Dear Sofioula:

“being brought up in the Greek culture, this doesn’t register as mistreatment”. You referred to “this” as “lots of spanking and word shouting” by your father.

As an older teenager and adult, after all you read and watched (TV, movies, comedy shows, etc.), you look back at your childhood and you say to yourself: oh, that was not abuse, that was how parents acted during that time, everywhere, nothing unique about it, it’s the culture.

But as a child, you didn’t think that way: when you were shouted at and spanked- you were scared, just like any child, in any culture.

anita