Authoritarians and abusers

This man allegedly kept his daughter and three of the seven children he fathered on her imprisoned for 24 years, adopting the other three (the seventh died).

A psychologist has reported on this case at the link above, when asked the most obvious question: HOW could someone do this? That is, mentally speaking, how would someone be able to do this? How could you imprison, rape and abuse your own children?

I see this so often with Parental Alienation and indeed often ask the same question myself. How on earth could anyone actively wish to abuse anyone else?

The psychologist's answer was that a certain type of person believes it is their right to treat people as they want, especially their children. My male parent exhibits traits of this nature: he considered himself "owner" of his family, my mother and my sister and me, and said as much in public. He felt himself "in charge". "No one tells me what to do". "I know things other people don't". He felt he was cleverer than everyone else.

When no one listens to him, they are targets for verbal abuse -not just complaints or whinges, like "Oh, you're so annoying," but extreme and foul abuse. My mother and one of her sisters were called whores by him - he called my mother a whore in front of me! Amongst other things! As I've mentioned before, her cancer "was her own fault".

When I reached puberty, things changed a little. He suddenly noticed me in a different way. He leered at me, tried to stand too close and rub himself up against me (arms or legs), lay on top of me and kissed me all over my face, ran his hands up and down my back to see if I was wearing a bra ... I tried to keep myself out of the way. I stopped going near him whenever possible. I wouldn't give him hugs anymore, though he forced them. He was always looking at me with a dirty smile on his face. It's sickening to even remember it. He constantly made comments about me growing up, quite often dirty. I refused to play Scrabble anymore when he used the word "erection". I began to hate going to his house every third weekend and did everything I could to get out of it. At first, no one really listened to me, and he'd be "reasonable": "She doesn't have to come if she doesn't want to", and I was forced into it once or twice. From a logistical point of view, I think perhaps Mum felt guilty that he had driven four hours for me to refuse to go. My credibility wasn't brilliant because my PA behaviour (and Asperger's?) was wonderful for twisting incidents into crazy misrepresentations of the truth.

ANYWAY, back to the authoritarianism. Mum told him we didn't like his leering and talking and jokes and curiousness about our pubertal development. He was embarrassing us. Could he please stop? His answer made me begin to realise what a selfish man he is. He didn't apologise. He didn't even stop. In fact, he told us it was his right to do it because he was just proud. He said he wasn't going to stop because he wasn't doing anything wrong, and that he could do what he wanted. "You're my daughters, I can do what I like". I had a similar discussion with him on my sister's wedding day. She had come to me privately a few days before and said "I'm dreading him doing all that stuff on the day. Please talk to him." So I did - and had almost the same conversation.

"If you do that, it will embarrass her."
"I can do what I like".

And yay me - I stood up for us!!!! I nearly passed out with fear but I was defending my sister! And, in a roundabout way, myself.

"No, on this occasion, you can't."
"I can. I can do and say what I like".
"NO. YOU CAN'T. YOU WILL NOT DO THIS ON HER WEDDING DAY! I'll speak to C (his partner) about this if I need to, but you will not mention her growing up once. You will spoil her wedding day. She's afraid you're going to go on about her growing up. I'll tell C all about this if you don't promise not to say a word!"

And he didn't do it! The threat of being grassed up. That's interesting - I've just realised the connection (duh). He behaved himself because I threatened to tell tales on him. When I threatened to tell Mum about him going on about us growing up, he said what I said before: that he wasn't doing anything wrong. He didn't have to worry about Mum's opinion of him - for some reason. In his mind, he had already discredited her? But the current partner - he didn't want her to know. Interesting.

I think this brainwashing (that he could do whatever he likes because we are his children) is the reason I never told anyone about the inappropriate behaviour. I was un-credible anyway to some degree, so the chances of being believed were slim. Perhaps he knew that. In my mind, he could do anything he liked because he was in charge. He believed it was his right to do certain things to me, so because I was "on his side", I believed it too. I've often wondered why I let him do it. I *thought* it was wrong but because I believed everything he said, I believed I was wrong too, so I tolerated it. That's a realisation right there in front of you, folks, thanks to a Sky New psychologist and my own ramblings. I've just worked that out. I was brainwashed into thinking he could do no wrong so when he did wrong, I didn't know it. "You're just imagining it". He made all sorts excuses for his behaviours. He noticed when I wouldn't stand near him anymore and he pushed it. He deliberately pushed himself into my private space. "Nothing wrong with a cuddle", but then he'd be rubbing my breast. He did that in public once and almost laughed at me when I looked at him, moving away quickly. His grin was huge and his expression was one of conceit and utter disdain for me. "You idiot. Look what I can do - and you put up with it!". That he'd do it in public shocked me so much. I began complete withdrawal from him at that point. Although I had never left my daughter alone with him before then anyway, I was determined to keep her away from him. I left the area within a year of that.

