hey so protip if you have abusive parents and need to get around the house as quietly as possible, stay close to furniture and other heavy stuff because the floor is settled there and it’s less likely to creak
socks are quieter than bare feet on tile/wood and for the love of god don’t wear slippers/shoes if you can help it
climbing ON the furniture will disrupt the pattern of your footsteps and make it harder to hear where you are in the house
crawling will do the same and if you get caught crawling you can pretend you fell
the floor near the wall can be really loud if the floorboards/carpet is old and not completely flush to the wall
do NOT attempt to use a rolling chair to travel without footsteps. they are extremely loud and hard to steer
Also. Breath with your mouth and not your nose. Your nose will whistle. Trust me. If you need to get into your fridge, jab your finger into the rubber part that seals the door closed and create a tiny airway. This will prevent the suction noise when you open the door. When drinking liquids (juice mostly), pour out your glass (or chug from the jug) and replace what you drank with water. If it was full enough in the beginning, no one will notice. DO NOT STEAL ALCOHOL. THEY WILL NOTICE IF IT’S WATERED DOWN. Bring a pillowcase for dried foods like cereal and granola. It helps to muffle the sound it makes when it pours.
If your house has snack packs (like gummy bears or crackers or chips), count them every day until you know the rhythm that they get consumed. (This took me a week and a half with my twin brother and sister). Then join the rhythm when you make your nightly visits. It will be that much harder to figure out it was you.
KEEP A TRASH BAG UNDER YOUR BED FOR WRAPPERS AND STUFF BUT DONT FORGET TO THROW IT OUT WHENEVER YOU CAN. BUGS YKNOW. Hope this helped.
I might have some useful info to add.
-a jar of peanut butter is long lasting and easy to hide under a bed or in a dresser drawer. I lived off of jars of peanut butter and boxes of saltine crackers I would buy on grocery trips with my mom.
-two words: Slipper Socks. These are the socks that have rubber designs on the bottom for grip. They make no noise, and also keep you steady on slicker surfaces like tile and wood. You can find them cheap at Walmart. They also keep your feet more protected if you’re outside.
-if you’re secure enough in your room to have a small food stash, make sure you’re not too obvious about it (duh) but also move its location every few days. I kept mine in a shoebox under my bed, then switched it to a backpack in my closet, then wedged between my bookshelf and wall, and I would cycle locations until i moved it permanently to a false-bottomed drawer I installed in my dresser when my father was gone for a weekend. I would NEVER put food directly into my stash after taking it. I would keep it in pockets of my clothes and between books until everyone went to sleep, then I’d stock and stow my stash for the next few days.
-get a water bottle with a filter in it. I used to be able to reach my bathroom from my bedroom door down the hall using a huge step or minor jump/leap. If I was afraid of being caught at night, I’d fill up the humidifier tank we kept under our sink while I took a short shower, and would refill my water that way. It might not be the best option, but I kept a small stockade of water under my bed for emergencies.
-if you can, smuggle your garbage out in your backpack or purse. Dispose of it at work/school. I got caught twice by carelessly throwing away packaging.
-if someone knows the situation you’re going through (close friend/partner/etc) see if there’s a way for them to get food or other supplies to you at school or work or what private time you may get. A hidden first aid kit literally saved parts of my body before and I owe it to a close friend.
-try learning the building’s natural rhythm. The house I grew up in would creak and settle heavily every night for 3-5 minutes. That was my shot, and I had to be QUICK. I still got caught a few times, but learning the patterns in our floors and walls, when they creaked, WHERE they creaked, kept me going. Eventually I was sprinting in slipper socks to the kitchen and back in less than 90 seconds.
-if you have stairs, or live upstairs. Sit as you go down them one at a time, or climb up them like an animal. It keeps you low/out of lots of motion sight, and also can reduce noise and creaking by distributing weight over more than 1-2 steps.
-You can use common hand sanitizer to remove the stains certain snack foods leave behind (coughs cheeto fingers) and a dry toothbrush can help scrub the color off your tongue. If you can get powdered toothpaste or toothpaste tabs to keep on hand, it makes a huge difference in sneakiness.
-I don’t recommend going for dried foods like granola or cereal unless you can sneak it to a secure place to get it. It’s too loud, it’s a gamble every time for something with less caloric intake than it’s worth if you get caught. Of course, there are times when that’s the only option!!
