Sane or insane, that's not the question.

This comment prompted this whole post. What sane person Just click that link. It's a short comment.

I don't know the answer to that. I do know there are people with far worse stories than mine. I've seen the scars on other people and asked.

I don't really think the question is what sane person hits a child with fists,feet or other objects, or burns them on the stove or with cigarettes, or cuts them or sexually abuses them or on and on and on.

I think the real question is why does anyone do anything to hurt or cause a child harm, in any way?

Even better question is why do we accept it when we see it happening? And yes, ignoring it is the exact same as accepting it or condoning it.

This is a subject that really pisses me off. Why would most of the people in the world rather ignore a child being hurt than get involved?

Another thing that pisses me off is when adults try to rationalize brutality against children as being the child's fault. Don't they understand that it's their own failing?

Aren't they smart enough to teach a child. Aren't they smart enough to control a child? Aren't they smart enough to teach a child right from wrong? All of this is why I wrote about new parents should have to take a parenting class. I'm not going to look up the url for that one. It was a while back.

Obviously child abusers have something wrong with them. Lack of self control for damn sure.

Even worse is it's a universal thing. It happens in every country, every race and ethnic makeup and in every social strata from high class to low class and rich or poor and everything in between.

Most ignore it, some tolerate it and some even condone it yet everyone says in public, how wrong it is. Bunch of lying, two faced sons of bitches as far as I'm concerned. Including churches and politicians.

When you raise a child thru the use of force all you are teaching them is that the strongest is right. That it's okay to hurt people smaller than you. That it's okay to hit people who can't defend themselves. That it's okay to yell at people smaller than you are or weaker than you are. That losing control of yourself is just fine. That as long as you are bigger or stronger you can do anything you want.

Two freaking million years of evolution or whatever, 10 thousand or how many ever years it is, if you believe in the bible and we still haven't learned one damn thing about not hurting children.

We still haven't learned that how you raise children is the kind of adults they become. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't want to hear any of the "Were so enlightened crap from anyone either" because the sad truth is we aren't that freaking enlightened at all.

Proof you say? Screw you, watch your tv, listen to the news, read your papers. If we're so enlightened then we have to be the most backwards, most ignorant race in the freaking universe because I don't see enlightened at all.

It's still happening and still most of you don't do a damn thing about it. That ain't enlightened. That's just plain stupid.

Have you ever told someone in Wal-Mart or whatever that if you see them hit their child again you are going to call the police? Have you ever protected a child from an adult or their own parents? I've done that many times and will do it again and again.

Now I'm 60 freaking years old, I've got spinal problems, I've got COPD so bad I can barely make it up a flight of stairs, I weigh a whole whopping 112 pounds and if I can do it you sure as hell can.

WHY THE HELL DON"T YOU?

Should mothers to be have to take a parenting class?

Should there be a law that says women who are about to become mothers, and their baby's daddy if he and the mother are together, be required to take a parenting class?

Funny, I wasn't going to write anything today but I was doing some other research and ran across a video that questioned if it would be a good law if everyone who got a dog from the pound had to take a dog training class as part of getting the dog.

To me, making someone take a class with their new dog is a pretty good idea. Particularly if they've never had a dog before. However it bothers me that we would consider making such a law for people with dogs but not for people who are going to have their first child.

I mean, come on, aren't kids way more important than dogs? Sheesh, one would hope so but it certainly doesn't appear that way. I see people with 6 kids that still don't know how to be parents.

Learning what it means and how to be an effective parent is something a lot of people need to know. Just think, the crime rate would go down, domestic violence would lessen, there would be fewer spoiled brats in the world and even fewer of people like me. Parents and children would both be happier and have easier lives.

Immigrants with children should also be required to take a parenting course because what's okay in their culture might not be okay here. For instance in some countries it's ok to slap a child's face but it sure ain't in this one.

My opinion is a law that requiring mothers to be take a parenting class is one everyone should get behind and support. It will help the entire world and there will be fewer unwanted and abused children.

