What parents are actually capable of doing…?

the serial killer Thomas Quick with twin-sister at 2 years.

as grown up.

The fourth part in a series, where you can find the other three here, here and here. It's another extremely warm day here. But now a bike-ride to pick the last lilies-of-the-valley!

Pincus writes at page 212-214:

”For example, one person who had just said he had never been abused told me he was once severely punished or running away to avoid discipline for having broken a window when he was six [did he deliberately break this window? And this boy was ONLY SIX YEARS OLD!! From where came this “urge” to break that window one can wonder too? That need to abreaction?]. His sister and father immobilized him and burned the soles of his feet with a lighted candle to prevent him from running away again. In his opinion, this punishment fit the crime. He considered it to be reasonable and not abusive.

Another telling indicator of abuse is bed-wetting. Many abused children continue to wet their beds at night until adolescence. The physiological reason for this is not clear, but bed-wetting is one manifestation of stress. The response of parents to this behaviour can open a line of very informative discussion about abuse. Some children are beaten daily for wetting the bed [how un-stressing??] or are humiliated by such disciplines as being forced to wear stinking, urine-soaked clothes to school, being tied to a post at home like a dog, or recording bed-wetting on a calendar so the whole family and visitors can see whether the child wet his bed the night before.

Other childhood behaviors are also hallmarks of abuse, like fire-setting and cruelty to animals. When there was a fire in the house, who was thought to have set it? This is important because virtually every child who sets a fire to his bed or that of his parents has been sexually abused [but all sexually abused children don’t set fires to their own or their parents’ beds??]. Victimizing helpless animals is also a way a child can direct his feelings of hatred and his desire to be in control without fear for retaliation./…/ …the association of this behavior with abuse has been empirically proven.

‘Who was the main disciplinarian?’ and ‘What were you beaten with when you were spanked?’ are very useful questions. Even violent inmates who have forgotten severe abuse may remember what they consider to have been good parental practices. Some of these practices are clearly abusive by my definition, like the use of a belt or wooden instrument directed elsewhere than their buttocks, spanking with the buckle of the belt, breaking of the skin, and punches to the face [but ALL spanking is harmful! Both physical, literal, and emotional! And spanking always leaves bigger or smaller damages in the brain recent brain-research has proven!].

Being locked in a closet for an hour or more or in a room for a week can be quite terrifying to a child. Uncovering these extreme punishments raises other questions, like ‘What was the punishment for leaving the closet or the room before you were given permission? What happened if you tried to run away during a beating?”

When I am sitting writing this I come to think of what Ingmar Bergman has written about his childhood. Bed-wetting children had to wear a dress when they had wet their beds. And children were locked into wardrobes, dark wardrobes. Their father (the Lutheran priest) also beat his sons, Dag and Ingmar, so they bled. And their mother washed them afterwards with cotton-wool (she was nurse). That she didn’t intervene? Noone of these children became criminals though. Dag, four years older (and the oldest) became diplomat I think, and Ingmar director. Dag died at 74 I think, in a disease that suffocated him. And Ingmar used his creativity to survive.

Their sister Margaretha (four years younger than Ingmar) married an Englishman and moved to England and got four sons. She suffered from severe depressions. She was held VERY hard by her mother and was her father's good little girl? Her creativity was suffocated. She wanted to write, and also tried with this, but Ingmar dismissed her writing (felt shame – and contempt - over how she wrote), thought it was too superficial, no wonder? Something he regretted later. Thought he should have supported her instead and help her develop her writing, and thus also help her develop personally, and survive better than she did. I think she made a suicide attempt (to free herself? She saw no other way out?).

He later thought he had silenced her and stifled her voice instead of the opposite. And it wasn’t because she revealed horrible things about their family (because it had nothing with that to do is the impression I have gotten), but because of how she wrote, the way she wrote and what she wrote about. See Jenson on the roots for shame-feelings. Even for shame-feelings on behalf of other people!!!! (very, very ironically!).

Pincus writes further:

“I always ask about the worst punishment the person ever received for misbehaving. Some patients have told me very disturbing stories. Some children are forced to kneel on dry rice and salt for an hour; the more the child moves to try to relieve his pain, the more grains dig into his raw, bleeding skin, leaving permanent and verifiable scars. Abusive parents use electric wiring, broom handles, and other cruel ad inappropriate tools to beat their children. Some parents even use lighted cigarettes to burn their children or hold their hands over an open flame as punishment.

The circumstances in which physical scars were sustained provide a window into the world of the violent individual. Linear scars and round scars on the back are usually caused by whips and cigarettes and cannot be self-inflicted. Almost every normal person remembers the incidents that have caused scarring on the portions of the body visible to him and can proudly tell the stories of how the scars were sustained. But frequently, violent people cannot identify the causes of many of their scars which are clearly the result of burns, knife wounds, bullet wounds, and other trauma.

Such memory lapses suggest that the person may be engaging the kind of psychological mechanism for forgetfulness that is used in dissociation and that bespeaks severe abuse. This is particularly telling when the cause of scarring is stated in the medical records.

When I ask about sexual abuse, I try to make it sound as if many people are sexually abused and that it is no big deal. I often start by saying we know from watching television programs like Oprah that a lot of children are asked to d sexual things for grown-ups. Then I ask, ‘Who did that to you?’

Because the anal penetration of children damages the rectum and colon, common symptoms in victims include lower abdominal pains of unknown cause, painful bowel movements, bloody movements, and constipation. Asking if the person has ever had these symptoms is accepted as the ordinary questioning of a family doctor. A similar approach is taken to determine whether sexual abuse of bys was inflicted by putting objects into their penises. As the memory of such experiences maybe repressed, it is often more revealing to ask, ‘Did you ever have blood come out of your penis? Did you ever have bladder infections?’ These questions are interspersed with benign questions about nose-bleeds, earaches, rashes, and so on.

The family may provide [???] convincing details of abuse that the patient has forgotten. For example, one convicted rapist-murderer on death row, who did not remember his crime, denied ever being sexually abused as a child. However, his older sister testified that she had seen him being repeatedly anally penetrated when he was eight by their uncle, in whose home their family was living. She described her brother crying and screaming while he tried to escape from his uncle. Although the rapist-murderer recalled that he did not like his uncle, he did not remember being raped by him.”