I know that Chrissy Hynde has said that this song is about a mother whose child finds out that she works as a prostitute to pay the bills, but it could easily be about any big disagreement between a parent and child, especially one where a parent's decision has seriously affected the child in a negative way. It made me think of a recent post I saw that made me really sad on an epilepsy forum where the girl was pissed off at her mom for deciding on brain surgery for her when she was younger to try to stop her seizures. Not only was the surgery unsuccessful at stopping her seizures, but she's also had other complications like terrible memory problems, and she still goes through phases where she blames her mom even years later.
@epiwoosh And that situation is just one example that's especially sad because I'm sure the mom was trying to make the best decision for her daughter that she could at the time, but it just didn't work out and made things worse. I have my own experience like this that's even harder to deal with because my dad fully knew he was throwing me to the wolves to teach me a hard lesson not to be so trusting and naive, because he felt I probably wouldn't learn it any other way. In my case, the "wolves" were just seemingly ordinary...
@epiwoosh And that situation is just one example that's especially sad because I'm sure the mom was trying to make the best decision for her daughter that she could at the time, but it just didn't work out and made things worse. I have my own experience like this that's even harder to deal with because my dad fully knew he was throwing me to the wolves to teach me a hard lesson not to be so trusting and naive, because he felt I probably wouldn't learn it any other way. In my case, the "wolves" were just seemingly ordinary people, but I learned the hard way that people will take advantage of innocence and abuse you in the most extreme ways if they think they can get away with it. This experience has left me unable to completely trust anyone, including my dad even though I know he was right. Maybe it's true I wouldn't have learned it any other way, but I don't think so, and that's the main problem. It's just that he felt I had to learn the lesson fast because he had huge decisions to make soon that involved much more than just me and him and our relationship. The thing is that he knows I've never been someone for whom "time heals all wounds," so I don't know why he would try that on me. I seem to always carry the wounds with me, even through mind wipes. Time only forces me to learn to live with the wounds better, little by little.
@epiwoosh I'm glad that this song made me think more about my situation because I'm starting to understand what my dad was thinking. He was never going to let them get away with anything and was already planning extremely severe punishment for them even before everything they did to me. He just wanted not only me but the whole universe to see absolutely clearly how much they deserved that punishment and why they won't ever get leniency. And I think the only other way I might've learned the lesson was to witness what happened to me happen to someone else,...
@epiwoosh I'm glad that this song made me think more about my situation because I'm starting to understand what my dad was thinking. He was never going to let them get away with anything and was already planning extremely severe punishment for them even before everything they did to me. He just wanted not only me but the whole universe to see absolutely clearly how much they deserved that punishment and why they won't ever get leniency. And I think the only other way I might've learned the lesson was to witness what happened to me happen to someone else, but he knew I wouldn't have been able to bear seeing it happen to anyone else, so I would've gotten in the way of that. I'd say that sometimes I think he thinks I'm a lot stronger than I am, but then he'd say I'm a lot stronger than I think I am, because even though I hold onto my wounds I don't let them change me or let go of my principles. Anyway, I'm sure I'll have many talks in the future with my dad and my friends who've also suffered, and we'll all figure out how to navigate through these ethical concerns when it comes to justice. One thing I know for sure is that exacting justice and revenge is not nearly the same thing as sadistically making innocent people suffer just because you can, and anyone with any sense or any heart at all knows that, so those quotes like Auden's "Those to whom evil is done do evil in return" are just concocted by the evil ones to pathetically try to feel better about themselves, or just to confess part of their mind-control strategy for turning people evil in that way they love to gloat about their wrongdoings. In any case, what I experienced was a massive-scale version of the Milgram experiment and Stanford prison experiment combined, and I hope it means the end of anyone ever being subjected to anything like that again, not because I don't now think that certain people wouldn't deserve it, but because it brought out the absolute worst in ugly tendencies in humanity as a whole, to an extent I naively didn't believe was possible, and that's not something I'd ever want to see happen again in any species anywhere. I think the only way it will happen now is when someone is tortured by their own subconscious in their dreams for treating others so badly. That will probably even be the main punishment that my dad has in mind for them, for them to be perpetually tortured by their own subconscious because deep down they know that's what they deserve.
@epiwoosh The thing that I'll probably always be angry about is that my daughter was with me through the whole experience and she more than anyone didn't deserve any of it. At least I know what it's like to live through better times, but the only thing she's ever known is this relentless barrage of irrational meanness and hatred directed at her, so I hope she hasn't been too traumatized and messed up by it. Even if she didn't always understand what was happening, I'm sure she's always felt it because I know I have and she's so much like...
@epiwoosh The thing that I'll probably always be angry about is that my daughter was with me through the whole experience and she more than anyone didn't deserve any of it. At least I know what it's like to live through better times, but the only thing she's ever known is this relentless barrage of irrational meanness and hatred directed at her, so I hope she hasn't been too traumatized and messed up by it. Even if she didn't always understand what was happening, I'm sure she's always felt it because I know I have and she's so much like me. At least right now I feel like I can forgive my dad more than I can the assholes who took part in tormenting us, because one of the psychopaths' main goals was to cause a big rift between me and my dad if they couldn't get their way, and they won't be getting their way. My dad only set the stage; it was all the people who succumbed to their worst tendencies and took part that actually caused it to get as bad as it did, so I'll never forgive them. I hope I can stay close enough to my daughter that she'll let me help her through whatever I can. I also have friends who'll help us, but I know I'll always worry about her.