While I hate laws like this one, in particular seat belt and helmet laws, I would still love to see a law like this one passed. Unlike helmet and seat belt laws this one would at least help humanity instead of hurting it.

Now how did I come to that conclusion. Survival of the fittest. Anyone dumb enough to drive or ride a bike or motorcycle without a helmet or seat belt is stupid. Now they don't get weeded out and get to reproduce, thus raising the amount of stupid people in the world. Lol, no I don't wear a seat belt or use a helmet.

It would improve the quality of everyones life in just two generations. So yes, I think mothers to be should have to take a parenting class.

Fairmont, fishing and depression still exists

The best thing about fishing, besides catching fish, was that it was something I could do alone. I loved being away from adults. Of course that makes sense because most adults close to me did nothing but hurt me physically, mentally or emotionally.

Those that didn't do any of those failed to protect me so I had no trust in adults at all. Relatives least of all. Probably explains why I've more comfortable with women and with little kids. While I was molested by several women, we'll get to that later on, none of them hurt me except for my mother. Not even mentally.

Anyway, I loved to fish and I caught a lot of fish as a kid. I hated and still hate bullheads tho. Got horned one to many times and it got infected and hurt like hell for over a week. I'd much rather fish from shore than a boat as I don't have to worry about near as much or be as careful. Pretty hard to hit another boat or fall overboard and drown on dry land. While I like boats, fishing from shore is more relaxing.

I was fishing by myself one day and I saw a guy doing something I'd never seen before and he was out fishing me by a ton. I went over and talked to him and he explained to me that his rod was a fly rod and he used artificial flies to out fish me.

I'd never seen a fly rod before and obviously never seen anyone using one. He showed me a little bit about it and I thought perhaps I could do it with a regular rod. Lol, my young brain didn't grasp how it really worked so I tried it my way.

I shoplifted a few artificial flys and tied one onto the end of my line and then I would put out about 6 feet of line and jiggle it around or let it trail in the water while I walked on the dock. I caught more fish but I still wasn't happy because I couldn't do it the way he was.

The dock at the swimming beach was a U shape with the legs of the U being on shore. Little kids stayed inside the dock area and the bigger kids, who could swim, could go out to the raft. The swimming area had a life guard and swimming was only allowed during certain hours. Fishing off the dock was not allowed during swimming hours. The hours were enforced by the police.

During the non swimming hours I spend a lot of time walking the dock and catching fish. I also started experimenting with learning to fly cast from the dock. Almost impossible with a 5 foot steel rod and an old fashioned level wind reel but I got so I could get it out 20 feet or so.

Then I managed to accumulate enough money to get myself a 6 foot fiberglass rod and a close faced spinning reel. I could cast that baby a mile with conventional terminal tackle and best of all was no backlashes or birdsnests. Don't remember how I got the money but it's safe to assume I probably stoled it or stoled something and sold it to get the money.

Heh, I just remember a cops name from Fairmont. Joe Sutton. He and I would become acquainted thru him trying to nail me for anything. He got lucky, once.

I practiced with the new rod and reel and could then get the fly out 30 feet or so. I could also keep it above the bushes and stuff on shore so I no longer had to fish from docks. More freedom. Seems my whole life has been a struggle for freedom. Lol, still is for that matter.

I was fly fishing from shore one day and catching fish but the bushes behind me were a problem. Every now and then while false casting the fly would get hung up in the bushes. I'd tighten the line and give a jerk and the fly would come free so then I'd start over with the false casting.

One time it got caught and I thought it was in the bushes again so I tightened up the line and gave my usual hard yank to free the fly. When I yanked, my head snapped around and my ear hurt really bad. I grabbed the line and followed it with my fingers, right to my ear.

I now had a bumblebee fly as an unintentional earring. I swore a bit, got out my knife and cut the line off at the fly. Then I tried to get the fly out of my ear but I couldn't. It didn't hurt that bad so I tied on a new fly and kept on fishing until I got tired of it.

I stopped at the concession stand that was run by some people I knew and when they saw my ear the told me to come in and they took a side cutter and cut the hook off just above the barb. Pissed me off because now I'd lost my best fly. However it got the fly out of my ear and that was a good thing.

