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| Image Credit: Postmodern Woman - How to End Abuse |
This abuse would occur on almost a daily basis sometimes - mostly physical, but also emotional abuse and I would get abused more because I was the older child, so I was responsible for everything my brother did too (even though he wouldn't listen to me and would also tell me parents if I did anything they had forbade me to do, like read my many borrowed books or listen to music).
They would use my step-father's belt, with the buckle so that it would hurt more. They would make me kneel in a corner with my hands up for 20 minutes at a time, making me kneel on rock salt so that it would hurt more. They would laugh at me for everything and anything I did (and my brother would always join in with them). They would always tell me I would amount to nothing. They called me slut and whore, saying nasty things about me - none of which was true. If I talked to a guy, I was a whore, which is ridiculous.
So I would get hit by them if I didn't do wash the dishes the minute I was asked to do them (I had to help prepare the food with my mother, then I had to do the washing up while she did other household duties, meanwhile, my step-father and brother would just be sitting watching tv or playing or relaxing as it wasn't "men's work"). I would get hit if I didn't put my clothes away from my bed into my wardrobe. I would get hit if I didn't want to do embroidery on a Saturday, but rather wanted to go outside and play. I would get hit if I didn't do some minor thing that my parents considered to be the worst thing in the world.
I remember crying and crying after each beating. Asking myself "why are they hitting me? What did I do that was so bad it warranted such a punishment?" And if I cried or said "please stop" when my step-father beat me, he'd get angrier and hit me harder until I stopped crying. And I did stop crying, basically out of fear that he would get so angry that he would hit me so hard all over my body, like he did one time, where he bruised my skin in so many places and I felt like I had to lie to my teachers and tell them I fell down the stairs.
My step-father's temper is so bad. So many times their friends (who actually got to see how they treated me when I was younger) would tell my parents they were too hard on me and should treat me better. And this is without them even knowing how much my parents hit me. I am sure if someone knew about it, if I told anyone, they would have charged my parents with child abuse and taken me away from them. I guess I never really told anyone because I didn't know if it would be better if I was in a children's home, given the many times my mother told me how awful it was there whenever she would tell me that she could have left us in a children's home after my father left her (mind you, I was 6 at the time) but she decided to keep us out of there and that we we so lucky she didn't just dump us in a children's home because we were really a burden.
My mother would advise my step-father to only hit my backside and the palms of my hands, because that way no-one could tell they were abusing me. She didn't want the neighbours and her friends and family (who were over our house constantly) to see how much I was being beaten up.
The household I lived in, therefore was completely chaotic and full of drama - which they caused and I got sucked up into it. And the ironic thing is that I was completely different to the three of them - I read books, I was good (and am) at mathematics and loved science and I loved writing stories. None of them is very educated and I think part of their issue with me is that they resent me for just being born with attributes and personal characteristics they don't have. My mother's aim was to make me a dutiful housewife who knew how to knit, sew, cook and take care of her husband's every need and I was not that girl and she couldn't deal with it, so she hit me to make me conform to what she wanted me to become. How grossly unfair!
Obviously they weren't nasty every single minute of every day, but it happened more predominantly than not and it affected my psyche, so much so that now I can't seem to have a normal relationship with a man that is healthy and positive. Only the other day I realised how much I crave drama in relationships because that is the only thing I know about in familial relationships and so it has pervaded into my subconsciousness and it makes me want that drama in my personal relationships.
When my father left my mother constantly told my brother and I, but mostly me that my own father left "me", that he never loved me. She would say to me, "your own father never loved you enough and left you because he didn't love you", over and over and over again. I basically figured out from those words that I was unlovable at the tender age of 6.
I have never felt like I deserved to be loved (hence the reason why I go for unavailable men) and needless to say, I haven't had many relationships because of this reason - I don't trust that someone who says they like me actually does like me.
This article from CBS News, "Spanking, physical punishment may raise risk for mental health woes in adult years" infers that studies show people that are abused as children don't do so well in their adult life because of the early abuse. I am yet further proof of this theory, unfortunately.
And as I read back all of this and re-live it in my mind, it really reiterates why I m so upset with them, as my parent behaviour is just awful and no-one should ever have been abused this way.
Now all of this former abuse is the basis of my gripe and resentment towards my disloyal family. I am sure you can understand why.
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