Child Abuse Story From Brad P
by Brad P
(USA)
I typed my story out last night, only to find out it was over 5,000 words, and yet I still feel like I failed to convey more than a fraction of the whole story. I'm not sure if my story is indeed that immense or if I'm just trying to be a drama king. Here's the short version though.
My brother is two years older than me. Growing up though, he was easily twice my size and strength. Around the time I was one year old, before my time of awareness. I hear that he tipped me out of my cradle and mauled me almost to death, the way an angry pit bull would maul a child. My father says that he "meant nothing by it". Judge for yourself.
Even after that though, being physically restrained against my bed for hours on end or having my head dunked underneath a swimming pool repeatedly during the summer was an almost daily occurrence for well over a decade. I can't say if I necessarily feared for my life as this happened, but I had become numb to it after quite some time, an expected occurrence. For those who say I should have locked myself in a room, I DID. He simply used to either pick the lock or break the door down. During my childhood, he used to break into the bathroom as I was using the bathroom or taking a shower. During my adolescence, he repeatedly used to touch me inappropriately and hint to me that I enjoyed the touching.
My mother and father were divorced, and my mother got custody of us. My sister used to get locked out of the house as punishments for disobedience, and my mother would go after my brother with knives, and my brother would respond in kind. She was verbally abusive to me, never allowing me to please her and routinely compared me to my father, whom she called a sleaze bag, pig, or whatever else. It didn't help that I looked like a young version of him growing up.
I should add, mental health treatment seemed to be required in the family. Somewhere along the line, I was diagnosed by professionals as ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), depressed, emotionally disturbed, etc. It didn't help that I was bullied at school, but I always tried my hardest to be a good kid, yet my mother would often times work us entire days on weekends. It's one thing to have chores, it's another thing to be put through a rat race of chores which could never be completed or completed properly. Interestingly enough, once I started receiving "help", my academic performance plummeted, and I held on by my teeth to a C-D level GPA throughout grammar school and high school, when I flat out refused more treatment. It was thought, perhaps hoped, that I would fail out of college, yet I ask how my neurologically disordered self could graduate college with a 3.5 GPA with none of the previous "help".
I think in part, my mother was using it, using me, to try to get more money out of my father, and in fact, she used me quite often against him. Imagine the guilt I would feel when I always had to choose between pleasing one parent and pleasing the other. Often times, I would simply adapt one ethical system with one parent and another ethical system with the other.
My father was no knight in shining armor though. He used to routinely buy our allegiance with plenty of junk food, arcade money, and general lavish treatment. Small price to pay, because as it turns out, he indeed stiffed my mother on child support payments. Because he was such an influential person in my life, after my brother had shot me with a BB gun he got from his father as a gift, my father actually gaslighted me into believing I lied about the story, a day after it happened, so I told the police who confiscated it that I lied about the story so my father could retrieve the gun. Imagine the fear when my father wanted to show my brother how to use a live pistol on a vacation (never happened, thankfully). My brother could have shot me, perhaps fatally, not out of vengeance or spite, but simply out of curiosity.
My father had a girlfriend who's now his wife who used to berate me as total scum of the earth and wrestle me down the way my brother used to. One time, I had bruises all over my body after an attack, and the police got involved, though no further action was pursued.
When I talk about the two ethical systems, both were called into play simultaneously during college, when my mother went after my father one last time. My mother demanded I inflate my food, gas, and entertainment expenses to the judge. My father, apparently having no more use for me, turned on me during the court case, insinuating to the presiding judge that I was a useless failure at life, and I was the one attacking poor old father who just wants to retire. Oh yeah, I tried speaking up for myself in the courtroom, just to show my own side, and the judge kicked me out of the courtroom. Some justice, huh?
Essentially, I failed both parents at once. Looking back, I became dangerously suicidal, and vague homicidal thoughts had entered my mind (thankfully only on a "what if" scale, nothing more developed than that). I completely lost control of my thought process, and I was both sure, yet worried, that I wouldn't live more than a couple more months.
That was a couple years ago, and I've made a dramatic turnaround since. This can't even convey 1% of the total trauma I experienced and its impact on my life, but I'm "taking the torch" finally, so to speak, and if I can do it, you can too!
Note from Darlene: I regret that I can no longer continue the practice of commenting on visitor submissions to the degree I have in the past, as I am currently writing a book on healing from child abuse. I ask that you please read my post of June 24, 2009 titled Announcement Regarding my Comments for a complete explanation. I welcome you to follow my progress on my Facebook page at Healing from Child Abuse. When you get there, don't forget to click onto the Become a Fan link. I do hope to hear from you there.
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