An oh so lucky victim of childhood abuse?
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yes very lucky it seems she was raised in a culture that encouraged speaking out against abuse, where she was able to recognize the signs of it
instead of in a culture of guilt and shame, where abuse is hidden, where sex is taboo, where law enforcement is weak, corruption rules
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I wasn't raised in that culture? After it happened everyone was very hush-hush about it, nobody talked to me, nothing bad happened to my abuser (my mom just didn't allow me alone with him). We were raised in a sexually repressed patriarchal cult where I didn't know I had a vagina
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until I was about to hit bleeding age.
I had no idea what had happened to me was considered abuse until years later after leaving that culture, at which point I was encouraged by society to start viewing what happened to me as traumatic.
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I guess I'm annoyed at you being annoyed at being pressured by society into interpreting your abuse as traumatic (when it wasn't for you)
when in many developing countries especially, the culture/society does not allow for this interpretation at all
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Being pressured into viewing abuse as traumatic is bad. Refusing to acknowledge abuse as painful is also bad. I think our culture has the second class totally covered, but has issues with the first. Other cultures have issues with the first and are great for the second.
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I'm struggling to understand this "pressure"
You were raised in a cult that erased your gender and sexuality and somehow that was more "liberating" than the society that pressured you into interpreting your abuse as traumatic
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could it be that you simply don't identify yourself that closely with your gender and sexuality? by-products of your upbringing?
and that's why you don't view the abuse as traumatizing?
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I don't know why not identifying with my gender/sexuality would cause me not to view the abuse as traumatizing. I *currently* don't identify with my gender, but I did far more around five years ago. The abuse wasn't traumatizing because it literally was not a traumatic experience
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yeah and that's fair enough, but just so we're clear
abuse is really wrong and really fucking disgusting
I'm sorry it happened to you
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Yeah looking back on it I have a strong disgust reaction.
But, for example, "I'm sorry it happened to you" is an example of the ambient cultural narrative telling me that what happened to me was something I should feel bad about. Just a minor note there.
I'm sorry that me saying I'm sorry pressured you into feeling bad about it when you don't
I just have a strong disgust reaction to abuse
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Sure! I'm not saying you shouldn't say it; I understand this is coming out of your feelings about it. I just wanted to use it to illustrate what I meant when I was talking about cultural pressure.
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