Not your punching bag

There are two types of abuse, physical and emotional abuse. Everything can be abused, nature, people, animals, situations, etc, etc. The extent of the damage caused by the abuse varies as it directly depends on how and to whom or what the abuse is inflicted.
Sometimes abuse provokes reactions and triggers positive results, as it forces someone to stand by himself/herself. But more often than not, abuse causes long lasting damages, especially when the abuse is inflicted on defenseless beings (nature, children, animals, etc.).
Abuse is cruel, unkind, mean, heartless, merciless, brutal, nasty, malicious, etc, etc… it leaves deep scars which are not easy to ill or disguise. We often hear or read that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” or “we attain the strength we have conquered” or “turn your wounds into wisdom”. But how do you explain that to a child that is being abused by his own parents? How do we stop that child from becoming bitter and resentful?
When one of my brothers was only fourteen he started living on the streets and with friends that gave him temporal shelter, but he did it out of no choice, since he wasn’t welcome anymore in our “home”.
I still remember how he used to be as a child and I can still see his sweet face trying to give me the strength he did not have. I can recall his weak attempts to mend what couldn’t be mended… I still have nightmares about the day that the top of his hand was placed on a hot stove and therefore badly burnt by our stepfather as a punishment for pilfering.
From the time he was physically and emotionally abandoned by our parents, his life started going down the ditch, he was always in trouble with the authorities, usually for stealing or drug consumption. At the time he was supposed to be nurtured by his family he was instead fostered by the streets… then his values and principles got distorted and his self-esteem was shut down by the fact that his very own parents did not consider him worth of love and support.
When he needed them the most, they turned their faces and lives away from him. They were ashamed and hated him for what he was doing to them; they considered themselves the victims and my brother the perpetrator. They never visited him when in prison or offered him any kind of support, as per their beliefs, he was rotten and getting exactly what he deserved.
All I got from him are good and bad memories from our childhood; we did not have the chance to walk into adulthood together as our paths where diverted by our parents’ choices and actions. So today we are complete strangers, despite my early attempts to keep close. Our lives are different, same as our life approach and values. Life events turned him into someone I would rather keep far away from.
I constantly write about choices and the responsibility we hold towards everything that happens to us, or that no one can cause you any harm without your consent. I absolutely still stand for that, but as everything else in life, even this fact has its exception… An adult do always have a choice, but a child does not!
As adults we have the responsibility to tender for our children, to look after them and nurture them with love and care. We can’t use them as a punching bag to release our very own personal frustrations; we can’t wash our hands from their lives as soon as they turn into a bad corner, as if we have nothing to do with it. We are their guardians, role models and masters; they need us to guide them while walking their way from childhood to adulthood.
I keep wondering how my brother’s life could have turned out had our parents been supportive, loving and caring. He had a good heart and was incapable of seeing anyone suffering, especially us; he was our protector and used to take all the blame to save us from our parents’ rage. He was a very intelligent boy and a brilliant student, whose teachers priced constantly and even predicted a bright future for him...
But things did turn out totally different, his good heart was smashed and his bright future destroyed by the abuses he was constantly subjected to. As a child he didn’t have a choice but to believe what he was told: good for nothing and a burden to his parents. He did try to prove them wrong and alleviate the best he could the burden he was, by working in a factory at a tender age and neglecting what he loved the most: his studies.
But it wasn’t enough; nothing he did satisfy our parents’ resentment, so they kept pushing and pushing until they got what they always wanted –rid of him and blaming him for that.
Until today our parents are unable to see the role they played in his life, they keep asking themselves: “What went wrong? He never saw us stealing or consuming drugs; for sure he got all the bad genes from his biological father’s side!”

© 2010 Gabriela Abalo