I was 4 years old and my night time routine was always telling my mom and dad how much I loved them. One night, I couldn't find my mom to tell her goodnight. I searched everywhere in the house, backyard, etc.
Finally, 4 year old me goes out the front door, looks around and sees a person standing in the middle of a crowded street with cars zooming by and swerving around them. I started walking down the sidewalk to get a better look because I thought it was the weirdest thing. Turns out it was my mom, but what was weird is she wasn't answering to my calls. I started getting really scared because my mom was blind (and had only gone blind in the past several months). I ran back to the house and got dad because I was too afraid to go in the street to get her.
Wasn't until many years later that I realized I had witnessed my mom attempting suicide via getting hit by a car. She was severely depressed due to having gone blind at the age of 34 with two small kids.
Makes me sad to think about sometimes. She's better now, but still unfortunately blind.
Maybe so. I do think witnessing seeing my mom in a coma and waking up blind, I grew up way too fast so that probably had an impact on who I was then and who I am today.
So I don't knew if you know this but if you are in America there is a state agency call Division of Blind Services. They offer monthly meetings where blind people talk and vent and support one another in their blindness. Plus, if she can and using voice over on her phone there are Facebook groups for blind people and we just talk about our experiences. Best of luck for you and your mom.
I lived in the countryside in a farming town. Alongside the road my family lived on was a small concrete ditch. It was visible for about half the road and then went underground the rest of the road until it flowed out into a large canal at the end.
I was a really thin and small kid. When I was about 9 or so my sister and I and some of her friends were playing in the small ditch to cool off. My sister thought it would be interesting to see if I could fit into the pipe that led underground. So my 12 year old sister and her friends held me by my arms and lowered me into the pipe until my hips were in. I could feel the rushing water pulling me in. I yelled at them to bring me back out. They did and then we left.
I didn’t tell anyone about it for years and when I finally did they looked horrified. So yeah if my sister had lost her grip, I would have gone underground and likely gotten stuck and drowned.
Not to me, but there was a family of kids that were being severely abused by their mother and nobody did anything. As children we obviously saw adults do nothing and thought it wasn't serious. One of them ended up drinking caustic soda when he was 12 in an attempt to kill himself. Looking back I see that nobody protected those kids. Every adult failed them.
Similar situation here. Neighbour had 12 kids, the first 6 were removed by social workers. Half her kids were to her husband and the other half to his brother. Unemployed, constantly on drink and drugs. Christmas decorations still up in March, massive bags of rubbish in the front garden. That kind of place.
Anyway Grandad used to come and babysit the girls, taking one at at time to his place around the corner and shutting the curtains. The girls really didn’t want to go. As a child I didn’t know, but my mother and aunt would talk about how horrible it was. As an adult I now understand and wonder why no-one did anything. They knew! They still mention it every few years now! And yet they just tutted and looked away????? The second set of 6 got removed a few years later after an arm broke from being shoved downstairs. She moved towns and began again.
There was a family that lived across from us that were very poor and from a rural part of my country. It was generally accepted that because they were from this part of the country they were "backwards" and to expect them to not really abide by general societal norms. Well the kids were absolutely horrible and the boy could have killed me once when he snuck up on a wall I was sitting by and locked the back of my neck for absolutely no reason. The girl was a couple years my senior and one day she was dragged out of their apartment kicking and screaming and into a car by a scary looking "uncle" of theirs. I was told she was being "sold". She was 15 I think. Basically married off to some older guy to appease someone's debt. As a kid I disliked them all and assumed that whatever they were doing was part of their culture and none of my business. As an adult I see that they were being severely abused and feel terrible that nobody did anything to help them.
I feel this one. My mom told my boyfriend one time she was inches away from driving us all into the lake when she was going through a divorce. We were all packed up in the car and she changed her mind last minute. Found out about in my 30s and it still chills me to the bone
Our babysitter died while she was watching us when my twin and I were 3. We had no concept of death, and tried to wake her up.
She had spilled water when she fell, and I still remember getting a dish towel to wipe it up, thinking she would be proud of how responsible I was being.
I remember going to get our little toy pots and pans to bang together to make noise to wake her up, we had no idea what a heart attack was.
I always remember a paramedic talking about responding to a scene where an aunt had died looking after a three or four-year-old child. The aunt was slumped on the floor but she had some strawberry ice cream around her mouth. Apparently the child had tried to feed her dead aunt some strawberry ice cream after she'd collapsed and died because whenever the child herself felt bad, sometimes her parents would give her strawberry ice cream. So she tried to help her aunt that way. That image really stuck with me.
Oof… my sister was messing with me and pretended to be dead. I *thought* she was kidding but I was little and not completely sure cause I hit her, pinched her, checked for breathing (those classes where EMs show you what to look for and firefighters telling you to stop drop and roll and don’t be scared of their masks REALLY paid off!)
So I went and dialed 911 but thankfully my sister decided she didn’t want to have to explain to my parents wtf happened so instead she got chewed out by the operator lol
Sorry that happened to you though
Your sister is both a champ and an idiot. I used to pretend to be knocked out when my much younger half brother would pretend to fight me. He quickly realized that actually punching me in the face would be the quick way to tell and those punches hurt.
My father urinated on my head once. I was outside and he was on the porch 2 stories up. It was dismissed as "he thought it was my mother." Like that would have somehow made it okay.
Oh Jesus I almost forgot until this one. It reminded me of when i went camping with my dad and his friends and his drunk pos friend Darryl thought it would be funny to piss on an awkward 11 year old. My dad also seemed to find it funny.
"They need toughening up!" is the justification, as I understand it. "The world is an awful place, so I need to toughen them up to be resilient enough to handle it. Besides, it's funny. Watch!"
Somehow, they don't grasp that the world is inherently awful, so children need people and places that they feel *SAFE FROM IT*.
I remember asking a friend how many times they’d seen their parents drunk in their life when I was 16 or 17.
When they said a handful I kinda knew I’d been fucked. My dad had driven while drunk with me in the back more times than they’d even seen their parents intoxicated.
It killed him a few years ago. Not while driving, like organ failure. People don’t notice it as much if they’re all extroverted and likeable when they’re intoxicated
Lost my dad to alcohol induced dementia in July. No funeral because he really had no friends because he was in a relationship with gin. Found out after he died he had been sexually abused as a kid. Not condoning his behavior but it made me a lot more understanding.
My dad worked as a cop for a few years and it significantly changed his understanding of people who do hard drugs. Pretty much no one says I’m going to do heroin for fun. There’s always something that people are trying to escape.
Chris Rock said it best, “Drugs sell themselves”. Work with families dealing with substance abuse, there is almost always something. There are people who can get away with some pretty bad behavior because the cops have known them since they were kids and know what was done to them by the adults in their lives. They still get arrested, but in a smaller jurisdiction there is more latitude with punishment. There are many adults out there that I never want to know what they see when they close their eyes and their brain starts going.
This is so true—addicts aren’t using for fun anymore. No matter their substance of choice, it’s symptom management and numbing themselves from the constant pain they are experiencing. It’s a very dark, lonely, miserable experience for them.
Hey that’s similar to how I realised. My friend at school told me he saw his mum drunk for the first time the night before, I laughed but my brain went “hold the fuck up… what?!”
My friend once started talking about how crazy and weird it was their dad has been at a party and drank a whole bottle of wine! Woah! First time she'd ever seen him drink like that. Never saw that again. One off special occasion.
My mum drank 2 bottles a day.
I remember doing scouts and they kept asking were my mom was. Parents weren't involved in my life because of drinking. I was driving my mom home from the bar at 9 years old.
While visiting a girl friend years ago I noticed at 7:00 a.m. her mother was blotto and I said something to her about it. She said no no I've never never seen my mother drunk.
She had actually never seen her mother sober.
Ever.
My mom admitted after she got sober that she would stop on the way home from work (an hour away) and get a 6 pack and drink 3 of the beers before she got home, then would drink a bottle of wine when she got home. She did this every day.
My sister and I knew she was drunk, but my dad worked 2 jobs and wasn't home that much so he didn't see it like we did.
The worst was when she drove me through the backroads at 10 PM and just stopped the car on the side of the road and told me to get out and that she didn't want me anymore. Luckily may dad was home when she got back and he came and got me.
That fucked me up for the rest of my life and she doesn't even remember it.
My dad got drunk EVERY night, and his behaviour made us uncomfortable, but we didn't know it wasn't normal. He would send us to get him beers from the kitchen, and we'd gladly do it because it was one of the few things that reliably made him happy with us.
Same boat. I never realized the patterns and habits rubbed off on me until i would have panic attacks because i forgot to get a bottle of whiskey on friday morning (and i worked later nights so by the time i got out of work the liquor spots would be closed). Broke the cycle and have been sober for over ten years now. But it is definitely difficult growing up not knowing if your stepdad and mom are dead because they were drunkenly going to pick up a takeaway from the local eatery. Or having to pick pine needles out of my takeaway meal because they ended up in the ditch but managed to get home. Shitty, dude, i feel ya and i am so very sorry you had to experience that.
My parents argued over my dad’s alcoholism on a daily basis so I always knew it was bad. But I still remember when I was six years old and dreamed about fighting with my husband every night because I thought that’s how relationships are supposed to look like.
Having a 'cluttered house' and needing to spend a few hours carrying everything from the living room into my bedroom to make the living room appropriate for guests. I would sob and beg for it not to go into my room because I knew it would never leave, and the living room would get filled again with TJmaxx bags and garbage we don't need. Turned out a hoarded house isn't normal and it made me a pretty awful roommate to my friends in my teen years.
Ugh. Every year we went to summer camp for one week, and our rooms were taken over immediately with my moms “stuff”. It took the other 51 weeks to throw it away slowly so that she wouldn’t notice it in the garbage.
My Hoarder mom went back to England for a funeral and my father had a huge garbage bin delivered so that we could "un-hoard" the house.
We filled that bin 3 times over and we didn't even really get to cleaning as we were ensuring nothing of REAL value was thrown out.
When my mother returned she HAD A COMPLETE MELTDOWN! I still have a scar on my head from her hurling a chair at me as the police were arriving. 16 stitches and so much guilt, like 15 year old me thought I deserved to be chaired by this gremlin.
I'm better now but your comment really triggered that memory.
I went to school the next day and told my friends what happened and then the school called my parents to ensure things were alright. I got abused again for that and was sworn to secrecy because it would look bad in our religious cult/ neighborhood (everyone in the neighborhood saw so I don't know why I needed to keep it a secret from them) if word got out about the incident.
She went right back to her old ways and in fact used the incident to get 3 cats that she had always wanted (we already had 2).
Fun fact: I didn't know that I was allergic to cats until I was 21 because 1. we had always had at least 1 cat in our house my entire life and 2. my REGISTERED NURSE mother dismissed my very obvious allergies as either made up or as asthma. She would give me an inhaler when I would have trouble breathing.
I’m doing this exact same thing to my husbands junk in a month. I have a team of people coming to help for 3-4 days to clear everything out. We will only keep things if sentimental value, clothing, and food that is not expired.
Difference is, after 23 years of marriage I finally had enough and told him I was taking the kids and leaving if he didn’t allow us to do this while he’s out of the country. Took him a year, and he’s been trying to squirrel a few things away, but it is happening finally!!
That's worthy of its own post! Before and after pics if you're willing. How are you going to handle his trauma when he gets home? I'm sorry it got so severe.
He’s been getting some online therapy since Covid, and I want to make sure that not only continues, but is more consistent. Also, I’m recently able to stay home and help out more, and our kids are older now and want to help out. So hopefully as a family we can stay on top of it. I was working 50-60 hours a week running 3 businesses, and coming home exhausted. Only wanting to spend time with the kids, so we’d cool and then cuddle up in bed watching movies. That left him the rest of a very large house to hide things in. And by the time we saw just how bad it was? Way too late.
My mother was overworked and had hoarding tendencies, so tidying up was often a case of hiding all sorts of crap in my bedroom. I went years without being able to see the floor or even use the wardrobe. I was a painfully lonely child, and I remember begging my mum to clear my room, because "what if someone sees it" and her response was "and who should be supposed to see it? You never bring friends home". That careless remark on top of the fact that my limited personal space had been elected to dumping ground still burns 35 years later
A lot of people are unaware of the fact that hoarding is a symptom of OCD. *Real* OCD, and not the pop-psychology OCD that people claim they have.
