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Hi guys. I felt like this was the right thing to do because this could possibly help others going through the same thing. Some of you may be going through your history, and bad things may be popping up. Stuff that you'd rather forget that you did, or more honestly stuff you wish you could change/fix. I am dealing with a few things of my own, but I wanted to firstly apologize to anyone who may have read my post on JohnnyBoy's last topic a few months ago. In it I stated that "as long as you haven't done any un-restitutable harm, you can still have love". This was incredibly irresponsible of me. For someone going through a hard time, reading that and applying it to their specific situation (considering their potential lack of knowledge about this kind of stuff) may have sapped them of the drive to keep digging through their history to better understand and empathize with themselves at a younger age, or even stuff they did recently. This could have left those who saw it in a really dark place, and I don't wanna leave people in dark places. This isn't the rock-solid rule. You never know what connections you can make in therapy. You never know what insight you can hear that makes it all come into focus and makes everything clear. If you are dealing with this type of stuff, do not give up. The fact that you're here, that your true self is alive, that means something. Keep searching until you find that bit of information that makes it all understandable because your true self survived, and that is a fact that should not be over-looked. To quote/paraphrase Stefan in a podcast called Restitution and The Future: "You said we can't do anything about the past. And I don't think you understand what a thing that was to say to me, someone who has spent a lot of time focusing on the past. The truth is that there is something that we can do about the past. And that is to understand the truth about it." I hope this can help some of you or inspire others to keep pushing the bar in therapy. The answers are somewhere in your head and you owe it to yourself and your future to keep digging. IN ADDITION: If you could, could you send this post out to some of your friends on this board? I want to try to get this message out to as many people as possible. I can't do anything about those that may have seen it while browsing and not logged in (there's no way to tell how many people saw it) and that's something I have to deal with but I want as many people to see it as possible, so if you could boost the message I would greatly appreciate it.

My son is almost 8 years old. Sadly for him my wife and I have not always practiced peaceful parenting. For the first five years of his life we were rather authoritarian and then began learning and transitioning to peaceful parenting. He has been spanked, ordered around and made to do things he didn't want to simply because I'm his father and he should listen to me. While we were never complete monsters to him, we made mistakes that bring me great shame to admit. I mention this as an attempt to properly frame our past behaviors. While I would never attempt to excuse or justify the wrong things we did, I find it just as important to properly assess exactly how bad we were. Since we have made the change in parenting styles everything has improved. From his behavior inside and outside the home to our relationships as well as his understandings of exactly how he should expect to be treated and how he should treat others. It really has been a wonderful thing for all of us, seeing him act appropriately because he decided it's what he should do is so much more rewarding them seeing him simply act the way I say because he is afraid of what I may do to him. However I am aware that we have done damage to him. Some of this was obvious and fairly straightforward to begin repairing. Such as the trust and bond between us, it started with an apology for spankings and a discussion about how it was wrong to have done that to him and no one is ever allowed to treat him like that. This has been supported by further discussions and talks where much of the information is repeated. There are other things though that are more complex and I feel I need help addressing. He has issues with self confidence and self esteem. While I can see how the way we've tested him in the past has created these problems I am not entirely sure how to help him with them. Im also worried that there may be other potential problems I've inflicted upon him that haven't manifested yet or simply don't know to look for. I want to help him minimize the negative impact our mistakes may cause. Any help you guys can be to that end will be greatly appreciated.