attackfish | He hunted down a child and killed him, and you're telling me this is somehow legal?

I'm a natural blonde with thick black freaking eyebrows. Genetics is freaky stuff.

Extended families always seem to have the worst things buried in them. My mom's cousin I'm pretty sure is a pedophile, and my step-grandfather's father was a bonafide Nazi. My dad's family claims to be part Choctaw, but Dad and I took a good long look at as much of the genealogy as we could figure out, and are pretty sure it's just a cover for Jewish ancestry, especially since I almost certainly inherited two Ashkenazi Jewish diseases from him (mom's family is well documented and has no history of one, and the other needs two parents with it), which means I've got it on both sides. Given that Dad's family is virulently anti-Semetic, I find this hilarious. It' really weird and a little frightening just how many Nazis and serious anti-Semites I have in my nice Jewish family tree.

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Most of the really horrible things my family members have done are stories their victims (who are also mostly family) would like to be kept private, but suffice it to say that sexual and non-sexual violence has shown up repeatedly in my mother's side of the family. And there was the time my grandfather's mother chased my grandmother around the house with a kitchen knife, screaming about how she was going to kill her, while my grandmother cradled my baby mother in her arms. There's also a lot of drug addiction, which I prefer to keep private, because several of my family members are working incredibly hard on their sobriety and would not appreciate me telling the world about their struggles. On my father's side, my father's mother and my father's sister are both extremely abusive to their children. I haven't dug further, because I'm terrified to find out.

A big part of the reluctance of many people to acknowledge the racism of their ancestors, and how they benefited from the exploitation of others is that they want to think of those ancestors as good people. Since I already know that this great uncle over here, and this great great grandfather over here, and this great grandmother over here were horrible, evil people, thinking of them as racist causes me no pain.

Remember how I mentioned I'm allergic to alchohol? Inebriation isn't even an option! *sobs*

Heh, I think it also has to do with the whole, runs in the family mentality. If you have evil people in your family, it means that there's something wrong with all of you. I have no problem knowing the horrible past of my family or acknowledging it because I don't really care. I just want to know for knowing's sake, not really for any other reason. I see a lot of stories where one kid murders another and all the comment, well most of the comments people make have to do with what sort of people his family are, or what kind of parents would raise such a child. I remember hearing about serial killers' families and how they had to change their names and move away to get any peace. Somehow people forget that people make their *own* choices and they could have the best family in the world, the best parents and still turn out . . . well, not bad necessarily, but their actions certainly leaving you a little chilly.

Heh, I don't drink. Not because I can't, but because I chose not to. It has more to do with the fact that I hate losing control. I'm a control freak and I don't like waking up and not knowing where I am. Also, it just doesn't appeal to me. I like fruity drinks, though, but alcohol is yucky (:-P) tasting and so is beer. I like things that taste good, if they don't, unless they have some physical benefit for me, I ain't going near it.

The thing is, I've known bullies who were taught to be that way by their families, and racists who were taught to be that way by their families, and abuse victims who grew up to be wonderful people with deep wells of trauma, and the loving tolerant children of horrible people. And I've known horrible people from great families. The one thing I've found though, is that family always has an effect. I've talked about before, for example, how my first stalker's warped family helped enable and encourage her behavior (though I think she still would have been a psychopath without her enabling family), and I may have mentioned a girl who helped drive me out of my elementary school, but whose mother found out, and worked on her behavior and sense of ethics, and two years later, we went to middle school together, and she had become a lovely human being. I never blame a family unless I know a whole lot about what went on, but it always has an effect.

I have never met a mind altering substance I liked. I have similar issues to you with regards to control, multiplied, probably, by my seizure disorder and how out of control my brain was for most of my childhood. Loss of control over my brain is frightening and deeply unpleasant. Doesn't mean every so often I'm like "seriously? Seriously? Nobody should handle this shit without alcohol."

Okay, that's not true. I liked my antidepressants until hey started giving me seizures, but that's a little different.

