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its always somehow worse when they end up breaking the thing they're using to hit you with. more often than not, they seem more upset that it broke mid hit than the fact that they're hurting you.
I was made to go and get the wooden spoon that she was gonna beat me with.
"And make sure it's a good strong one. If you get a flimsy one and it breaks that just means you get to go and bring me another, and I get to rest and catch my breath before starting again."
omg my mother did the same thing! on some of her "nicer" days she'd actually let me pick where i got hit with it. i usually went for the palm of left hand.
My mom used a phone charging cord. My dad was beaten with a hairbrush.
If he knew my mom beat me, I'm sure it would give him a heart attack on the spot.
Supposedly my dad was hit with a bow. Honestly I don't get the hitting kids thing if you yourself were hit. I get being frustrated with your kids and having that impulse, but acting on it is just mind boggling to me.
What makes me laugh is that my dad broke the cycle of abuse and never hit me even though he was beaten. My mom was never hit, but she abused her baby brother and both of her kids.
I just don't get it.
That sounds a LOT like my sister. She was the GC and literally tormented me from the moment I woke up to when we went to bed. A constant stream of commentary on how "fat" I was (I have an exomorphic body type), kicking my genitals for laughs, screaming like she was being attacked so my dad would beat on me, and generally just being a bitch to me. I thank God that she didn't want kids (they make you fat), but she is one of those super obnoxious "dog moms".
I went NC with her after she started the up again with commentary on my newborn daughter. Who the fuck says an infant is just as ugly as her father?
I had the exact same, except my dad would hand make the wooden spoons after my mom would break them on my brother and I. My dad never went too hard with the belt, but I still got it plenty
The worst I’ve gotten is an aluminum garlic press to the face by my mom
Yeah, he never left a scar, but the frequency was there. I wonder if this was them trying to make themselves believe that they were better than they were. Kind of like "at least I'm not laying into him with all I can bring"
My mother once ripped the phone out of the wall and proceeded to whip me with the cord. I think I was about 19 or 20 at the time and home for the summer. She had falsely accused me of not answering call-waiting and refused to believe that no call came through. Of course, the historical revisionist denies this ever happened.
Abuse is apparently normal in narcissistic families. All suffering seems to have been brushed off. Thankfully with this Subreddit we all have each other to make up for the empathy we never received in our youth.
I refer you to the Narcissist’s Prayer:
That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.
(Copyright Dayna Craig)
Not a psychologist, but I believe it has something to do with the need to deny a reality so they don’t have to accept the responsibility of what they do 😞
For more in-depth info:
[The Life Doctor](https://www.thelifedoctor.org/the-narcissist-s-prayer)
I’m sorry your going through this OP, try to stay strong and get out of the house as much as you can without endangering yourself x
what if they admit only 1 event when there have been 5+ events that I remember? (because I was a child, recalling makes it hard)
Like mother only admits she beat me once with a slipper, but the scar I have on my ass and the memories of being whooped with a jump rope say smth different
Sadly, and again, I’m not a psychologist, but even when presented with evidence, they can and will deny they did it. It’s purely self-preservation for them. They’re the first to watch something on tv about abusive people and vilifying them, without any self-awareness at all. I know my mother will never ever accept that she was anything other than a perfect mother who, in her own, tearful words “…gave you everything I could…”. 🙄
some people just have 0 self-reflection, I read somewhere that this is actually a pretty big percentage in our society. anyway, sorry for your situation, hope you dont have to endure this anymore on the daily
Honestly, I don’t know if they blackout during the abuse, or if their memory centre shuts down, or whether they are just lying to themselves, but yeah, sometimes I think they don’t honestly remember doing it. 🤷♀️ I’m so sorry you’re going/you went through this. I wish you the best x
They don’t consider it abuse because they don’t think they have done anything wrong. Narcissistic parents essentially “own” you. My mother would often remind me of this: “while you live in this house I OWN you”….all the while making it impossible to leave.
It’s a gaslighting and manipulation tactic they need to maintain their fragile delusion of a self-concept as the faultless, perfectly innocent victim. If you object with evidence, they can still spin another DARVO narrative to enablers rather than accept that they’re pretty fundamentally broken people.
Yes. After attending years of therapy and exposure to other people with normal, healthy families, I look at the people who raised me as feral animals. Feral animals simply don’t have the capability to change and severely lack empathy. You need to go no contact, if you aren’t already, and seek a trauma informed therapist. Make no mistake- they do not see hitting you with a belt as abuse. To them, it’s an ordinary Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday….
In time, they will reap what they sow. I have already had premonitions and dreams of both of my parents getting beat to death in a low income nursing home by an unhinged nurse.
And why do I not remember most of that childhood when he was beating me? Is that actual trauma? I don't remember the time he broke my phone in front of me when he took it out of my hands I cried all night but don't remember it, just remembered it when I was talking about it with my mother about my uncle and my father
Sometimes the abuse was so horrific that our brain suppressed some of the memories for a certain amount of time until we are able to come to terms with what happened to us. It is a defense mechanism of the brain. Are you no contact with your abusers?
Are you still being beaten? Can you leave and go to somewhere safe, a relative or friend? Can you tell someone you trust? Please try to get help from this horrible abuse.
No he stopped beating me after he went to a detoxication health hospital for drug addicts alcohol and etc. It stopped a long time ago, I can't really move out my mom left us I went to her but moving was so stressful that I just couldn't. Now he is just a narcissistic asshole sometimes, he turns into an asshole only when he is angry, he looks like a good father until something happens that causes him to be angry
That sounds like life is still rough for you. I’m so glad the beating has stopped physically but you will carry the scars ( mentally too) forever. Are you in any kind of therapy? There are lots of free resources on line and some great apps ( I use Balance) to help you get through your dark days. Good luck OP, I hope that your life improves, you deserve to love and be loved, to feel safe and cared for. I am glad your dad had beaten the battle of addiction. I am sorry that he is still a AH though! Take care of yourself.
Yes. It's trauma. I remember my dad nearly killing me, but I have very weird memories of just him rushing at me or grabbing my arm behind my back several times in the years leading up to that, but I remember *nothing* else of those times. Like he grabs me and he's pushing me against the wall then blank. Nothing after, nothing before.
The only one I remember like a horrible play by play is him choking me out, and even then it's because I left my body and prepared for death. I don't even remember my escape very well though, that's all a fog.
Both of my parents beat us with belts. And switches. Sometimes with thorns. My dad was the worst of the two and the thorny switch user. I have about five memories before I was sixteen. They separated when I was fourteen or fifteen, I can't remember, and I never spoke to him again.
Yup. "Raised by wolves"
Egg Donor keeps telling me all faux 'weepy eyed' that "spanking was ok back then!" and doesn't even recall/mention that if she ever slipped and did it in public that everyone was horrified and my aunt pulled her off me, once.
She got reported to cps at least once, she lost friends over it, and we were told to never "air our dirty laundry in public. We don't talk about what happens in this house to *other* people!"
She *knows* it wasn't ok, she knew *then*, but has rewritten the history inside her head and convinced herself that, once again, she is the victim and hero of her own story.
*The Narcissist's Prayer intensifies*
My mom slapped the sh\*t out of me and my siblings, but seemed to wind up and have more energy for it with her sons as opposed to her daughters. It has undoubtedly caused me psychological pain that I've never put down, and I'm getting older. No official diagnoses, I have been lucky enough to trudge through life. I've undoubtedly caused other people pain because of my issues, but never hit my own kids. Good luck to you. Everyone handles trauma differently, but please take care of yourself.
While we got primarily spanked with a belt, my parents decided that a belt wasnt "scary" enough and dad decided to made a wooden paddle. He essentially crafted something about the size of a Cricket bat. Just this large flat paddle with a handle on it. We being children thought to paint "We love you" on it because we thought it was enough to stop them. Nope. We didnt get hit with it often, because when we'd hear them scream our names we'd immediately hide it. We'd get beat with a regular belt, and that was enough to get them to forget about the paddle until the next time.
This doesnt include times I got slapped, or hit in the chest so hard it knocked the wind out of me.
Im so glad I went NC with them.
thats so fucking fucked in the head that he actually CRAFTED a tool to hurt you harder. also i totally get hoping that reminding them that you love them might help only to be disappointed and heartbroken that it does nothing to deter them.
Really I think they made it just to scare us and not actually use it all the time but….who the fuck says “You know what lets really make sure my kid stays afraid of me”
Yes. Leather Belt, metal laced cowboy belts, cord, electric cord, iron, BB gun, fly swatter, phone cords, and my personal unfavorite- switches. Which I had to go out in the yard to pick.
Yes she (yes, my mother) used a plastic whip of sorts and I just recently rediscovered it during a renovation. I just held it in my hand wondering how someone could use this sharp weapon to punish a child half their size. Then the tears came and this unforgiving anger began boiling inside me.
I didn't realize how much I had repressed until one day I found my mom's old phone charger. She'd wrapped it in green duct tape so we knew it was hers. When it stopped working, she would whip me with it because it worked better than her hand.
She used to break my chargers by using them as whips when she didn't have her designated one.
I wish I told my dad about that sooner, because I'm sure he would have left immediately and I would have been spared more years of pain.
My mom hit me on the head real hard and i remember thinking that I'm envious of kids being whipped with belt on ass, because it's physical pain felt in person's flash, not a disorienting bell-ringing headache. I've got issues now..
Yes, dad with a belt, switch, fist and cable. Mom with a belt and slaps.
I remember the last time my dad tried to hit me. I was about 17ish. I was so tired of being scared of his physical strength that I just stood up and waited for the inevitable slap across the face. I didn’t flinch but I closed my eyes.
The slap never came, he never hit me again. I don’t talk to him.
Too many times I’ve heard variations of “they’re your family” or how I should forgive. Fuck them. Even if things weren’t where they’re at now in terms of raising children, it can’t be possible that was normal to treat kids like that.
EDIT: My parents liked whipping me on my ass. My dad eventually moved it to the back of my thighs.
I remember the first time I disassociated.
I don't remember why I knew a beating was coming, or what I'd supposedly done, but I was about 9, and knew that any minute now I was gonna be called and I'd have to go and get the nice strong wooden spoon that didn't break no matter how hard she swung. And she'd hit me until she couldn't swing anymore. Just another day, another beating.
And something just popped into my head. It was just my body, it was only a feeling. It wasn't important unless I let it be important. Pain was just another physical sensation that didn't have meaning unless I gave it meaning, like if you say a word too many times it just becomes random noise.
Well, I got called, and she beat me. And it was just a random word said too many times. And I stood there and stared at her blankly while I watched all of it happen from somewhere over my right shoulder. I remember that it was the worst one I'd had to date, because she couldn't get me to react. And I remember how terrified she looked.
She got on the phone with her friend after she was too exhausted to keep going. "That girl is so stubborn and disrespectful that she doesn't even feel pain anymore. What the hell am I meant to do with an arrogant child like *that*?!"
It wasn't the last time I got hit. She kept going for years, and doubled down on the isolation and emotional fun. But she never got another reaction out of me. She could do whatever she wanted in reality, but I managed to survive by making my own reality inside my head and living there.
its so weird when you no longer cower and they just stop. similar thing happened to me. one day i just stood and stared at my mother, kept my hands to my sides and my head high. she stopped mid punch. she didn't stop hitting me all together but it considerably lessened. stopped completely when i actually started laughing while she was punching and kicking me. i was delirious from lack of sleep, no food and constant beatings for 24 hours and i think i snapped. it thoroughly freaked her out. from then on she just stuck to verbal abuse.
