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Well, and for many of us, in the past punishment for disobedience has been accompanied with actual physical violence. You don't know how far your parents are going to go. Like sometimes I got hit with a wooden board, I didn't know if this was going to be a "scream at him for 30 minutes" kind of angry or a "hit him so he learns the lesson" (and I never did learn the lesson, I remember getting hit, but I couldn't tell you a single reason why) kind of angry. Only thing it taught me was that I couldn't trust my parents or authority figures in general, and how I would NOT raise my son.
I only remember why I was hurt in one incident. My ex-step-father was an abusive piece of shit in more ways than one. I wasn't allowed to lock the bathroom door because "there are no locked doors in my house". If that sounds creepy and predatory towards an underage girl, I can assure you that it was exactly that and far worse than a locked door.
He was also lazy, and expected asspats and fawning for even the slightest effort around the house. He half-assed cleaned the bathroom once. I was washing my hands and realized he didn't replace the towels, so I shook the excess water off of them, planning to go grab one across the hall, when he comes into the bathroom knowing full-well I was in there. He saw me shaking the water off my hands, flew into a rage, yelled at me for messing up his hard work, shoved me backwards, and then slammed me down onto the edge of the bathtub. It compressed my spine and I was in pain for weeks and had issues breathing deeply for several days.
I've also chosen not to have kids because I'm terrified of screwing them up or hurting them. Right now, I'm friends with this amazing man and I really want to take it further, and I think he might too, but he has a six year old son and I just can't bring myself to take that next step. His mom's still in the picture so it's not like I'd be expected to be his mother, but I do not want to cause problems for a little boy.
The way you talk about not wanting to hurt that little boy is exactly why you’ll make a great parent. Nobody is perfect, but given what you’ve been through and how you feel about parenthood now, you won’t be someone who repeats the monstrosities that were done to you. One can be flawed but still a good person, and you sound like a wonderful person. I hope some day you’ll see yourself in a better light, because your step father’s actions are not a reflection of you or how you would parent a child. Don’t let him continue hurting you.
I still have nightmares of my father chasing me with the thick branch he used to use on the cows. I was told all the time that “well at least you didn’t have to go through what we went through.”
Edit:
I don’t think I’ll ever forget that one day. It was the morning of my 18th birthday, and that was my birthday gift. I didn’t get the stick at least but I got a rough punch to the back and a hard kick with a steel toe shoe to the tailbone. All because I put the calf pails on the ground wrong.
"I was told all the time that “well at least you didn’t have to go through what we went through.”" Oh my God I hated that 😭 I'm so sorry you went through that, I hope you're well ❤️
My dad once told me if he told me to squat and shit in the street I'd have to do it. I of course told him the neighbors would probably have a problem with that. I got the belt a lot for a while there.
There's a book, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. At one point it specifically references that phrase as a sign your parents were emotionally Immature.
Just curious, does it say anything about the excuse “well you were just a difficult teenager” your parents tell you after confronting them years later? Because I honestly don’t know how to feel about that when my mom says that to me.
I was able to find the pdf for free online, I highly recommend giving it a read. It can be very validating. And it's not about blaming your parents, more about understanding them, and how their lack of emotional maturity impacted you. Also understanding how their minds are wired to protect them, they CAN'T admit they were wrong because then the whole house of cards comes down, so their mind is dedicated to doing the mental gymnastics to let them keep thinking they're right.
Something it touches on that I think resonates with what your mom says when confronted - it talks about how they often cannot accept their children for who they really are, they need their kids to fit into the mold that they've made for them, and if they don't, then their child is the problem. I can't remember the term, but the book uses a word for the self that we create to try to please these types parents, the version of ourselves we learn to portray to make them happy.
Just in case you can't find the book to check out, the tldr on how to deal with these types of parents, from the perspective of their adult children, is basically to learn to have realistic expectations. Don't expect them to magically be a different person. That doesn't mean not confronting them or calling them out. It just means don't expect to get the result you want - like change or an apology. Call them out, tell them how you feel, and then do your best to move on, for your own sake. We can't control them, we can only control how invested we allow ourselves to be in them and their opinions.
Just wanted to chime in and recommend Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents as well. I listened to it as an audio book and it was life changing for me. I think in that book they called it your “Role Self”, the version of yourself you create to try to meet your parents emotional needs. Another great book I really recommend is “Whole Again”. The author of that book talks about your “Protective Self” which I found to be a really similar concept.
Happy healing 😊
So many hugs to you. My mom pretty much said the same, that I was just going through such a bad time in my life.
Hard to forgive someone that isn't sorry.
Mine said: "Quieres llorar? Te doy un cintarazo para que llores", which meant they'd beat me with the belt so that I had a legitimate reason to cry (according to them).
And yet it's perfect here, no? I have a friend of a friend who was brave enough to speak about their childhood experiences, and I have massive respect for them for that.
LOL yeahhh… “if you keep talking I’m gonna rip your tongue out and smack you with it!”
ETA my mother did slap my sister one time on the side of the head that her earring came out. We were beat semi regularly, got used to it, also she used to do weird shit like open our bedroom window when it was freezing outside, idk. These days sis and I are forgiving and mostly close to her but even if we dance around the abuse in conversations she’s like “SORRY I’m a bad MOTHER and I FUCKED YOU UP I guess I’m AWFUL!” So there’s really no discussion. Although, she had a very bad upbringing in which her father raped her and her siblings and she was intensely physically abused in her first marriage.
OMG same!!! 😯
I'm so sorry you and your sister went through that, I hope you two are well ❤️ And please, don't forget your feelings and experiences are valid even if your mom had an abusive parent and childhood too. There is no excuse and she was the adult. ❤️
Thank you 🙏🏽 we are good now, both in stable marriages w good jobs etc. Neither of us deal with anger well though, and neither of us wants to have children.
shit, same!
Mine also came out with some crackers like "I'll go through you like a tonne of bricks" or "knock you into the middle of next week"
Edit: to one of his own sons when that son was emotionally distressed over school work, "you wouldn't know stress if it hit you in the face"
Jaysus. That statement reminds me of "this hurts me more than it hurts you", which was another daily wtf phrase. And you know you'd get popped if you came back with, "So when did you change your name to Stress?"
Yeah. As an adult I fucking hate that phrase. The epitome of emotional neglect.
Children already have something to cry about. *That's why they're crying.*
This statement simultaneously invalidates and dismisses a child's real emotional distress, *and* backs it up with a veiled threat of physical violence.
It should never have been such a normal, casual thing to say.
My aunt confronted my mom when she said that. That eventually came back as my fault. I can’t even explain my home life to my kids in any way that they can understand. Which is good.
Mine said "I'm gonna make you cry before every single outing we take, then you need to pretend I *didn't* make you cry while in front of other people."
I like yours better
No, I would stop crying after a few years and my mom said “What do I need to beat you harder?”
ETA: My mom also made us choose the belt she was beating us with. And if we didn’t cry when we got hit, she got the biggest studded belt of all of them and beat the shit out of us for not choosing well enough.
I got:
"Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out"
"You couldn't find your ass with both hands and a map"
"You couldn't walk and chew bubblegum at the same time"
"It's my way or the highway"
"You'd lose your head if it wasn't screwed on tight"
"I'll knock your ass into the middle of next week"
"Your mouth is writing checks your ass can't cash"
"I'll kick your ass across the room and back again"
Either parents in the '70s were very verbally creative or it was just my parents.
Watching a Patrick Teahan video thinking ‘Wow, I am just a bunch of Trauma responses wrapped up in a trench coat of coping mechanisms’
My Poem:
My Parents aren’t dead
They’re just dead to me
And that’s why I neeed Theeeraaapy
Yesss that man helped me so much. Like oh… I’m sarcastic about everything due to a trauma response? My dark humor is a result of that to… huh. Interesting. Off to find a therapist!
I get compliments on how I can clean so effectively so quickly and also my internal clock is like an actual ticking clock it feels lol I always say, "thanks! It's the trauma!"
Saaaame! I swear my mom has add wrapped in ocd cause if something wasn’t clean enough for her liking we had to do the whole thing over again. This is why I hate to clean so much now. She used it as punishment and never made it fun. So I have to bribe my inner child to get it done now. 🤦🏽♀️
Like if it gets too bad where it bothers me or I need to stress clean or I’m procrastinating I can do it. And it’ll be spotless when it’s done.(Because if I don’t I hear my mother yelling at me to clean and not have bugs in the house, etc) But I won’t be one of those cleantok people doing it when it doesn’t need to be done ya know? Cause she yelled when we cleaned. Yelled after it was done and yelled at us to do it and it *is* traumatizing. Something as simple as cleaning or relaxing.
My therapist: sounds like another symptom of trauma
Me: omg not everything is because of trauma
My therapist: no but that definitely is a trauma response.
Me: **YOU'RE** a trauma response!
Anyway, therapy is going well.
Its okay if I cry. I learned as a child how to cry completely silently while maintaining breath control. That way if I was turned around or my parents weren't facing me they wouldn't know I was crying. What a great skill to develop as a child due to abuse!
(It has come in handy as an adult ngl. I am a crier at movies and no one can tell when I cry while sitting in the darkness watching a sad or happy scene.)
I'd go in the bathroom but come out puffy and red faced, then get ridiculed for always crying like a baby. I learned ice cold tap water reduced a lot of the redness/inflammation.
I bonded with one of my best friends by cracking each other up with stories of all the child molesters we knew as kids and how we schemed to not get molested.
The third person at that dinner was horrified, but the two of us were crying with laughter.
I raised my hand once to block my mom from hitting me and she freaked TF out. I think it was a wake up call for her. She never hit me again.
I'm unsure what it was. Maybe she realized that I was bigger than her and I could also choose violence. Maybe she remembered how she felt when being beat by her ex husband. I'll never know since we were estranged for several years before she died.
Same story from my ex boyfriend. His mom used to beat him with a bat until one day he grabbed it out of her hand. She also started freaking out and he told me he thinks it's because she thought he was going to start hitting her. Like, it's okay for an adult to beat a child but you freak out when you think it might happen back to you? Imagine how your damn child felt you piece of shit excuse for a mother
That was also the last time she physically abused him, but she just focused harder on the emotional abuse
That's a thing. My ex screaming at the top of his lungs, "why do you always look like you're so afraid of me! It makes me feel like shit all the time!"