-if you’re taking milk, add water, but be SURE to shake/agitate the bottle to distribute the dairy fat with the water. I got into the habit of shaking milk jugs when I started sneaking it, and explained the habit as something I read in an old comic strip my father showed me. (Back when whole milk had a lot more cream fats and they’d separate, so shaking it would redistribute the cream.) I still shake milk jugs to this day.
-if your windows open or don’t have screens, eat leaning out an open window. Any food mess will be lost in the dirt. I was lucky I had bushes and birds outside that would catch my granola bar crumbs before anyone could notice.
-canned goods are tempting, but not worth it. It requires too many tools (can opener/strained sometimes/utensils/some need heat) stick to thinks like various nut butters (sunflower/peanut/almond), crackers, dried fruit, and easy to conceal food bars (nature valley/nutrigrain/etc.) dried ramen packets are good uncooked if you can stand the texture. Apple sauce and pudding cups are also easier to sneak and stash than one might think, and can be eaten with your fingers. The only canned foods I recommend are condensed soups and precooked pasta (spaghetti-o’s). You can easily mix them with a little bit of hot water from the tap and get something more sustaining than a handful of captain Crunch. The cans are cheap, sometimes recyclable, and drinking soup takes way less time than chewing solid food.
-if you menstruate, attempt to stash pads/tampons in a safe location. Sometimes shit happens. Pads can work as bandages in emergency situations. Sometimes shark week comes unexpectedly. If you can sneak a roll of toilet paper or paper towels, these are also life savers.
-plastic utensils from takeout containers can be hidden inside socks and will be worth their weight in gold when you least expect it. I bought myself a tiny plastic bowl from the dollar store and kept cheap trinkets in it on my desk so it didn’t seem like a bowl I was eating out of. You could try this with something like a mason jar, which is also useful for drinking out of or storing water.
-if you’re eating a crunchy or solid food, try soaking it in water. Mushy food can be repulsive in texture, but I could clock the sound of someone eating a nature valley oat bar from like 6 miles away. Dunking it in water (or using a secret bowl+water) can reduce noise, and also eating time since you don’t have to chew as much.
-keep a laundry bar or tide pen on you. Laundry bars are super useful, a little hard to find though. I washed a lot of stains out of my clothes with laundry bars in my bathroom sink as a kid. Not proud if it, but it kept me flying under the radar at school.
-clear rubber bands, plain twine or string, paper clips, and thumb tacks. Indescribably useful. I once rigged a system to open tricky cabinets and get objects from inside using two paper clips and a foot of plain string like a mock lasso system.
-if you’re pulling objects from tall cabinets, use your chest or stomach to cushion them. Let them fall into your torso and then into your hands cradled underneath. Not as loud, not as much grabbing, if someone sees it they can mistake it for it falling on you by the body language.
-get a bandana. Or four. Napkins, bandages, tool, and accessory all in one.
-get a tiny sewing kit. I’m talking 3 needles and a spool of thread tiny. Scissors if you can sneak it. See things into your clothes. Make hidden pockets or compartments. Threadbanger on YouTube did a video a few years ago about sneaking things into music festivals using tiny clothing mods, but they may be useful in sneaking money or medicine.
-on the topic of sneaking money. don’t take bills, take change. If your abusers don’t meticulously count their nickels and pennies, they’re an easy(ish) way to build up a tiny savings pool. I found nickels the least noticed coin I took, even more than pennies, and taking two every few nights from where they’d be tossed on our countertop soon built up to a semi-reliable fund I passed off to someone to get me food for my stash without having to sneak it from the kitchen. As soon as I became “independent” in my food storage, I was subjected to much less scrutiny. I managed to build up a solid 1-2 week ration supply after hoarding change.
-you can tape SD cards to the inside of book dust covers(the part that folds inside the actual cover of the book), if you have a sewing kit or zipper on it inside the stuffing of your pillow (trim a corner, stuff it inside, stitch it closed) or (this is final resort) VERY CAREFULLY remove the covering from your outlet and tape it to the wall stud before replacing the casing. I kept mine inside part of my wooden bed frame that I hollowed out using, you guessed it, take out silverware knives and 4 nights without sleep.
-THE FLOOR IS LAVA WAS KEY TRAINING FOR ME AS A CHILD. I learned to take pillows with me, climb on furniture to disrupt my flow of movement, toss a pillow down, and use that to cushion any rattle our living room could give off as I crept to the kitchen from the side entrance so my mom’s dog wouldn’t bark or alert anyone. I highly suggest crawling around on all fours like some sort of beast to stay out of sight.
