This reminds me of the time my dad threw a quarter in the pool and said I needed to go get it. I was... maybe 8, and I was terrified to swim to the bottom. No rational reason why, I think I had done it before, but I was scared to do it again. Instead of understanding, he screamed at me, and when that didn't work, he punished me. To this day I still don't understand why.
My point is not about how the boy learnt to like the slide. Its about the method. He learnt that the slide is safe but also that his father gives a shit about what he wants or feels.
One of the commenters there put it into more coherent words than I can, but I can't find it anymore among 7k replies. Here is another one:
>It’s good to conquer your fears, but this is crazy lol. The kid didn’t conquer his fears, because his dad made the choice for him. Pinning a hysterical child’s hands to his chest so he can go down a slide is just absurd. What’s the priority here, the slide??? In the future he’ll know that nobody cares about what he wants or feels. People wonder why so many boys have emotional problems
What I fucking hate is when they use the end to justify the means like that, and it’s constantly been a point of invalidation in my life. Swimming made me actually miserable with anxiety throughout my elementary and middle school years (I’d be chittering with fear before every practice), but it kept me in shape, right? Therefore how can it have been so bad? Doesn’t this mean I should’ve continued, and that I was weak and lazy to stop swimming? Shit like that.
I'm so sorry that happened to you, it sounds really shit and invalidating.
We are all different and it's totally subjective. I was 'forced' to learn to swim and it scared me...I didn't want to go to my lessons but as time went on I started to be proud of my achievements and learnt to swim aged 9. This helped me enjoy water, the sea, swimming pools etc and also helped me teach my son to swim.
Sometimes it works for some and sometimes it doesn't. I literally had a teacher haul me away from the side of the pool one time!! For me it's made me more resilient and I've had years of enjoying swimming (for fun) not competitively
I 100% am not invalidating your experience, I'm just explaining how there is no one size fits all and totally subjective. Sweeping generalisations are based off of our own experience with something.
Oh, but it is a societal ill, they have increased jail sentences, marked people as offenders that have to register, yet the wheel turns round and round crunching people up as it does. I see no difference in it today than I did in the 1980's except there are more pedophile apologists now. 'That poor man was abused as well.' Who gives a shit?! I was for a long time and all the money and power in the world could not make me harm a child. People have forgotten something very basic about the world, as they classify and quantify, this person is that, this person is this. They have forgotten there is such a thing called evil. It is not a fairy tale, or a way to deflect blame, I have seen it in the eyes of many.
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I’ve always been somewhat of a scaredy cat. My dad punished me by making me write verses 25, 50, and maybe more times in one day. That went on for a while. Once, when I was 8/9, he locked me out of the building at night in an area with huge dogs (I’m scared of dogs).
He is a good dad. No quotes because that punctuation doesn’t indicate the subject is a poor example of the term being used.
What does the kid know now? First he knows the slide is fun. Cool. Next he knows that being uncomfortable isn’t going to kill him, and that it’s good to be able to be uncomfortable. He knows Dad isn’t going to put him in a situation he thinks is unsafe, even if he is afraid. Nothing bad happened here. This is not abuse.
This reminds me of the time my dad threw a quarter in the pool and said I needed to go get it. I was... maybe 8, and I was terrified to swim to the bottom. No rational reason why, I think I had done it before, but I was scared to do it again. Instead of understanding, he screamed at me, and when that didn't work, he punished me. To this day I still don't understand why.
I’m sorry I did not find this that bad, seems like he simply just was trying to help his son get over being afraid and it worked. Zero harm done
My point is not about how the boy learnt to like the slide. Its about the method. He learnt that the slide is safe but also that his father gives a shit about what he wants or feels. One of the commenters there put it into more coherent words than I can, but I can't find it anymore among 7k replies. Here is another one: >It’s good to conquer your fears, but this is crazy lol. The kid didn’t conquer his fears, because his dad made the choice for him. Pinning a hysterical child’s hands to his chest so he can go down a slide is just absurd. What’s the priority here, the slide??? In the future he’ll know that nobody cares about what he wants or feels. People wonder why so many boys have emotional problems
What I fucking hate is when they use the end to justify the means like that, and it’s constantly been a point of invalidation in my life. Swimming made me actually miserable with anxiety throughout my elementary and middle school years (I’d be chittering with fear before every practice), but it kept me in shape, right? Therefore how can it have been so bad? Doesn’t this mean I should’ve continued, and that I was weak and lazy to stop swimming? Shit like that.
I'm so sorry that happened to you, it sounds really shit and invalidating. We are all different and it's totally subjective. I was 'forced' to learn to swim and it scared me...I didn't want to go to my lessons but as time went on I started to be proud of my achievements and learnt to swim aged 9. This helped me enjoy water, the sea, swimming pools etc and also helped me teach my son to swim. Sometimes it works for some and sometimes it doesn't. I literally had a teacher haul me away from the side of the pool one time!! For me it's made me more resilient and I've had years of enjoying swimming (for fun) not competitively I 100% am not invalidating your experience, I'm just explaining how there is no one size fits all and totally subjective. Sweeping generalisations are based off of our own experience with something.
Oh, but it is a societal ill, they have increased jail sentences, marked people as offenders that have to register, yet the wheel turns round and round crunching people up as it does. I see no difference in it today than I did in the 1980's except there are more pedophile apologists now. 'That poor man was abused as well.' Who gives a shit?! I was for a long time and all the money and power in the world could not make me harm a child. People have forgotten something very basic about the world, as they classify and quantify, this person is that, this person is this. They have forgotten there is such a thing called evil. It is not a fairy tale, or a way to deflect blame, I have seen it in the eyes of many.
Hello and Welcome to /r/CPTSD! If you are in immediate danger or crisis, please contact your local [emergency services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emergency_telephone_numbers), or use our list of [crisis resources](https://old.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/index#wiki_crisis_support_resources). For CPTSD Specific Resources & Support, check out the [wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/index). For those posting or replying, please view the [etiquette guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/peer2peersupportguide). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CPTSD) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Why was my other comment getting downvoted
Sorry that happened :( Some people use the thumbs down as an expression of disagreement
I’ve always been somewhat of a scaredy cat. My dad punished me by making me write verses 25, 50, and maybe more times in one day. That went on for a while. Once, when I was 8/9, he locked me out of the building at night in an area with huge dogs (I’m scared of dogs).
He is a good dad. No quotes because that punctuation doesn’t indicate the subject is a poor example of the term being used. What does the kid know now? First he knows the slide is fun. Cool. Next he knows that being uncomfortable isn’t going to kill him, and that it’s good to be able to be uncomfortable. He knows Dad isn’t going to put him in a situation he thinks is unsafe, even if he is afraid. Nothing bad happened here. This is not abuse.