2 weeks Ago By BuzzFeed
*We also included some stories from the NOTE: There are mentions of physical, psychological, and child sex abuse. —Anonymous "I worked as a nanny in my twenties for several very loving families who cared and were invested in their kids' day-to-day lives, and it furthered how uninterested my parents were in me and how ashamed they should be for their neglect. Thank god for my older sister, who is seven years my senior; she showed up at every single event she could for me until she moved away when I was in fifth grade.
" — — — —Anonymous — "I started dating my now-husband when we were sophomores in high school (in total secrecy, of course, because I wasn't allowed to date). From early on, he seemed puzzled and shocked about things I shared about my family life. I knew things weren't great, as in we didn't have a perfect TV family, but nobody did.
Happy TV families are make-believe. When my boyfriend told me that he would never hit or hurt me, I thought that he was really sweet and believed that he actually believed what he was saying, but I laughed because he was so adorable and naive. He obviously didn't understand how real adult relationships work.
Fast forward a little, and we were 19/20, newly married (less than a year), and having a dumb argument about I don't even remember what. Words that had never passed my lips (before or since) were hurled at him in anger when I yelled at him to 'shut the F up!' As soon as I said it, my entire body froze. I knew I'd done it and that I deserved the beating that was about to follow.
I shrunk my body, closed my eyes tight, and braced myself for the blows. Nothing happened. Not understanding, I opened my eyes to see my husband standing there staring at me, utterly confused about what was happening.
He asked me what I was doing. My response was, 'Aren't you going to hit me?' The confusion on his face deepened, tinged with a little hurt. He said, 'No, never.
I told you I'll never put my hands on you that way.' Now I was the confused one: 'But I deserve it because of what I said to you.' He wrapped his arms around me and held me while my whole world view shattered.
Until that moment, I hadn't even realized that I'd never truly trusted anyone before. We're about to celebrate 19 years of marriage soon. There has never been violence in our home.
It's not our children's job to protect me, and they've never had to live a day in a constant state of fight/flight/freeze mode. My husband opened my eyes to what a family and a home should be. I still love that man more every day.
" —Anonymous —Anonymous "Another time, when I was about four or so, I got in trouble, and my mom said something about waiting until my dad got home. I ran to my room and shoved as much furniture in front of my door as I could so he couldn't get in, then refused to open the door. (He used to take a belt to my older brothers when they got in trouble.
) I've been through therapy and am not close to the family I have left, and I am okay with that. They refuse to admit anything was wrong or talk about it." —Anonymous —Anonymous —Anonymous "She truly hated me and encouraged me to kill myself.
BTW, my parents were quite wealthy. I grew up a secret pauper." —Anonymous "My older sister and I huddled together underneath a mat, teeth chattering, shaking, and shuddering.
I was crying because I was so cold, and the basement was scary. My younger sister was around five at the time, and she was so scared of the basement that she ran up the stairs to the door, screaming and sobbing while pounding on it until her knuckles were bruised. My parents got tired of her screaming, so they let her out after a while, but my older sister and I had to stay in the basement.
It was awful, and I remember feeling so scared and angry in that moment, wondering why our parents didn't love us. The worst part is that my parents hurt us all so much, but despite that, we still loved them with all our hearts, like . We always did what we were told, and even after we'd been kicked, we would still joyfully run to them with our tails wagging.
" —Anonymous "I WAS 5! I knew then something was not right about her relationship with me. To this day, I get sick thinking about it. I haven't seen him in 30 or so years, but I still feel dirty and used.
" —Anonymous —Anonymous —Anonymous — — "Of course, he told me he 'didn't really mean it' and wanted to 'teach me a lesson.' He was my father! Of course I would believe anything he told me! I still can't believe my parents thought it was acceptable to threaten their children with things like that (like buying whips used on horses and cattle to beat us) just to scare us into doing things. I still believed for years that I was the one overreacting until my siblings admitted they often worried about what would happen if we all had to run away, where we would go, who we would call, where we'd get food, etc.
, because we always worried our parents would abandon us. When I think about what could have happened to me if I HAD run away, my heart breaks for that little girl because I was willing to risk it. She was so scared.
And for the record, one swipe with a wet rag and that chair was as good as new." —Anonymous "My mom had diabetes, and I have vivid memories of begging her to take a dex-tab to help her low blood sugar and her refusing to — and of her telling my sibling and me to use her emergency medication and never call 911 if we found her unconscious, because we'd get taken away from her. She squirreled away all the child support my dad gave her and convinced my sibling and me that we barely had enough money for basic groceries.
She's a dentist, and my dad is a computer programmer." — —Anonymous —Anonymous —Anonymous "She'd tell me — her daughter — to walk six miles to the library if I wanted to study, saying, 'After all, this is a home, not a library. Your brother can blast his heavy metal whenever he wants.
' Or tell me I can't do my homework: 'Too bad, we are eating out — you can't hand in your book report.' She'd break wooden and then metal spoon handles while hitting me and pull my hair so hard it could have fallen out because I did not see there was lint on the floor. She'd tell me, 'You will never be as good a my son, you are nothing.
' She was screaming at me on her death bed to the point the nurse wrote it in her medical records — 'Patient is extremely agitated at the daughter, who is crying.' I get it — I was a terrible daughter who cleaned the house every day, gave up my bed so she could sleep in it when she was getting divorced and paid for my own clothes, college, graduate school, etc. Terrible me — worrying about her.
She wrote an essay I found after her death, outlining how I was responsible for her and her son's terrible life. I laughed when I saw it — my husband said he wished she was alive so he could never speak to her again. Let's not even talk about the biological father, who — after the divorce — lost contact with his 'offspring' (as he put it).
I see those movies where children reignite with their estranged parents, and everything is happily ever after — huh? God, I am in my 50s, and it still upsets me to see all the 'normal' families out there and also think about how much children with bad families suffer, not only in childhood but also in adulthood. I wonder what I would have done if I had the love and support to pursue my dreams and not instead be focused purely on survival. I never did have children and my childhood was a big reason for that.
All I can say is I wish I were normal, with normal parents and a normal family of my own — but children of dysfunction have an uphill battle, and there are battle scars that carry with you your whole life." —Anonymous —Anonymous —Anonymous — "I had a hard time learning how to show affection or just sympathy to other human beings and not to feel awkward with hugs or cuddling." —Anonymous — — —Anonymous —Anonymous —Anonymous.
