#abuse trigger warning

yknow what really small detail from ‘thanks to them’ just breaks my heart?

it’s this. hunter says “that throne room”.

“that”

not “the throne room”, THAT throne room.

he refers to the throne room in the castle the same way people who have had a traumatic experience (especially abuse victims) refer to where it took place. like when people who were abused as children talk about how they remember being in “that house” instead of “the house” when talking about their childhood residence.

obviously hunter was abused by belos, that’s not news, and the show has always had his behavior and mannerisms reflect that. but something about him saying “that throne room” just hurts to hear.

Like bad stuff out of the way first I guess there's like. Really traumatic realization about My ex-relationship where it's like. OH I was a literal child so I had no idea that was abusive but that was Really Fucking Abusive and I don't know how to deal with that?? I haven't even talked to that person in years and I'm in a much healthier and happier relationship now but like it is kinda fucking me up simply because I have no idea how I'm supposed to handle trauma that I didn't even know was trauma until after I'm far out of that situation. Also been having WAY more paranoia and weirdly vivid nightmares lately but I honestly have zero idea if those are related or not.

Let’s talk about the infamous ones ...

When the stories from Kim Zmeskal’s former Texas Dreams athletes came out one of the things they repeatedly asked was that people stop making lists of good coaches.  Texas Dreams reputation as a “good gym” had the effect of silencing them because they felt like no one would believe them.  I do think it’s worth going through why some coaches have bad reputations and exactly what is at the root of those reputations.

This list does not include the Karolyis who are out of the sport or John Geddert who committed suicide before being arrested on charges relating to his abuse of gymnasts.  It also doesn’t include the reputations of NCAA coaches many of which are just as checkered.  it is by no means complete.

Rochelle Douglas (Great Britain) - Coach of European and British Junior Champion Catherine Lyons who has come forward with stories of being beaten with a stick, starved (including being told not to eat for a week while at a training camp), and emotional abuse.  At one point when Lyons was injured just before a competition she texted Lyons a picture of herself wearing the leotard that Lyons would have competed in.  She was banned for two years by British Gymnastics.

Al Fong/GAGE (USA) - Coach of 2004 Olympic silver medalists Courtney McCool and Terin Humphry.  Fong, foremost, infamous in gymnastics circles for the untimely deaths of two gymnasts.  In 1988 Julissa Gomez was paralyzed and subsequently died after performing a vault that many believe she was not capable of doing.  The second gymnast, Christy Henrich died as a result of an eating disorder.  There is a great deal of debate over how much Fong was responsible for instigating/fostering that disorder and over the years he and his allies have attempted to put forward a narrative in which he isn’t responsible but has changed his ways.  Most recently one of his former gymnasts used her role as a clinical psychologist to write an op ed to absolve him of guilt in this case in which blame was laid on the comments of a conveniently dead former gymnastics judge.  Other things that contribute to his reputation are famously draconian rules for his athletes (no boyfriends is one), a reputation for not listening to the advise of women other than his wife, and an instragram account which has occasionally posted content that many find disquieting.  On a different track his gym also comes with a reputation for occasional baffling routine construction choices and one of his athletes famously had her score lowered at 2019 worlds when they inquired into her score and the review jury lowered even more.

Maggie Haney (USA) - Currently serving a suspension for emotional abuse of her athletes Olympic Gold Medalist Laurie Hernandez and World Champion Riley McCusker.  Both have talked about being forced to train on injuries and overtraining.  Hernandez talks about Haney yelling so loudly that the businesses that shared a parking lot with her gym would file noise complaints with the town.  Her safe sport suspension will be up in 2025 and given that there are still families sending their daughters to train with her she will almost certainly be back in the sport.

Kelli Hill (USA) - Coach of Olympic Gold Medalist Dominique Dawes, Olympic Silver medalist Courtney Kupets, and Olympic Bronze Medalist Elise Ray.  Most of the allegations around Hill stem from her time when Dominique Dawes was living with her which Dawes has recently started to detail.  Dawes describes Hill taking advantage of the stresses on her parents marriage to gain control over her, of belittling her, gaslighting her and sitting on her during stretching.  In 1992 she threatened to send Dawes to the Karolyi camp as punishment and later as the Nassar survivors started to talk about their experiences at the camp she claimed that Aly Reisman was exaggerating the conditions.  She has recently retired from coaching elites but as of 2022 is chair of the powerful International Elite Committee in USAG.

