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When child abuse becomes a scapegoat: My case is literally a case where the child abuse became a scapegoat to dismiss all of the reality and excuse all abusive treatment from those who were not my parents. Child abuse also became the vehicle whereby my sickness, the mystery disease, was denied its existence despite its consistent existence. Lee and Jim both took the right to declare their abuse as insignificant, and in fact nonexistent, in the light of my father's abusive treatment. I'm sure that Ted would say the same thing if I asked him today. The doctors who knew about the child abuse also used it to dismiss my reality. Child abuse is not a foolproof inoculation against future physical illness, which is not psychosomatic in nature. Moreover, it remains true that an abused child who is later battered and violated as an adult is damaged by the adult abuse. Sometimes the adult abuse causes more damage than the child abuse did. Jim, in particular, used to always tell me that my problems weren't his fault because my dad used to hit me. Jim and Lee both used to act like they weren't hurting me because my dad had hurt me when I was little. Human beings are individuals and our resilience is based on the big picture of our own individual lives. Only the victim can really tell what hurt the most and why this is so. |
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