Long-term Consequences of Child Abuse, and Neglect

I have been horribly abused by my mother, whom I think has a delusional disorder.

What I don't understand is how a child can be placed in foster care, yet the parent is not charged for hitting or physically abusing the child in any way. The child is only removed from the home. Why is that?

-- Tue Jul 12, 2011 10:24 pm --

I spoke with a subject matter expert on JustAsk.com and she was 55 years old; while she was a child there was not assistance for children. She said that the system really hasn't improved since I was a young girl but it is getting there.

Like let's say hypothetically now, at the age of 34, I walk up to my mother, wake her up by pulling her hair and kicking her, maybe a couple hard open hand hits to the face/head. I would be arrested and thrown in jail. Then, in jail I am sure they would diagnose me with the correct mental illness and I would get help. Still serve the time I would require as an adult who committed a crime.

Now of course I would never do that but I am trying to explain what would happen if the roles were reversed.

WHen I was 12, I was simply removed from my home and placed in foster care. There was no action taken for my mother, no police investigation about physical abuse, no offer for counseling or mental assessment, nothing. I was simply removed.

Why is there a double standard? What makes it more excusable to physically abuse a helpless child?

I'm not in the mood to read through much in this forum now, I just wanted to get this down and make that my first step.

I've just come back from helping my mom with some gardening, she's nearing 60 and she's still treating me like she wants to dominate and hurt me.
It's the little things, things that are not too obvious so she knows that she can get away with it and that any discussion of it is going to be easy for her to handle.
Like she knows that I am smarter than her, and she reacts to that by acting dumb in order to exhaust me by forcing me to explain things.
Like when she had succeeded in pissing me off today, she put the icing on the cake by asking me to explain how people would walk up the stairs if there was a plank laid down on the steps.

Like suddenly having to make a quick errand on the way back from picking up some take-away, when she knows I am hungry.
Small things, which would make me sound like I am over-sensitive if I tried to explain them to somebody who hadn't experienced that kind of stuff, but nevertheless things that she knows annoys me in particular.

Does anybody know what I am talking about, and isn't this actually emotional abuse?

Alevi wrote:Does anybody know what I am talking about, and isn't this actually emotional abuse?

Absolutely, I can completely relate to what you have said about your mother. My mother is exactly like that too. It took me ages to realize that that is emotional abuse.

A really good page of information about emotional abuse is here: http://www.eqi.org/eabuse1.htm
It helped me soooo much to see how my mother is emotionally abusive by reading that page.

What you said about your mother getting you to run an errand when she knows you are hungry... One of the lines of info on the site I mentioned says this "The other person places unreasonable demands on you and wants you to put everything else aside to tend to their needs". So that definitely falls under the category of emotional abuse.

*edited*
Wrong thread.

"Does anybody know what I am talking about, and isn't this actually emotional abuse?"

I can understand that.

Hi Madeleine,

The situation you are describing is abuse. It is emotional and mental abuse at a minimum. I had narcissistic parents, and the damage they do is beyond belief. We still live in a society that does not recognize abuse as a problem in enough situations. This child will need serious long term therapy to work through all of the damage.

I thought the article was excellent but wanted to add something about abuse. I am an HSP and HSP's frequently have a history of coming from abusive families. Whenever you encounter an abuse situation it is worth considering that the highly sensitive trait can be a factor.

Hi,
I come from a family where I was born when my parents were experiencing marriage troubles. My mother is kind of an introvert, a kind woman. My father is domineering, condescending, prudish and considers himself superior to others. As a kid, I wonder if the relationship frustration was vented out on me (I don't have siblings), but all I remember now is beatings if I didn't study, beatings if I didn't behave, and on occasions, beatings for no reason. On one occasion, he even forced my mother out of the house after a physical struggle, while I stayed locked in another room banging at the door.
Humiliation in public on minor issues, humiliation of my mother in public, emotional abuse and constant criticism, always been talked down, and withdrawing support on occasions when I needed them.

All this was before I was 15, after which I moved out to study abroad, and my parents relationship seems to have calmed down, but my father still exhibits his behavior.
But now, I am 23, ,and a schizoid. I have gone through an year of depression in university, I have random flashbacks and mood changes; disgust and anger builds up inside of me, which I then have to soothe away, listen to music etc.
I never want to have a family, all it has given me so far is pain and suffering.

CapedCrusader wrote:Hi guys, this is a really nice topic and great discussion for my research, school stuff. I wondered if abused children would grow to become serial killers/offenders. Because of the factors such as humiliation and rage that have bottled up in them.
My research topic is "Discuss the effects of early childhood traumas on people’s behaviours" I have found some other results of this topic through googling.
But few of them show maybe the after-effect of them being serial-offenders. So what do you think? The rage and humiliation bottled in the people who suffers in their childhood want to pass their pain to others. Does the Long-term Consequences of Child Abuse, and Neglect affects this behavior in their adult age or could the mass-media be involved too? Share your thought and thanks.

After being abused for some 10 years, no I did not grow up to be a serial killer. However, with that being said I have a propensity to first react with wanting to hit but i usually hit a wall, table, etc....
I broke my knuckle last year hitting a stainless steel table as hard as I could and put a dent in it.
I have two beautiful daughters whom I love dearly and would never do to them what was done to me. while I do not have actual foster children I do however have many young adults that call me mom. I love children very much and am very nurturing towards them. I do believe my saving grace in coming out somewhat normal is that I watched a lot of TV and most the family type shows and that is where I learned about family.

I still have limited contact with my abuser and while we never broach the subject I do feel however if that behavior were to come up again that in my adult life I might react with the rage that I do still feel over what happened when I was younger.

Hmmm this thread makes me seriously wonder just how "unique" people really are, to see how similar/different two people would be if they had exactly 100% the same upbringing. "Resilience" was mentioned and thats what makes me wonder if people can really say an upbringing and the environment is what makes that person. Its always angered me (people will probably disagree with me on this) when people lay everything down to the parents and blame them for a persons short comings. I remeber not so long ago when I had a serious argument with a teacher, I would have you know I tried walking away to no avail, he kept aggravating me to the point where I grabbed his throat and slammed him against the wall and basically explained in explicit detail what I would do if he didnt shut up. Not one of my proudest moments. The teacher was going to press charges until the head teacher who unfortunately knew about my, this is his words exactly: "Horrific past" went behind my back and told this teacher very personal details about my past. Anyway the next time that teacher saw me he said something along the lines of I understand why you behaved so inappropriately before, what could I expect from seomeone with that kind of upringing. Luckily for him my best friend was there when he said it so I didnt feel any anger. But the point of it all is that it isnt because of my past that I snapped it was because I had a moment of weakness and I was unable to control my anger.

No parent is perfect. There is a huge difference between a parent who makes mistakes and an abusive parent. And definitely a huge difference between an imperfect parent (all parents actually) and one that manipulates and abuses their children as a means of personal gain in some form like a sociopath.

I've got a friend who isn't an abusive father at all. A little irresponsible, but he's a great dad. In fact, his daughter's growing up good.

Then there is my mother, all three kids have some kind of mental problems. PTSD for two of them. BPD for one. NPD for another. My mother herself is probably an NPD, she has all the symptoms and refuses to get help. She's manipulative and abusive. I've seen my step dad have his hand hacked into with a knife, then I had to watch to make sure he wasn't cheating on her at the emergency room, while my step dad told the doctors the official story she made, that he got cut at work.

Alot of $#%^ happened you can't chock down to "imperfection". And on the reverse, things that are simply examples of imperfect people being imperfect parents, as bad as they can sometimes be, can't hardly make the person an "abusive parent".