-can you run your house blindfolded?? If you can’t. Maybe you should try to learn. I suffered some heavy eye traumas growing up and had a collective 3-4 months just IN THE DARK. Eyes bandaged, left alone. It was terrible, but damn if I couldn’t navigate the whole place silently, without any visual cues. This helps a lot with the whole moving around in the dark thing, too. Listening is obviously key.
-if your parents start getting suspicious, or you’re suspicious they’re getting suspicious, watch out for traps. String on the ground that gets shifted when you walk on it. Baby powder or flour left to track footprints or doors opening/closing. My dad was partial to wrapping a bungee cord around my doorknob and attaching it to the closet across the hallway. I wouldn’t be able to open my door enough to get out, or if I did, I risked ruining the structural integrity of the wrappings he did, and he would notice.
-learn to tie some knots. Strong ones. They’ll come in handy at one point or another.
-remember that you’re not totally alone. There’s people out there for you. Wanting to make everything better. You don’t deserve what’s happening, it isn’t normal, and you will eventually find help. But staying safe is important, and you are important.
It upsets me that people might need to know these but I know it could really help someone by reblogging
ALWAYS REBLOG
Things that have helped me over the years:
•Keeping a $10 bill on the inside of my phone case for emergencies. My mother will search my wallet and bags but has not taken my phone case off when she takes my phone as of yet.
•stashing loose change I find in the soil of my potted plant. Very quiet hiding place for coins. All bills are quickly confiscated but coins I have managed to hold onto this way
•changing food stash locations constantly. A good stash I’ve found is buried in my mice seed mix. Small packages or granola bars can fit in there pretty easily and the wrappers are flushable (I know it’s bad to flush them but my trash is routinely searched)
• always deleting online traces in case of phone/computer search. This includes search history, forbidden apps, messages, pictures, notes, games, etc. I don’t know how many times I have deleted the tumblr app during the day only to re download it late at night to use it. My phone and computer are constantly confiscated and gone through with a fine tooth comb. I delete anything I might possibly get in trouble for after I use it and re download it when I need it again. Don’t delete all your browsing history though, they will notice if it’s suspiciously empty. Fill it with safe and approved stuff and remove anything you might get punished for.
•learning what each and every door in the house sounds like so I know who is where at all times without having to leave the room
•learning where those ‘sweet spots’ are in the house where you can notice anyone coming before they can see you or what you are doing
•always having a pre-approved cover. I use books and preaching videos as covers. I can hide a phone in a book or quickly switch apps to the one playing the video if surprised or discovered.
• always being aware of ‘the trail’. If I tell a friend something who tells their sibling who tells my sibling who tells my mom I get punished so basically tell no one and it won’t come back to bite you. This includes talking about tv shows/movies that are forbidden, forbidden foods/drinks, activities, apps, games, friends, political views, etc. Express an opinion and it’s bound to reach someone you don’t want it to.
•never take from your abuser’s personal stash of food or money. The family pantry is fair game to carefully pilfer from and so is loose change but never take from their personal purse/wallet, fridge, pantry, or stash. They WILL find out.
•beware of traps and manipulation . My mother will leave money and food unattended and wait for it to disappear. She will also act like she wants to do a good thing and help you out but in the end you will pay for it a hundred times over. Avoid this if at all possible.
• NEVER develop a false sense of security. I have made the mistake of not deleting an app (Pinterest) because there had been a few weeks between phone searches and I felt a little safer. I got caught and severely punished. ALWAYS COVER YOUR TRACKS. Don’t get too confident in your methods, eventually they will find something. Make sure it’s something minor.
I just want to point out that when deleting apps, make sure to check that the app store you use doesn’t record what was recently installed. I know that the Google Play Store does this and allows you to delete things from your history, but I don’t know anything about Apple.
Apple does, in the purchased section of an account, so don’t have a false sense of security for apple apps and always try to use websites with no cookies.
Apps for screeensharing to TVs (such as Samsungcast) also have search tools so if you clear your history you can also use that and make sure to clear it. Just don’t play a video or it might end up showing on the TV screen.
I feel so sad that so many of you guys go through this all the time. Rebooting to spread the word.
Stay safe my lovelies
So, so unfortunately important. Reblogging because I would’ve loved to have had seen this growing up - I figured most of it out on my own, of course, but through an amount of trial, error, and traumatic consequences no child should ever have to go through.
