30 Comments
Sep 7, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

Did you care about making friends?

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Sep 7, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

I thank you for the honesty. Your mother should win a parenting award, but I think having you be a successful adult is a big one.

The movie “Let’s Talk About Kevin” really disturbed me. I thought it well done, but now that I see some of your points I understand it not to be as good as I thought. The way that Kevin just tortured his sister, defied his mother just for the joy of it (shouldn’t have experienced that, I understand) and all the killing, without emotion, especially that of his family, was disturbing. I have learned that psychopaths, although not like NT’s, DO have blunted emotions, so that seemed wrong, too. Correct me if I have misrepresented the psychopath (knowing that everyone, NT, psychopathic or otherwise are each their own person and generalizations are a slippery slope).

Sweet when asleep - all parents think that! :)

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Sep 10, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

Do you think you may have been very different of your parents had raised you by punishing you in some way. Instead of finding your currency?

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Sep 9, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

Oh boy. But why rewrap the presents instead of taking them and playing with them?

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Sep 7, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

I can relate to a lot of that, except for being a nightmare, I think. I was a nightmare only in my family’s eyes, what I did objectively wasn’t extreme. In the cultural environment I was raised in while there was no problem with violent and risky behavior (as long as it wasn’t really life-threatening) in children, “Let kids be kids”, in the context of family children and especially girls were expected to look up to their parents like to gods and be obedient. I was a very disobedient child, didn’t have unconditional respect or devotion to my parents, they by default were no different to me than any other people and until a certain age I was open about that and these alone were a shock to them.

I don’t remember any of that myself, but it’s a family meme that when I was 3 or 4 I once told my mom after she showed me her new heels I was curious about that when she died I would take all of her shoes. It wasn’t really nice from me, but she wasn’t offended by that, she didn’t think anything of that either, though she remembered that well. I was a wild child too and a child without a company for the most part, because other children were afraid to join me in what I wanted to do or were too afraid of the consequences. I couldn’t care less about being called a disgrace of my nation, I have only a few times gotten myself in a real trouble, though not really a legal trouble (but that can be because in the country I grew up in children under 16 are not prosecuted, and even after for that you need to commit a serious crime), but most of these times were when I was already a teenager.

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That's a fair approximation of myself as a child. I had 20 acres with a pond on it and a large dog so I spent a good part of my time being a literal wild child. I lived the "if you can't run with the big dogs stay on the porch" lifestyle

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Jan 13, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

You make me wish I had more of what you had, in a way... :D As for me, I responded very differently, I'm an empath and I score low on the psychopathy scale. I have dealt with anxiety and depression instead. Instead of courage, I deal with despair and self-doubt to the point of it sabotaging all kinds of good outcomes. Fortunately even now later in life I'm beginning to understand and in small ways address the thoughts and issues with bias toward action and attention to my current environment rather than my thoughts. It is also helping me make huge strides with my EQ.

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Jan 5, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

The way that man spoke about his supposed child is horrifying.

My child is autistic, highly intelligent, and has a severe brain chemical imbalance that is treated with medication. At almost 10, she's growing into a wonderful person and I enjoy being with her. Before her imbalance was discovered our lives were not so nice.

She had some issues with eye contact and sleeping from the beginning, but being an autistic man myself and her primary caregiver, I wasn't sure what to expect, as she is my only child. I expressed concern to her doctor, but they said wait and see. She started showing significant signs of separation anxiety and we were assured this was normal and would pass, we did everything we could to comfort her, even sleeping with an arm in her crib and thus getting little sleep ouselves. We also had to keep her in mittens from the time she was a few weeks old or she would claw up her face and arms with her finger nails, she has a small scar on her nose to this day from when she slipped a mittens off before I could get to her and scratched her nose bloody. I was horrified seeing her damaging her face, so became extra watchful of her mittens from then on.

Starting at around 1 her anxiety over any separation reached a peak, I couldn't

even use the bathroom without her freaking out. She would throw up from her anxiety and I started leaving the door open so she could hear me talk to her. Around this time, she also became aggressive, and destructive. We took her to doctors, specialists, everyone, trying to understand this drastic shift. They told us to try going out and coming in again to help her see we weren't going anywhere and to redirect her when she became aggressive.

I was home with her 24/7 so I knew she was being loved and treated well, but her behavior continued to escalate. At 2, I was reading her a story, showed her the picture and asked what she thought and was promptly punched in the eye. By 3, she started refusing to sleep, tearing her room apart, screaming, and biting, hitting and kicking. Her doctor prescribed a low dose of melatonin to help her sleep, which took the 3 hour time down to 30 minutes.

Around 3.5 she started screaming as if in pain and nothing we did could console her. We rushed her to a gi doctor asap. She was diagnosed with reflux and the medication eased her pain. Her aggressive behavior though grew more intense. From 3.5-6.5 I was bitten, kicked, hit, screamed at, and chased with anything she could pick up on a daily basis. She even tried to stab me with a letter opener once. We took her to every therapist, doctor, and specialist we could find, nothing helped and many times we considered finding a care facility for her, but we were determined to keep her home because we love our daughter and wanted her to grow up with her parents.

Through all this, I never stopped loving my child. Walking around with black eyes, bite marks, and my nose broken 3 times, I never stopped loving her. Finally at 6.5 she was diagnosed with the chemical imbalance, and was given medication to correct it. By this point she had developed extreme phobias of things she'd done thousands of times before and was experiencing paranoid delusions. I fought tooth and nail to get her that medication.

After a few weeks on the medication, it was like she was a different child. Her anxiety drastically decreased and became manageable with therapy techniques she had refused before. Her aggression faded until it became a rare occurrence. She started showing genuine joy more often than we'd seen in years.

What we went through as a family was harrowing and if we'd been unable to help her, I would have placed my daughter in a care facility and visited every day, but never would I have stopped loving her.

For anyone to be as cold as that man was about his supposed son, it would have to be as you said either fiction or written by a malicious abuser. No decent parent could talk about their child like he did.

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Sep 7, 2021Liked by Athena Walker

A cute kid. Reminds me of my younger sister, except I ws a teenager when she was a nightmare, so I did not have the patience and tact to deal with it. Now she's a teenager and I'm an adult and she's one of my favorite people. Still a nightmare to some people, but a lot more fun.

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deletedSep 17, 2021Liked by Athena Walker
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