Warning, this post is about emotional abuse.
I was reading through a forum on the topic, and going through it I felt validated enough to reply with my own experiences. I wanted you guys to know that this is why I’m moving, and this is why I badly need support in order to do so.
I don’t have a Kickstarter or anything, but if you guys would support me on patreon that would mean a lot. Writing is something that makes me happy, and I’ll never be able to move without support, let alone fine the time to write between all the hours I’d have to work to survive.
https://www.patreon.com/elizascities?ty=h
I’ve told my friends that I worked the numbers out and that I’ll be fine. In reality… I’m short a couple hundred a month for basic living expenses, and I’m very worried about whether I’ll survive.
Alright guys, first off I’d like to say this thread was painful to sit through.
I can’t say anything about parenting. That’s because I only turned 18 a month ago, and just got done being on the child end of the stick. I’m moving out in two weeks, which on an almost minimum wage job is almost suicide, but I’m that willing to take that risk.
•I can see micro expressions. For those that don’t know, they’re basically the very subtle changes in facial expression that most don’t normally catch. Usually you have to take body language classes and things to truly see them. I do out of instict because I had to adjust whatever I said to his mood.
•I jump at loud noises, and the second you raise your voice at me, I’ll cry.
I’m a cashier in training. The second I got held up, I was too scared to call for help because that meant I failed. When someone else called for me, that meant they thought I was an idiot.
•After I dispersed the line I had to sit in the back to cry because I thought I was a terrible cashier. That small mistake that led to a line of 4 people total made me question my worth. I thought I was stupid. I still think I’m terrible at cashiering.
•Whatever good qualities I possess, they don’t mean anything because of my bad ones. My good deeds are meaningless due to my bad ones. I deserve the punishment for the bad yet when I do good, the bad cancels that out.
•I’m terrible person who questions my self worth constantly.
•I’m TERRIFIED of any sort of conflict.
•I’m terrified of people getting angry at me. The second someone shows the slightest hint of not being amused with what I said, I hastily add something else on to change my tune and hope for a better reaction.
•I’m people pleaser. My worth comes from what I make others feel.
I never get angry. NEVER. Instead I get depressed, sad, and some days suicidal. •If I’m angry, you’ll KNOW that I’m justified because I’ve already questioned myself 6 ways to Sunday on how I deserve to be treated like that. If I’m angry that means for once in my life I came up with nothing.
As you can see, a thread riddled with conflict about spanking and people attempting to invalidate abused emotions threw me for a loop. But I read it anyway because for once in my life I had something that validates how I feel.
I had no idea spanking was a controlled and disciplined action. My experience with “spankings” has been my father whipping us with a belt whenever he felt angry enough. You’d know because he would take a deep breath, and very audibly release it. He’d glare at you with an intensity I could never fully describe, and your options were either to run to accept your fate because he was about to beat you. No amount of begging or “I’m sorry"s could fix it. He could either completely lose his temper and beat you with his bare hands, or he’d continue the charade that it was anything other than rage induced lack of control, and tell you to put your hands on the couch as he takes off his belt.
This is what “spankings” meant to me. So imagine my surprise when it could be interpreted as an act of respect or just to startle the child.
This man has grabbed me by my arms, pushed my up against a wall, walking just fast enough to where I couldn’t keep up and retain a sense of balance, and spit in my face.
“You disgust me, get out of my house, I hate you and I swear to God once you’re 18 I’ll ship you out of here faster than you can imagine.”
He’s left bruises. Deep, purple bruises. Yet for the state of Ohio, that isn’t good enough.
I’ve run away more than once. The police know my face. I’ve walked on the shoulders of high ways, barefoot in the middle of snowfall. In just pjs in the rain. I once hid in a small child’s treehouse to have some shelter from the cold. I still walk by that house sometimes, the family none the wiser to what I’d done. Once a woman found me on her back porch, huddled in her chair cover to try and avoid the rain. She took me inside. It turns out she was my sister’s school teacher from a previous year. Very kind woman, but made the mistake of convincing my younger self it was a good idea to call the police.
An officer that yelled at me for running away previously showed up. I recognized him immediately. He didn’t recognize me. Shows how much I meant to the guy, right? They were actually on my side until we got to my father’s house. Then suddenly they switched. They told me bruises don’t matter. If it was torture, if the belt had spikes on it is the example they gave me, then it matters.
You don’t know how fustrating it is to have a police officer right in front of you, but in your father’s presence unable to tell them exactly what’s wrong with him because your mind goes blank.