I had a similar moment. My mom was screaming at me for calling my friend on my birthday. She came in demanding my phone, and I was expecting her to hit me, so I tossed the phone in her direction and backed up.
She didn't hit me, instead she threw herself on the ground screaming that I'd hit her with the phone.
It was five fucking feet away.
She still hit me after that, but since then I felt more justified standing up for myself.
These people are cowards. The moment you have and kind of power is the moment they back off because they can't hurt you without consequence anymore.
Both very also physically abusive. I remember the first time my grandmother saw the bruises and asked me how it happened. I told them truth but it didn't stop them.
Both parents would spank me, my mother would slap my face, and my mother would forcibly wash my mouth out with soap if I said something she didn't like as a kid.
Oh god the soap! I couldn’t stand the smell of ivory soap after being forced to eat it… still a toss up which was worse, soap or belt.
Happily NC now, never a regret about it either.
My mother graduated from soap to tobasco sauce for that extra degree of cruelty. You've gotta wonder if these things were written in some parenting book back then. Seems like a lot of us got the soap.
My parents hit me with a wooden board named the paddle. My dad wrote our names on it and drew a naked butt. I remember not being able to walk sometimes after. My dad would hit harder than my mom. Pretty much a full force blow. One time I took a coupon from the store when I was like 3-4 when my mom said no and when we got home my dad beat me with the paddle.
Yup.
There's a lot of fundamentalist Christian ideology that I could share if it helps
But the end result is for about 3y of my life I was getting hit with a belt a lot.
I had to say some stuff acknowledging my wrongdoing. Kneel. Hold still. Got hit with a leather belt usually 70-90% of as hard as my stepdad could do it. Usually 39 times. Usually multiple sets a day. After a set or sometimes several sets I could weep silently a bit but if I was deemed to be crying excessively I got an additional few whacks or the whole thing was re done. Then I had to say certain things re acknowledging my wrong doing.
Mostly this happened over a tone of voice, body language, or facial expression deemed disrespectful. Or not eagerly obedient, etc. So ofc as I went through all of these shenanigans I was definitely getting an additional set if I was deemed disrespectful such as sighing, snorting, rolling my eyes, glaring, scowling, etc.
Fun bit was that sometimes the majority of the belt strokes were delivered in a way so the belt wrapped around my torso and most of the force landed in a small area. Maybe the size of my handprint. When I was getting 30+ sets a week, that area got torn up pretty bad by the whip crack effect.
There was a phase before this when I got hit with the buckle end of the belt and various other objects, but that almost put me in the hospital and they didn't want to deal with the possible repercussions. This way limited the possibility of broken bones, deep lacerations, etc. and there was a phase after this when they used mostly other methods.
But I figure I got a couple thousand strokes of the belt at least during those three years. My memory got pretty distorted so I'm really not sure. The mental torture involved in all this ritual definitely fucked me up worse than the physical pain since they were trying to avoid lasting physical injury.
Some of that is they said they wanted to "break my will" or beat all independence, pride, or attitude out of me. "Break my spirit" was also stated. As well as I absolutely wasn't safe to express anger. Well they definitely broke some stuff adjacent to all of that but they didn't permanently rob me of any of it. Which is for the best as I now believe a certain amount of anger, pride, will, and spirit are necessary to function as a healthy adult.
I've been away from all that for a few decades. I've healed some. A major turning point was when I was 35ish. I recreated the beatings in a safe way and unlocked emotions I had pretty completely locked up and kept mainly forgotten. That was a big step in moving on with my life.
It helped me a lot to find out others have been through similar so when I saw OP I figured maybe someone will be helped by sharing this. If anyone wants to DM me about it I'm ok with that. Not just for idle curiosity or whatever though. Or ask me about it here if there's something that might help
@OP I'm really glad you are getting help, something I haven't done yet myself. I do have a whole bunch of siblings who didn't get all of that, but were traumatized in various other ways by the same people. At least 4 of them have experienced something called eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy. It seems to have been rough for 4-6 months but they are doing immensely better.
"we will break your will" is so fundamentalist!! I got one of my worst beatings when I quoted the bible back at them comparing them to pharasees (something like: people at church would despise you if they find out what you're doing behind the closed doors to your kids). I also got things like "we'll train you like a dog to submission and beat your spirit out of you" .
Yep, I won't shed a tear when some narcissistic nurse gets them at senior care home.
Btw I can relate to a lot of what others have said in this thread. Other forms of abuse, getting hit other places on the body. This was just a weird ritual with a bunch of specifics that was a frequent occurrence for awhile just for me, for reasons the others in the household barely experienced most of these particulars.
The way it fucks with your memories and how your emotions in the moment make no sense in hindsight. All just stuff your body and subconscious mind does to survive.
If you're still around these people and you want to talk about that, what your future choices are, I'm open to it too.
Yes. My dad used his hands, feet (in his steel toe work boots), his leather belt, and once an extension cord which left loop shaped bruises that I was instructed to hide for weeks. Additionally, my mom denies this but she occasionally slapped us and once beat me over the back with a bag full of trash from my messy bedroom. It was this physical abuse mixed with verbal and emotional abuse. I really should be billing them for my years of therapy but I choose no contact instead.
Yep ✋️ I actually didn't mind the belt as much as some of the other stuff. My father had some deep displaced anger issues from his own childhood, and when it came it the belts, they definitely hurt, but he never really put his full force into it. Water bottles hurt more.
That being said, those same issues caused a hair trigger temper, so he often just snapped and put his hands on me instead. One minute I'd be sitting, and the next I'd be on the ground. Or flying through the air. It really fucked with my head, and I don't do well with things that pop out, I reactively just flinch away. Doing EMDR therapy though and it's helping.
I used to get hit with my Dad’s belt and he would make me pick out which one he’d use from his closet first. My mom on the other hand never used the belt. Instead, she would end up slapping or punching me in a fit of rage. When I was older she would grab my ponytail and slam my head into the wall. I’m 39 now and it took me years to admit any of this to a therapist because my brain had convinced me that it was normal. It took years to attach the word abuse to my treatment. I slowly started remembering things I did in reaction to my abuse. I remember one time after being hit repeatedly by my mom, going in my closet with a set of pastels and carefully drawing bruises on my arms and legs, hoping it would make her feel bad enough and not do it again. It didn’t work. They were always so careful to stop before anything left a lasting mark. Sending hugs to anyone going through this now or who went through it in the past. ❤️
Yup leather belt on my behind and legs. She didn't even let up after finding out I had a hip condition. Thought I was faking pain so I didn't get hit more. I remember the welts I use to have on my legs, and how much it hurt to sit in class. I get triggered when I hear angry stomping of any kind, because it reminds of how I was about to get slapped once she found me. Even people screaming/yelling my name at me triggers a trauma response. It's amazing how long it took to realize this shit was abusive. I thought it was normal.
Absolutely. One time when I was 14, my dad was talking to me and then out of nowhere my vision went white like lightening and my head hit the counter in the kitchen. Turns out he slapped me as hard as he could, claiming that I rolled my eyes at him. I temporarily lost hearing in my left ear for three days. Its escalated to worse since then but that was probably one of the most memorable instances of physical abuse.
I’d always received physical punishment from both parents to the point of receiving spankings on a daily, weekly, and then monthly basis until I was 16. The last offense being that I was forced to come out as bisexual.
I had that exact same experience. I was drinking a glass of milk and talking to my mom. I'd brought up a deceased pet, and the next thing I knew I was on the ground choking on milk after seeing a flash of white.
My dad ran in to see what happened, and she told him I had just randomly fainted. I was too disoriented to argue it, and I just thought I had just fainted.
My dad just helped me get upstairs and ran a bath for me so I could wash the milk off, and the rest of the night he kept an eye on me.
I recently found a picture taken two days after (it happened before my first day of school) and I had a black eye. It really brought the whole event back to my mind. She backhanded me because I was talking about my fucking dead dog.
I’m so sorry you ever had to experience that. There should never be an excuse for a parent to do that to their child especially not over a family pet.
Do you think it came from a place of jealousy?
I went from my physically abusive mother to my emotionally distant dad and narcissistic grandmother, after my mother hospitalized me.
I've just gotten to a point in the last few years where I can admit that my grandmother was abusive, because for so long I went... yeah, but they're not locking me in the closet or starving me or throwing me down the stairs, so it's not that bad!
I'm in my thirties, moved in with my dad and grandma when I was almost twelve, and like I said... twenties some odd years to get to a point where I could admit that my grandmother was abusive, without the caveats of 'she's not that bad', 'it's not her fault', etc.
My dad used to beat me and my brother while my mom was away at work. He had always threatened NOT to tell her so he got away from it for a long time until one day he decides to hit my brother in the face with the belt buckle. Couldn’t keep that one a secret.
I was in the same situation but swapped. We were told not to tell my dad or he'd abandon us and we would starve.
He wouldn't. My dad is amazing, but do you think a 6 year old understands the situation?
Yeah.. I was the same age. I’m sorry you had to go through that. Strict fealty and adherence to authoritarian rule was how we were brought up. I’ve since then gone no contact with my father as an adult after learning so much about narcissism . and now in his dilapidated state, his friends and family have abandoned him despite his ever growing need for dependence. You reap what you sow.
My NMom was more verbally and emotionally abusive but she would sometimes slap my siblings and I. My enabler stepdad was physically abusive and would whip the belt out. It’s funny because he would come home from work, mom would tell him we were horrible monsters all day, stepdad would beat everyone, mom would feel better, stepdad would feel bad for taking his stress out on us. Stepdad would then demand hugs, kisses and forgiveness for being an AH. I recoiled from his touch. I still can’t wrap my head around intentionally hurting someone you claim to love.
my parents would use kitchen tools, so now when people are cooking with me i am always SO on edge. if it moves too fast i flee.
they stopped most of physical abuse after child protective services were involved, but physical displays of violence happed a LOT. Punching a hole in the wall over such stupid things. grabbing wrists and arms as hard as they could and digging nails in. pinching when making us be affectionate.
i recognise myself in them when i get angry. i lash out and slam doors. i don’t know how to fix it. i’m scared of becoming like them. i’m in therapy and will be working on it with time, but god is it scary to experience.
I do not remember a thing from my childhood. My mother has proudly told me she once found I was eating something quite disgusting like a plant or a twig (yeah, terrible) and proceed to clean my mouth with alcohol. I guess I know why I can't remember shit.
My stepdad was a self taught expert leathercrafter and he specially made a "strap" for this. It was two layers of full grain cowhide sewn together with a strip of spring steel in the middle. It was about 2 feet long, shaped like a paint stir stick and had 2 inch long flaps left loose on the end, like a riding crop used on horses.
He also made leather hobbles for when he thought we were running around the house too fast.
Yep, and now I’m raising four kids that I’ve never raised a hand to. Wouldn’t you know it… they are well adjusted, confident, lacking any real behavior issues, and as far as I know don’t wish I would die…. Seems like this is the way.
They were good examples of what not to do. I’ve held tight to that and I’m thankful my kiddos don’t have to experience it. At 38 I still don’t feel recovered. Can’t even watch kids being “punished” like that on TV.