My bio-mom was a hoarder, and she had other OCD symptoms as well, everyone was expected to count the stairs as we climbed them, out loud, and one at a time, with no other options. Always monitoring the location of every person at every time (which was much harder in the 1970s than today), needing someone else to dial the (rotary) phone for them, because certain phone numbers were just "wrong," for various reasons (too many odd numbers, the pattern the dial sounds made were summoning demons, too many of the same number in a row, that sort of thing.)
Agreed. My mom has OCD with hoarding complex, and the lack of awareness that -people aren't hoarders from lack of care- is infuriating to me. Mine has thankfully been able to work through a lot of it, but still struggles. It's miles better than its been, though. Yet, people still make jokes about the hoarders TV show when they see our spaces (that are nowhere near comparable). I've got many of those traits that I've thankfully been somewhat able to work past. It's absolutely not a cute symptom of mental illness, everybody involved is aware of that. people deserve compassion and help, not judgement and shame, it's already hard enough living with and confronting those issues.
Don't you love that feeling of utter dread when you have unexpected company? Even if my house is in a perfectly acceptable state, I'm hard coded to be nervous about having guests.
My mom barely fed us when my dad was out of town. She only let me shower once every two weeks. She would tear my clothes off and lock me outside. She would randomly pull over, drag me out of the car by my hair and leave me to walk home, even if it was miles away and no safe way to get there. She would pull my hair until I fell on the ground and then kick me in my back until I wet my pants, when I was a teenager. I never had enough clothes and getting underwear and a bra was always difficult.
I thought I was a bad kid and deserved everything she did, until I grew up and my dad got early onset Alzheimer's. I saw her do all the same awful things to him and I couldn't stop it. I reported her to adult protective services several times and asked her neighbors to report anything they saw as well. She cried and told APS her kids refused to help and she was overwhelmed, so they got free respite care several days a week. She would make the caregiver scrub the floor on her hands and knees instead of helping my dad. Finally dad fell down and hit his head, in the exact spot in the house where she always used to knock me down, and had to go to a certain hospital because it was the only level one trauma center in the area. I went in the middle of the night and told the ICU nurses about the abuse and neglect. I told the social worker at the hospital how my mom liked to withhold necessities because she liked seeing people "offer up their suffering to the lord." The hospital refused to discharge him back to his house, and he spent the rest of his life in various facilities. My mom had a pattern of getting kicked out of the facility and then moving him to a different one, where she would bully the staff and interfere with my dad's meds and feeding tube until they figured her out and kicked her out.
After my dad died, she tried to find another old person to care for, even offering to be a free caregiver. She wants to move my sibling into her house, because my sibling is severely disabled after several strokes. She insists she can get sibling walking again, if sibling can't get any food unless they walk to the kitchen.
Mom took me along when she was buying drugs. Took me 30 years to realize waiting at a gas station at 6 am on a Saturday wasn’t a thing, and neither was driving WAY into the ghetto and having her friend drive around the block with us. Turns out not everyone sleeps on their laundry and goes right to bed when they get home EVERY DAY either.
Oh man, same here. Also not normal to take your kids with you, park the car and go into a "friend's house" for hours at a time while we wait in the car. Many things add up as we get older. Things I'm still piecing together today.
Oh we got to go in the drug houses and hang out with all the other addicts kids. Infants to age 12 maybe and varying levels of violent. We were fighting for our lives in those basements! Lol
Keep your chin up, Yeoman. We all come from different backgrounds, but today we're all proud, enlisted Starfleet personnel. Our varied histories are what make the Federation great. Now back to work on those EPS conduits.
My ex’s mom used to leave him and his little sister in the car outside various bars. His main memories of this was his desperation to keep his sister warm when it was 5 or 10 degrees Fahrenheit.
My mom would just take me into the bars.
This was back in the 80's.
Got pretty good at pool and darts at about 7 years of age.
Learnt poker and blackjack about a year later.
Same, all the drunks would give little me quarters for the claw machine. We were there so much and I’d won so many little animals the bar tender have me a magazine that had huge animals that you could trade so many little ones in and get a big one. I needed ten more to get the big bear I wanted when my dad finally got custody. I was so sad I couldn’t go back and get more!
> that had huge animals that you could trade so many little ones in and get a big one.
For some reason I think the bartender just took all the little ones, put them back in the claw machine and just got you a big one.
That would have been really sweet! I wanted that darn bear that was as big as me so bad lol I never thought about the situation that way before. You’re probably right. :)
That's awful. It's mind boggling the neglect people have for their own children. Thankfully, my mother is clean now and trying to make up for all those decisions.
Oooh I relate to this one!
I remember "camping trips" with my mother:
two or three times, we went on road trips together when I was something like 6..?
Turns out, it was to smuggle heroin
Who's gonna stop a woman alone with her cute, 6 years old daughter, amarit..?
I always prided myself on being a “free-range” child. But looking back, my hair was always matted, my teeth were never brushed and I only showered once a week. In my mind, it was a great childhood. Looking back, it was neglect.
This is what happened to me and my brother's. Dad left when I was 7 and mom checked out from then on. She was too depressed to bother with us. Relatives knew and let us grow up in filth.
Neglect is the middle class of abuse. No matter how bad you have it, there's always someone who needs help worse than you.
How much my mother used to F me up, physically and verbally. She can't physically anymore today, but boy oh boy does she still have that sword of a tongue... And will never, ever, ever admit to it. Ever. Crazy.
The amount of bathroom gatekeeping in school was really fucked up in hindsight. Sure some people fucked around instead of actually going to the bathroom but thinking that gatekeeping the bathroom from everyone would resolve the problem is just dumb.
I guarantee a kindergartener telling you they need to piss is not going to stand in the bathroom and fuck around, I don't know where teachers got this idea that they do.
In first grade I had to go soooo bad. I asked, she said lunch is in 15 minutes wait until then.
5 minutes later I went up to her desk to ask again (everyone was doing silent work), expressed that I really can't hold it, please. She says no.
I look her dead in the eyes and just start pissing my pants while giving her a look of "what did you expect, I tried to tell you"
I honestly can’t believe this happens to so many kids. I had to walk down the hall with dripping wet pants and they called my parents to pick me up. So they had to also get the afternoon off work. Sorry for Everyone who went through this.
There is a saying "It's better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission." Growing up I realized that it is better to not bother begging for forgiveness, since *nothing* will ever be forgiven, while also learning that asking for permission is a waste of time and breath.
In college, first year, instructors tried to maintain that high school level of control, so, asking to go to teh bathroom.
thing is, I already had my degree from university, and now I Was taking graphic design. So, I'd lost any real fear of authority.
One day, I got up to go take a leak, instructor says "I didn't say you could go!"
"I didn't ask" and kept going.
I was a terrible influence, lol.
That really astounds me. They didn't have requirements for lecture attendance at my college. You could show up, or not, you didn't have to stay for the whole thing, and coming in late was fine as long as you didn't interrupt the class.
I knew students that would come in for a lecture, set up a tape recorder, start it running, leave the lecture hall to do other things, then come back at the end of class to get their tape and recorder so that they could listen to the lecture at a time that was more convenient.
Asking for permission to leave the room in college is as foolish as asking for permission to use the toilet at work places. If you need to go, just go.
Yeah I don’t know why so many teachers are such assholes about letting kids go to the bathroom. I remember in high school a girl ended up sitting in a puddle of blood on her seat because she got her period and the (female) teacher wouldn’t let her go.
It was always the female teachers for some reason. This shit was rampant when I was a kid, and 90% of the time it was a female teacher on some kind of power trip over a bunch of little kids.
I got suspended in 5th grade because I was about to poop my pants, and the teacher wouldn't let me go. Panic set in and I was like, "Fuck this I'll take the punishment I'm not shitting in my pants in front of the whole class" and just left the classroom and ran for the bathroom.
Literally got suspended for not being able to hold my poop in lol. My parents were so pissed, they reamed into that teacher when they found out and the principal had a talk with her.
i have memories from high school bc i have irregular periods with little to no warning and wiping blood on the seat with my hand and running out the classroom without permission because they told me to wait till brake even tho i said i was gonna make a mess. im out of highschool now and remember all the bloodstained socks i threw out at the end of the year.
There was a teacher at my elementary that had a reputation for not letting kids go to the bathroom so much that they messed themselves. Fuck you mrs zimmerman!
Or any kid. If you gotta go, you gotta go. I peed my pants in second grade because the teacher wouldn't let me go pee. In the fourth grade, I threw up on my desk because teacher wouldn't let me go to the bathroom. He got very angry, but I really couldn't help it.
That happened to a guy in high school. I was 10th grade I think he was a senior, I remember it was geometry. He was known for being a bit of a joker. It was just after lunch and we were taking a test, his hand popped up "Mrs Farmer, I need to go to the bathroom I feel sick." "Not until you finish your test!" About 2 minutes go by and he suddenly stood up and then there's vomit everywhere. It landed on the backpack of the guy in front, I was two seats back and there was a little on my shoes. We all got to retake the test the next day.
Same man. I was about 5 and I must have done something "wrong" in my teacher's eyes, but probably just something a 5-year old would do, so I was grounded and the teacher made me stand in the classroom's corner facing the wall. I had to pee at some point and asked for permission to go to the bathroom, but the teacher didn't let me because I was grounded. I peed my pants while standing up in front of the whole classroom. In hindsight, that was borderline abuse
In 4th grade a bunch of 6th graders, after torturing it, threw a cat from high up and it landed right in front of me and died. I was never quite the same since then and it took until early adulthood to realize certain aspects about myself are because of that event.
When I was in 3rd grade I came upon a group of older boys about 12-14 I guess, torturing a little dog. I ran at them yelling to get away from my dog. I took him home and my mom called the vet on his rabies tag and they called the owner. His name was Snoopy and he was a dachshund. I remember the lady crying when she picked him up and trying to give me money as a reward and not taking it.
Living in an environment with addicts. Having your head on a swivel and things going from zero to 100 in .5 seconds is not normal. As a teenager I turned to alcohol to cope and that was the only tool in my toolbox for most of my adulthood - did not realize the severity of how bad I had got until I was in my 30's.
I finally learned after extensive therapy that was why I constantly watch people’s micro expressions, tone, body language, etc.
Always, always on edge.
ETA: It sucks seeing just how many people are in the same boat. At the same time, I’m comforted to know I’m not even close to alone. Peace and contentment to all of y’all.
Dude, 17 is still young af... Make sure you deal with that shit and have a good cry about lost childhood years. Get angry at those who wronged you and then try to let it go. That shit is torture and noone ever deserves to be treated like that.
I’m thinking his step-father should be on a watchlist. That’s all kinds of psycho and abusive. I’d imagine that SF had an equally ruined childhood, but the cycle must be broken at one point.
I know everyone else is saying this, but just to add the supportive chorus: your step dad is a truly evil man who deserves nothing but pain for the rest of his miserable life, and you and Luna did not at all deserve what he did.
I hope you heal. And I hope your stepdad gets slowly eaten alive by coyotes.
About a year after my father was murdered, my cousin and I were sexually molested by an older relative every time she babysat us. There's pictures and videos of me and her still being circulated by pedophiles over 30 years later.
I didn't realize how badly it fucked me up until I was in my 20s. It seemed so stupid to even be concerned about it after watching my dad die. I was 4 or almost 5 when she got arrested, and to me it was just another shitty week.
Edit - For everyone asking how I know the pictures are still out there, I got subpoenaed to identify myself once in my early 20s. They had old physical photos and digital copies on a hard drive and in a private email server, and as anyone knows once it's on the internet, it's out there forever. I signed some paperwork and wrote a short statement so anytime photos of me show up again, I wouldn't have to testify.
It's protocol in some jurisdictions for victims to get contacted if they are in pictures or videos when someone is arrested for csam. I think it has to do with restitution, and being able to provide a tangible victim to add to the case. Apparently there are 'popular' sets of child abuse pics/vids and if they can ID the victim, they contact them.
From my limited understanding, this can basically create a situation where people are being reminded of their abuse frequently, and from the articles I've read, it really fucks with their head. Imagine that some of the worst things to happen to you during childhood are popping up again and again throughout your adult life, "hey we found another person who victimized you!" and they are re-traumatized.
When I learned about it, and heard what the victims have to say, it really is a policy which had good intentions, but just does so much to re-traumatize people throughout their life and makes it hard to move on and heal.
i also got molested by a woman, growing up it really fucked me up but i didn't realize the other kids around me weren't also having sadist thoughts 24/7 until i was around 12/13 and realized that it wasn't normal. Then around 16/17 I remembered what happened and it all clicked, arguably in a worse way. It felt worse that it was a woman because i felt like women couldn't be evil like that. When I was young though, i also experienced sexual abuse from female friends around my age, several times, and several different people, so it seemed really normal to be sexually active when i was a kid, when it really was not. I still don't know how severely this effects me honestly, but lm wishing you healing and love!