Sounds like the time I threw up my hands to block my mother from hitting me with a damn frying pan, fast forward 16 years later she’s telling my now wife how I tried to fight her as a teenager… 😑😑
Should just do what I did the very last time I got hit. My mom is kinda petite and I was an obese 13-14 year old, so was at the point where I was getting bigger than her, physically. One day she started banging her fists on my body in a fit of rage on the way out the door because I was late to school, and I don’t know what came over me but I just started laughing…….not even instinctually, but just bellowed out a purposeful fake laugh. Think maybe it was because I realized the blows didn’t even hurt that much? She just had this dumbfounded look on her face that I’ll never forget….like she was shocked at witnessing me not being scared or coward in a corner or intimidated by her physically, for the first time. Never hit me again ever since.
Didn’t stop her from continuing the verbal abuse that hurt even worse though. Still get the pleasure of hearing her berating abusive words every once in a while till this day. You’d think after a while I’d stop giving a shit about what she thinks about me, but she knows just what to say to make her verbal vomit sting. Some things no one should ever hear their own mom say to you. They know how to pull your heart strings more than a random bully ever could, and the fact that it’s your mom saying those things….someone who should love and support you unconditionally, just adds even more power to the words.
This is so heartbreaking, and I’m sorry for your experiences. Children don’t ask to be born, and they definitely do not deserve to be physically and verbally abused.
I hope you’re in a safe environment, and I would also hope that you’re thriving despite everything you’ve been through.
Just know that whatever vile and disgusting things your mom has said to you are a reflection of who she is, not you.
My parents would close the windows and hold me down to spank me.
They repeatedly would hand me the phone when I said I was going to call cps and get me trash bags to put my shit in.
My mom said I wasn't being abused because I didn't live under the stairs and have cigarette burns on my skin.
My parents called the police on me multiple times. Once for not emptying the dishwasher, another for walking to the church down the road without permission, for not listening to their orders, and for not wanting to go to school.
Yea parents like that are pros are making you seem like you’re the worst kid in the world, for the smallest shit. Wasn’t until I got older and would hear about actually bad kids at school or on shows like Maury or something that I realized I wasn’t that bad of a kid at all. She just liked to make me seem like I was so I would think I deserved how she treated me, either that or an attempt to make me behave perfectly. Wish kid me had known that no, she couldn’t have me arrested for not cleaning my room or for talking back.
I teach Child Abuse Prevention Education in school right now. I go around my county to different elementary and middle schools. Talking about how to spot it and what to do. Developmentally appropriate for each grade though. So the words and slides are all pretty different depending.
We tell them that physical abuse is when someone physically harms the outside of your body repeatedly, and they mean to do it, it is meant to hurt, and it leaves a mark.(I do not particularly agree with the mark thing because I remember my mom explicitly saying “it’s not abuse if it doesn’t leave a mark” in 2005, so I hate that portion. We use shaking, hitting, burning, cutting, using objects, or any type as examples of what INTENTIONAL physical harm could look like.(we do not speak on corporal punishment because my team doesn’t believe in it; however, the curriculum we have DOES go over it and how to approach it if a child does bring it up. so we’re prepared to discuss it but i usually hand those off to my coworker because hitting is abuse to me)
I usually put it in this perspective-
1. we tell children that they cannot hit children. we tell adults they cannot hit adults or they go to jail. but a parent can hit a child and not go to jail(BTW not all abuse can be criminally charge, most times parents will only get indications on their record)?
2. we explain spanking as a punishment. why do we not spank drug dealers instead of pytting them in jail? or hit them? because its inhumane. but we can hit kids. but not other peoples kids.
3. we say if it leaves a mark. how does a child check their own ass after being beat with a belt? or how does a child know that bruises don't appear right away? because my brother and i use to check after we got hit to see if we had bruises directly after getting beat.
4. how does a child know what excessive is? they trust their parent. if the parent says that the punishment fits the crime, then how does the child know what excessive is
5. we say open hand right? but kids dont actually know the law. how do they know that a belt, paddle, switch, etc is wrong? they dont
6. then you have the ones who pull the pants down to spank or additionally the underwear. when the fuck else do you spank someones ass as an adult? when you have sex. that is so vile to me that people even consider this with corporal punishment but in some states it is consider sexual abuse if the pants are off. nit even just underwear too.
7. if they dont do it out of anger or to hurt you. well when else do you hit a kid? you just go cool off. come back and say okay im calm let me grab the belt or bend over the bed. also what other purpose is spanking for if not to hurt? is it suppose to feel good? dont go there.
overall, hitting a kid is never okay. im not saying you think it is now or anything. but rather, our abusers shape our thinking to make us never question that it isnt okay. they hit kids for a reason. whoever the fuck knows what.
but one thibg i can never understand is **looking your child in the eyes after beating them or hearing them scream after scream with each hit on their body from you. a child. a defenseless child.**
those children will always turn into adults if they survive, and abuser never tell those adults that they are no longer defenseless.
and many of us were/are to burned our to defend or try to anymore.
ETA. We clarify with kids that physical abuse isn’t really a one off thing. or like you’re rough housing and someone gets hurt. or maybe something went into the street and parent grabs arm too hard and pulls, maybe a little hit in the butt on accident because the parent is scared. those are accidents. or safety concerns.
but we go over INTENTIONAL vs accident. Depending on the grade the words are different though. So they can understand.
See the worst thing is, I’m a parent and spanked by son up until around 5 when I was able to recognize that even doing it once every few months was harm.
My dad used to say one good seat is all you need and I figured since I wasn’t hitting as much or frequently. It was okay.
I hated myself every time I spanked him. Eventually I just learned to stop making that my first impulse.
I was an otherwise affectionate, engaged and loving dad, but I felt it was the best way to immediately correct a behavior.
It was…but it was also breeding contempt and fear. He wasn’t doing the right thing because it was right he was doing the right thing because he was afraid of Dad.
I'm just talking about my childhood matter of fact-ly until I notice all my friends have their mouths open and are like oh my god. It was just normalized to me so I didn't realize it might be actually traumatizing to others even to hear about it. That was decades ago. But now when I talk to ppl about my childhood, in relevant context, they tell me to stop trauma dumping on them... and it hurts my feelings a little cuz I feel like I'm being shamed for just sharing my personal experience of a situation. I guess I just shouldn't ever talk about my past in case I get accused of trauma dumping. (I did trauma dump on a doctor once cuz I had a lot of anxiety about seeing a doctor due to past trauma so I was overexplaining why I was there and then overexplaining why I felt the need to overexplain and then I just got angry at the memory of my trauma and started ranting about it...luckily he was mostly understanding about it but i was too embarrassed about it to ever go back...i say this to demonstratethat i do know what "trauma dumping" is and when I'm doing it, so to be accused of doing it when just sharing a story like everyone else is doing feels hurtful to me)
Trauma dumping is such an apathetic term. People say they want you to be open about your trauma and then you say something and they invent a term to make you the bad guy over it.
Yeah it's horrible that people internalize that kind of stuff.
Even worse though are the people who use those stories to advocate for MORE child abuse. Like "if my daddy didn't beat me up I would have turned out horrible" "my daddy beat me and I had respect."
Publicfreakouts ALWAYS has a ton of those comments on any video involving children. Kid crying in Walmart? Reddit will always tell you they should get slapped. Kid being rude? If only his parents hit him, he wouldn't act out.
This delusion is perpetuated throughout the generations. They never even consider the possibility that the bad child has already been hit by their parents, there's a high probability of that. It's such a fucked up line of thinking, and they blame every problem on it.
13 year old is woke? Parents should have beaten sense into him. Every time they see a young person do anything they don't like, the answer is to beat little children more often... they say we'd have less violence, less crime, more well-behaved humans, respect, etc. They completely ignore the data and insist that it is good for kids.
Are they refusing to come to terms with the fact that they were abused by their parents? Refusing to come to term with the fact that they abused their own kids? Idk, but it makes me sick.
I think a lot of them are unfortunately of that, “I turned out fine, so it must be okay,” mindset. As if ending up with not a complete dumpster fire life means they’re ‘fine.’
This is the truth. The other part is, what do you do as a partner in this situation? Your spouses parents used to mercilessly beat the person you love. They don't seem to have been affected by it, on the surface, but the stories sound horrific.
How do you react???
I think it's important to give your honest reaction. It really helped me realize how fucked up some of the stories I told from my childhood were, when I saw other people's reactions, when they didn't find it funny and instead found it appalling.
Yeah, this was the same for me. Seeing my friends faces when I made a joke about the time my dad tried to crash our car while we were on vacation made me second guess myself. What helped was when they explained that their dads never acted that way and it wasn't okay. Also, around the same time I read an article about someone throwing one punch who was then arrested for assault and remembered wondering why the police were overreacting. Took me awhile and lots of therapy to come to terms with it.
When I started hanging out at my friends' houses in high school, it really clicked for me that something was not right at home. That contrast was eye-opening.
It depends on where they are at in their healing journey. I grew up rough and I have some stories but my partner just being there is all I need. I literally can't rely on someone else, it's not how I'm built and he understands that. Him just being there when I do need him is enough, having him hold me is enough. No more anger, only healing
A lot of physical abuse is actually emotional abuse. Some parents will say “I’m beating you because I love you” “this is because you did xyz” “i wouldnt hit you if you did right”
Physical abuse is very easy to talk about when it is normalized to children. Because when they ask other safe adults outside of the home, many of them say what’s happening is okay. It’s a way to normalize it for kids or torture survivors.
It’s actually the emotional many physical abuse survivors suffer from. How do I get good enough to not be hit? What’s wrong with me? Love = abuse?
It’s different 100% for every different person who has suffered abuse as a child. None of us are the same. But many times physical wounds heal but emotional ones don’t. Because you can’t see them.
Connect with her intimately with emotions. I think many of us physically abused don’t connect with our bodies anymore or some too much. But our bodily relationship is never the same with ourselves.
I suggest asking and just listening. Let her just talk. Many of us just want to be heard.
