Didn't your father ever break you?

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yes, men who say that s*&t usually are wimps inside that take all their frustrations out on women cos they think they have a right to do that. propably had mother issues. as in an overprotective or abusive mother.
as for my father, he never pulled that on me.
anyone pulls that on u just ignore or kick them in the groin
and well done for keeping your strength blessedmom.

do your best in your own ways sisters

A long time ago, I had a boss who during a dinner party to say goodbye to one of our co-workers decided ti would be appropriate to look down my blouse... by pulling it away from my chest and literally looking inside.

I decided that it would be appropriate to knock the toupee off his head.

Fair's fair.

We've got a friend of ours who actually had to quit her job because her husband didn't like having to deal with the children. She has been soundly broken and he never laid a hand on her. (To my knowledge).

I was watching a great documentary on JK Rowling recently, in it she said she was always frightened of her father, yet always tried so hard to prove herself to him, she said much longer than she should have as he was a bad character. Ultimately she ended up estranged from him, she realized there’s no use perpetually trying to please or appease someone who is dark or abusive. My heart really goes out to those of you who posted tales of sexual and physical abuse from fathers. One of you mentioned that you have a dad that is likely AS but would never admit it. I hate to say it but that’s probably where a lot of the hate and abuse from fathers to us comes from. A lifetime of coming up with lofty justifications for every AS behavior or tendency can lead to explosive ego I think, or extreme defense mechanisms which is why I think some AS Dads can be abusive, or selectively mean to one sibling. Anyway, back to the reason these dads may be so mean to us (not others) maybe its also because they were bullied as children for being different so they repeat the behavior?
It made me feel a lot better that JK Rowling said that, and managed to express it so creatively in her books, because she is such a competent person and for her to be caught in that snare as well ( trying to impress a father who will never like you and just wants to hurt you... despite your intellect telling you to stop, too late into life...) it shows if she can have been stuck there, anyone can I guess.

There is a really well written book called "Not Even Wrong" A Father's journey into Autism, that shows a very good father figure, that instead of hating and abusing what is different, investigates it and discovers his own AS tendencies and how the condition is interwoven throughout the family in a good way. So not all AS Dads are like that. I think ego and denial lead to it, its important in life I think to just accept being not perfect, and not always try to hide who you are and 'get by' socially by putting on a big act - living this way can lead to chaos or a lot of tension.

The guy who said hasn't your dad broken you? was trying to break you.
dads who 'break' their daughters do it due to their own issues, its not a conscious attempt to prepare them for the world, there is no good intention involved in 'breaking' someone, that is perverse thinking. Good fathers purposefully keep their daughters innocent (instead of talking incessantly and aggressively of things demeaning to women for instance) and happy. Girls see enough violence and humiliation to women in the media and from the world in general, father's don't need to prepare the grounds in any way for this, and any decent person would realize this. That is an excuse for perversity. Girls will find out many hard realities from the world regardless, but feeling that their own father chooses not to perpetrate them themselves with them raises their optimism, security and self worth and thus increases their potential in the world.

That comment made me mad because its normalizing abusiveness in fathers, our culture already normalizes absent and selfish fathers too much, lets not normalize child abuse as well.

damm straight

interesting thread and quite pertinent with my own experiences within the family.

nory, i have really enjoyed your comments. i wish that i could have shown my father something like this when i left home (and prevent my younger siblings going through the same sh*t).

who is the author of 'not even wrong' i would quite like to read that, and who knows maybe even pass it onto my siblings and father

thanks Sepia! "Not Even Wrong: A Father's Journey into the Lost History of Autism" is by Paul Collins, who is an author of other books on eccentricity in general. His look into the history of eccentricity and autism (and how they are connected or how autism was explained in history and what historical figures were autistic) shows that it is a huge part of the success and development of our culture in many ways. It is actually the second part of another I haven't read, called "Sixpence House", I don't know if that is good or not, I've always wanted to find it but never got around to it.

I think this would be a good book, out of the many, to show your father because it is very research oriented, and grounds the whole family thing in historical facts and situations, so its less like, just a personal narrative. It is also amazing the painstaking amount of work and love that this father puts into teaching his son through his difficulties, with flashcards etc..., and it is ultimatly a very uplifting book, so that is good as well. It is about hope for the future and treats the differences in his son with a lot of wonder and respect, not negativity. Also he finds his and his wife's own tendencies towards this, perhaps in lesser degree, but he had many of the same difficulties growing up socially and so forth. Another good book to show a Dad would be Tony Atwood's basic book on Aspergers Syndrome, because Tony Atwood also has a very positive and friendly attitute toward the whole thing and so it would be less likely to meet with resistance.
http://www.amazon.com/Aspergers-Syndrom ... 1853025771

I have a DVD of his lectures on the same thing, its like the book, and it also goes into his family and family life, his wife's sister is autistic as well and he alludes to his own aspergers traits but only in the personal section. Its hard to find, if you want I will mail you a copy of it for your family.


