Jamies Story Page09
on December 8, 2011 at 12:01 amMORE HORRIBLE. For those of you who like the art style in Jamie’s story you may be interested in the new Jamie shirts available in the store. They’re a special kind of horrific.
In other news we now have a report button on the comments of the Khaos website. The comments here need to follow the same rules as the forum, though we’ll have a much harsher banning system. If you see a post that breaks any of the rules, report it, we don’t get to read all of them and some things slip through.
Next update Monday as usual!
…Having Jamie narrate his past the way he does is what makes this five times more chilling than the image on its own. Damn, I feel for him.
THAT LAST LINE OMGWTFBBQ.
Yeah, thats right fucked
Send him home- dont lock him in his room while you SCALD the crap out of your own child
OMG BB! (it’s rapture from Tumblr XD)
Fucked. Up.
… Am I horrible to hope that Jamie’s dad beats the hell out of his mom regularly?
This is almost worse than the sexual abuse, you can compartmentalize ‘other” people hurting you but your own family- the ones who are supposed to protect you… also giving me horrible reminders of why I don’t speak to my family anymore.
Yes. It would be best that Jamie learn compassion from __someone__ in his own family.
Yes, wishing domestic violence on a woman does make you a horrible person, regardless of that woman’s terrible actions.
What Omskivar said; along with wishing physical violence upon anyone for that matter. Physical violence is always a poor excuse for what should be good communication.
having a horrible thought does not make one horrible. Acting on it is horrible. I can think or wish or want anything-everything- but unless I act upon it, it exists only in my mind, where it cannot affect anyone or anything at all.
It affects you, and by extension can affect others.
What, just because it’s a woman? -.-;
There’s nothing wrong with enacting physical violence on someone who deserves it. There are people who are beyond redemption, beyond understanding, beyond talking. There are people who cannot be reasoned with, who torture and kill and destroy others and cannot themselves be saved by any amount of talking.
To think that everyone can be saved and redeem themselves is both naive and stupid.
“There’s nothing wrong with enacting physical violence on someone who deserves it.”
Don’t agree with that. I am a wingey lefty pacifist though.
Seriously, the thought of adding any more violence to this scenario just makes me even sicker. Jamie needs to be away from this woman, and she needs serious help, but I really cannot understand people who look at all this hurt and think “you know what would make me feel better about this – *more* violence!”
The idea that anyone deserves pain is also naive and stupid.
…On a woman? So if I wish all day for domestic violence on a man, I’m golden? That being said, there’s nothing wrong with wishing. I wish for violence all the time (man I wish I could just punch my boss. man I wish soandso would just die), and a lot of people do too. It’s acting on it that would be the problem.
i totally agree with you i hate her god she needs to be like locked in a closet filled with dead things and a tentacle beast
@ Blue Coyote: This has very little to do with current topic, but I just noticed your pic, and your hair is the opposite of Murphy & his sister! I imagine you’ve been dying your hair longer than the comic, but what a neat coincidence!
That – that’s just… no. That’s terrible. Especially since we’ve seen Jamie’s father, and he seems distant at worst.
This woman does not deserve violence. She needs some serious help. I had a friend who grew up with violent parents and swore she would NEVER act that way. She did anyway. Why? According to her, because it was the only way she knew. What was more, she admits that she tried to push her husband into acting abusively toward her, really grating on him, daring him to hit her. She WANTED him to hit her, because in her family that was what her father did to her mother, and it was seen as love. Luckily he was a strong man and refused, even when she beat the kids. It took the husband divorcing her and demanding full custody for her to suddenly realize just what she had been doing. She got help. LOTS of help. She turned her life around, went back to university, and became a child psychologist. Now she helps children raised in abusive environments.
We may see these people as sick, and maybe some are. Others are only acting on how they were raised. Raise a dog to think like a cat and it will meow. Same here. Raise a child to think torture and abuse are “love” and you raise someone who can (not “will” but “can”) turn out that way. Hopefully they get a good jolt of reality, get help, or get out. Jamie turned out ok in the end, but it apparently took some time, and his jolt came from a punch in the face… or two punches, if I recall right. Therapy would have been better, but first he had to realize there was a problem.
