I grew up with what I thought was a rough childhood. That was, until I started talking about the way my mom would treat me to a couple of friends and they gave me weird looks and said, "My mom doesn't treat me like that.."
I've gone through so much, what I believe, is gas lighting and just had so many shitty friends that I tend to get stuck in this rut of questioning myself. I currently see a therapist, I've been diagnosed with depression and C-PTSD, and I take medication for anxiety.
But for the past few weeks, I've been having bad nightmares; some about real events, some about how they made me feel and situation similar to real events.
When I was growing up, elementary school years, my mom was never emotionally present. Shit, she was barely physically present. We lived with her and she was pretty much either hiding in her room or somewhere else. During these years, she was a barely functioning alcoholic and an on-and-off drug user. Idk what drugs, but she had a lot of random people come over and party often; hiding in her room with her on and off. Sometimes forgetting to feed my brother and I. A lot of sex things went down. Random people in the living room once. But the worst was her having sex with this guy that she was dating at the time, hated the bastard, while they were high. He left the room to go to the bathroom, leaving the door wide open, to reveal my naked mother. Who proceeded to look at me, smirk, and slap her ass at me. I remember feeling so fucking weird?? I wasn't entirely pissed or sad, I just felt so so wrong. I locked myself in my room and didn't talk to them for the rest of the night; not that they noticed. I also had a hard time with relationships. I was only close to my grandpa, who on-and-off raised me. He was always emotionally there for me in my younger years. But that wasn't enough to teach a child social etiquette. I was very blunt and distant as a child. I still smiled and played with kids occasionally but I would often be cold and quick to dismiss them if they annoyed or disagreed with me. But it was much, much worse with teachers. I wouldn't look them in the eyes, I wouldn't respond to them, I wouldn't do anything. Not in the, 'this is a shy kid' way, but in a, 'this child literally doesn't seem to notice me' way. The teachers thought I may have been deaf. Trips to the doctor proved that I wasn't. Next, they assumed I may have been on the autistic spectrum. Tests later, I wasn't. The pretty much wrapped it up by saying, "She just lacks confidence." Which...wasn't entirely true, considering I got into fist fights with kids over not believing in dragons Lol. I think it was from the neglect.
Smashed cut to a few years later, my mom has two more kids. They're 10-13 years apart from myself. I'm in middle school around this time and this is where things start to go south for me. My mom decided she wants to go to school to get a degree. She'll be doing it online so she can stay at home with the kids and not worry about a baby sitter. Long story short, we supported her decision and she signed up. Her first math class. Fuck, do I remember how panicked and angry she was over failing the test. I remember her muttering to herself over it and I asked her what was wrong. She immediately lashed out at me and told me to 'fuck off'. It was so out of character for her, it offended my younger self. I left the room feeling down but eventually brushed it off. As the classes went on, so did her anger. She would get pissed when the kids would make ANY loudish sound. She would come barreling out of the screaming at all of us to shut up.
And then the hitting started. She was very vocal on how much she HATED my interests. She hated that I drew anime and watched it. I hardly ever mentioned anything of it to her, and I never took on weeaboo traits or anything like that. I just liked naruto a lot at the time Lol. But I remember I was struggling with art one day. I was frustrated and went to her room crying about how it wasn't turning out right and that my other friend was better at drawing. She very irritatedly responded with, "Well, maybe if you stopped drawing that anime shit, you'd actually have fucking talent." It hurt so fucking bad to hear that. I remember being in shock at first. I was so crushed by this, all I said was, "You're such a bad mom!" And I high tailed it out the room to cry. I was in bed and she walked in with an energy I never felt before. I thought she would come in to comfort me when all of the sudden, she slapped my in the face. I was so shocked I couldn't move at first. She then continued to hit me; mostly slapping. I covered myself as best as I could but she crawled on top of me and lashed out. Literally slapping with everything she had. After she was through, she just pointed a sharp finger in my face and said, "Don't ever talk back to me like that again." I was so shocked and torn up inside, I experienced my first panic attack. I was crying so hard, I made myself throw up foam in the toilet. My dad was in the other room and he did literally nothing. And that was my very first experience of my mom hitting me.