Oh don't get me wrong, I completely agree that family always has some affect on the person, just that they should not be held accountable for the actions of the individual unless it's proven that they in fact enabled that kind of behavior. But most families are immediately judged and held accountable and that I find unjust as well as unfair. Some though, deserve their share of the blame at least.

I suffered from bad depression. I mean, extreme as in cutting, wanting to die sort of depression for years, and I had no control over my emotions through most of my youth, it was horrible. Not to mention feeling stupid because of my dyslexia and social incompetence. I just didn't get people and didn't know how to behave around them so I went around imitating others' behavior and I annoyed people a lot because of that. So yeah, control is a major issue for me, but yeah, I so get what you're saying.

Jeez, I was so clueless about everything around me and lived mostly in my head so I didn't notice a lot of things when I was younger, so I guess I lucked out because if someone was bullying me, I didn't notice at all. I just thought they were jerks.

And it goes the other way too. "He's awful because of his family. Don't punish him, feel sorry for him!" I'm sorry. If he's awful, and his family taught him how to be awful, there's blame enough for all. I agree that many innocent families are also blamed unfairly. I think it's one more aplication of the "just world" fallacy. "I'm good, my family is good, therefor, non of my children will ever end up like that." The favorite thought process of victim-blamers and bigots everywhere.

(by the way, your family affects you, it has an effect. Weird English language crap FTW)

I'm sorry. I never cut, but I almost became an agoraphobe, and had myself convinced of my general worthlessness for several years. I spent a lot of time with my mom or dad sleeping in bed with me so that they could be sure I wouldn't get up in the middle of the night to kill myself. It's a horrible feeling, and I hope you're in a better place mentally now.

I'm not the most socially aware person either, and at the time, I was dealing with really severe cognitive issues, but being grabbed and held down by a gang of kids while they shoved sand in my mouth and tried to choke me made me realize really quickly what was happening.

###"I'm good, my family is good, therefor, non of my children will ever end up like that." The favorite thought process of victim-blamers and bigots everywhere.###

Indeed. In Mexico class matters a lot and there's lines people don't cross, it's just not done, but when someone does cross that line all hell breaks loose.

I so wish people would stop blaming their actions on others things and people and just accept responsibility for their actions. But of course not, because poor them, they had bad childhoods or parents that didn't love them or they were high/drunk . . . nope, sorry, no excuse!

Yeah, accept and except, I always get those two confused, thanks for the heads up!

People didn't mess with me physically, since that's not the sort of thing that is acceptable in Mexico. If someone's being a bully, in public school at least, they freeze them out until they either break down or apologize. In private that's a completely different environment, but I never saw anyone mess with someone physically and certainly not me. Everything else was fair game.

I wasn't as bad as that, but I felt like I didn't deserve anything, and my family thought that if they were hard on me, I would get mad and be all like, you know what, I'm going to stop with the pity party and be better at everything just to show them. Yeah, that didn't work out so well.

I am mentally much better. I probably wouldn't recognize myself from then, I'm very different. I don't let people walk all over me anymore and I've learned to like myself and not freak out every time I make a mistake or social or otherwise. I used to go over it in my head constantly until I convinced myself what a worthless person I was, but now, I'm like, okay, I made a mistake, learn from it and move on.

*hugs* I'm so glad!

Physical bullying is tolerated in US schools to a ridiculous extent. Emotional bullying is barely acknowledged as real. People are only just starting to cotton onto the fact that maybe bullying is not some cute little rite of passage.

Yeah. It's incredible how many times a day I hear people excuse bullying as part of growing up. But it's like people need to torture one another to make themselves feel good about themselves. And they don't let up. I honestly don't know what schools can do about this when parents and teachers and administrators just stand back and do nothing. What can be done?

Thanks, I do feel so much more mature. My accident also helped me gained perspective. Life is funny that way.

Yeah, bullying is part of growing up for so many of us, but you know, not that long ago, polio was a part of growing up.

Snort, yeah, that is so very true. It's a plague on our society on every level. Sigh, takes a shot in your honor.

He hunted down a child and killed him, and you're telling me this is somehow legal?

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