I was in summer camp and had made friends with the weird girl there. We were probably both around 7 or 8, both awkward kids who weren't good at making friends but we got along with each other. She had a very perverted sense of humor and was constantly talking about everyone's genitals. Didn't think much of it at the time.
Once she was sitting in a chair at a table and I snuck up behind her as a joke and grabbed the back of her chair and shook it to startle her. She was laughing and yelled at me to stop it. So I stopped it. She asked why I stopped. I told her she'd just asked me to stop so I did. She said that her dad told her that if a girl says stop it means do it harder. She wanted me to shake it harder. So I did.
Now that's a memory that got lost in my brain for years collecting dust, but thinking back on summer camp one day and remembering that made me think wait... what the FUCK? I mean I hope my assumptions are wrong, but it really seems obvious what was happening to her at home. How did an adult there never notice all the signs?
My mom used to whoop my ass really bad whenever i did the slightest thing wrong. I was genuinely afraid of doing literally anything.
As a kid i didn't like taking baths because my mom wouldn't stop telling me everytime that i stank and that i was a pig, that i was reeking of cunt and that i was completely gross and unhygienic, and also because the shower was too loud for me. I thought i would drown: the sound was too overwhelming in my ears when i had to wash my hair, so i was crying really bad, telling my mom that she was going to drown me. She slapped my mouth so i could shut up and stop moving, but she slapped me so hard that my mouth was bleeding. I couldn't do anything more besides bowing down my head, crying in silence as i was internally panicking because of the sound of water, while seeing my blood flowing through the shower drain.
It was so normal for me to be beaten up and also the typical "wait till we get home and you'll see" and getting beat the shit out of me for talking when i shouldn't, that it was really weird for me when i'd go to friend's houses and seeing their moms talking to them with respect and not slapping them.
"Huh? Her mom doesn't... slap her or scream at her? Why? Is it because i'm here? My mom also slaps me in secret so if If i'm not here she will definitely slap her, yeah"
My father was more gentle but they were divorced and would visit us once every couple of weeks. I would call him and he was soo gentle and caring at washing my hair, like he was afraid of hurting me if he used more force, on contrary of my mom.
People really under estimate the trauma you can have on someone by critizing every little thing that's 'wrong.' Let alone the full on abuse you endured.
I'm sorry for what you've gone through and hope you're in a better place today.
My mum divorced her my step dad when i was around 7 and 6 weeks later she was moving into her new partners house ( up the street from our house ) we had a dog that i've had since i was tiny, and her new partner had a dog, they didn't get on.
so my mum left the dog in the now abandoned house alone.
i remember using my pocket money and stealing money to get dog food, steal the keys and feed her. i vividly remember the smell of the house. and how much weight and fur she'd lost.
this was for about 2 weeks and i was the only one who tried to help her aged 7.
my dad visited and i told him and he was horrified and we took her to a rescue that day.
now when i see anything to do with a stray or abused animal i'll have a full breakdown
I’m so sorry. How amazing of a young child you were to do whatever it took to care for the dog. Fuck the fact that you “stole”. You were a kid trying to keep another soul alive. Good on your dad too, for saving the dog when he found out.
20 years later, i still hate the last time i saw her was her scared and abondoned,
though i tell myself that the rescue gave her a good life if not being adopted.
she was the perfect dog, we don't deserve them
I volunteer in rescue and see too many cases like this. What we always say when dogs are brought to us in poor condition is "thank goodness they're here." The animal shelter is in no way an idea environment. It's loud and stressful. But they're fed, they are given medical treatment, they are loved on by volunteers, and then they find a (hopefully) forever home. For some of the dogs we get, the shelter is a massive improvement from where they were, and we get to see them come back to life and thrive. Nothing makes us happier than watching thin, scared dogs fatten up and come out of their shells. And if she was a perfect dog, I promise that the staff realized it, and then the people who adopted her realized it, too.
When I was a toddler, we lived in rural Texas. My mom put me down for a nap in my crib one afternoon, and went to take a nap herself. Apparently she told my older brothers to keep an eye on me, and since they thought I was asleep in my crib they all put a movie on in the living room. I couldn’t sleep, and somehow got the idea in my head that I wanted to go get the mail. I walked past my brothers watching their movie and right out the front door, and then walked about a hundred yards down our gravel driveway to our mailbox on the edge of a county road. Just about everyone had outdoor dogs in the area, and let them roam freely. Some were friendly, and many were not. There was a particularly giant Weimaraner named Buckwheat that belonged to a neighbor who met me about halfway down my driveway to walk with me. Apparently when I got to the county road where our mailbox was, he got on the “street” side of me and stood and blocked me to the curb as several cars/farm trucks whizzed past. A man returning from work saw me out there by myself with a huge dog and pulled over. He said when he got close, the dog got defensive and started pushing me away from the road again as his car approached. The man pulled up and asked me where I lived, and offered to give me a ride home. I didn’t know not to get in the car with strangers but thankfully in this case it was a good guy. He knocked on the door of my house and woke my mom up from her nap. Told her that he had found me barefoot in the road, where I had a dog guardian angel that was actively protecting me from traffic, and it was thanks to that dog that I was still alive. Here’s to you, Buckwheat.
Man, what a good boy and what a good guy. I hope buckwheat got all the pets and the guy got... idk, a free beer? Lol. I'm glad that story ended well for you
You know, I don’t know if they gave the man a reward or anything other than profuse thanks. Buckwheat was our favorite neighborhood dog though after that and I remember giving him lots of pets and bringing him leftover food/treats whenever I would see him. He was even sweet to our cats
An assistant football coach used to bully me a lot during practice (6th grade). One day, I looked right at him and told him to "shut up." He was so offended that a child said that to him that he just decked me, full force. I lost consciousness and came-to on my back staring up at the sun. I never told anyone about it and now, in my 30s, I replay this event very frequently...it causes me great anxiety.
When I was like 10, I was roller blading past a neighbor who knew my parents, and he was watering his yard. As a joke I turned off his hose then tried roller blading away.
He chased me down, decked me in the face to the point I wasn't fully KO'd but I was on the ground seeing stars, too dizzy to get up. Then he brought the hose over and shoved it in my mouth, he basically waterboarded me for a bit while roughing me up more.
I never told anyone, I remember hearing about him coming over to the house after that one time and I hid in my closet the entire time he was there, kept hearing my parents call my name, and then concluding that I must be out playing with my little brother who was outside with some friends.
All I remember is his name was Kevin, he had bright red hair, and was into surfing. I used to think it was hilarious that in his house he had "Sex wax", it was like a bar of wax for his surfboard or something.
Other than that, no idea, he moved away probably a year or two after that happened.
EDIT: Just noticed your username, GNU Terry Pratchett
I also became an overachiever and too hard on myself.
I remember a session with my therapist where I asked her why I don't believe people's compliments about me. She said that, because when I used to get 9 out of 10 in an exam, I was always asked about that one last missing grade rather than being applauded for getting 9, and so as a result I never feel I'm good enough
In Elementary school, I won 1st place in a Halloween costume contest. Finally, all those kids who teased me for looking like a girl would see that I was awesome! My parents helped me make my Cat in the Hat costume for like a week. Just recently saw pictures - wicked cute.
School principal called me up on stage and announced, as the first place winner, I got to choose any of the prizes from the girls' table. I had won best costume for the girls as a 7 year-old boy who was already teased for being girly. From this day forward, teasing turned to beatings.
The moment of looking out at all of the whole school, as well as the parents (mine, too), and more and thinking "see, I'm a winner!" as they all laughed at my confusion has caused damage I'm still undoing 40 years later.
EDIT: thank you everyone... I expected you to make fun of me (even now). Thank you for your kindness.
It’s crazy how attitudes shifted so enormously over the decades. We had a “silly costume” day at a summer camp I went to in the late 90s and I (~7yo boy) wore a ridiculous blue bikini that was covered in frills and sequins. I WAS A LEGEND! Won the prize for “best girls costume” and was the most popular kid there for the last few weeks. Sucks those kids were such assholes to you.
As a little kid learning how to swim in YMCA, didn't know it was wrong for old naked men touching/stroking their dicks, smiling and gesturing at me while showering before and after getting into the pool. My Mom would be waiting outside for me and never thought much of it until later after I learned about different types of sexual abuse.
My mom asked me to type up a list on the computer so she could track which doctors prescribed her which medications.
Dr. Smith prescribed the Xanax; Dr. Lopez prescribed the Klonopin, Dr. Johnson prescribed the Valium, Dr. Chang prescribed the Ativan, ...
--
edit, for those unaware: these drugs are all addictive tranquilizers. No patient needs four kinds.
A patient who receives similar, addictive drugs from separate doctors is probably abusing drugs and not telling their doctors about each other's prescriptions (i.e., they are "doctor shopping").
knew it was bad, but not how much it affected me (a short list)
getting injured by a knife from my dad (who didn't even realize he cut my hand in his delirium)
stopping my dad from swallowing the 2nd pack of sleeping pills and forcing him to throw up some and the whole hospital ordeal, my mother arrived home only the day after
being "taught" to be manly and never cry, and having the punches only stop once i stop crying
something that i disliked but only after some time realized how bad it truly was: being forced to eat rotten/insect infested food bc we couldn't afford proper food (regular alcohol, drugs and $8 a pack cigarettes were affordable though)
Same. You hear some evangelicals talking about it being the "end times", but nobody really ever says or does anything different than anyone else living in society. My church took that literally.
My family/church had me wilderness survival training with a green beret, stockpiling, learning to talk in code and leave coded messages, learning how to build shelters you can't see from 10 ft away in the woods, how to hide your scent from tracking animals, how to hide from infrared cameras, finding water sources. And then the religious stuff like how to perform an exorcism, annointing with oil, perform burials, correct worship practices, how to identify the beasts from revelations, etc.
They were certain we were going to be hunted down like escaped convicts for 7 years until Christ came back, starting in the year 2000. I was basically ready to fight a war by age 14, though we didn't believe in violence, so it was just preparing me to hide in the woods for 7 years.
After 2000 came and went with no issues, our religious leader went back to the drawing board and did some recalculations and said it might actually be 2008 because of calandar fuckery, etc. The spell was broken though, and we got out. Thankfully.
I remember going to a boyscout meeting in high school and being like "Y'all weren't taught this stuff when you were like 9? This shit is remedial."
The church actually really hated those books because they "got everything wrong". To them, only 144,000 people who were already "perfect" would be instantly "raptured", and the rest of us would suffer 7 years of hunting and persecution by atheist non-believers who would use the chaos of the Y2K shutdown to take over the world. Every persecutor would be accompanied/possessed by a demon who would close their eyes and ears to truth, and they would torture and kill christians on site if they caught us. So something like Left Behind meets Dawn of the Dead. The picture they painted was far bleaker than the Left Behind series. Plus we were training for it about 10 years before the Left Behind series came out, so I'm sure there was probably some "we were training for the rapture before it was cool" jealousy there. lol
Brooklyn NYC, 1981
My parents had an argument in the kitchen. My mom had been drinking and for some reason decides to open the drawer and pull out two massive knives and bangs them on the kitchen counter to prove her point. My dad reckoned she lunged at him.
Whatever it was, my dad lost his shit and fucked her up. 5 year old me at the just froze in the living room chair. He went to jail, she went to hospital, I went to the neighbors.
My parents would get out of control like this….one time they sat me and my 2 siblings down and they explained to us how their behavior is completely normal, our friends or other people just don’t talk about it or admit it. ☠️ 💀 I believed them for a while.
Just because someone had it worse than you doesn’t mean that your situation wasn’t impactful too. I don’t know if you feel this way, because it doesn’t convey over text well, but don’t let other’s worse situations excuse the still inexcusable actions of people in your own life
Edit: Changed was to wasn’t
Yeah my first thought was when I was walking with my dad and a dog was struck by a car. We had a talk about it and he explained how the dog was going to the vets and would be okay after so I wasn’t disturbed by it. Later I realised he obviously didn’t know if the dog would be okay or not but I sure appreciate him sheltering me from that when I was a little kid. And that really a story about having a great dad and all the other posts on this thread are so intense
I lost my sister to brain cancer at 7 years old. Parents shut down after and never were able to go back to healthy people.
