Making of a perfect victim

It's hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.  Sally Kempton, Esquire, 1970
http://www.innerkiddies.com/

A child comes into the world with no preconceived ideas about how to go on.  They might come with their own energy levels, little quirks, or a tiny personality but for the most part they don't know what to expect from this world.  Caregivers are in a position of establishing life long habits and expectations.  Hundreds of articles tell parents how formative and powerful their influence is during the first 5 years of life. A toddler screams when it is hurt, cries when frustrated, uses anger to get their way.  Punish a toddler for screaming when hurt, spank a child that cries, and punish their anger above all else do not give them what the need or want.  To really finish the job, tell them it is because you love them that you did this.  As a child grows use selected and out of context scripture to back up twisted behavior.
 
Ecclesiastes 7:9 (KJV) Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools

Proverbs 19:11 (KJV) The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression.

Soon the lectures, berating, and twisted thinking takes up an outpost in the child's head.  Once there, the caregiver is free to do almost anything they want with out retaliation because the child believes they deserve it.  A child is hurt they hide their shameful reaction, a child is frustrated they blame themselves for being stupid, they no longer believe they will get what they need and what they want is no longer considered.  I tried a group counseling situation shortly after starting counseling.  One of the sessions they were trying to get us to try different things and realize how outside influences can confuse us.  My turn came and they blind folded me then asked me to walk across the room with chairs placed in my way.  I could only hear the instructions called out by my friend.  I was stressed to the max.  I hate being blind folded.  I am partially deaf.  Fear of falling and really getting hurt had me nearly out of my skin with anxiety.  Then one of the leaders of the group stood in my way.  She kept standing in front of me giving me counter instructions.  First I froze, not being able to sort out what I was supposed to do.  The leader taunted me.  I finally grabbed her and shoved her out of the way to finish the task.  The group leader than chastised me for my violence.  I didn't say it, but I thought, "Bitch, you are lucky I didn't put you in the hospital and traumatized all the other woman all over again." I complained bitterly to KavinCoach at the next session.  He asked me, "Why didn't you take off the blindfold and say you can't do this?"

He may as well grown two heads.  What he proposed was so outlandish to me that I would never consider not doing what I was told to do.  I was indeed a perfect victim.  Easily manipulated and twisted as the other person desired.  I could not convey to KavinCoach how completely I didn't consider that as an option.  I brooded about it for a week until the next session with KavinCoach.  I finally came up with an answer for him.  "I would no more think of quitting than you would think to strip naked right now and run down the street for two miles."  He stared at me to process what I said.  His answer, "You are right I wouldn't even think of that."

Ten years of counseling and still my greatest enemy is still inside my head.  If a computer has faulty program, I can rewrite the hard drive.  If a person has faulty thinking, first they must unlearn the false, then relearn the truth.  I needed to realize that the twisting of scriptures was done by taking things out of context and distorting meanings.  I needed to accept that my childhood wasn't the ideal that I believed at one time that it was.  I totally restructured my thinking.  I am a work in progress and continue to struggle with believing in myself and destroying the enemy outposts in my head.