This kind of response is often a sign of what’s called a trauma bond. It’s when someone forms an emotional attachment to the very person or behavior that caused them pain—because, especially as children, we need to believe the people who raise us love us, even when they hurt us. That survival mechanism can last long into adulthood.
You say you’ve come to understand the beatings as something necessary, even good—and I think that’s your mind’s way of making sense of something that was actually traumatic. You didn’t deserve to be hurt like that. No child does. And the fact that your mother now apologizes, and you forgive her even though she absolutely fucked you up, shows how big your heart is—but it doesn’t mean what happened was right or healthy.
I’m not trying to judge you. I’m just hoping you can sit with the idea that maybe being loved shouldn’t have had to mean being hit. Maybe your decency as a person came from your strength, not from the belt. That part of you—the part that’s kind, reflective, and forgiving—is yours. You created that, not the violence. And you deserve to own it fully.