I do agree that some have the inner fortitude to withstand terrible experience (yourself being a key example), also as you said yourself - the very progressive youth offender program would have helped, ultimately do you believe the violence you were involved in - in your youth was a result of your experiences?.
Partially, the abuse had certain consequences not directly attributed to the actual abuse...the lack of parental authority, the absence of a moral guideline and the need for escape and family led me into a life where I replaced my absent family with the group of friends I fell in with...I am still friends with many of them now, those that are still with us...despite our inherent differences, we are and will remain brothers, it is hard to define, but it is what it is I suppose, the ties that bind us.
I'm firmly in the camp of pro-treatment & for most I'd wager it's possible - but many don't ever get any treatment. You are obviously correct mind, exceptions exist all around us, but I'm not willing to so quickly abandon those who do experience serious abuse of any kind as being responsible for the end result of it. The statistics in these matters do not lie.
Good god, yes!
Proactive treatment and care is essential...however we should only mitigate responsibility for actions rather than excuse them...like I said I knew what I was doing, however to some extent I was not fully enabled to have the ability to control them...so yes, treatment and rehabilitation is far better than punishment in these cases.
I would like to thank you for being so open & honest about it & it does please me greatly to know things worked out great for you - don't get me wrong, I'm not being argumentative, quite the opposite - my experiences as a child resulting in me having to develop empathy at a very young age (grew up close to a family member with very severe depression, paranoia & schizophrenia) as a result it's changed my outlook on human behaviour, I see causal links where others see blame - but my primary focus is to reduce net human suffering.
I am extremely empathic..I had to be to survive, I understand people and their intentions from the smallest of indicators, even today I still retain that survival trait. However that is something different from being able to relate to people as I said previously, although I am far better now, I did find it difficult to trust and even today I am still cynical when it comes to people, especially those I don't know. Again, something directly attributable to my childhood.
I think where you talk about causal links and not assigning blame, I am talking about mitigation...we are broadly saying similar things, just our emphasis is a little different in how we disseminate the responsibility from the mitigation.
I know what it is like also, my mother was diagnosed with severe mental illness, although I know it mitigates some of her actions..it still doesn't absolve her actions. Perhaps our differing experiences influence our slightly different approach.