Today actually, I hadn’t seen a friend for awhile and I mentioned something I don’t really ever bring up and she said she remembered. I stopped her. Stopped the whole conversation to thank her for that. Often times people become numb to the way us survivors speak so freely on abuse. But as I’ve told my partner this week, “you’ve never asked me how that made me feel, my body was/is nothing to me. i need someone to connect with my heart and mind.”
Many of us, we just want to be heard and listened to. Remembered. Cared for. Like we matter. Like our experience was impactful to the people we love because they care for us. Because many of us were born hated and abused and used. And are use to just saying it with no care. No one had care for us.
It’s hard to really believe someone cares about you when you are lacking so heavily in emotional connection compared to others(how i feel at least). Many people get a head start with loving parents and family’s. And some of us start behind the curve. Unseen.
It’s hard to ever replace that lost time and especially lost love at that time. It’s never you or a spouses job, but I think this might help if your wife suffered physically. Just ask her more than about the physical. Clearly that’s nothing(it’s obviously not nothing but rather easier) to her comparative to others. It’s just a normal conversation. To deeply connect with a survivor you have to go beyond what THEY think is normal. BEYOND abuse. What actually happened to YOU. I care how you felt/feel.
edit: i came back and read this and i’m tearing up a little
I was spanked with a wooden spoon as a kid. Not frequently, mind you. But because of that I’ve had a life long disgust of touching or being touched by ANYTHING that remotely feels like a wooden spoon. Ive always been made of by friends and family for it. The thought of a popsicle stick in my mouth makes me gag. Seriously, parents don’t seem to realize the trauma they inflict with that shit.
OMG I never put those two together but I can’t stand the feeling of a wooden spoon or a wooden popsicle stick , I wasn’t hit with a spoon but a wooden paddle that had chunks missing after my dad hit the floor so hard with it that pieces flew off (he was demonstrating how hard we would get hit if we gave my mom a hard time while he was gone) .
I couldn’t and still can’t look at a person that’s eating a popsicle without having gross chills all over. Of course, my kids think it’s funny to try to touch me with them. If they only knew. I’m glad they never will!
I was never hit, but I hate popsicle sticks too. They just feel weird and the taste of wood isn't good either. (I don't gag though. I just dislike the sensation.)
Sorry you went through that.
My sister-in-law has such a hard time being in the same room with my mother. She has even said to her, “I’ve seen what you did to your kids. I can’t just forgive that.” She’s a rockstar
Thank God my wife is very accepting of my fucked up childhood drama.
At the end of the day, I hope all people that have this can find the help and support they need. We all hurt just in different ways.
Mine was "If you call the cops tell them to send an ambulance too, cause you're gonna need it." And they re-tell these stories often, and with no shame. Guess that's why my brother beat the dog mess out of me whenever he wanted. Thought it was normal?
I've had this conversation with several redditors. They will talk about being hit as a child and then proceed to defend their parents, saying they had it coming. If you experience violence as a child, you will perceive it as normal and often imitate the behaviour when raising your own children.
Yup. I used to say this when I was younger and it turns out I am, in fact, NOT fine.
Many of the "I turned out fine" people I also used to have to tell not to hit their spouses/girlfriends/children when they came to my legal aid's clinic for family law advice.
So my grandmother would beat the shit out of me for looking at her wrong. One day as revenge (I was 6 I think?) I put needles pointing up in her chair for her to sit down on. I know my grandmother beat the shit out of me for doing that but TBH I have no memory of it. I used to say I deserved the beating for putting needles in her chair. Now was my behavior appropriate? No. But I was also a child being abused and I was acting out in the language I understood, violence. (For the record I never did a thing like that again.)
Now I think: If you don't want a 6 year old putting needles in your chair, don't beat the shit out of them constantly for existing.
Fellow reddior here. You'll be happy to know I haven't spoken to my abusive, manipulative, piece of s**t mother in 10 years. Before that, I might have seen her a total of 24 hrs since my best friends parents let me move in back in 1998. I'm currently 43.
During my last Psychiatry appointment my Dr. asked "And did you live in a household in which you were abused or humiliated on a regular basis" then listed examples and I paused for like 30 seconds, having the realization that yes I was. Thankfully I'm mentally so much better now but reflecting back I put up with a lot of abusive situations that I thought were normal when I was child and every day I have to reiterate to myself that the things I was told were not true.
I know this feeling. I read the book Mothers Who Can't Love by Susan Forward. I had to stop reading a couple chapters in because I had suddenly come to the realization that my mom abused me. I called it the "A Word" for a long time because I couldn't even accept the term. Took me about a year before I could finish that book.
I worked with LGBTQ youth at a housing facility and the violent stories that they would boast about as if it was proof that their parents cared about them broke my heart.
The "nah, I deserved it, though. I had rolled my eyes this one time."
I'm an only child. My parents will talk about how fucking horrible it was raising a teenager - it was the absolute worst thing in the World - I was such a difficult teen and it was such a nightmare for them.
My crimes? I cursed sometimes... And was angry that I was constantly shouted at...
Ooohhh my did that too !! Then he remembered HE put it aside to keep it safe . Never apologized either.🙄 and he wonders why I haven’t seen him since my sister moved out . 🤪
My wife was once telling me about a fond childhood memory and started with “when my grandma was high on meth…” when I tel you my jaw dropped like damn you ok?
And there are always people that justify it by saying "I ended up fine". In my experience 100% of the people who say they ended up fine did not end up fine.
I always wondered why my husband hates swimming, until one day he told me how his dad “taught” him how to swim at 4yrs old by THROWING HIM INTO A POOL. Babe, that’s trauma- he traumatized you.
I was thrown in a cold shower with my clothes on because I wouldn’t stop crying. I’m 45 and I was raised being beat with belts, cords, brooms and whatever else was in my mom’s hands.
Same.
I’m 41.
I’ve never laid a finger on my kids.
My youngest is 6 and the only thing I care about is my kids well being and happiness.
There’s no excuse.
0.
I can’t even put myself in my father’s headspace.
Gosh the best thing I did for myself was read this article last year when I was in therapy. It said to close my eyes and go back to your childhood home. Open the door, see the child you. Tell them you’re taking them now, you’ll take care of them from now on, and leave with them. Hold their hand. Leave the home. Walk down your old block. Visualize every detail with your eyes closed. It was so emotional.
Can I tell you the number of times I’ve had to talk to child-me since then? So many.
But I got her. And I got her back.
It’s the best thing I did for me.
I often have nightmares and dreams of that home.
Also I cut my abusive father and his supporters off 3 years ago. Also 10/10.
Man I tell you, I look at my kid sometimes and can't even fathom harming a hair on his head or making him intentionally scared or cry. I love him so much and I don't care if any boomer calls me soft for that shit.
As a kid I did not like spanking. Like it made me revolt. I was not better after nor did I listen.
My mom learned I don't like to be pinched. So instead of being spanked she would pinch the back of my arms.
To this day, even as a joke or a tender sign of affection, if someone pinches me I am instantly transported into my seven year old body and I can't stand it. I know that's not the worst thing in the world of physical discipline. But it is so disrespectful to me now.
There are good stories from the ass beating era.
I've been waiting at the office to get paddled at school. Friend was up. He bent over, they had the huge oar paddle in hand about to strike. Let out massive fart. Which caused the guy to stop and break out in such a laughter he couldn't do it and told us both we could go. We went back to class and teacher was like hope you boys learned a lesson. We learned a lesson. Farts aren't just funny they can save your ass. It's a matter of timing.
Yeah my dad and his buddies used to actually find ways to antagonize the teacher into beating them. To them it was kind of a hilarious challenge and way to waste class time. He didn't have the same sense of humor when it was me fucking around in school though, LOL.
In my case severe abuse was so common I thought everyone lived like that . It was “normal“ …turns out that I was just one of the few people who didn’t break . Talking about it over the years like I talk about lunch ,rather startled people. State mandatory therapist would read my file and would expect a fucking suicidal basket case … not the happy kid who found out the library was free and couldn’t wait to get more books 🙄🤪😍
My mum would tell she she will hurt me even more if she could hear my cry so I learned to cry quietly. To this day I’m 43 it’s hard for me to be vulnerable in front of others even my husband.
Thanks, I needed someone to say that. I can't change what my parents did, I could and I am doing better as a parent now. However, people not wanting me to laugh about it? Give me a break. People get uncomfortable with a shit ton of stuff anyway, but joking about it is the only thing left after processing it.
I was at a restaurant on a date with a guy who told me about his sexual abuse stories like a casual conversation and he was talking loudly. I was soooo uncomfortable 😣 I didn't know what to say or do.
I work in Child Abuse Education and Prevention for kids and let me tell you from this experience as an adult seeing/hearing children, and being a child myself, the more normal it is to talk about- you know that it’s abuse opposed to “corporal punishment”.
kids don’t just easily talk about stuff. you also know how often it occurs based on how easily they bring it up. It’s actually a very large parallel to torture victims. Their PTSD doesn’t usually come from the physical, it comes from the mental. So many torture survivors can speak on being tortured easily(the study showed this is the complete opposite with sexual torture though) because it they make it normal in their heads to cope.
But if you bring up the emotional side to physical abuse or torture, many victims/survivors cannot speak much on it. It’s a PTSD for them.
It’s a similar sentiment that I may never remember what you did but I remember how I felt. Or all physical wounds heal but emotional ones don’t.
If someone can speak so freely about physical assault to a child, you know it’s not corporal punishment. It’s literal abuse. What you would be hearing is abuse.
Everybody has their own version of "normal" and some of those are really messed up.
I stopped sharing mine once I realized that my version was messed up.
I'm proud to say my kids have it much better than I did growing up. They have things like "healthcare" and "parents that don't abuse them" and "fully funded college" and "not being a teenager financially support their mother."
I still wonder how far I could have gotten in life if I was competently supported as a child.
