Re: Can anyone relate to growing up...

January 19, 2011

I can relate somewhat, but my nada was abusive in every sense of the word. She

was over the top and went so far as to torture me!

My father was never home - he was always working overtime to make more and more

$ to satisfy nada but of course nothing did. He didn't know me until I was

almost 16 years old when he caught my nada screwing around with another man on

him and threw her out. (She would leave me in her parked car in every type of

weather locked in telling my father she was taking the kid 'shopping' but told

me if I ever got out of that car or told my father what was going on, I was a

dead kid). She would make out in her lover's car next to ours like teenagers at

a drive-in and then take off with him all day. I would have to hold my urine or

defecation until she got back and drove us home. I would roast in the heat in

the summer and freeze in the winter. She would read me X-rated love letters her

lover would leave her in her locker at work (he was her boss) and she would

play " Strangers in the NIght " (their song - lol) on my record player. I'd get

angry and break them but of course I'd get beaten for it.

Even though she was always insulting me and degrading me about being 'fat' and

when I was 8 took me to our doctor asking him to give me 'diet pills' because I

was 5 lbs. overweight, she was meeting her lover at a diner on our way back from

my Aunt's house in New York State and made me eat two double cheeseburger

platters and two slices of pie which was making me very sick when I was 15 and

she had to wait for him to show! He couldn't get away from his wife and stood

my nada up so I got beaten for that. The doctor gave the diet pills to me when

I was 8 and she force fed them to me. I didn't want to take them. They made me

very, very nervous; unable to concentrate at school and weepy. They were

amphetamines! I lost 10 lbs. and was underweight after I took those for only 2

weeks and she took me back to him to 'weigh me'.

When I was 12 she told my supposed best friend to 'hold her down so I can pour

Wisk down her throat' because I said the word S * * * and this girl was 16 at

the time. She did as nada told her to and afterward nada said, " I can't thank

you enough, Betty! YOU'RE my GOOD daughter! This thing is my bad daughter " and

rewarded her with a 14 kt. gold heart pendant encrusted with small diamonds.

There are numerous other things nada did to me over the years but all in all she

was the most abusive, mean, twisted woman I have ever met to this day. She

still called this other neighbor of hers her 'daughter' crying to me

hysterically on the phone that 'my daughter Joanie died'. Joanie was a NEIGHBOR

who moved down south about 5 years ago and wasn't related to nada at all. You

can imagine how that made me feel.

January 19, 2011

Vent away! This is the place to do it!

I think you've answered your own question. Yes, emotional abuse is abuse.

Parents who chronically yell and scream at each other in anger are creating a

hostile, unpredictable, chaotic home environment and that is emotionally

abusive.

All that hostility, rage and recrimination at high volume is very frightening

and upsetting to small children (in particular) and children naturally assume

(because children are self-centered but eventually grow out of it) that they are

the reason their parents are screaming at each other and calling each other ugly

names, threatening each other, hurting each other, etc.

Yes, yes, yes it is abuse.

Witnessing the abuse of others: watching your parents hurl vitriolic verbal

abuse at each other, watching a parent physically attack the other or

threatening physical harm to each other, waving weapons around, throwing things

at each other, watching your parents physically batter or emotionally abuse one

of your siblings, watching your parent batter or kill a family pet, etc.... or

even being forced to watch your parents have sex right in front of you is

emotional abuse and it can be traumatizing for a child.

Dissociation, amnesia, multiple personalities, denial, and minimizing are

automatic, unconscious survival mechanisms that help us cope with a hostile,

frightening, dangerous home environment when we are too small and powerless to

protect ourselves and have NO control over any of it. If a small child had the

ability to fully take in the hopelessness of her situation and feel adult

despair, there would be a great deal more child suicide.

Slipping out of reality via denial, dissociating and minimizing helped us

survive as small children, but as adults it no longer serves us well. Therapy

can help us get in touch with the inner child who needed to escape, and help us

deal with reality as an adult who now has adult power.

-Annie

>

> Can anyone relate to the idea that they grew up in a hostile environment

versus an abusive one? I wasn't physically abused, and I'm not even sure I would

go so far as to say emotionally abused (but maybe I'm minimizing) but I can

DEFINITELY say that I grew up in a constantly, 24/7, hostile environment that

was abusive in itself.

>

> My parents fought all the time, my mother screamed and yelled all the time and

provoked arguments, and my father was too stupid to not engage in these

screaming matches. My father also is a bit of a narcissist (not full personality

disorder, just a little bit of his personality) and has a short temper (and a

bad nicotine addiction) and he would scream and yell back (although again these

were provoked by mother's unrelenting and unfounded criticisms). I could never

invite friends over for fear that my parents would go into a screaming match. I

had to hide in my room whenever they had these arguments, which was all the

time. Sometimes their anger turned on me and I was the one (or my brother) that

they screamed and yelled at. Once I had an argument with my mother and when I

tried to walk away because I didn't want to argue any more and I went into my

bedroom and locked my door, my dad busted the door down and screamed and yelled

at me some more about " not talking to my mother like that. "

>

> I had one other fight with my mother that I can recall, and my mother called

my grandmother and aunt to come over (I was 17 years old) and my grandmother

started screaming and yelling at me, right in my face while I was trying to do

homework. When I tried to leave, they grabbed my car keys from me (and I was

just trying to go to a friend's house and be in a safe environment) and I just

walked out side and my aunt followed me as I walked around the block. They

wouldn't even let me be as I walked around the block!

>

> These are the few things that I remember. I don't think we had many other

arguments (I didn't have much time for my parents as my goal was to grow up and

get the hell away from them--and nada knew it, I think). But I don't really

remember a lot of things that I feel like I should remember. Am I blocking the

details of my childhood? I don't feel like I'm blocking any huge events or

anything, it's just that a lot of details are escaping me, and I think it's

because I just don't want to think about any of it.

>

> My parents, both individually, now that me and my brothers are grown up, like

to pat themselves on the back for what a great job they've done. It somewhat

bothers me. In my father's case, I just let it roll off my back because we have

gone through so much to repair our relationship, that I have forgiven him the

past, and see no point in drudging it up. I'm an adult, and I am responsible for

me now. And frankly, my dad did a lot of things right. But my mother! Sometimes

she'll say that she's proud of me, and it's completely unbelievable. She's not

proud of me as a person; she's proud of me as successful daughter that she can

boast to all her brothers and sisters about (all of their children, especially

daughters, were knocked up as minors, didn't go to college, etc--not that I am

judging those that have experienced that--this is what my mother values). And

yet she despises me for my success too.

>

> Sorry, I'm triggered right now and needing to vent.

>

January 19, 2011

Yes--I too grew up in a war zone most of the time. She slapped me a couple times

in my early teens. I hit he back the second time and she never hit me again.