Does Jamie still think this way or…
//~shiver~//
It explains his masochistic tendencies. “Anything bad I do is ok so long as I’m punished.”
His mom is crazy. No, like really. There’s something psychologically wrong with her.
seconded
Thirded O_O
I think that she was probably raised in a similar fashion and, though she is obviously a bad parent, she sees what she is doing as what is best for her child. This is, in a way, sadder than if she knew it was wrong, because it would be a hell of a lot harder to change her ways if she thought she was raising her kid well. I don’t think she’s crazy. I just think she has some terribly distorted ideas of parenting.
^This. Except that she does read to me like someone with an
untreated mental illness.
agrees with mk
There seems to be an assumption that “crazy” means… well, REALLY crazy – obviously, talking to people who aren’t there kind of crazy. “Crazy” (or perhaps, to say it better, “insane”) can be very subtle… And it can appear to be “justified.” That doesn’t mean it is sanity. Maybe Jamie’s mom was raised crazy – that doesn’t make her less crazy. It just means you can see how she got that way.
Abusing a child (or any other person, or animal) is pretty much inherently “crazy.” It is an act of a person who is not mentally healthy. Jamie’s mom may or may not be totally bucking batshit, but she’s definitely mentally ill… i. e. “crazy.”
I do agree with the part that she might have been raised that way herself, but the fact that she locks Alex in Jamie’s room? And the way she implants in Jamie’s mind that he should hate Alex…it’s just not coming from a sane mind. Also, the way she looks at the top of page 12 in Alex’s story doesn’t help her case.
Ugh. To me, this has been the creepiest strip to date. I mean, selfishness I can get, and I can at least conceive that someone could be so utterly without empathy that they’d abuse a child for their own gratification – even if the thought is utterly appalling. But for someone to do something like this and still be able to convince themselves that it’s for the child’s own good… that I just can’t fathom. It has to take a special kind of broken to be able to rationalize that.
This reminds me of a video I watched on youtube… A mother in Alaska punishes her five year old son with hotsauce and a cold shower. He was screaming much like Jamie is here and it makes me absolutely SICK. How… how can you treat your child like this?!
the very IDEA of hearing a child, my own or otherwise, screaming in such pain from what I did to them… the thought makes me nauseous…
Here is the youtube video if anyone is interested (though after this page I assume most are done with the child abuse aspect)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNBAy-ss-MI&feature=fvst
This is just heartbreaking. I don’t know what to say. I feel sorry for kids raised this way who don’t feel that love and learn the compassion. People don’t realise that compassion is learned and don’t question why a person is so angry or mean. :/
I’ve been through stuff like this. I was severely physically and sexually abused when I was a child. I was beat with rope, starved and even put on cocaine and meth. My grandma would do stuff like this to me all the time..she would run hot baths and use boiling water from the stoves and throw me in. I was in so much pain. My father kicked me with his steel capped workboots once..I broke my rib. It was the most pain I’ve ever been in. It’s all over now, though. It’s been three years since I’ve seen them. I’m in therapy now, and everything’s all right..it does get better and it does end.
*Hugs* I wish you all the best
More hugs. Yes, it does get better. I moved 1000 miles away from my nearest family. It’s been 6 years and 3 shrinks later, and things are good. It’s just a challenge of spirit to survive up to the point where we can escape. Lye soap was our “punishment” for lying, cussing, insulting elders, or anything else “unacceptable” to come out of our mouth. Lye soap and “the belt.” Belts terrify me to this day. I don’t wear them. I also only use liquid soap. I don’t know how many friends my mother convinced me to abandon. Probably every single one that dared to say “damn” in front of her. Luckily, she wasn’t so crazy that she locked them up. That’s truly messed up.
It’s people like her that make life crap for the people that try to just be who they are to their very core of themselves.
Just…I can’t find the right words. I don’t even know if there are words for this.
I’m sickened. I’m horrified.
And yet, I’m grateful to Tab for writing stories like Jamie’s and the other people who comment on the Khaos pages. I don’t think I would have ever realized how horrible people could be without your insights, nor do I think I would’ve understood how capable of love and forgiveness a lot of people are.