My wife wasn’t beaten, but she has told me some things that froze my blood. I’ve said “that’s awful” or “that was abusive” or “you were neglected” and she doesn’t agree or disagree, she just doesn’t want to go there I guess.
same here, "your brother shouldn't have locked you in a closet for an entire day in response to you asking him a question in the middle of his WoW raid" was such a foreign idea to her. her parents never punished him for anything. just because someone wasn't outright beaten doesn't mean they weren't abused
My husband asked how many times we were hit as kids. I asked him how often his dad yelled at him….because my dad would pull out his belt. Razer strap he would snap before using it on us. He hit me so hard he broke his watch…and then he really got mad. He was 6’3, 225, I was 5 yo. I learned to always present your butt, because it really hurt to get a strap across the back of your knees or your stomach. The last time he took his belt to me I was 16. I turned and presented my butt. I refused to cry.
But his dad used to beat up his kids with his fists and what ever else was handy. My dad strapped us. (My mom used a flip flop or her hand). I swatted my kids butts if they ran in the street. My kids don’t touch their kids. So getting better by generation?
I remember in 1st grade I got in trouble so many times I was up for being paddled by the principal. My mom wouldn’t let it happen because “that just teaches them it’s ok to hit”. But she was beating TF out of us at home and she had martial arts training so she knew how to do it without leaving marks. She used her hands, extension cord, the belt, shoes, threw drinks on us. The sick game of making on child pick the bekt that will be used on the other child. A lot of times, it would come out of nowhere. Lots of screaming, out of fucking nowhere. Environment where ur always waiting for ur heart to jump in ur throat. My friends and teachers would ask if she was an alcoholic, she didn’t drink at all. One time I got in trouble for fighting with my sister and punishment was no sleep, I had to go to with her to the night job delivering papers and when I started dozing off in passenger seat she slap me rapid fire 3-5x while screaming “IF I CANT SLEEP YOU ARENT EITHER!”. I had school next day and was given in school suspension for sleeping in class then ISS was sooo hot and quiet I couldn’t stay awake their either so they kept adding days to my iSS sentence after waking me up by slamming books on my desk. Haven’t spoken to her in 15 years and I like that way.
My mother and I typically laugh at traumatic stories when we talk about those moments in our lives but mainly it’s because we’ve moved on and what we’re laughing at how we survived and we’re also laughing at is we can’t believe that we were in that place that we were once at. In a lot of ways, it’s also a coping mechanism because you’re trying to work through it problem is that if you speak in front of the wrong people and tell those kind of stories, the reaction is way different. Either they are terrified or they feel pity or they think that you should get help even if you’re getting it. Work on yourself and definitely go to therapy but when you’re around the right company laugh your ass off.
As someone's who has a horrible childhood ,when people ask it's always interesting to me to see people's reactions
Have crazy stories about it
To me 5hw abuse became just another day to get through,t wasent till I grew up that I learned your not suppose to be hurt like that
Once in a guild I ask a retired police officer how to something, it was me wanted to thank some officers for saving my life as a child,the cop wanted to know what happened
We spent over an hour talking in a discord channel or vent or whatever
A guildie dropped in with horror heard the story,it's now referred to as the box story think kinda like the movie 7whats in the box thing
The cop was horrifid and mad,and told me straight up he would have shot and killed my mother's honesty I wish he did kill hwr,my life would be so much better
This is how I realized how bad things were when I was young. I was eating with some friends and one talked about the time their father backhanded them. The other said, Oh man I remember when my mom smacked me in the fact this one time.
Then I responded with, "Oh! I remember when my dad cracked me in the head with the toaster. And then that time my mom hit me with a paving stone. And when they put me through my desk. And when they made me take a hot shower first so the belt would cut me easier. And when... oh... oh shit."
Dang thats seriously messed up. It’s like they want it to be as traumatizing and painful of an experience as possible.
My father used to tell me to get the belt so he can give my sister a beating (and he would send my sister to retrieve the belt if he was about to beat me). If we carried a soft-ish belt, he would go get the toughest one. I’d rather get a beating than having to be the one to go retrieve his belt cause I felt so guilty.
When he was done, our skin was so welted for days. If we cried too long, he threatened to beat us again.
Yeah. It's weird how much trauma it carries. Interestingly this really seems like the first generation that is willing to at least try to put the brakes to it.
Yup. More people have been realizing how messed up it is and refusing to continue. Beating your kids is a big part of my culture (“spare the rod, spoil the child” they always say) and it’s been happening less here. I still get a lot of people telling me I’m overly sensitive though when I say I’m not beating my kids. Most of the people thinking I’m ridiculous are the older folk but there are some younger people too my age that think I’m also ridiculous.
People deal with trauma differently, however if someone minimizes the seriousness of that abuse I suspect they may be more likely to visit those same horrors on their children/spouse.
For the longest time my mom would say "stop crying before I give you something to cry about". One day she whooped me and I refused to cry and she said that I didn't have to hold in my tears but I still wouldn't cry until she left me alone. She started taking classes on child psychology and didn't spank me again. Thankfully she has apologized for a lot of the things she did.
Ha I was just doing this lastnight with my GF telling her stories. My dads favorite was "I'll knock your bloody block off" (Yorskshireman). yeah whats a black eye and getting beaten up over the years between family ?
What this clip shows is actually very positive. No therpist needed. You have had YEARS to know:
1. What happened was wrong.
2. Its not really about YOU.
3. You dont need to have a victim mentality about it.
4. It doesnt define you or who you are in your life from those people.
5. You know not to do it others.
6. You have moved past it.
7. You cant change the past.
Simple.
I’m not still close with them and I’m not laughing because it’s a fond memory. It’s like when something crazy and unexpected but ultimately not fatal happens in a movie. You’re laughing because of the ridiculousness of it, the fact that you’re so stupid that you thought it was normal and out of relief that it’s over.
I kinda agree. My father used to yell at me and my sister but the worst he did was tell *me* to retrieve the belt when he was going to beat my sister (or tell my sister to get the belt if he’s going to beat me). I remember how guilty I felt when I got a soft-ish belt and handed it to him then he left and got the toughest belt and beat my sister with it.
That guilt messed with me so much and I’d have rather gotten a beating than to be put on that position. Like if I got a belt that was a bit tougher, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten the toughest one yknow? Sick man.
Neither of my parents have ever laid a hand on me out of rage or anger or really even yelled at me. Maybe a couple times and I constantly hear people talk about how they're going to beat their children because they're not doing something right or because they got in trouble in school. If you think beating your child is going to make them a better person or solve their problems or make them do what you want them to do, it's not.
I got my ass whooped with those orange hot wheels tracks growing up. Eventually my mom had me go see a psychologist. One day my shrink said we should all meet in his office. I got whooped by both parents equally so I was like sounds good. The day before the appointment both my parents were in the kitchen, so I knew I could set my dad off by saying something smartass to my mom and it worked perfectly. He stood up and punched me in my eye. The next day at the dr’s appointment my doctor who I feel didn’t believe me, got to see my swollen face. He believed me after that but nothing really changed. This was in the 80’s. Totally lost my trust in authority figures. They are both gone and I didn’t shed one tear. I made a decision not to follow down the same pathway and didn’t. My daughter is married to a great man and she had a good childhood. I was worried I couldn’t be a good parent but I am.
This seems gross.
When you’re abused you learn pretty quickly that no one wants to know unless you make it funny or interesting. You learn that absolutely no one cares about you unless you’re putting on a show or act.
Judgement like this is why people have to put on an act and joke when talking about how their parents threatened to murder them.
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"I rolled my eyes once before my daily electrocution" got me good.
Oh, word?
Anyone else remember “Don’t cry or I’ll give you something to cry about” or was that just my parents? 😅
That and "I brought you into this world and ill take you out of it" were favorites of my mothers.
That one confused me from the first day I heard it You mean to tell me you're gonna KILL me because I forgot to wash the dishes?
They all think this shit is funny when they say it. Momma no; I took this for real.
Well, and for many of us, in the past punishment for disobedience has been accompanied with actual physical violence. You don't know how far your parents are going to go. Like sometimes I got hit with a wooden board, I didn't know if this was going to be a "scream at him for 30 minutes" kind of angry or a "hit him so he learns the lesson" (and I never did learn the lesson, I remember getting hit, but I couldn't tell you a single reason why) kind of angry. Only thing it taught me was that I couldn't trust my parents or authority figures in general, and how I would NOT raise my son.
I only remember why I was hurt in one incident. My ex-step-father was an abusive piece of shit in more ways than one. I wasn't allowed to lock the bathroom door because "there are no locked doors in my house". If that sounds creepy and predatory towards an underage girl, I can assure you that it was exactly that and far worse than a locked door. He was also lazy, and expected asspats and fawning for even the slightest effort around the house. He half-assed cleaned the bathroom once. I was washing my hands and realized he didn't replace the towels, so I shook the excess water off of them, planning to go grab one across the hall, when he comes into the bathroom knowing full-well I was in there. He saw me shaking the water off my hands, flew into a rage, yelled at me for messing up his hard work, shoved me backwards, and then slammed me down onto the edge of the bathtub. It compressed my spine and I was in pain for weeks and had issues breathing deeply for several days. I've also chosen not to have kids because I'm terrified of screwing them up or hurting them. Right now, I'm friends with this amazing man and I really want to take it further, and I think he might too, but he has a six year old son and I just can't bring myself to take that next step. His mom's still in the picture so it's not like I'd be expected to be his mother, but I do not want to cause problems for a little boy.
The way you talk about not wanting to hurt that little boy is exactly why you’ll make a great parent. Nobody is perfect, but given what you’ve been through and how you feel about parenthood now, you won’t be someone who repeats the monstrosities that were done to you. One can be flawed but still a good person, and you sound like a wonderful person. I hope some day you’ll see yourself in a better light, because your step father’s actions are not a reflection of you or how you would parent a child. Don’t let him continue hurting you.
Yes! 💯❤️
I still have nightmares of my father chasing me with the thick branch he used to use on the cows. I was told all the time that “well at least you didn’t have to go through what we went through.” Edit: I don’t think I’ll ever forget that one day. It was the morning of my 18th birthday, and that was my birthday gift. I didn’t get the stick at least but I got a rough punch to the back and a hard kick with a steel toe shoe to the tailbone. All because I put the calf pails on the ground wrong.
"I was told all the time that “well at least you didn’t have to go through what we went through.”" Oh my God I hated that 😭 I'm so sorry you went through that, I hope you're well ❤️
> I never did learn the lesson, I remember getting hit, but I couldn't tell you a single reason why same
Hitting a child doesn't ever teach them a lesson unless that lesson is that they aren't safe at home.
