Dear xaas:

I know from my own experience how anxiety and distress disrupt the efficiency of thinking. I know very well. I lived decades in a state of a foggy brain. I too had great difficulty concentrating and focusing. I thought I was born that way, with a faulty ability to focus and learn effectively. I was wrong. It was a result of having been abused. My thinking is better now, since I have been healing five years now, and going.

If you told me that your mother and father suffered child abuse as children, I would believe you and wouldn’t at all be surprised. In fact I would be surprised if your father was not abused as a child. The fact that he severely abused you wouldn’t make sense to me if he himself was not abused.

Is he responsible for abusing you? If so how much responsibility for your abuse does he own? If he is not responsible for your abuse, when he beat you, who is?

My answers to my own questions: You are not responsible for your abuse by your father. You carry 0% responsibility and so you were the perfect victim.

The people who abused your father when he was a child, and the people who mistreated him in his life, his parents and society carry some responsibility for him abusing you.

Your father carries enough responsibility for his abuse of you, an alarming amount of responsibility because he abused you repeatedly, over time and never corrected it. It doesn’t take technology or education to SEE the pain of a child. It takes a heart. Where was his heart…

Should your father be judged as a bad person for abusing you while he was abused himself and while he did good things for others?

My answer: In relationships with people he was kind to, he was a good person to them. he was not a good person with you. He was a bad person with you because his behavior was bad.

anita