This child abuse story of healing and recovery from R was created December 19, 2006 and was originally posted to my stories of healing and recovery page on August 22, 2006 as story #2.
R is from Milano, Mi, Italy
The following child abuse story of healing and recovery from R. depicts physical abuse and emotional abuse. The child abuse effects on R. were feelings that she was nothing, that she didn't deserve to be loved, that she didn't deserve to live, the inability to trust, post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, nightmares, and phobias.
I'm the last one of three sisters. My parents had been abusing me since I was a little child. I guess they were (and are) very unhappy and probably victims theirselves. When I was a child (now I'm 36) I learned that silence was a must. It might keep anger explosions away. Violence at home was something "normal"; I really thought that in every family the relationships between children and parents were just such as at my parents' house. My father used to batter my mother, my sisters and me.
My mother used to batter my sisters and me.
My sisters used to abuse me.I was a silent little girl.
I had no friends.
I couldn't play at home, neither out.My parents yelled at me all the time, calling me whore, bitch, dork, asshole, and in many other horrible ways, making me feel I was nothing, less than nothing, that I didn't deserve to live, that I didn't deserve to be loved. People who should have been protecting me were instead my torturers. I felt like I couldn't trust anybody. I was all alone with them.
A family of crazy people.I ran away from home when I was 17. I couldn't realize what this did to me till I had an abusive partner, which lasted almost 10 years, and ended with her attempting to kill me because I decided to leave. Suddenly I started to experience post traumatic stress disorder, such anxiety, nightmares, phobias and illness related to the attempted murder. Then I decided to take part in therapy, and after a long time I realized that all of my life was influenced by what happened to me. And even if I always knew, it was weird to "discover" it; it's really hard to explain, but it was like a veil was taken off from my eyes. Now I see things in a different way. I am aware and finally free, even if talking about my past is obviously sad and painful. Nobody and nothing could ever drop what happened, but I learned to go on and love and respect myself. It was not my fault... Hope if some of you reading these words has been going through a pain like mine, you can find the strength in yourself to overcome and start a new life. | 
