[HPforGrownups] Re: What I have a hard time with in the canon...

[Shaun Hately]

No: HPFGUIDX 96272

On 18 Apr 2004 at 4:12, dumbledore11214 wrote:

> Of course, it would be extremely arrogant of me to assert that there 
> are no children in RL who escape abuse at home undamaged, but in 
> three years of working with domestic violence survivors, I am still 
> to meet one. 

The thing is though, when dealing with survivors of domestic 
violence, I would assume that generally you are dealing with 
something different from what we see afflicting Harry - as far as 
we know, he has not been the victim of physical abuse - but rather 
of emotional neglect. Not quite the same thing - they are both 
forms of abuse, of course - but it is pretty much impossible to 
shrug off someone actively assaulting you, or those around you. 
Some people can manage to do this with regards to less active forms 
of abuse - such as emotional neglect, where it's not what someone 
is *doing* that is abusive. It's something that someone is *not* 
doing.

Also I don't actually believe anyone survives emotional neglect 
totally undamaged - it's just that the damage can take many 
different forms, and can be of varying severity - while I think 
most kids who have had Harry's experiences would have some issues, 
it's not necessarily going to be problems forming relationships. 
And I think Harry does have some issues to deal with. Quite serious 
ones, as seen in the books.

Also - this is an observation from my own childhood - and I'm 
reluctant to raise it because my experiences of abuse *are* very 
different from Harry's. But in my case, severe short term abuse 
left me *very* unable to easily make friends - except in cases 
where I was in an *entirely* new environment. Where things were 
different enough that the problems I was carrying didn't seem to 
have as much relevance. Harry makes friends with two kids he meets 
on a magical train on his way to a magical school and a magical 
life. It seems to me that even if he did have some problems forming 
relationships in general, they might not be as apparent in such a 
new and different environment. It's difficult because I'm not 
talking about the same type of abuse - but I know that was true for 
me.


Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the 
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be 
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