Vladimir Lashin (Canada) - At one point the head coach of the Canadian women’s team his gymnasts tell a litany of horror stories from injuries caused by or ignored by him, forcing them to stand on scales, and massive amounts of verbal abuse.

Peggy Liddick (USA/Australia) - the coach of Olympic Gold Medalist Shannon Miller and later head coach of the Australian program.  While in the US she supervised Kerri Strug being allowed to compete with an abdominal tare which caused her parents to pull Strug from the gym.  For years Liddick described that there was a mistake in Miller’s 1996 Olympic beam that only she and Shannon knew and when she finally revealed it it was that Miller had a broken wrist and so couldn’t do one of the skils “correctly”.  Liddick as given a lot of credit for the rise of the Australian gymnastics program (which was on an upward tregectory before she arrived) and recently Australian investigative bodies have published reports into her treatment of gymnasts there.  This included among other things threatening to lock gymnasts in their room and feed them peas and carrots under the door, forcing gymnasts to eat their dinner (noodle soup) in her hotel room and withholding noodles from those who she deemed to not be working hard enough.  She made a number of strategic decisions in the 2010s which were somewhat baffling including refusing to take any gymnasts to 2013 Worlds claiming they didn’t have high enough scores (even though their scores would have placed them in event finals at that worlds), and leaving the 2014 Australian AA champion home from both the World Championships and Commonwealth Games.  Many consider Liddick responsible for crashing the entire Australian program.

Valeri Liukin/WAGA (USA) - Soviet Olympic Gold Medalist, coach of 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist Nastia Liukin.  A number of WOGA athletes including Vanessa Atler and Katelyn Ohashi have come forward with stories about weight shaming and eating disorders developed at WOGA while other WOGA athletes tell stories of emotional abuse including of his own daughter.  Mostly WOGA is famous for producing teenage girls with injuries you normally see in 50 year old dock workers (with WOGA back being one of the more common).  He was forced to resign as head of the US women’s national program in 2018 after statements from former athletes.  He again tried to apply for that job in 2022 before yet more of his former athletes filed safe sport complaints forcing USAG to drop him from consideration.  He was briefly the head of the Brazilian women’s program until 2019 when they failed to qualify a team for the Tokyo Olympics.  It’s said that he forced long standing athletes like Daniele Hypólito out of the program wanting to focus on younger “more promising” athletes.  Many of which ended up injured during the Tokyo qualification process.  It’s worth noting that many of the Brazilian athletes have positive things to say about him but they largely amount to “he didn’t yell like our previous coach”.  Despite being considered one of the top coaches in the US he has never coached an American elite to the Olympics besides his own daughter and there are many young women who have been either burn out or injured before what was considered their prime.  He has also given some very eyebrow raising comments in Russian language interviews presumably believing that they would not make their way back into the English language gymternet.

Steve and Beth Rybacki (USA) - Coach of Olympic bronze medalist Jamie Dantzscher.  Weight shaming, emotional abuse and baffling pacing of the elite career of Vanessa Atler.  The account of their gym in the book Start by Believing is very damning as well as Steve Rybacki’s clear anger issues that he didn’t even hide very well in front of the tv cameras.  There is at least one story about him yelling at a journalist while he was on the US National Team staff for writing that a gymnast needed to work on her turns claiming that it was some kind of betrayal of their access.

Bill and Donna Strauss (USA) - largely retired though their daughter still coaches elites from the Parkettes gym.  The Parkettes became infamous after a 2003 CNN Documentary which showed them yelling and belittling athletes.  The gym had a long standing reputation for sending athletes to NCAA with serious injury issues.  Donna Strauss told one doctor in 1985 not to put stitches in an athlete’s face after an injury because she would be seen on television.  One of their more successful athletes was 2000 Olympian Kristin Maloney who competed on an leg fracture for more than a year and ended up having to have a rod placed in her leg.