After that, it stayed like that. But it got worse. I was going into high school and my siblings where now toddlers. My sister, I lover her dearly but she turned into a brat. My two brothers pretty much hid behind playing xbox all day. My brother entertained my youngest brother and I took care of my younger sister; definitely the hardest out of the two. I love her very very much, but she was very spoiled. With my parents not raising her, mom doing school and dad working through all of the day and night to provide for a family of 6, she got whatever she wanted. Which included me entertaining her at her beckoned call, giving her whatever she wanted that was mine, and having her sleep in my room almost every single night. Whenever I didn't want to play dolls for what felt like the 50th time of the week or I didn't want to give her a toy because it was special and held memories, she would cry to mom. And that would result in my mother hitting me. It went from slapping to full on punching. And the put downs turned into name calling and worse. Almost everyday, she would treat me horribly. She would tell me how, "I would never get a boyfriend." And, "I wasn't pretty enough." And, "I wish you would just kill yourself already." I was 5'8" and 140lbs. She would constantly make mean remarks about my body. I was a healthy weight and she was so mean that I developed an eating disorder in later years; anorexia. She would constantly put down things I liked, my art, anime, my style, my music, my hair (naturally wavy), my makeup. Even though I did EVERYTHING she told me to do, it still wasn't good enough. "Fix your hair, it looks like shit when you don't straighten it." Or, "Wear makeup. You look fucking dead and ugly without it." Nothing was good enough. Everyday I looked in the mirror, I felt like I was so grotesque. I felt like I was a fucking monster. And even when people said, "It's what on the inside that counts." She made me hate that too. I was a relatively lively girl. I was optimistic, responsible, honest, and loyal. I had my flaws for sure. I was emotional at times, selfish at times, judgmental at times, and I suppose vain (since I became so focused on being perfect for mom). But those flaws weren't ever over baring. I was such a straight laced teenager. I never drank, snuck out, dig drugs, lied. None of that. The worst I'd ever do was fail a class and that was because I never had time to do my homework. At home, I cleaned the house every. Single. Day. I cannot emphasize that enough. Toddlers were messy as fuck, toys and food were always everywhere at some point. We rented a two story house that was pretty big. We were a family of 6, after all. We struggled with money because of that. But I cleaned that house everyday with NO HELP. I asked my brother here and there and he would never help. I learned to stop asking him. Occasionally he'd get into fights with my Dad over having to do yard work but that's about all he had to do. I washed dishes, did laundry, vacuumed, swept, mopped, cleaned bathrooms, cooked dinner. You name it. I did all of my moms work while she did school shit and watched tv. All she had to do was watch the kids while I was at school; which fucks me up today because I imagine she'd beat my sister at some points through out the day. I could never leave the house. I was lucky if I left to go to my friends once a month. It really took a toll on my social life. My brother could go see his biological father every other weekend AND go see his friends occasionally. When I asked why, my mom made the excuse of, "Well, it's his dad." When I asked to see my biological father, she said, "Fuck no." (Met him later on, he fucking sucked but he wasn't terrible. My mom and him just had bad blood). But it pissed me off. She treated me and my sister like shit, while our brothers got...well.. at least NOT treated like shit because they were hiding downstairs play video games every single day. I really don't want to be harsh to my brother. He was a boy in middle school going through his own things. I'm sure things were hard on him at times too and I love him very, very much. But he wasn't present for any of it; even most of the abuse. When I began talking about how Mom was abusive, he didn't even know what the fuck I was talking about and pretty much didn't want to talk about it because he hates conflict. So please be kind to him; he was just a young boy doing his best to survive in that household, I think.
The physical abuse ended at some point. Junior year of high school. Mom beat me pretty bad at the wrong time. My sister spilled nail polish remover in my moms bathroom. I knew she'd be pissed. Later in the night, totally forgot about it until I was washing and Mom came down to the bathroom, all angry like, and was like, "Why does my bathroom smell like nail polish remover?" I told her I accidentally spilled it and she immediately slapped me in my wet face. She was asking the same question over and over; all while slapping me. I was trying to desperately get away from her; climbing on the sink and get shoved into the mirror which resulted in it getting knocked down. I tried to break away and she grabbed my hair and pulled me back to her; punching me more. Tried to get away again and she put me in a head lock and literally almost knocked me the fuck out. My siblings were crying for her to let me go. I told my brother to get the kids out of here and to not see this. He listened. (Another thing that confuses me on how he doesn't understand how what I went through was abuse when he literally saw all of this happening and was also crying..). She said mean shit. I eventually said fuck it and said mean stuff back. Something along the lines of, "No one in this house loves you!! They're all just nice to you because we're scared of you and you know it!! Fuck you!!" Stuff like that while she was hitting me. I never hit back but I did try to push her off me, for once, during this fight. It went on for HOURS. Starting the bathroom, ending in my room. My sister got pushed into the dresser at one point trying to stop her. The fight started around 10:00 and finally ended at 2:00 am. Normally, there was a, "I'm sorry. I love you." At the end of it all and, "It'll get better once I'm out of school.. I promise." But not that night. Got up the next morning at 6:00 am, caught the bus, and...cried my eyes out at school. I didn't have time to have a break down at home and I just broke down and cried in the hall way. An old friend saw me crying asked what happened. I eventually told her on Skype, two days later; a Thursday. She was so fucking scared for my life, she immediately told her mom. The next day, I got called to the office. I was going to youth group with my friends that night so, I thought it was just my friends sister picking us up. When I saw my friends Mom and the school police officer behind me, it clicked. I started to cry, panic, begged. Everything. I was scared to go to the Attention Home. I was scared that they would take me and my siblings away and it would ruin their lives for good. "But the toddlers are young, they'll forget about it." But the second oldest wasn't! He was in middle school. It would fuck him up! I begged and pleaded but I eventually caved. I was so scared. I couldn't stop crying and shaking the whole way through the investigation. I stayed at the Attention Home for about a week. I wanted to be taken out of the house, but I wanted my siblings to stay. I didn't want to ruin their lives. They said no. I had to go, they had to go. I eventually stopped cooperating all together. Telling them I didn't want to leave and that I wanted to go home. They eventually let me go home and dropped the case; visiting me once a month every now and then to see if I was still alright. She stopped hitting me then. Was still mean to me with her words, but didn't touch me again.
The reason I ask if this was abuse is because I had a shitty friend, same friend who got the police involved, who basically stopped caring because I refused to be taken out of my house and couldn't see her anymore. She started to downplay my pain a lot and said she met other people who had 'worse' abuse stories. Still thought mine was bad, but others had it worse so I had to get over it, in her eyes. Also, my mom constantly gas lighted me. Whenever I called her out on her behavior and said other moms didn't do what she did, she'd say, "Yeah they do. They just do it behind closed doors." Or tell me I was crazy for thinking she was abusive.
So..yeah. That's the majority of my story. There's much more that I left out, obviously. But it all basically played out like this on an almost everyday occurrence.
So was this neglect and abuse??? For sure??
Thank you for taking the time to read it and thank you for helping me find the strength in myself to believe in myself. I was shaking so bad writing this all. I just hope to god she never sees it. I hope you have a good day.
Submitted March 02, 2019 at 08:29AM by darkcoffeemagic https://ift.tt/2NDKkRn
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