Abuse Q&A

The past several years I have tried to be the bigger person, but this year I gave up. 

When I was younger I was told ‘what goes on in this house stays in this house’ and today I spill it.

I will not be quiet any more.

The ‘peace’ came crashing down when my parents touted their undying love for Trump, and caused political upending and fights during holidays. 

It got to the point where I hid fireball in the trunk and got drunk enough to deal with them. 

I knew this was a horrible coping mechanism but I couldn’t physically force myself to go to family functions without having a panic attack before hand then a complete meltdown once the car backed out of the drive. 

That was my turning point.

This was not okay.

Why did I stay the status quo?

Fear of retaliation. Fear of being ignored; like usual.

Fear of segregation.

Just plain, fear. 

I tried to last as long as I could for my little sister, my deepest fear was of losing her and her love. 

Why am I coming out now?

Because I don’t even have that to hold onto now. 

Me keeping quiet has made things worse than I could have possibly imagined and I can’t keep quiet any more.

I’m coming out about the abuse my mother dealt. 

When did the abuse start?

Domestic Violence was always present between my parents. 

So around 23 years.

My mother would hit my step dad, but I never saw him hurt her. She threw things and broke things; ex: two glass stove tops.

There is a picture frame coving a hole in the laundry room where one of them punched the wall. 

She is vindictive, manipulative and mean.

He admitted to me one day that he liked pissing her off.

I remember getting older and deciding the quickest way to get them to stop was to get in between them and turn their anger on me. 

It was always verbal, never psychical, but everything they said still hurts. 

I used to wish for physical pain over knowing my parents hated me. 

Both of my siblings would hide and cry in their rooms.

lnoeing this has me vigilant. 

I used to sit with my door cracked, waiting. 

There were fights 2-4 times a week.  

I was in fight or flight every single day.

I married the first  asshole I could just to get away, just to find myself in another abusive relationship.

What happened behind closed doors? 

I was verbally abused, attacked and degraded weekly. I was told I wasn’t smart enough, got punished for bad grades when my bad grades were because of memory issues stemming from years of child abuse. 

But no one connected the dots. 

Child abuse wasn’t really a frowned upon thing back then. 

Anytime I stood up for myself I got knocked down, told I was ungrateful, a spoiled brat, that my thoughts abs feelings meant nothing because my mother suffered worse abuse than I ever had. 

I was in college the day I got up the nerve to tell her I was moving out, I was done being their target child and she called me an ungrateful bitch and that she didn’t withstand having her grand father shove his fingers inside her pussy, for me to threaten her. 

She got in my face and was spitting mad; I was being punished for a trauma I didn’t commit. 

I was being forced to stay in that situation based off her own threats, that she would cancel my phone and car insurance the minute I walked out that door (that I couldn’t afford working for them and being in college full time).

they controlled my living arrangement, my income, my transportation…my peace….everything. 

I was depressed, suicidal, thought so low of myself that I eventually got out and moved to Alabama into my own DV hell by trying to escape the other. 

Because of them I didn’t know what a healthy relationship was or how it looked, but it wasn’t mine.

When did it get worse? 

Yearly.

It got even worse when Trump became president. 

Instead of normal conversations, everything funneled back to politics, even when I asked for a peaceful family gathering not involving arguments. 

Things began to get verbally violent, yelling matches, crying and screaming. 

Anytime I walked away, they would follow me and keep me in their clutches. They wouldn’t stop until I broke down and yelled back, then I needed to calm down and that I was over reacting. 

Gee, couldn’t I take a joke? 

Mind games. 

Two decades of graduating abuse has driven me crazy for years. I’ve thrown myself into studies about ACEs and the effect on the adult brain, I’ve read up on psychological studies of everything possible, on mental disorders and family dysfunction.

I study serial killers, child abuse cases and anything I can get my hands on literature wise.

This has consumed my entire life; trying to figure out one, not so simple thing.

Why is my family so fucked up?

Unchecked mental health. 

What now?