"If you don't stop crying..."

I remember hearing that too.

Lots of others too, "Heads will roll if blah blah isn't complete" was another one.

Or not. Sometimes we crash.

Of course, I am also one who heard all the hurtful words as a child. It can be very confusing to try to reconcile the memories of intentional hurts with insight into why the parent does such things. I agree that it is worth it, but it can be quite a struggle too.

I've come to understand that the words "I'll give you something to cry about," were a integral part of why I am who I am. If I cried I was beat until I passed out and couldn't cry anymore. By the age of four the phrase was no longer directed at me because I had learned to channel any hurt feelings into pure rage. As a boy rage was preferable if not accepted by my father. I have only cried once since I was 5. The inability to cry has been the cause of both my rage and disassociation.

The first time I can remember disassociating I was 6, my mother grabbed my hand and tried to drag me to the stove were she intended to put my hand on the burner. I struggled at first but because I loved her and couldn't harm her nor could I get away without harming her, I just disassociated, I can still remember the smell invading the place I had barricaded myself in my mind. When I came to I found her crying over what she had done and I had to comfort her. My father who was watching gave his nod of approval that I never shed a tear, before he walked away.

I've since learned to feel being hurt (although I don't cry as of yet.) but it has taken 30 some odd years to do so.

lilodian4ever
3 - How much we differ from them seems to lessen, because we have flaws too.

This was the only point you posted that I had/have problems with, and I think it has more to do with my own experience then with anything else. If you can't tell I hated my father for many years, I say hated but that is only because there are no English words I know of to describe the homicidal rage mixed with deep desire for what could have been. Several years ago I met him for the first time since I was 9 and realized just how very much alike we were, I was training for truck driving while he was a truck driver (something I never knew), we smoked the same kind of cigarets, drank coffee in the same manner and he commented on how much my wife looked like my mother when she was younger, we talked in the same manner. The similarities were to much for me to ignore and because I had not been seeing a therapist at the time I had nothing to stop me from the suicidal thoughts that began to haunt me, you see I came to see myself as my father and if I was then I could never be any good for my little girl. The only way I could ensure her safety was to die. Now obliviously I've worked through it but such a sudden revaluation without support can easily cause more harm then good, at least in some cases.