Child Abuse Story of Healing and Recovery From Cheri

by Cheri
(South Africa)

My mother verbally, emotionally and physically abused me for as long as I can remember. Until the last time I saw her, when I was 50 years old, she could still reduce me to helpless shaking and make me wet my pants. Right now, my head is aching, I feel nauseous and my muscles are really tense after reading the other stories on this site, although so many of them are much worse than mine.

In retrospect, I think the emotional abuse might have been worse than the rest. My dad was an alcoholic but I never knew this until I was an adult. He was kind to me and very loving. I always felt safe with him. The problem was, he went to work in the day and often went away for long periods of time. Later, I found out that he went on drinking binges. Mom seemed to hate me, as though the sight of me irritated her to the point of helpless violence. I don't remember her beating up my baby sister, who has told me that is true. I could never understand what it was I was doing wrong! Nothing I said or did was good enough.

I have only 5 memories of my entire childhood up to 12 years old, and have no idea what took place in this time. One memory is of the day I decided to run away from home for some reason. All I knew was that I couldn't take it anymore. I was about 5 years old. When mom was busy at the back of our house in England, I scooted off to the front gate. I had nowhere to go, no one to help me, no friends, no money, no safe place. We had recently arrived from Canada. It was the most terrible feeling to be stuck in this place of misery and pain but I had no choice except to turn around and sneak my belongings back into the house. The other memories are of being physically abused by a teacher in England because I didn't know my pounds, shillings and pence and 3 happy ones spent with dad camping in Canada during vacations. That's it! Nothing more...

When I was 10, we moved to South Africa. Mom was always fighting with dad but we didn't know why. I guess she took all her frustrations out on me. She hit me across my head if I didn't wash the dishes perfectly. She hit me with a thick stick on my thighs if I didn't wash the clothes properly. She hit me if I spoke - or if I didn't. She hit me if my sister got hurt at school or lost her socks. But never in front of Dad. I was too scared to tell him and, anyway, I thought this was normal family behaviour. I grew up a real loner, introverted and painfully shy - which also drove Mom crazy. She told me I was lazy, stupid, evil, ridiculous, pathetic, needy, unteachable and too big for my boots.

Dad died unexpectedly when I was 15. I was beyond devastated! The only person who loved me was gone forever. I knew that Mom could abuse me without hindrance and my worse nightmares came true. She was going through menopause, had lost her husband, had to work for the first time since marrying and had 2 children to support with no money. Dad hadn't left a will. Mom screamed at me all day long. She forced me to polish our wooden floors on my hands and knees after school, wash all our laundry by hand in the bath and wash the dishes after supper. All this after school. She kept me from having friends, saying they were a bad influence on me. I was depressed, exhausted, afraid and too introverted to tell anyone. My very few friends at school never knew, even though they were scared of my mom. The problem was, I was even more scared of her!

A year later, I married at the age of 16, just to get away from home. That was a disaster but I would rather have died of starvation than return home, so I wandered from one unhappy relationship to another, desperate to be loved and accepted. Every now and then over the years, Mom would find me and phone me. When I heard her voice, my heart used to race and I wanted to faint. Of course, this drove her crazy too, because she thought I was deliberately being evasive and cold.

The last time I saw her, in 2003, she had asked me to visit her on the other side of the country. She sounded so loving that I thought maybe things would be OK this time. I had just completed a heavy 2-year course of studies and got very high marks so I took my marked papers with me to show her, hoping she'd be proud of me. Within 12 hours, she had screamed at me for boasting about my exam marks and thrown the file across the room. She told me to get down on my knees and ask God for forgiveness, out loud. I couldn't, because I was so scared, so she forced me onto the floor on my knees. I don't remember what I said. Then she went for a bath and told me to sit with her. I used to wear very thick glasses back then and the steam from her very hot bath stopped me from seeing anything. I told her I had to leave the room and she screamed like a banshee, saying I was still as unteachable and rebellious as ever. I stood outside the bathroom, shaking and crying for an hour. At 50 years old!

That night, something happened. For the very first time, I recognised her treatment of me as abusive. It wasn't easy. Strangely enough, I'd always put her on a pedestal as being the perfect woman. I left and went home the following day and that was the beginning of a long healing process. It's not yet over but every year is better. I can now recognise abusive behaviour in others and do not allow people to misuse me. I know I am deeply loved, especially by God, and that I'm not stupid, evil, ugly or any other of those entirely negative things. Mom died in 2008 and I discovered, via my sister, that dad was also a homosexual. Perhaps that was why mom hated the sight of me. My sister is my half-sister (another shock to us both) and I was the result of the only time my parents slept together. God obviously wanted me to be born. I wasn't a mistake.

I'm now a 60-year-old woman who knows her own eternal value and respects herself. Yes, there are still times when I have wobblies, but these are few and far between because I have such a loving support system from my family and friends.

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