Post # 2,

Dear Shipp:

On Oct 26, you wrote about your mother: “This woman beat me with belts (leaving cuts from the belt buckle) and wire coat hangers; would make me stand still while she threw pots, pans and glass dishes at me and then tell me to clean up the mess and dare me to cut my bare feet and the glass… she even put the barrel of her gun (loaded and cocked) against my forehead and threatened to kill me and then herself during one of her rages.”

Like you, she too lost her temper, and like you, she too felt justified, pushed past the point of endurance (you wrote: “my whole life she told me…that she would put a bullet in her head so she could escape the hell that I put her through my whole life..”).

On Oct 29, you wrote: “I too have what I call ‘recordings’ in my head (because I hear it in her voice just like she’s beside me talking, yet fainter) …Her voice..sounds something like ‘you’re so lazy, worthless, cruel, only think of yourself, stupid, weak’ and the list goes on. I think this is the reason why I don’t see myself as having value.”

And yet, you did not connect your experience of hearing the abusive words your mother said to you, to inflicting similar words on your daughter:“I went off. I told her (and I’m omitting all the cuss words but you can probably guess where they fit in.”

Your mother did it to you, verbally abused you and as a result you felt worthless, so you wrote. And yet, you verbally abuse your daughter. And you wrote that your daughter has serious self esteem issues, meaning, she feels worthless too. And yet, you don’t SEE that you are inflicting abuse on her, and that as a consequence she is suffering.

anita