Mary Lee Tracy (USA) - Coach of 1996 Olympic Gold Medalists Amanda Borden and Jaycie Phelps.  Many many former gymnasts most prominently Morgan White and Dominique Moceanu have talked about Mary Lee Tracy has emotionally manipulative--often using her evangelical Christianity to defend herself against accusations.  Her gym as a reputation for eating disorders and having athletes throw skills that they aren’t prepared for leading to injuries.  At one point she was not charging her elite gymnasts for her coaching as she saw it as good advertising for her gym though that meant that if you were in a financially difficult situation you may not feel able to leave.  In 2018 she was named as head of the USAG development program for about 3 minutes before being asked to resign after outcry from survivors.  In 2016 she had made this comment:  “My Olympians have all worked with Larry [Nassar]. We were all defending him because he has helped so many kids in their careers. He has protected them, taken care of them, worked with me and worked with their parents. He’s been amazing."  As of 2022 she was a member of the powerful International Elite Committee within USAG.

Vincent Wevers (Netherlands) - The coach/father of Olympic Gold Medalist Sanne Wevers.  He was accused of emotional abuse and harassing gymnasts who left the dutch national training center.  He was found not guilty of abuse allegations after the Dutch gymnastics federation failed to adequately investigate the charges.  After his contract was not renewed his daughters have left the national team and apparently set up an alternate training structure which appears to be an effort to force the Dutch national team to bend to their wishes judging that they are indispensable and attempting to scapegoat one of their father’s accusers by framing their leaving the program as her making them feel unsafe when accounts suggest that they the ones harassing her and refusing to mediate with her.  Many in the the Dutch gym world are at this point wary of Wevers family drama. 

Wu Jiani/Anna Li (USA) - Wu Jiani is a former Olympic Bronze medalist and her daughter Anna Li was a star at UCLA and an alternate for the London Olympics.  They have been under investigation for verbal and emotional abuse for a number of years and Anna Li who is also a gymnastics judge has made negative social media posts against athletes who bring abuse allegations against their coaches.

This is more upsetting to me than it should be. 

A week or so ago, I wrote a post on my blog about my father’s abuse, my mother’s enabling of that abuse, and how painful my life has been as a result of their behavior.

There were hundreds of comments from fellow abuse survivors that made me feel seen, heard, and less alone than I did before I read them. More comments from others who are coming to terms with their own, similar, experiences. Still more comments from people who aren’t ready to confront their abusers, but feel empowered and encouraged by my story.

Then, today, some Boomer leaves this really shitty comment that’s as cruel, dismissive, and minimizing of me and my experiences as anything the man who was my father ever said or did to me. I was really taken aback when I read it. Did this guy really read what I wrote, and make a choice to attack me for being abused? Was he really blaming the survivor for the actions of the abuser?

Yes, as it turns out. He was. When I pointed out that he was treating me as cruelly, dismissively, and hurtfully as the man who was my father did, this guy’s response was to minimize and dismiss my pain and anger, before engaging in the kind of gaslighting and manipulation that my mother used on me until I ended contact with my parents. He even accused me of making up my memories.

I mean, the nerve of this guy.

I banned his account, because I don’t need that kind of bullshit in my life, and I’m hopeful this jackass is too old to figure out how to set up multiple accounts to evade a ban, because it feels mildly empowering to stand up for myself and block this asshole the same way I’ve blocked other abusers.

But I hate that this guy got past the emotional defenses I’ve constructed to keep people like him out of my life. And I hate that this total stranger, whose entire comment history on my blog, though brief, was nothing but shitty, cruel, dismissive crap, was able to do this shitty thing to me. He was essentially acting as a proxy for the man who was my father, and the woman who was my mother. He treated me exactly the way they did, and I’m just so angry at the presumptuousness of the whole thing.

I’m doing my best to just note these feelings and move on with my life, but this one person’s cruelty is so familiar, it’s stirred up all the pain I’m trying to recover from, and all the anger I feel at the people who caused that pain.