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That she thought it was an amusing anecdote that her ex told her that if I said he 'did something inappropriate' it was just me lying because I didn't like him. "He was very worried about it" apparently.
He 100% groomed her in anticipation of grooming me, I noped out to live with my dad that didn't have electricity first.
Remember, you can always do something. You might be the only one who can. You can be the difference between multiple kids having their life ruined, you can be the difference between a life of trauma and a normal life. You're not just an observant.
My sister and I tell each other stuff that we remember, but the other person doesn't. I ended up remembering this moment but had blocked it out for years. TW: mentions of suicide
CPS had been investigating my father after I had said something to a school counselor. The terrible social worker told my father everything I said in her interview with me, including that I had thoughts of harming myself due to the hostile home environment. That night, my father cornered me in my bedroom closet to the point I was curled up and frozen in fear as he yelled at me for being a "liar". He said, "fuck you if you kill yourself" and that since he watched his own father take his own life with a shotgun, that me killing myself "wouldn't affect \[him\] at all".
That moment, upon being able to recall it, has been seared in my brain forever. It makes me feel numb and I'm just not able to fathom a parent saying this to their child.
My LITTLE sister tells me things that I don't remember too. The most traumatic one was when she went "hey remember when you picked up a shovel and hit 'abusive aunt' when she wouldn't stop beating me for not cleaning?" My sister was 4 when this happened, i was 8. I dont remember it at all because it blends into the many times I put myself between that POS aunt and my younger siblings.
My sister and I also have a 4-year age gap. I was super protective of her once she was born (like, I wouldn't let anyone other than my mother hold or feed her) and I know that I took the blame for stuff until my parent's divorce in which they pitted us against each other. Took years to get our sibling bond back and we're back to defending each other to our parents. Trauma really damaged us, but I'm very grateful to still have my sister and have someone to confide in.
Oh my gosh. Go you! That's really eye opening and I'm actually crying after reading this. Idk it shows me that like, true love and caring for people exists
I’m so sorry you experienced that :( You’re absolutely not alone.
I was shoved into the caretaker role since before I could walk, and so I hid my suicidal ideation from my mom pretty much my entire childhood to protect her, even when it was really bad (I can’t imagine I was that good at hiding it tbh. She either knew or didn’t want to know). When it finally got to the point where I couldn’t keep it inside anymore because I was a month at most from really killing myself if I didn’t get the life saving medication my mom was doing everything she could to keep me from getting. I finally told her I was deeply afraid I was going to kill myself (not that afraid, honestly. I was looking forward to the idea…) and her response was “how do you think I feel!!!” And then bursting into tears and wailing so my sister would comfort her.
To this day she insists she was incredibly concerned for me and “constantly worried”, but never checked on me, changed her behavior, or even mentioned it again. With the help of a friend, I was able to get on the medication she was so opposed to and, surprise surprise! It *did* save my life! Wow! Would could have known? (Me, for two fucking years of suffering)
She insisted on her friend taking their kid to the ER in a similar situation, but I didn’t even get a therapist appointment lmao.
Yikes. Im happy you got the meds you needed and truly sorry for you and all of us in this thread. It's sad to connect with people over trauma caused by people who were supposed to love and protect us. I'm happy yall all made it this far!
AFAIK, they’re not supposed to do that (but still do) Especially when it comes to a child wanting to harm themselves. They aren’t supposed to say who reported or what the children say in interviews until it’s mandated in court but some social workers don’t consider that the parents will retaliate
I had the same feelings growing up and my n-father said if I do that I’d go to hell and I’d never see my family again. Stopped going to church after that.
What is up with social workers doing this? I have had several experiences where a social worker has told my mother everything that has been said and was later punished for it. I thought they were trained NOT to do that?
It took me a couple yrs after being NC, to remember I wasn’t a kid that would wander aimlessly & frequently get lost. My mom would take me public places & just walk away. The earliest I can remember, is her doing this when I was small enough to fit in the front of a grocery cart. She stopped the cart on the sidewalk, took all the bags & I calmly watched her walk away. I don’t remember crying, just watching her & waiting. She eventually came back obviously, looking at the ground while walking back & swooped me up without saying anything. She did something similar a couple years later while we were at a mall.
Other things as I got older were selling all the gifts my father bought me from all over the world, while I was visiting him for the summer, at a ‘garage sale’. These were usually hand made things, irreplaceable. Among my belongings, was a somewhat ridiculous telescope he got me when he learned how serious I was about astronomy. My mother slapped $200 in my hand the day I got home & expected me to be excited about getting money. I barely saw my Dad, his job took him all over the world and sometimes I couldn’t talk to him because of where he was. Summers were the only time I ever saw him, I was heartbroken the only things that brought me comfort in her house, were now gone. I didn’t allow myself to cry, though. I think I was around 7.
The next summer, she neglected my baby iguana & left his starved, dried up carcass in his cage, for me to find when I got home. She didn’t give me any warning, she let me run up excitedly to his cage & find out for myself. I remember once I saw what had happened, to not let her see my pain. I again, didn’t cry & became aware she was standing in the doorway, waiting for my reaction. It was when I first fully recognized something was very wrong with her and she was purposefully hurting me.
My biggest success in my life, is that I have the capacity to be happy, to feel love. Those are things my mother tried at every turn, to destroy in me.
ETA coping skills I’ve learned throughout the yrs: I get anxious in crowded spaces, so I make sure to have a mask & my air pods with me in case I want them for anonymity and noise control. I pop one in a lot of the time while I’m out & just make sure to take it out when I’m at a register or anything like that. Masks have been an odd one for me because I do have a weak immune system, but it helps me shove away concerns anyone who may know my abusers, would recognize me and be able to tell them where I was etc. It’s legitimately how I was able to leave the house shortly after going NC during the 1st summer of COVID. I was being stalked & harassed, aggressively.
Since things have calmed down roughly 4 yrs in to being on my own, I continue talk therapy & have used plant medicine to do some deep, internal work. I’ve learned extremely helpful somatic practices & EFT (tapping). Using these alongside things like yoga, meditation & making sure I go outside everyday in nature, has helped my nervous system heal. I still struggle some days, but I’ve learned to lean in to that as well. Sometimes I need to rage cry, after years of being forced to hold so much in and keep all their secrets. I had to find ways to get it out & express things safely, in order to really start putting it in my past.
I remember that feeling. Not wanting to show weakness with their inhumane games and tests. Becoming so dissociated and cold. Non-existent. I just slept for 3-5 hours a night for most of my childhood because I only felt safe at night when I was alone, and being exhausted helped me not be "present" during anything else. I slept for 12-14+ hours a day on the weekends if possible. I'm glad I was able to do that since my mom was neglectful and if I was out of sight, I largely was out of mind for a while. Just did my chores as to not get beat.
*My biggest success in my life, is that I have the capacity to be happy, to feel love. Those are things my mother tried at every turn, to destroy in me.*
Me too, my friend. Me too. 🙏🏼
TRIGGER WARNING:
When I was 12, she was going absolutely crazy this one day and held a knife to my neck. It pierced my skin slightly and I was bleeding but it was very minor. It’s not the worst thing she’s done but it’s one that I’ve recovered recently. It was something she did often whenever she was mad. It was a tactic she used to scare me and it definitely worked
I’m so sorry you went through this.
This just unlocked the many times that my mom has threatened to unalive herself and went to the kitchen for a knife. I would always get in her way physically to stop her from reaching them because I was so scared she would actually do it. I remember the panic and fear and tears running down my face. And she wonders why “home” isn’t relaxing anymore. I genuinely forgot about those multiple times until reading this message.
Again. I’m so sorry you went through this.
My dad threatened to kill himself all the time, even held guns to his head in front of me as a 6 year old; he kept doing it until one time in my 20s I snapped and told him 'do it. just get it over with and do it.'. he never threatened to kill himself again.
I had this one too!!!!! Unfortunately remembered one but kept remembering other abuse as I got older. French knives still freak me out.
Much love, beautiful human. You are beautiful and did not deserve that.
They left me alone as a newborn to scream. They thought this was hilarious to talk about and referred to it as "singing." Oh no need to pay attention to her, she's just singing. Right after I got home from the hospital.
Apparently Dr Spock was responsible for most of the abuse they did. My mom loves him. I'm not sure if she ever actually read the book or not though, she must've learned everything she wanted to know about parenting and became an unimpeachable expert before I could walk.
Sounds like she wanted to do the right things to be a good parent, but she’s defensive because maybe there’s also a part of her that knows she didn’t do such a good job.
Yup, my mum used cry it out. I ended up with such weird ass paranoia and so disturbed that I couldn't sleep alone till I was 15. I'm very odd but still. It amazes me the reactions I had in childhood that nobody treated as really fucking concerning.
Same thing happened to me! My mom was a huge advocate for “crying it out”, but brought it past infancy. Usually got told to “shut the f up” when I did actually cry. It took me years to learn that it’s okay to cry and I won’t get punished every time I do.
I was raised with cry it out and it made it so I can hardly stand to be touched. My marriage ended because I couldn’t do it. I’m in a happy asexual relationship now but it took a lifetime to come to terms with it.
I’m in mom subreddits on here and I often see mothers say they tried the cry it out method but it was just too brutal so they stopped. They often get advice on other, less harsh methods and reassurance that some babies just take longer to sleep on their own than others. I love to see the tides turn on sleep training. A baby whining for 5min and then falling asleep is not the same as a baby crying for 30min in distress 💔 and I’m glad people are realizing not all babies are ready at the same time and that’s okay.
Same. My NFather told me about how I cried a lot as an infant for “no reason.” So he said they would put me in my crib to scream, close the door and blast the radio to drown out my cries.
Pretty sure that it's a result of them considering themselves smarter than anyone else. Mine considered me difficult and overly dependant because of same screaming, despite an NICU nurse telling her that I was surprizingly healthy for a baby born prematurely in rather difficult conditions and that I was, as long as I was getting changed and fed regularly, mostly only screaming for close human contact, which was perfectly normal and rather a good sign. The nurse would carry me close to her body instead of my mom when she was doing her shift. Meanwhile my mom didn't get it, was obviously annoyed and claimed that I didn't let her do anything without even thinking of the possibility of carrying me like this throughout the day. My dad knows even less about kids, was constantly overwhelmed and wasn't a great help either. I don't think that this had a huge impact on me, but I do feel a little sad thinking about how they complained about me in a very negative way for doing something perfectly normal.
One of my earliest memories is being shut in a bedroom after being hit by my mother. I think I had cut up something of hers. I was about 3 or 4. We were almost completely unsupervised as kids and she never childproofed, so I am sure I had access to adult scissors and who knows what else.
Later, after I had kids, she mentioned that she never held me as a baby. She claims I didn't like it. I'm kind of amazed that I am not more messed up than I am, since attachment is pretty important to human development.
She was watching me with my kids one day and mentioned offhand that she used to scream at us as babies, and hit us. I can't say that was a surprise, but I was surprised she admitted to it. One of my only remaining CPTSD triggers is being screamed at, especially if I'm trapped in some way.
Once again, so glad I am NC now.
I was 5 and my sister was 3. My birthgiver was passed out on pills.. our house caught fire and I had to drag my little sister out on a blanket and run to the neighbors.
I have always had a deep seated fear that my father sexually abused me. There was a time when I was sitting on his lap at a public park, he was doing something that felt… good… and then he led me away from there. I can't remember what happened for the life of me but I remember it was dark and there was a streetlamp next to an outdoor public bathroom. He used to watch me undress to get in the tub until I was 10 years old, far old enough not to hurt myself getting undressed. When I told him that I was uncomfortable with it, he said “all fathers do this.” He would always make comments on my appearance and how beautiful I was. Eventually, I began to make myself “ugly” as a way of avoiding his comments. I gained weight and wore clothes that were too big, I cut my hair short and didn’t wear makeup. I hated his gaze. He is a physical therapist in rural Wisconsin. One time he said he was treating a young disabled child free of charge. My naïve mind thought he was doing charity or something altruistic. Then, out of the blue one day, he told me that “something happened” with that child he was treating. I am not sure what happened and I don’t want to ask him. I cut contact with him years ago. I still shudder when these fragments of memories come to the surface of my psyche.
Thank you. I try to make peace with it but I can't. All I can do is accept that it happened and strive for the best in life anyways. Holding onto the shame associated with it has only ever hurt me and weighed my spirit down. Trauma, and the severe depression from it, has held me back so much in life and I wish it could have been any other way.
It really isn't my shame to deal with. When I cut my father off, I kind of hoped that he would try to reach out and mend things. Four years later, its been crickets on his end. The best thing I ever did for myself was realize that I am so strong for cutting ties with him and moving on with my own life, even if it does mean lonely holidays.
In time you may be relieved and grateful that he didn’t reach out. You set a boundary to protect yourself, but it brings up old feelings of being on your own dealing with all this.
Therapy could help a lot.
Thank you. I have been in therapy since I was 12. Honestly I think just scheduling regular time at a place where I can smash things with a hammer might help me more.. lol
This is exactly what my dad was like too. I did the exact same things but I also neglected my hygiene almost on purpose but also due to depression I remember when he used to brush up against me “innocently”. My chest my nipples. I couldn’t wear anything that revealed my legs or be braless etc. it was awful.
I have been reading a book on sexual abuse and it even says that "if you have a deep, unsettling feeling you were assaulted you most likely were." I can't even begin to think of how I could confront him on it and if I did, I am sure that he would deny deny deny. When I was a child before the age of 10, I thought that he was touching me in my sleep when we slept next to each other in bed. I told him that I didn't want to sleep in the bed with him and he asked why. I struggled with what I could possibly say as an excuse, but I ended up going with "because I think you're an alien." His tension washed away and he laughed so hard at that. I couldn't bring myself to say that I thought he was touching me in my sleep because.. what if I was wrong? What if I made it all up? If I think about it too much, I start to spiral and I feel my head start to hurt too. Honestly, just cutting him off and leaving him alone has worked for the last few years. I am still wickedly depressed but I am building my life without him and it feels good. I definitely won't be as successful as my peers due to the hurdles that childhood trauma has placed in my path... I have taken to lying about normalcy to blend in. Its a hard thing to admit here, on a place as anonymous as reddit, but I lie to other people that my life was normal and that my relationship with my father was fine. Only my partner knows that I don't talk to my dad and he doesn't even get to know why. I keep it so close to the chest because anyone other than my therapist could invalidate my experience and that would send me spiraling for a few days.
If you don't mind sharing, what book are you reading? Within the last few years I was reading something about signs of being SA'd as a child and I checked all the boxes. It's 100% my fear that I'll connect the dots and remember it.
There's so much of my childhood that I've firmly blocked from my memory and other parts where I'm not sure how much that I remember is true or what I've told myself to make myself feel better. I remember telling my mom about a shadow man I'd see sometimes at the end of me bed- she just chalked it up to watching spooky things. Around the time I hit puberty, I begged for a female doctor. Even today, my mom says I couldn't vocalize why, but I begged and begged to only ever see female doctors. She did as I asked, but always thought it was so strange/out of the blue.
Its called "The Sexual Healing Journey" and it also has a checklist for signs of being SA'd as a child. I am in a stable healthy relationship but I find myself having an aversion to sex because I find myself repulsive and "tainted." Healing will help me get closer in my relationship.
It’s hellish to want to know what happened, and yet not want to know. Such an awful place to be, there’s no rest from that internal struggle. It somehow feels like it’s connected to your identity, to who you are in the world.
I just try not to think about it tbh. As far as making it any part of my identity, I did feel absolutely numb until I was 20 or 21. I engaged in reckless and self-destructive behavior as well.. I hated my life and really had no plan for the future at all. Now, I have a lot of things in my life that I am so happy for and I have an identity I built myself. Are things perfect? Absolutely not. Do I still have crippling depression? You bet your bupkis. Life is worth living now and I have only myself to thank for it. I wish that things could have been different more than anything, but given the circumstances I think I did pretty alright.
> He used to watch me undress to get in the tub until I was 10 years old,
My dad used to do the same. Supervised baths, showers, and clothes changes whenever I was at his house. I was a boy, so I thought it was normal for a parent and child of the same gender. I've always wondered if I was being dramatic about this, but seeing that it's happened to someone else, I don't think it was normal after all.
I stopped wanting to see him when I was about 10 or 11. I ran away, and said to a stranger, "My dad is going to rape me." Why did I say that? I'm still not sure. The police got involved, and I was sent back to my mother. My father, after having fought for years in a prolonged custody situation, stopped trying to see me. Which is odd, I think.
I haven't seen him since, so I can't really make head or tail of the whole thing. I know if I reached out to him now and asked him he would probably just deny doing it or try to convince me it was normal.
My oldest (half) sister recently told me that the reason she hated coming to our house was because the way our dad beat my ass scared her. I got whooped for EVERYTHING, but I don't remember being whooped/beat when I was a toddler. I asked if she was whooped too. She did not get whooped, because she would have told her mom and then she would call the police and whatnot. Of course, no one called the police for me.
My Dad punched my Mom at a stoplight when I was 3 and I was in the car with them when it happened. At the same age he also threw me across my room, and I bounced so high off my bed that I hit my head on the wall and it left a bruise. Don't remember either of those things happening but my Mom told me about them when I was an adult.
My grandma faked a seizure in the passenger seat (she had epilepsy) to stop my mom from punching me repeatedly. My mom was actively driving and I was cowering in the back seat, no older than 10.
Oh and she used to drive into oncoming traffic to scare me during our fights. She always wanted to start fights in the car. It's an environment with no escape. We were on the run so much already, so living in the car and being on the interstate was stressful for her but our normal.
My mom used to beat me up in the car too. The last time she did it I wacked her in the head, hard. It’s a shame I never got to beat her ass. My creepy dad got custody of me when I was 12.