When my mother saw my ear I lied to her about what happened but eventually she found out and took my fishing gear away for a week. That was depressing to say the least. The fact that she beat me for lying to her was no surprise but if I'd told her the truth she'd have beat me for that too. Which leads to depression at it's finest.

More on my life in Sioux City and depression

Don't make the mistake of thinking because I was happier I wasn't depressed anymore. I missed my grandmother very much and my Dad too. If I even talked about either of them around my mother I got hit and told how much like my father I was. It took her a long time to understand that I took that as being a good thing.

At this point in my life I could have still been saved from what I was going to become. It wouldn't have been easy but it could have been done. I was still getting straight "A" in school but school was really boring and no challenge at all. The school wanted me to skip a grade two different times but she wouldn't okay it. I never did know why and still don't.

At my age I had to watch what ever my grandfather decided. TV was still in black and white back then and we could get 3 stations. We watched a lot of boxing and wrestling together and in the mornings I could watch cartoons. Cartoons in black and white sucked. We always had to watch Ed Sullivan. Heh, I can remember when Elvis and the Beatles were on that show. Lol, both in B and W and not at the same time. ;)

I still read everything I could get my hands on and I was and still am a faster than average reader. Notice that doesn't translate in a good writer tho. I hated English class. My punctuation sucks, I know. Anyway there were a lot more places to steal comics and books from.

So we lived in Sioux City and my life was easy. I didn't have to watch my sister, feed her, cook for us or do anything. Not even dishes. I finally got the opportunity to be a kid and didn't know how. That sucks. Soon I was about to get a major shock in my life and it didn't make me very happy.

I thought it would make my life even better but it didn't. It was shortly after that when I knew I could no longer be saved from what I was going to become. Once again I had to choose between nerd and hard ass. Once gain I chose what I needed to so as to survive.

It was obviously a good choice as I did survive but not one kids should have to make, I had one hell of an exciting life and for a long, long, time lived on the wild side and loved it. More about that tomorrow.

A couple of more stories about abuse and depression

I've got tons of stories of my abuse and my depressions but I'm not going to tell you all of them. Well, at least not today. Today is just more about me being a kid and some of the dumber things I did.

When I was 5 and going to school we'd had a rain for about 3 days. This created a huge puddle in a neighbors yard. All the kids were over there wading in the puddle and having fun. I was forbidden to go over and join them. Lol, you know I did anyway.

I didn't want to get my pants wet so I figured by running thru and stomping down hard I'd make a hole in the water and then get my leg out fast enough not to get wet. Nice plan, I got wet. My dad beat me and had me change clothes and go back outside. Naturally I went right back to the puddle. Naturally I got wet again. Yes, I got beat again even worse than the time before.

For some reason I still got to go back outside. You know what happened. Yep, got wet, got beat and then my mother came home and I got in more trouble. I only had 3 pair of school pants and they were all wet. Naturally my sister had about 20 pairs of pants. So my mother beat me for getting all of my school stuff wet.

When I was 7 my cousin was out to the lake. I loved it at the lake as I could go do my own thing and my parents couldn't hurt me if they couldn't find me. They spent their time in the bar or at the dance hall. Me, I ran and played in the woods, fished and did whatever I could to keep me away from my parents.

Played with some other kids at the lake also. We were all pretty friendly and still are for that matter. All my kid friends parents were at the bar with my parents so it was pretty easy for us to do whatever we wanted to do.

Anyway, one day I was in town, at home, and decided I wanted to go to the lake. As I said before, my cousin was out there. No one would take me so I decided to ride my bike. I knew how to get there and I knew it was a long ways. I also knew there was a big hill.

Now at 7 I had a cast off 26 inch boys bike that I had to ride under the bar because my legs were to short to reach the pedals. If I wore my boots I could sit on the bar and just barely make it work. So I wore my boots.