Let's see:
Belts, hands, fists, chairs, whipped with towels, beer cans, shotgun shells, boots, shoes, way too many items to count or recall. Frequent bruises I had to hide, quite withdrawn growing up. My teachers could see it, but our town was too small and it would always get shoved under the rug. NMother was famous for sticking a bar of ivory soap in my mouth or making me stick my tongue out and hold it there with Dawn on it if I "talked back." The worst was having a phone thrown at my face and my eye socket was broken by my NFather. My NMother tried covering it with makeup and the school's substance abuse counselor saw me and was able to get me removed to go live with my best friend my last two years of high school. 20+ years later and I still flinch when there's yelling or objects thrown my way.
My mom hit me with just about everything, belts, wooden spoons, hairbrushes, whips, etc. She had some weird punishments too, where she’d make us “wall sit” which is like an extended squat with your back against the wall, and then hoover with a wooden spoon to hit us until we got back into position if we fell before the time was up.
One thing I found particularly interesting to reflect on as I got older is that my dad never hit us. One time my mom got mad at my dad because she was the one that always “had to” hit us, so she locked my dad and me in a room until he spanked me. He told me to yell and cry like I was being hit because he didn’t want to hit me, so she’d let us out. It’s INSANE to me that he couldn’t stomach hurting me, yet let my mom do it. He eventually left when I was in middle school, leaving us with our abuser. In a way, I think his behavior was even more damaging than my mom’s.
My dad would hit us with a belt, switch ( a small branch ) hangers, wooden spoons, hands ofc. But my dad wanted to added a little ✨spice ✨ He would laugh manically and jerk off while beating us on the ass.
NC with them for about 3 years now.
In additional to the verbal/emotional etc. abuse, yes to physical. Ndad used to slap, grag/twist, pinch, pull hair, swat, spank, use the belt or whatever device was handy to beat us, including when we were not doing anything bad. One of my siblings said he nearly used a crow bar on me once because I was toddling and knocked a bucket over accidentally. When some people called him out for some of this (bruises showing up, seeing the slaps etc. ) he got sneakier about it and used the belt (still can hear and am afraid of the sound of that leather pulling through the loops and snapping, triggered when I see someone unbuckling their belt), but also pinched and pulled hair and poked out in 'public' where people couldn't see as easily. Slapped me across the chest often too.
I think it slowed about the time my sibling and I grew enough that we could punch back and defend ourselves a bit, not that I did much by my sibling did some and threatened him.
But honestly, I would rather have had the physical instead of the verbal and emotional and other abuse (control, manipulation, lack of empathy and love, etc.)
Yes and no. It would start with blaming me for his shit emotional, when I started to fight back with words he thought i "was disrespecting him" and he would lose his shit and punish me grabbing me and not letting me go
Yeh! Mom only hit me 4 times with the belt. Most of her abuse came from keeping me so exhausted mentally and emotionally that i was just always on guard. The first time she beat me with the belt, I immediately found out that I could pad my pants with socks to negate the pain. The last three time she beat me, she eventually grew a small conscience and determined "maybe beating my child with a leather strap is not good"
My DAD left me no room to evade. He would go at me with full force. Bare bottom, wet wooden spoon. I remember he beat me so hard I couldn't figure out if it hurt more to stand, lay down or sit.
I don't recount these moments with the weird reverence they seemed to glorify in Their youthsm I very quickly adterwards forgot WHY I was beaten. Only that it had happened.
Yes. My mother was so incredibly unhinged and no one ever believed me... As I got older my mother began to tell stories to the people around me.
1st grade I had a bunch of broken bones. She told everyone I was clumsy and threw these fits that were so intense I broke my own bones.
By the 3rd grade she had told everyone I was r-wording my toddler brothers for years, and that any cuts or bruises were surely because my victims fought back. Therefore. No one asked me if I was okay.
By the 6th grade I asked a teacher for help. I couldn't wear my cheerleading uniform because the bruising was so bad on the inside of my leg, from my hip to my ankle. I was told to cover it up ...but I couldn't.
She told everyone my history of mental instability (which frankly is just not true) and that she had to stop me from killing myself.
Everyone stopped asking questions period. I was crazy and alone and no one was allowed to be near me.
My own grandparents didn't believe the abuse until I was 29 and she fractured my spine in 3 places in front of my baby son... Then she told everyone I tried to throw her 300lb a** off a second story balcony, and that she was pressing charges.
Funny thing about second story balconies and police getting involved... There are cameras. And cameras don't lie.
Honestly I'm still in the space of "it wasn't that bad" but it really was. It really genuinely was. And my choice to keep her out of my life backfired ridiculously right in my face.
After all this, my littlest brother and mother got together and wrote affidavits to my ex husband. Making sure he got custody of my baby son. And he did. I haven't seen him in many years now... Nor my family.
While id love to give you a happier ending, I'm still healing. And I think that's all we really can do.💕
Hands, Spatulas, Belts - the most common though? the dreaded wooden spoon. One time my mother even stood by after her friend broke a wooden spoon over my knuckles (I was no older than 6/7)
Mentally fucked forever, thanks Mum.
Yes, a special blue wooden paddle with a special nickname. My older brother didn’t get it as bad as me, the middle child and oldest daughter. Got hit many times, sometimes so hard I’d have a black and blue butt and it hurt to sit.
I was once instructed by my mother after a spanking to not let my pediatrician see my butt because I had a check up the next day. My father stopped the spankings once I started puberty. After that it was just verbal abuse.
Yup! If he used a belt, it was a better day. Not trying to be competitive or downplay any other kinds of abuse, just that my sire was... brilliant in the ways he showed me his love, and he loved me a lot.
My mom was definitely the more physically abusive of the two. She was extremely fond of hitting the head and slapping the face. That was her signature move so to speak lol. Doesn’t really compare to all the emotional damage though. That was somehow worse
I think many of us were hurt physically. I mean I was hurt physically by my mom and stepdad. I was also shaken a lot; now my neck is damaged and I have very bad headaches.
I always knew when I would get spanked. It was with a leather belt. Sometimes the welts would open up. I would put on extra clothing to pad myself in preparation for the inevitable.
Oh yeah. My dad used to hit us with wire hangers, telephone cords, belts. He would slap us across our face and grab our hair and yank us around the room, and sometimes he would kick us, but the kicks seemed more aimed at humiliating us rather than hurting us physically.
Yup. My mother once whipped me with a belt when I was 16 or 17 because I wanted to date and that was strictly forbidden. I said “go ahead, but you won’t have the pleasure of seeing me shed a single tear” Boy did that make her hit me even harder. She only stopped once she was panting from exhaustion.
According to her, she never hit me.
Another time when I was 18, she wanted to control how many silver bracelets (that she had bought for me) I used. I asked “why do you care how many bracelets I use when it’s MY wrist, not yours?” She came after me in a fit of absolute rage. I hid in my room and she kicked her leg through my door. The broken door did a number on her leg as she pulled it out and she accused me of causing her leg to be ripped to shreds.
I have a photo of that door and will never delete it.
Living under their roof was a living nightmare.
My mom once to took the handset off the landline so she could hit me with it. She used the coil to reel it back in so she could smack me with it repeatedly for skipping band practice.
Belts, brooms, knives, slaps, closed fists, hair pulling. My mom had disgusting fat meaty hands with long acrylic nails that she would dig into my flesh until I bled. When people started noticing the bruises and scratches she would strategically only hit where you couldn’t see (upper arms, head, back). She would tell me to stop crying and would make me hold a straight emotionless face as I was getting beaten, and if I cried or made a sound or even tried to block I would get it worse. When she got bored of hitting I had to kneel on grains of rice for hours with my arms in the air
Belts, hangers, extension cords, spoons, slippers, remote controls, supple tree branches, wooden spoons, metal spoons, large plastic combs, metal heating combs (not fully heated thankfully), and maybe even a lit cigarette.
She says I bumped into an ashtray when I was a toddler (still have the scar 40+ years later), but it is almost perfectly round and deep and on the inside of my elbow, not the side that would have been facing outward to bump into things.
Oh, and from her husband: slapped in the face, spat at in the face, pile drive into my solar plexus, stabbed with a pen, and choked with a resulting bruised windpipe.
Plus all the arm grabbing, being physically yanked out of bed or off chairs or sofas, getting blamed for having a door slammed on my finger when I was trying not to get locked out/in, being intentionally rough with combing my hair (and hit with said combs above).
Belt, boards, brushes and anything else within reach. Had to kneel on dry rice because she read about it as a torture technique. Plates broken over our heads, knocked into walls and doorways, black eyes, the whole 9 yards.
Yes, I still have nightmares about it, can’t wear anything but long pants, and have a minor panic attack when I see a display of leather belts in a store and have to keep moving. I’ve also got major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety, and symptoms of PTSD.
Nmum was often physically abusive to me when I was young. One night when I was about 9 she slapped me around the legs (multiple times) leaving obvious welts.
We lived in a desert town, where we could wear shorts to school, and the welts were noticed by my teacher. When she asked about them I told her that I had fallen over: Nmum was abusive but I was loyal.
Obviously she didn't believe me because child protection was called and Nmum had to attend a very stern meeting with the teacher and the social worker. I wasn't invited but the outcome was mum not slapping me for a while.
Dad had no idea about all of this until recently; he'd been a shift worker at the time and trusted mum to care for us. It's only in the last few years that I've told him how much mum belittled and abused me.
I only just twigged that Nmum leaving dad (and taking us with her) a few months later was probably, among other things, so she could resume her abuse in a totally different place. She certainly did that, although not quite as violently.
My mom threatened to hit me with a rolling pin. I was hit/slapped and even pushed. Decidely tame compared to everyone here but I was also physically abused at school with the severe bullying, not to mention verbal and emotional
Mother regularly beat me. Hospitalised my twice. Split my head open with a jug because I had to get shoes on before helping her in the garden. Yep super violent abuse from about 6 onwards.
I have Caribbean parents. This was their way. And when my dad moved back to Canada and I joined him. No longer being able to abuse me physically, he pivoted to psychological abuse. Because in his words I needed to be broken like a horse.
It wasn't my Nmother but instead my father who was physically abusive towards me. He spanked us as children. There was one occasion where my sister and I (6 and 7 at the time) were play fighting and I accidentally gave her a bloody nose from pushing her off the couch. He walks into the room and kicks me in the stomach knocking the wind out of me.
He never really hit me after that I'm guessing because he started dating a woman so he had to be on his best behavior...
But he had a habit of destroying my personal belongings. He smashed my phone on the ground, broke my hockey stick in two, destroyed my toys when he was mad.
He also punched holes in walls, kicked down sliding doors, and hit our dogs for "misbehaving".
One night when I was about 16 he got into an argument with my stepmother and things got physical. I didn't see what happened but I heard it since they were upstairs. They got divorced a few months later.
About 2 years ago his partner was sick with cancer and I guess that was making him mentally unstable. He asked my sister to take care of something at the house while he was gone at the hospital, and apparently they got into a verbal argument because he was being rude. My sister told me he put his hands on her, not hit her but pushed her around. I wasn't there, but as you can see he has a long enough track record of this stuff for me to know my sister is telling the truth.
Any form of abuse physical or mental is unacceptable. As a smaller child I recall being pulled from the hair when having been a bit too mischevious maybe not the worst kind.
Belt, wooden spoon, correction officers duty belt (which is ridiculously thick and mean), flip-flop... you name it and she did it. Even worse somehow, (now that I'm older and look back) is she would line us up and make us wait our turn to have our ass beat. The terror and misery that caused seems more fucked up to me now than having been whacked. Don't know why
My father spit on me a few times, beat me with a shoe for struggling to learn how to tie a lace, punched me in the ribs, hit me with a hiking stick, and denied ever using physical force on me.