I know that Chrissy Hynde has said that this song is about a mother whose child finds out that she works as a prostitute to pay the bills, but it could easily be about any big disagreement between a parent and child, especially one where a parent's decision has seriously affected the child in a negative way. It made me think of a recent post I saw that made me really sad on an epilepsy forum where the girl was pissed off at her mom for deciding on brain surgery for her when she was younger to try to stop her seizures. Not only was the surgery unsuccessful at stopping her seizures, but she's also had other complications like terrible memory problems, and she still goes through phases where she blames her mom even years later.
@epiwoosh Not that it really matters, but it's Chrissie not Chrissy.
@epiwoosh Not that it really matters, but it's Chrissie not Chrissy.
@epiwoosh And that situation is just one example that's especially sad because I'm sure the mom was trying to make the best decision for her daughter that she could at the time, but it just didn't work out and made things worse. I have my own experience like this that's even harder to deal with because my dad fully knew he was throwing me to the wolves to teach me a hard lesson not to be so trusting and naive, because he felt I probably wouldn't learn it any other way. In my case, the "wolves" were just seemingly ordinary...
@epiwoosh And that situation is just one example that's especially sad because I'm sure the mom was trying to make the best decision for her daughter that she could at the time, but it just didn't work out and made things worse. I have my own experience like this that's even harder to deal with because my dad fully knew he was throwing me to the wolves to teach me a hard lesson not to be so trusting and naive, because he felt I probably wouldn't learn it any other way. In my case, the "wolves" were just seemingly ordinary people, but I learned the hard way that people will take advantage of innocence and abuse you in the most extreme ways if they think they can get away with it. This experience has left me unable to completely trust anyone, including my dad even though I know he was right. Maybe it's true I wouldn't have learned it any other way, but I don't think so, and that's the main problem. It's just that he felt I had to learn the lesson fast because he had huge decisions to make soon that involved much more than just me and him and our relationship. The thing is that he knows I've never been someone for whom "time heals all wounds," so I don't know why he would try that on me. I seem to always carry the wounds with me, even through mind wipes. Time only forces me to learn to live with the wounds better, little by little.
@epiwoosh I'm glad that this song made me think more about my situation because I'm starting to understand what my dad was thinking. He was never going to let them get away with anything and was already planning extremely severe punishment for them even before everything they did to me. He just wanted not only me but the whole universe to see absolutely clearly how much they deserved that punishment and why they won't ever get leniency. And I think the only other way I might've learned the lesson was to witness what happened to me happen to someone else,...
@epiwoosh I'm glad that this song made me think more about my situation because I'm starting to understand what my dad was thinking. He was never going to let them get away with anything and was already planning extremely severe punishment for them even before everything they did to me. He just wanted not only me but the whole universe to see absolutely clearly how much they deserved that punishment and why they won't ever get leniency. And I think the only other way I might've learned the lesson was to witness what happened to me happen to someone else, but he knew I wouldn't have been able to bear seeing it happen to anyone else, so I would've gotten in the way of that. I'd say that sometimes I think he thinks I'm a lot stronger than I am, but then he'd say I'm a lot stronger than I think I am, because even though I hold onto my wounds I don't let them change me or let go of my principles. Anyway, I'm sure I'll have many talks in the future with my dad and my friends who've also suffered, and we'll all figure out how to navigate through these ethical concerns when it comes to justice. One thing I know for sure is that exacting justice and revenge is not nearly the same thing as sadistically making innocent people suffer just because you can, and anyone with any sense or any heart at all knows that, so those quotes like Auden's "Those to whom evil is done do evil in return" are just concocted by the evil ones to pathetically try to feel better about themselves, or just to confess part of their mind-control strategy for turning people evil in that way they love to gloat about their wrongdoings. In any case, what I experienced was a massive-scale version of the Milgram experiment and Stanford prison experiment combined, and I hope it means the end of anyone ever being subjected to anything like that again, not because I don't now think that certain people wouldn't deserve it, but because it brought out the absolute worst in ugly tendencies in humanity as a whole, to an extent I naively didn't believe was possible, and that's not something I'd ever want to see happen again in any species anywhere. I think the only way it will happen now is when someone is tortured by their own subconscious in their dreams for treating others so badly. That will probably even be the main punishment that my dad has in mind for them, for them to be perpetually tortured by their own subconscious because deep down they know that's what they deserve.
@epiwoosh The thing that I'll probably always be angry about is that my daughter was with me through the whole experience and she more than anyone didn't deserve any of it. At least I know what it's like to live through better times, but the only thing she's ever known is this relentless barrage of irrational meanness and hatred directed at her, so I hope she hasn't been too traumatized and messed up by it. Even if she didn't always understand what was happening, I'm sure she's always felt it because I know I have and she's so much like...
@epiwoosh The thing that I'll probably always be angry about is that my daughter was with me through the whole experience and she more than anyone didn't deserve any of it. At least I know what it's like to live through better times, but the only thing she's ever known is this relentless barrage of irrational meanness and hatred directed at her, so I hope she hasn't been too traumatized and messed up by it. Even if she didn't always understand what was happening, I'm sure she's always felt it because I know I have and she's so much like me. At least right now I feel like I can forgive my dad more than I can the assholes who took part in tormenting us, because one of the psychopaths' main goals was to cause a big rift between me and my dad if they couldn't get their way, and they won't be getting their way. My dad only set the stage; it was all the people who succumbed to their worst tendencies and took part that actually caused it to get as bad as it did, so I'll never forgive them. I hope I can stay close enough to my daughter that she'll let me help her through whatever I can. I also have friends who'll help us, but I know I'll always worry about her.