You guys are amazing.
People are just seriously f*cked up. Religions, specially fundamentalists, have been used to validate abuse. It’s just so sad.
Given the circumstances…I’d say Jamie turned out pretty awesome
This is pretty much what I was going to say…
Seconded.^
Damn. Well, damn.
I think I’m terrified to see how this plays out, but I find myself wanting more.
Jamie’s story is the most amazing so far!
What disturbs me most is that this hits home, a dark dirty reality washed away by glitz, glam and celeb gossip. There’s a fucked up side to people en masse that needs fixin, but is sorely neglected.
Why am I reminded of the Binding of Isaac? The game, not the story.
O_____o
Oh dear Lord. Locked in a room away from that crazy lady sounds like a GOOD thing to me.
With the page prior, reading comments, I had no idea what “the bath” was or what was gonna happen (I knew it was going to be BAD but I suppose I’m still ignorant in some areas) and now I know and I kinda wish I didn’t. I’m having a hard time stomaching this chapter for how well written and horrifying it is. Oh my god JAMIE.
I’m wondering though if his Dad is aware of how messed up (using this as an umbrella term whether she’s insane or thinks this is Good Parenting 101) his mom is. Jesus.
I’m gonna stick with reading this through to the end, no matter how much it hurts to read and how much it reminds me of shit that people I know went through when they were kids. Tab, you’re awesome for writing this. People need to know this shit happens and how messed up it is and how wrong it is.
Now, I’m going to think about fluffy, happy things (Jamie/Charlie cuddles yesyes) and cuddle my cat.
Are Alex’s parents going to come over and pick him up? I wonder what Jamie’s parents are going to say to Alex’s parents? I wonder what Alex is going to say to his own parents about Jamie’s parents, if anything?
if I recall correctly, Jamie’s dad drives Alex home and talks to his parents a little…
Little fishes. The most impressive part of this is the way that whatever bit you look at gives you an extra layer of horrific. “Shit, she’s forcing him into a bath to wash away the sin – oh *shit*, she’s forcing him into a *scalding* bath to wash away the sin.”
Um.. did…Did she bathe him in hot water?
Meh. Probably not hot water, but almost boiling one. You know the feeling when you turn on your shower, and the water coming out is so goddamn hot that it feels like it burns your skin?
Now imagine that, but you can’t jump out of the stream because some bastard is holding you right in place so that all the hot water can flow over your entire body and burn it upside down.
Not so funny times, I assume.
Is he still living with her as a teenager?
Maybe after this, his parents got a divorce and his mom got help?
…Even as I typed that, I know it not gonna happen.
As a teenager he’s working his tail off and saving up for something. Maybe to get out of the house.
Geeeez. As a fundamentalist Christian myself, this sickens me. NO ONE should treat their kids like this. I mean seriously, this is wrong on so many levels. Poor Jamie
(Yes, I did just say that. No, we’re not all crazies. Cases like this are the exception, not the rule. And I hate how people misuse what the Bible teaches to be so hateful… it’s just awful. That’s not how it’s supposed to work…)
I remember one of the shows I watch, Criminal Minds. One of the two-part episodes, these two guys were going on a killing spree, because Raphael told them that sinners needed to be punished, and they were doing God’s good work.
Actually reenacted the killing of Jesabelle, if I remember correctly. The prostitute that was ripped apart by dogs?
Anyway, don’t you just love people who pervert their religion as an excuse to harm people? :/
this reminds me of a part in the book “The help” where a woman “spanks” her child (rather harshly considering the little one is 2) for trying to use the helps toilet…as if it would cleanse her child of the impure thought of wanting to use the “black peoples toilet”…don’t know if anyone else had read the book and knows what i am talking about though >.>;
though there is no mention of scolding with hot water, just cleaning the child, probably scrubbing him down real good. But if she was physically harming him while cleaning him I’m sure it would have been said…since it would add to his spiel on another reason why he was messed up to begin with…
but that could just be me being weird, and just reading what is written.
though i am not saying what she did is right, by all means it is still such a horrible thing and she is def messed up.