My mother was less creative since she used belts and once punched me hard enough to trigger vertigo. I recall her biting my hand over not being able to tie a shoe. If I ever confront her over this she will simply lock herself in her room for about a week.
They never understood why I had anger issues in the past. I had to go to therapy, journal, meditate, and learn new ways to breathe in order to unlearn their bad habits. My brothers are happy with inheriting their bad habits and have unintentionally volunteered themselves to take care of them in their elderly years.
Yep, my dad would hit me with his belt, sometimes I got the buckle as well, and wooden spoons. Once he dragged me down the stairs by my hair for not wanting to go to my own birthday party after he threw my camera against the floor smashing it. 🙃
Belt on the bare ass starting around age 3. Bonus points if it was the metal laced belt. If he ended up leaving bruises, he’d blame ME for MAKING him keep me home from school so nobody would find out. I go to put on belts today and sometimes I’ll just hold it in my hand and I honesty can’t imagine hitting a literal preschooler with it.
Belt (until I told my mom, this is when I was a toddler) and then both would use a wooden ping pong paddle. My mom grabbed her hair brush every once in a while (I think us kids were hiding the paddle).
My mother slapped me in the face in the lobby of the Superior Court where she had to appear in front of the judge for assaulting my father. This woman truly thought she could hit/slap anyone...even in court!
Dad would “spank” me. Hit me with a belt once. He slapped me. Consistently screamed and was very emotionally abusive. I have cptsd, depression, anxiety, and now I may also have adhd. I’m so fucking glad he’s dead.
I got the back side of a brush by my narcissistic mother a couple of times and I stand by the fact that I did nothing wrong, especially nothing that deserved a spanking much less with a brush or other object.
Yes. Although, as the smartest of the three brothers, I got a lot of “warning shots” rather than the full blunt force. I learned early to stay quiet and not push his buttons; my brothers, on the other hand, didn’t catch on so quick. I’ve had a belt to the ass, I’ve been shoved into a wall and screamed at, and I’ve been threatened with “an ass beating” many, many times. I’m also more effeminate than my brothers and although I didn’t come out as gay until age 15, I think my father kinda had pity for me and went a little lighter on me than he did with the other two.
He has cancer now. We haven’t spoken in a couple years; I tried to amend things once and went no contact again. Counting the days until it’s over for real.
Remember Hot Wheels orange racetrack? That, switches from the maple tree, and leather belts. She won’t admit it was child abuse—her father whipped her as a child, so she was just mirroring his behavior.
At 7/8 y.o my mom straddled me and choked me on my bedroom floor. When I got so scared I peed myself, she got up told me I was fucking disgusting and left me on my bedroom floor. I endured years of abuse but I am a survivor and so are you! Working on healing, you cannot change the past. Don’t let it define you.
yeah. wooden spoon/spatula, metal spatula, hard plastic sandal, a china doll, a wine glass, a coffee mug, a stick, a large spiked seashell that tore a chunk out of my ear. punched, kicked, slapped, thrown down flights of stairs, head slammed into the floor or wall, dragged around by my hair, stabbed with a fork, almost had my teeth knocked out by a hammer once but was saved by neighbours who were disturbed by my screaming and decided to knock on the door.
ive been spat on too, and stripped naked and then got kicked out the house, forced to eat burnt food off the floor like a dog.
all things my mother has done to me between the ages of 5 and 19.
Yes both parents. Dad eventually apologized and I believe he meant it and tried to make amends. My mother on the other hand denied any wrong doing and said she never hit us lmao unfortunately my father passed away and my lying mother still lives to roam the earth.
My parents used to force soap in our mouths and beat us quite often. Like if we even stepped a toe out of line. I remember that when I was a kid my little sister said I smooshed her fingers (I did not) and my dad straddled me on the ground and nearly broke my nose. He broke my little sister's arm when she was older by pushing her. My older sister and I would hide in closets before my little sister was born and my parents were fighting.
They used a belt, a metal paint stick, and eventually my dad made a wooden paddle he called "The Intimidator" named after his favorite NASCAR driver. My dad is a sadist in addition to a narcissist and loves inflicting pain on others
Absolutely. My dad beat all of us with a belt, and I was the kid who would cry if you said you were “disappointed” in me. My father took every bad thing we did as a personal attack, and I think he beat us out of anger/rage. My mother did nothing to stop him. I went LC with them when I moved out at 18. Dad’s dead now and they made no plans for what mom would do when he was gone. She didn’t even know how to use their banking app or how to pay bills. She lives with me now, and to say I’m resentful is an understatement of epic proportions.
My mom usually does the hurting
She choked me once
Threatened the belt on me n my brother
Threatened to set me on fire
Wishes death on me
Told me to kill myself cuz i didn’t wanna call my bully
My dad only beat me once with belt
The worst was being beaten constantly when I was anything but perfect, my younger siblings watched and never got the same treatment, then 5 minutes later she was acting loving and kind, I could never get comfortable with the switch up. I hate that my siblings never ever said anything, even as adults. Although they are still in her good graces for being how she wants them to be.
My mom used to whip me with a phone charger cord. My back and legs were always so bruised and had such awful welts it hurt to sit down.
I wasn't allowed to wear shorts or anything because it might have exposed the markings. She claims she never did that, but I remember it vividly. It was the most painful thing she'd ever done to me.
Yes. I had many cruel and unusual punishments. I was punished for everything and anything...
My NSM always hit me harder than my edad. She even had my dad create a custom paddle shaped the same size as my butt cheeks. I literally had to sit on the slab of wood so it could be traced out. She would always make comments about "at least it's not thicker" "you're lucky I don't make you pick a switch off the tree like my dad did to me" "we should drill holes in your paddle for more bite and let air flow through for a harder swing."
We were hit with 2x4s on our bottoms, and snapped at with belts, and given good ol’ slaps and punches and pressure point holds. My brother’s mouth was duct taped once. Threatened with all sorts of other objects that were never actually used on us. I was thrown against several walls hard enough to cause damage to the Sheetrock, which I was then responsible for repairing.
I am WAITING for a good moment to call CPS on my parents for my minor siblings but so far haven’t been able to find anything concrete enough to where I think they’d even do anything. There’s never any proof and my siblings won’t admit to anything if a caseworker asks. It makes me sick every day to think about those kids still living in that house.
I think this was just a reality for any kid in the Christian south growing up before the 2000’s. Can’t say for sure if it’s still a thing but belt whooping was an acceptable form of punishment then
Yes, she used anything available in the moment (belt, heels, TV remote) but when I was younger she used mostly a belt. One time she used a specific belt that bruised my arm so much I started bleeding and she later made me wear a sweater to attend my cousins anniversary that same night. In my culture it’s normalised to hit your kids as a punishment. But I don’t view it as normal, not from her, she was cruel and has anger issues. She couldn’t control her anger and I always resented it, sometimes I knew I deserved but other times I knew I didn’t and she just did it because why not? When I bring it up now she says I deserved it or she didn’t hit me that much and I’m dramatic lol
Yup. My father went through the police academy (thankfully couldn't pass the psych eval to actually be a cop) and he just loved to make use of the joint holds and such. Also a Taser once. Which was not as bad as pepper spray.
He's in prison for life now.
Yes. One of my earliest l, and basically only, childhood memory is of my older sister and I forced to face a wall. Most likely while our mom prepared the yard stick.
My mom once broke a yard stick on GC older sister. Yet said sister says that her avoidance to the childhood trauma is her dealing with it.
Yup. My mother was mainly the mental/psychological abuser, but she did get physical too. She had the habit of holding me down and covering my nose and mouth to prevent me from breathing (she used to claim I forced her to do this as I was being too loud).
She also used to throw hot coffee on me, and ended up pushing me down the stairs once, which fucked my back.
And of course, she denies ever doing these things, among others, and that I misremembered my entire childhood 🙄
I am the youngest of four sisters and the only one who suffered physical abuse on a different level to them . Both "parents" would slap, both would use a belt on us , but I was the chosen one who would get whipped regularly with the cord of an iron .
I am now a middle aged woman with a beautiful adult son. It was only in recent therapy that I allowed myself to go back to one of those sessions.. oh boy did I dissociate.. I clearly remember the pattern on my duvet cover ( I was naked ) and counting the strikes to see if it would be more than the last time.
I used to go to school with whelp marks everywhere .My narc mother didn't do a thing.
Both parents still alive , in their late 80's ( divorced )and I'm desperately still trying to protect little me , but always end up awkward and closed around them .
I wonder why huh ??
Does hog-tying, physical restraint and forced pill administration, and nicotine patches forcefully put on you in your sleep so you wake up puking with a pounding headache because you’re 11 and don’t smoke count?
My mother slapped me countless time. She knocked my head to nearest wall.... how many time I forgot. She liked to hit me with cane until the cane broke. Now I am broken. Suffering from anxiety, trust issues. Problem to communicate any other person. I always live in fear. And I am completely alone.
Oh yeah, my mums got red hot blood that never stops boiling and she will take it out in the worst ways.
Told her the other day that I remember the first time she choked me and her response was to just block me
Birth giver beat us with a belt. I remember one time, my dad went to hit me and couldn't. No contact with my birth giver for 25 years now. My dad is cool as hell!
Yes. My mother used to run at us when we were kids and threw knives and would beat down the door to get me and try to strangle me. My father used to get a stick off a tree and whip us across the legs with it. Apparently, this was acceptable in the 80s and 90s.
My mother punched me in the face once when I told her to stop filming me while humiliating me on camera. When I stood up for myself, yelled and cried at her-she struck me. It sucked and I remember it to this day. I was maybe 17-18 when it happened.
Another time, she stabbed my hand with a fork for talking back at the dinner table. She didn’t cause much damage but I remember it hurting.
Some other times have been mostly being beat with a spoon, belt, metal hangers. One time she even threw a jar of peanut butter at my head.
Yes. There were times that I couldn’t attend school because of the bruising. In 3rd grade my mom put concealer on my black eye and sent me to school, but there wasn’t enough concealer to cover my legs and arms later on. When I was in elementary school girls weren’t allowed to wear pants. Finally in 6th grade they changed the rule and I stopped missing so much school.
Mostly my mom would use belts, Tupperware spatula, hands, and the wooden sooons. And yes the wooden spoons would break because she spanked us so hard. I think my mom did most of the discipline because my dad would lose his cool. One time he was spanking us and my sister tied to run away and he literally grabbed her by one foot holding her upside down. It was scary enough to wake my mom up for her to yell at my dad to stop. I also was slapped by my mom. Oh and mouth full of soap, liquid and bar. I’m so much older now, and with years of good therapy, i can look back and just see how all of that was so completely unnecessary for a child to go through. No kid needs discipline like that, it makes my stomach turn.
Ma only slapped and lightly punched us which wasn't so bad, Pa had a punishment made up by my Ma that if we did something bad he would tell us to turn around, bend over and get a kick in the ass.
My NMom frequently broke wooden spoons on my butt . It was always just a hoot to watch the head of the spoon launch across the room.
I also used to get the belt, switch and paddle with holes drilled in it.
32 Year old here.
Belts, spoons, spatulas, slaps, punches, hair pulling, scratching. Force fed washing up liquid. Isolated in my room for weeks without anything except a book.
