“They Should Have Beat Me More” – The Cycle Of Physical Abuse

 

“They Should Have Beat Me More” – The Cycle Of Physical Abuse

In December of 2005, I facilitated a two-day workshop with men who had recently been released from prison for domestic violence. Accompanying the men were their wives and the father of a batterer who remained in prison.

In front of me, sat Douglas, his father and his childhood tales.

“My momma was a very loving woman — a big hearted, hard working loving woman,” he told me. From years of counseling, I knew that what we understood as love was probably not at all the same thing.”

“Did she ever beat you?” I asked.

“Oh yeah. She beat me all the time. My daddy, he beat my momma and my momma, she beat me. But I deserved it, because I was bad.” I was really bad. She beat me, “Maybe if you beat me more I wouldn’t been so bad.”

“What did she beat you with?”

“Whatever she could get a hold of. Extention cords, wooden spoons. Many times I would have to go into the yard and choose the switch.”

“You know when you knew you was going to get a beating?

“Oh, I was terrified. I’d beg and plead and promise not to do again whatever she was mad at. But that never worked. I always got the beating. Then after the beating she would tell me that she loved me, that it was for my own good, that it hurt her more than it hurt me.”

“And how were you bad?”

“Well, sometimes I’d show up late, and sometimes I’d talk back. Then I started drinking and using drugs very young. Maybe if she would have whooped me more, then I wouldn’t have done the alcohol and drugs.”

“Why did you do the alcohol and drugs, do you think?”

“I was just hurtin’ too much. It got me outta all the pain for a minute.”

“What was the pain?”

“I don’t know. I was just hurtin’ a lot.”

“Do you think you could have been hurt because the woman who was supposed to protect you was hurting you instead? That she was making you crazy telling you she loved you while she was beating the hell out of you and scaring you? That there was no one to whom to appeal for safety and nurturing? That you were afraid much of the time for fear of the beatings? That you were deeply lonely and couldn’t go to your parents because they were the ones inflicting the hurt?”

Nothing………And then he stared at me shocked. The light bulb went off in his mind, and the tears began to flow down his creased face. Soon he was sobbing.

“That’s right…That’s right…. The beatings were the problem. The beatings would not have improved things. And I beat my children thinking I was doing the right thing, and my son is now in prison for beating his wife, and protective services wants to take away my son and wife’s daughter. And the other day I nearly hit her when she would not mind me. I’m so glad I didn’t. This has to stop! This has to stop!”

I looked around the room. Everyone was in tears. One of the batterers’ wives, Kathy, spoke up, crying.

“Now I’ve always hit my kids, and no matter how many people try to tell me it’s inherently bad, it never made sense to me. The first time it makes sense to me why that’s not a good or loving way to discipline my kids. And I could see why I’m having so many issues with my oldest son, why he’s addicted to drugs. He has always been angry with me and I had no idea why. Now I understand. But I’ve got to find a new way to discipline. “Now I’m taking a parenting class and reading parenting books.”

I hugged Douglas for the deep work he'd done, and for the ripple effect his work was having on everybody in that room. I thanked God for having the opportunity to work with these individuals. It turned out they all had been badly beaten as children.

I owe a great deal of thanks to James Beard who leads workshops in the prison with batterers and Lindsay Wagner, who works with those men and their families. They were both helping me at this workshop. We smiled at each other with great gratitude for the healing which was taking place.

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