Comments. Questions.

I'm getting panicky about continuing the previous train of thought so I'm going to hold off for a few days. Deborah's lovely comment here sums up the purpose of this blog: cleansing.

If you want to ask me anything, fire away. My email address is on my profile, plus you can leave comments.

I appreciate all the comments so much, as well as the increasing number of visitors this blog is receiving and the referring links which provide half the traffic (I'm considering reciprocating. Leave it with me). As I said at the start, my posts are about catharsis but also about warning potential/current parental alienators off carrying out their attacks on the other parent. I know that someone reading this may splutter indignantly that they have every reason to make their children hate their other parent or "see them for what they are", but believe me, you're hurting your children (and yourself because one day they'll suss you out, I guarantee), not helping them. Deep down you know what you are doing. Please stop.

I have spent much of my life trying to find out what is wrong with me. Turns out it's nothing that a good dose of counselling and catharsis can't heal. I remember sitting at a train station in my country writing in my diary when I was eighteen. I wrote: "Will someone please help me?". I did not know what I meant. It took nineteen years to find out. All through my childhood and adolescence, I knew something was wrong somewhere but I couldn't put my finger on it. The mental signals I received from each of my parents was wrong. I believed my male parent to be the greatest person on Earth - and yet he abandoned me three times, called my mother a slut, my aunt a slag, my grandmother and a second aunt lunatics, and also felt me up. My mother cared for me and tried to be my friend, but smacked me when she lost her temper from frustration and tiredness (and a second husband who cheated on her and admitted to never having been faithful to any woman, and treated her like a doormat).

I thought the problems were all my fault: that I was the screw up. When one parent does their best to care for you, and the other one is acidic and merciless in their attack of that parent, causing you to doubt your own mind, your own memories and experience of that parent, what the hell are you supposed to do? I felt like I was out of my mind sometimes.

But I never was.

A counsellor told me the following: you're not unstable, you were around unstable people.

NOW I know she was right, but I waited thirty years for those words. I thought I was evil and worthless and useless and ugly because of the words/lack of words of my parents. As I said previously, the alienator used every single situation he could find to denigrate my mother. She almost never said a word about him - so I believed him, not her. He said she was wicked, she never said she was not, so therefore my child's mind believed him.

He thought it was hilarious.

The parent that never speaks aids the alienation

My mother never said much about my male parent or his actions. Not to me anyway. It confused me. I often said, even when I was very, very young, that I wished I knew both sides of the story. Without both sides, I only have the alienator's story to believe. I had no alternative and, as a seven, eight, nine year old, did not have the mental capacity to understand that there WAS another side to the story.

I understand her motives: protection of her children and herself. She wanted to keep us out of adult problems as much as possible but also did not want to dwell on a relationship she had fled. Her marriage was over, in her mind.

Unfortunately, by keeping quiet, she unwittingly made matters worse. What I wanted to hear was that she loved me and wanted me, that my male parent was lying. I needed to know this but never heard it. The only time in my whole life that I can remember her telling me that she loved me was literally on her death bed. Maybe she assumed I knew. I don't know.

She did not want to involve us in what was already a difficult and protracted divorce.

If you're in this situation with your children right now, tell them you love them OFTEN. Tell them that your divorce is nothing to do with them and that BOTH parents love them. Don't do what the alienator does: don't tell the kids that the other parent is being mean or that if they really loved their kids, they would be nicer, etcetera. Don't do that! They don't want to hear it! They don't want the details of your marriage or divorce! I had that rammed down my throat when I was far too young to cope with or digest it or understand it. Adult concepts in a child mind mean confusion and disturbance. I did not need to know. What I needed was reassurance that both my parents love me. I never got that. I got little affection from one (naturally reticent) parent and plenty of affection from the other one, but all swamped by assurances that the reason the former didn't hug me was because she didn't love me, and that the latter was the only one who really cared about me.

This confused me even more: at the age of eight I could not understand why he chose to live four hours from us. If she was so terrible a person, why did he abandon us to her?