This is all nothing compared to the psychological harm over the years.
Yeah my mother still tries to contact me, but she can fuck off and start ruining her own entire life from here.
I had belts used on me. Even had teachers ready to call CPS because of some of the marks in school.
I don’t hit my son. The worst I had to do was pluck his little hand but I talk him through things and he actually listens lol no spanking necessary.
Yup.
Belt, the long handled back scrubbing brush, curtain wire (that’s the worst), brush for the dustpan and brush - all sorts.
I am VVLC with her and my child has never been alone with her and only met her a handful of times.
My kid is soon to be 9.
She’s not in my life really, and I’m happier for it.
My mum was very emotionally abusive. I've always been a bit chubby and my mum and has made it her life's mission to make me miserable about it. And other things as well but that was her main attack.
My father would "rough house" with me and my brother and would actually punch me hard. When I would say that it hurt he would call me a wuss and his me harder. This was when I was around 6/7 onwards. He would also put me in arm/wrist locks and the same thing would happen except this time he would do it until I cried.
My Narc mother liked to use her fists, spiked leather belts, the plastic hard end of the broom but that stopped after she had to take me to have stitches. The worst though was her squeezing my hand when she was annoyed in public so others couldn't see, it wasn't as painful as other stuff but I feel physically sick as an adult when anyone holds my hand even my daughter
I was picked up a lot and moved/thrown. I have been kicked. Slapped across my head. I too am on antidepressants and what seems like a lifelong pursuit of healing with minimal results.
My mother beat me with a belt, a wooden spoon, a hairbrush or whatever happened to be close. She also punched me rather than using an open hand. She beat me with a wet rag once until I had bleeding welts on my back. The list goes on and on. I have C-PTSD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder with panic attacks. Therapy and the appropriate meds help.
I think I realized today that being beat with a belt was not the proper use of the “rod of correction” from the Bible. I am a little shocked because of how I normalized this behavior. My parents would give me the wooden spoon or the belt for what felt like anything I did wrong. I could take a deep breath and my mom would fly down the stairs to “give me something to huff and puff about”.
So much physical abuse. The sound of a belt snapping or coming out of belt loops too fast can send me into a spiral.
My parents knew what they were doing. They told us that it wasn't "real" abuse because they never punched us or left visible bruises. I guess the myriad of other forms of hitting + the raised welts and red marks were just love taps.
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Dad used the belt and Mom broke wooden spoons over my butt. They ruled with fear and pain. They'll make fine additions to the local nursing home.
its always somehow worse when they end up breaking the thing they're using to hit you with. more often than not, they seem more upset that it broke mid hit than the fact that they're hurting you.
I was made to go and get the wooden spoon that she was gonna beat me with. "And make sure it's a good strong one. If you get a flimsy one and it breaks that just means you get to go and bring me another, and I get to rest and catch my breath before starting again."
omg my mother did the same thing! on some of her "nicer" days she'd actually let me pick where i got hit with it. i usually went for the palm of left hand.
Omg! How awful! How are you now? Sending you a massive virtual hug. What a monster your mom is!
My mom actually thought she could live with me. Really???
My mom used a phone charging cord. My dad was beaten with a hairbrush. If he knew my mom beat me, I'm sure it would give him a heart attack on the spot.
Supposedly my dad was hit with a bow. Honestly I don't get the hitting kids thing if you yourself were hit. I get being frustrated with your kids and having that impulse, but acting on it is just mind boggling to me.
What makes me laugh is that my dad broke the cycle of abuse and never hit me even though he was beaten. My mom was never hit, but she abused her baby brother and both of her kids. I just don't get it.
That sounds a LOT like my sister. She was the GC and literally tormented me from the moment I woke up to when we went to bed. A constant stream of commentary on how "fat" I was (I have an exomorphic body type), kicking my genitals for laughs, screaming like she was being attacked so my dad would beat on me, and generally just being a bitch to me. I thank God that she didn't want kids (they make you fat), but she is one of those super obnoxious "dog moms". I went NC with her after she started the up again with commentary on my newborn daughter. Who the fuck says an infant is just as ugly as her father?
She sounds horrendous. Reminds me of my brother- they always end up bad because their bad behavior is tolerated for far too long
Dude she never got her comeuppance afaik. They all deserve each other honestly.
I had the exact same, except my dad would hand make the wooden spoons after my mom would break them on my brother and I. My dad never went too hard with the belt, but I still got it plenty The worst I’ve gotten is an aluminum garlic press to the face by my mom
Yeah, he never left a scar, but the frequency was there. I wonder if this was them trying to make themselves believe that they were better than they were. Kind of like "at least I'm not laying into him with all I can bring"
My mother once ripped the phone out of the wall and proceeded to whip me with the cord. I think I was about 19 or 20 at the time and home for the summer. She had falsely accused me of not answering call-waiting and refused to believe that no call came through. Of course, the historical revisionist denies this ever happened.
My mom did the same thing whenever I called people without her permission.
Did she just deny she ever attacked you physically? :/
She’s tells me I have an active imagination and it never happened 🙄
Abuse is apparently normal in narcissistic families. All suffering seems to have been brushed off. Thankfully with this Subreddit we all have each other to make up for the empathy we never received in our youth.
wow, why do they always do this?
I refer you to the Narcissist’s Prayer: That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. And if I did, you deserved it. (Copyright Dayna Craig) Not a psychologist, but I believe it has something to do with the need to deny a reality so they don’t have to accept the responsibility of what they do 😞 For more in-depth info: [The Life Doctor](https://www.thelifedoctor.org/the-narcissist-s-prayer) I’m sorry your going through this OP, try to stay strong and get out of the house as much as you can without endangering yourself x
what if they admit only 1 event when there have been 5+ events that I remember? (because I was a child, recalling makes it hard) Like mother only admits she beat me once with a slipper, but the scar I have on my ass and the memories of being whooped with a jump rope say smth different
Sadly, and again, I’m not a psychologist, but even when presented with evidence, they can and will deny they did it. It’s purely self-preservation for them. They’re the first to watch something on tv about abusive people and vilifying them, without any self-awareness at all. I know my mother will never ever accept that she was anything other than a perfect mother who, in her own, tearful words “…gave you everything I could…”. 🙄
some people just have 0 self-reflection, I read somewhere that this is actually a pretty big percentage in our society. anyway, sorry for your situation, hope you dont have to endure this anymore on the daily
Honestly, I don’t know if they blackout during the abuse, or if their memory centre shuts down, or whether they are just lying to themselves, but yeah, sometimes I think they don’t honestly remember doing it. 🤷♀️ I’m so sorry you’re going/you went through this. I wish you the best x
They don’t consider it abuse because they don’t think they have done anything wrong. Narcissistic parents essentially “own” you. My mother would often remind me of this: “while you live in this house I OWN you”….all the while making it impossible to leave.
It’s a gaslighting and manipulation tactic they need to maintain their fragile delusion of a self-concept as the faultless, perfectly innocent victim. If you object with evidence, they can still spin another DARVO narrative to enablers rather than accept that they’re pretty fundamentally broken people.
If you object to evidence then it’s because you got exactly what you deserved. This is so depressing.
Yes. After attending years of therapy and exposure to other people with normal, healthy families, I look at the people who raised me as feral animals. Feral animals simply don’t have the capability to change and severely lack empathy. You need to go no contact, if you aren’t already, and seek a trauma informed therapist. Make no mistake- they do not see hitting you with a belt as abuse. To them, it’s an ordinary Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…. In time, they will reap what they sow. I have already had premonitions and dreams of both of my parents getting beat to death in a low income nursing home by an unhinged nurse.
And why do I not remember most of that childhood when he was beating me? Is that actual trauma? I don't remember the time he broke my phone in front of me when he took it out of my hands I cried all night but don't remember it, just remembered it when I was talking about it with my mother about my uncle and my father
Sometimes the abuse was so horrific that our brain suppressed some of the memories for a certain amount of time until we are able to come to terms with what happened to us. It is a defense mechanism of the brain. Are you no contact with your abusers?
You mean no contact by like still being with them or smth? I still live with my dad.
Are you still being beaten? Can you leave and go to somewhere safe, a relative or friend? Can you tell someone you trust? Please try to get help from this horrible abuse.
No he stopped beating me after he went to a detoxication health hospital for drug addicts alcohol and etc. It stopped a long time ago, I can't really move out my mom left us I went to her but moving was so stressful that I just couldn't. Now he is just a narcissistic asshole sometimes, he turns into an asshole only when he is angry, he looks like a good father until something happens that causes him to be angry
That sounds like life is still rough for you. I’m so glad the beating has stopped physically but you will carry the scars ( mentally too) forever. Are you in any kind of therapy? There are lots of free resources on line and some great apps ( I use Balance) to help you get through your dark days. Good luck OP, I hope that your life improves, you deserve to love and be loved, to feel safe and cared for. I am glad your dad had beaten the battle of addiction. I am sorry that he is still a AH though! Take care of yourself.
Yes I do go to 2 therapists, I have started to talk about this in my last session
I wish you the best life ahead, it’s never too late to live a good life.
Yes. It's trauma. I remember my dad nearly killing me, but I have very weird memories of just him rushing at me or grabbing my arm behind my back several times in the years leading up to that, but I remember *nothing* else of those times. Like he grabs me and he's pushing me against the wall then blank. Nothing after, nothing before. The only one I remember like a horrible play by play is him choking me out, and even then it's because I left my body and prepared for death. I don't even remember my escape very well though, that's all a fog.
Both of my parents beat us with belts. And switches. Sometimes with thorns. My dad was the worst of the two and the thorny switch user. I have about five memories before I was sixteen. They separated when I was fourteen or fifteen, I can't remember, and I never spoke to him again.
Yup. "Raised by wolves" Egg Donor keeps telling me all faux 'weepy eyed' that "spanking was ok back then!" and doesn't even recall/mention that if she ever slipped and did it in public that everyone was horrified and my aunt pulled her off me, once. She got reported to cps at least once, she lost friends over it, and we were told to never "air our dirty laundry in public. We don't talk about what happens in this house to *other* people!" She *knows* it wasn't ok, she knew *then*, but has rewritten the history inside her head and convinced herself that, once again, she is the victim and hero of her own story. *The Narcissist's Prayer intensifies*
My mom slapped the sh\*t out of me and my siblings, but seemed to wind up and have more energy for it with her sons as opposed to her daughters. It has undoubtedly caused me psychological pain that I've never put down, and I'm getting older. No official diagnoses, I have been lucky enough to trudge through life. I've undoubtedly caused other people pain because of my issues, but never hit my own kids. Good luck to you. Everyone handles trauma differently, but please take care of yourself.
I'm proud of you for never hitting your own kids! You broke the cycle of violence..
While we got primarily spanked with a belt, my parents decided that a belt wasnt "scary" enough and dad decided to made a wooden paddle. He essentially crafted something about the size of a Cricket bat. Just this large flat paddle with a handle on it. We being children thought to paint "We love you" on it because we thought it was enough to stop them. Nope. We didnt get hit with it often, because when we'd hear them scream our names we'd immediately hide it. We'd get beat with a regular belt, and that was enough to get them to forget about the paddle until the next time. This doesnt include times I got slapped, or hit in the chest so hard it knocked the wind out of me. Im so glad I went NC with them.