Theyre right when they say emotional abuse is hard to prove. I tried to tell them. I tried to explain that I never knew what to expect. They asked him what he expects, and he gave the rational response that all he wanted was for me to behave. Do my homework, chores, and I couldn’t retort because I didn’t do those things. From an early age I’d be too anxious about deadlines such as his arrival home to actually do anything. My only escape was procrastination through distractions.
You don’t know how it feels to have a police officer stare you in the eye and tell you that the man that encouraged your suicide is just, and that you “can’t run away to avoid discipline.” To be looked down on a rebellious kid for wanting to be treated with respect.
When I was in middle school, there was a time I was in tears and told him that I was losing respect for him. This wasn’t out of malice, I was legitimately concerned our relationship was deteriorating. He yelled back at me that he didn’t respect me either, malice fully intended.
One second we’d be fine, but if I went against him, the second I show confusion for more than a few seconds, or refuse him, he’s snap. He’d have me abandon whatever I learned in class and do homework the way he taught me. Heaven knows his methods weren’t the unit we were learning. Once I had to explain to him 5 times we weren’t to solve an equation, but graph it. He had me solve them anyway.
And he wonders why I avoiding doing my homework in front of him at all costs. And due to them being on a deadline, I only had the nerve to do them at the last second.
There’s no such thing as walking me through things. If I didn’t get it in a timely manner (whatever patience he had for me that day), I was stupid.
From an early age, I learned that it wasn’t enough for mistakes to be corrected. You had to atone for them. When I was in 6th grade, I would steal one of my father’s belts and literally hit myself for not being able to accomplish my chores. This later evolved into guilt induced cutting and thoughts turned toxic with self hatred.
Surprise surprise, I have diagnosed depression and anxiety. I used to have panic attacks. And for a while, he respected those. He let me have a little space, but eventually he grew impatient for me to “get over them”. Later on he’d only treat them as an inconvenience, despite being the one that caused them. He’s accused me of faking on multiple occasions, and once when I was having one right in front of him, he continued to belittle me.
The only words I get could out between my hasty breaths were “shut up”
“Oh, of course you can say THAT.”
This is a man that after I told him about my attempted suicide, yelled that I couldn’t even die properly. That it was a shame I couldn’t even die right. Later on, he told me the reason he didn’t get me help is that “it’d attract the wrong kind of attention.”
He’s trash talked my mother, calling her mentally ill. She may be, but not the crazy hag he describes. With that image in my head (though knowing full well it isn’t true) he’s likened me to that image of her. Called me crazy, told me that I need help. So much so that I now doubt my own perception of reality, and reply more so on others.
It makes it very hard to do that whole “have confidence no matter what those haters think” or whatever mindset.
He’s broken down in front of me. He’s guilted me into feeling sorry for any resistance I’ve given him, because “he’s trying his best” and “life is so hard as a single dad” and “no one loves him.”
“That’s not true! I love you!” Younger me would say. In which he’d reply that if that’s the case then I need to work with him.
Keep in mind this almost always happened after one of the angry fits I mentioned above.
Because that’s how emotional abuse works. Through victim blaming by the abuser, the abused, and when you try to get the word out? Society itself. My school counselor actually got sick of hearing about my incidents with dad, and told me once that “I’ve heard this story before”. When I told him the way he discredits my perception of reality made me feel crazy, his response was: “Well…are you? Do you need help?”
Teachers who guilted their students were ultra effective on me. Once I attempted to drop out of a class specifically because of a teacher’s lecture that day. I didn’t think I was fit to work with the class. Teachers that assume the worst from students who don’t do their work (that their lazy, don’t care, etc) led me the believe the same about myself. I still share that hatred for myself, and struggle to find self worth in anything I do.
He taught me that the world is horrible everyone judges you. You don’t know how self conscious I am simply because he impressed upon me that everyone is judgemental of you all the time, and will nitpick you harder than he does. He was extremely critical, leading to my perfectionism, then told me that children were ruthless and he “only nitpicks to help me. That it’s better he tells me than someone else bully me about it” even though he did so in a way that still made me feel like a disgusting piece of garbage. It got to the point that I literally cut myself for putting the wrong header on a piece of writing for English. Because I was so anxious I forgot MLA format existed. The whole class did it correctly and I felt stupid. Idiotic and worthless.
I’m sorry to talk for so long, but one thing led to another and now I have this long post.
Just uh, here’s an account from the abused perspective in massive detail. The worst parts of all of those aren’t even the abuse in my opinion. It’s the fact it’s done in a way in which you blame yourself for it, and when you don’t, it’s done in a way in which you can’t explain it accurately, making society blame yourself for you. And hey, I already doubting the worth of my emotions beforehand, along with my perception of reality. If society says I’m wrong, if police officers, the embodiment of Justice, feel I’m just a rebellious kid, then I must be.
And that’s where the problem stems.
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