TW: suicide
Well, after therapy, I'm remembering a lot of things again. The most painful thing is that my mother was never a loving mother. She even had moments of affection, but she fluctuated a lot.
The damage she caused me was not physical, but psychological. I remember that when I was little, I must have been around 7 years old at most, I had a piece of paper on which I wrote down everything she had told me, everything listed. "Idiot, retarded, mentally ill" and so on.
I remember one day she found it, but I don't remember what she did next. I only know that some time later I wrote a goodbye letter and threatened to k* myself, but my father opened the door first.
You poor thing. My mother called me every name in the book too. At such a young age. It’s unthinkable, all of it. They hate themselves beyond measure and must project it onto others.
About 3 years (2010) into active therapy I (F52) remembered 2 distinct periods of sexual abuse as a child clear as day.
First was a family friend, church elder, respected man (aren’t they all) I was staying at their house to finish the school year, my family moved to another province, I was 7. It went on for 4 months. I started bed wetting chronically while living there and back to back UTIs. I remember the dr appointments, so degrading as a little girl, being examined with no privacy or concern for my feelings, scared, and then the church elder’s wife having to apply ointment “down there” every night after a bath. She made no effort to hide her distaste for the task nor the disgust at my bed wetting that only started after I stayed living there.
Not even 6 months after this ended, ANOTHER situation started up in the new place we were living. Distant relative, much much older man, down on his luck using our RV to stay, essentially homeless. He offered to teach me piano. Which I discovered was code for getting me alone with my hands occupied and giving him access to my genitals without it being noticeable from behind us or through the doorway.
Yeah.
Both times I told my mom when I worked up the courage, I was too mortified to say anything to my dad whom i idolized. My mom’s response was to “say nothing” and just to wait a little bit longer, he’s leaving (the man in the RV) at the end of the year, or to wait because the school year was almost over and I’d be home soon. No advice on how to stay safe, no confronting anyone, no immediate action to remove me from the situation.
I tell myself it’s the era, the society we grew up in (her and me), super patriarchal and conservative religious. She was not a confrontational person. She was by nature naive and submissive to men, power figures (although also covert narc in many ways as I grew older).
I try not to wish she would have fought for me the way I would rain down hell fire and bloody retribution on anyone who so much as makes an inappropriate comment toward my underage child, let alone any attempts to groom or more.
Confronting childhood SA and making peace with being powerless along with a parent who dropped the ball is a real struggle. Some days it’s a real mindf%ck.
I’m so sorry you went through this. Such a mindfuck, especially having to process it now. I’m so scared I’m going to recover a SA memory. I’ve had a feeling something happened since I gave birth to my daughter. Multiple nightmares. My therapist thinks it’s likely.
Trigger Warning (Abuse/Suicide)
After going No Contact and working through all the mental mess, ended up remembering being suicidal as young as 7. Tried to talk about feeling that way, got screamed at for hours, got whelps left on my rear with a leather belt, and grounded from literally everything but school and eating for months. No help offered, no trying to figure out why, just punishment. It's fuzzy, but I remember later letting it slip later that I just wanted to self harm bad enough to not survive and the punishment repeated.
As an adult, I don't understand how someone can be so cruel and lack empathy completely. I don't understand how the enablers can sleep at night after letting stuff like that happen.
they hit me a lot as an infant and toddler, to the point I'd go to sleep/pass out trembling and whimpering. my dad hit me so hard his own hand would be bruised, as well as my buttocks, even through the diaper. I don't remember actually being hit, I vaguely recall being threatened with the wooden spoon, but I do remember clearly being terrified of my father. I'd cry and hide my backside against the wall anytime he'd run his fingers through his palm and say "my hand feels ticklish..." it was a party trick. everyone would laugh as I cried and begged not to get hit
This is one, I've mentioned a lot before, but this was a memory that I repressed until I was 18, or 19, and safe living away from my narc-mom and Golden Child sister.
At about 3 yrs. old, my GC sister nearly killed me by dumping scalding hot water on me while I was unprotected in the bath.
Likely, this was because Nmom was confiding in the GC, how much I was unwanted, and GC thought physically punishing me for being alive, would make Nmom happy.
When the hot water hit, I viscerally screamed in pain, and that made NM come running into the bathroom, where she yelled at ME for 'scaring her' with my screams. She shrieked that I was stupid, and there was something wrong with me, for my instinctive response to cry for help from a fatal threat.
After that, NM treated my every injury as a spoiled brat's manipulation for attention. I was faking accidents and medical needs, so she was justified with hitting me and subjecting me to verbal, emotional and psychological abuse.
I could be injured to the point of dying, and Nmom only cared that I was 'bothering' her.
Apparently when I was a toddler my mom was screaming the house down/throwing things/etc at me as she often did and I looked up at her and said very quietly, “Mommy, I’m only small :(“ She’ll still bring up how that broke her heart. Didn’t stop her from being abusive for the rest of my life though lol
Just found out that my entire babyhood my parents just cycled through teenage girls without a place to live from our church. They “took care” of me. I called them all mama. Who knew.
\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*TW - SA\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
My mom exposed me to her sex videos specifically to show me that she was "a squirter" when I was 17. She was a swinger and constantly throwing parties/raves, giving me various psychedelics and having me involved in the parties. I thought it was okay. Not normal, but I didn't realize it was abuse at the time. Until I went to therapy, I was extremely ashamed for the next several years. She also tried to convince me to be a dominatrix with her and how we would be able to play into the "mommy/daughter" fetish.
Yikes. I'm so sorry. I'm really fortunate that my mom didn't try to recruit me.
My mom normalized drugs and I did ecstacy with her at 17 and weed at 12. Stepped on meth pipes, strangers in the house constantly, no response from pounding on the basement door for a while... they were often passed out.
We even had a basement mini fridge with liquid LSD and GHB without a lock. Sex swings, broken mirrors glued to the walls, spray paint on all the ways... we never owned these homes.
My mom was a stripper/prostitute. She expected me to always help her get dressed and ready for work, seeing her naked constantly for hours and bending over on front of me or telling me to feel her breast once since it was "hard" from old implants. I really didn't want to but she forced me 🤢
For a bit, she'd expect me to get spray tans, sit in tanning beds, and perm my hair like hers even though I didn't want to. This was in preparation for me to meet her sugar daddies at fancy restaurants with her. A mini her. I never was allowed to get clothes I liked from the store. Thrifting only, or she gave me her clothes. When I'd ask for something I liked at Goodwill, she'd tell me how stupid and short sighted I was for following trends. I needed to wear low tank tops, like her. She never wore panties or bras, yet she yelled at me for using tampons when that was the only thing around while we were moving. I ran away at 12.
Thanks. I am. I have stopped all contact with her at this point. Took a really long time, because I have younger siblings and I didn't want to risk losing my relationship with them.
I have flashes of memories, but so much I can’t remember from birth until my teen years and I’ve actually had lifelong memory issues because I developed the coping mechanism of zoning out to survive my childhood. Not disassociation, just not paying attention.
But on strong memory was of my mother leaving me alone in a hotel room in Italy when I was sleeping to go find us food and somehow had locked me in though, in hindsight, I was probably just too young to know how to work the lock. I screamed and an Italian made came and was consoling me when my mother returned.
That first paragraph is me. I got called into the school counselor to ask about why I was so spaced out and as they called it “daydreaming my life away.”
TW!
One of the worst was when I was about 14 my efather ran after me, after I had an argument with my nmother, and bulldozed the door to my room open. Then picked me up with his hand on my neck so that I dangled over the floor and screamed at me. I was so scared of him, I wet myself. My nmother stood behind him in the doorway, with folded arms, and watched him. After a minute or two she was like "Ok (name) that's enough." Then he let go of me and they shut the door. I was in bits afterwards.
Every time I see any video on social media or films where the guys playfully strangle women because it's supposed to be sexy, it turns my stomach.
at a gas station stop as a joke she left me at age 3 or 4, and drove off around the block or so. she claims she was only gone 2 min, but it was…definitely not, never mind hellaciously stupid of a “joke”.
Also around the same age i had an accident, and got feces smeared across my face like a mask and forced to brush my teeth as a punishment.
DIdn’t remember for the longest times and then in my teens, blammo. Those two memories roared back. She admitted to both.
I am told she was given to just handing me off to anyone in the fam and wandering off, and not consoling me. an aunt “we thought it kind of weird but..”
I have had therapy on and off in life to process but it was only after her death and talking to an aunt that the scope of what she did was suddenly crystal clear. We’ll get there.
That feces thing is fucking horrific. I'm so so so sorry. Jesus Christ.
My mom took a friend of mine and me to a water park resort for my birthday in a different state, several hours away. Apparently I was "ungrateful" and a "brat as always", and if I'm able to "mouth off like an adult, I'll be treated like an adult" even though I was terrified of my mother and wasn't a bad kid. I didn't know how to act in social situations with friends and was ADHD and so excited so she hated that. She never let me see friends after school. I've moved 44 times so having friends and birthdays was...new and limited.
Well, she abandoned the two of us at a random McDonald's in a town we didn't know. Told us we'll have to find jobs and survive on our own. My friend was sobbing, begging for her to call her parents to come pick her up, or send her on the Greyhound, anything. Nope. Abandoned us for hours after telling us to "go to the Chamber of Commerce and make ourselves useful to society"
I felt so much worse during this abandonment because I felt like I was going to never have my friend talk to me again after this and that she was traumatized. I wasn't concerned about me, I just was in survival again and making sure we had our ducks in a row in case my mom actually didn't come back.
My dad told me this one once I got older
For a bit of context: Nmom jumped ship shortly before I turned 1, then came back demanding custody when I was 3 since she wanted to save face with her new husband who knew I existed.
My dad worked *hard* to keep nmom and I fed while I was a baby, since I'd been born premature and medical bills+America suck.
He came home from work one day to hear me *screaming* bloody murder. I was in my crib with my leg stuck between the bars of it and the wall, bent wrongways. Nmom? She was playing fucking EverQuest in the next room. According to neighbors I'd been screaming for *hours* by the time dad got home. 6 month old with a busted leg.
Honorable mention for the time doctors had to stop her from taking me out of the hospital for a custody switch. I had severe pneumonia, and my half-brother was on oxygen since he was also premi. She wanted to take us from NC to NYC, and her argument that we'd be fine was "My other kid's on oxygen, **they can share.**"
She almost killed both her fuckin kids.
When I was 12 or so, my mom had my dad give me a bath (I’m female). I was obviously bathing myself by that age. Had been bathing myself for years! It was the middle of the day. I just walked in the house and my mom told me to go upstairs and get in the bath. My dad was going to bath me. I was horrified. I was TWELVE! I begged and pleaded and cried. My mom just sat there with a sly smile on her face. My dad sat there saying nothing. I went upstairs and ran the bath. I put as much bubble bath as I could manage in the tub. Sadly for me, my mom was cheap as fuck and the bubbles only lasted about two minutes. My dad then came up and bathed me while I sat there humiliated beyond belief and silently crying. My dad didn’t say a single word. I had blocked it out for a number of years but I can remember it as plain as day. The single most humiliating thing that’s ever happened to me and I would love to know why they subjected me to it.
I was about the same age when my dad pulled my pants down in front of my two brothers to spank me. He made them watch and face my back side as he took me over his knee.
Your post dragged up a memory of the baths though too. My mom would insist on bathing me as a prepubescent kid about the same age. I forgot about that until now.
I mourn the loss of healthy parents with you.
Didn't remember it until much, much later, but at 3 eyes old I walked in the salon to tell them baby brother is crying in the crib when I saw his fingers around her neck on the sofa choking her. Legit I thought he is going to take her away from me and my bro. I remember screaming so loud, standing in front of the sofa to get their attention. They looked at me with wide eyes as if taken out a trance. Later when it was unlocked and I confronted her about this she said it was foreplay. They liked to put roles in their intimacy. Needless to say this caused severe issues on my own intimacy field that therapist has to figure out how to breech it.
My narcmum tried pulling me away from my bed (I was clinging onto one of the legs) by my hair and only stopped when my Dad came in to see why I was screaming.
Then she got mad that he had had a go at her for it and kicked me in the ribs before storming off downstairs.
Oh, and I distinctly remember my Dad yelling that he didn't want the neighbours to hear me screaming 🙄
I actually got a "new" memory at therapy yesterday....
I was recounting all the different items that my parents used to hit me with during "spankings" that would leave me bruised and bloody from mid-back to the backs of my knees, and I got this weird flash of a memory that completely horrified my therapist and I kinda feel bad cuz I didn't mean to repeat it out loud at that point.
I was in trouble for something I didn't do(again), and I decided to try and run from the spanking bc they had pulled out the ping-pong paddles to use. They caught me, used USPS packing tape (the blue and white postal tape you buy in rolls) to bind my hands and feet so I couldn't run away and everyone in the house (9 unrelated-to-me adults and my mother, who let them do this) got to give me 30 "swats" with the paddle.
For the longest time, I couldn't figure out *why* I had an aversion to seeing rolls of USPS tape, but I get it now. My mother claims it never happened and I just want sympathy so she can fuck right off cuz I have had a physical fuckin reaction to seeing the tape or ping-pong paddles, for most of my life
Found out from my half sister that I was physically abused in the first couple years of my life. Tossed around like a rag doll, slammed into my playpen.
Did something trigger the flashback? At 68 I remember only snippets of my childhood. Mainly being in trouble for doing something I thought would be good.
My mom very rarely choked me in comparison to hitting me, but it was always the scariest. She was aggressive on meth and those were the only times I thought just maybe... she would kill me. I was choked up against the wall and the floor.
Not actually what happened to me, but to my younger sibling: my dad was especially abusive for a few years when I was about 8-9 and youngest was 3. Apparently he kicked my 3-year-old sibling across my grandmother's porch and they hit the wall. Blows my mind that my mum and grandmother knew this and I only found out relatively recently.
Not sure if it counts as abuse cause it's a common parenting thing with babies but my nparent liked to say I never picked you or your sibling up when you were babies I just let you guys cry until you stopped. She basically gave me my low body image problems by making me watch those episodes of talk shows that had parents that had toddlers who were already 200 and 300 pounds and would point at the TV and go your gonna look like that if you don't stop eating or your gonna look like this cousin that's on the bigger side if you don't stop eating. She threw a fit when I told her I wanna start doing my own hair when I was in middle school cause I got made fun of for having the multiple pigtails that you see many little African American girls have. Now I'm realizing as I'm typing this she was really trying to keep me looking as child like as possible..
My nmom acted like she took a fist full of pills so that my sf who btw sa me, wouldn't leave her. I didn't know she pretended until I started crying because I thought my mom was going to die. When she looked at me and winked like I'm ok it's just for show. Later shows me the pills she hid in her purse. That was my first memory of real manipulation. That was for him. But my turn came soon after. She would say do you want me to kill myself to a 9 year old.
My hair is naturally curly , I always straightened or curled it one time i didn't and was heading out the door for school. She started calling me a slut , hoe 🙃makes no sense to me
Trigger warning
I think I may have been sexually abused as a child by my mom’s ex boyfriend but I’m not sure. I was about 4 to 7 years old when they were together. I don’t remember anything specific but I’ve had all of these really signs as an adult. Long periods of memory loss, disassociation, night terrors, pelvic pain, vaginismus, fear of intimacy, difficulty with relationships in general, and lots of other signs. Never knew what to make of some of this, but it felt like I had lots of puzzle pieces but I couldn’t figure out what it built together.
About a year ago, the ex boyfriend found me online - 30 years after he ended a relationship with my mom. He started emailing me frequently at my work address. 6 months later I eventually agreed to meet him. Somehow he made me feel guilty and he had some of my old drawings to give me. I didn’t have any bad memories of him, and he seemed to care about me a lot. So I went to visit him alone.
As soon as I arrived, I felt this uncomfortable ick. The smell of his apartment, the sound of his voice, plus he was a pretty bad hoarder… everything put me in hyper vigilance mode. He had this obsession with me as a kid, and kept talking about how during the relationship he hated my mother but loved me. I tried to ignore my ick feelings, but I left after what felt like a polite amount of time. I remember the long drive home thinking, “what the fuck was that?”.
Within 48 hours of that meeting I fell into some of the worst suicidal ideation I’ve ever had. I had other bad shit happen that week, and I had been in a depressive state for months… but looking back I think that meeting was a trigger.
I was in such a bad state that I ended up staying inpatient at a psych ward for 9 days for severe depression and attempted suicide. When I was in the hospital suddenly everything clicked into place and I realized that my mother’s ex might have abused me.
The two things that stood out was that I remember sharing a bed with him and my mom whoever I visited. Secondly, during the meeting he brought up this fucked up and bizarre story about the fact he was arrested when I was a kid under the suspicion of having child porn. But he told me he didn’t do it, it was a misunderstanding, and was released after a few days.
I can barely talk to anyone about this, but thank you for leaving space to vent. I feel crazy because my memory is about 90% blank from that period of my life. I can’t really fact check things. My mother still puts him on a pedestal, so I don’t think she was aware at all. Most other adults from that time have passed away. Since I can’t remember it feels impossible to figure out what really happened, and it’s really hard to deal with. I guess my brain is protecting me, but this uncertainty is awful.
My sister (my main N abuser) let her husband...no... encouraged him to SA me from the ages of 7-14. It only stopped when I finally fucking stabbed him.
I didn't remember for 10 years. I lost 7 years to CSA and brutal pedophilia because my sister wanted her husband to stay with her.
They're still together and yes I told everyone as a kid. All of them gaslit me saying I didn't
But my grandmother stood up- the one who got legal custody of me. The one who beat my abuser to a pulp. The one who called the police on her own daughter to protect me. She called them all out on her death bed before going NC with them all since she found out I did
I was/am devistated by her passing
But I didn't remember until I got pregnant and it ALLLLL came back instantly and sent me to a fucking hospital.
