and why it is not okay to respond in certain ways. It makes me think of a speeding train. This train has been speeding along for years. Based on what I know, it's been speeding along for the parents of my abusers (and probably earlier, but I never knew those people or about them) and for my abusers and kept going for me. That's generations of amassed momentum. That's decades if not a century of more of time to close out the world and learn internal lessons. It takes a long time for a train to slow. Even more so if the train is speeding out of control like this one was.

Wow, I hope that made sense. I slept maybe 2 hours last night and this made sense and had a point when I started. Anyway...