I headed out for the lake pretty early. Somewhere around 8 AM. As soon as I couldn't see town anymore I got a lot happier about the whole thing. When I went around the S curve I knew the next big deal was going to be the hill. Going down it was going to be one hell of a thrill as I'd never been down a big hell on my bike so I was really looking forward to it.

Going down was as much fun as I expected but getting up the other side was one hell of a long walk pushing a heavy old bike too. I finally made it to the top and continued on my ride. By now I was thirsty, hot and tired and I was just barely half way. I continued on and finally made it to Breezy Point. The guy that owned it knew me so I went in there and got some water.

Then I rode the last two miles to the lake. 10 miles I rode, on a 2 lane, narrow asphalt road, from town to the lake. I was dreading the trip back. Finally found my cousin and her grandparents and we played for a while and messed around. Then they got ready to go back to town. I asked them for a ride because they had an old pickup and could haul my bike.

Yes! A ride back to town. It was another 5 years before I rode to the lake again and the next time it was on a lot better bike and I could pedal a lot faster.

When my dad found out I'd ridden my bike to the lake he took it away and put it up in the rafters of the garage. I never thought of anyone telling my parents what I'd done, never real thought much about making the trip either, just did it. About 10 different people had told my dad they'd either passed me on the bike or had seen me at the lake. Yes, you guessed it. I got beat petty good for that little trip.

No I don't think I should have been beaten for either of these either and I wouldn't do it to a kid but it is what passed for normal in my life. I knew I'd get beaten and I did it anyway. Hey, if ya can't do the time, don't do the crime. The beatings were just the price I paid for being me.

Just another kid who wasn't perfect but still just a kid.

After my beating I turned into an angry kid

After making my update yesterday about my mother beating me so badly I was quite angry for the rest of the day. About the time I was getting over it the news came on and don't ya know they had an story about physical and sexual abuse. I have a forum at IBcynical Forum and I went off on a not so nice rant about the whole subject. If you are interested go take a look.

Child abuse is a subject that really irritates me because people knew I was being sexually, physically and mentally abused and no one did a damn thing about it. I was a very angry kid and back then there were no anger management activities for children nor any kind of anger management programs at all, not even for adults.

I never had any good role models when I was growing up and for sure never had any hero's. All I knew was anger, drinking, fighting and that kind of thing. Heh, I'm still way more comfortable in a bad ass bar than I am in an upscale place.

Anyway, the first time I saw Mr. Spock on Star Trek, that kinda dates me too, huh, I knew how I wanted to be. Cold, analytical and emotionless. Spock was everything I wanted to be. In control of himself at all times and logical.

I manged the cold and logical part very well and could even suppress all emotion except for one. Anger! For all the reading I did, all the research I did I was never able to find an effective way to control my anger. Well, I did find one way but it's not to workable for the most part. Staying away from people worked but I still had to go shopping for groceries, etc and would be in a constant state of irritation most of the time.

It's very obvious when I'm irritated as it comes out in my tone of voice and facial expressions. As hard as it may be for anyone to believe I'm very soft spoken but when irritated or angry I do speak louder. I also don't tend to sugar coat things when I speak so I've been called blunt, tactless and a bull in a china shop but the most frequent thing I'd hear was that I was an a**hole.

That one never bothered me and I encouraged it. MOF my whole personality is built on keeping people away from me and not letting anyone get anywhere close to me. The people who do get close to me are amazed how gentle I really am.

The girls I dated were all amazed when we would have sex that I was so extremely gentle with them and that their pleasure was more important to me than my own. It wasn't what they were expecting at all considering they knew how angry and irritable I could be. One of them described me as all porcupine and hard shell on the outside and all teddy bear on the inside.

One girl, who I fell in love with, made me feel emotions I hadn't felt for years and years. She even made me want to live. Now I can't get rid of the emotions and I don't know how to deal with them either. They confuse me and that irritates me to no end.

The psychologist I sent my ex wife and her kids to told me she could probably help me and I told her don't worry about it, I'll be fine. That was eight years ago and now I finally realize I'm not fine. Yeah, for being so intelligent sometimes I'm a slow learner, at least in that area.

