Child Abuse and Mistreatment

Alice Miller on Child Abuse and Mistreatment: Humiliations, spankings and beatings, slaps in the face, betrayal, sexual exploitation, derision, neglect, etc. are all forms of mistreatment, because they injure the integrity and dignity of a child, even if their consequences are not visible right away. However, as adults, most abused children will suffer, and let others suffer, from these injuries. This dynamic of violence can deform some victims into hangmen who take revenge even on whole nations and become willing executors to dictators as unutterably appalling as Hitler and other cruel leaders. Beaten children very early on assimilate the violence they endured, which they may glorify and apply later as parents, in believing that they deserved the punishment and were beaten out of love. They don't know that the only reason for the punishments they have ( or in retrospect, had) to endure is the fact that their parents themselves endured and learned violence without being able to question it. Later, the adults, once abused children, beat their own children and often feel grateful to their parents who mistreated them when they were small and defenseless.
Many adoptees suffer at the hands of adopters and others, until we learn, usually as adults, ways to cease being victims.We do not achieve that by putting it in the hands of a higher order, because it does not solve the problems, simply buries them deeper, disguises them and leaves them unresolved.While it might feel a relief to hand over our worries, pain and fears ,it does nothing for our learning, our coping strategies and may be self-alienating. We have some fine examples of adoptees who do this as 'experts' and advocate it for others. No names, no pack drill.
Note where Alice says all forms of mistreatment injure the integrity and dignity of a child, even if their consequences are not visible right away. I guess even the most ardent of adoption enthusiasts would accept these days that the loss and trauma experienced by adoptees when they are parted from their mother and made into adoptees constitutes the mistreatment and injury of a young child.
The dignity and integrity of adoptees are compromised and deliberately assaulted constantly, without thought or remorse and have become commonplace treatments in adoption. While those things may occur in certain therapies and be imposed by practitioners, they are also practised daily by those who work or live with adoptees. Every time a child's story is told, their photo shared with strangers and the world, their dignity and integrity have been assaulted. These things, dear anonymous, are unique to adoptees - exposure of trauma and loss by blog. No biological parent is knowingly, deliberately abusive in that same way, simply because they are not raising adoptees and they often do not have the interest, since biological children usually come free.
You may also note that Alice says the consequences are not visible right away. That means not next week, not next year but maybe in decades from now.When non-adoptees talk about the happy adoptees they know they need to remember that and also that adoptees talk with those they trust and trust is often an issue. For some reason, it seems non-adoptees believe adoptees share their deepest, most painful and private feelings about adoption, their adoption. Sometimes, because the consequences are not visible right away adoptees may not yet have become aware of those feelings or may not be in possession of all the facts about themselves. They are highly likely to have been denied information which others take for granted. Some have vetoes in place, restricting them from ever knowing about their history, family and circumstances of adoption. I wonder anonymous, if you have any idea how that is for adoptees? Perhaps a little like having enforced amnesia, the secrets and lies which are supposed to be for our own protection are generally for the protection of others.
Imagine on top of that, PTSD, the adoptee variety, in which we get flashbacks to feelings, without the images. Many of these from a time when we were pre-verbal and we may struggle now to find the words to grasp those feelings and wrestle with the consequences. Those of you non-adoptees who wish you had been adopted because you had 'monsters' for parents and think adoption a better option have our every sympathy, but you at least did not have enforced amnesia.
You might like to check the links for more information on Alice Miller and for her books at W.W.Norton