Adding a few tips on my own:
-Train yourself to breathe and walk as quietly as possible. I’ve learned it without even noticing as a child; I inhale and exhale a lot and that allows me to breathe a little every time, the process is soundless. When sick, breathe with your mouth. The slightest sound can be deadly.
As for walking, stay close to walls. I’m basically walking like people who practice dance do (people often call me out for it) and it allows me to move quickly and unnoticed. Heck, it works so well that I can walk right in front of my parents without them even noticing.
-During family reunions, social event or moments when they are really focused on something (tv, book, etc), you may walk, or even “steal” something right in front of their face. Be careful though, it’s not without risk, and you’ll have a lot of trials before getting it right. Do not attempt it if the price of this trick is too high.
All you have to do is be careful of what they can see. They are facing one of your family member who is right next to them? This might be your chance. Don’t enter their line of sight, or do it as little as possible, all you need is a hand to grab what you need anyway. Don’t look at them while you’re doing it, act as natural as possible, don’t rush. It works amazingly well in family reunion, as the fuss in constant. If the objet you want to grab make sounds (like a bag of chips) you got to be careful. Grab them at the edges, and attempt this only when you feel like it’s safe (your parent is focused on something else, is not facing you, there’s a lot of noise, you think grabbing the object won’t make enough noise to get noticed, etc). Try to practice by “stealing” some of your friends stuff, pretend that you’re just messing with them and return their stuff at the end of the practice.
Test your parents; at which point do they notice your presence? All parents are different, you just need to know where you can be cocky. That being said, wearing bright colors or having a keychain that makes sound is not a good idea.
-Try to test what “tricks” work with your parents. For exemple, I learned that avoiding talking with my dad for a few day will allows me more freedom as to where and how far I can go (I needed to go on a reunion on an other city, and he allowed me to go on my own, while he doesn’t want to let me buy groceries down our street most of the time). Avoiding talking to my mom have an other response though; she gets more negligent. Keep track of your little experiment, takes notes if possible, use your phone if they go through your stuff.
-Locking your stuff away won’t work, because they’ll try everything to force it open. Specially if it’s a diary. Creating codes might help you. For exemple, I write World, W ld. Capitals written with capitals, last two, three or four letters written above the first letter. You might need to guess some words if the note isn’t recent, but putting fully written keyword will help you. Those keyword need to speak to you, and not to your parent, this way you’ll be the only one able to read it.
Hope this helps.
My situation wasn’t something I could feel out, as they were completely random in what they found acceptable and how I was punished.
I skipped class and didn’t receive any punishment, but the next time I was caught was brutal.
Things that helped me were far between, but I have a few tricks that worked.
- Crying got me out of trouble often, once it even got me out of a beating for being 1 minute late home. This only worked because I never cried, so shocking them in some way like that could help.
- They’re right, locks don’t work. You know what got my dad to stop making “midnight visits”? Sleeping naked. I have NO idea why, but he stopped coming in after that.
- Layered clothing helps lessen the blows.
- If they’re going off, figure out what helps best in the moment. Silence might make it worse, but crying might help. Unfortunately this is a trial and error system.
IF YOU HAVE TO RUN AWAY.
-Plan an exit strategy.
Where will you go? Don’t tell ANYONE about it. Concerned friends can get you killed. If running into a forest for immediate escape, trees can help.
Don’t sneak off after a fight. It’s not worth it. They’ll be expecting it.
Leave siblings. They might be able to convince the police you were hurting them and kidnapped them.
If you know a pet is going to die because of you leaving:
Practice a silent command for “quiet” for a dog. Bring a leash, extra collar, meat scraps or whatever can tide it over. A dog is going to want to return home. Dogs will also add extra protection if you have to go through the forest. If it barks prepare to run.
If you have a cat WITH a collar, any string will do as a leash. A carrier is slow and cumbersome. Cats are tough, so if it breaks free and runs off, you might not be able to get it back, so a tight grip is needed.
YOU HAVE LEFT AND ARE CONCERNED THEY’LL FIND YOU?
I ran into this issue. It’s a debilitating fear.
Get yourself (if you like) a big scary ass dog. Abusers can punk out when faced with harm. I got a Shepherd and that dog would die for me.
Look for a place with a private driveway that can’t easily be seen. I lived a minute away from them for a year and they never saw me.
You have a car that they recognize? Buy 20 cans of matte black spray paint, tape, and newspaper. New paint job to keep them guessing.
I understand why it’s hard, but I strongly suggest a protective order.
Survive until you can be free. Being broke and alone is better than this.
In case anyone who sees my blog needs this