I've spent 50 plus years being angry. I've used my anger to survive, I've used it to motivate myself and it's kept me alive more than once. I don't know how to be any other way. I'm very strong mentally unless I'm depressed and even then I'm still mentally tougher than everyone I know.

Nice huh? That's one of the problems with child abuse. Angry kids turn into even angrier adults. It doesn't make for a truly functional adult who enjoys much of anything. So now I'm 60 and angry and don't know how to change it. Nor am I sure I care to make the effort to try. My life expectancy is shorter than average due to the copd and I doubt there is enough time left in my life to fix all that's wrong and all that makes me so angry.

Like everyone else I want a quick fix and haven't been able to find one. Lol, don't anyone tell me to count to ten or to think or any of that simplistic crap. It doesn't work as the words come out of my mouth before my brain ever engages.

I'm rambling today, even worse than usual. What I want anyone to do who reads this is if you know or suspect any child is being abused, report it. Get involved, don't just stand on the sidelines and watch it happen. As far as I'm concerned if you know of child abuse and don't get involved you are as guilty as the person doing the abuse. Children are very precious things and everyone needs to do their part to protect them.

I'm a psychologists nightmare and some days I suspect if people knew the true thoughts going thru my head I'd be put in the funny farm for a long time. My depression is getting better but it's so slow. Seems to be no quick fix for that either. Funny, I can help other people fix or solve their personal problems but I sure can't fix my own. Ironic huh?

What happened if I lost a fight

Nothing much of note happened at school for a while. As I said they tested me and discovered I was more intelligent than the rest of my class. However I still got the shaft because there were no classes for gifted people. Come to think of it there were no classes for those with learning disabilities.

Sheesh, that learning disabilities phrase I had to think about. I'm not to politically correct so I had to think of that one for a minute. Argh, I could go off on a political correctness rant but I won't.

Really offends me to this day that there aren't more programs for the gifted or highly intelligent. Being on the right and on the flat side of the bell curve can really suck. I'm old but I hang with a lot of younger people as older people are to damn much living in the past. Besides, I'm lucky as it's part of one of my jobs. I know lots of smart girls and a few boys who quit school because schools were so boring and no challenge. I know one girl of 20 who quit school and is educating herself in what she wants to know and do. Carries around a computer, 5 thick books and two notebooks and studies whenever she has a spare moment.

Anyway, me and school. When I was in first grade I got into a fight with another kid. Wow, imagine that, it took me a year of school to get into a fight. Amazing huh? I even remember why. A bigger kid was picking on a girl from my class and she started crying so I smacked him in the mouth. Lol, he totally kicked my ass and I lost.

When I got home my dad asked me how my shirt got torn and I told him I got in a fight. He asked me if I won or lost and I told him I lost. He asked if the other kid knocked me out or what and I said no, I gave up. Then he got very angry.

He took off his belt and started beating me with it and told me if I ever gave up he was going to beat me, if I ever lost he was going to beat me and if I ever took any crap from anyone and didn't fight he was going to beat me.

Now understand my grandfather was the toughest guy in town and then my father. To them I had let the family honor down by giving up and taking the ass kicking. I was in first grade, what did I know about any of that. I soon learned tho.

In that year I fought more and lost a few and everytime I lost the beatings got worse. I soon learned that it ws better to suffer in the fight, take whatever was dished out and keep fighting until I won because if I lost whatever happened at home was going to be far worse than what happened in the fight.

Believe it or not I considered this normal too. It's just how it was. I wonder how many things I still consider normal today that were really child abuse. I have no clue but every now and then something comes up and I'll mention that happened to me and they'll go wow, that was child abuse. For me it was normal and worse yet expected.

By the time I was in third grade I didn't lose fights anymore. I could kick 5th grade butt and most guys were afraid of me. I wasn't a bully or anything like that I just would not let people intimidate me, put me down or hurt girls. Lol, teachers couldn't even intimidate me because they couldn't do anything near as bad to me as what was happening at home. Detention, who cared, it kept me from having to go home where I didn't want to be anyway. It was quiet in detention and I could read to my hearts content. I was pretty much a loner even back then.

