[HPforGrownups] Re:Harry and the Dursleys' abusive behaviour

[B.C. French]

No: HPFGUIDX 1636

At 9:17 PM +1000 9/18/00, storm stanford wrote:
>For what it's worth - I think the description of the abuse is very 
>realistic but the effect on Harry is not ie for that level of 
>emotional abuse he just doesn't seem *that* damaged. he still has a 
>strong sence of self and a sence that he is not deserving of this 
>kind of treatment. If he didn't then he wouldn't have been able to 
>'set' the boa on Dudders.

Having been through an abusive childhood myself (not from parents, 
but from another family member) and having worked for three years 
running a crisis hotline, I can tell you that individual personality, 
apart from upbringing, plays a huge role in how a person reacts to a 
crisis situation. It has never failed to amaze me how one person can 
go through five years of repeated sexual abuse (my case) and come out 
the other end fine, and how another person can experience a single 
date-rape situation and be destroyed emotionally by it. What is very 
interesting about my case is that my sister went through a similar 
experience and we didn't discover it until we were both adults. We 
went through EXACTLY the same mental process: we both realized almost 
immediately when it started happening that it was our relative who 
was the sick puppy, that it had nothing to do with us personally 
(that we happened to be the right age and the right gender), and that 
we could choose how we responded to it emotionally. Big stuff for an 
eight-year-old, but somehow I knew it even then. However, in typical 
kid logic, we also both suffered through it because we felt that we 
were protecting the other -- if he goes for me, he won't go after my 
sister -- which was really stupid in my case because my sister was 
older. But kid logic doesn't necessarily follow reality, and at least 
my heart was in the right place.

But I see people who have gone through similar experiences -- indeed, 
even experiences not nearly as bad as what I went through -- and be 
emotionally and mentally destroyed by them. This very well may be one 
of the reasons Harry is in Gryffindor -- he certainly displayed a lot 
of ongoing courage to keep his sense of self and to realize -- even 
if he does not articulate it in this fashion -- that the problem is 
the Dursleys, not with himself.

>btw - where did I get the 1980 date from? It's very clear in my mind 
>but from where?


It had to be 1980. Nearly Headless Nick's 500th deathday party was in 
1992 (he was executed on October 31, 1492) when Harry was twelve 
(CoS).

...Barb
-- 
Barbara French
bcfrench at rochester.rr.com
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