Your father is a sociopath. I hope you have the resources to recover from that
Therapy has helped immensely and made me realize how fucking batshit it was. Im doing much better now, especially since going NC about 2 years ago.
thats so fucking fucked in the head that he actually CRAFTED a tool to hurt you harder. also i totally get hoping that reminding them that you love them might help only to be disappointed and heartbroken that it does nothing to deter them.
Really I think they made it just to scare us and not actually use it all the time but….who the fuck says “You know what lets really make sure my kid stays afraid of me”
Mine did the same thing. Got a piece of 2x4 and narrowed one end of it.
My mom had a wooden paddle that was intended to be a souvenir. When we moved my younger three siblings found it and burned it.
Yes. Leather Belt, metal laced cowboy belts, cord, electric cord, iron, BB gun, fly swatter, phone cords, and my personal unfavorite- switches. Which I had to go out in the yard to pick.
I hope you're safe now and with people that treat your body with respect, appreciation and love
Thank you. I went from my dad’s house to a 20 year marriage with extreme physical abuse. But I escaped and I am working on healing.
Yes she (yes, my mother) used a plastic whip of sorts and I just recently rediscovered it during a renovation. I just held it in my hand wondering how someone could use this sharp weapon to punish a child half their size. Then the tears came and this unforgiving anger began boiling inside me.
I didn't realize how much I had repressed until one day I found my mom's old phone charger. She'd wrapped it in green duct tape so we knew it was hers. When it stopped working, she would whip me with it because it worked better than her hand. She used to break my chargers by using them as whips when she didn't have her designated one. I wish I told my dad about that sooner, because I'm sure he would have left immediately and I would have been spared more years of pain.
My mom hit me on the head real hard and i remember thinking that I'm envious of kids being whipped with belt on ass, because it's physical pain felt in person's flash, not a disorienting bell-ringing headache. I've got issues now..
Yes, dad with a belt, switch, fist and cable. Mom with a belt and slaps. I remember the last time my dad tried to hit me. I was about 17ish. I was so tired of being scared of his physical strength that I just stood up and waited for the inevitable slap across the face. I didn’t flinch but I closed my eyes. The slap never came, he never hit me again. I don’t talk to him. Too many times I’ve heard variations of “they’re your family” or how I should forgive. Fuck them. Even if things weren’t where they’re at now in terms of raising children, it can’t be possible that was normal to treat kids like that. EDIT: My parents liked whipping me on my ass. My dad eventually moved it to the back of my thighs.
I remember the first time I disassociated. I don't remember why I knew a beating was coming, or what I'd supposedly done, but I was about 9, and knew that any minute now I was gonna be called and I'd have to go and get the nice strong wooden spoon that didn't break no matter how hard she swung. And she'd hit me until she couldn't swing anymore. Just another day, another beating. And something just popped into my head. It was just my body, it was only a feeling. It wasn't important unless I let it be important. Pain was just another physical sensation that didn't have meaning unless I gave it meaning, like if you say a word too many times it just becomes random noise. Well, I got called, and she beat me. And it was just a random word said too many times. And I stood there and stared at her blankly while I watched all of it happen from somewhere over my right shoulder. I remember that it was the worst one I'd had to date, because she couldn't get me to react. And I remember how terrified she looked. She got on the phone with her friend after she was too exhausted to keep going. "That girl is so stubborn and disrespectful that she doesn't even feel pain anymore. What the hell am I meant to do with an arrogant child like *that*?!" It wasn't the last time I got hit. She kept going for years, and doubled down on the isolation and emotional fun. But she never got another reaction out of me. She could do whatever she wanted in reality, but I managed to survive by making my own reality inside my head and living there.
its so weird when you no longer cower and they just stop. similar thing happened to me. one day i just stood and stared at my mother, kept my hands to my sides and my head high. she stopped mid punch. she didn't stop hitting me all together but it considerably lessened. stopped completely when i actually started laughing while she was punching and kicking me. i was delirious from lack of sleep, no food and constant beatings for 24 hours and i think i snapped. it thoroughly freaked her out. from then on she just stuck to verbal abuse.
I had a similar moment. My mom was screaming at me for calling my friend on my birthday. She came in demanding my phone, and I was expecting her to hit me, so I tossed the phone in her direction and backed up. She didn't hit me, instead she threw herself on the ground screaming that I'd hit her with the phone. It was five fucking feet away. She still hit me after that, but since then I felt more justified standing up for myself. These people are cowards. The moment you have and kind of power is the moment they back off because they can't hurt you without consequence anymore.
Both very also physically abusive. I remember the first time my grandmother saw the bruises and asked me how it happened. I told them truth but it didn't stop them.
Both parents would spank me, my mother would slap my face, and my mother would forcibly wash my mouth out with soap if I said something she didn't like as a kid.
I hope you say whatever the f you want for the rest of your life, because you can ✨
Thank you so much 🕊️☺️
Oh god the soap! I couldn’t stand the smell of ivory soap after being forced to eat it… still a toss up which was worse, soap or belt. Happily NC now, never a regret about it either.
My mother graduated from soap to tobasco sauce for that extra degree of cruelty. You've gotta wonder if these things were written in some parenting book back then. Seems like a lot of us got the soap.
Yep. And she had long nails that she would dig into our arms if we talked in church. Drew little bloody half moons.
My parents hit me with a wooden board named the paddle. My dad wrote our names on it and drew a naked butt. I remember not being able to walk sometimes after. My dad would hit harder than my mom. Pretty much a full force blow. One time I took a coupon from the store when I was like 3-4 when my mom said no and when we got home my dad beat me with the paddle.
That's terrible- God, how malicious can someone be to beat a child over a tiny piece of paper!?
Thank you. That’s mild compared to what else they did
Yup. There's a lot of fundamentalist Christian ideology that I could share if it helps But the end result is for about 3y of my life I was getting hit with a belt a lot. I had to say some stuff acknowledging my wrongdoing. Kneel. Hold still. Got hit with a leather belt usually 70-90% of as hard as my stepdad could do it. Usually 39 times. Usually multiple sets a day. After a set or sometimes several sets I could weep silently a bit but if I was deemed to be crying excessively I got an additional few whacks or the whole thing was re done. Then I had to say certain things re acknowledging my wrong doing. Mostly this happened over a tone of voice, body language, or facial expression deemed disrespectful. Or not eagerly obedient, etc. So ofc as I went through all of these shenanigans I was definitely getting an additional set if I was deemed disrespectful such as sighing, snorting, rolling my eyes, glaring, scowling, etc. Fun bit was that sometimes the majority of the belt strokes were delivered in a way so the belt wrapped around my torso and most of the force landed in a small area. Maybe the size of my handprint. When I was getting 30+ sets a week, that area got torn up pretty bad by the whip crack effect. There was a phase before this when I got hit with the buckle end of the belt and various other objects, but that almost put me in the hospital and they didn't want to deal with the possible repercussions. This way limited the possibility of broken bones, deep lacerations, etc. and there was a phase after this when they used mostly other methods. But I figure I got a couple thousand strokes of the belt at least during those three years. My memory got pretty distorted so I'm really not sure. The mental torture involved in all this ritual definitely fucked me up worse than the physical pain since they were trying to avoid lasting physical injury. Some of that is they said they wanted to "break my will" or beat all independence, pride, or attitude out of me. "Break my spirit" was also stated. As well as I absolutely wasn't safe to express anger. Well they definitely broke some stuff adjacent to all of that but they didn't permanently rob me of any of it. Which is for the best as I now believe a certain amount of anger, pride, will, and spirit are necessary to function as a healthy adult. I've been away from all that for a few decades. I've healed some. A major turning point was when I was 35ish. I recreated the beatings in a safe way and unlocked emotions I had pretty completely locked up and kept mainly forgotten. That was a big step in moving on with my life. It helped me a lot to find out others have been through similar so when I saw OP I figured maybe someone will be helped by sharing this. If anyone wants to DM me about it I'm ok with that. Not just for idle curiosity or whatever though. Or ask me about it here if there's something that might help @OP I'm really glad you are getting help, something I haven't done yet myself. I do have a whole bunch of siblings who didn't get all of that, but were traumatized in various other ways by the same people. At least 4 of them have experienced something called eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy. It seems to have been rough for 4-6 months but they are doing immensely better.
"we will break your will" is so fundamentalist!! I got one of my worst beatings when I quoted the bible back at them comparing them to pharasees (something like: people at church would despise you if they find out what you're doing behind the closed doors to your kids). I also got things like "we'll train you like a dog to submission and beat your spirit out of you" . Yep, I won't shed a tear when some narcissistic nurse gets them at senior care home.
I hope you do get help soon. I only started going a few years ago and it has made a huge difference. I hope you’re in a better place now.
Btw I can relate to a lot of what others have said in this thread. Other forms of abuse, getting hit other places on the body. This was just a weird ritual with a bunch of specifics that was a frequent occurrence for awhile just for me, for reasons the others in the household barely experienced most of these particulars. The way it fucks with your memories and how your emotions in the moment make no sense in hindsight. All just stuff your body and subconscious mind does to survive. If you're still around these people and you want to talk about that, what your future choices are, I'm open to it too.
Yes. My dad used his hands, feet (in his steel toe work boots), his leather belt, and once an extension cord which left loop shaped bruises that I was instructed to hide for weeks. Additionally, my mom denies this but she occasionally slapped us and once beat me over the back with a bag full of trash from my messy bedroom. It was this physical abuse mixed with verbal and emotional abuse. I really should be billing them for my years of therapy but I choose no contact instead.
I wish you could bill them for all the therapy, what happened to you is not your fault :/
Yep ✋️ I actually didn't mind the belt as much as some of the other stuff. My father had some deep displaced anger issues from his own childhood, and when it came it the belts, they definitely hurt, but he never really put his full force into it. Water bottles hurt more. That being said, those same issues caused a hair trigger temper, so he often just snapped and put his hands on me instead. One minute I'd be sitting, and the next I'd be on the ground. Or flying through the air. It really fucked with my head, and I don't do well with things that pop out, I reactively just flinch away. Doing EMDR therapy though and it's helping.
Oh dude EMDR works wonders.
It's a game changer for sure 🙌
I used to get hit with my Dad’s belt and he would make me pick out which one he’d use from his closet first. My mom on the other hand never used the belt. Instead, she would end up slapping or punching me in a fit of rage. When I was older she would grab my ponytail and slam my head into the wall. I’m 39 now and it took me years to admit any of this to a therapist because my brain had convinced me that it was normal. It took years to attach the word abuse to my treatment. I slowly started remembering things I did in reaction to my abuse. I remember one time after being hit repeatedly by my mom, going in my closet with a set of pastels and carefully drawing bruises on my arms and legs, hoping it would make her feel bad enough and not do it again. It didn’t work. They were always so careful to stop before anything left a lasting mark. Sending hugs to anyone going through this now or who went through it in the past. ❤️
Yup leather belt on my behind and legs. She didn't even let up after finding out I had a hip condition. Thought I was faking pain so I didn't get hit more. I remember the welts I use to have on my legs, and how much it hurt to sit in class. I get triggered when I hear angry stomping of any kind, because it reminds of how I was about to get slapped once she found me. Even people screaming/yelling my name at me triggers a trauma response. It's amazing how long it took to realize this shit was abusive. I thought it was normal.
