Go tell it on the mountain

I'm pissed.  Okay, all my grammar teachers just keeled over with a stroke at that opening sentence, but I just am.  I have always been an advocate to prevent the emotional abuse of children, mostly because I was one and I know the residual scarring that lives on and on.

I am close to a situation - way too close - where a parent has taken their hard lumps in life and used them, in my eyes, as emotional fodder for her child.  Now, when this child is on the verge of all that is waiting for them in the world, the emotional batterings have finally taken their toll and the child has broken down.  In the course of this breakdown, this young person/child has thrown away an important relationship in their life; probably the only one where there's been genuine emotional nurturing.

I have memories of this young person, when they were a toddler, caught up in emotions and fears they couldn't understand to the point that they were found sobbing under my kitchen table one day.  This child has always had too much of a front-row seat to family drama and is now paying the price for it all.  This same person once sat in a car and informed a playmate - very nonchalantly - that one of their parents had tried to kill the other.  True, but not a subject one would expect out of a four year old.  When the driver got control of the vehicle again (man, that ditch came rolling up fast), they launched into a chorus of Itsy Bitsy Spider as a distraction.

I have seen hatred sown into this child, some of which is understandable, but in all fairness is not anyone's job to do.  From hatred comes fear and from fear comes anxiety and the feeling of total loss of control.  Now it's time to pay the piper for all these years of imbuing those feelings and that knowledge into that beautiful young mind and the results have festered into an absolute disaster.

What can I do?  Nothing.  The deck is stacked against me in every way except for the power of prayer.  This child has been given to God for safekeeping and healing as I am prevented from doing it myself.  Thank God there is counseling, but I worry about the things being said untruthfully- maybe not untruthfully, but with the wrong contextual slant - in counseling that may continue to harm the child.  Again, I must go to God. 

As the survivor of a narcissistic parent, my heart breaks with the potential dark days ahead for this young one.  I know the nasty, ripping snare of an emotional scar that is rent open by unwitting actions or comments of those who do not know.  I pray to my Father in Heaven that He touches all those permanently damaged by parents who just don't know or have the ability to let a kid be a kid.

Hang on, Cookie Fun Stuff.  I'm here when you need me.