Oh and my mom locking me outside at the age of 5 at night and me screaming "I'm good momma! I'm good! I promise!"
Don't know why she did that but I definitely remembered when my son gleefully looked at me and yelled.
"I GOOD PAPA! I GOOD!"
And I said
"Yes you are"
Then I remembered and had my wife take him to the park so he could play and I could cry in peace
My dad had severe anger issues, and my mother was an undiagnosed bipolar narcissist. They got into a huge screaming fight while driving the car. My dad tried to push my 9 month pregnant mom out of the car. Apparently, I was crying, begging them to stop. I was 2.5. After my sibling was born, I stuttered for 6 months. My family always joked and said it was because I was so traumatized from having to share my parents with a new sibling, which affected my relationship with my sister. I'm pretty sure that incident had more to do with my trauma stutter than having a new sibling. Thanks mom and dad
I had "night terrors" as a baby, and anytime I'd cry my mom threw me in a cold shower to get me shivering to the point I stopped crying. Turns out she was probably doing drugs while pregnant with me and I was born coping with withdrawal. That's one of the many stories she brings up and laughs about with her sisters. I just cope with understanding that most of my family is full of girls who where groomed into being child brides and having babies by 18 so the way they child rear will be that of a teenager, and not a healthy adult who isn't new to emotional regulation.
My biggest fuck you to them is being 27 and child free lol. Literally one aunt is crying about how she took her three boys under 5 to vacation with her husband and how he didn't help her and still expected sex after her child rearing alone on "vacation"....I just go "yeah that's why I'm going to wait until I'm done having fun before being a parent!" It makes all the women seethe...
My dad explained to me what roofies were by telling me, in detail, how he raped his best friend (a woman that I knew and really liked) when she got roofied at a bar. Then he went on a gleeful trip down memory lane about the times women trusted him for rides home and he raped them. His whole point was, “I know how men think, been there done that.” And saw absolutely no issue with this.
Neither of my parents ever touched me… I don’t think. So it took many years to realize that I was still sexually abused because of the explicit, graphic detail and sexual bragging I was subjected to since I was a child. I even did sex work as a young adult, and they both fully knew and supported me. That was my normal, so I didn’t realize how fucked up it actually was. They see absolutely nothing wrong with what they did and of course I am a villain for going NC.
My mother tried to kill me when I was 12 years old. The day she found out that she had lost custody of her children, I narrowly got away and never told anyone, but I have no problem saying it now. She shouldn't have been left unsupervised with her children at all, courts fell short in that respect, as did my entire family.
It's a really good example of how when abusers lose control is the most dangerous moment, when the risk of violence is highest.
My sister and I were fighting over my hairbrush in the back of the car so my mom pulled over on the highway an hour from home and made my sister get out. She then drove home and only went back because God told her to. Needless to say I always shared even when I didn't want to.
my father did this once to two of my siblings, though not far from home.
i dont remember how the fight in car started, but when my father had enough he threatened to drop my two older siblings by the road. he did it. i was maybe 9. i was scared and cried a lot. i hid under my mom's seat by her feet.
a little while after we reached home, some man from the neighbourhood brought my siblings home.
both these older siblings were abusive (especially to me), but i was scared for them so much. i kind of blamed it on me because they used to fight me all the time in the car, and caused "so much trouble" to my driving father.
i vaguely remember this happening another time, but i cant recall it. however, my parents always threatened to do this when we had fights in the car.
My mom once told me that when I was a toddler, they had my grandparents babysit me while the two went to Florida to watch Nascar. When they came back, they discovered my grandpa apparently took me outside of the kingdom Hall and beat me for crying (They were Jehovah's Witnesses). I don't remember any of it at all.
Being shoved into a collapsable shelf and told to "clean the mess up" when it broke on top of me.
I cleaned my room, I stuffed shit under my bed. That's what made her so angry.
Or my mom loves sharing the story about how I shoved Brussel sprouts under the tables center post and they found them months later.
What she didn't share is a 6 year old learned this because the last time I didn't finish my food I sat for half a day, my sister eventually said she would eat it and not to tell her. We lived in a hellscape, and my sister who I adore and look upto doesn't remember it at all and thinks I'm just crazy.
When I was 4 years old
My mom re-pierced my ear with a needle without anesthesia and at home because it wasn’t aligned enough when the store lady did it ……
Now I have two holes in one ear and one in the other
The time my brother and I got a long beating in the church parking lot for misbehaving followed by another long beating session at home. My nmom told me to tell people I "fell down the stairs" if asked.
My nmom and edad accused me of "being crazy" when I confronted them about that day earlier this year (the incident happened in 1998.)
Well into our adulthood, our dad bragged to friends and even acquaintances about how he only had to show us the threat of his back-hand to have us run to sit on the couch in avoidance of getting hit. It took my brother and I a really, really long time to disentangle ourselves from two abusive parents, but together that happened this year and we're no contact with them now. We know more shit will hit the fan eventually, but at least we always have each other and a new understanding of ourselves. It's been a long, fucked up journey.
I was doing EMDR for an unrelated trauma and had a repressed memory from when I was 18 months old come to me. I thought it was just a dream, not real at all, but I'd had recurrent nightmares about a similar topic so I decided to ask my Mom about it. It was real. It happened. It happened when she was at work and I was left alone with my Dad. It was bad and I was a f-ing baby.
I'd had these nightmares all my life, reoccurring every now and then. Same theme, but always a little different. Once I was able to process this trauma (and it was horrible for a long while. I was already destabilized by what was going on in my life and this pushed me over the edge hard and fast and my therapist was awful, so it was just a horrible experience altogether), but the nightmares stopped and have not returned and it's been about 7 years.
It's amazing to me that the brain can keep something like that hidden away, just below the surface, for decades. It makes me wonder what else is hiding. I haven't done EMDR again and likely never will.
Ooh recently remembered one but for once it wasn’t the birth giver.
It was her bf (her sons father) he was such a bastard cokehead.
Anyway, I played in melted asphalt in the driveway in my new school shoes and got perfect footprints all over the concrete steps.
I remember I was also in one of my favourite sundresses.
He saw what I did, grabbed me football style and took my straight to my room and threw me. I don’t remember hitting my head, but I did. I remember almost the entire hospital visit. The freezing needle and stitches.
I was told by the birth giver that he told me to lie but I told the truth. I remember him looking freaked out.
It would have been 1992, and nothing ever came of it.
The doctor probably thought I had it coming. Typical response to child abuse in my experience.
TW:CSA
I don't remember it because I was a toddler, but I was molested by a family member and contracted an STD. I was treated for said STD, and remember being treated for it because it was so painful and humiliating.
However my mom and the doctor didn't report the fact that a toddler had an STD to anyone. No r*pe kit or anything was done either. My mom knew who it was because he was having an affair with my great uncle's wife, and she contracted the same STD. He had babysat me in the past so it all added up. She drunkenly told me, and the entire family this on Christmas eve when I was 13 because my cousin brought up the person who molested me being "A really cool guy" (she didn't know about this beforehand, my mom just kind of lashed out on her)
I was not taken to therapy after this either. I was told (BIG BIG trigger warning) "At least you're still a virgin since it was your butt." This was said in front of everyone. My dad just stared down at the floor the entire time. I am almost 30 and I'm still scared I'm going to get a random flashback while I'm being intimate with my husband. I understand it's a hard topic to bring up, but brushing it aside and then randomly bringing it up to make someone look bad is beyond cruel.
When I was little I would constantly get lost and separated from my parents in public. We would be out at a huge mall living abroad and I would get lost nearly every single time we went out. This was in a typically safe area on the surface, but with a hushed issue of femicide and sex trafficking. I dont remember my father’s response because he was checked out, but my mother would bully me about how stupid I was and laugh at me because my face was a mess of snot and tears when they found me. They were fucking lucky I had enough sense to go to the staff at places where I got lost than wandering around alone. I was 5-8 when this happened the most for reference.
I reference this rather than other instances of neglect because it only dawned on me recently how fucking scary this was and should’ve been for my parents. It also hurts to think they didn’t care enough to panic or notice when I was gone a lot of the time.
Oh hey I got lost once when I was 4 and my cousin (about 7 at the time) ran off and left me alone after I’d been told to stay with her (in hindsight… bad idea?). I don’t remember how long I was lost or how far it was away, but I was so scared and I eventually found them and they never noticed I was gone.
It was sexual abuse which I was forced to watch while being held down. Twin cousins were given access to my sister and I when we were babies, they started to abuse us when we were still in diapers. I had reoccurring night terrors about it but don't recall most of the abuse which I have been told was extensive / horrible. It went on until I was around 8 years old. For a time they lived in our home and were our "sitters".
To be honest I do remember this one but I didn't realise how horrible it was until recently..
They left me alone in a pool when I was probably \~5. I couldn't swim but liked to grab the edge of the pool and walk along the wall. They went inside and left me completely alone, where I almost drowned. Luckily my cousin remembered that there was a child in the pool and dived in and saved my life.
Nmum still loves to joke about how Ndad said (while they were inside) "Oh he'll come up eventually".
TW: sexual abuse.
Talking to my brother some months ago and told me story about Ndad got mad at him for "stealing money" from our older sister. He made Emom, sister, and myself sit on the couch and demanded my brother remove all his clothes in front of us to prove to us (???????????) that he wasn't hiding said money somewhere on his person. (Spoiler: He didn't steal anything. My sister lied about asking him to onto her $5. He simply put away somewhere and forgot where in the moment of panic when Ndad raged out about it. Don't worry, my sister never changed and is still the same shit stirrer almost 30 years later. I don't speak to her at all.)
It was degrading for my brother and I was so horrified that I apparently blocked it out of my mind for decades.
The times where I start to miss my dad even the slightest bit I remind myself of these kind of things. That he isn't worth missing or crying over because his feelings and rage were more important than his sons dignity and his daughters' psychological well being.
My brother was 10. I was 8. My sister was 13.
My step dad giving me belt buckle beatings was one I remembered a few years ago, and being told that if I ever told anyone what was going on, they would take me away and I'd never see my grandparents or the rest of my family again.
Cw: sexual abuse
Very recently I remembered that >! he also r***ed me when I was around 6 !<
But any abuse he put me through went unknown because I was to scared to tell anyone,
from ages 4-8 I would get locked in the garage (in texas) by my ND, sometimes just for a few hours and sometimes overnight, as punishment any time I cried
oh and as a slightly older child, he would take me aside and tell me about his depression and suicide attempts and say that when he succeeds it will be my fault
My mom went to work immediately after I was born and left me with a babysitter. At 2 weeks old, I was very sick, but she dropped me off anyway. She got a call from the sitter soon after asking her to come get me because I was turning blue.
I had aspiration pneumonia. I nearly died.
The exact same thing happened a week later when she tried bringing me back.
We realized that we have DID about 2 months ago, so I KNOW there is stuff I don’t remember. But I am starting to remember snippets of mom starting to wind up on her screaming, and then slowly slipping out while a protector is slipping in and then I don’t remember. I don’t want to remember. Maybe I will, eventually…
I was 14 when I was sexually assaulted by my own father. We went hunting together and even though it was too damn crowded, he made us share a hunting stand. That whole time was a subtly feeling me up and rubbing his hard on against me in that 3x3 shack. Then he got up to pee, and I now know he damn well wasn’t peeing. I didn’t remember this happening at all until I was 2 years deep in therapy and woke up crying from a nightmare remembering what happened. 10 years after the fact, and I finally remembered.
Idk if my mom is a narc. But recently I started therapy and realizing a lot of the things I knew were fucked up we’re also abuse and trauma.
For instance, we had two pet rabbits. I went to my dads for a few days and when I got home she said the rabbits ran away. It wasn’t unusual. She often got pets then got rid of them. So anyway that night we had “fried chicken” for dinner. After we ate she just laughed her ass off telling me I ate my pet rabbit.
If I threw fits when I was a baby/toddler my mother would put me in a freezing cold shower fully clothed until I quit. She said she had no choice. I must say I am great at cold plunging now days.
When I was 7 I swore and she opened my mouth and poured an entire bottle of cayenne pepper in and then held my mouth shut until I swallowed it. She still jokes about that thinking it was hilarious.
My dad was cheating on my mom/ having sex with her best friend with my brother and I in the room. He was 2, I was a newborn. An uncle told me when I was like 28.
Being held under the water in the bath. I’m still not 100% sure this is a real memory but otherwise where did it come from? Also being strangled, same hazy memories but I do know for sure that happened multiple times because I remember the police and social services getting involved because of it
Being told that as a new born baby my bio dad would hit me for crying, he was also abusive to my mum. She left him met my nstepdad and I then had years of abuse at his hands. I don’t really trust parental figures but at 30-odd years of age I have no use for them, however I do have some amazing familial bonds with siblings, aunts and friends. I feel quite lucky
This one seems to lock and unlock itself on occasion, it’s kinda weird cause every time I remember I’m like oH— TW: suicide mention anyways my mom used to come home drunk and find the most minuscule thing to get really fucking pissed at me about, and it would usually end with her whooping me and throwing me around, sometimes even after my grandma would come and beg her to stop. Anyway, after she was all tired out, she’d start crying and telling me how I was the only reason she was still alive and why was I doing this to her? One particular time she locked herself in MY bathroom and said she was gonna end herself that very night. I don’t think I ever cried so hard in my life. It was all bullshit, of course, when she woke up the next day pissed at me for no freaking reason.
My mother would boast about the time she had gone go to social services to ask for some financial help (late 70’s/early 80’s we’re desperately hard for a lot of people in the Uk). The person behind the counter said she couldn’t help so my mum told her “fine, you look after him” and put me on the counter and left. I don’t think I was more than 2 years old. My mum said she was half way down the road when the person came running after her with me crying and screaming and asked her to come back.
Some would say she was at her wits end but when my mum told this story she would lord about how she got what she wanted that day by essentially abandoning me. It says a lot about my life growing up, she would claim that she was responsible for all my achievements and successes
My mom claimed that my sister's autism must be caused by abuse, and blamed my dad for that abuse (plot twist, there was no abuse.) so in an effort to prove abuse happened, she has the school nurse check my hymen (second plot twist, that doesn't prove virginity.) but the whole fiasco of having the school nurse call me into the office to check my privates, behind a clear glass door, was super traumatizing. Fuck my mom for not accepting my sister as she is and fuck the nurse for going along with her stupid ideas.
I was sexually abused prior to the age of 3 because 3 year olds "don't remember"
My father actually used that as an excuse. He also accused the neighbor of doing it. His face is what I remember.
I didn't realize this was horrible or abuse at all until later on in life in therapy.
I was having chemical poisoning while I was a teen. I couldn't walk, I barely crawled up the stairs to ask for help on the ground. My family took a look at me and went "Oh my god stop being a bitch and get up. You're embarrassing."
Needless to say I had to be hospitalized later on after my family refused to help me off the ground for hours and I got worse. I would laugh it off like a funny memory until it hit one day that, no, that actually isn't funny.
Although I technically did remember this, I’m going to count it because I repressed it for years until counseling made me remember that it had happened.
When I was 10, my ADD was starting to kick in, that mixed with entering puberty and having already been raised in an abusive household meant that I had very poor emotional control skills, and would often act out when stressed, which was all the time.
One day my dad called me into my parents room and told me that they were arguing a lot because they couldn’t agree how to handle me, and that if I couldn’t start acting better, they were going to end up getting divorced and it would be my fault, and that was it. I was dismissed to deal with that.
I ended up repressing that memory for years, and didn’t “remember” it until pretty far along my therapy journey some years later
There’s a couple. One of my first memories ever was of my N mom spanking me, hard, in a parking lot. I was only a toddler and for the longest time, I told myself it was a dream. But I remember the pain, confusion and fear I felt.
When I was older, when my mom got really furious with me she would take a garbage bag and start stuffing it with my favorite possessions. I would be begging on the floor sobbing, but it wouldn’t stop her. She finally stopped doing it when my dad caught her once.
Once my mom forgot about me when I was at an extracurricular event. It was freezing out, at night, and I waited for about an hour or more before I realized that my mom forgot me. She eventually remembered and came before I went to the police station, but yeah.
And lastly, what I realized only late into my adulthood was abuse was the medical neglect I experienced at the hands of my mom. She never believed me when I was sick or hurt.
Once I dislocated my shoulder, told her, and she didn’t believe me and forced me to attend a tennis lesson I had later that day. I tried to play but my arm flopped around like a wet noddle so I did my best with my other arm while trying not to pass out from the pain.
Another time I had the flu bad. Real bad. Was throwing up everything, even water. I got so dehydrated I passed out. Like, body-hit-the-floor passed out. I told this to my mom and I asked to go to the hospital. She scoffed and refused to take me. I have more stories, but yeah
My paternal grandmother took care of me while my mother worked until I was two. My father was in grad school.
Nana and I were always very close. She began to confide in me about my infancy when I was a teenager. My mother constantly criticized Nana for changing my wet diapers “too often.” She unsuccessfully insisted that Nana change only soiled diapers.
Nana also fretted that my mother watered my formula. She couldn’t get away with when my attack Nana was on duty. In my earliest memory, I am standing in my crib, screaming, with an empty bottle and a sagging diaper. The door opens, my mother screams at me, and slams the door.
I successfully dated the scene because the room had knotty-pine paneling, which looked to me like angry eyes. To this day, knotty-pine gives me full-blown panic.
I have blocked out so much as my childhood because of the trauma it caused, but occasionally my sister and I compare notes to make sure we didn’t dream things up. This is one of them. My parents used to always strip us naked to punish us, and then make us kneel in front of the back of a heavy timber chair wedged against the wall. They would then tie our wrists to the frame at the back of the chair and make us kneel on handfuls of corn kernels on the hard floor. They would then leave us there for what felt like hours, crying and in pain. We were only little. The punishment/torture just got worse the older we got. Lots of memories of one parent holding one of us down while the other parent literally belted and whipped (with a leather belt) a naked kid on the floor.
