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holzmantweed:

Some people have questioned my using the term “child abuse” to describe Mr. I-shot-the-laptop.  I am using the term accurately.

This is the Duluth Model Child Abuse Wheel.  The Duluth Model is pretty much the standard model for describing how various forms of domestic violence works, in this instance child abuse.  I direct the attention of skeptics to the segment of the wheel that reads:

Intimidation - Instilling fear through looks, actions, gestures, property destruction (emphasis added)

As any gun safety instructor will tell you, the purpose of a gun is killing. Not disciplining your child, not showing how authoritative a parent you are, killing. Bringing a gun into your dialog with your child’s behavior is child abuse.  Actually shooting the gun even more so.  Shooting it with the specific intent of causing them property destruction triply so.

Emotional Abuse, Isolation, and Using Institutions are all things my parents did constantly.

Having been emotionally abused as a child is a really tricky thing, because when I try to explain it to friends they invariably respond that there’s no way it could have been that terrible and I should just talk to my parents now that I’m an adult. 

They don’t really comprehend abuse beyond physical/sexual violence or neglect.

I’ve never seen this chart before. Other people posting stuff like this actually makes me feel much better because when the message I’m constantly getting about my experience is that “it wasn’t really that bad” I start to wonder if it might be true and maybe the problem is me.

And it’s not.