This is what it says on the back:

"When Paul Collin's son Morgan was two years old, he could read, spell, and preform arithmetic in his head, but not answer to his own name. A casual conversation - or any social interaction that the rest of us take for granted is - for Morgan, a crypotgram to be painstakingly decoded.... Not Even Wrong is a haunting journey into the bordeerlands of neurology - a meditation on what "normal" is, and how human genius comes to us in strange and wonderous forms."

I don't like how that sounds...

I hope this is not inappropriate... my post here.

Some of you may know that I have a 14y.o. daughter.
Even though I have always felt caring for others, becoming a father
has been such a tremendous experience.
My appreciation for the vulnerability of children was heightened as I spent these years full of worry..
Worry that I might do something wrong as a parent
Worry that something might happen to my daughter when I could not be there to stop it.
Worry that she would be marginalized solely because she is female.

I write mostly when I am driven by strong emotions.
Reading what each of you have posted here...
the stories you have told; I felt compelled to write something.
So with all humbleness, I hope you accept my little poem.
I mean it sincerely and I am so sad to hear how you have been treated.
It pains me that these things happen.

For you...

A Father's Poem

Twas a thing of beauty,
A garden of life and color.
Young to old the flowers grew,
A place of wonder like no other.

Till the thumping of feet came crashing down,
trampling the lives I lovingly raised.
Such disregard for love and life,
Their broken bodies upon which I gazed.

To be a promise of Spring,
Blooming strong and free.
Some fragile, but none weak,
They had been cared for by me.

My tears like rain flowed steadily down,
Catching a glimpse of something I could not ignore.
For out of the hurt, the pain, the loss,
A beautiful flower grew once more.

Mark





- there are different ways to describe beauty. I think that each of you are beautiful in your own way. I hope you do not mind the comparison with flowers... for they are also beautiful in many ways... and strong...

On the subject of aspie dads, mine was Ok, just distant not much emotional content there. Encouraged study and the idea that women could work in non tradition fields.

The problem parent was my mother who I would posthumously dx as a sociopath - she had a huge ego that demanded everyone else be personalityless and invisible so that her ego wouldn't feel challenged. I felt sorry for dad, he became more and more invisible as the years rolled on. She was Edna Everage (I call them Ednawomen, those dominating egomaniac housewives). She did a lot of damage to everyone in the family while blithely believing herself to be 'normal' and a 'good' person.

So, I guess that guy got it wrong, in my case he should have asked "Didn't your mother ever break you?"

She never broke me, which was infuriating for her, just did a lot of damage, some of it permanent, unfortunately.

Without a bad parent's behavior a child wouldn't have a chance of being a sociopath narcissistic mother in the first place... so being grateful for such a horrible thing because it taught you what "horrible" is, is silly and something that our society seems preoccupied with - finding meaning in everything, even when we should not honor something by giving it meaning in our lives. Do not give bad behavior like that the respect of giving it meaning. Its like saying the war is a really good educational tool for our children, and now we know enough not to do it again... or the value of human life. Not so it seems.

It is because you ARE a better person and nothing can touch that, including her, that you remain you. You have nothing to do with her, she did not make you in the least, other than to give you bad memories, that is terribly, terribly unlucky and it makes me mad that that had to happen to you. I read a book once that said the tiny percent of the population that is sociopathic is responsible for much of the trauma and lifelong injury of the rest of it.

I guess this attitude annoys me because many a bad parent or person who has done bad takes refuge in saying, well at least it "taught" them something, or now they will know the importance of good...

I don't think so. We do not need darkness to see the light. Seeing darkness = seeing darkness. Period.

Luckily, I think we are so much stronger than our unfortunate and unlucky encounters with bad people. Light is much more powerful anyway, so we can reject it, of our own accord. But lets not give the bad stuff any value, by saying it helped us make that decision, it has no value at all.

if i were to give it go, without care as to how it might be viewed by some of the individuals who have already posted on this thread, i might propose the following:

analyzing the question "didn't your father ever break you?" one might typically find inferences that you are stubborn or strong-willed. the point of the father reference is that most fathers are expected to be "directors" within their family. directors, whether in business, on the movie set, or the family, are not easily forced to follow but are expected to lead. the proposed question hints that the man who said it felt unable to do anything but follow along or allow you to go off in your own direction without trying any further to convince you to do otherwise. assuming the speaker was just an upset NT male, it was likely meant to be both a communication of frustration as well as amusement.

my advice: just laugh (a "yeah right" kind of laugh), say "nope (in a rather matter of fact kind of way)", and then continue going about your business. he most likely would respond in such a way as to communicate "oh... ok." and eventually learn to admire that stubborn streak in you.

Just reply, "Yep. That's why I'm broken."