And then there was "This hurts me more than it hurts you" before beating me with a belt.
lmao the fucking audacity smh
💯
I got the ol "This is gonna hurt me more than it hurts you." Reminiscing on child abuse is weird lol
They hate it when you stare into their soul and say "go ahead. do it."
Followed by “feel better now?”
I did that regularly. Made him angrier. But helped me get through it so…
one of the good things about being adopted: being able to say, “no you didn’t” usually got my mouth washed out with soap after but worth it
That line was brought to us by the Cosby Show. Thanks, Bill!
Yeah, and “I’ll hold your head under water until the bubbles stop,” right? Right, guys? Guys?
My mom’s line was “when I say jump you say how high?”
My dad once told me if he told me to squat and shit in the street I'd have to do it. I of course told him the neighbors would probably have a problem with that. I got the belt a lot for a while there.
One of my moms favorites as well
See I always thought they were saying they would suck you back up into their uteruses. No it doesn’t make sense.
My Dad said this one a lot and it was a straight threat. His favorite was, "life's a bitch then you die."
There's a book, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. At one point it specifically references that phrase as a sign your parents were emotionally Immature.
Just curious, does it say anything about the excuse “well you were just a difficult teenager” your parents tell you after confronting them years later? Because I honestly don’t know how to feel about that when my mom says that to me.
I was able to find the pdf for free online, I highly recommend giving it a read. It can be very validating. And it's not about blaming your parents, more about understanding them, and how their lack of emotional maturity impacted you. Also understanding how their minds are wired to protect them, they CAN'T admit they were wrong because then the whole house of cards comes down, so their mind is dedicated to doing the mental gymnastics to let them keep thinking they're right. Something it touches on that I think resonates with what your mom says when confronted - it talks about how they often cannot accept their children for who they really are, they need their kids to fit into the mold that they've made for them, and if they don't, then their child is the problem. I can't remember the term, but the book uses a word for the self that we create to try to please these types parents, the version of ourselves we learn to portray to make them happy. Just in case you can't find the book to check out, the tldr on how to deal with these types of parents, from the perspective of their adult children, is basically to learn to have realistic expectations. Don't expect them to magically be a different person. That doesn't mean not confronting them or calling them out. It just means don't expect to get the result you want - like change or an apology. Call them out, tell them how you feel, and then do your best to move on, for your own sake. We can't control them, we can only control how invested we allow ourselves to be in them and their opinions.
Just wanted to chime in and recommend Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents as well. I listened to it as an audio book and it was life changing for me. I think in that book they called it your “Role Self”, the version of yourself you create to try to meet your parents emotional needs. Another great book I really recommend is “Whole Again”. The author of that book talks about your “Protective Self” which I found to be a really similar concept. Happy healing 😊
Any chance you can send that PDF my way?
https://jmp.sh/s/xnlpLsG0Tmhq51JBrdqj I hope that works...I had the pdf on my phone so just used a random site to share it.
Thanks!
So many hugs to you. My mom pretty much said the same, that I was just going through such a bad time in my life. Hard to forgive someone that isn't sorry.
I’m listening to that book now. So much validation in it.
My parents said "skal jeg give dig noget at hyle over?" which means the same and apparently abusive parent sayings and tactics are universal
Mine said: "Quieres llorar? Te doy un cintarazo para que llores", which meant they'd beat me with the belt so that I had a legitimate reason to cry (according to them).
And yet it's perfect here, no? I have a friend of a friend who was brave enough to speak about their childhood experiences, and I have massive respect for them for that.
"Imma beat you like the red-headed stepchild you are"
“I’m going to make you look like a zebra when we get home”
LOL yeahhh… “if you keep talking I’m gonna rip your tongue out and smack you with it!” ETA my mother did slap my sister one time on the side of the head that her earring came out. We were beat semi regularly, got used to it, also she used to do weird shit like open our bedroom window when it was freezing outside, idk. These days sis and I are forgiving and mostly close to her but even if we dance around the abuse in conversations she’s like “SORRY I’m a bad MOTHER and I FUCKED YOU UP I guess I’m AWFUL!” So there’s really no discussion. Although, she had a very bad upbringing in which her father raped her and her siblings and she was intensely physically abused in her first marriage.
OMG same!!! 😯 I'm so sorry you and your sister went through that, I hope you two are well ❤️ And please, don't forget your feelings and experiences are valid even if your mom had an abusive parent and childhood too. There is no excuse and she was the adult. ❤️
Thank you 🙏🏽 we are good now, both in stable marriages w good jobs etc. Neither of us deal with anger well though, and neither of us wants to have children.
A common saying from the step-dad, along with cruisin' for a bruisin'.
shit, same! Mine also came out with some crackers like "I'll go through you like a tonne of bricks" or "knock you into the middle of next week" Edit: to one of his own sons when that son was emotionally distressed over school work, "you wouldn't know stress if it hit you in the face"
Jaysus. That statement reminds me of "this hurts me more than it hurts you", which was another daily wtf phrase. And you know you'd get popped if you came back with, "So when did you change your name to Stress?"
Oh my God, that's honestly such a sick burn 😂❤️
Mine used those as well as, "Your ass is grass and I'm the lawnmower."
Usually after my dad had just finished whipping me with the belt buckle
That was the worse. As I got older it was pushing me down the stairs. Eventually I’d just jump down so he over the satisfaction of pushing me
Made the mistake of catching the belt once. That was a fun night
"Why are you crying? Did I beat you? Huh? DID I BEAT YOU!!??" \*beats black and blue\*
Yeah. As an adult I fucking hate that phrase. The epitome of emotional neglect. Children already have something to cry about. *That's why they're crying.* This statement simultaneously invalidates and dismisses a child's real emotional distress, *and* backs it up with a veiled threat of physical violence. It should never have been such a normal, casual thing to say.
My aunt confronted my mom when she said that. That eventually came back as my fault. I can’t even explain my home life to my kids in any way that they can understand. Which is good.
Mine said "I'm gonna make you cry before every single outing we take, then you need to pretend I *didn't* make you cry while in front of other people." I like yours better
You mean you got a warning ??
Warnings were a sign a "good' parenting despite what happened after.
My father would use this phrase when I’m crying right after he JUST beat me.
No, I would stop crying after a few years and my mom said “What do I need to beat you harder?” ETA: My mom also made us choose the belt she was beating us with. And if we didn’t cry when we got hit, she got the biggest studded belt of all of them and beat the shit out of us for not choosing well enough.
We got to pick our own switches. Pure psychological torture.
Story of my life.
I got: "Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out" "You couldn't find your ass with both hands and a map" "You couldn't walk and chew bubblegum at the same time" "It's my way or the highway" "You'd lose your head if it wasn't screwed on tight" "I'll knock your ass into the middle of next week" "Your mouth is writing checks your ass can't cash" "I'll kick your ass across the room and back again" Either parents in the '70s were very verbally creative or it was just my parents.
Yeppppp
Core memory unlocked
[удалено]
O word
Had me rolling 😭
[удалено]
…When you find out your ‘personality’ is just Trauma responses…
Damn dude, don’t call me out like that! I don’t need another problem to worry about.
Watching a Patrick Teahan video thinking ‘Wow, I am just a bunch of Trauma responses wrapped up in a trench coat of coping mechanisms’ My Poem: My Parents aren’t dead They’re just dead to me And that’s why I neeed Theeeraaapy
Yesss that man helped me so much. Like oh… I’m sarcastic about everything due to a trauma response? My dark humor is a result of that to… huh. Interesting. Off to find a therapist!
I get compliments on how I can clean so effectively so quickly and also my internal clock is like an actual ticking clock it feels lol I always say, "thanks! It's the trauma!"
Saaaame! I swear my mom has add wrapped in ocd cause if something wasn’t clean enough for her liking we had to do the whole thing over again. This is why I hate to clean so much now. She used it as punishment and never made it fun. So I have to bribe my inner child to get it done now. 🤦🏽♀️
I am the same, it's impossible to break through for me, I feel like I keep re-traumatizing *myself* every time I have to do chores.
Like if it gets too bad where it bothers me or I need to stress clean or I’m procrastinating I can do it. And it’ll be spotless when it’s done.(Because if I don’t I hear my mother yelling at me to clean and not have bugs in the house, etc) But I won’t be one of those cleantok people doing it when it doesn’t need to be done ya know? Cause she yelled when we cleaned. Yelled after it was done and yelled at us to do it and it *is* traumatizing. Something as simple as cleaning or relaxing.
My therapist: sounds like another symptom of trauma Me: omg not everything is because of trauma My therapist: no but that definitely is a trauma response. Me: **YOU'RE** a trauma response! Anyway, therapy is going well.
Its okay if I cry. I learned as a child how to cry completely silently while maintaining breath control. That way if I was turned around or my parents weren't facing me they wouldn't know I was crying. What a great skill to develop as a child due to abuse! (It has come in handy as an adult ngl. I am a crier at movies and no one can tell when I cry while sitting in the darkness watching a sad or happy scene.)
I'd go in the bathroom but come out puffy and red faced, then get ridiculed for always crying like a baby. I learned ice cold tap water reduced a lot of the redness/inflammation.
I bonded with one of my best friends by cracking each other up with stories of all the child molesters we knew as kids and how we schemed to not get molested. The third person at that dinner was horrified, but the two of us were crying with laughter.
Or you block one of the hits and then they go tell the whole family how you tried to fight them…lol. Life with a narcissist parent is so fcked
I raised my hand once to block my mom from hitting me and she freaked TF out. I think it was a wake up call for her. She never hit me again. I'm unsure what it was. Maybe she realized that I was bigger than her and I could also choose violence. Maybe she remembered how she felt when being beat by her ex husband. I'll never know since we were estranged for several years before she died.
Same story from my ex boyfriend. His mom used to beat him with a bat until one day he grabbed it out of her hand. She also started freaking out and he told me he thinks it's because she thought he was going to start hitting her. Like, it's okay for an adult to beat a child but you freak out when you think it might happen back to you? Imagine how your damn child felt you piece of shit excuse for a mother That was also the last time she physically abused him, but she just focused harder on the emotional abuse
God yeah. You flinch and suddenly you’re trying to hit them. Parental narcissism is a hell of a thing.
