Child Abuse Story From Kim

by Kim from Cal
(California, USA)

Ongoing Saga: 
I am now 56 years old, have had tons of therapy, been on anti-depressants off and on for 25 years. My life has been a road of ups and downs, curves and straight aways. Right now I am in a down curve.

I have often felt that my tons of therapy had saved me from the effects of my abuse, but I realize after reading these stories, my experiences of growing up with a terrifying mother and a complacent father have definitely created a life that I struggle with on an ongoing basis.

My earliest memory of when my abuse started was when I was four or five. My father was a chemical engineer and he had been home for lunch. When I was young, I always had felt close to my dad, so when he came home it was a treat to see him. I remember playing in the drive way of our home, my mother may have called me in to take a nap, I don't remember her calling me, but as I walked through the door of our home, my mother, who had hidden behind the door, came out and beat me with some kind of kitchen implement. I remember I was shell shocked, it was so unbelievable. That experience must have traumatized me. I just remember saying to myself, "What did I do to deserve that." Not only did it shock me, but I never expected my mother to do that to me. Prior to that I never remembered being physically punished. And that is when it all started.

It happened when my father was away, and it was always a sneak attack from her. I remember one Valentines Day when my mother had a little party for some of her friends and their children. I remember feeling very possessive of some of my toys and I was upset that I had to share. Pretty normal stuff for a kid my age. When the party was over, my mother carefully shut the windows so the neighbors wouldn't hear. She yelled at me and then proceeded to yank me over lap and beat me again with a pancake turner. This is when I remember the start of having tremendous sad feelings. I remember crying a lot and then being told to shut up or I would have something to cry about.

Then as I got a little older, I remember my dreams about a terrible horrifying witch that lived upstairs in my house. I knew who that was, and to this day I still have dreams about the witch. She has gone away now, but I still feel her at some of the higher levels of this house—you can still feel the presence of her evil. I have actually been able to go up into her room now and look at where she slept, pictures of her (very nasty looking), even pictures of her relatives. I knew that this house was my home or my psyche and that I indeed had done much work on healing myself. Consequently, every time I had this episodic dream, the floors from the bottom floor to her bedroom, were being refurbished with other living space, or had been rented out to jewelery stores or home stores (interesting).

I know that I have had least three or four breakdowns in my life, most of them when I had lived at home and one when I lost the love of my life. I have had tons of jobs, money problems and depression off and on throughout my life. I have a college degree, which took me 10 years to get as a result of depression and money issues. I have been in debt, I have had money; right now I owe quite a bit and am dealing with the IRS. I decided to not to go into all of the physical and emotional abuse I suffered from at this time. I have been gainfully employed, unemployed and underemployed.

My story has been told so many times through the stories of others on this site. Some not as severe, and some as severe. It is so clear to me that child abuse is a huge issue, with monstrous effects. When I see a child that is clearly being abused, I have no fear going up to the abuser and talking to him or her. I know often the abuser is an untreated abused child him or herself.

Sometimes I get tired of fighting the fight, sometimes I just isolate. I try and be mindful of not setting myself up for being punished by others. I have learned to stand up for myself, and have conquered a huge amount of fear. Sometimes a situation may bring about an unwelcome flashback where I am in a terrified state and sometimes I still run away, or say something really awful. It becomes less and less, but the ramifications of child abuse are still with me.

In my family, my mother ran the show. She became bolder with her antics and abuse. My brother and sister and I were her little slaves. She always had chores for us. We always had a noose on us. It was completely suffocating. She was a perfectionist, and if I had one thing out of place in my bedroom, the whole room was torn up by her and I had to clean it all up after getting home from school. My father, I think was terrified of her as she threw a knife at him one evening during a discussion.

One morning after I had come in from a date in the previous evening, sitting at the breakfast table, my mother proclaimed, "I saw what you did last night, you little slut." I had done nothing, but had kissed my boyfriend at the door and then came into the house. My father, putting his paper down said to her, "Leave her alone, she is a good kid." My mother got up and poured a glass of milk on his head. He did nothing. My mother would take turns between us kids and turn her fury to my other siblings one at a time. We used to place bets on who was next. Horrible I know, but that is how we survived. Wow this was long, guess I had to get this off my chest once again. I'll write again. God bless you.

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