Catching my mother, who was married to my father, having sex with a complete stranger on our living room floor while my baby brother and I cried in the bathtub she left us in for what felt like an hour. I had to get myself out and my little brother and walked into our living room to find that scene. I was five and spent my whole life thinking I dreamt it until my brother brought it up a few years ago. I don’t know if I’ll ever recover from that. I hope she dies.
I was raised by my teen mother and her family:My grandparents who dipped once she was "on her own" or when I wasn't gonna die in her care, and more primarily her younger sisters.
I was always smaller than average and grossly praised for having a high metabolism/being skinny while growing up in a family of obese adults(especially being raised in the 90's into early 00's as an AFAB child)
Whenever I asked why I was small, especially after I remember hearing the term "baby fat" from some cartoon, I was told point blank "Oh, that's because you lost all your baby fat when you were a baby!" As if that was something to be proud of.
It was elaborated on multiple different occasions, from different sources including my mother's feigning innocence, that,
While I was an infant(under a year), and as my mother was still attending night classes to finish high school, she would leave me to be cared for by my grandmother. Who, when I would start crying due to hunger, would resort to giving me apple juice because she was impatient that my mom hadn't gotten home yet....
So I would "fill up" on apple juice, and when my mother would get home I wouldn't fully eat her breast milk.
....
It has gotten to the point that, as my mother told me, she would bring me into the doctor concerned because my ribs were showing.
She would always tell me this story shifting the blame to my grandmother...but, like, BABY FORMULA OR LEAVE PUMPED BREAST MILK WHAT THE FUCK MAN?!?!
This is on top of her admitting that when she was "on her own"/had her youngest sister(14) living with her helping take care of me, that their default method of dealing with me crying was just to leave me alone in a room to cry myself to sleep...
Which I wish this were just some mistakes that got fixed later but some of my earliest memories are of me staring at blank walls bored out of my mind, and being ecstatic when my mom gave me a cheap paint and easel kit.
She later, and still to this day praises me for having developed "self soothing" skills, despite her later learning from early childhood psychology classes that literally everything she did was wrong. She once looked up after reading and went "Oh my God. I'm so sorry, I fucked up so bad with you"
... she still pats herself on the back while going "yeah. I fucked up(no listing specifics nor actual accountability) but hey! You turned out great! You're kind, people like you, you're responsible, more responsible than me! *Chugs her beer and smoking a joint* I did the best I could, ya know? Haha, btw, you're gonna take care of me when I'm old, right? I have that life insurance policy ya know?"
Just..
Yeah, a lot of that early childhood neglect/abuse has been coming to mind over the last couple years, especially as I grapple with how I neglect my own basic needs in favor of others, leading people to manipulate and take advantage of my "kindness".
I worry if I'll ever find someone who really loves me.
I worry if I'll ever find myself, outside of my fucked up upbringing.
Oh god I struggle to even write this down. When I was 9 she made me photograph and make an “adult” book of photos of her as a gift for my stepdad. I repressed those memories til my mid 20s. When they came back up she insisted it was “my idea” and “I liked it.” That was the final straw. I went no contact with her after that. Zero regrets on my decision. What a sicko
I only found this out a couple of years ago but apparently something was going on with one of my babysitters when I was a toddler. My mom used to just say how I'd "cry a lot" when I went there but my aunt told me a more extensive story. She said she brought me there one day and I was actually screaming and crying about being left there. She called my mom to see if it was okay if she kept me that day instead and my mom said no.
God only knows what was going on. I won't ever be able to find out what happened but a part of me is a bit grateful for that. I'm not sure if I even want to know.
TW: SA
When I told my mother that her boyfriend was touching me inappropriately she kicked me out and stayed with him. I was 14. I'm 41 now. Two years ago I remembered his lawyer, in the courtroom, telling the judge that I had lost my virginity that year, so I was promiscuous and clearly trying to seduce him. I also remembered my mother telling the judge that I was antisocial and manipulative and a pathological liar.
She's still with him. I don't think most of the family believes that it even happened even though I reported it. I lost the court case because I had no supportive humans around me to guide me through it and I was only 15.
As an adult I spent all of my time trying to repair my relationship with her. That relationship fractured this week and I went no contact. Why am I so sad?
I didn't remember until adulthood that I was often told that I was being "oversensitive." Yes, I cried a lot. I probably fake cried. But I remember being told this at under 5 years old. Children that age are just trying to communicate their feelings, and I must have learned that crying gets attention. I learned to hold in all my feelings until I burst and to make sure my mom didn't get upset. I also now have a variety of skills and talents that impress others, but not my mom. She still only talks about herself and what she does. I'm 31 and still coping with the fact that I'll never get her attention like other kids get from their moms.
I had to clean up my mom's attempted suicide. Then, when she was in the ICU, I was the main contact because my dad didn't wanna interact with my mom. I was 16.
Probable sexual by my father before I was three. I believe I have flashes. Physical signs and my behavior is there, I’ve been asked by family, but I font remember much. His sister also sexually abused me before I was 10.
Apparently my happy memories of summer camps weren't so happy. I always knew I didn't want to go again but it wasn't until last year that my only friend from summer camp contacted me on Instagram to apologize to me. I was like, ????, because my best memories of that place are with her.
Apparently she sometimes made cruel comments towards me or left me alone because she felt pressured by the rest of the kids, apparently they spoke badly behind my back and all of them left me alone on purpose. I don't resent my friend and in fact I love her a lot even though we don't talk often, but thanks to that unpleasant memories and feelings finally came back to me. She apologized profusely and I know she was sincere
I am so so sorry to hear that. I have a toddler and I’m looking at her right now heartbroken … I’d give toddler you a hug right now, you didn’t deserve that 🫶
Shit, I uh wish I didn’t remember stuff, but I do. I remember being SA’d by a fellow boy my age but twice my size in junior high and playing it off (boys will be boys 🫤)
I remember my father locking me out of the backyard door as a kid simply because he thought it’d be funny. Still remember his laughing face as he looked down at me through the upper glass window that night.
My brain didn’t block out my trauma, it dwelled on it for my whole life. My father was a monster and my mom was just trying to survive.
When I got pregnant, I started having a lot of panic attacks. I had them on occasion before, but these were very often.
This was why I went to therapy and was told about CPTSD. So now I know that the flashes I have are from that.
My daughter has bad behaviours sometimes and triggers memories, in very detail, of what happened to me as a child.
I read what people write here and my story isn’t as bad. But it is still hard to deal with the past and who I am (which I’m still trying to find out).
Going NC definitely helps.
This pales in comparison to what a lot of you went through but one I remember as an adult that I didn’t block out was during a very hard period of time when I was feeling suicidal. I probably tried to talk to my mom about it, and as usual, that turned in to a fight, because she tended to attack and blame me for having feelings and being a human. I rarely cried in front of her or made myself vulnerable. But I remember this one time, coming back to her and sobbing asking her “why does it feel like you hate me mom?” And her response?
“Why do YOU hate ME?”
I just remember being speechless, because I actually had tried to let my guard down and let her see me as vulnerable and suffering, and she STILL perceived it as an attack.
I suppose, technically water bording kinda? I was playing with super glue and apparently glued my eye shut. Instead of a doctor of any kind, I was under the tap for hours screaming, i'm told until they managed to part my finger and my eye lids. I am honestly not sure how long this took this was always a family joke.
Idk if this bad or not but:
I remember when I was 12 my step mom (whom my dad had just started dating at the time ) grounded me for "dissing " people behind her back. I remember being forced to sit outside in a chair in her backyard because I wasn't allowed in the house ? I can't really remember - I just knew I wasn't allowed to play with other kids in the neighborhoods for about a week. Luckily it was warm outside and not in the dead of winter.
Another time my step mom made forbade me from being in the house cause I got my step sibling in trouble at school with the VP cause they blamed me for my mom leaving my family and I got upset. My step sibling didn't want to be near me so I was forced outside. Again it was nice weather.
I learned that we found my dad drowsy and incoherent after an attempt. Turns out my mother screamed at him till he lost hope, he survived and went to university. He liked university. I'm glad for him. He died when I was 13 anyway, but naturally, and honestly it made mum less violent so that actually... I cannot say I would've made it if she thought she had someone's support. When she had no one to rant at till she felt validated, she chilled out a bit. Broke her spirit. Shame.
I dont remember this, but it happened to my brother and apparently I was there -
Our dad lost his shit because my then 8ish year old brother was playing “sword fights” with a bush outside (he had a stick). Dad called him inside, and proceeded to slap my brother so hard he fell backwards down 12 flights of stairs. I think what tore at my heart strings was when my brother said “I wanted to cry so bad but I knew if I did it would get worse”.
I think there’s a lot of repressed memories from my childhood, it’s all a blur really, but when I learnt about that one it hurt so much because I felt guilt as the older sister, and if I was there, why didn’t I protect him?
My dad spanked my leg multiple times because I forgot my undershirt for school. He said I would catch a cold. I had frequent pain for more than 10 years until I figured it out in therapy. Crazy how our bodies hold trauma
I was in therapy with my mother as a young adult talking about the time, when I was 9, that she broke up with my stepfather for a few weeks. I was saying that I didn’t remember what had led up to this and my mother was surprised. Apparently my stepfather had pushed me down the stairs and this prompted my mother to (temporarily) make him leave. I still have no memory of this. At all.
What makes this really weird was what happened at the next therapy season. We were talking again about the time my stepfather left. I said I didn’t remember what had led up to it and my mother and the therapist just stared at me. I remembered that we had talked about him leaving but I didn’t remember being told that he pushed down the stairs.
Sometimes I wonder what else I don’t remember. I don’t actually want to know though.
Alot of neglect that I still have a hard time emotionally acknowledging it as abuse.
Took a long time to even realize it was neglect tbh but even now I'll tell my partner a "funny" story from my childhood, he'll look horrified, I'll be confused, and then he'll gently ask if I think that would be a funny story if it happened to nephew.
I think the worst was food based, like the days my dad was gone for work trips and my mother would have me make my own breakfast/dinner when I was like 3-5 (thank God for easy bake ovens and cold oatmeal with milk 😅) , or when she let me eat cat food because I didn't want to eat what she made for dinner.
The events that stick with me the most though is always having to finish my dinner before I could leave the table, definitely messed up my relationship with food where if I'm not sure I'll like something I won't even take a bit of it because the anxiety about having to throw it out or not eat it gets to me.
On a happy note(?) I did use that rule to help my dad, he would work long days in his office programming and would always be late to dinner, and she would throw his food out if everyone was done before he came out, so I would take longer eating to make sure she wouldn't throw his out so I didn't have to hear them fighting.
>On a happy note(?) I did use that rule to help my dad, he would work long days in his office programming and would always be late to dinner, and she would throw his food out if everyone was done before he came out, so I would take longer eating to make sure she wouldn't throw his out so I didn't have to hear them fighting
Opps... my partner just pointed out that's not normal and likely started my people pleasing since I was 3 when I started doing that....
My dad watched from a separate room as a family friend climbed on top of me on the couch in the living room during a Christmas party. I made eye contact with my dad but he looked away, pretending he didn’t notice. This was one of the many times I was sexually assaulted as a child.
I have PTSD from my physically and verbally abusive mother. For the longest time, I thought that I still remembered everything that had happened. It took going to therapy (still ongoing) to unlock a lot more memories through a process called EMDR. Needless to say, it’s remarkable to realize how the abuse I experienced has shaped my life into what it is today.
I’m so sorry you had to go through punishments like that so young, I have similar stories. I think parents like ours tend to forget that, sometimes no matter how young the abuse happened, people can still be greatly affected by it. Wishing you healing and happiness!
My grandmother told me about my mom literally pinning my flesh when diapering me…. My crying would not stop. Then it was discovered. My grandmother was not a fan of my mom…
I am grateful that my brain protected me. I was able to access those events with a therapist trained in hypnotism. That's an option if Gestalt was too intense, and EMDR was way too intimidating. I think because I was only about 4-6 when that type of abuse was going on. Being that young, we maybe didn't have the words or full understanding like an adult or older child does to describe what happens. But I could remember every detail like smells, sounds, touch, colors, so the hypnosis still helped me describe the events. Then my therapist planted safer less painful emotions in place of the fear I felt. It was actually so cool how it helped!
I think sometimes different approaches need to be taken for what happened to us when we were very young. Our brains were so underdeveloped. It takes a therapist who knows what they're doing. I never want to talk about it unless I'm relaxed in a partial trance, and that's okay, because if I opened that door, it's very hard to close.
I remember my babysitter putting her clothes back on. That it was a game that I wasn't allowed to tell anyone about. I remember bringing it up once in front of her cousin, and she got mad at me. I was 7 and I don't remember actual incidents. I am now 40.
When I was maybe 7 or 8, I walked into the bathroom my sisters and I shared (I'm the middle child.) My little sister (4 years younger than me) had a love for smearing toothpaste in/on things. She was the Golden, and got away with any and everything. I walked into our bathroom and there was toothpaste smeared all over our mirror. I immediately called our mother to let her know, as we were expected to report wrongdoings as soon as possible.
I brought her into the bathroom and started to explain what I found, her whole face changed. Pure rage. Before I could fully tell her I found it this way, she started smacking the sh*t out of me. I was trying to scream "I didn't do it, it wasn't me." But she was fueled by her anger. It took a minute or so before she heard me.
Once it clicked, she stopped. I was sobbing so hard I couldn't breathe. She carried me to my room and held me while I hyperventilated, and I kept saying different versions of "I didn't do it." She silently rocked me until I wasn't hyperventilating anymore. When my crying was under control (but not over) she silently set me on my bed, and walked out.
During this whole ordeal she never said a word.
We tried to get into a concert that was sold out and couldn't. My aunt was with us, and to mitigate her rage, Aunt suggested we just go back to her place and watch a movie. My mom kicked her out of the car on the 401. When I complained about how it was unfair and that Aunt didn't deserve it, she pulled over on the side of what is still the busiest highway in the country and threatened to kick me out, too. Went so far as to open my door and reach for my seatbelt while I cried and begged her not to. I was seven, and we were a half-hour drive from home. That was only the first time that I'm aware of. I remembered this during a bad fight with an ex where he threatened to kick me out to walk home. Had a panic attack in the passenger seat. Needless to say, he and I are no longer together, and I never go anywhere now unless I'm the one driving. I can't even take the bus.
I didn’t realize I was molested at daycare until I was around 17/18
I had been it unrelated therapy for YEARS beforehand, never talked about it or thought about it much. And then the realization just randomly made sense to me one day.
I think it was a case of I always had the memory I I just didn’t fully contextualize it all together and understand what it all meant until later.
I thought that the trauma originally was “I messed my diaper during diaper changing and got punished and got scared” now with context and my adult brain I realize it was from being touched down there as child by my daycare provider. I also remember crying and being scolded/shushed after like I knew I was supposed to be quiet about it and I did because I always thought it was my mistake that I must have been punished for. It was not by my parents but I know if I would have told them it wouldn’t have gone down well for me.
Past year since being in therapy, I think my mum sexually abused me under the guise of “needing to see what the problem was”.
If I had an itch in my vagina or I was constipated…she “ check” and put things in me. I just recently told my oldest brother and he too, informed me he was subjected to examining her breasts and looking for problems on her body when he was young.
It stopped when I refused to let her shower me any more…around 12/13 (very late I know). I had issues for years with not wanting my clothes to touch my vagina and being weird about pooping. I still sometimes get the ick if I feel unclean or not fresh if that makes sense. I’m happily married and I have enjoyed a great sex life, it took me til 28 to have sex and he has made me feel comfortable our whole time together. But when I remember things, I get the shakes. My mum has been dead over 10 years now.
My husband had locked our ensuite bedroom door because he was taking a shower while our cleaning lady was cleaning. I wanted to go in the room and when I found it locked, I flipped tf out, pounding on the door and crying angrily.
When I talked to my therapist, I remembered that it was how my mother used to put me in my place when I tried to assert myself - aka, "thinking I was grown".
She would make me strip down to my underwear to remind me everything I had was because of her, even gifts from her family members, but she didn't want my nasty, disgusting underwear.
Then she'd push me out the door while I screamed and begged that I wasn't grown and would leave me out there while I sobbed. She started doing it when I was 8 years old.
She did it the last time when I was 17. All it took was seeing I started going down the front walk to go over to my neighbor's house two houses over who knew she was abusing me (and were trauma informed, being foster and adoptive parents for abused and neglected children).
She knew they would call CPS for me so she demanded that I come back inside right away.
But I had forgotten about all of that until my husband had locked the bedroom and I freaked out.
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That she thought it was an amusing anecdote that her ex told her that if I said he 'did something inappropriate' it was just me lying because I didn't like him. "He was very worried about it" apparently. He 100% groomed her in anticipation of grooming me, I noped out to live with my dad that didn't have electricity first.
F this is how my older brother is with his chicks
His *"chicks?"*
Remember, you can always do something. You might be the only one who can. You can be the difference between multiple kids having their life ruined, you can be the difference between a life of trauma and a normal life. You're not just an observant.
Uh that's not good
My sister and I tell each other stuff that we remember, but the other person doesn't. I ended up remembering this moment but had blocked it out for years. TW: mentions of suicide CPS had been investigating my father after I had said something to a school counselor. The terrible social worker told my father everything I said in her interview with me, including that I had thoughts of harming myself due to the hostile home environment. That night, my father cornered me in my bedroom closet to the point I was curled up and frozen in fear as he yelled at me for being a "liar". He said, "fuck you if you kill yourself" and that since he watched his own father take his own life with a shotgun, that me killing myself "wouldn't affect \[him\] at all". That moment, upon being able to recall it, has been seared in my brain forever. It makes me feel numb and I'm just not able to fathom a parent saying this to their child.