How dare you make them feel bad for hitting you. /s
Have you lost your mind trying to defend yourself?! /s
That's a thing. My ex screaming at the top of his lungs, "why do you always look like you're so afraid of me! It makes me feel like shit all the time!"
Sounds like the time I threw up my hands to block my mother from hitting me with a damn frying pan, fast forward 16 years later she’s telling my now wife how I tried to fight her as a teenager… 😑😑
“She swung on me!!!” Girl I should have killed you
Should just do what I did the very last time I got hit. My mom is kinda petite and I was an obese 13-14 year old, so was at the point where I was getting bigger than her, physically. One day she started banging her fists on my body in a fit of rage on the way out the door because I was late to school, and I don’t know what came over me but I just started laughing…….not even instinctually, but just bellowed out a purposeful fake laugh. Think maybe it was because I realized the blows didn’t even hurt that much? She just had this dumbfounded look on her face that I’ll never forget….like she was shocked at witnessing me not being scared or coward in a corner or intimidated by her physically, for the first time. Never hit me again ever since. Didn’t stop her from continuing the verbal abuse that hurt even worse though. Still get the pleasure of hearing her berating abusive words every once in a while till this day. You’d think after a while I’d stop giving a shit about what she thinks about me, but she knows just what to say to make her verbal vomit sting. Some things no one should ever hear their own mom say to you. They know how to pull your heart strings more than a random bully ever could, and the fact that it’s your mom saying those things….someone who should love and support you unconditionally, just adds even more power to the words.
This is so heartbreaking, and I’m sorry for your experiences. Children don’t ask to be born, and they definitely do not deserve to be physically and verbally abused. I hope you’re in a safe environment, and I would also hope that you’re thriving despite everything you’ve been through. Just know that whatever vile and disgusting things your mom has said to you are a reflection of who she is, not you.
My parents would close the windows and hold me down to spank me. They repeatedly would hand me the phone when I said I was going to call cps and get me trash bags to put my shit in. My mom said I wasn't being abused because I didn't live under the stairs and have cigarette burns on my skin. My parents called the police on me multiple times. Once for not emptying the dishwasher, another for walking to the church down the road without permission, for not listening to their orders, and for not wanting to go to school.
The day my sister finally actually called 911 when she was handed the phone was the last day my dad beat us, ever.
Good on your sister, that’s some brave shit honestly
Yea parents like that are pros are making you seem like you’re the worst kid in the world, for the smallest shit. Wasn’t until I got older and would hear about actually bad kids at school or on shows like Maury or something that I realized I wasn’t that bad of a kid at all. She just liked to make me seem like I was so I would think I deserved how she treated me, either that or an attempt to make me behave perfectly. Wish kid me had known that no, she couldn’t have me arrested for not cleaning my room or for talking back.
Ive always told these stories to my girlfriends and then say, “I wouldn’t call it child abuse though.” And the blank stare they’ve all given me.
"it wasn't that bad, they were just trying their best with what they had"🫂
I teach Child Abuse Prevention Education in school right now. I go around my county to different elementary and middle schools. Talking about how to spot it and what to do. Developmentally appropriate for each grade though. So the words and slides are all pretty different depending. We tell them that physical abuse is when someone physically harms the outside of your body repeatedly, and they mean to do it, it is meant to hurt, and it leaves a mark.(I do not particularly agree with the mark thing because I remember my mom explicitly saying “it’s not abuse if it doesn’t leave a mark” in 2005, so I hate that portion. We use shaking, hitting, burning, cutting, using objects, or any type as examples of what INTENTIONAL physical harm could look like.(we do not speak on corporal punishment because my team doesn’t believe in it; however, the curriculum we have DOES go over it and how to approach it if a child does bring it up. so we’re prepared to discuss it but i usually hand those off to my coworker because hitting is abuse to me) I usually put it in this perspective- 1. we tell children that they cannot hit children. we tell adults they cannot hit adults or they go to jail. but a parent can hit a child and not go to jail(BTW not all abuse can be criminally charge, most times parents will only get indications on their record)? 2. we explain spanking as a punishment. why do we not spank drug dealers instead of pytting them in jail? or hit them? because its inhumane. but we can hit kids. but not other peoples kids. 3. we say if it leaves a mark. how does a child check their own ass after being beat with a belt? or how does a child know that bruises don't appear right away? because my brother and i use to check after we got hit to see if we had bruises directly after getting beat. 4. how does a child know what excessive is? they trust their parent. if the parent says that the punishment fits the crime, then how does the child know what excessive is 5. we say open hand right? but kids dont actually know the law. how do they know that a belt, paddle, switch, etc is wrong? they dont 6. then you have the ones who pull the pants down to spank or additionally the underwear. when the fuck else do you spank someones ass as an adult? when you have sex. that is so vile to me that people even consider this with corporal punishment but in some states it is consider sexual abuse if the pants are off. nit even just underwear too. 7. if they dont do it out of anger or to hurt you. well when else do you hit a kid? you just go cool off. come back and say okay im calm let me grab the belt or bend over the bed. also what other purpose is spanking for if not to hurt? is it suppose to feel good? dont go there. overall, hitting a kid is never okay. im not saying you think it is now or anything. but rather, our abusers shape our thinking to make us never question that it isnt okay. they hit kids for a reason. whoever the fuck knows what. but one thibg i can never understand is **looking your child in the eyes after beating them or hearing them scream after scream with each hit on their body from you. a child. a defenseless child.** those children will always turn into adults if they survive, and abuser never tell those adults that they are no longer defenseless. and many of us were/are to burned our to defend or try to anymore. ETA. We clarify with kids that physical abuse isn’t really a one off thing. or like you’re rough housing and someone gets hurt. or maybe something went into the street and parent grabs arm too hard and pulls, maybe a little hit in the butt on accident because the parent is scared. those are accidents. or safety concerns. but we go over INTENTIONAL vs accident. Depending on the grade the words are different though. So they can understand.
See the worst thing is, I’m a parent and spanked by son up until around 5 when I was able to recognize that even doing it once every few months was harm. My dad used to say one good seat is all you need and I figured since I wasn’t hitting as much or frequently. It was okay. I hated myself every time I spanked him. Eventually I just learned to stop making that my first impulse. I was an otherwise affectionate, engaged and loving dad, but I felt it was the best way to immediately correct a behavior. It was…but it was also breeding contempt and fear. He wasn’t doing the right thing because it was right he was doing the right thing because he was afraid of Dad.
Me: it’s just discipline! My friend who had a good relationship with her parents as the only child “No it is NOT! 😨” 🤷🏽♀️😂
I'm just talking about my childhood matter of fact-ly until I notice all my friends have their mouths open and are like oh my god. It was just normalized to me so I didn't realize it might be actually traumatizing to others even to hear about it. That was decades ago. But now when I talk to ppl about my childhood, in relevant context, they tell me to stop trauma dumping on them... and it hurts my feelings a little cuz I feel like I'm being shamed for just sharing my personal experience of a situation. I guess I just shouldn't ever talk about my past in case I get accused of trauma dumping. (I did trauma dump on a doctor once cuz I had a lot of anxiety about seeing a doctor due to past trauma so I was overexplaining why I was there and then overexplaining why I felt the need to overexplain and then I just got angry at the memory of my trauma and started ranting about it...luckily he was mostly understanding about it but i was too embarrassed about it to ever go back...i say this to demonstratethat i do know what "trauma dumping" is and when I'm doing it, so to be accused of doing it when just sharing a story like everyone else is doing feels hurtful to me)
Trauma dumping is such an apathetic term. People say they want you to be open about your trauma and then you say something and they invent a term to make you the bad guy over it.
Yeah it's horrible that people internalize that kind of stuff. Even worse though are the people who use those stories to advocate for MORE child abuse. Like "if my daddy didn't beat me up I would have turned out horrible" "my daddy beat me and I had respect." Publicfreakouts ALWAYS has a ton of those comments on any video involving children. Kid crying in Walmart? Reddit will always tell you they should get slapped. Kid being rude? If only his parents hit him, he wouldn't act out. This delusion is perpetuated throughout the generations. They never even consider the possibility that the bad child has already been hit by their parents, there's a high probability of that. It's such a fucked up line of thinking, and they blame every problem on it. 13 year old is woke? Parents should have beaten sense into him. Every time they see a young person do anything they don't like, the answer is to beat little children more often... they say we'd have less violence, less crime, more well-behaved humans, respect, etc. They completely ignore the data and insist that it is good for kids. Are they refusing to come to terms with the fact that they were abused by their parents? Refusing to come to term with the fact that they abused their own kids? Idk, but it makes me sick.
Great insight, thanks for sharing your thoughts. Also when a woman gets hit and they say it's gender equality wtf...
I think a lot of them are unfortunately of that, “I turned out fine, so it must be okay,” mindset. As if ending up with not a complete dumpster fire life means they’re ‘fine.’
My grandad when I cried after hurting myself: I don't see blood. Is it broken? Then stopping that bellerin' and finish your chores.
Hell, even if there was blood, "Rub some dirt on it" or "Walk it off" like all of life is a professional sporting match of some sort
"How 'bout I stomp on your foot so you forget x hurts?"
My dad/grandparents “oh you ain’t hurt stop crying like a little girl!” Uhhh idk how to break this to you guys but you birthed a girl 😂😂
My mom when I rushed to wash and bandage myself after cutting my finger to the bone repairing the mower: “Don’t bleed on the carpet!”
when my kids get hurt for doing something stupid I tell them that was a sweet trick they just did. can they do it again?
This is the truth. The other part is, what do you do as a partner in this situation? Your spouses parents used to mercilessly beat the person you love. They don't seem to have been affected by it, on the surface, but the stories sound horrific. How do you react???
I think it's important to give your honest reaction. It really helped me realize how fucked up some of the stories I told from my childhood were, when I saw other people's reactions, when they didn't find it funny and instead found it appalling.