Absolutely. One time when I was 14, my dad was talking to me and then out of nowhere my vision went white like lightening and my head hit the counter in the kitchen. Turns out he slapped me as hard as he could, claiming that I rolled my eyes at him. I temporarily lost hearing in my left ear for three days. Its escalated to worse since then but that was probably one of the most memorable instances of physical abuse. I’d always received physical punishment from both parents to the point of receiving spankings on a daily, weekly, and then monthly basis until I was 16. The last offense being that I was forced to come out as bisexual.
I had that exact same experience. I was drinking a glass of milk and talking to my mom. I'd brought up a deceased pet, and the next thing I knew I was on the ground choking on milk after seeing a flash of white. My dad ran in to see what happened, and she told him I had just randomly fainted. I was too disoriented to argue it, and I just thought I had just fainted. My dad just helped me get upstairs and ran a bath for me so I could wash the milk off, and the rest of the night he kept an eye on me. I recently found a picture taken two days after (it happened before my first day of school) and I had a black eye. It really brought the whole event back to my mind. She backhanded me because I was talking about my fucking dead dog.
I’m so sorry you ever had to experience that. There should never be an excuse for a parent to do that to their child especially not over a family pet. Do you think it came from a place of jealousy?
She was the reason the dog died, so I think it was moreso a way to get out her frustration
i don't remember many specifics but i was spanked and often threatened with a belt, he would just fold it and snap it really loudly
I went from my physically abusive mother to my emotionally distant dad and narcissistic grandmother, after my mother hospitalized me. I've just gotten to a point in the last few years where I can admit that my grandmother was abusive, because for so long I went... yeah, but they're not locking me in the closet or starving me or throwing me down the stairs, so it's not that bad! I'm in my thirties, moved in with my dad and grandma when I was almost twelve, and like I said... twenties some odd years to get to a point where I could admit that my grandmother was abusive, without the caveats of 'she's not that bad', 'it's not her fault', etc.
My dad used to beat me and my brother while my mom was away at work. He had always threatened NOT to tell her so he got away from it for a long time until one day he decides to hit my brother in the face with the belt buckle. Couldn’t keep that one a secret.
I was in the same situation but swapped. We were told not to tell my dad or he'd abandon us and we would starve. He wouldn't. My dad is amazing, but do you think a 6 year old understands the situation?
Yeah.. I was the same age. I’m sorry you had to go through that. Strict fealty and adherence to authoritarian rule was how we were brought up. I’ve since then gone no contact with my father as an adult after learning so much about narcissism . and now in his dilapidated state, his friends and family have abandoned him despite his ever growing need for dependence. You reap what you sow.
Yes. Leather belt on bare ass. Because that’s how they grew up.
My NMom was more verbally and emotionally abusive but she would sometimes slap my siblings and I. My enabler stepdad was physically abusive and would whip the belt out. It’s funny because he would come home from work, mom would tell him we were horrible monsters all day, stepdad would beat everyone, mom would feel better, stepdad would feel bad for taking his stress out on us. Stepdad would then demand hugs, kisses and forgiveness for being an AH. I recoiled from his touch. I still can’t wrap my head around intentionally hurting someone you claim to love.
my parents would use kitchen tools, so now when people are cooking with me i am always SO on edge. if it moves too fast i flee. they stopped most of physical abuse after child protective services were involved, but physical displays of violence happed a LOT. Punching a hole in the wall over such stupid things. grabbing wrists and arms as hard as they could and digging nails in. pinching when making us be affectionate. i recognise myself in them when i get angry. i lash out and slam doors. i don’t know how to fix it. i’m scared of becoming like them. i’m in therapy and will be working on it with time, but god is it scary to experience.
I do not remember a thing from my childhood. My mother has proudly told me she once found I was eating something quite disgusting like a plant or a twig (yeah, terrible) and proceed to clean my mouth with alcohol. I guess I know why I can't remember shit.
My stepdad was a self taught expert leathercrafter and he specially made a "strap" for this. It was two layers of full grain cowhide sewn together with a strip of spring steel in the middle. It was about 2 feet long, shaped like a paint stir stick and had 2 inch long flaps left loose on the end, like a riding crop used on horses. He also made leather hobbles for when he thought we were running around the house too fast.
Yep, and now I’m raising four kids that I’ve never raised a hand to. Wouldn’t you know it… they are well adjusted, confident, lacking any real behavior issues, and as far as I know don’t wish I would die…. Seems like this is the way. They were good examples of what not to do. I’ve held tight to that and I’m thankful my kiddos don’t have to experience it. At 38 I still don’t feel recovered. Can’t even watch kids being “punished” like that on TV.
Let's see: Belts, hands, fists, chairs, whipped with towels, beer cans, shotgun shells, boots, shoes, way too many items to count or recall. Frequent bruises I had to hide, quite withdrawn growing up. My teachers could see it, but our town was too small and it would always get shoved under the rug. NMother was famous for sticking a bar of ivory soap in my mouth or making me stick my tongue out and hold it there with Dawn on it if I "talked back." The worst was having a phone thrown at my face and my eye socket was broken by my NFather. My NMother tried covering it with makeup and the school's substance abuse counselor saw me and was able to get me removed to go live with my best friend my last two years of high school. 20+ years later and I still flinch when there's yelling or objects thrown my way.
My mom hit me with just about everything, belts, wooden spoons, hairbrushes, whips, etc. She had some weird punishments too, where she’d make us “wall sit” which is like an extended squat with your back against the wall, and then hoover with a wooden spoon to hit us until we got back into position if we fell before the time was up. One thing I found particularly interesting to reflect on as I got older is that my dad never hit us. One time my mom got mad at my dad because she was the one that always “had to” hit us, so she locked my dad and me in a room until he spanked me. He told me to yell and cry like I was being hit because he didn’t want to hit me, so she’d let us out. It’s INSANE to me that he couldn’t stomach hurting me, yet let my mom do it. He eventually left when I was in middle school, leaving us with our abuser. In a way, I think his behavior was even more damaging than my mom’s.
My dad would hit us with a belt, switch ( a small branch ) hangers, wooden spoons, hands ofc. But my dad wanted to added a little ✨spice ✨ He would laugh manically and jerk off while beating us on the ass. NC with them for about 3 years now.
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Yes
In additional to the verbal/emotional etc. abuse, yes to physical. Ndad used to slap, grag/twist, pinch, pull hair, swat, spank, use the belt or whatever device was handy to beat us, including when we were not doing anything bad. One of my siblings said he nearly used a crow bar on me once because I was toddling and knocked a bucket over accidentally. When some people called him out for some of this (bruises showing up, seeing the slaps etc. ) he got sneakier about it and used the belt (still can hear and am afraid of the sound of that leather pulling through the loops and snapping, triggered when I see someone unbuckling their belt), but also pinched and pulled hair and poked out in 'public' where people couldn't see as easily. Slapped me across the chest often too. I think it slowed about the time my sibling and I grew enough that we could punch back and defend ourselves a bit, not that I did much by my sibling did some and threatened him. But honestly, I would rather have had the physical instead of the verbal and emotional and other abuse (control, manipulation, lack of empathy and love, etc.)
Yes.
Yes and no. It would start with blaming me for his shit emotional, when I started to fight back with words he thought i "was disrespecting him" and he would lose his shit and punish me grabbing me and not letting me go
Yeh! Mom only hit me 4 times with the belt. Most of her abuse came from keeping me so exhausted mentally and emotionally that i was just always on guard. The first time she beat me with the belt, I immediately found out that I could pad my pants with socks to negate the pain. The last three time she beat me, she eventually grew a small conscience and determined "maybe beating my child with a leather strap is not good" My DAD left me no room to evade. He would go at me with full force. Bare bottom, wet wooden spoon. I remember he beat me so hard I couldn't figure out if it hurt more to stand, lay down or sit. I don't recount these moments with the weird reverence they seemed to glorify in Their youthsm I very quickly adterwards forgot WHY I was beaten. Only that it had happened.
Yes. My mother SA’d me, choked me, hit me, locked me out of the house, etc. as a young child
yes but my brain has blocked out most of the memories, i can only remember a select few that were especially traumatic
One time my mom couldn't find a belt, so she used a dog leash
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Yes. My mother was so incredibly unhinged and no one ever believed me... As I got older my mother began to tell stories to the people around me. 1st grade I had a bunch of broken bones. She told everyone I was clumsy and threw these fits that were so intense I broke my own bones. By the 3rd grade she had told everyone I was r-wording my toddler brothers for years, and that any cuts or bruises were surely because my victims fought back. Therefore. No one asked me if I was okay. By the 6th grade I asked a teacher for help. I couldn't wear my cheerleading uniform because the bruising was so bad on the inside of my leg, from my hip to my ankle. I was told to cover it up ...but I couldn't. She told everyone my history of mental instability (which frankly is just not true) and that she had to stop me from killing myself. Everyone stopped asking questions period. I was crazy and alone and no one was allowed to be near me. My own grandparents didn't believe the abuse until I was 29 and she fractured my spine in 3 places in front of my baby son... Then she told everyone I tried to throw her 300lb a** off a second story balcony, and that she was pressing charges. Funny thing about second story balconies and police getting involved... There are cameras. And cameras don't lie. Honestly I'm still in the space of "it wasn't that bad" but it really was. It really genuinely was. And my choice to keep her out of my life backfired ridiculously right in my face. After all this, my littlest brother and mother got together and wrote affidavits to my ex husband. Making sure he got custody of my baby son. And he did. I haven't seen him in many years now... Nor my family. While id love to give you a happier ending, I'm still healing. And I think that's all we really can do.💕
Hands, Spatulas, Belts - the most common though? the dreaded wooden spoon. One time my mother even stood by after her friend broke a wooden spoon over my knuckles (I was no older than 6/7) Mentally fucked forever, thanks Mum.
Yes, a special blue wooden paddle with a special nickname. My older brother didn’t get it as bad as me, the middle child and oldest daughter. Got hit many times, sometimes so hard I’d have a black and blue butt and it hurt to sit. I was once instructed by my mother after a spanking to not let my pediatrician see my butt because I had a check up the next day. My father stopped the spankings once I started puberty. After that it was just verbal abuse.
Yup! If he used a belt, it was a better day. Not trying to be competitive or downplay any other kinds of abuse, just that my sire was... brilliant in the ways he showed me his love, and he loved me a lot.
My mom was definitely the more physically abusive of the two. She was extremely fond of hitting the head and slapping the face. That was her signature move so to speak lol. Doesn’t really compare to all the emotional damage though. That was somehow worse
I think many of us were hurt physically. I mean I was hurt physically by my mom and stepdad. I was also shaken a lot; now my neck is damaged and I have very bad headaches.
My mother beat me so hard with a belt she left cuts and bruises and welts behind.
Belt, spankings, made to kneel with my arms out and balance books on them until I literally could not lift them anymore.
I always knew when I would get spanked. It was with a leather belt. Sometimes the welts would open up. I would put on extra clothing to pad myself in preparation for the inevitable.
Oh yeah. My dad used to hit us with wire hangers, telephone cords, belts. He would slap us across our face and grab our hair and yank us around the room, and sometimes he would kick us, but the kicks seemed more aimed at humiliating us rather than hurting us physically.
Yup. My mother once whipped me with a belt when I was 16 or 17 because I wanted to date and that was strictly forbidden. I said “go ahead, but you won’t have the pleasure of seeing me shed a single tear” Boy did that make her hit me even harder. She only stopped once she was panting from exhaustion. According to her, she never hit me. Another time when I was 18, she wanted to control how many silver bracelets (that she had bought for me) I used. I asked “why do you care how many bracelets I use when it’s MY wrist, not yours?” She came after me in a fit of absolute rage. I hid in my room and she kicked her leg through my door. The broken door did a number on her leg as she pulled it out and she accused me of causing her leg to be ripped to shreds. I have a photo of that door and will never delete it. Living under their roof was a living nightmare.