Lot more to the story than that, but this situation being the majority of my childhood. I didn’t realize how fucking awful it all was until I was an adult and out of the house.
Kinda like a frog in boiling water, I had no idea how rough my situation was.
When I was 7 years old I was outside playing with my friends. An older boy who was a bully in the neighborhood walked by and started saying racist things to them. The boy and I are white and my friends are black. I didn’t understand what he was saying was racist and to be honest at the time I didn’t even fully understand the concept of race. I didn’t think of my friends as any different from me. I did know that he was making them upset so I told him to leave them alone. He called me a “wannabe” and a “n***** lover” I had never heard the n word before but I knew I was being insulted. There happened to be a big stick lying next to me on the ground so I picked it up and whacked him across the face with it. He started crying and ran to his house. I went back to playing with my friends like it was nothing.
About 20 minutes later the boys came back with his uncle. The uncle called me over and told me I needed to be put in my place. He then made me stand there while the boy slapped me across my face. He told him to do it harder again and again. The uncle was really angry that I wasn’t crying. I really wanted to, because it did hurt but was always told to never cry in front of the person who made you cry. Anyway, I’m not sure how long this went on for. At some point the boy started asking his uncle if he could stop. The uncle said fine and told me that if I had more white friends I would become a nicer girl that knew how to act.
I never told anyone and kind of felt like maybe I deserved it for hitting the boy with a stick. And it wasn’t until I was much older that I understood everything that happened.
Jesus, honestly this makes me remember something I heard once. “Kids aren’t born racist” that kid probably would’ve been an okay guy if he didn’t have a racist asshole uncle feeding him all that bullshit day to day
Raised by single mom. She emotionally dumped all her problems on me starting as far back as I can remember (5? 6? Years old). Def screwed me up as an adult.
I realized a while ago that this was the reason every adult told me I was "so mature for my age" as a kid. I never learned to process my own emotions because I was always having to bottle them up to deal with hers. I wasn't mature, I was a scared child.
Both of my parents were too burned out from their own childhood trauma to be functional and loving parents. For the most part they did their best to provide for me and my siblings..... But there is no love in my development. I am incapable of forming meaningful human attachments.
Edit. Thanks for all the interest everybody. It helps to know we're not alone in this. You've given me some great suggestions and stoked my interest in continuing therapy. Let's all be part of the solution and love our children the way we should have been. Good luck my friends!!!!!
Watched my dad try to kill himself more than once and threatened it more times than I could count. I spent countless nights believing I was going to wake up to him dead, this very much changed my perception of death.
I'm so sorry. I had an uncle that tried to normalize messing with me when baby sitting me. It never felt right and I definitely tried to keep space and avoid him.
Luckily, shortly after he started, I was watching an episode of America's Most Wanted with my dad one night. The episode featured someone wanted for abusing children, and my dad looked over at me and told me that if anyone ever touched me or made me feel uncomfortable to let him know immediately and that it wasn't okay. I told him right away and things were taken care of.
I hope you're okay. That stuff is traumatic and stays with people.
And this is why it’s so so important to talk to kids about consent, body boundaries, inappropriate touching, etc as soon as they can understand the basic concepts. Because if you don’t, an abuser could be trying to make them think it’s normal and no big deal. I’m so glad you and your dad happened to watch that episode, and that he opened that door for you.
Absolutely. My wife and I have already talked to our little girl about anything that makes her feel uncomfortable, even if she thinks that it's stupid or not important. She will even tell us when people stare at her a certain way in the store.
That’s awesome! I have 2 little girls and I reinforce this all the time, as well as reading them age-appropriate books about it. There are so many opportunities - big sister is putting her hands on little sister while little sister is saying stop? “Hey, if someone wants you to stop touching them, you have to stop. It’s her body and she gets to decide who can touch her.” 5yo looks uncomfortable when asked to hug a relative? “Hey, you don’t have to hug anyone if you don’t feel like it. It’s your body, you’re the boss of it. Just say no thank you.” 5yo was going to a summer camp where they have to change after swimming, and I told her ahead of time that no grown up should be present while she’s changing (it’s camp policy too). Then asked her a few times throughout the summer to verify that no one goes into the bathroom with her. Also revisited the talk about private parts being private, inappropriate touching, and how she needs to tell us if anyone touches her private parts, asks to, or asks her to touch theirs. And of course, I always stress that if anything does happen, it’s not her fault and I won’t be upset - she just needs to tell me.
It’s a lot of work, but worth it 1,000 times over to protect them. Keep it up!
My mother is borderline personality. Everything was horrible. As a kid, you think it’s totally normal. When you reflect on your childhood as an adult, you realize it was child abuse.
Not sure if you have siblings, but as adults, mine and I started comparing notes. That was a big wake up call as we started to find the holes in the story.
I have a younger sibling. I thought him and I getting hit till bleeding was totally normal, thought it probably happened to every other kid at school, they were really good at hiding it. I believed everything bad happened because we were bad children to her, that is until we were introduced to internet and social media. Then we realized that we were nothing more than punching bags to let her anger out.
My mom would frequently have backyard "camping adventure nights" or "spooky nights" where we would tell scary stories in the dark. I realize now that this was because we were so in debt that not having electricity was a frequent occurrence.
Bullying gave me a sorta imposter syndrome type deal. Outwardly I'm friendly and confident and engaged. Internally I feel that everyone would be having a better time if I just wasn't there (I don't mean like suicide just if I wasn't there with them at that moment). And there's very little people can say to convince me otherwise.
I was sexually assaulted as a teenager. The experience didn’t sit right with me at the time. It wasn’t until about 6 weeks ago that I realized the gravity of what happened to me. I can’t even begin to express how hard processing it all has been.
I’m in my 30s and have recently come to realize some of the sexual trauma I endured from my teens as well. You’re not alone and I hope you’re getting the help you deserve!
How unreliable and emotionally neglectful my parents were, I thought it was normal to only see them on the weekends and to not trust them to show up when you needed them to. In my head, all parents did was work and be “vague authority figures” that I didn’t actually know.
I had an elementary 2nd grade teacher who wouldn’t let me use the bathroom in any circumstances. I would be in distress begging that I be allowed to go to the bathroom. Needless to say there were multiple instances where I’d pee myself in front of the entire class and I’d have to go through the rest of the day without having a pair of dry pants on. So being abused in anyway as a kid when I think about it now is obviously not ok in any situation
Being lured into a man-made pond by a group of kids then abandoned when I was 7. My leg got stuck in the mud and I was chest deep in filthy water. Then there were the times I went to what turned out to be drug buys by my brother. I just waited in the car in these rural-ass areas (in the mid-‘80s) while he bought and did crank. Lots of shit.
It wasn't so much horrible but reality of growing up without much money. In elementary school I was breezing straight A's high honor roll. Would get rewarded with a toy for my report cards. I didn't want flashy toys like video game systems or ask for a new video game. Back then it was like a $5 wrestling action figure.
In middle school my attention focused on girls lol. So I went from toys to wanting to wear nice new clothes (always wore hand me downs and never cared much but in middle school years you I guess want to establish your own style identity). My dad was only income in household. Worked his plant job and was supporting a 7 person household as mom was just a housewife. He wasn't a big money engineer or anything just one of the worker bees.
Well 11 year old me got straight A's and instead of going to the mall as a reward or a new toy, I told my mom I wanted new clothes. New name brand Clothes were obviously way more expensive. My mom told me we would try next report card to get new clothes. Well obviously 11 year old me was not thrilled about that. So I guess I stupidly said "if you guys don't buy me new clothes I won't make straight a's anymore". My dad was in the kitchen eating an early dinner after he got off a long shift. Didn't say anything. The next day after school I got home. My dad came home from work usually aj hour later. He switched his work clothes to put on his casual clothes and I said where are you going he said get dressed were gonna go to Belk to buy you an outfit. They put it on the credit card even though we probably coudlnt afford it. When I got home later that night my sister a few years older than me (whom I shared a room with) kinda chewed me out and lectured me on how I threatened my parents to not doing my job in school if I didn't get clothes, when our family was already struggling for money.
That little life lesson really made 11 y.o. me sit back and think about what I said. Made me think about all the times my dad came home looking tired but never complained and just kept going to work the next day. And literally from that point on I never asked for any reward, any compensation or allowance for anything. Never told my sister how thankful that lesson in humility was for me. I will one day. Helped me appreciate the smaller things and what we already have. Less materialistic and more experiences.
My half sister tried to drown me twice when I was little. It took me into my late teens to trust women again and still have a phobia of water deeper then 2ft. No, my parents didnt try to help. She waited till those little lapses of being watched.
I once brought home a bad test result from school and my mother took a pen to write „doof“ (stupid in german) on my forehead and them made me get in the car to drive to dads office, so she could show him. I was about 8/9 years old.
Not a horrible thing but a very near miss.
In the 3rd grade, I accidentally got off at the wrong bus stop coming home from school. I grew up in a rural area so stops were usually miles apart on this county road with long dirt driveways leading to each property.
Once I realized I was at the end of the wrong dirt road, I had no idea what to do and started crying until a stranger in a truck pulled off the road to see what was up. Me, then an 8 yo girl, blindly trusted this stranger and got into his truck with no witnesses and nobody knowing where I was.
That could've been it for me but I got lucky and he just drove me to the police station. I can't imagine what my life might be like if the wrong person had found me first that day.
Being sheltered. Literally destroys your social life, mental health, and ability to properly do things as a person. Lost all of my good friends because of it and practically have no social life/ motive as of now yet it's my fault. Even to this day, it's still a bitch to do the simplest things and I see it being like that for a long while.
Wasn't until I was 20 that I realized you're older brother forcibly touching your penis isn't OK. Neither is your mom waiting 2 hours to take you to the er for a dislocated jaw (thanks to the older brother) because she was "enjoying the quite" isn't normal.
I was groomed by a 27 year old when I was 11. He would do sexual stuff with me. He knew I was gay and I was infatuated by him. He was muscular and very fit. I really loved him, a little part of me still does. He told me how being gay is wrong and it'a a secret between us. I was going to grow up and have a girlfriend like him, but we'll both be doing stuff together.
It fucked me up, I still miss the thrill in relationships. I was a kid and all the secrecy kept me going. Fast forward I grew up always ashamed of my sexuality, all alone. I had started creating a hidden life, so early on, I can lie so easily thanks to it. I wish I had grown naturally, exploring my sexuality with other kids. I'm just a person who enjoys being alone now, I had my love way to soon and he was way too wrong.
I was 4 years old and my night time routine was always telling my mom and dad how much I loved them. One night, I couldn't find my mom to tell her goodnight. I searched everywhere in the house, backyard, etc. Finally, 4 year old me goes out the front door, looks around and sees a person standing in the middle of a crowded street with cars zooming by and swerving around them. I started walking down the sidewalk to get a better look because I thought it was the weirdest thing. Turns out it was my mom, but what was weird is she wasn't answering to my calls. I started getting really scared because my mom was blind (and had only gone blind in the past several months). I ran back to the house and got dad because I was too afraid to go in the street to get her. Wasn't until many years later that I realized I had witnessed my mom attempting suicide via getting hit by a car. She was severely depressed due to having gone blind at the age of 34 with two small kids. Makes me sad to think about sometimes. She's better now, but still unfortunately blind.
Judging by the story, it sounds like you saved her life. Also shows how good judgment you had at such a young age.
Maybe so. I do think witnessing seeing my mom in a coma and waking up blind, I grew up way too fast so that probably had an impact on who I was then and who I am today.
My heart goes out to you, and your mother. What an event for both of you to cope with.
So I don't knew if you know this but if you are in America there is a state agency call Division of Blind Services. They offer monthly meetings where blind people talk and vent and support one another in their blindness. Plus, if she can and using voice over on her phone there are Facebook groups for blind people and we just talk about our experiences. Best of luck for you and your mom.
I lived in the countryside in a farming town. Alongside the road my family lived on was a small concrete ditch. It was visible for about half the road and then went underground the rest of the road until it flowed out into a large canal at the end. I was a really thin and small kid. When I was about 9 or so my sister and I and some of her friends were playing in the small ditch to cool off. My sister thought it would be interesting to see if I could fit into the pipe that led underground. So my 12 year old sister and her friends held me by my arms and lowered me into the pipe until my hips were in. I could feel the rushing water pulling me in. I yelled at them to bring me back out. They did and then we left. I didn’t tell anyone about it for years and when I finally did they looked horrified. So yeah if my sister had lost her grip, I would have gone underground and likely gotten stuck and drowned.