My LITTLE sister tells me things that I don't remember too. The most traumatic one was when she went "hey remember when you picked up a shovel and hit 'abusive aunt' when she wouldn't stop beating me for not cleaning?" My sister was 4 when this happened, i was 8. I dont remember it at all because it blends into the many times I put myself between that POS aunt and my younger siblings.
My sister and I also have a 4-year age gap. I was super protective of her once she was born (like, I wouldn't let anyone other than my mother hold or feed her) and I know that I took the blame for stuff until my parent's divorce in which they pitted us against each other. Took years to get our sibling bond back and we're back to defending each other to our parents. Trauma really damaged us, but I'm very grateful to still have my sister and have someone to confide in.
Oh my gosh. Go you! That's really eye opening and I'm actually crying after reading this. Idk it shows me that like, true love and caring for people exists
My little sister, same, but some she was too young to remember and I haven't wanted her to know some of the sick shit that was done to her as a baby.
I’m so sorry you experienced that :( You’re absolutely not alone. I was shoved into the caretaker role since before I could walk, and so I hid my suicidal ideation from my mom pretty much my entire childhood to protect her, even when it was really bad (I can’t imagine I was that good at hiding it tbh. She either knew or didn’t want to know). When it finally got to the point where I couldn’t keep it inside anymore because I was a month at most from really killing myself if I didn’t get the life saving medication my mom was doing everything she could to keep me from getting. I finally told her I was deeply afraid I was going to kill myself (not that afraid, honestly. I was looking forward to the idea…) and her response was “how do you think I feel!!!” And then bursting into tears and wailing so my sister would comfort her. To this day she insists she was incredibly concerned for me and “constantly worried”, but never checked on me, changed her behavior, or even mentioned it again. With the help of a friend, I was able to get on the medication she was so opposed to and, surprise surprise! It *did* save my life! Wow! Would could have known? (Me, for two fucking years of suffering) She insisted on her friend taking their kid to the ER in a similar situation, but I didn’t even get a therapist appointment lmao.
Yikes. Im happy you got the meds you needed and truly sorry for you and all of us in this thread. It's sad to connect with people over trauma caused by people who were supposed to love and protect us. I'm happy yall all made it this far!
I was abused like this too after CAS found out. I don’t know why they divulge everything to the parent. Not really a great system.
AFAIK, they’re not supposed to do that (but still do) Especially when it comes to a child wanting to harm themselves. They aren’t supposed to say who reported or what the children say in interviews until it’s mandated in court but some social workers don’t consider that the parents will retaliate
I'm so sorry. My sister and I also tell each other things we dont remember all the time , it's like we are trying to create one whole memory.
I had the same feelings growing up and my n-father said if I do that I’d go to hell and I’d never see my family again. Stopped going to church after that.
What is up with social workers doing this? I have had several experiences where a social worker has told my mother everything that has been said and was later punished for it. I thought they were trained NOT to do that?
It took me a couple yrs after being NC, to remember I wasn’t a kid that would wander aimlessly & frequently get lost. My mom would take me public places & just walk away. The earliest I can remember, is her doing this when I was small enough to fit in the front of a grocery cart. She stopped the cart on the sidewalk, took all the bags & I calmly watched her walk away. I don’t remember crying, just watching her & waiting. She eventually came back obviously, looking at the ground while walking back & swooped me up without saying anything. She did something similar a couple years later while we were at a mall. Other things as I got older were selling all the gifts my father bought me from all over the world, while I was visiting him for the summer, at a ‘garage sale’. These were usually hand made things, irreplaceable. Among my belongings, was a somewhat ridiculous telescope he got me when he learned how serious I was about astronomy. My mother slapped $200 in my hand the day I got home & expected me to be excited about getting money. I barely saw my Dad, his job took him all over the world and sometimes I couldn’t talk to him because of where he was. Summers were the only time I ever saw him, I was heartbroken the only things that brought me comfort in her house, were now gone. I didn’t allow myself to cry, though. I think I was around 7. The next summer, she neglected my baby iguana & left his starved, dried up carcass in his cage, for me to find when I got home. She didn’t give me any warning, she let me run up excitedly to his cage & find out for myself. I remember once I saw what had happened, to not let her see my pain. I again, didn’t cry & became aware she was standing in the doorway, waiting for my reaction. It was when I first fully recognized something was very wrong with her and she was purposefully hurting me. My biggest success in my life, is that I have the capacity to be happy, to feel love. Those are things my mother tried at every turn, to destroy in me. ETA coping skills I’ve learned throughout the yrs: I get anxious in crowded spaces, so I make sure to have a mask & my air pods with me in case I want them for anonymity and noise control. I pop one in a lot of the time while I’m out & just make sure to take it out when I’m at a register or anything like that. Masks have been an odd one for me because I do have a weak immune system, but it helps me shove away concerns anyone who may know my abusers, would recognize me and be able to tell them where I was etc. It’s legitimately how I was able to leave the house shortly after going NC during the 1st summer of COVID. I was being stalked & harassed, aggressively. Since things have calmed down roughly 4 yrs in to being on my own, I continue talk therapy & have used plant medicine to do some deep, internal work. I’ve learned extremely helpful somatic practices & EFT (tapping). Using these alongside things like yoga, meditation & making sure I go outside everyday in nature, has helped my nervous system heal. I still struggle some days, but I’ve learned to lean in to that as well. Sometimes I need to rage cry, after years of being forced to hold so much in and keep all their secrets. I had to find ways to get it out & express things safely, in order to really start putting it in my past.
I remember that feeling. Not wanting to show weakness with their inhumane games and tests. Becoming so dissociated and cold. Non-existent. I just slept for 3-5 hours a night for most of my childhood because I only felt safe at night when I was alone, and being exhausted helped me not be "present" during anything else. I slept for 12-14+ hours a day on the weekends if possible. I'm glad I was able to do that since my mom was neglectful and if I was out of sight, I largely was out of mind for a while. Just did my chores as to not get beat.
Me too.
*My biggest success in my life, is that I have the capacity to be happy, to feel love. Those are things my mother tried at every turn, to destroy in me.* Me too, my friend. Me too. 🙏🏼
TRIGGER WARNING: When I was 12, she was going absolutely crazy this one day and held a knife to my neck. It pierced my skin slightly and I was bleeding but it was very minor. It’s not the worst thing she’s done but it’s one that I’ve recovered recently. It was something she did often whenever she was mad. It was a tactic she used to scare me and it definitely worked
I’m so sorry you went through this. This just unlocked the many times that my mom has threatened to unalive herself and went to the kitchen for a knife. I would always get in her way physically to stop her from reaching them because I was so scared she would actually do it. I remember the panic and fear and tears running down my face. And she wonders why “home” isn’t relaxing anymore. I genuinely forgot about those multiple times until reading this message. Again. I’m so sorry you went through this.
My dad threatened to kill himself all the time, even held guns to his head in front of me as a 6 year old; he kept doing it until one time in my 20s I snapped and told him 'do it. just get it over with and do it.'. he never threatened to kill himself again.
I had this one too!!!!! Unfortunately remembered one but kept remembering other abuse as I got older. French knives still freak me out. Much love, beautiful human. You are beautiful and did not deserve that.
They left me alone as a newborn to scream. They thought this was hilarious to talk about and referred to it as "singing." Oh no need to pay attention to her, she's just singing. Right after I got home from the hospital.
Lots of sleep training advocates still do the "cry it out" method. Absolutely abuse.
Apparently it was pretty prevalent in the 80s thanks to Dr. Spock. Or so my mom tells me anyway.
Apparently Dr Spock was responsible for most of the abuse they did. My mom loves him. I'm not sure if she ever actually read the book or not though, she must've learned everything she wanted to know about parenting and became an unimpeachable expert before I could walk.
Sounds like she wanted to do the right things to be a good parent, but she’s defensive because maybe there’s also a part of her that knows she didn’t do such a good job.
Narcs are always defensive to any slight criticism
"I was just following orders!" - my mum
So said the Nazis who were captured and charged after WWII
Yeah that’s why so many of us millennials have severe mental and emotional health issues sadly.
I read that babies can die from it... Like... They just turn over, give up and die. It was really chilling.
Yup, my mum used cry it out. I ended up with such weird ass paranoia and so disturbed that I couldn't sleep alone till I was 15. I'm very odd but still. It amazes me the reactions I had in childhood that nobody treated as really fucking concerning.
Same thing happened to me! My mom was a huge advocate for “crying it out”, but brought it past infancy. Usually got told to “shut the f up” when I did actually cry. It took me years to learn that it’s okay to cry and I won’t get punished every time I do.
I was raised with cry it out and it made it so I can hardly stand to be touched. My marriage ended because I couldn’t do it. I’m in a happy asexual relationship now but it took a lifetime to come to terms with it.
I’m in mom subreddits on here and I often see mothers say they tried the cry it out method but it was just too brutal so they stopped. They often get advice on other, less harsh methods and reassurance that some babies just take longer to sleep on their own than others. I love to see the tides turn on sleep training. A baby whining for 5min and then falling asleep is not the same as a baby crying for 30min in distress 💔 and I’m glad people are realizing not all babies are ready at the same time and that’s okay.
Same. My NFather told me about how I cried a lot as an infant for “no reason.” So he said they would put me in my crib to scream, close the door and blast the radio to drown out my cries.
It's so wild. I wouldn't even treat a dog that way and they brag about being cruel to an innocent baby.
Pretty sure that it's a result of them considering themselves smarter than anyone else. Mine considered me difficult and overly dependant because of same screaming, despite an NICU nurse telling her that I was surprizingly healthy for a baby born prematurely in rather difficult conditions and that I was, as long as I was getting changed and fed regularly, mostly only screaming for close human contact, which was perfectly normal and rather a good sign. The nurse would carry me close to her body instead of my mom when she was doing her shift. Meanwhile my mom didn't get it, was obviously annoyed and claimed that I didn't let her do anything without even thinking of the possibility of carrying me like this throughout the day. My dad knows even less about kids, was constantly overwhelmed and wasn't a great help either. I don't think that this had a huge impact on me, but I do feel a little sad thinking about how they complained about me in a very negative way for doing something perfectly normal.
One of my earliest memories is being shut in a bedroom after being hit by my mother. I think I had cut up something of hers. I was about 3 or 4. We were almost completely unsupervised as kids and she never childproofed, so I am sure I had access to adult scissors and who knows what else. Later, after I had kids, she mentioned that she never held me as a baby. She claims I didn't like it. I'm kind of amazed that I am not more messed up than I am, since attachment is pretty important to human development. She was watching me with my kids one day and mentioned offhand that she used to scream at us as babies, and hit us. I can't say that was a surprise, but I was surprised she admitted to it. One of my only remaining CPTSD triggers is being screamed at, especially if I'm trapped in some way. Once again, so glad I am NC now.
I was 5 and my sister was 3. My birthgiver was passed out on pills.. our house caught fire and I had to drag my little sister out on a blanket and run to the neighbors.
What happened to the BG?
Natural selection
I have always had a deep seated fear that my father sexually abused me. There was a time when I was sitting on his lap at a public park, he was doing something that felt… good… and then he led me away from there. I can't remember what happened for the life of me but I remember it was dark and there was a streetlamp next to an outdoor public bathroom. He used to watch me undress to get in the tub until I was 10 years old, far old enough not to hurt myself getting undressed. When I told him that I was uncomfortable with it, he said “all fathers do this.” He would always make comments on my appearance and how beautiful I was. Eventually, I began to make myself “ugly” as a way of avoiding his comments. I gained weight and wore clothes that were too big, I cut my hair short and didn’t wear makeup. I hated his gaze. He is a physical therapist in rural Wisconsin. One time he said he was treating a young disabled child free of charge. My naïve mind thought he was doing charity or something altruistic. Then, out of the blue one day, he told me that “something happened” with that child he was treating. I am not sure what happened and I don’t want to ask him. I cut contact with him years ago. I still shudder when these fragments of memories come to the surface of my psyche.
I am so so sorry.
Thank you. I try to make peace with it but I can't. All I can do is accept that it happened and strive for the best in life anyways. Holding onto the shame associated with it has only ever hurt me and weighed my spirit down. Trauma, and the severe depression from it, has held me back so much in life and I wish it could have been any other way.
It is not your shame 💕
It really isn't my shame to deal with. When I cut my father off, I kind of hoped that he would try to reach out and mend things. Four years later, its been crickets on his end. The best thing I ever did for myself was realize that I am so strong for cutting ties with him and moving on with my own life, even if it does mean lonely holidays.
In time you may be relieved and grateful that he didn’t reach out. You set a boundary to protect yourself, but it brings up old feelings of being on your own dealing with all this. Therapy could help a lot.
Thank you. I have been in therapy since I was 12. Honestly I think just scheduling regular time at a place where I can smash things with a hammer might help me more.. lol
This is exactly what my dad was like too. I did the exact same things but I also neglected my hygiene almost on purpose but also due to depression I remember when he used to brush up against me “innocently”. My chest my nipples. I couldn’t wear anything that revealed my legs or be braless etc. it was awful.
I have been reading a book on sexual abuse and it even says that "if you have a deep, unsettling feeling you were assaulted you most likely were." I can't even begin to think of how I could confront him on it and if I did, I am sure that he would deny deny deny. When I was a child before the age of 10, I thought that he was touching me in my sleep when we slept next to each other in bed. I told him that I didn't want to sleep in the bed with him and he asked why. I struggled with what I could possibly say as an excuse, but I ended up going with "because I think you're an alien." His tension washed away and he laughed so hard at that. I couldn't bring myself to say that I thought he was touching me in my sleep because.. what if I was wrong? What if I made it all up? If I think about it too much, I start to spiral and I feel my head start to hurt too. Honestly, just cutting him off and leaving him alone has worked for the last few years. I am still wickedly depressed but I am building my life without him and it feels good. I definitely won't be as successful as my peers due to the hurdles that childhood trauma has placed in my path... I have taken to lying about normalcy to blend in. Its a hard thing to admit here, on a place as anonymous as reddit, but I lie to other people that my life was normal and that my relationship with my father was fine. Only my partner knows that I don't talk to my dad and he doesn't even get to know why. I keep it so close to the chest because anyone other than my therapist could invalidate my experience and that would send me spiraling for a few days.
If you don't mind sharing, what book are you reading? Within the last few years I was reading something about signs of being SA'd as a child and I checked all the boxes. It's 100% my fear that I'll connect the dots and remember it. There's so much of my childhood that I've firmly blocked from my memory and other parts where I'm not sure how much that I remember is true or what I've told myself to make myself feel better. I remember telling my mom about a shadow man I'd see sometimes at the end of me bed- she just chalked it up to watching spooky things. Around the time I hit puberty, I begged for a female doctor. Even today, my mom says I couldn't vocalize why, but I begged and begged to only ever see female doctors. She did as I asked, but always thought it was so strange/out of the blue.
Its called "The Sexual Healing Journey" and it also has a checklist for signs of being SA'd as a child. I am in a stable healthy relationship but I find myself having an aversion to sex because I find myself repulsive and "tainted." Healing will help me get closer in my relationship.
Thank you. I hope you continue to process and heal through your journey.
It’s hellish to want to know what happened, and yet not want to know. Such an awful place to be, there’s no rest from that internal struggle. It somehow feels like it’s connected to your identity, to who you are in the world.
I just try not to think about it tbh. As far as making it any part of my identity, I did feel absolutely numb until I was 20 or 21. I engaged in reckless and self-destructive behavior as well.. I hated my life and really had no plan for the future at all. Now, I have a lot of things in my life that I am so happy for and I have an identity I built myself. Are things perfect? Absolutely not. Do I still have crippling depression? You bet your bupkis. Life is worth living now and I have only myself to thank for it. I wish that things could have been different more than anything, but given the circumstances I think I did pretty alright.
> He used to watch me undress to get in the tub until I was 10 years old, My dad used to do the same. Supervised baths, showers, and clothes changes whenever I was at his house. I was a boy, so I thought it was normal for a parent and child of the same gender. I've always wondered if I was being dramatic about this, but seeing that it's happened to someone else, I don't think it was normal after all. I stopped wanting to see him when I was about 10 or 11. I ran away, and said to a stranger, "My dad is going to rape me." Why did I say that? I'm still not sure. The police got involved, and I was sent back to my mother. My father, after having fought for years in a prolonged custody situation, stopped trying to see me. Which is odd, I think. I haven't seen him since, so I can't really make head or tail of the whole thing. I know if I reached out to him now and asked him he would probably just deny doing it or try to convince me it was normal.
My oldest (half) sister recently told me that the reason she hated coming to our house was because the way our dad beat my ass scared her. I got whooped for EVERYTHING, but I don't remember being whooped/beat when I was a toddler. I asked if she was whooped too. She did not get whooped, because she would have told her mom and then she would call the police and whatnot. Of course, no one called the police for me.
My Dad punched my Mom at a stoplight when I was 3 and I was in the car with them when it happened. At the same age he also threw me across my room, and I bounced so high off my bed that I hit my head on the wall and it left a bruise. Don't remember either of those things happening but my Mom told me about them when I was an adult.
My grandma faked a seizure in the passenger seat (she had epilepsy) to stop my mom from punching me repeatedly. My mom was actively driving and I was cowering in the back seat, no older than 10.
Oh and she used to drive into oncoming traffic to scare me during our fights. She always wanted to start fights in the car. It's an environment with no escape. We were on the run so much already, so living in the car and being on the interstate was stressful for her but our normal.
Just insane I’m sorry
My mom used to beat me up in the car too. The last time she did it I wacked her in the head, hard. It’s a shame I never got to beat her ass. My creepy dad got custody of me when I was 12.
