daydream

I'm almost 42 years old and I still doubt myself. Throughout my childhood, both my parents told me constantly how lucky I was, how good I had it. My father would come home from work and beat me every day, my mother would tell me how much trouble I caused, how I made her want to commit suicide, how fat I was.... then they dragged us to church on sunday where we were expected to act like the happy family. My father would kick and choke me, whip me til I bled, then remind me how much people respected him because he was a deacon in the church and because he was so charitable (helping old widow women). He forced me to work hard from the age of 10, helping move and install large window air conditioners. He dragged me into bad neighborhoods when he went to collect from people who owed him money. I can't prove it, but I now beleive the reason he made me go with him on those runs to collect money was because he thought maybe people wouldn't kill him in front of his child. I also had a LOT of responsibilities in our house. I had house cleaning and cooking to do every day in addition to moving air conditioners, and taking care of my younger brothers. One day my father called me home from school to clean house, then sent me back to school, like this was a perfectly acceptable thing to do. It's not like he had already told me to do it before school or I refused or anything. He just had a hunger for power and I guess that power trip caused him to force me to do things his way, NOW. He didn't care that my grades got lowered for missing those classes to clean the kitchen when it could have waited a few hours until I got home. when no one else was home, I had to stay there to answer his air conditioner calls, even sell air conditioners in a secluded building where god only knows what could have happened to me. When I was 13 I got hit by a truck. I SWEAR I looked both ways and didn't see anything. It was DARK, it was RAINING, the street lights were glaring in my eye glasses. Somehow the headlights blended in with the streetlights and I got hit crossing the street. I was knocked unconscious. I couldn't walk for a few days and was banged up, but no serious injuries. At the hospital my mother berated me the whole time, telling me how much trouble I caused, that I didn't look before crossing the street, she shamed me for this endlessly. Never a hug, never any expression of concern for my safety, no "I'm so glad you're okay..." Just shame for getting run over. Both my parents told me regularly how fat I was ( I wasn't at ALL overweight, but they convinced me that I was). I slowly developed an eating disorder because I was afraid to let them see me eat, and because I thought I needed to lose weight. My mother blamed all her problems on me and regularly blamed me for her wanting to commit suicide. She regularly said she wanted to kill herself, then she would lock herself in her room and we would beg her to come out. She once got a big handful of pills, held them out toward me and screamed "JUst look! Just look what you almost made me do!" She knew my father was beating me, but never did anything to intervene. He even threatened to kill me, and I knew he kept a handgun. I was never EVER hugged. There was NEVER an "I love you." No affection in our home whatsoever. I knew they hated me, but I never understood why. I was as straight-laced as any kid I knew..seriously. I didn't drink or use, was not sexually active, didn't party, didn't do anything to cause them to doubt me, I did everything they told me to do. I was too afraid to actually do anything really wrong. I got whipped on because I didn't move fast enough when they told me to do something, or because I looked at my father wrong (I wasn't allowed to show emotion), or because my mother told my father that I had argued with my brother. So getting knocked around the way I did for those minor offenses, I was terrified of what would happen if I did something worse. So trust me when I say I really was as straight-laced as any kid I knew. I thought I must be so crazy, so defective, that I was incapable of understanding how bad I was that drove them to treat me so badly.

All these years later, there is no more physical violence, yet my father denies he ever laid a hand on me and my mother claims she didn't know about any abuse. She only recently told me that my father admitted kicking me in the stomach once with his pointy toed boots, but claims that's all he ever did. We gradually developed a superficial relationship so that I had a place to spend holidays and didnt have to feel completely alone in the world. I never loved them. I just needed them. Or thought I did. I didn't have anyone else. So I let them sweep the past under a rug. Finally, less than a year ago, I had healed enough to confront my mother on the past. She denied it all. Things turned ugly. She told my father what I was saying about him, so he hasn't spoken to me in going on a year now. Not that I cared if he knew what I was saying about him, as I intend to confront him myself at some point. I know that sounds so backwards. That the perp is punishing ME for saying those things about him. although every word I spoke was true. But it's the way my parents are. They manipulate my psyche by telling me I imagined it all, that I have problems, that there's something wrong with me and I need help. My mother and I patched things up in the spring. I never backed down from what I said, but we called a truce. Then a few days ago she started in on me about something and when I stood up for myself, she blew. It got real ugly again. Once again she's brought up how GOOD they have been to me all these years and how ungrateful I have been. Funny, all she could come up with was how they've helped me financially a few times in just the past 7 years. She was unable to express any other support they've offered besides financial. I told her to stay out of my life. Yet this is so HARD. I've felt so alone all my life, but at least I had a family to belong to. Now I have no one. And while I KNOW I have told the truth about all those years of abuse, the brainwashing has caused me to doubt whether it was really "that bad". I have no doubts about what happened. My memories are clear. But my head often says that it wasn't a big deal, that maybe I'm over-reacting, that it wasn't that bad. They've told me so many times how good they were that it makes me question myself. And here I sit once again, feeling very tempted to apologize for upsetting her so I can have my family back. That's what my mother wants me to do. She wants me to cower down and recant, while SHE, will NEVER admit any wrongdoing.

Do you guys have these doubts? Do you ask yourself if it was really that bad? Do you ask yourself if there's something wrong with YOU that has invented things that didn't really happen? Do you wonder if somehow you really were so messed up that you were incapable of understanding that you drove them to abuse you? That you made them do it?