A Certain Flavor of Evil

Sometimes damaged people damage others. This is an ugly thing. What can one feel for a victim that becomes an enabler for the abuser? What can one feel for a victim that then becomes an abuser? It happens, and it is a hard thing. One sordid thing that I have become immersed in studying recently is self  harm contagion. O.K. ugh. We hardly ever heard of that sort of thing when I was a teenager. It was stereotyped back in my day as something spoiled little rich girls did because Mummy and Daddy were too busy partying around the globe to pay a visit to boarding school or some such similar thing. As a kid, I had enough of my share of normal injuries incurred in the pursuit of fun. It never once occured to me to label myself as depressed when I became a teenager and things didn't go so well. Did we even have that word back then? It was the 80's after all. Surely we did! It seemed that there were no medications for the words that no one knew either. I suspect that my mother carefully spanked any ADHD out of my soul at a tender age since paying attention and settling down at her behest were impressed upon me as crucial survival skills. For my butt, definitely! My, how parenting styles have changed! I'm not going to say now that this disorder isn't real, but perhaps it is due to the increased levels of toxins in our tank of environment we call Earth? It's a theory. Speaking of toxins..I guess all the kids in turmoil that I knew just stuck to the drugs and alcohol for self harming adventures. My Aunt told me that the cutting sort of self harm has become all the angsty rage now, and my research suggests this to be so. What pisses me off is that these kids teach other kids how to get into it. Geh. Misery loves company? Tell ya what, nobody coulda talked me into such things when I was a teen or preteen, but if they happened to suggest a beer heist from some slightly innebriated uncles watching weekend football, I was all in. I find it hard to equate the two behaviors. What of the victim of sexual abuse that recruits other children for the perpetrator? Now that is a horrid and scary thing. It can happen. It does happen. It is just terribly under addressed. Some children that have been damaged become primers for the self destruction of others. I think empathic children are most at risk. Some children have loving and helping hearts that want to heal the damaged ones. These can be sucked into the howling vortex if unprepared. Damaged ones can seem to be in need of support and actually have bad intentions under the guise of obtaining sush a thing from peers. It happens in many forms now days far beyond truancy, theft and drug taking which were the big contagions in my early days. These modern damaged ones know all of their labels so well, and how to describe the descent so vividly and so easily here in the cyber world. I try to put myself into the shoes of their parents. What would I do? I don't have an answer! I would feel absolutely horrified. Would I be more or less horrified if it was something kids did back in my day? I'm still stuck with no answer.