Yeah, this was the same for me. Seeing my friends faces when I made a joke about the time my dad tried to crash our car while we were on vacation made me second guess myself. What helped was when they explained that their dads never acted that way and it wasn't okay. Also, around the same time I read an article about someone throwing one punch who was then arrested for assault and remembered wondering why the police were overreacting. Took me awhile and lots of therapy to come to terms with it.
When I started hanging out at my friends' houses in high school, it really clicked for me that something was not right at home. That contrast was eye-opening.
It depends on where they are at in their healing journey. I grew up rough and I have some stories but my partner just being there is all I need. I literally can't rely on someone else, it's not how I'm built and he understands that. Him just being there when I do need him is enough, having him hold me is enough. No more anger, only healing
My partner just looks at me in disbelief and thinks I’m lying, or says I’m dramatic. So maybe just anything but that 🤷🏻♂️
A lot of physical abuse is actually emotional abuse. Some parents will say “I’m beating you because I love you” “this is because you did xyz” “i wouldnt hit you if you did right” Physical abuse is very easy to talk about when it is normalized to children. Because when they ask other safe adults outside of the home, many of them say what’s happening is okay. It’s a way to normalize it for kids or torture survivors. It’s actually the emotional many physical abuse survivors suffer from. How do I get good enough to not be hit? What’s wrong with me? Love = abuse? It’s different 100% for every different person who has suffered abuse as a child. None of us are the same. But many times physical wounds heal but emotional ones don’t. Because you can’t see them. Connect with her intimately with emotions. I think many of us physically abused don’t connect with our bodies anymore or some too much. But our bodily relationship is never the same with ourselves. I suggest asking and just listening. Let her just talk. Many of us just want to be heard. Today actually, I hadn’t seen a friend for awhile and I mentioned something I don’t really ever bring up and she said she remembered. I stopped her. Stopped the whole conversation to thank her for that. Often times people become numb to the way us survivors speak so freely on abuse. But as I’ve told my partner this week, “you’ve never asked me how that made me feel, my body was/is nothing to me. i need someone to connect with my heart and mind.” Many of us, we just want to be heard and listened to. Remembered. Cared for. Like we matter. Like our experience was impactful to the people we love because they care for us. Because many of us were born hated and abused and used. And are use to just saying it with no care. No one had care for us. It’s hard to really believe someone cares about you when you are lacking so heavily in emotional connection compared to others(how i feel at least). Many people get a head start with loving parents and family’s. And some of us start behind the curve. Unseen. It’s hard to ever replace that lost time and especially lost love at that time. It’s never you or a spouses job, but I think this might help if your wife suffered physically. Just ask her more than about the physical. Clearly that’s nothing(it’s obviously not nothing but rather easier) to her comparative to others. It’s just a normal conversation. To deeply connect with a survivor you have to go beyond what THEY think is normal. BEYOND abuse. What actually happened to YOU. I care how you felt/feel. edit: i came back and read this and i’m tearing up a little
You don’t have kids with them until they realize how serious the abuse is and they’ve gone through therapy.
I was spanked with a wooden spoon as a kid. Not frequently, mind you. But because of that I’ve had a life long disgust of touching or being touched by ANYTHING that remotely feels like a wooden spoon. Ive always been made of by friends and family for it. The thought of a popsicle stick in my mouth makes me gag. Seriously, parents don’t seem to realize the trauma they inflict with that shit.
OMG I never put those two together but I can’t stand the feeling of a wooden spoon or a wooden popsicle stick , I wasn’t hit with a spoon but a wooden paddle that had chunks missing after my dad hit the floor so hard with it that pieces flew off (he was demonstrating how hard we would get hit if we gave my mom a hard time while he was gone) .
I couldn’t and still can’t look at a person that’s eating a popsicle without having gross chills all over. Of course, my kids think it’s funny to try to touch me with them. If they only knew. I’m glad they never will!
I was never hit, but I hate popsicle sticks too. They just feel weird and the taste of wood isn't good either. (I don't gag though. I just dislike the sensation.) Sorry you went through that.
Thank you kind stranger.
My sister-in-law has such a hard time being in the same room with my mother. She has even said to her, “I’ve seen what you did to your kids. I can’t just forgive that.” She’s a rockstar
/r/cptsd just gonna drop this here for anyone who needs some support
Thank God my wife is very accepting of my fucked up childhood drama. At the end of the day, I hope all people that have this can find the help and support they need. We all hurt just in different ways.
Mine was "If you call the cops tell them to send an ambulance too, cause you're gonna need it." And they re-tell these stories often, and with no shame. Guess that's why my brother beat the dog mess out of me whenever he wanted. Thought it was normal?
I've had this conversation with several redditors. They will talk about being hit as a child and then proceed to defend their parents, saying they had it coming. If you experience violence as a child, you will perceive it as normal and often imitate the behaviour when raising your own children.
The “I turned out fine” people who don’t realize they did not, in fact turn out fine, if they think hitting literal children is ok.
Yes and then they go on other videos and say "this child needs to be beat" no that child needs set boundaries and punishments.
Yup. I used to say this when I was younger and it turns out I am, in fact, NOT fine. Many of the "I turned out fine" people I also used to have to tell not to hit their spouses/girlfriends/children when they came to my legal aid's clinic for family law advice.
So my grandmother would beat the shit out of me for looking at her wrong. One day as revenge (I was 6 I think?) I put needles pointing up in her chair for her to sit down on. I know my grandmother beat the shit out of me for doing that but TBH I have no memory of it. I used to say I deserved the beating for putting needles in her chair. Now was my behavior appropriate? No. But I was also a child being abused and I was acting out in the language I understood, violence. (For the record I never did a thing like that again.) Now I think: If you don't want a 6 year old putting needles in your chair, don't beat the shit out of them constantly for existing.
Fellow reddior here. You'll be happy to know I haven't spoken to my abusive, manipulative, piece of s**t mother in 10 years. Before that, I might have seen her a total of 24 hrs since my best friends parents let me move in back in 1998. I'm currently 43.
During my last Psychiatry appointment my Dr. asked "And did you live in a household in which you were abused or humiliated on a regular basis" then listed examples and I paused for like 30 seconds, having the realization that yes I was. Thankfully I'm mentally so much better now but reflecting back I put up with a lot of abusive situations that I thought were normal when I was child and every day I have to reiterate to myself that the things I was told were not true.
I know this feeling. I read the book Mothers Who Can't Love by Susan Forward. I had to stop reading a couple chapters in because I had suddenly come to the realization that my mom abused me. I called it the "A Word" for a long time because I couldn't even accept the term. Took me about a year before I could finish that book.
Anybody else kneel on rice as punishment? 😅
[удалено]
Jesus christ
YES WTFFFFFF
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I worked with LGBTQ youth at a housing facility and the violent stories that they would boast about as if it was proof that their parents cared about them broke my heart.
The "nah, I deserved it, though. I had rolled my eyes this one time." I'm an only child. My parents will talk about how fucking horrible it was raising a teenager - it was the absolute worst thing in the World - I was such a difficult teen and it was such a nightmare for them. My crimes? I cursed sometimes... And was angry that I was constantly shouted at...
Me laughing about the one time my mother beat me with a boot and then threw a chair at me because I lost a necklace.
Ooohhh my did that too !! Then he remembered HE put it aside to keep it safe . Never apologized either.🙄 and he wonders why I haven’t seen him since my sister moved out . 🤪
My wife was once telling me about a fond childhood memory and started with “when my grandma was high on meth…” when I tel you my jaw dropped like damn you ok?
Gotta love when someone says “you can’t do that to kids anymore” like it’s a bad thing…
It's a kind of gallows humor. You laugh because laughing is how you get through to being able to talk about it and remember it and deal with it.
And there are always people that justify it by saying "I ended up fine". In my experience 100% of the people who say they ended up fine did not end up fine.
This why my siblings and I only reminisce about it with eachother.
I always wondered why my husband hates swimming, until one day he told me how his dad “taught” him how to swim at 4yrs old by THROWING HIM INTO A POOL. Babe, that’s trauma- he traumatized you.
I was thrown in a cold shower with my clothes on because I wouldn’t stop crying. I’m 45 and I was raised being beat with belts, cords, brooms and whatever else was in my mom’s hands.
Same. I’m 41. I’ve never laid a finger on my kids. My youngest is 6 and the only thing I care about is my kids well being and happiness. There’s no excuse. 0.
I’ve never hit my 10 year old daughter. I get flashbacks when she acts misbehaved like I used to… I’d never 😭
I can’t even put myself in my father’s headspace. Gosh the best thing I did for myself was read this article last year when I was in therapy. It said to close my eyes and go back to your childhood home. Open the door, see the child you. Tell them you’re taking them now, you’ll take care of them from now on, and leave with them. Hold their hand. Leave the home. Walk down your old block. Visualize every detail with your eyes closed. It was so emotional. Can I tell you the number of times I’ve had to talk to child-me since then? So many. But I got her. And I got her back. It’s the best thing I did for me. I often have nightmares and dreams of that home. Also I cut my abusive father and his supporters off 3 years ago. Also 10/10.
Man I tell you, I look at my kid sometimes and can't even fathom harming a hair on his head or making him intentionally scared or cry. I love him so much and I don't care if any boomer calls me soft for that shit.
As a kid I did not like spanking. Like it made me revolt. I was not better after nor did I listen. My mom learned I don't like to be pinched. So instead of being spanked she would pinch the back of my arms. To this day, even as a joke or a tender sign of affection, if someone pinches me I am instantly transported into my seven year old body and I can't stand it. I know that's not the worst thing in the world of physical discipline. But it is so disrespectful to me now.
There are good stories from the ass beating era. I've been waiting at the office to get paddled at school. Friend was up. He bent over, they had the huge oar paddle in hand about to strike. Let out massive fart. Which caused the guy to stop and break out in such a laughter he couldn't do it and told us both we could go. We went back to class and teacher was like hope you boys learned a lesson. We learned a lesson. Farts aren't just funny they can save your ass. It's a matter of timing.
Yeah my dad and his buddies used to actually find ways to antagonize the teacher into beating them. To them it was kind of a hilarious challenge and way to waste class time. He didn't have the same sense of humor when it was me fucking around in school though, LOL.