So I'm depressed. Whoopee. Tons of people are for more reasons than I have but there are even tons and tons more who don't have any reason at all. At least not that I can see. I still want to know what comes first, the change in brain chemicals and that causes depression or does depression cause the change in brain chemicals.

Running away, killing ones self and Runaway Love

As I said yesterday, it gets worse. I have a brief interlude here that's related but the first time I heard Runaway Love by Ludicrous and Mary J. Blige I almost cried. If you haven't heard it or seen it you can see it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJWtR2KlMwg and I would recommend you watch it and listen to it a few times.

That video could be the story of my life except I'm a guy and my abuse started much earlier than that. I'm sure the girls abuse started when they were born too. Yes, I'm getting to the point of all of this.

The first time I ran away from home I was four years old. Imagine that, a four year old running away from home for real. It wasn't like the shows where the kid can't leave because he can't cross the street or his mother refuses to pack a lunch so he doesn't leave. I ran away and my mother couldn't find me for hours and hours. Of course at four I couldn't fomulate a very good plan so I ran away to my grandmothers house which was about 8 blocks from where I lived.

In retrospect not a good plan but hey, I was four and I did have the balls to leave home and try to find a better place for me. Eventually my parents tracked me down, came and got me, took me home and beat the hell out of me until they got tired of it. That was how life was for me. While my maternal grandmother cared about me she and my grandfather just kept letting the abuse happen. Yep, I've probably been depressed all of my life.

After thinking about my unsuccessful attempt to runaway from home I came to the conclusion that the only way to make things better for myself was to die. So naturally I tried to commit suicide a couple of times. Obviously I wasn't successful or I wouldn't be writing this. The bad thing is I still which I had been successful.

It's kind of embarrasing for me to be writing this stuff as most of the people in my life don't know any of these things happened to me. I also never knew that my life was that much diffeent from any other kids lives. I didn't know there were good parents in the world or that there were kids who weren't abused. Except for one of my cousins I was close to. I always wished I had her parents but her parents and mine hung out together as our two dads were related. I'm not so sure now that her life was that great either but she didn't get the beatings I got so it made it look better to me.

When I was around 40 or so one of my wifes friends was at our house and she was talking about how the social services had taken her neighbors kids away from her for abuse. She was telling me that the parent had left them alone overnight and someone had turned her in. Now her kids were fed well, dressed well, not beaten or anything like that and in my mind an 11 and 9 year old were old enough to be alone over night.

She went on and on about how bad it was that the mother had left them overnight and I finally snapped on her and told her she didn't know what the hell she was talking about or even what the hell abuse was. I asked her if she'd been an abused child and she said no, that she didn't even know anyone who had been badly abused. I said sure you do, you know me.

She said what abuse, you got spanked now and then or what. Now I not only snapped but I really went off on her with a major rant. When I finally stopped yelling she asked me how I was abused so I told her a very little of it but included the running away and the trying to commit suicide at the age of four. Much to my disbelief and amazement she started crying and so did my wife. I truly didn't understand why they were crying so I asked.

We talked about it for awhile and I tried to explain that I'd never talked about it because I had assumed every kids life was like that and that it was what I knew and what I had lived thru so it was normal for me. It was the only explanation I could come up with and when she asked me if I still thought it was normal I said yes.

Then she asked me, if I read about a four year old running away and trying to commit suicide, in the paper or saw a tv story about it would I think it ws normal and I said no. That's the first time in my life I realized how abused I was and how bad it really was. Here I am a 40 year old man thinking my running away and trying to kill myself was normal for that age.

I know better now and I will talk more openly about all of the abuse that happened to me but there are still things no one else knows and I'll eventually put them on here, someday. when I get brave enough. I know it wasn't my fault I was abused and I know the responsibilty wasn't mine. I KNOW THAT yet it still feels weird to talk about any of it.

So yes, I now know that I have been depressed all of my life and to this day I don't give a damn if I live or die. It just doesn't matter to me in any way, shape or form.