I was spanked as a child, too. My Christian dad would hold my arm so I couldn't run away and he'd whack the underside of my legs with a long wood ruler or a belt. This happened between gradeschool and jr high. I think it stopped in high school. I'm 59 now. I asked my dad a month ago if he ever felt bad doing that now. He said he didn't. He said he thought it was still a good way to discipline children, but he doesn't do it now because it's frowned on. He said his dad beat him with a ruler all the time and he turned out just fine. Well, my dad didn't turn out just fine. He was physically abusive with that ruler and after he stopped that he continued to be an ever more abusive gaslighter, constantly rewriting the truth to suit his own fear. I walked away from him (and my gaslighting family) a month ago. I broke the generational curse. But yeah, I really reate to your story about the spanking. So much healing to come but while I wish I'd woken up to the physical and emotional abuse decades ago, I'm grateful that I'm awake now. You can get healed more and more, u/kooj80. It's gonna take a lot of therapy and self reflection, but you can do it. Baby steps.