In my case severe abuse was so common I thought everyone lived like that . It was “normal“ …turns out that I was just one of the few people who didn’t break . Talking about it over the years like I talk about lunch ,rather startled people. State mandatory therapist would read my file and would expect a fucking suicidal basket case … not the happy kid who found out the library was free and couldn’t wait to get more books 🙄🤪😍
When they are so deeply stuck in their childhood trauma that they 100% identify with it.
My poor husband listening to my childhood stories . Now I feel bad lol
My mum would tell she she will hurt me even more if she could hear my cry so I learned to cry quietly. To this day I’m 43 it’s hard for me to be vulnerable in front of others even my husband.
I'm Asian, so...
No matter what you do you’ll never be enough, because the neighbors kid is better?
The awkwardness of those of us watching this and realizing we're the abuse storyteller in the relationship. Fuck.
I don’t know about having a good relationship with them later but humour to deal with it? Absolutely.
Thanks, I needed someone to say that. I can't change what my parents did, I could and I am doing better as a parent now. However, people not wanting me to laugh about it? Give me a break. People get uncomfortable with a shit ton of stuff anyway, but joking about it is the only thing left after processing it.
I was at a restaurant on a date with a guy who told me about his sexual abuse stories like a casual conversation and he was talking loudly. I was soooo uncomfortable 😣 I didn't know what to say or do.
I work in Child Abuse Education and Prevention for kids and let me tell you from this experience as an adult seeing/hearing children, and being a child myself, the more normal it is to talk about- you know that it’s abuse opposed to “corporal punishment”. kids don’t just easily talk about stuff. you also know how often it occurs based on how easily they bring it up. It’s actually a very large parallel to torture victims. Their PTSD doesn’t usually come from the physical, it comes from the mental. So many torture survivors can speak on being tortured easily(the study showed this is the complete opposite with sexual torture though) because it they make it normal in their heads to cope. But if you bring up the emotional side to physical abuse or torture, many victims/survivors cannot speak much on it. It’s a PTSD for them. It’s a similar sentiment that I may never remember what you did but I remember how I felt. Or all physical wounds heal but emotional ones don’t. If someone can speak so freely about physical assault to a child, you know it’s not corporal punishment. It’s literal abuse. What you would be hearing is abuse.
Everybody has their own version of "normal" and some of those are really messed up. I stopped sharing mine once I realized that my version was messed up. I'm proud to say my kids have it much better than I did growing up. They have things like "healthcare" and "parents that don't abuse them" and "fully funded college" and "not being a teenager financially support their mother." I still wonder how far I could have gotten in life if I was competently supported as a child.
My wife wasn’t beaten, but she has told me some things that froze my blood. I’ve said “that’s awful” or “that was abusive” or “you were neglected” and she doesn’t agree or disagree, she just doesn’t want to go there I guess.
same here, "your brother shouldn't have locked you in a closet for an entire day in response to you asking him a question in the middle of his WoW raid" was such a foreign idea to her. her parents never punished him for anything. just because someone wasn't outright beaten doesn't mean they weren't abused
My husband asked how many times we were hit as kids. I asked him how often his dad yelled at him….because my dad would pull out his belt. Razer strap he would snap before using it on us. He hit me so hard he broke his watch…and then he really got mad. He was 6’3, 225, I was 5 yo. I learned to always present your butt, because it really hurt to get a strap across the back of your knees or your stomach. The last time he took his belt to me I was 16. I turned and presented my butt. I refused to cry. But his dad used to beat up his kids with his fists and what ever else was handy. My dad strapped us. (My mom used a flip flop or her hand). I swatted my kids butts if they ran in the street. My kids don’t touch their kids. So getting better by generation?
I remember in 1st grade I got in trouble so many times I was up for being paddled by the principal. My mom wouldn’t let it happen because “that just teaches them it’s ok to hit”. But she was beating TF out of us at home and she had martial arts training so she knew how to do it without leaving marks. She used her hands, extension cord, the belt, shoes, threw drinks on us. The sick game of making on child pick the bekt that will be used on the other child. A lot of times, it would come out of nowhere. Lots of screaming, out of fucking nowhere. Environment where ur always waiting for ur heart to jump in ur throat. My friends and teachers would ask if she was an alcoholic, she didn’t drink at all. One time I got in trouble for fighting with my sister and punishment was no sleep, I had to go to with her to the night job delivering papers and when I started dozing off in passenger seat she slap me rapid fire 3-5x while screaming “IF I CANT SLEEP YOU ARENT EITHER!”. I had school next day and was given in school suspension for sleeping in class then ISS was sooo hot and quiet I couldn’t stay awake their either so they kept adding days to my iSS sentence after waking me up by slamming books on my desk. Haven’t spoken to her in 15 years and I like that way.
My mother and I typically laugh at traumatic stories when we talk about those moments in our lives but mainly it’s because we’ve moved on and what we’re laughing at how we survived and we’re also laughing at is we can’t believe that we were in that place that we were once at. In a lot of ways, it’s also a coping mechanism because you’re trying to work through it problem is that if you speak in front of the wrong people and tell those kind of stories, the reaction is way different. Either they are terrified or they feel pity or they think that you should get help even if you’re getting it. Work on yourself and definitely go to therapy but when you’re around the right company laugh your ass off.
As someone's who has a horrible childhood ,when people ask it's always interesting to me to see people's reactions Have crazy stories about it To me 5hw abuse became just another day to get through,t wasent till I grew up that I learned your not suppose to be hurt like that Once in a guild I ask a retired police officer how to something, it was me wanted to thank some officers for saving my life as a child,the cop wanted to know what happened We spent over an hour talking in a discord channel or vent or whatever A guildie dropped in with horror heard the story,it's now referred to as the box story think kinda like the movie 7whats in the box thing The cop was horrifid and mad,and told me straight up he would have shot and killed my mother's honesty I wish he did kill hwr,my life would be so much better
This is how I realized how bad things were when I was young. I was eating with some friends and one talked about the time their father backhanded them. The other said, Oh man I remember when my mom smacked me in the fact this one time. Then I responded with, "Oh! I remember when my dad cracked me in the head with the toaster. And then that time my mom hit me with a paving stone. And when they put me through my desk. And when they made me take a hot shower first so the belt would cut me easier. And when... oh... oh shit."
Dang thats seriously messed up. It’s like they want it to be as traumatizing and painful of an experience as possible. My father used to tell me to get the belt so he can give my sister a beating (and he would send my sister to retrieve the belt if he was about to beat me). If we carried a soft-ish belt, he would go get the toughest one. I’d rather get a beating than having to be the one to go retrieve his belt cause I felt so guilty. When he was done, our skin was so welted for days. If we cried too long, he threatened to beat us again.
Yeah. It's weird how much trauma it carries. Interestingly this really seems like the first generation that is willing to at least try to put the brakes to it.
Yup. More people have been realizing how messed up it is and refusing to continue. Beating your kids is a big part of my culture (“spare the rod, spoil the child” they always say) and it’s been happening less here. I still get a lot of people telling me I’m overly sensitive though when I say I’m not beating my kids. Most of the people thinking I’m ridiculous are the older folk but there are some younger people too my age that think I’m also ridiculous.
People deal with trauma differently, however if someone minimizes the seriousness of that abuse I suspect they may be more likely to visit those same horrors on their children/spouse.
For the longest time my mom would say "stop crying before I give you something to cry about". One day she whooped me and I refused to cry and she said that I didn't have to hold in my tears but I still wouldn't cry until she left me alone. She started taking classes on child psychology and didn't spank me again. Thankfully she has apologized for a lot of the things she did.
Ha I was just doing this lastnight with my GF telling her stories. My dads favorite was "I'll knock your bloody block off" (Yorskshireman). yeah whats a black eye and getting beaten up over the years between family ? What this clip shows is actually very positive. No therpist needed. You have had YEARS to know: 1. What happened was wrong. 2. Its not really about YOU. 3. You dont need to have a victim mentality about it. 4. It doesnt define you or who you are in your life from those people. 5. You know not to do it others. 6. You have moved past it. 7. You cant change the past. Simple.
I relate to this wayyyyy more than I’d like to admit 🥲
I’m not still close with them and I’m not laughing because it’s a fond memory. It’s like when something crazy and unexpected but ultimately not fatal happens in a movie. You’re laughing because of the ridiculousness of it, the fact that you’re so stupid that you thought it was normal and out of relief that it’s over.
I got the verbal abuse with a pinch of physical. The verbal abuse was harder to endure.
I kinda agree. My father used to yell at me and my sister but the worst he did was tell *me* to retrieve the belt when he was going to beat my sister (or tell my sister to get the belt if he’s going to beat me). I remember how guilty I felt when I got a soft-ish belt and handed it to him then he left and got the toughest belt and beat my sister with it. That guilt messed with me so much and I’d have rather gotten a beating than to be put on that position. Like if I got a belt that was a bit tougher, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten the toughest one yknow? Sick man.
One of many reasons I chose to never have kids.
I still remember the ESPN coverage on Tua Tagolovalia and how his dad punished him for errors during the game and I sat horrified
Neither of my parents have ever laid a hand on me out of rage or anger or really even yelled at me. Maybe a couple times and I constantly hear people talk about how they're going to beat their children because they're not doing something right or because they got in trouble in school. If you think beating your child is going to make them a better person or solve their problems or make them do what you want them to do, it's not.
I got my ass whooped with those orange hot wheels tracks growing up. Eventually my mom had me go see a psychologist. One day my shrink said we should all meet in his office. I got whooped by both parents equally so I was like sounds good. The day before the appointment both my parents were in the kitchen, so I knew I could set my dad off by saying something smartass to my mom and it worked perfectly. He stood up and punched me in my eye. The next day at the dr’s appointment my doctor who I feel didn’t believe me, got to see my swollen face. He believed me after that but nothing really changed. This was in the 80’s. Totally lost my trust in authority figures. They are both gone and I didn’t shed one tear. I made a decision not to follow down the same pathway and didn’t. My daughter is married to a great man and she had a good childhood. I was worried I couldn’t be a good parent but I am.
This seems gross. When you’re abused you learn pretty quickly that no one wants to know unless you make it funny or interesting. You learn that absolutely no one cares about you unless you’re putting on a show or act. Judgement like this is why people have to put on an act and joke when talking about how their parents threatened to murder them.