Have you ever abused somebody? Did you feel guilty for it?

[Anonymous]

I wonder if most abusers ever truly regret the way they behave. They probably still don't and are probably still hurting others. Often people are never capable of developing their conscience - even after decades. A misfortune that I'm sure most are familiar with.

[usernamelessness]

I think it depends. Some probably definitely do. Depends how you define abuse also.

When I was a kid my parents used to hit me and my sister all the time. Other than that they were great, but they’d just hit us a lot when we were misbehaving or whatever. I think they grew up with the same thing and just felt it was discipline.

I remember my mom was slapping my sister repeatedly once (she got hit more because I learned to bury my feelings) and I was upset inside and told my dad that what mom was doing wasn’t right and that it was child abuse. I said “child abuse”. And this look came across my dads face like his heart was broken into a million pieces, like he’d never thought of it like that and he was so sad I felt that way about it and he just said “No” like he couldn’t believe it. I’ll never forget it. After that I don’t think he ever hit me or my sister again. But my mom continued to, and she’d always done it much more anyway.

Again, besides the hitting they were great parents. They treated us great and continue to. I genuinely don’t think they (or my mother anyway) saw what they did as wrong or abusive. But to me it was. I’ve never brought up to my mom how I felt that was child abuse. She may get defensive if I did but I doubt it, I think she’d be heartbroken like my Dad was when I told him.

On another note, I think a problem is the worse of a thing you do to someone the harder it is to face it. Even if many abusers want to feel remorse and see what they’ve done wrong they can’t bring themselves to do it because it’s too painful. Just a theory.

[AaronKrieger]

Someone? No, but I abused my dog at one point when I was at mentally one of my worst points. It was not a consistent thing everything, although it happened frequently enough it impacted the dog in it's young age.

I stopped after a few months of doing it and got my shit together. Reflected deeply on what caused my anger issues and stay away from bad habits. Now I barely even raise my voice at him unless it's needed. I feel bad how I treated him before. Sometimes the instinct to hurt him kicks in if he angers me, but I feel it coming and immediately try to calm down in order not act like a child.

Anyway, that's not the same as abusing your partner or kid for years, but it's the closest I've gotten to it.

[FreyaRed]

Those people do it because they want to feel superior and better while abusing their victims. This is their egoistic and egocentric justification, they don't have any sympathy for their victims and they never think from victim's perspective. Real regret isn't possible under such circumstances. Most people consider such sadistic individuals as psychopaths but this is wrong, real psychos see desire to hurt others for self gratification as easily exploitable weakness.

[MementoMori777]

Those types of people are narcissists, they don't have the ability to feel for anyone besides themselves

[Sunnybeach123]

I don't think they regret it. I was abused when I was younger and those people are terrible.

[Agape93]

No idea