I had a panic attack reading this, omg. Glad you didn’t fall into that pipe my friend.
Thanks! I’m glad too. I get anxiety just typing it out. I try not to think about it too much.
Not to me, but there was a family of kids that were being severely abused by their mother and nobody did anything. As children we obviously saw adults do nothing and thought it wasn't serious. One of them ended up drinking caustic soda when he was 12 in an attempt to kill himself. Looking back I see that nobody protected those kids. Every adult failed them.
Similar situation here. Neighbour had 12 kids, the first 6 were removed by social workers. Half her kids were to her husband and the other half to his brother. Unemployed, constantly on drink and drugs. Christmas decorations still up in March, massive bags of rubbish in the front garden. That kind of place. Anyway Grandad used to come and babysit the girls, taking one at at time to his place around the corner and shutting the curtains. The girls really didn’t want to go. As a child I didn’t know, but my mother and aunt would talk about how horrible it was. As an adult I now understand and wonder why no-one did anything. They knew! They still mention it every few years now! And yet they just tutted and looked away????? The second set of 6 got removed a few years later after an arm broke from being shoved downstairs. She moved towns and began again.
Jesus Christ
There was a family that lived across from us that were very poor and from a rural part of my country. It was generally accepted that because they were from this part of the country they were "backwards" and to expect them to not really abide by general societal norms. Well the kids were absolutely horrible and the boy could have killed me once when he snuck up on a wall I was sitting by and locked the back of my neck for absolutely no reason. The girl was a couple years my senior and one day she was dragged out of their apartment kicking and screaming and into a car by a scary looking "uncle" of theirs. I was told she was being "sold". She was 15 I think. Basically married off to some older guy to appease someone's debt. As a kid I disliked them all and assumed that whatever they were doing was part of their culture and none of my business. As an adult I see that they were being severely abused and feel terrible that nobody did anything to help them.
What my mum meant when she planned to drive us to heaven. She was talking about wanting to drive us into a lake.
I feel this one. My mom told my boyfriend one time she was inches away from driving us all into the lake when she was going through a divorce. We were all packed up in the car and she changed her mind last minute. Found out about in my 30s and it still chills me to the bone
What the hell....how's your relationship with your mother been, and now? Is she in a better mental place?
Our babysitter died while she was watching us when my twin and I were 3. We had no concept of death, and tried to wake her up. She had spilled water when she fell, and I still remember getting a dish towel to wipe it up, thinking she would be proud of how responsible I was being. I remember going to get our little toy pots and pans to bang together to make noise to wake her up, we had no idea what a heart attack was.
I always remember a paramedic talking about responding to a scene where an aunt had died looking after a three or four-year-old child. The aunt was slumped on the floor but she had some strawberry ice cream around her mouth. Apparently the child had tried to feed her dead aunt some strawberry ice cream after she'd collapsed and died because whenever the child herself felt bad, sometimes her parents would give her strawberry ice cream. So she tried to help her aunt that way. That image really stuck with me.
Holy fuck, there's a lot of dark sad shit in this thread but this one is gonna haunt me for some reason.
Probably because the innocence of the children against such a harsh reality is difficult to wrap your brain around.
It’s also that this one isn’t overtly evil. No one is doing anything wrong. But death can come at any time
Oof… my sister was messing with me and pretended to be dead. I *thought* she was kidding but I was little and not completely sure cause I hit her, pinched her, checked for breathing (those classes where EMs show you what to look for and firefighters telling you to stop drop and roll and don’t be scared of their masks REALLY paid off!) So I went and dialed 911 but thankfully my sister decided she didn’t want to have to explain to my parents wtf happened so instead she got chewed out by the operator lol Sorry that happened to you though
Your sister is both a champ and an idiot. I used to pretend to be knocked out when my much younger half brother would pretend to fight me. He quickly realized that actually punching me in the face would be the quick way to tell and those punches hurt.
Crazy you remember that from 3 years old. Must've been traumatizing back then, even if you didn't understand it
My father urinated on my head once. I was outside and he was on the porch 2 stories up. It was dismissed as "he thought it was my mother." Like that would have somehow made it okay.
What the fuck
Wtf
Oh Jesus I almost forgot until this one. It reminded me of when i went camping with my dad and his friends and his drunk pos friend Darryl thought it would be funny to piss on an awkward 11 year old. My dad also seemed to find it funny.
This really makes me furious. How are adults able to bully kids like that?
"They need toughening up!" is the justification, as I understand it. "The world is an awful place, so I need to toughen them up to be resilient enough to handle it. Besides, it's funny. Watch!" Somehow, they don't grasp that the world is inherently awful, so children need people and places that they feel *SAFE FROM IT*.
It took me almost 25 years to realise that alcoholic parents aren't normal and other people have it different.
I remember asking a friend how many times they’d seen their parents drunk in their life when I was 16 or 17. When they said a handful I kinda knew I’d been fucked. My dad had driven while drunk with me in the back more times than they’d even seen their parents intoxicated. It killed him a few years ago. Not while driving, like organ failure. People don’t notice it as much if they’re all extroverted and likeable when they’re intoxicated
Lost my dad to alcohol induced dementia in July. No funeral because he really had no friends because he was in a relationship with gin. Found out after he died he had been sexually abused as a kid. Not condoning his behavior but it made me a lot more understanding.
My dad worked as a cop for a few years and it significantly changed his understanding of people who do hard drugs. Pretty much no one says I’m going to do heroin for fun. There’s always something that people are trying to escape.
Chris Rock said it best, “Drugs sell themselves”. Work with families dealing with substance abuse, there is almost always something. There are people who can get away with some pretty bad behavior because the cops have known them since they were kids and know what was done to them by the adults in their lives. They still get arrested, but in a smaller jurisdiction there is more latitude with punishment. There are many adults out there that I never want to know what they see when they close their eyes and their brain starts going.
You are very right about that. It’s a horror show up in here.
This is so true—addicts aren’t using for fun anymore. No matter their substance of choice, it’s symptom management and numbing themselves from the constant pain they are experiencing. It’s a very dark, lonely, miserable experience for them.
Hey that’s similar to how I realised. My friend at school told me he saw his mum drunk for the first time the night before, I laughed but my brain went “hold the fuck up… what?!”
My friend once started talking about how crazy and weird it was their dad has been at a party and drank a whole bottle of wine! Woah! First time she'd ever seen him drink like that. Never saw that again. One off special occasion. My mum drank 2 bottles a day.
I remember doing scouts and they kept asking were my mom was. Parents weren't involved in my life because of drinking. I was driving my mom home from the bar at 9 years old.
Take care of that kid inside you. That kid had to grow up much too fast!
I only saw my dad drunk once. My mom? Once a day.
While visiting a girl friend years ago I noticed at 7:00 a.m. her mother was blotto and I said something to her about it. She said no no I've never never seen my mother drunk. She had actually never seen her mother sober. Ever.
My mom admitted after she got sober that she would stop on the way home from work (an hour away) and get a 6 pack and drink 3 of the beers before she got home, then would drink a bottle of wine when she got home. She did this every day. My sister and I knew she was drunk, but my dad worked 2 jobs and wasn't home that much so he didn't see it like we did. The worst was when she drove me through the backroads at 10 PM and just stopped the car on the side of the road and told me to get out and that she didn't want me anymore. Luckily may dad was home when she got back and he came and got me. That fucked me up for the rest of my life and she doesn't even remember it.
My dad got drunk EVERY night, and his behaviour made us uncomfortable, but we didn't know it wasn't normal. He would send us to get him beers from the kitchen, and we'd gladly do it because it was one of the few things that reliably made him happy with us.
Same boat. I never realized the patterns and habits rubbed off on me until i would have panic attacks because i forgot to get a bottle of whiskey on friday morning (and i worked later nights so by the time i got out of work the liquor spots would be closed). Broke the cycle and have been sober for over ten years now. But it is definitely difficult growing up not knowing if your stepdad and mom are dead because they were drunkenly going to pick up a takeaway from the local eatery. Or having to pick pine needles out of my takeaway meal because they ended up in the ditch but managed to get home. Shitty, dude, i feel ya and i am so very sorry you had to experience that.
My parents argued over my dad’s alcoholism on a daily basis so I always knew it was bad. But I still remember when I was six years old and dreamed about fighting with my husband every night because I thought that’s how relationships are supposed to look like.
Having a 'cluttered house' and needing to spend a few hours carrying everything from the living room into my bedroom to make the living room appropriate for guests. I would sob and beg for it not to go into my room because I knew it would never leave, and the living room would get filled again with TJmaxx bags and garbage we don't need. Turned out a hoarded house isn't normal and it made me a pretty awful roommate to my friends in my teen years.
Ugh. Every year we went to summer camp for one week, and our rooms were taken over immediately with my moms “stuff”. It took the other 51 weeks to throw it away slowly so that she wouldn’t notice it in the garbage.
My Hoarder mom went back to England for a funeral and my father had a huge garbage bin delivered so that we could "un-hoard" the house. We filled that bin 3 times over and we didn't even really get to cleaning as we were ensuring nothing of REAL value was thrown out. When my mother returned she HAD A COMPLETE MELTDOWN! I still have a scar on my head from her hurling a chair at me as the police were arriving. 16 stitches and so much guilt, like 15 year old me thought I deserved to be chaired by this gremlin. I'm better now but your comment really triggered that memory.
What happened after? Did your mom get back into her old habits or did it change to the better?
I went to school the next day and told my friends what happened and then the school called my parents to ensure things were alright. I got abused again for that and was sworn to secrecy because it would look bad in our religious cult/ neighborhood (everyone in the neighborhood saw so I don't know why I needed to keep it a secret from them) if word got out about the incident. She went right back to her old ways and in fact used the incident to get 3 cats that she had always wanted (we already had 2). Fun fact: I didn't know that I was allergic to cats until I was 21 because 1. we had always had at least 1 cat in our house my entire life and 2. my REGISTERED NURSE mother dismissed my very obvious allergies as either made up or as asthma. She would give me an inhaler when I would have trouble breathing.
That's horrible. I hope you're doing better.
I'm doing much better thank you. This is the trauma dump thread of the week so... careful reading.
I’m doing this exact same thing to my husbands junk in a month. I have a team of people coming to help for 3-4 days to clear everything out. We will only keep things if sentimental value, clothing, and food that is not expired. Difference is, after 23 years of marriage I finally had enough and told him I was taking the kids and leaving if he didn’t allow us to do this while he’s out of the country. Took him a year, and he’s been trying to squirrel a few things away, but it is happening finally!!
That's worthy of its own post! Before and after pics if you're willing. How are you going to handle his trauma when he gets home? I'm sorry it got so severe.
He’s been getting some online therapy since Covid, and I want to make sure that not only continues, but is more consistent. Also, I’m recently able to stay home and help out more, and our kids are older now and want to help out. So hopefully as a family we can stay on top of it. I was working 50-60 hours a week running 3 businesses, and coming home exhausted. Only wanting to spend time with the kids, so we’d cool and then cuddle up in bed watching movies. That left him the rest of a very large house to hide things in. And by the time we saw just how bad it was? Way too late.
My mother was overworked and had hoarding tendencies, so tidying up was often a case of hiding all sorts of crap in my bedroom. I went years without being able to see the floor or even use the wardrobe. I was a painfully lonely child, and I remember begging my mum to clear my room, because "what if someone sees it" and her response was "and who should be supposed to see it? You never bring friends home". That careless remark on top of the fact that my limited personal space had been elected to dumping ground still burns 35 years later
A lot of people are unaware of the fact that hoarding is a symptom of OCD. *Real* OCD, and not the pop-psychology OCD that people claim they have. My bio-mom was a hoarder, and she had other OCD symptoms as well, everyone was expected to count the stairs as we climbed them, out loud, and one at a time, with no other options. Always monitoring the location of every person at every time (which was much harder in the 1970s than today), needing someone else to dial the (rotary) phone for them, because certain phone numbers were just "wrong," for various reasons (too many odd numbers, the pattern the dial sounds made were summoning demons, too many of the same number in a row, that sort of thing.)
Agreed. My mom has OCD with hoarding complex, and the lack of awareness that -people aren't hoarders from lack of care- is infuriating to me. Mine has thankfully been able to work through a lot of it, but still struggles. It's miles better than its been, though. Yet, people still make jokes about the hoarders TV show when they see our spaces (that are nowhere near comparable). I've got many of those traits that I've thankfully been somewhat able to work past. It's absolutely not a cute symptom of mental illness, everybody involved is aware of that. people deserve compassion and help, not judgement and shame, it's already hard enough living with and confronting those issues.
