The duplicity is overwhelming

The very ironic thing is that very few people have seen the way my family treats me because they mostly "act" in a normal manner when other people are around.  Their duplicity of behaving "normal" like everything is fine and they don't hurt me in front of other people every day upsets me so much!  It makes me feel like I am just imagining all of this stuff, that it's not really happening and I have no right to be upset because, look, how nice my family are in front of other people.  Obviously it must be my fault!

Twice in the past (once when he was drunk and once sober when I was in my late teens to early 20's) my step-father behaved in his normal abusive, violent way towards me in front of other people.  He actually showed who he was and these people had to restrain him from trying to beat me up.  After that, both people tried to counsel him about his behaviour, telling him that he was being an awful person and he shouldn't treat his step-daughter (or anyone in his care) in that manner.  That he should have more respect for me than what he was displaying.  That he was being really hard on me and abusing me needlessly and mercilessly.

Of course my step-father acted all repentant and said that he was drunk or that it was out of character and he never treats me in that way normally and of course my mother backed him.  Yeah right.  But what could I say?  And what could these people do anyway.  They didn't live in our home and couldn't protect me from his wrath if I spoke out against him and told them that he actually did hit me every day and not only did he hit me every day, but so did my mother.  I couldn't tell them that these people would laugh at me, mock and deride me and put me down all the time.  If I told anyone what was going on, they would hurt me more, hit me more and punish me in other ways and I really couldn't risk that happening, so I kept quiet, kept it to myself and these people thought that everything was fine.  I think they asked me after these incidents if things were fine and I told them that everything was okay.  What else could I say?  The truth?  My parents would hit me more and tell me not to cry while they were hitting me.  The more I cried, the more I got hit.  I had no idea.  I thought if I begged for mercy, begged them to stop, they would.  But they didn't.  They just kept going. Merciless!

While the bruises healed on the outside, the ones on the inside have never healed.  Every day is hell with these people.