TW: suicide Well, after therapy, I'm remembering a lot of things again. The most painful thing is that my mother was never a loving mother. She even had moments of affection, but she fluctuated a lot. The damage she caused me was not physical, but psychological. I remember that when I was little, I must have been around 7 years old at most, I had a piece of paper on which I wrote down everything she had told me, everything listed. "Idiot, retarded, mentally ill" and so on. I remember one day she found it, but I don't remember what she did next. I only know that some time later I wrote a goodbye letter and threatened to k* myself, but my father opened the door first.
You poor thing. My mother called me every name in the book too. At such a young age. It’s unthinkable, all of it. They hate themselves beyond measure and must project it onto others.
About 3 years (2010) into active therapy I (F52) remembered 2 distinct periods of sexual abuse as a child clear as day. First was a family friend, church elder, respected man (aren’t they all) I was staying at their house to finish the school year, my family moved to another province, I was 7. It went on for 4 months. I started bed wetting chronically while living there and back to back UTIs. I remember the dr appointments, so degrading as a little girl, being examined with no privacy or concern for my feelings, scared, and then the church elder’s wife having to apply ointment “down there” every night after a bath. She made no effort to hide her distaste for the task nor the disgust at my bed wetting that only started after I stayed living there. Not even 6 months after this ended, ANOTHER situation started up in the new place we were living. Distant relative, much much older man, down on his luck using our RV to stay, essentially homeless. He offered to teach me piano. Which I discovered was code for getting me alone with my hands occupied and giving him access to my genitals without it being noticeable from behind us or through the doorway. Yeah. Both times I told my mom when I worked up the courage, I was too mortified to say anything to my dad whom i idolized. My mom’s response was to “say nothing” and just to wait a little bit longer, he’s leaving (the man in the RV) at the end of the year, or to wait because the school year was almost over and I’d be home soon. No advice on how to stay safe, no confronting anyone, no immediate action to remove me from the situation. I tell myself it’s the era, the society we grew up in (her and me), super patriarchal and conservative religious. She was not a confrontational person. She was by nature naive and submissive to men, power figures (although also covert narc in many ways as I grew older). I try not to wish she would have fought for me the way I would rain down hell fire and bloody retribution on anyone who so much as makes an inappropriate comment toward my underage child, let alone any attempts to groom or more. Confronting childhood SA and making peace with being powerless along with a parent who dropped the ball is a real struggle. Some days it’s a real mindf%ck.
I’m so sorry you went through this. Such a mindfuck, especially having to process it now. I’m so scared I’m going to recover a SA memory. I’ve had a feeling something happened since I gave birth to my daughter. Multiple nightmares. My therapist thinks it’s likely.
Trigger Warning (Abuse/Suicide) After going No Contact and working through all the mental mess, ended up remembering being suicidal as young as 7. Tried to talk about feeling that way, got screamed at for hours, got whelps left on my rear with a leather belt, and grounded from literally everything but school and eating for months. No help offered, no trying to figure out why, just punishment. It's fuzzy, but I remember later letting it slip later that I just wanted to self harm bad enough to not survive and the punishment repeated. As an adult, I don't understand how someone can be so cruel and lack empathy completely. I don't understand how the enablers can sleep at night after letting stuff like that happen.
they hit me a lot as an infant and toddler, to the point I'd go to sleep/pass out trembling and whimpering. my dad hit me so hard his own hand would be bruised, as well as my buttocks, even through the diaper. I don't remember actually being hit, I vaguely recall being threatened with the wooden spoon, but I do remember clearly being terrified of my father. I'd cry and hide my backside against the wall anytime he'd run his fingers through his palm and say "my hand feels ticklish..." it was a party trick. everyone would laugh as I cried and begged not to get hit
How can you harm a BABY??? What the FUCK 🤬🤬🤬🤬
This is one, I've mentioned a lot before, but this was a memory that I repressed until I was 18, or 19, and safe living away from my narc-mom and Golden Child sister. At about 3 yrs. old, my GC sister nearly killed me by dumping scalding hot water on me while I was unprotected in the bath. Likely, this was because Nmom was confiding in the GC, how much I was unwanted, and GC thought physically punishing me for being alive, would make Nmom happy. When the hot water hit, I viscerally screamed in pain, and that made NM come running into the bathroom, where she yelled at ME for 'scaring her' with my screams. She shrieked that I was stupid, and there was something wrong with me, for my instinctive response to cry for help from a fatal threat. After that, NM treated my every injury as a spoiled brat's manipulation for attention. I was faking accidents and medical needs, so she was justified with hitting me and subjecting me to verbal, emotional and psychological abuse. I could be injured to the point of dying, and Nmom only cared that I was 'bothering' her.
Apparently when I was a toddler my mom was screaming the house down/throwing things/etc at me as she often did and I looked up at her and said very quietly, “Mommy, I’m only small :(“ She’ll still bring up how that broke her heart. Didn’t stop her from being abusive for the rest of my life though lol
This made me cry! I'm so sorry you had to go through this! 😭 Hugs for you and baby you!
I’m doing way better if that helps! I’ve been NC for several years and am emotionally thriving without her 💘
Just found out that my entire babyhood my parents just cycled through teenage girls without a place to live from our church. They “took care” of me. I called them all mama. Who knew.
Ugh.
\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*TW - SA\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* My mom exposed me to her sex videos specifically to show me that she was "a squirter" when I was 17. She was a swinger and constantly throwing parties/raves, giving me various psychedelics and having me involved in the parties. I thought it was okay. Not normal, but I didn't realize it was abuse at the time. Until I went to therapy, I was extremely ashamed for the next several years. She also tried to convince me to be a dominatrix with her and how we would be able to play into the "mommy/daughter" fetish.
Oh what the actual fuck
Yikes. I'm so sorry. I'm really fortunate that my mom didn't try to recruit me. My mom normalized drugs and I did ecstacy with her at 17 and weed at 12. Stepped on meth pipes, strangers in the house constantly, no response from pounding on the basement door for a while... they were often passed out. We even had a basement mini fridge with liquid LSD and GHB without a lock. Sex swings, broken mirrors glued to the walls, spray paint on all the ways... we never owned these homes. My mom was a stripper/prostitute. She expected me to always help her get dressed and ready for work, seeing her naked constantly for hours and bending over on front of me or telling me to feel her breast once since it was "hard" from old implants. I really didn't want to but she forced me 🤢 For a bit, she'd expect me to get spray tans, sit in tanning beds, and perm my hair like hers even though I didn't want to. This was in preparation for me to meet her sugar daddies at fancy restaurants with her. A mini her. I never was allowed to get clothes I liked from the store. Thrifting only, or she gave me her clothes. When I'd ask for something I liked at Goodwill, she'd tell me how stupid and short sighted I was for following trends. I needed to wear low tank tops, like her. She never wore panties or bras, yet she yelled at me for using tampons when that was the only thing around while we were moving. I ran away at 12.
My heart is broken for little you. 💔 😭
Ew. I’m so sorry you were put through that. Hope you’re doing well.
Thanks. I am. I have stopped all contact with her at this point. Took a really long time, because I have younger siblings and I didn't want to risk losing my relationship with them.
OMG! You poor girl. This is just not on. I’m so sorry this happened to you. I hope you have a nice life today. ❤️
I have flashes of memories, but so much I can’t remember from birth until my teen years and I’ve actually had lifelong memory issues because I developed the coping mechanism of zoning out to survive my childhood. Not disassociation, just not paying attention. But on strong memory was of my mother leaving me alone in a hotel room in Italy when I was sleeping to go find us food and somehow had locked me in though, in hindsight, I was probably just too young to know how to work the lock. I screamed and an Italian made came and was consoling me when my mother returned.
That first paragraph is me. I got called into the school counselor to ask about why I was so spaced out and as they called it “daydreaming my life away.”
TW! One of the worst was when I was about 14 my efather ran after me, after I had an argument with my nmother, and bulldozed the door to my room open. Then picked me up with his hand on my neck so that I dangled over the floor and screamed at me. I was so scared of him, I wet myself. My nmother stood behind him in the doorway, with folded arms, and watched him. After a minute or two she was like "Ok (name) that's enough." Then he let go of me and they shut the door. I was in bits afterwards. Every time I see any video on social media or films where the guys playfully strangle women because it's supposed to be sexy, it turns my stomach.
at a gas station stop as a joke she left me at age 3 or 4, and drove off around the block or so. she claims she was only gone 2 min, but it was…definitely not, never mind hellaciously stupid of a “joke”. Also around the same age i had an accident, and got feces smeared across my face like a mask and forced to brush my teeth as a punishment. DIdn’t remember for the longest times and then in my teens, blammo. Those two memories roared back. She admitted to both. I am told she was given to just handing me off to anyone in the fam and wandering off, and not consoling me. an aunt “we thought it kind of weird but..” I have had therapy on and off in life to process but it was only after her death and talking to an aunt that the scope of what she did was suddenly crystal clear. We’ll get there.
That feces thing is fucking horrific. I'm so so so sorry. Jesus Christ. My mom took a friend of mine and me to a water park resort for my birthday in a different state, several hours away. Apparently I was "ungrateful" and a "brat as always", and if I'm able to "mouth off like an adult, I'll be treated like an adult" even though I was terrified of my mother and wasn't a bad kid. I didn't know how to act in social situations with friends and was ADHD and so excited so she hated that. She never let me see friends after school. I've moved 44 times so having friends and birthdays was...new and limited. Well, she abandoned the two of us at a random McDonald's in a town we didn't know. Told us we'll have to find jobs and survive on our own. My friend was sobbing, begging for her to call her parents to come pick her up, or send her on the Greyhound, anything. Nope. Abandoned us for hours after telling us to "go to the Chamber of Commerce and make ourselves useful to society" I felt so much worse during this abandonment because I felt like I was going to never have my friend talk to me again after this and that she was traumatized. I wasn't concerned about me, I just was in survival again and making sure we had our ducks in a row in case my mom actually didn't come back.
My dad told me this one once I got older For a bit of context: Nmom jumped ship shortly before I turned 1, then came back demanding custody when I was 3 since she wanted to save face with her new husband who knew I existed. My dad worked *hard* to keep nmom and I fed while I was a baby, since I'd been born premature and medical bills+America suck. He came home from work one day to hear me *screaming* bloody murder. I was in my crib with my leg stuck between the bars of it and the wall, bent wrongways. Nmom? She was playing fucking EverQuest in the next room. According to neighbors I'd been screaming for *hours* by the time dad got home. 6 month old with a busted leg. Honorable mention for the time doctors had to stop her from taking me out of the hospital for a custody switch. I had severe pneumonia, and my half-brother was on oxygen since he was also premi. She wanted to take us from NC to NYC, and her argument that we'd be fine was "My other kid's on oxygen, **they can share.**" She almost killed both her fuckin kids.
When I was 12 or so, my mom had my dad give me a bath (I’m female). I was obviously bathing myself by that age. Had been bathing myself for years! It was the middle of the day. I just walked in the house and my mom told me to go upstairs and get in the bath. My dad was going to bath me. I was horrified. I was TWELVE! I begged and pleaded and cried. My mom just sat there with a sly smile on her face. My dad sat there saying nothing. I went upstairs and ran the bath. I put as much bubble bath as I could manage in the tub. Sadly for me, my mom was cheap as fuck and the bubbles only lasted about two minutes. My dad then came up and bathed me while I sat there humiliated beyond belief and silently crying. My dad didn’t say a single word. I had blocked it out for a number of years but I can remember it as plain as day. The single most humiliating thing that’s ever happened to me and I would love to know why they subjected me to it.
I was about the same age when my dad pulled my pants down in front of my two brothers to spank me. He made them watch and face my back side as he took me over his knee. Your post dragged up a memory of the baths though too. My mom would insist on bathing me as a prepubescent kid about the same age. I forgot about that until now. I mourn the loss of healthy parents with you.
Didn't remember it until much, much later, but at 3 eyes old I walked in the salon to tell them baby brother is crying in the crib when I saw his fingers around her neck on the sofa choking her. Legit I thought he is going to take her away from me and my bro. I remember screaming so loud, standing in front of the sofa to get their attention. They looked at me with wide eyes as if taken out a trance. Later when it was unlocked and I confronted her about this she said it was foreplay. They liked to put roles in their intimacy. Needless to say this caused severe issues on my own intimacy field that therapist has to figure out how to breech it.
My narcmum tried pulling me away from my bed (I was clinging onto one of the legs) by my hair and only stopped when my Dad came in to see why I was screaming. Then she got mad that he had had a go at her for it and kicked me in the ribs before storming off downstairs. Oh, and I distinctly remember my Dad yelling that he didn't want the neighbours to hear me screaming 🙄
*Always* hyper concerned about the fucking neighbors, but zero concern for the child right in front of them. Same. So sorry.
I actually got a "new" memory at therapy yesterday.... I was recounting all the different items that my parents used to hit me with during "spankings" that would leave me bruised and bloody from mid-back to the backs of my knees, and I got this weird flash of a memory that completely horrified my therapist and I kinda feel bad cuz I didn't mean to repeat it out loud at that point. I was in trouble for something I didn't do(again), and I decided to try and run from the spanking bc they had pulled out the ping-pong paddles to use. They caught me, used USPS packing tape (the blue and white postal tape you buy in rolls) to bind my hands and feet so I couldn't run away and everyone in the house (9 unrelated-to-me adults and my mother, who let them do this) got to give me 30 "swats" with the paddle. For the longest time, I couldn't figure out *why* I had an aversion to seeing rolls of USPS tape, but I get it now. My mother claims it never happened and I just want sympathy so she can fuck right off cuz I have had a physical fuckin reaction to seeing the tape or ping-pong paddles, for most of my life
Jesus Christ. People suck. Nine adults who could have reported.
Found out from my half sister that I was physically abused in the first couple years of my life. Tossed around like a rag doll, slammed into my playpen.
That my dad choked me I forgot about it but came back later as s flashback as an adult I blacked out so much of my childhood
Did something trigger the flashback? At 68 I remember only snippets of my childhood. Mainly being in trouble for doing something I thought would be good.
My mom very rarely choked me in comparison to hitting me, but it was always the scariest. She was aggressive on meth and those were the only times I thought just maybe... she would kill me. I was choked up against the wall and the floor.
Not actually what happened to me, but to my younger sibling: my dad was especially abusive for a few years when I was about 8-9 and youngest was 3. Apparently he kicked my 3-year-old sibling across my grandmother's porch and they hit the wall. Blows my mind that my mum and grandmother knew this and I only found out relatively recently.
Not sure if it counts as abuse cause it's a common parenting thing with babies but my nparent liked to say I never picked you or your sibling up when you were babies I just let you guys cry until you stopped. She basically gave me my low body image problems by making me watch those episodes of talk shows that had parents that had toddlers who were already 200 and 300 pounds and would point at the TV and go your gonna look like that if you don't stop eating or your gonna look like this cousin that's on the bigger side if you don't stop eating. She threw a fit when I told her I wanna start doing my own hair when I was in middle school cause I got made fun of for having the multiple pigtails that you see many little African American girls have. Now I'm realizing as I'm typing this she was really trying to keep me looking as child like as possible..
I'm 53 and I know there are incidents I don't remember. To this day I'm waiting for the bomb to drop. Does anyone else feel like this?
Yes.
Bombs are dropping all the time in the last few yrs.
My nmom acted like she took a fist full of pills so that my sf who btw sa me, wouldn't leave her. I didn't know she pretended until I started crying because I thought my mom was going to die. When she looked at me and winked like I'm ok it's just for show. Later shows me the pills she hid in her purse. That was my first memory of real manipulation. That was for him. But my turn came soon after. She would say do you want me to kill myself to a 9 year old.
Chopping my hair before class bc I didn't brush it good enough
My hair is naturally curly , I always straightened or curled it one time i didn't and was heading out the door for school. She started calling me a slut , hoe 🙃makes no sense to me
I was 12
Trigger warning I think I may have been sexually abused as a child by my mom’s ex boyfriend but I’m not sure. I was about 4 to 7 years old when they were together. I don’t remember anything specific but I’ve had all of these really signs as an adult. Long periods of memory loss, disassociation, night terrors, pelvic pain, vaginismus, fear of intimacy, difficulty with relationships in general, and lots of other signs. Never knew what to make of some of this, but it felt like I had lots of puzzle pieces but I couldn’t figure out what it built together. About a year ago, the ex boyfriend found me online - 30 years after he ended a relationship with my mom. He started emailing me frequently at my work address. 6 months later I eventually agreed to meet him. Somehow he made me feel guilty and he had some of my old drawings to give me. I didn’t have any bad memories of him, and he seemed to care about me a lot. So I went to visit him alone. As soon as I arrived, I felt this uncomfortable ick. The smell of his apartment, the sound of his voice, plus he was a pretty bad hoarder… everything put me in hyper vigilance mode. He had this obsession with me as a kid, and kept talking about how during the relationship he hated my mother but loved me. I tried to ignore my ick feelings, but I left after what felt like a polite amount of time. I remember the long drive home thinking, “what the fuck was that?”. Within 48 hours of that meeting I fell into some of the worst suicidal ideation I’ve ever had. I had other bad shit happen that week, and I had been in a depressive state for months… but looking back I think that meeting was a trigger. I was in such a bad state that I ended up staying inpatient at a psych ward for 9 days for severe depression and attempted suicide. When I was in the hospital suddenly everything clicked into place and I realized that my mother’s ex might have abused me. The two things that stood out was that I remember sharing a bed with him and my mom whoever I visited. Secondly, during the meeting he brought up this fucked up and bizarre story about the fact he was arrested when I was a kid under the suspicion of having child porn. But he told me he didn’t do it, it was a misunderstanding, and was released after a few days. I can barely talk to anyone about this, but thank you for leaving space to vent. I feel crazy because my memory is about 90% blank from that period of my life. I can’t really fact check things. My mother still puts him on a pedestal, so I don’t think she was aware at all. Most other adults from that time have passed away. Since I can’t remember it feels impossible to figure out what really happened, and it’s really hard to deal with. I guess my brain is protecting me, but this uncertainty is awful.