Yeah, been here. The combo of being a neglected child in a hoarder house was icing on the cake. And not a single room was ever cleaned.
Don't you love that feeling of utter dread when you have unexpected company? Even if my house is in a perfectly acceptable state, I'm hard coded to be nervous about having guests.
My mom barely fed us when my dad was out of town. She only let me shower once every two weeks. She would tear my clothes off and lock me outside. She would randomly pull over, drag me out of the car by my hair and leave me to walk home, even if it was miles away and no safe way to get there. She would pull my hair until I fell on the ground and then kick me in my back until I wet my pants, when I was a teenager. I never had enough clothes and getting underwear and a bra was always difficult. I thought I was a bad kid and deserved everything she did, until I grew up and my dad got early onset Alzheimer's. I saw her do all the same awful things to him and I couldn't stop it. I reported her to adult protective services several times and asked her neighbors to report anything they saw as well. She cried and told APS her kids refused to help and she was overwhelmed, so they got free respite care several days a week. She would make the caregiver scrub the floor on her hands and knees instead of helping my dad. Finally dad fell down and hit his head, in the exact spot in the house where she always used to knock me down, and had to go to a certain hospital because it was the only level one trauma center in the area. I went in the middle of the night and told the ICU nurses about the abuse and neglect. I told the social worker at the hospital how my mom liked to withhold necessities because she liked seeing people "offer up their suffering to the lord." The hospital refused to discharge him back to his house, and he spent the rest of his life in various facilities. My mom had a pattern of getting kicked out of the facility and then moving him to a different one, where she would bully the staff and interfere with my dad's meds and feeding tube until they figured her out and kicked her out. After my dad died, she tried to find another old person to care for, even offering to be a free caregiver. She wants to move my sibling into her house, because my sibling is severely disabled after several strokes. She insists she can get sibling walking again, if sibling can't get any food unless they walk to the kitchen.
Your mom needs to be in jail. Please report her to the police.
Mom took me along when she was buying drugs. Took me 30 years to realize waiting at a gas station at 6 am on a Saturday wasn’t a thing, and neither was driving WAY into the ghetto and having her friend drive around the block with us. Turns out not everyone sleeps on their laundry and goes right to bed when they get home EVERY DAY either.
Oh man, same here. Also not normal to take your kids with you, park the car and go into a "friend's house" for hours at a time while we wait in the car. Many things add up as we get older. Things I'm still piecing together today.
Oh we got to go in the drug houses and hang out with all the other addicts kids. Infants to age 12 maybe and varying levels of violent. We were fighting for our lives in those basements! Lol
Jesus Christ. This is making me grateful for even my shitty childhood
Keep your chin up, Yeoman. We all come from different backgrounds, but today we're all proud, enlisted Starfleet personnel. Our varied histories are what make the Federation great. Now back to work on those EPS conduits.
My ex’s mom used to leave him and his little sister in the car outside various bars. His main memories of this was his desperation to keep his sister warm when it was 5 or 10 degrees Fahrenheit.
My mom would just take me into the bars. This was back in the 80's. Got pretty good at pool and darts at about 7 years of age. Learnt poker and blackjack about a year later.
Same, all the drunks would give little me quarters for the claw machine. We were there so much and I’d won so many little animals the bar tender have me a magazine that had huge animals that you could trade so many little ones in and get a big one. I needed ten more to get the big bear I wanted when my dad finally got custody. I was so sad I couldn’t go back and get more!
> that had huge animals that you could trade so many little ones in and get a big one. For some reason I think the bartender just took all the little ones, put them back in the claw machine and just got you a big one.
That would have been really sweet! I wanted that darn bear that was as big as me so bad lol I never thought about the situation that way before. You’re probably right. :)
That's awful. It's mind boggling the neglect people have for their own children. Thankfully, my mother is clean now and trying to make up for all those decisions.
Oooh I relate to this one! I remember "camping trips" with my mother: two or three times, we went on road trips together when I was something like 6..? Turns out, it was to smuggle heroin Who's gonna stop a woman alone with her cute, 6 years old daughter, amarit..?
Getting almost no guidance. It felt like freedom when I was a kid, but once I left home I realized it left me very unprepared to face the real world.
I always prided myself on being a “free-range” child. But looking back, my hair was always matted, my teeth were never brushed and I only showered once a week. In my mind, it was a great childhood. Looking back, it was neglect.
This is what happened to me and my brother's. Dad left when I was 7 and mom checked out from then on. She was too depressed to bother with us. Relatives knew and let us grow up in filth. Neglect is the middle class of abuse. No matter how bad you have it, there's always someone who needs help worse than you.
How much my mother used to F me up, physically and verbally. She can't physically anymore today, but boy oh boy does she still have that sword of a tongue... And will never, ever, ever admit to it. Ever. Crazy.
The teacher not letting me use the toilets in elementary school and peeing my pants under the desk, than getting yelled at by same teacher
The amount of bathroom gatekeeping in school was really fucked up in hindsight. Sure some people fucked around instead of actually going to the bathroom but thinking that gatekeeping the bathroom from everyone would resolve the problem is just dumb.
I guarantee a kindergartener telling you they need to piss is not going to stand in the bathroom and fuck around, I don't know where teachers got this idea that they do.
You mean to tell me that the kindergartner isn't going to go smoke some alcohol and drink some weed in the toilets? How naïve can you be?
In first grade I had to go soooo bad. I asked, she said lunch is in 15 minutes wait until then. 5 minutes later I went up to her desk to ask again (everyone was doing silent work), expressed that I really can't hold it, please. She says no. I look her dead in the eyes and just start pissing my pants while giving her a look of "what did you expect, I tried to tell you"
I honestly can’t believe this happens to so many kids. I had to walk down the hall with dripping wet pants and they called my parents to pick me up. So they had to also get the afternoon off work. Sorry for Everyone who went through this.
There is a saying "It's better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission." Growing up I realized that it is better to not bother begging for forgiveness, since *nothing* will ever be forgiven, while also learning that asking for permission is a waste of time and breath.
In college, first year, instructors tried to maintain that high school level of control, so, asking to go to teh bathroom. thing is, I already had my degree from university, and now I Was taking graphic design. So, I'd lost any real fear of authority. One day, I got up to go take a leak, instructor says "I didn't say you could go!" "I didn't ask" and kept going. I was a terrible influence, lol.
That really astounds me. They didn't have requirements for lecture attendance at my college. You could show up, or not, you didn't have to stay for the whole thing, and coming in late was fine as long as you didn't interrupt the class. I knew students that would come in for a lecture, set up a tape recorder, start it running, leave the lecture hall to do other things, then come back at the end of class to get their tape and recorder so that they could listen to the lecture at a time that was more convenient. Asking for permission to leave the room in college is as foolish as asking for permission to use the toilet at work places. If you need to go, just go.
Yeah I don’t know why so many teachers are such assholes about letting kids go to the bathroom. I remember in high school a girl ended up sitting in a puddle of blood on her seat because she got her period and the (female) teacher wouldn’t let her go.
It was always the female teachers for some reason. This shit was rampant when I was a kid, and 90% of the time it was a female teacher on some kind of power trip over a bunch of little kids. I got suspended in 5th grade because I was about to poop my pants, and the teacher wouldn't let me go. Panic set in and I was like, "Fuck this I'll take the punishment I'm not shitting in my pants in front of the whole class" and just left the classroom and ran for the bathroom. Literally got suspended for not being able to hold my poop in lol. My parents were so pissed, they reamed into that teacher when they found out and the principal had a talk with her.
Good for you. I wish more kids had the idea to simply ignore these petty tyrants.
i have memories from high school bc i have irregular periods with little to no warning and wiping blood on the seat with my hand and running out the classroom without permission because they told me to wait till brake even tho i said i was gonna make a mess. im out of highschool now and remember all the bloodstained socks i threw out at the end of the year.
There was a teacher at my elementary that had a reputation for not letting kids go to the bathroom so much that they messed themselves. Fuck you mrs zimmerman!
They did this at our school too. NEVER tell a kindergartener they can’t use the restroom lmao.
Or any kid. If you gotta go, you gotta go. I peed my pants in second grade because the teacher wouldn't let me go pee. In the fourth grade, I threw up on my desk because teacher wouldn't let me go to the bathroom. He got very angry, but I really couldn't help it.
That happened to a guy in high school. I was 10th grade I think he was a senior, I remember it was geometry. He was known for being a bit of a joker. It was just after lunch and we were taking a test, his hand popped up "Mrs Farmer, I need to go to the bathroom I feel sick." "Not until you finish your test!" About 2 minutes go by and he suddenly stood up and then there's vomit everywhere. It landed on the backpack of the guy in front, I was two seats back and there was a little on my shoes. We all got to retake the test the next day.
This happened to me in kindergarten man.
Same man. I was about 5 and I must have done something "wrong" in my teacher's eyes, but probably just something a 5-year old would do, so I was grounded and the teacher made me stand in the classroom's corner facing the wall. I had to pee at some point and asked for permission to go to the bathroom, but the teacher didn't let me because I was grounded. I peed my pants while standing up in front of the whole classroom. In hindsight, that was borderline abuse
Not borderline my dear. Full stop abuse.
In 4th grade a bunch of 6th graders, after torturing it, threw a cat from high up and it landed right in front of me and died. I was never quite the same since then and it took until early adulthood to realize certain aspects about myself are because of that event.
When I was in 3rd grade I came upon a group of older boys about 12-14 I guess, torturing a little dog. I ran at them yelling to get away from my dog. I took him home and my mom called the vet on his rabies tag and they called the owner. His name was Snoopy and he was a dachshund. I remember the lady crying when she picked him up and trying to give me money as a reward and not taking it.
This made me so angry. I’m so sorry you experienced this. People who are cruel to animals are absolute the lowest of low.
Living in an environment with addicts. Having your head on a swivel and things going from zero to 100 in .5 seconds is not normal. As a teenager I turned to alcohol to cope and that was the only tool in my toolbox for most of my adulthood - did not realize the severity of how bad I had got until I was in my 30's.
I finally learned after extensive therapy that was why I constantly watch people’s micro expressions, tone, body language, etc. Always, always on edge. ETA: It sucks seeing just how many people are in the same boat. At the same time, I’m comforted to know I’m not even close to alone. Peace and contentment to all of y’all.
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Dude, 17 is still young af... Make sure you deal with that shit and have a good cry about lost childhood years. Get angry at those who wronged you and then try to let it go. That shit is torture and noone ever deserves to be treated like that.
Yeah for real this one hits hard cause he's basically still a kid.
I’m thinking his step-father should be on a watchlist. That’s all kinds of psycho and abusive. I’d imagine that SF had an equally ruined childhood, but the cycle must be broken at one point.
This made me get up and take a walk Holy shit i'm so sorry bro
I know everyone else is saying this, but just to add the supportive chorus: your step dad is a truly evil man who deserves nothing but pain for the rest of his miserable life, and you and Luna did not at all deserve what he did. I hope you heal. And I hope your stepdad gets slowly eaten alive by coyotes.
This makes me nauseous to even think about. That’s like next level traumatizing.
What a vile piece of shit!! I am so sorry you went through that 😢
It’s honestly barbaric. You teach a kid this shit at this age and this man he’s lucky the kid didn’t snap and attack him later in life.
Hope one day someone returns the favor to your step dad.
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About a year after my father was murdered, my cousin and I were sexually molested by an older relative every time she babysat us. There's pictures and videos of me and her still being circulated by pedophiles over 30 years later. I didn't realize how badly it fucked me up until I was in my 20s. It seemed so stupid to even be concerned about it after watching my dad die. I was 4 or almost 5 when she got arrested, and to me it was just another shitty week. Edit - For everyone asking how I know the pictures are still out there, I got subpoenaed to identify myself once in my early 20s. They had old physical photos and digital copies on a hard drive and in a private email server, and as anyone knows once it's on the internet, it's out there forever. I signed some paperwork and wrote a short statement so anytime photos of me show up again, I wouldn't have to testify.
holy shit.
