"You're just a Frickin' Four Eyes. You can't see any better than Mr. Magoo. Give me back those binoculars! Now go in the house and help your mother."

I was about 11-years-old. I had been condemned in this way many times before; for not seeing what my father expected me to see or find. I used to panic at times, like when he wanted a tool from the garage and I couldn't find it. He would criticize me severely and I would anticipate, once again, the use of a term that I grew to hate and dread: "Four Eyes."

Most of us are familiar with this term from our days on a school playground. Children can be cruel to each other. But at least they have the excuse that they're children and they may not have yet comprehended the magnitude of their hurtful words. But when an adult--especially an adult who happens to be one of your parents or your guardian--uses such words, it is pure abuse.

A child doesn't know when he or she is being abused. They place their trust in the adults around them and they think these words must be true because they come from a big person. And so the child learns a false sense of who they are. They begin to believe that they are the disparaging words that their abusers say they are. They begin to acquire a sense of not being loveable and they close down to the world.

"You're a frickin' Four Eyes...." Can you imagine the kind of "adult" mentality that would repeat this to a child, day after day, year after year.He or she would have to be terribly ignorant of the impact such words have on a child. Or he or she would have to be so maladjusted in their own life that such words had come to be a part of their defense mechanisms or means to disempower those around them. You will find some of the "toughest" adults--men and women alike--who use such words on children. Maybe they were abused as children themselves and they don't know any better. But, regardless, they are doing great damage to the next generation.

Let me explain how this worked on my own mind as a child. Let me tell you how it made me think about myself and other people with glasses. Maybe then you can begin to understand the psychological impact it was having on me and the way I began to avoid the world.

If I could get to the TV before my dad noticed what was on, I would change the channel away from a Mr. Magoo cartoon. I knew the cartoon would provide a forum for him to laugh at this character who couldn't see--and to laugh at me. I wore glasses and I could see 20/30 with them on, which is good enough to drive a car. But he used my "handicap," as another way to demean and ridicule me. It really wasn't so much about the glasses. He would have found what ever he could use to dismiss me as insignificant. An abuser needs to feel superior to those he abuses.

Without my glasses, I couldn't read things and even peoples faces were blury. Yet even as a child, I used to take my glasses off and hide them away whenever I anticipated I might be laughed at for wearing them. I was too young for vanity. It was a fear and anguish of being teased. "Where are your glasses, Richard?" my third grade teacher would ask. And I would pull them out of the desk and look over at the classroom bully who would mock me by crossing his eyes.

The thing that a kid wants most is the love of his parents and their open acceptance of him or her. I wanted to learn so much from my father and I would follow him around and ask him to show me how to do the things he was doing. But what I got instead were comments like:

"You can't pound nails, Four Eyes. You'll just waste my nails by bending them. You can't go huntin' with me, Four Eyes. You can't see good enough to shoot straight and you're liable to kill somebody. You can't cut a straight line with that saw, Four Eyes. You'll just waste a good board." In others words--I began to think in my childhood mind--"You're worthless, Richard. You can't do anything with or for your father, because you're deficient--your 'Four Eyes.' "

There are three primary forms of child abuse: 1.)Physical. (2) Psychological or Emotional. And (3) Sexual (which is a form of physical but more complicated in it's psychological impact. I consider myself "lucky," in that I was never sexually abused. But my father's physical and psychological abuse of me stays with me, obviously, to this very day. I will share one more example.

I was just a few weeks past my ninth birthday. My mother was washing the dinner dishes and I was watching the television from the floor of the living room. My father was seated behind me in a chair.

"Come dry the dishes, Richard," my mother called from the kitchen.

"It's almost time for a commercial. I'll come in then, mom," I called back. And continued to lay on my stomach on the floor.

I felt my dads big hand grab the loop of my jeans at the back of my waist. His other hand gripped my shoulder and he used it to direct my flight as he threw me through the air, all the way across the living room. I think he had intended for me to go right through the doorway and land in the kitchen. But my forehead and nose hit the door frame hard and I came crashing to the floor. I was bleeding from a cut on my forehead and also from my nose. I layed in a lump halfway through the doorway and screamed for many minutes.

My mother's face was as white as a sheet when she said to my father, "What happened?" He looked at me and said, " Don't you ever make your mother wait when she calls you, you little four-eyed shit." I was dazed but I realized that my glasses had been knocked off my face and were broken in half on the floor in front of me. I started to scream and cry hysterically. Was there no end to what this man could or would do to me? My mother lifted me and took me to the kitchen where she washed my bloody nose and forehead and applied a bandaid. She leaned down very close to me, so my father wouldn't hear and said, "Don't ever get your father mad. You see what can happen." She put her finger to her lips, indicating I should be quiet.

There is NO excuse for violence against a child--ever!!! My father could have told me that he didn't like me making my mother wait, and I would have gotten up. But, instead, my father had found another excuse to assert his authority and dominance over me. Can you imagine delivering so much punishment for a nine-year-old's wanting to wait for a TV commercial before drying the dishes?

Physical abuse and psychological abuse are actions against the body and the mind that work to destroy the Spirit and the wellness of a child or an adult. I share these memories in the hope that they bring some light to the kinds of behaviors that should set off alarms in your awareness, if these kinds of things have happened to you or are happening to someone you know.

Get help. Call a friend. Call the cops. Talk to other family members about a plan of action to stop the perpetrator--the abuser. Don't put yourself in harms way. Let the professionals handle this. And if you are the spouse, or the lover, or even a friend of somebody who is abusing others---Don't let that stop you from stopping them! You're responsibility is to protect those who are being abused. And no spouse or lover is worth the damage that an abuser will inflict on your loved ones. They need help and your family needs help. SO GET IT--NOW.

I told you I would tell you how all this made me feel. I would give anything to have had a childhood where I never once felt unsafe with my parent and where I never doubted that I was loved by my parent or that I was a loveable child. You don't ever take that from a child--ever!

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(Note: For more on Abuse, see the Hubpages series, Gay Emancipation, by Richard Terry. Also, you can encourage this author's work by going to the tiny ADS at the bottom of the article and clicking on any of the sponsors that might be helpful in understanding abuse issues. Thank you.)