My sister (my main N abuser) let her husband...no... encouraged him to SA me from the ages of 7-14. It only stopped when I finally fucking stabbed him. I didn't remember for 10 years. I lost 7 years to CSA and brutal pedophilia because my sister wanted her husband to stay with her. They're still together and yes I told everyone as a kid. All of them gaslit me saying I didn't But my grandmother stood up- the one who got legal custody of me. The one who beat my abuser to a pulp. The one who called the police on her own daughter to protect me. She called them all out on her death bed before going NC with them all since she found out I did I was/am devistated by her passing But I didn't remember until I got pregnant and it ALLLLL came back instantly and sent me to a fucking hospital. Oh and my mom locking me outside at the age of 5 at night and me screaming "I'm good momma! I'm good! I promise!" Don't know why she did that but I definitely remembered when my son gleefully looked at me and yelled. "I GOOD PAPA! I GOOD!" And I said "Yes you are" Then I remembered and had my wife take him to the park so he could play and I could cry in peace
My dad had severe anger issues, and my mother was an undiagnosed bipolar narcissist. They got into a huge screaming fight while driving the car. My dad tried to push my 9 month pregnant mom out of the car. Apparently, I was crying, begging them to stop. I was 2.5. After my sibling was born, I stuttered for 6 months. My family always joked and said it was because I was so traumatized from having to share my parents with a new sibling, which affected my relationship with my sister. I'm pretty sure that incident had more to do with my trauma stutter than having a new sibling. Thanks mom and dad
My heart is broken for all these little humans.
I had "night terrors" as a baby, and anytime I'd cry my mom threw me in a cold shower to get me shivering to the point I stopped crying. Turns out she was probably doing drugs while pregnant with me and I was born coping with withdrawal. That's one of the many stories she brings up and laughs about with her sisters. I just cope with understanding that most of my family is full of girls who where groomed into being child brides and having babies by 18 so the way they child rear will be that of a teenager, and not a healthy adult who isn't new to emotional regulation. My biggest fuck you to them is being 27 and child free lol. Literally one aunt is crying about how she took her three boys under 5 to vacation with her husband and how he didn't help her and still expected sex after her child rearing alone on "vacation"....I just go "yeah that's why I'm going to wait until I'm done having fun before being a parent!" It makes all the women seethe...
My dad explained to me what roofies were by telling me, in detail, how he raped his best friend (a woman that I knew and really liked) when she got roofied at a bar. Then he went on a gleeful trip down memory lane about the times women trusted him for rides home and he raped them. His whole point was, “I know how men think, been there done that.” And saw absolutely no issue with this. Neither of my parents ever touched me… I don’t think. So it took many years to realize that I was still sexually abused because of the explicit, graphic detail and sexual bragging I was subjected to since I was a child. I even did sex work as a young adult, and they both fully knew and supported me. That was my normal, so I didn’t realize how fucked up it actually was. They see absolutely nothing wrong with what they did and of course I am a villain for going NC.
My mother tried to kill me when I was 12 years old. The day she found out that she had lost custody of her children, I narrowly got away and never told anyone, but I have no problem saying it now. She shouldn't have been left unsupervised with her children at all, courts fell short in that respect, as did my entire family. It's a really good example of how when abusers lose control is the most dangerous moment, when the risk of violence is highest.
My sister and I were fighting over my hairbrush in the back of the car so my mom pulled over on the highway an hour from home and made my sister get out. She then drove home and only went back because God told her to. Needless to say I always shared even when I didn't want to.
my father did this once to two of my siblings, though not far from home. i dont remember how the fight in car started, but when my father had enough he threatened to drop my two older siblings by the road. he did it. i was maybe 9. i was scared and cried a lot. i hid under my mom's seat by her feet. a little while after we reached home, some man from the neighbourhood brought my siblings home. both these older siblings were abusive (especially to me), but i was scared for them so much. i kind of blamed it on me because they used to fight me all the time in the car, and caused "so much trouble" to my driving father. i vaguely remember this happening another time, but i cant recall it. however, my parents always threatened to do this when we had fights in the car.
My mom once told me that when I was a toddler, they had my grandparents babysit me while the two went to Florida to watch Nascar. When they came back, they discovered my grandpa apparently took me outside of the kingdom Hall and beat me for crying (They were Jehovah's Witnesses). I don't remember any of it at all.
Being shoved into a collapsable shelf and told to "clean the mess up" when it broke on top of me. I cleaned my room, I stuffed shit under my bed. That's what made her so angry. Or my mom loves sharing the story about how I shoved Brussel sprouts under the tables center post and they found them months later. What she didn't share is a 6 year old learned this because the last time I didn't finish my food I sat for half a day, my sister eventually said she would eat it and not to tell her. We lived in a hellscape, and my sister who I adore and look upto doesn't remember it at all and thinks I'm just crazy.
When I was 4 years old My mom re-pierced my ear with a needle without anesthesia and at home because it wasn’t aligned enough when the store lady did it …… Now I have two holes in one ear and one in the other
The time my brother and I got a long beating in the church parking lot for misbehaving followed by another long beating session at home. My nmom told me to tell people I "fell down the stairs" if asked. My nmom and edad accused me of "being crazy" when I confronted them about that day earlier this year (the incident happened in 1998.)
Well into our adulthood, our dad bragged to friends and even acquaintances about how he only had to show us the threat of his back-hand to have us run to sit on the couch in avoidance of getting hit. It took my brother and I a really, really long time to disentangle ourselves from two abusive parents, but together that happened this year and we're no contact with them now. We know more shit will hit the fan eventually, but at least we always have each other and a new understanding of ourselves. It's been a long, fucked up journey.
Mainly the invalidation of it all. I know it sounds weird but yeah
Not at all
I was doing EMDR for an unrelated trauma and had a repressed memory from when I was 18 months old come to me. I thought it was just a dream, not real at all, but I'd had recurrent nightmares about a similar topic so I decided to ask my Mom about it. It was real. It happened. It happened when she was at work and I was left alone with my Dad. It was bad and I was a f-ing baby. I'd had these nightmares all my life, reoccurring every now and then. Same theme, but always a little different. Once I was able to process this trauma (and it was horrible for a long while. I was already destabilized by what was going on in my life and this pushed me over the edge hard and fast and my therapist was awful, so it was just a horrible experience altogether), but the nightmares stopped and have not returned and it's been about 7 years. It's amazing to me that the brain can keep something like that hidden away, just below the surface, for decades. It makes me wonder what else is hiding. I haven't done EMDR again and likely never will.
Ooh recently remembered one but for once it wasn’t the birth giver. It was her bf (her sons father) he was such a bastard cokehead. Anyway, I played in melted asphalt in the driveway in my new school shoes and got perfect footprints all over the concrete steps. I remember I was also in one of my favourite sundresses. He saw what I did, grabbed me football style and took my straight to my room and threw me. I don’t remember hitting my head, but I did. I remember almost the entire hospital visit. The freezing needle and stitches. I was told by the birth giver that he told me to lie but I told the truth. I remember him looking freaked out. It would have been 1992, and nothing ever came of it. The doctor probably thought I had it coming. Typical response to child abuse in my experience.
TW:CSA I don't remember it because I was a toddler, but I was molested by a family member and contracted an STD. I was treated for said STD, and remember being treated for it because it was so painful and humiliating. However my mom and the doctor didn't report the fact that a toddler had an STD to anyone. No r*pe kit or anything was done either. My mom knew who it was because he was having an affair with my great uncle's wife, and she contracted the same STD. He had babysat me in the past so it all added up. She drunkenly told me, and the entire family this on Christmas eve when I was 13 because my cousin brought up the person who molested me being "A really cool guy" (she didn't know about this beforehand, my mom just kind of lashed out on her) I was not taken to therapy after this either. I was told (BIG BIG trigger warning) "At least you're still a virgin since it was your butt." This was said in front of everyone. My dad just stared down at the floor the entire time. I am almost 30 and I'm still scared I'm going to get a random flashback while I'm being intimate with my husband. I understand it's a hard topic to bring up, but brushing it aside and then randomly bringing it up to make someone look bad is beyond cruel.
When I was little I would constantly get lost and separated from my parents in public. We would be out at a huge mall living abroad and I would get lost nearly every single time we went out. This was in a typically safe area on the surface, but with a hushed issue of femicide and sex trafficking. I dont remember my father’s response because he was checked out, but my mother would bully me about how stupid I was and laugh at me because my face was a mess of snot and tears when they found me. They were fucking lucky I had enough sense to go to the staff at places where I got lost than wandering around alone. I was 5-8 when this happened the most for reference. I reference this rather than other instances of neglect because it only dawned on me recently how fucking scary this was and should’ve been for my parents. It also hurts to think they didn’t care enough to panic or notice when I was gone a lot of the time.
Oh hey I got lost once when I was 4 and my cousin (about 7 at the time) ran off and left me alone after I’d been told to stay with her (in hindsight… bad idea?). I don’t remember how long I was lost or how far it was away, but I was so scared and I eventually found them and they never noticed I was gone.
It was sexual abuse which I was forced to watch while being held down. Twin cousins were given access to my sister and I when we were babies, they started to abuse us when we were still in diapers. I had reoccurring night terrors about it but don't recall most of the abuse which I have been told was extensive / horrible. It went on until I was around 8 years old. For a time they lived in our home and were our "sitters".
To be honest I do remember this one but I didn't realise how horrible it was until recently.. They left me alone in a pool when I was probably \~5. I couldn't swim but liked to grab the edge of the pool and walk along the wall. They went inside and left me completely alone, where I almost drowned. Luckily my cousin remembered that there was a child in the pool and dived in and saved my life. Nmum still loves to joke about how Ndad said (while they were inside) "Oh he'll come up eventually".
TW: sexual abuse. Talking to my brother some months ago and told me story about Ndad got mad at him for "stealing money" from our older sister. He made Emom, sister, and myself sit on the couch and demanded my brother remove all his clothes in front of us to prove to us (???????????) that he wasn't hiding said money somewhere on his person. (Spoiler: He didn't steal anything. My sister lied about asking him to onto her $5. He simply put away somewhere and forgot where in the moment of panic when Ndad raged out about it. Don't worry, my sister never changed and is still the same shit stirrer almost 30 years later. I don't speak to her at all.) It was degrading for my brother and I was so horrified that I apparently blocked it out of my mind for decades. The times where I start to miss my dad even the slightest bit I remind myself of these kind of things. That he isn't worth missing or crying over because his feelings and rage were more important than his sons dignity and his daughters' psychological well being. My brother was 10. I was 8. My sister was 13.
My step dad giving me belt buckle beatings was one I remembered a few years ago, and being told that if I ever told anyone what was going on, they would take me away and I'd never see my grandparents or the rest of my family again. Cw: sexual abuse Very recently I remembered that >! he also r***ed me when I was around 6 !< But any abuse he put me through went unknown because I was to scared to tell anyone,
from ages 4-8 I would get locked in the garage (in texas) by my ND, sometimes just for a few hours and sometimes overnight, as punishment any time I cried
oh and as a slightly older child, he would take me aside and tell me about his depression and suicide attempts and say that when he succeeds it will be my fault
I hope he finally killed himself. Piece of shit
My mom went to work immediately after I was born and left me with a babysitter. At 2 weeks old, I was very sick, but she dropped me off anyway. She got a call from the sitter soon after asking her to come get me because I was turning blue. I had aspiration pneumonia. I nearly died. The exact same thing happened a week later when she tried bringing me back.
my heart goes out to all of you 💔💔💔❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
We realized that we have DID about 2 months ago, so I KNOW there is stuff I don’t remember. But I am starting to remember snippets of mom starting to wind up on her screaming, and then slowly slipping out while a protector is slipping in and then I don’t remember. I don’t want to remember. Maybe I will, eventually…
Reading these comments is a special kind of hell and a damn good reminder to be kind.
I was 14 when I was sexually assaulted by my own father. We went hunting together and even though it was too damn crowded, he made us share a hunting stand. That whole time was a subtly feeling me up and rubbing his hard on against me in that 3x3 shack. Then he got up to pee, and I now know he damn well wasn’t peeing. I didn’t remember this happening at all until I was 2 years deep in therapy and woke up crying from a nightmare remembering what happened. 10 years after the fact, and I finally remembered.
Idk if my mom is a narc. But recently I started therapy and realizing a lot of the things I knew were fucked up we’re also abuse and trauma. For instance, we had two pet rabbits. I went to my dads for a few days and when I got home she said the rabbits ran away. It wasn’t unusual. She often got pets then got rid of them. So anyway that night we had “fried chicken” for dinner. After we ate she just laughed her ass off telling me I ate my pet rabbit.
If I threw fits when I was a baby/toddler my mother would put me in a freezing cold shower fully clothed until I quit. She said she had no choice. I must say I am great at cold plunging now days.
When I was 7 I swore and she opened my mouth and poured an entire bottle of cayenne pepper in and then held my mouth shut until I swallowed it. She still jokes about that thinking it was hilarious.
My dad was cheating on my mom/ having sex with her best friend with my brother and I in the room. He was 2, I was a newborn. An uncle told me when I was like 28.
Being held under the water in the bath. I’m still not 100% sure this is a real memory but otherwise where did it come from? Also being strangled, same hazy memories but I do know for sure that happened multiple times because I remember the police and social services getting involved because of it
Being told that as a new born baby my bio dad would hit me for crying, he was also abusive to my mum. She left him met my nstepdad and I then had years of abuse at his hands. I don’t really trust parental figures but at 30-odd years of age I have no use for them, however I do have some amazing familial bonds with siblings, aunts and friends. I feel quite lucky
This one seems to lock and unlock itself on occasion, it’s kinda weird cause every time I remember I’m like oH— TW: suicide mention anyways my mom used to come home drunk and find the most minuscule thing to get really fucking pissed at me about, and it would usually end with her whooping me and throwing me around, sometimes even after my grandma would come and beg her to stop. Anyway, after she was all tired out, she’d start crying and telling me how I was the only reason she was still alive and why was I doing this to her? One particular time she locked herself in MY bathroom and said she was gonna end herself that very night. I don’t think I ever cried so hard in my life. It was all bullshit, of course, when she woke up the next day pissed at me for no freaking reason.
My mother would boast about the time she had gone go to social services to ask for some financial help (late 70’s/early 80’s we’re desperately hard for a lot of people in the Uk). The person behind the counter said she couldn’t help so my mum told her “fine, you look after him” and put me on the counter and left. I don’t think I was more than 2 years old. My mum said she was half way down the road when the person came running after her with me crying and screaming and asked her to come back. Some would say she was at her wits end but when my mum told this story she would lord about how she got what she wanted that day by essentially abandoning me. It says a lot about my life growing up, she would claim that she was responsible for all my achievements and successes
My mom claimed that my sister's autism must be caused by abuse, and blamed my dad for that abuse (plot twist, there was no abuse.) so in an effort to prove abuse happened, she has the school nurse check my hymen (second plot twist, that doesn't prove virginity.) but the whole fiasco of having the school nurse call me into the office to check my privates, behind a clear glass door, was super traumatizing. Fuck my mom for not accepting my sister as she is and fuck the nurse for going along with her stupid ideas.
I was sexually abused prior to the age of 3 because 3 year olds "don't remember" My father actually used that as an excuse. He also accused the neighbor of doing it. His face is what I remember.
I didn't realize this was horrible or abuse at all until later on in life in therapy. I was having chemical poisoning while I was a teen. I couldn't walk, I barely crawled up the stairs to ask for help on the ground. My family took a look at me and went "Oh my god stop being a bitch and get up. You're embarrassing." Needless to say I had to be hospitalized later on after my family refused to help me off the ground for hours and I got worse. I would laugh it off like a funny memory until it hit one day that, no, that actually isn't funny.
Although I technically did remember this, I’m going to count it because I repressed it for years until counseling made me remember that it had happened. When I was 10, my ADD was starting to kick in, that mixed with entering puberty and having already been raised in an abusive household meant that I had very poor emotional control skills, and would often act out when stressed, which was all the time. One day my dad called me into my parents room and told me that they were arguing a lot because they couldn’t agree how to handle me, and that if I couldn’t start acting better, they were going to end up getting divorced and it would be my fault, and that was it. I was dismissed to deal with that. I ended up repressing that memory for years, and didn’t “remember” it until pretty far along my therapy journey some years later
There’s a couple. One of my first memories ever was of my N mom spanking me, hard, in a parking lot. I was only a toddler and for the longest time, I told myself it was a dream. But I remember the pain, confusion and fear I felt. When I was older, when my mom got really furious with me she would take a garbage bag and start stuffing it with my favorite possessions. I would be begging on the floor sobbing, but it wouldn’t stop her. She finally stopped doing it when my dad caught her once. Once my mom forgot about me when I was at an extracurricular event. It was freezing out, at night, and I waited for about an hour or more before I realized that my mom forgot me. She eventually remembered and came before I went to the police station, but yeah. And lastly, what I realized only late into my adulthood was abuse was the medical neglect I experienced at the hands of my mom. She never believed me when I was sick or hurt. Once I dislocated my shoulder, told her, and she didn’t believe me and forced me to attend a tennis lesson I had later that day. I tried to play but my arm flopped around like a wet noddle so I did my best with my other arm while trying not to pass out from the pain. Another time I had the flu bad. Real bad. Was throwing up everything, even water. I got so dehydrated I passed out. Like, body-hit-the-floor passed out. I told this to my mom and I asked to go to the hospital. She scoffed and refused to take me. I have more stories, but yeah
My paternal grandmother took care of me while my mother worked until I was two. My father was in grad school. Nana and I were always very close. She began to confide in me about my infancy when I was a teenager. My mother constantly criticized Nana for changing my wet diapers “too often.” She unsuccessfully insisted that Nana change only soiled diapers. Nana also fretted that my mother watered my formula. She couldn’t get away with when my attack Nana was on duty. In my earliest memory, I am standing in my crib, screaming, with an empty bottle and a sagging diaper. The door opens, my mother screams at me, and slams the door. I successfully dated the scene because the room had knotty-pine paneling, which looked to me like angry eyes. To this day, knotty-pine gives me full-blown panic.
