I remember there was a time I slapped my parent in the face as a kid. Not a full hard slap but ya know a slap. The look of shock on their face confused me. I definitely felt a brief sense of shame but it took awhile for it to click. Not shame in that I had hit them but shame from their reaction. I didn’t regret the act at all.

Like where did I learn that? Oh that’s because I was hit as a kid and since my brain functions a bit differently I came to the conclusion that hurting other people to get them to leave me alone or because I was upset was okay. Idk how they weren’t expecting that either. Like you hit me and I hit you right back that’s how this works right? Little me didn’t see the difference in how adults and children were societally conditioned to act so it made sense to me to express myself the same way they did instead of just accepting it as the child.

I was also a highly traumatized child who had a brother that would abuse me physically as well. No one stopped the sibling on sibling abuse so I learned that I needed to be just as violent if not more violent to get my way to be safe. So when I got hit, social norms went right out the window.

I lose my shit whenever I see someone lay a hand on a kid. As an adult they know better. But no parent can reasonably get upset if their child smacks them the fuck back.