In the background text of the first panel, you can see Jamie’s screaming “It’s too hot!” So, I’d assume it was scalding, or at least too hot for a young child.
i almost threw up after seeing jamie in the center. his eyes. his eyes. his eyes.
his mother has some real issues if she thinks that this is for his best. amorality is much scarier than immorality.
poor jamie though, this really explains why he viewed alex how he did for so long.
What this page is making me think of is actually: http://www.khaoskomix.com/komix/charlies-story-page-58
That and the ones that follow. It’s now easy to understand, given both his ‘friend’ as a child and his mother’s behaviour, why he’s so scared about forcing a kiss on Charlie. He’s likely scared he’s turning into the monsters of his childhood.
Maybe im just hardened from all the rape and abuse i endured as a child but all you people commenting here sound like a bunch of bleeding heart pussies. Yeah Jammie had some terrible shit happen to him but what part of you saying OH POOR JAMIE and I FEEL SO BAD for him is gonna do shit. I never received help. I never received sympathy. Now I am a happy successful Nurse working and raising a family. This shit happens EVERY DAY PEOPLE!
If you are smart enough and strong enough like Jamie and myself here, you as an adult will look at yourself and realize who you are and what you are becoming. I was a terrible bully till about 8th grade. I beet up kids and harassed them. I gave them just a taste of the pain i received. Did they deserve it? Fuck no! Was i way out of line? Fuck Yes!
I realized i was a growing up to be a bad person. And so like Jamie I started to make a change. I wanted to be some one good. A respectable man.
And like I said, here I am today. A loving family, a great job, and the best friend i could ever hope for.
So DONT fucking cry for Jamie. Dont fucking wish and hope for him. Applaud him. Recognize that he is stronger than what happened to him and will go on to be a success, just like me.
Dont fucking cry about. There is nothing you can do for him/me anyway/
Its a personal matter that we as men must =endure alone. We may have been influenced, but we can still chose that path we take.
So again applaud, don’t sympathize.
Dont you fucking dare
Hey, I’ll take a “bleeding heart pussy” feeling bad for me for the shit I’ve went through than someone clapping when they realize it happened because I’m okay now. :/
And I think the whole “as men, we must endure alone” thing is bullshit, and nothing irritates me more than someone who screeches self-sufficiency and flips their shit because someone is moved by horrible things someone else has went through. Especially for a sexist reason- I would really hope that one reading a queer webcomic would be above petty sexism. Especially the “pussy” remark.
Don’t you think that the fact that you’re pissed that we all care when a child is abused or a person is raped is maybe a sign that you’re not quite as emotionally strong as you say? I don’t mean to tell you how you feel or what your life is like, but I don’t get what you find so caustic about people reading this comic being upset by a depiction of child abuse- especially when the victim is a character many of us have grown to love. If I had to guess, I’d say that your rage is coming from a really overblown sense of self reliance. :/
I will say at this point that I have been sexually abused by a family member I loved and admired, beaten by this same relative, and my family, when they found out, reacted by mocking me. I’ve been beaten by random strangers for being queer and out, too. I was scared to leave my house. I wanted to die. But I’m happy now. The end. If that little story makes you want to clap, I do think you’re a little bonkers.
Well said, Elephant Frog. I cannot agree more, and I just wanna thank your for replying in that way – far more eloquently than I ever could, though I wanted to when I read the first comment. Thank you.
FUCK, I just realized those hands aren’t his mothers, they’re his, bursting out of the water from underneath… presumably, because he was being held under it and was trying not to drown.
;-;
The words around Jamie in the bath… I actually have tears in my eyes.
As someone who writes about similar things, giving voice to children who have been abused, I appreciate the imagery. I have depression, and seeing my friends suffer through sexual violence and unfairness, it does feel like black hands are trapping you. It’s a very accurate portrayal of how a victim’s mind feels when they are under attack.
As much as writing and drawing these things may put you in a line of fire, I give you my respect for having courage to try. Everyday I worry sick about the material I am putting in my comics. I don’t think I’d have the same courage.
These horrible things do happen to people, and they happen everyday, as much as people don’t want to accept it.