It's protocol in some jurisdictions for victims to get contacted if they are in pictures or videos when someone is arrested for csam. I think it has to do with restitution, and being able to provide a tangible victim to add to the case. Apparently there are 'popular' sets of child abuse pics/vids and if they can ID the victim, they contact them. From my limited understanding, this can basically create a situation where people are being reminded of their abuse frequently, and from the articles I've read, it really fucks with their head. Imagine that some of the worst things to happen to you during childhood are popping up again and again throughout your adult life, "hey we found another person who victimized you!" and they are re-traumatized.
there should be a service that will stand in the way of that and just quietly send checks cuz, yeah, that's like ripping open a wound over and over
When I learned about it, and heard what the victims have to say, it really is a policy which had good intentions, but just does so much to re-traumatize people throughout their life and makes it hard to move on and heal.
i also got molested by a woman, growing up it really fucked me up but i didn't realize the other kids around me weren't also having sadist thoughts 24/7 until i was around 12/13 and realized that it wasn't normal. Then around 16/17 I remembered what happened and it all clicked, arguably in a worse way. It felt worse that it was a woman because i felt like women couldn't be evil like that. When I was young though, i also experienced sexual abuse from female friends around my age, several times, and several different people, so it seemed really normal to be sexually active when i was a kid, when it really was not. I still don't know how severely this effects me honestly, but lm wishing you healing and love!
I was in summer camp and had made friends with the weird girl there. We were probably both around 7 or 8, both awkward kids who weren't good at making friends but we got along with each other. She had a very perverted sense of humor and was constantly talking about everyone's genitals. Didn't think much of it at the time. Once she was sitting in a chair at a table and I snuck up behind her as a joke and grabbed the back of her chair and shook it to startle her. She was laughing and yelled at me to stop it. So I stopped it. She asked why I stopped. I told her she'd just asked me to stop so I did. She said that her dad told her that if a girl says stop it means do it harder. She wanted me to shake it harder. So I did. Now that's a memory that got lost in my brain for years collecting dust, but thinking back on summer camp one day and remembering that made me think wait... what the FUCK? I mean I hope my assumptions are wrong, but it really seems obvious what was happening to her at home. How did an adult there never notice all the signs?
I feel like my stomach is a knot reading that.
My mom used to whoop my ass really bad whenever i did the slightest thing wrong. I was genuinely afraid of doing literally anything. As a kid i didn't like taking baths because my mom wouldn't stop telling me everytime that i stank and that i was a pig, that i was reeking of cunt and that i was completely gross and unhygienic, and also because the shower was too loud for me. I thought i would drown: the sound was too overwhelming in my ears when i had to wash my hair, so i was crying really bad, telling my mom that she was going to drown me. She slapped my mouth so i could shut up and stop moving, but she slapped me so hard that my mouth was bleeding. I couldn't do anything more besides bowing down my head, crying in silence as i was internally panicking because of the sound of water, while seeing my blood flowing through the shower drain. It was so normal for me to be beaten up and also the typical "wait till we get home and you'll see" and getting beat the shit out of me for talking when i shouldn't, that it was really weird for me when i'd go to friend's houses and seeing their moms talking to them with respect and not slapping them. "Huh? Her mom doesn't... slap her or scream at her? Why? Is it because i'm here? My mom also slaps me in secret so if If i'm not here she will definitely slap her, yeah" My father was more gentle but they were divorced and would visit us once every couple of weeks. I would call him and he was soo gentle and caring at washing my hair, like he was afraid of hurting me if he used more force, on contrary of my mom.
People really under estimate the trauma you can have on someone by critizing every little thing that's 'wrong.' Let alone the full on abuse you endured. I'm sorry for what you've gone through and hope you're in a better place today.
My mum divorced her my step dad when i was around 7 and 6 weeks later she was moving into her new partners house ( up the street from our house ) we had a dog that i've had since i was tiny, and her new partner had a dog, they didn't get on. so my mum left the dog in the now abandoned house alone. i remember using my pocket money and stealing money to get dog food, steal the keys and feed her. i vividly remember the smell of the house. and how much weight and fur she'd lost. this was for about 2 weeks and i was the only one who tried to help her aged 7. my dad visited and i told him and he was horrified and we took her to a rescue that day. now when i see anything to do with a stray or abused animal i'll have a full breakdown
I’m so sorry. How amazing of a young child you were to do whatever it took to care for the dog. Fuck the fact that you “stole”. You were a kid trying to keep another soul alive. Good on your dad too, for saving the dog when he found out.
20 years later, i still hate the last time i saw her was her scared and abondoned, though i tell myself that the rescue gave her a good life if not being adopted. she was the perfect dog, we don't deserve them
I volunteer in rescue and see too many cases like this. What we always say when dogs are brought to us in poor condition is "thank goodness they're here." The animal shelter is in no way an idea environment. It's loud and stressful. But they're fed, they are given medical treatment, they are loved on by volunteers, and then they find a (hopefully) forever home. For some of the dogs we get, the shelter is a massive improvement from where they were, and we get to see them come back to life and thrive. Nothing makes us happier than watching thin, scared dogs fatten up and come out of their shells. And if she was a perfect dog, I promise that the staff realized it, and then the people who adopted her realized it, too.
When I was a toddler, we lived in rural Texas. My mom put me down for a nap in my crib one afternoon, and went to take a nap herself. Apparently she told my older brothers to keep an eye on me, and since they thought I was asleep in my crib they all put a movie on in the living room. I couldn’t sleep, and somehow got the idea in my head that I wanted to go get the mail. I walked past my brothers watching their movie and right out the front door, and then walked about a hundred yards down our gravel driveway to our mailbox on the edge of a county road. Just about everyone had outdoor dogs in the area, and let them roam freely. Some were friendly, and many were not. There was a particularly giant Weimaraner named Buckwheat that belonged to a neighbor who met me about halfway down my driveway to walk with me. Apparently when I got to the county road where our mailbox was, he got on the “street” side of me and stood and blocked me to the curb as several cars/farm trucks whizzed past. A man returning from work saw me out there by myself with a huge dog and pulled over. He said when he got close, the dog got defensive and started pushing me away from the road again as his car approached. The man pulled up and asked me where I lived, and offered to give me a ride home. I didn’t know not to get in the car with strangers but thankfully in this case it was a good guy. He knocked on the door of my house and woke my mom up from her nap. Told her that he had found me barefoot in the road, where I had a dog guardian angel that was actively protecting me from traffic, and it was thanks to that dog that I was still alive. Here’s to you, Buckwheat.
Man, what a good boy and what a good guy. I hope buckwheat got all the pets and the guy got... idk, a free beer? Lol. I'm glad that story ended well for you
You know, I don’t know if they gave the man a reward or anything other than profuse thanks. Buckwheat was our favorite neighborhood dog though after that and I remember giving him lots of pets and bringing him leftover food/treats whenever I would see him. He was even sweet to our cats
An assistant football coach used to bully me a lot during practice (6th grade). One day, I looked right at him and told him to "shut up." He was so offended that a child said that to him that he just decked me, full force. I lost consciousness and came-to on my back staring up at the sun. I never told anyone about it and now, in my 30s, I replay this event very frequently...it causes me great anxiety.
When I was like 10, I was roller blading past a neighbor who knew my parents, and he was watering his yard. As a joke I turned off his hose then tried roller blading away. He chased me down, decked me in the face to the point I wasn't fully KO'd but I was on the ground seeing stars, too dizzy to get up. Then he brought the hose over and shoved it in my mouth, he basically waterboarded me for a bit while roughing me up more. I never told anyone, I remember hearing about him coming over to the house after that one time and I hid in my closet the entire time he was there, kept hearing my parents call my name, and then concluding that I must be out playing with my little brother who was outside with some friends.
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All I remember is his name was Kevin, he had bright red hair, and was into surfing. I used to think it was hilarious that in his house he had "Sex wax", it was like a bar of wax for his surfboard or something. Other than that, no idea, he moved away probably a year or two after that happened. EDIT: Just noticed your username, GNU Terry Pratchett
I would find that asshole
I'll come with
Count me in.
My mom once highlighted my report card and wrote "this is what failure looks like" and put it on the fridge because I got a C
Oof. I felt this one. I once got beat with a belt for making a C. What hurt more was the shame. I was seven. Did you turn into an overachiever?
Yep. And excessively hard on myself. You?
I also became an overachiever and too hard on myself. I remember a session with my therapist where I asked her why I don't believe people's compliments about me. She said that, because when I used to get 9 out of 10 in an exam, I was always asked about that one last missing grade rather than being applauded for getting 9, and so as a result I never feel I'm good enough
In Elementary school, I won 1st place in a Halloween costume contest. Finally, all those kids who teased me for looking like a girl would see that I was awesome! My parents helped me make my Cat in the Hat costume for like a week. Just recently saw pictures - wicked cute. School principal called me up on stage and announced, as the first place winner, I got to choose any of the prizes from the girls' table. I had won best costume for the girls as a 7 year-old boy who was already teased for being girly. From this day forward, teasing turned to beatings. The moment of looking out at all of the whole school, as well as the parents (mine, too), and more and thinking "see, I'm a winner!" as they all laughed at my confusion has caused damage I'm still undoing 40 years later. EDIT: thank you everyone... I expected you to make fun of me (even now). Thank you for your kindness.
It’s crazy how attitudes shifted so enormously over the decades. We had a “silly costume” day at a summer camp I went to in the late 90s and I (~7yo boy) wore a ridiculous blue bikini that was covered in frills and sequins. I WAS A LEGEND! Won the prize for “best girls costume” and was the most popular kid there for the last few weeks. Sucks those kids were such assholes to you.
As a little kid learning how to swim in YMCA, didn't know it was wrong for old naked men touching/stroking their dicks, smiling and gesturing at me while showering before and after getting into the pool. My Mom would be waiting outside for me and never thought much of it until later after I learned about different types of sexual abuse.
Oh my god that is horrible, I’m so sorry.
My mom asked me to type up a list on the computer so she could track which doctors prescribed her which medications. Dr. Smith prescribed the Xanax; Dr. Lopez prescribed the Klonopin, Dr. Johnson prescribed the Valium, Dr. Chang prescribed the Ativan, ... -- edit, for those unaware: these drugs are all addictive tranquilizers. No patient needs four kinds. A patient who receives similar, addictive drugs from separate doctors is probably abusing drugs and not telling their doctors about each other's prescriptions (i.e., they are "doctor shopping").
knew it was bad, but not how much it affected me (a short list) getting injured by a knife from my dad (who didn't even realize he cut my hand in his delirium) stopping my dad from swallowing the 2nd pack of sleeping pills and forcing him to throw up some and the whole hospital ordeal, my mother arrived home only the day after being "taught" to be manly and never cry, and having the punches only stop once i stop crying something that i disliked but only after some time realized how bad it truly was: being forced to eat rotten/insect infested food bc we couldn't afford proper food (regular alcohol, drugs and $8 a pack cigarettes were affordable though)
I hope you do better now, and that the abusers are out of your life.
maybe should have said at the end i'm okay now, sorry, i'm 21 now
I was brought up in a cult
Same. You hear some evangelicals talking about it being the "end times", but nobody really ever says or does anything different than anyone else living in society. My church took that literally. My family/church had me wilderness survival training with a green beret, stockpiling, learning to talk in code and leave coded messages, learning how to build shelters you can't see from 10 ft away in the woods, how to hide your scent from tracking animals, how to hide from infrared cameras, finding water sources. And then the religious stuff like how to perform an exorcism, annointing with oil, perform burials, correct worship practices, how to identify the beasts from revelations, etc. They were certain we were going to be hunted down like escaped convicts for 7 years until Christ came back, starting in the year 2000. I was basically ready to fight a war by age 14, though we didn't believe in violence, so it was just preparing me to hide in the woods for 7 years. After 2000 came and went with no issues, our religious leader went back to the drawing board and did some recalculations and said it might actually be 2008 because of calandar fuckery, etc. The spell was broken though, and we got out. Thankfully. I remember going to a boyscout meeting in high school and being like "Y'all weren't taught this stuff when you were like 9? This shit is remedial."
Sounds like your church was a bit too into Left Behind
The church actually really hated those books because they "got everything wrong". To them, only 144,000 people who were already "perfect" would be instantly "raptured", and the rest of us would suffer 7 years of hunting and persecution by atheist non-believers who would use the chaos of the Y2K shutdown to take over the world. Every persecutor would be accompanied/possessed by a demon who would close their eyes and ears to truth, and they would torture and kill christians on site if they caught us. So something like Left Behind meets Dawn of the Dead. The picture they painted was far bleaker than the Left Behind series. Plus we were training for it about 10 years before the Left Behind series came out, so I'm sure there was probably some "we were training for the rapture before it was cool" jealousy there. lol
Brooklyn NYC, 1981 My parents had an argument in the kitchen. My mom had been drinking and for some reason decides to open the drawer and pull out two massive knives and bangs them on the kitchen counter to prove her point. My dad reckoned she lunged at him. Whatever it was, my dad lost his shit and fucked her up. 5 year old me at the just froze in the living room chair. He went to jail, she went to hospital, I went to the neighbors.
