My History With Violence

Natasha Dahan

 

Growing up, my parents were physically, emotionally and verbally abusive to each other frequently. That was my early experience in observing conflict responses, although their methods of resolving conflict usually did not end well or solve the problems. One might expect that the influence would affect me to act and respond similarly to the way my parents did, but this actually is not the case.

I think that because I observed the affects of the conflict management methods that my parents used which were almost always negative, I have learned that it is not the most effective way to deal with conflicts in a relationship. I also learned not to do it because I do not want the effects I saw after their fights to happen to me in my relationships. So, instead of learning from my parents how to handle conflict, I learned how not to handle conflicts.

To this day, I can't think of a time that I actually hurt somebody on purpose as a result of negative emotions. At times I have gotten mad to the point of imagining hurting somebody but I don't think I would have the guts to actually go through with it. I also try not to say things when I'm mad that could be considered verbally abusive. If I get to that point of being mad I usually just stonewall or avoid the person I and/or the other person are calm enough to continue. 

I have learned from the history of violence that I had observed. The only ways it affects me now is that I imagine scenarios sometimes and that I don't act on those scenarios or physically hurt anyone out of anger in general because I have seen the results and that is not what I want for myself in my life.