... and spoil the child.
Sep. 24th, 2015 08:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberett(CN abuse.)
azurelunatic, elsewhere, a while ago:
So since then I've been trying to catch myself when I tell a partner they're spoiling me, because what I'm actually doing with that, I think, in addition to the you shouldn't (because I don't deserve nice things; because I shouldn't get used to them; because they'll end up resenting me for it or holding it over me; and on, and on...) is -- distancing myself from it, reframing it as something I understand, as something that is not a gift freely given for the sake of maybe making me smile, but a calculated transaction to keep me quiet and buy my time and my energy and my compliance. I'm trying to turn it into something that makes more sense to me; what I mean is you don't mean this.
And that's not fair to my partners, and it's not fair to me, so I'm trying, ever so gently, to retrain myself on this one.
azurelunatic, elsewhere, a while ago: When people say "spoiled child" I look for not enough love, not too much. It seems to me that often people who could be described as a "spoiled child" come from backgrounds where a child is "cared for" by starving them of attention, affection, and approval, but they do have all their apparent physical needs met, and are given expensive things instead of giving them the positive human contact they need. It's a really insidious form of neglect. [...] When the expensive thing is exactly the way the child would like it, it's a sign that the parent is paying attention to the child's hopes and preferences. When the thing is not exactly right (since the parent is perceived to be infallible in making material things happen), it is a sign of inattention/disapproval and is a horrible catastrophic sign of a degradation in the relationship.
So since then I've been trying to catch myself when I tell a partner they're spoiling me, because what I'm actually doing with that, I think, in addition to the you shouldn't (because I don't deserve nice things; because I shouldn't get used to them; because they'll end up resenting me for it or holding it over me; and on, and on...) is -- distancing myself from it, reframing it as something I understand, as something that is not a gift freely given for the sake of maybe making me smile, but a calculated transaction to keep me quiet and buy my time and my energy and my compliance. I'm trying to turn it into something that makes more sense to me; what I mean is you don't mean this.
And that's not fair to my partners, and it's not fair to me, so I'm trying, ever so gently, to retrain myself on this one.
Re: . . . BABBLE ALERT? Ahem.
Date: 2015-09-25 10:24 pm (UTC)Maybe you weren't in full meltdown, when confronted by that team decision, but poor volume control and having difficulty expressing yourself and negotiating emotions all have an explanation in autism as well as in abuse. So that's another pattern your teachers missed, and a combination likely to feed on the interaction of each aspect with the other in the worst way possible
When you combine inconsistent emotional abuse, with your need to model behaviour in order to negotiate it, that's a pretty horrifying combination for the development of a child. It's no surprise you find difficulties in this, I'm surprised you manage it at all.
Re: . . . BABBLE ALERT? Ahem.
Date: 2015-09-25 11:35 pm (UTC)Thank fuck for taxpayers and the NHS, hey?
Re: . . . BABBLE ALERT? Ahem.
Date: 2015-09-26 03:15 am (UTC)*headdesk*
(no subject)
Date: 2015-09-29 01:22 am (UTC)We had a GRAND time beating some stuff through the heads of one of my cousin's schools: they could not wrap their brains around the idea that, when he hit RAGE ESPLODE, putting him in a corner with a computer game was NOT, in fact, "rewarding the bad behaviour". It was "allowing him to systematize and process sufficiently to interact with the rest of the world instead of dissolving into a ball of red-hot overstimulated mess."
We got there. Eventually. In a family with a physician and a lawyer and all of us pushy as Fuck.
*there are a handful of exceptions, except that one of them has severe GAD, one of them's bipolar, and one has severe dyslexia. We're also waiting for two of the others to give up and get diagnosed already.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-09-29 10:32 am (UTC)Ugh, this is making me reflect, wincingly, on how much damage was likely done to people before the idea of ASD and SpLDs got some traction in schools.
(Rant based on personal experience deleted, apparently it's even more of a hot button issue than I realised).