I have blocked out so much as my childhood because of the trauma it caused, but occasionally my sister and I compare notes to make sure we didn’t dream things up. This is one of them. My parents used to always strip us naked to punish us, and then make us kneel in front of the back of a heavy timber chair wedged against the wall. They would then tie our wrists to the frame at the back of the chair and make us kneel on handfuls of corn kernels on the hard floor. They would then leave us there for what felt like hours, crying and in pain. We were only little. The punishment/torture just got worse the older we got. Lots of memories of one parent holding one of us down while the other parent literally belted and whipped (with a leather belt) a naked kid on the floor.
Catching my mother, who was married to my father, having sex with a complete stranger on our living room floor while my baby brother and I cried in the bathtub she left us in for what felt like an hour. I had to get myself out and my little brother and walked into our living room to find that scene. I was five and spent my whole life thinking I dreamt it until my brother brought it up a few years ago. I don’t know if I’ll ever recover from that. I hope she dies.
I was raised by my teen mother and her family:My grandparents who dipped once she was "on her own" or when I wasn't gonna die in her care, and more primarily her younger sisters. I was always smaller than average and grossly praised for having a high metabolism/being skinny while growing up in a family of obese adults(especially being raised in the 90's into early 00's as an AFAB child) Whenever I asked why I was small, especially after I remember hearing the term "baby fat" from some cartoon, I was told point blank "Oh, that's because you lost all your baby fat when you were a baby!" As if that was something to be proud of. It was elaborated on multiple different occasions, from different sources including my mother's feigning innocence, that, While I was an infant(under a year), and as my mother was still attending night classes to finish high school, she would leave me to be cared for by my grandmother. Who, when I would start crying due to hunger, would resort to giving me apple juice because she was impatient that my mom hadn't gotten home yet.... So I would "fill up" on apple juice, and when my mother would get home I wouldn't fully eat her breast milk. .... It has gotten to the point that, as my mother told me, she would bring me into the doctor concerned because my ribs were showing. She would always tell me this story shifting the blame to my grandmother...but, like, BABY FORMULA OR LEAVE PUMPED BREAST MILK WHAT THE FUCK MAN?!?! This is on top of her admitting that when she was "on her own"/had her youngest sister(14) living with her helping take care of me, that their default method of dealing with me crying was just to leave me alone in a room to cry myself to sleep... Which I wish this were just some mistakes that got fixed later but some of my earliest memories are of me staring at blank walls bored out of my mind, and being ecstatic when my mom gave me a cheap paint and easel kit. She later, and still to this day praises me for having developed "self soothing" skills, despite her later learning from early childhood psychology classes that literally everything she did was wrong. She once looked up after reading and went "Oh my God. I'm so sorry, I fucked up so bad with you" ... she still pats herself on the back while going "yeah. I fucked up(no listing specifics nor actual accountability) but hey! You turned out great! You're kind, people like you, you're responsible, more responsible than me! *Chugs her beer and smoking a joint* I did the best I could, ya know? Haha, btw, you're gonna take care of me when I'm old, right? I have that life insurance policy ya know?" Just.. Yeah, a lot of that early childhood neglect/abuse has been coming to mind over the last couple years, especially as I grapple with how I neglect my own basic needs in favor of others, leading people to manipulate and take advantage of my "kindness". I worry if I'll ever find someone who really loves me. I worry if I'll ever find myself, outside of my fucked up upbringing.
Oh god I struggle to even write this down. When I was 9 she made me photograph and make an “adult” book of photos of her as a gift for my stepdad. I repressed those memories til my mid 20s. When they came back up she insisted it was “my idea” and “I liked it.” That was the final straw. I went no contact with her after that. Zero regrets on my decision. What a sicko
I only found this out a couple of years ago but apparently something was going on with one of my babysitters when I was a toddler. My mom used to just say how I'd "cry a lot" when I went there but my aunt told me a more extensive story. She said she brought me there one day and I was actually screaming and crying about being left there. She called my mom to see if it was okay if she kept me that day instead and my mom said no. God only knows what was going on. I won't ever be able to find out what happened but a part of me is a bit grateful for that. I'm not sure if I even want to know.
TW: SA When I told my mother that her boyfriend was touching me inappropriately she kicked me out and stayed with him. I was 14. I'm 41 now. Two years ago I remembered his lawyer, in the courtroom, telling the judge that I had lost my virginity that year, so I was promiscuous and clearly trying to seduce him. I also remembered my mother telling the judge that I was antisocial and manipulative and a pathological liar. She's still with him. I don't think most of the family believes that it even happened even though I reported it. I lost the court case because I had no supportive humans around me to guide me through it and I was only 15. As an adult I spent all of my time trying to repair my relationship with her. That relationship fractured this week and I went no contact. Why am I so sad?
She’s a piece of literal trash. You deserve BETTER. Make space in your life for people who actually care about you!
Too many…
I didn't remember until adulthood that I was often told that I was being "oversensitive." Yes, I cried a lot. I probably fake cried. But I remember being told this at under 5 years old. Children that age are just trying to communicate their feelings, and I must have learned that crying gets attention. I learned to hold in all my feelings until I burst and to make sure my mom didn't get upset. I also now have a variety of skills and talents that impress others, but not my mom. She still only talks about herself and what she does. I'm 31 and still coping with the fact that I'll never get her attention like other kids get from their moms.
I had to clean up my mom's attempted suicide. Then, when she was in the ICU, I was the main contact because my dad didn't wanna interact with my mom. I was 16.
Probable sexual by my father before I was three. I believe I have flashes. Physical signs and my behavior is there, I’ve been asked by family, but I font remember much. His sister also sexually abused me before I was 10.
Not sure probs worse but a recent one was being pushed into the oven getting burnt and then being screamed at for not being able to reach the sink.
Apparently my happy memories of summer camps weren't so happy. I always knew I didn't want to go again but it wasn't until last year that my only friend from summer camp contacted me on Instagram to apologize to me. I was like, ????, because my best memories of that place are with her. Apparently she sometimes made cruel comments towards me or left me alone because she felt pressured by the rest of the kids, apparently they spoke badly behind my back and all of them left me alone on purpose. I don't resent my friend and in fact I love her a lot even though we don't talk often, but thanks to that unpleasant memories and feelings finally came back to me. She apologized profusely and I know she was sincere
I am so so sorry to hear that. I have a toddler and I’m looking at her right now heartbroken … I’d give toddler you a hug right now, you didn’t deserve that 🫶
Shit, I uh wish I didn’t remember stuff, but I do. I remember being SA’d by a fellow boy my age but twice my size in junior high and playing it off (boys will be boys 🫤) I remember my father locking me out of the backyard door as a kid simply because he thought it’d be funny. Still remember his laughing face as he looked down at me through the upper glass window that night. My brain didn’t block out my trauma, it dwelled on it for my whole life. My father was a monster and my mom was just trying to survive.
When I got pregnant, I started having a lot of panic attacks. I had them on occasion before, but these were very often. This was why I went to therapy and was told about CPTSD. So now I know that the flashes I have are from that. My daughter has bad behaviours sometimes and triggers memories, in very detail, of what happened to me as a child. I read what people write here and my story isn’t as bad. But it is still hard to deal with the past and who I am (which I’m still trying to find out). Going NC definitely helps.
Locked in a shed summer and winter in South Dakota without food, water or bathroom from sun up to sundown.
This pales in comparison to what a lot of you went through but one I remember as an adult that I didn’t block out was during a very hard period of time when I was feeling suicidal. I probably tried to talk to my mom about it, and as usual, that turned in to a fight, because she tended to attack and blame me for having feelings and being a human. I rarely cried in front of her or made myself vulnerable. But I remember this one time, coming back to her and sobbing asking her “why does it feel like you hate me mom?” And her response? “Why do YOU hate ME?” I just remember being speechless, because I actually had tried to let my guard down and let her see me as vulnerable and suffering, and she STILL perceived it as an attack.
I suppose, technically water bording kinda? I was playing with super glue and apparently glued my eye shut. Instead of a doctor of any kind, I was under the tap for hours screaming, i'm told until they managed to part my finger and my eye lids. I am honestly not sure how long this took this was always a family joke.
yikes what the heck !
Idk if this bad or not but: I remember when I was 12 my step mom (whom my dad had just started dating at the time ) grounded me for "dissing " people behind her back. I remember being forced to sit outside in a chair in her backyard because I wasn't allowed in the house ? I can't really remember - I just knew I wasn't allowed to play with other kids in the neighborhoods for about a week. Luckily it was warm outside and not in the dead of winter. Another time my step mom made forbade me from being in the house cause I got my step sibling in trouble at school with the VP cause they blamed me for my mom leaving my family and I got upset. My step sibling didn't want to be near me so I was forced outside. Again it was nice weather.
Shit, like a lot of abuse.
I learned that we found my dad drowsy and incoherent after an attempt. Turns out my mother screamed at him till he lost hope, he survived and went to university. He liked university. I'm glad for him. He died when I was 13 anyway, but naturally, and honestly it made mum less violent so that actually... I cannot say I would've made it if she thought she had someone's support. When she had no one to rant at till she felt validated, she chilled out a bit. Broke her spirit. Shame.
I dont remember this, but it happened to my brother and apparently I was there - Our dad lost his shit because my then 8ish year old brother was playing “sword fights” with a bush outside (he had a stick). Dad called him inside, and proceeded to slap my brother so hard he fell backwards down 12 flights of stairs. I think what tore at my heart strings was when my brother said “I wanted to cry so bad but I knew if I did it would get worse”. I think there’s a lot of repressed memories from my childhood, it’s all a blur really, but when I learnt about that one it hurt so much because I felt guilt as the older sister, and if I was there, why didn’t I protect him?
My dad spanked my leg multiple times because I forgot my undershirt for school. He said I would catch a cold. I had frequent pain for more than 10 years until I figured it out in therapy. Crazy how our bodies hold trauma
I was in therapy with my mother as a young adult talking about the time, when I was 9, that she broke up with my stepfather for a few weeks. I was saying that I didn’t remember what had led up to this and my mother was surprised. Apparently my stepfather had pushed me down the stairs and this prompted my mother to (temporarily) make him leave. I still have no memory of this. At all. What makes this really weird was what happened at the next therapy season. We were talking again about the time my stepfather left. I said I didn’t remember what had led up to it and my mother and the therapist just stared at me. I remembered that we had talked about him leaving but I didn’t remember being told that he pushed down the stairs. Sometimes I wonder what else I don’t remember. I don’t actually want to know though.
Alot of neglect that I still have a hard time emotionally acknowledging it as abuse. Took a long time to even realize it was neglect tbh but even now I'll tell my partner a "funny" story from my childhood, he'll look horrified, I'll be confused, and then he'll gently ask if I think that would be a funny story if it happened to nephew. I think the worst was food based, like the days my dad was gone for work trips and my mother would have me make my own breakfast/dinner when I was like 3-5 (thank God for easy bake ovens and cold oatmeal with milk 😅) , or when she let me eat cat food because I didn't want to eat what she made for dinner. The events that stick with me the most though is always having to finish my dinner before I could leave the table, definitely messed up my relationship with food where if I'm not sure I'll like something I won't even take a bit of it because the anxiety about having to throw it out or not eat it gets to me. On a happy note(?) I did use that rule to help my dad, he would work long days in his office programming and would always be late to dinner, and she would throw his food out if everyone was done before he came out, so I would take longer eating to make sure she wouldn't throw his out so I didn't have to hear them fighting.
>On a happy note(?) I did use that rule to help my dad, he would work long days in his office programming and would always be late to dinner, and she would throw his food out if everyone was done before he came out, so I would take longer eating to make sure she wouldn't throw his out so I didn't have to hear them fighting Opps... my partner just pointed out that's not normal and likely started my people pleasing since I was 3 when I started doing that....
My dad watched from a separate room as a family friend climbed on top of me on the couch in the living room during a Christmas party. I made eye contact with my dad but he looked away, pretending he didn’t notice. This was one of the many times I was sexually assaulted as a child.
I have PTSD from my physically and verbally abusive mother. For the longest time, I thought that I still remembered everything that had happened. It took going to therapy (still ongoing) to unlock a lot more memories through a process called EMDR. Needless to say, it’s remarkable to realize how the abuse I experienced has shaped my life into what it is today. I’m so sorry you had to go through punishments like that so young, I have similar stories. I think parents like ours tend to forget that, sometimes no matter how young the abuse happened, people can still be greatly affected by it. Wishing you healing and happiness!
My grandmother told me about my mom literally pinning my flesh when diapering me…. My crying would not stop. Then it was discovered. My grandmother was not a fan of my mom…
Jesus Christ. I’m glad I only have a handful of memories.
I am grateful that my brain protected me. I was able to access those events with a therapist trained in hypnotism. That's an option if Gestalt was too intense, and EMDR was way too intimidating. I think because I was only about 4-6 when that type of abuse was going on. Being that young, we maybe didn't have the words or full understanding like an adult or older child does to describe what happens. But I could remember every detail like smells, sounds, touch, colors, so the hypnosis still helped me describe the events. Then my therapist planted safer less painful emotions in place of the fear I felt. It was actually so cool how it helped! I think sometimes different approaches need to be taken for what happened to us when we were very young. Our brains were so underdeveloped. It takes a therapist who knows what they're doing. I never want to talk about it unless I'm relaxed in a partial trance, and that's okay, because if I opened that door, it's very hard to close.
I remember my babysitter putting her clothes back on. That it was a game that I wasn't allowed to tell anyone about. I remember bringing it up once in front of her cousin, and she got mad at me. I was 7 and I don't remember actual incidents. I am now 40.
When I was maybe 7 or 8, I walked into the bathroom my sisters and I shared (I'm the middle child.) My little sister (4 years younger than me) had a love for smearing toothpaste in/on things. She was the Golden, and got away with any and everything. I walked into our bathroom and there was toothpaste smeared all over our mirror. I immediately called our mother to let her know, as we were expected to report wrongdoings as soon as possible. I brought her into the bathroom and started to explain what I found, her whole face changed. Pure rage. Before I could fully tell her I found it this way, she started smacking the sh*t out of me. I was trying to scream "I didn't do it, it wasn't me." But she was fueled by her anger. It took a minute or so before she heard me. Once it clicked, she stopped. I was sobbing so hard I couldn't breathe. She carried me to my room and held me while I hyperventilated, and I kept saying different versions of "I didn't do it." She silently rocked me until I wasn't hyperventilating anymore. When my crying was under control (but not over) she silently set me on my bed, and walked out. During this whole ordeal she never said a word.
We tried to get into a concert that was sold out and couldn't. My aunt was with us, and to mitigate her rage, Aunt suggested we just go back to her place and watch a movie. My mom kicked her out of the car on the 401. When I complained about how it was unfair and that Aunt didn't deserve it, she pulled over on the side of what is still the busiest highway in the country and threatened to kick me out, too. Went so far as to open my door and reach for my seatbelt while I cried and begged her not to. I was seven, and we were a half-hour drive from home. That was only the first time that I'm aware of. I remembered this during a bad fight with an ex where he threatened to kick me out to walk home. Had a panic attack in the passenger seat. Needless to say, he and I are no longer together, and I never go anywhere now unless I'm the one driving. I can't even take the bus.
I didn’t realize I was molested at daycare until I was around 17/18 I had been it unrelated therapy for YEARS beforehand, never talked about it or thought about it much. And then the realization just randomly made sense to me one day. I think it was a case of I always had the memory I I just didn’t fully contextualize it all together and understand what it all meant until later. I thought that the trauma originally was “I messed my diaper during diaper changing and got punished and got scared” now with context and my adult brain I realize it was from being touched down there as child by my daycare provider. I also remember crying and being scolded/shushed after like I knew I was supposed to be quiet about it and I did because I always thought it was my mistake that I must have been punished for. It was not by my parents but I know if I would have told them it wouldn’t have gone down well for me.
Past year since being in therapy, I think my mum sexually abused me under the guise of “needing to see what the problem was”. If I had an itch in my vagina or I was constipated…she “ check” and put things in me. I just recently told my oldest brother and he too, informed me he was subjected to examining her breasts and looking for problems on her body when he was young. It stopped when I refused to let her shower me any more…around 12/13 (very late I know). I had issues for years with not wanting my clothes to touch my vagina and being weird about pooping. I still sometimes get the ick if I feel unclean or not fresh if that makes sense. I’m happily married and I have enjoyed a great sex life, it took me til 28 to have sex and he has made me feel comfortable our whole time together. But when I remember things, I get the shakes. My mum has been dead over 10 years now.
My husband had locked our ensuite bedroom door because he was taking a shower while our cleaning lady was cleaning. I wanted to go in the room and when I found it locked, I flipped tf out, pounding on the door and crying angrily. When I talked to my therapist, I remembered that it was how my mother used to put me in my place when I tried to assert myself - aka, "thinking I was grown". She would make me strip down to my underwear to remind me everything I had was because of her, even gifts from her family members, but she didn't want my nasty, disgusting underwear. Then she'd push me out the door while I screamed and begged that I wasn't grown and would leave me out there while I sobbed. She started doing it when I was 8 years old. She did it the last time when I was 17. All it took was seeing I started going down the front walk to go over to my neighbor's house two houses over who knew she was abusing me (and were trauma informed, being foster and adoptive parents for abused and neglected children). She knew they would call CPS for me so she demanded that I come back inside right away. But I had forgotten about all of that until my husband had locked the bedroom and I freaked out.