A big hug to all in this thread who have gone through so much
Compared to some of the experiences here, I've been pretty fortunate. I was never physically or sexually abused, but I was always a timid, anxious little child and having to watch or listen to the heated and sometimes explosive arguments between my parents made me very fearful since sometimes it got so bad, I really thought my mum would get hurt. I would hide in my room, cover my ears and cry and pray to god, wondering why he never intervened in any way.
I shut down when faced with confrontations even now and if I come across two people arguing and yelling, I get very nervous, break into a cold sweat and feel an overwhelming urge to leave the area.
I think both my parents have psychological problems, but I think my mum is more 'unhinged'. She lives in a perpetual state of paranoia and anxiety and some of it has passed on to me. She seems to have gotten a little better on the paranoia bit in the past few years.
I was spanked a few times by my mum when I was very little. She took out all of her frustrations on me, and still does. It used to be spanking when I was young, but then it switched to emotional abuse. Now that I am older, I realise her anger and frustrations were because of my dad and how he treated her. I don't forgive her for it, but I understand now.
I was a very quiet and meek child and never got into a fraction of the mischief that other children do. Yet my mum always made me feel very wicked and a pain in the arse. She would routinely threaten to 'pack' me off to India and abandon me in a boarding school, which terrified me. I have a vague memory of being 3 or 4 years old and she told me that line and I broke down crying and clung to her ankle and begged her not to leave me and that I'd do anything in return. She didn't seem to mind my grovelling for at least a good few minutes before telling me to stop acting silly.
I remember crying a lot as a child. I would sit in a corner and wonder if I was adopted .. I think I was pretty convinced I was adopted and my folks weren't my 'real' parents, which is why they could be so cruel because no real parent would be so mean ... bless my little socks lol
I don't have any memory of her being warm and affectionate. If I fell down, I would just get a 'Good, you deserve it. What's the use in crying now'. I feel a pain inside even as an adult when I see a kid get hurt and have their parents hug and console them. I'll never know what that feels like.
I've been called all sorts of names on a regular basis. Another memory was when I was in my early teens and my folks returned home after being out shopping for a few hours. Mum asked what I had been up to and I said nothing much, doing my homework (well I was being naughty and playing computer games instead of studying but that's a different story lol). And for some bizarre reason she murmured in this snide way that I was probably 'entertaining men' while they were away... wtf
I remember feeling so hurt over that comment and cried for at least a couple of hours in my room because it hurt so bad to think my own mother thought of me as some kind of prostitute when I had done nothing to deserve such a label. And it was so out the blue and completely baseless.
I guess she's just fucked in the head
there's no way to tell what's genuine and what's made up when she speaks so I pretty much disregard everything she says these days!
There's loads of other stuff like her constantly mentioning how my dad didn't want me to be born... whatever that means
No idea if that's true or another one of her fabrications, but it was such a cheap shot... she would constantly say shit about my dad (when he was not around) in the mistaken belief that I'd decide to be her bestest friend and ditch my dad. But I always saw through the pathetic tactics, and even if all that crap about my dad was true, all it did was make me respect her even less.
My dad is another loony, but to his credit he was mostly nice to me , especially when I was younger. Any way if I haven't put anyone to sleep just yet, I'll stop now coz I'm getting bored of typing this!