Veronica Jarski, adapted from Even When Abusive Parents Apologize, They Don't (slight religious focus)
https://twitter.com/spidadmitchell/status/1058048599869669376
This is in regards to the video of the HS basketball coach in Florida verbally abusing one of his players. Its making national news.
https://www.si.com/high-school/2018/10/31/nation-christian-academy-mike-woodbury-rant-marvens-petion-high-school-basketball-haiti
https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/prep-school-owner-threatens-transferring-player-in-profanity-filled-rant-i-control-where-you-go-next/
I played for Woody in high school when he was still in Maine. Dudes a nut. Never witnessed anything to this extent though. Although he did make me miss the 2013 afc championship game, which I had taped, and then spoiled it for me when the Pats lost.
https://preview.redd.it/8yy6wpcc4w561.png?width=649&format=png&auto=webp&s=5a012f1585b28d56a79b12b7e12822dc98c3c9f2
I'm writing this post for my girlfriend as she doesn't have a reddit account so she's asked me to post this for her.
TL:DR: My gf's mom (59F) and dad (60M) have been married for 25 years and he has become abusive towards her mom and controls all aspects of her life. Her mom started drinking to cope with the abuse and she's very unwell mentally and physically. She wants a divorce but she doesn't know what to do as she has no income and feels dependant on him.
"My mom and dad have been married for over 25 years. Over the years my dad has become very abusive towards her and it keeps getting worse. She suffers from emotional abuse every single day. He calls her names, runs her down, screams at her over anything she does, etc. He also has full control over her as she doesn’t have a job and my dad is the main income of the house. My dad had an affair with my mom after I was born and they decided not to split up because of me. She also found out he's been with other people along the years. From all this abuse and the affair, she’s been drawn to alcohol to deal with the pain and now she’s very unwell mentally and physically. Because my mom is an alcoholic and has no job, my dad has taken full control over her financially. She has no money unless my dad gives it to her for food shopping and everything else she owns is controlled by him. There’s also been times where he’s been physically abusive. My mom would like to get a divorce but she feels like she’s trapped, doesn’t know what to do, and has no money. As I’m only 19 years old, I also don’t know what to do about the situation. How would she go about getting a divorce without any income?"
One thing I've struggled with is that my emotionally abusive mother has given me a lot. A LOT. Not only financially but she put in a ton of time and effort into giving me opportunities growing up. That I will acknowledge. So I often have a hard time with guilt.
From her perspective, this was love. Nevermind how she would get annoyed at me when I asked her to stop hurting me with emotional abuse. She never did it intentionally, but most emotional abusers aren't doing it intentionally.
So what exactly was going on? Why is it that even though she gave me so much and genuinely believed this was love, it always felt like poisoned gifts? I want to re-iterate, she was not intentionally malicious or manipulative. But she still was.
Here's what it is: her giving me stuff was attached to her self-worth. Not consciously, but it was. She genuinely thought she was doing it out of love but she had no insight to see that she was hitching her self-worth wagon to those gifts, as well as my appreciation/reactions.
Her "giving" was her simplistic way of believing that she was a good person. Was it ever about me? Yes but only in that I was a tool. I was a necessary tool for her to give stuff to, so she could feel self-worth. It was not conscious but you could tell because if my reaction was less than ideal she would take it like a blow to her self-worth.
And that sets off a chain reaction of her feeling shame, fear, worthlessness, which turns into trying to shut down and destroy the "cause" of these feelings which is of course...me. My reaction. So it becomes anger at me, and her becoming the victim.
And that is control through manipulation of my emotions and my want to be a good person and feel loved by my mother. It was especially control since she was the all-powerful parent and I was the powerless child.
And if you're doubly lucky (/s), she's also codependent, which means the more you try to make her feel better by slapping on a smile when she gives you things, the more her damaged inner child will give you things (which always have her self-worth hitched to them). And you as the child see your mother happy and see that she says more supposedly loving things to you, and voila, codependent relationship with your emotionally abusive mother, all under the guise of "what a great mother she is because she gives you so much", and the world sees just that line in the quotations and doesn't see the rest of the context.
Like I mentioned, my ex sexually abused me, and got me pregnant when I tried breaking up with him. I was venting to my friend about my mix of emotions about putting up the baby for adoption and dealing with the fact that my brother just announced he has a kid on the way. I have too many complicated emotions right now to bore you all with, but it is hard to think about someone close to you having a kid and being happy about it meanwhile I’m miserable about being pregnant and losing my baby.
I was venting about all of this to a (female) friend who happens to know my ex, and while she said what he did to me sounds horrible, she still said my unhappiness is my fault since I didn’t take the precaution of getting on the pill. In the situation I was in at the time I wasn’t thinking I needed to be on the pill. Long story short, he just showed up after not seeing each other for a month. She thinks he can somehow change himself or something, and that I should give the baby to this horrible man who abused me. She actually thinks I should give him another shot, and apparently all this is my fault anyway for not being on the pill when I didn’t know I would even need to be on it.
On my re-read now. In chapter 32(Summoned in Haste) of "Lord of Chaos", there is a scene where Egwene wants to milk more abilities from others as usual, from the Sea Folk. They understandably push her off, and deny permission thinking she's Aes Sedai in disguise. She then uses the OP to lift and drop into the river. But when they don't scream like she did, she tries again, lifting them as high as her ability could. Then she is frustrated when they don't scream while falling.
This scene disturbed me for variety of reasons, mainly:
- Using the OP to abuse others.
- Glaring at the boatman that pulled her out, then ordering him to shore. And leave without even thanking him?
I know there are many Hate posts about Egwene, but this scene convinced me that there needs to be many more.
What is your favorite, "Egwene is the epitome of people abusing their power " moment ?
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