no you wouldn't. not if your son was mentally ill. trust me.
my dad wasn't really in my life as a kid, and in the few times that he was he never indicated that he gave a shit about me. that said, i'll never forget the look on his face when i walked into his kitchen at age fourteen with both forearms bleeding profusely after i had carved myself up something serious with broken glass and scissors. i carved a girl's name into one of my forearms. when i finally reached the catharsis i was searching for, and my manic high came down and i started feeling pain, that's when i walked into his kitchen with my arms out and tears in my eyes. and he was absolutely stunned. it was probably the most sobering moment of his life. i think that was the first time that he realized that i was actually sick. beating a mentally ill kid has ABSOLUTELY ZERO positive affect and is 100% CERTAIN to fuck the kid up more.
this thread is fucking depressing me. i'm sure that in the future it will eventually be better, but my lifetime has not been the right time to be mentally ill. i've watched countless disenfranchised and persecuted communities see real progress in my lifetime- gay folks, trans folks, black folks, immigrants, you name it- but not mentally ill people. not even a fraction of a percent. too many of y'all still don't comprehend that it's an actual sickness, and you all cockily reply the way you just did, as if mental illness can be beaten out of someone. you can't imagine how lonely and hopeless some of you make me feel. i wasn't built for this world.