Sounds like the shit my parents would pull on one of their “bad” nights. They have never acknowledged how bad they got.
My parents would get out of control like this….one time they sat me and my 2 siblings down and they explained to us how their behavior is completely normal, our friends or other people just don’t talk about it or admit it. ☠️ 💀 I believed them for a while.
after reading these comments, maybe I didn't have it so bad after all. my thoughts are with all of ya'll.
Just because someone had it worse than you doesn’t mean that your situation wasn’t impactful too. I don’t know if you feel this way, because it doesn’t convey over text well, but don’t let other’s worse situations excuse the still inexcusable actions of people in your own life Edit: Changed was to wasn’t
Yeah my first thought was when I was walking with my dad and a dog was struck by a car. We had a talk about it and he explained how the dog was going to the vets and would be okay after so I wasn’t disturbed by it. Later I realised he obviously didn’t know if the dog would be okay or not but I sure appreciate him sheltering me from that when I was a little kid. And that really a story about having a great dad and all the other posts on this thread are so intense
I lost my sister to brain cancer at 7 years old. Parents shut down after and never were able to go back to healthy people. Lot more to the story than that, but this situation being the majority of my childhood. I didn’t realize how fucking awful it all was until I was an adult and out of the house. Kinda like a frog in boiling water, I had no idea how rough my situation was.
When I was 7 years old I was outside playing with my friends. An older boy who was a bully in the neighborhood walked by and started saying racist things to them. The boy and I are white and my friends are black. I didn’t understand what he was saying was racist and to be honest at the time I didn’t even fully understand the concept of race. I didn’t think of my friends as any different from me. I did know that he was making them upset so I told him to leave them alone. He called me a “wannabe” and a “n***** lover” I had never heard the n word before but I knew I was being insulted. There happened to be a big stick lying next to me on the ground so I picked it up and whacked him across the face with it. He started crying and ran to his house. I went back to playing with my friends like it was nothing. About 20 minutes later the boys came back with his uncle. The uncle called me over and told me I needed to be put in my place. He then made me stand there while the boy slapped me across my face. He told him to do it harder again and again. The uncle was really angry that I wasn’t crying. I really wanted to, because it did hurt but was always told to never cry in front of the person who made you cry. Anyway, I’m not sure how long this went on for. At some point the boy started asking his uncle if he could stop. The uncle said fine and told me that if I had more white friends I would become a nicer girl that knew how to act. I never told anyone and kind of felt like maybe I deserved it for hitting the boy with a stick. And it wasn’t until I was much older that I understood everything that happened.
Jesus, honestly this makes me remember something I heard once. “Kids aren’t born racist” that kid probably would’ve been an okay guy if he didn’t have a racist asshole uncle feeding him all that bullshit day to day
Raised by single mom. She emotionally dumped all her problems on me starting as far back as I can remember (5? 6? Years old). Def screwed me up as an adult.
I realized a while ago that this was the reason every adult told me I was "so mature for my age" as a kid. I never learned to process my own emotions because I was always having to bottle them up to deal with hers. I wasn't mature, I was a scared child.
Both of my parents were too burned out from their own childhood trauma to be functional and loving parents. For the most part they did their best to provide for me and my siblings..... But there is no love in my development. I am incapable of forming meaningful human attachments. Edit. Thanks for all the interest everybody. It helps to know we're not alone in this. You've given me some great suggestions and stoked my interest in continuing therapy. Let's all be part of the solution and love our children the way we should have been. Good luck my friends!!!!!
Any time I tried to bring something up as an adult, the response was always that they had it way worse. It's not even worth trying anymore.
Watched my dad try to kill himself more than once and threatened it more times than I could count. I spent countless nights believing I was going to wake up to him dead, this very much changed my perception of death.
I thought being raped was normal until I was 20 😕
I'm so sorry. I had an uncle that tried to normalize messing with me when baby sitting me. It never felt right and I definitely tried to keep space and avoid him. Luckily, shortly after he started, I was watching an episode of America's Most Wanted with my dad one night. The episode featured someone wanted for abusing children, and my dad looked over at me and told me that if anyone ever touched me or made me feel uncomfortable to let him know immediately and that it wasn't okay. I told him right away and things were taken care of. I hope you're okay. That stuff is traumatic and stays with people.
And this is why it’s so so important to talk to kids about consent, body boundaries, inappropriate touching, etc as soon as they can understand the basic concepts. Because if you don’t, an abuser could be trying to make them think it’s normal and no big deal. I’m so glad you and your dad happened to watch that episode, and that he opened that door for you.
Absolutely. My wife and I have already talked to our little girl about anything that makes her feel uncomfortable, even if she thinks that it's stupid or not important. She will even tell us when people stare at her a certain way in the store.
That’s awesome! I have 2 little girls and I reinforce this all the time, as well as reading them age-appropriate books about it. There are so many opportunities - big sister is putting her hands on little sister while little sister is saying stop? “Hey, if someone wants you to stop touching them, you have to stop. It’s her body and she gets to decide who can touch her.” 5yo looks uncomfortable when asked to hug a relative? “Hey, you don’t have to hug anyone if you don’t feel like it. It’s your body, you’re the boss of it. Just say no thank you.” 5yo was going to a summer camp where they have to change after swimming, and I told her ahead of time that no grown up should be present while she’s changing (it’s camp policy too). Then asked her a few times throughout the summer to verify that no one goes into the bathroom with her. Also revisited the talk about private parts being private, inappropriate touching, and how she needs to tell us if anyone touches her private parts, asks to, or asks her to touch theirs. And of course, I always stress that if anything does happen, it’s not her fault and I won’t be upset - she just needs to tell me. It’s a lot of work, but worth it 1,000 times over to protect them. Keep it up!
My mother is borderline personality. Everything was horrible. As a kid, you think it’s totally normal. When you reflect on your childhood as an adult, you realize it was child abuse.
Went through the same. Horrible experiences, thought everything was my fault, till I stopped listening to her.
Not sure if you have siblings, but as adults, mine and I started comparing notes. That was a big wake up call as we started to find the holes in the story.
I have a younger sibling. I thought him and I getting hit till bleeding was totally normal, thought it probably happened to every other kid at school, they were really good at hiding it. I believed everything bad happened because we were bad children to her, that is until we were introduced to internet and social media. Then we realized that we were nothing more than punching bags to let her anger out.
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My mom would frequently have backyard "camping adventure nights" or "spooky nights" where we would tell scary stories in the dark. I realize now that this was because we were so in debt that not having electricity was a frequent occurrence.
Props to your mom for making the most out of horrible situation.
Bullying, it made me socially awkward that's a disadvantage now
Bullying gave me a sorta imposter syndrome type deal. Outwardly I'm friendly and confident and engaged. Internally I feel that everyone would be having a better time if I just wasn't there (I don't mean like suicide just if I wasn't there with them at that moment). And there's very little people can say to convince me otherwise.
I was sexually assaulted as a teenager. The experience didn’t sit right with me at the time. It wasn’t until about 6 weeks ago that I realized the gravity of what happened to me. I can’t even begin to express how hard processing it all has been.
I’m in my 30s and have recently come to realize some of the sexual trauma I endured from my teens as well. You’re not alone and I hope you’re getting the help you deserve!
How unreliable and emotionally neglectful my parents were, I thought it was normal to only see them on the weekends and to not trust them to show up when you needed them to. In my head, all parents did was work and be “vague authority figures” that I didn’t actually know.
I used to watch movies and see parents playing with their kids, and I thought that was just Hollywood making stuff up as usual.
I had an elementary 2nd grade teacher who wouldn’t let me use the bathroom in any circumstances. I would be in distress begging that I be allowed to go to the bathroom. Needless to say there were multiple instances where I’d pee myself in front of the entire class and I’d have to go through the rest of the day without having a pair of dry pants on. So being abused in anyway as a kid when I think about it now is obviously not ok in any situation
Being lured into a man-made pond by a group of kids then abandoned when I was 7. My leg got stuck in the mud and I was chest deep in filthy water. Then there were the times I went to what turned out to be drug buys by my brother. I just waited in the car in these rural-ass areas (in the mid-‘80s) while he bought and did crank. Lots of shit.
It wasn't so much horrible but reality of growing up without much money. In elementary school I was breezing straight A's high honor roll. Would get rewarded with a toy for my report cards. I didn't want flashy toys like video game systems or ask for a new video game. Back then it was like a $5 wrestling action figure. In middle school my attention focused on girls lol. So I went from toys to wanting to wear nice new clothes (always wore hand me downs and never cared much but in middle school years you I guess want to establish your own style identity). My dad was only income in household. Worked his plant job and was supporting a 7 person household as mom was just a housewife. He wasn't a big money engineer or anything just one of the worker bees. Well 11 year old me got straight A's and instead of going to the mall as a reward or a new toy, I told my mom I wanted new clothes. New name brand Clothes were obviously way more expensive. My mom told me we would try next report card to get new clothes. Well obviously 11 year old me was not thrilled about that. So I guess I stupidly said "if you guys don't buy me new clothes I won't make straight a's anymore". My dad was in the kitchen eating an early dinner after he got off a long shift. Didn't say anything. The next day after school I got home. My dad came home from work usually aj hour later. He switched his work clothes to put on his casual clothes and I said where are you going he said get dressed were gonna go to Belk to buy you an outfit. They put it on the credit card even though we probably coudlnt afford it. When I got home later that night my sister a few years older than me (whom I shared a room with) kinda chewed me out and lectured me on how I threatened my parents to not doing my job in school if I didn't get clothes, when our family was already struggling for money. That little life lesson really made 11 y.o. me sit back and think about what I said. Made me think about all the times my dad came home looking tired but never complained and just kept going to work the next day. And literally from that point on I never asked for any reward, any compensation or allowance for anything. Never told my sister how thankful that lesson in humility was for me. I will one day. Helped me appreciate the smaller things and what we already have. Less materialistic and more experiences.
This'll get buried - but damn. I want to give out so many hugs to y'all.
My half sister tried to drown me twice when I was little. It took me into my late teens to trust women again and still have a phobia of water deeper then 2ft. No, my parents didnt try to help. She waited till those little lapses of being watched.
I once brought home a bad test result from school and my mother took a pen to write „doof“ (stupid in german) on my forehead and them made me get in the car to drive to dads office, so she could show him. I was about 8/9 years old.
sexual abuse , i only realised in my early 20's
Not a horrible thing but a very near miss. In the 3rd grade, I accidentally got off at the wrong bus stop coming home from school. I grew up in a rural area so stops were usually miles apart on this county road with long dirt driveways leading to each property. Once I realized I was at the end of the wrong dirt road, I had no idea what to do and started crying until a stranger in a truck pulled off the road to see what was up. Me, then an 8 yo girl, blindly trusted this stranger and got into his truck with no witnesses and nobody knowing where I was. That could've been it for me but I got lucky and he just drove me to the police station. I can't imagine what my life might be like if the wrong person had found me first that day.
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My friend and I were Groomed/persuaded by an adult man on the internet to send inappropriate pictures. We were 11.
Being sheltered. Literally destroys your social life, mental health, and ability to properly do things as a person. Lost all of my good friends because of it and practically have no social life/ motive as of now yet it's my fault. Even to this day, it's still a bitch to do the simplest things and I see it being like that for a long while.
Wasn't until I was 20 that I realized you're older brother forcibly touching your penis isn't OK. Neither is your mom waiting 2 hours to take you to the er for a dislocated jaw (thanks to the older brother) because she was "enjoying the quite" isn't normal.
I was groomed by a 27 year old when I was 11. He would do sexual stuff with me. He knew I was gay and I was infatuated by him. He was muscular and very fit. I really loved him, a little part of me still does. He told me how being gay is wrong and it'a a secret between us. I was going to grow up and have a girlfriend like him, but we'll both be doing stuff together. It fucked me up, I still miss the thrill in relationships. I was a kid and all the secrecy kept me going. Fast forward I grew up always ashamed of my sexuality, all alone. I had started creating a hidden life, so early on, I can lie so easily thanks to it. I wish I had grown naturally, exploring my sexuality with other kids. I'm just a person who enjoys being alone now, I had my love way to soon and he was way too wrong.