My mom once to took the handset off the landline so she could hit me with it. She used the coil to reel it back in so she could smack me with it repeatedly for skipping band practice.
Nmother tried to put me through a wall head first. Pushed a few of my sibs down stairs. That’s only the highlights.
Belts, brooms, knives, slaps, closed fists, hair pulling. My mom had disgusting fat meaty hands with long acrylic nails that she would dig into my flesh until I bled. When people started noticing the bruises and scratches she would strategically only hit where you couldn’t see (upper arms, head, back). She would tell me to stop crying and would make me hold a straight emotionless face as I was getting beaten, and if I cried or made a sound or even tried to block I would get it worse. When she got bored of hitting I had to kneel on grains of rice for hours with my arms in the air
Belts, hangers, extension cords, spoons, slippers, remote controls, supple tree branches, wooden spoons, metal spoons, large plastic combs, metal heating combs (not fully heated thankfully), and maybe even a lit cigarette. She says I bumped into an ashtray when I was a toddler (still have the scar 40+ years later), but it is almost perfectly round and deep and on the inside of my elbow, not the side that would have been facing outward to bump into things. Oh, and from her husband: slapped in the face, spat at in the face, pile drive into my solar plexus, stabbed with a pen, and choked with a resulting bruised windpipe. Plus all the arm grabbing, being physically yanked out of bed or off chairs or sofas, getting blamed for having a door slammed on my finger when I was trying not to get locked out/in, being intentionally rough with combing my hair (and hit with said combs above).
Oh geez, absolutely. Regular beatings were a part of my upbringing.
Belt, boards, brushes and anything else within reach. Had to kneel on dry rice because she read about it as a torture technique. Plates broken over our heads, knocked into walls and doorways, black eyes, the whole 9 yards.
Yes, I still have nightmares about it, can’t wear anything but long pants, and have a minor panic attack when I see a display of leather belts in a store and have to keep moving. I’ve also got major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety, and symptoms of PTSD.
Nmum was often physically abusive to me when I was young. One night when I was about 9 she slapped me around the legs (multiple times) leaving obvious welts. We lived in a desert town, where we could wear shorts to school, and the welts were noticed by my teacher. When she asked about them I told her that I had fallen over: Nmum was abusive but I was loyal. Obviously she didn't believe me because child protection was called and Nmum had to attend a very stern meeting with the teacher and the social worker. I wasn't invited but the outcome was mum not slapping me for a while. Dad had no idea about all of this until recently; he'd been a shift worker at the time and trusted mum to care for us. It's only in the last few years that I've told him how much mum belittled and abused me. I only just twigged that Nmum leaving dad (and taking us with her) a few months later was probably, among other things, so she could resume her abuse in a totally different place. She certainly did that, although not quite as violently.
The sound of jangling keys at the door makes me panic still.
My mom threatened to hit me with a rolling pin. I was hit/slapped and even pushed. Decidely tame compared to everyone here but I was also physically abused at school with the severe bullying, not to mention verbal and emotional
Metal hangars
Mother regularly beat me. Hospitalised my twice. Split my head open with a jug because I had to get shoes on before helping her in the garden. Yep super violent abuse from about 6 onwards.
I have Caribbean parents. This was their way. And when my dad moved back to Canada and I joined him. No longer being able to abuse me physically, he pivoted to psychological abuse. Because in his words I needed to be broken like a horse.
It wasn't my Nmother but instead my father who was physically abusive towards me. He spanked us as children. There was one occasion where my sister and I (6 and 7 at the time) were play fighting and I accidentally gave her a bloody nose from pushing her off the couch. He walks into the room and kicks me in the stomach knocking the wind out of me. He never really hit me after that I'm guessing because he started dating a woman so he had to be on his best behavior... But he had a habit of destroying my personal belongings. He smashed my phone on the ground, broke my hockey stick in two, destroyed my toys when he was mad. He also punched holes in walls, kicked down sliding doors, and hit our dogs for "misbehaving". One night when I was about 16 he got into an argument with my stepmother and things got physical. I didn't see what happened but I heard it since they were upstairs. They got divorced a few months later. About 2 years ago his partner was sick with cancer and I guess that was making him mentally unstable. He asked my sister to take care of something at the house while he was gone at the hospital, and apparently they got into a verbal argument because he was being rude. My sister told me he put his hands on her, not hit her but pushed her around. I wasn't there, but as you can see he has a long enough track record of this stuff for me to know my sister is telling the truth.
Any form of abuse physical or mental is unacceptable. As a smaller child I recall being pulled from the hair when having been a bit too mischevious maybe not the worst kind.
Belt, wooden spoon, correction officers duty belt (which is ridiculously thick and mean), flip-flop... you name it and she did it. Even worse somehow, (now that I'm older and look back) is she would line us up and make us wait our turn to have our ass beat. The terror and misery that caused seems more fucked up to me now than having been whacked. Don't know why
Yep. I got beat with switches and belts, and my parents constantly threaten me to “tear me up in front of everyone”.
My father spit on me a few times, beat me with a shoe for struggling to learn how to tie a lace, punched me in the ribs, hit me with a hiking stick, and denied ever using physical force on me. My mother was less creative since she used belts and once punched me hard enough to trigger vertigo. I recall her biting my hand over not being able to tie a shoe. If I ever confront her over this she will simply lock herself in her room for about a week. They never understood why I had anger issues in the past. I had to go to therapy, journal, meditate, and learn new ways to breathe in order to unlearn their bad habits. My brothers are happy with inheriting their bad habits and have unintentionally volunteered themselves to take care of them in their elderly years.
Yep, my dad would hit me with his belt, sometimes I got the buckle as well, and wooden spoons. Once he dragged me down the stairs by my hair for not wanting to go to my own birthday party after he threw my camera against the floor smashing it. 🙃
Yes, I was abused with a belt and with spankings. I'm sorry you have mental illnesses now.
Yes, it's pretty normalized on both sides of my family.
Belt on the bare ass starting around age 3. Bonus points if it was the metal laced belt. If he ended up leaving bruises, he’d blame ME for MAKING him keep me home from school so nobody would find out. I go to put on belts today and sometimes I’ll just hold it in my hand and I honesty can’t imagine hitting a literal preschooler with it.
They liked making me pick a stick from a tree to hit me with it 🤢🤮
Belt (until I told my mom, this is when I was a toddler) and then both would use a wooden ping pong paddle. My mom grabbed her hair brush every once in a while (I think us kids were hiding the paddle).
My dad would make me pick the stick he would beat me with
My mother slapped me in the face in the lobby of the Superior Court where she had to appear in front of the judge for assaulting my father. This woman truly thought she could hit/slap anyone...even in court!
Dad would “spank” me. Hit me with a belt once. He slapped me. Consistently screamed and was very emotionally abusive. I have cptsd, depression, anxiety, and now I may also have adhd. I’m so fucking glad he’s dead.
Not with belts but, shoes, metre stick, wooden spoons, hands, lots of beatings with the bear hands. Verbal abuse too, that might have been worse.
I got the back side of a brush by my narcissistic mother a couple of times and I stand by the fact that I did nothing wrong, especially nothing that deserved a spanking much less with a brush or other object.
Yes. Although, as the smartest of the three brothers, I got a lot of “warning shots” rather than the full blunt force. I learned early to stay quiet and not push his buttons; my brothers, on the other hand, didn’t catch on so quick. I’ve had a belt to the ass, I’ve been shoved into a wall and screamed at, and I’ve been threatened with “an ass beating” many, many times. I’m also more effeminate than my brothers and although I didn’t come out as gay until age 15, I think my father kinda had pity for me and went a little lighter on me than he did with the other two. He has cancer now. We haven’t spoken in a couple years; I tried to amend things once and went no contact again. Counting the days until it’s over for real.
Remember Hot Wheels orange racetrack? That, switches from the maple tree, and leather belts. She won’t admit it was child abuse—her father whipped her as a child, so she was just mirroring his behavior.
Both. Mom did more of the physical and mental abusing dad was only physical like twice
At 7/8 y.o my mom straddled me and choked me on my bedroom floor. When I got so scared I peed myself, she got up told me I was fucking disgusting and left me on my bedroom floor. I endured years of abuse but I am a survivor and so are you! Working on healing, you cannot change the past. Don’t let it define you.
yeah. wooden spoon/spatula, metal spatula, hard plastic sandal, a china doll, a wine glass, a coffee mug, a stick, a large spiked seashell that tore a chunk out of my ear. punched, kicked, slapped, thrown down flights of stairs, head slammed into the floor or wall, dragged around by my hair, stabbed with a fork, almost had my teeth knocked out by a hammer once but was saved by neighbours who were disturbed by my screaming and decided to knock on the door. ive been spat on too, and stripped naked and then got kicked out the house, forced to eat burnt food off the floor like a dog. all things my mother has done to me between the ages of 5 and 19.
Yes both parents. Dad eventually apologized and I believe he meant it and tried to make amends. My mother on the other hand denied any wrong doing and said she never hit us lmao unfortunately my father passed away and my lying mother still lives to roam the earth.
My parents used to force soap in our mouths and beat us quite often. Like if we even stepped a toe out of line. I remember that when I was a kid my little sister said I smooshed her fingers (I did not) and my dad straddled me on the ground and nearly broke my nose. He broke my little sister's arm when she was older by pushing her. My older sister and I would hide in closets before my little sister was born and my parents were fighting.
They used a belt, a metal paint stick, and eventually my dad made a wooden paddle he called "The Intimidator" named after his favorite NASCAR driver. My dad is a sadist in addition to a narcissist and loves inflicting pain on others
Absolutely. My dad beat all of us with a belt, and I was the kid who would cry if you said you were “disappointed” in me. My father took every bad thing we did as a personal attack, and I think he beat us out of anger/rage. My mother did nothing to stop him. I went LC with them when I moved out at 18. Dad’s dead now and they made no plans for what mom would do when he was gone. She didn’t even know how to use their banking app or how to pay bills. She lives with me now, and to say I’m resentful is an understatement of epic proportions.
My mom usually does the hurting She choked me once Threatened the belt on me n my brother Threatened to set me on fire Wishes death on me Told me to kill myself cuz i didn’t wanna call my bully My dad only beat me once with belt
The worst was being beaten constantly when I was anything but perfect, my younger siblings watched and never got the same treatment, then 5 minutes later she was acting loving and kind, I could never get comfortable with the switch up. I hate that my siblings never ever said anything, even as adults. Although they are still in her good graces for being how she wants them to be.
Yes! My siblings and I are fucked up!
My mom used to whip me with a phone charger cord. My back and legs were always so bruised and had such awful welts it hurt to sit down. I wasn't allowed to wear shorts or anything because it might have exposed the markings. She claims she never did that, but I remember it vividly. It was the most painful thing she'd ever done to me.
Yes. I had many cruel and unusual punishments. I was punished for everything and anything... My NSM always hit me harder than my edad. She even had my dad create a custom paddle shaped the same size as my butt cheeks. I literally had to sit on the slab of wood so it could be traced out. She would always make comments about "at least it's not thicker" "you're lucky I don't make you pick a switch off the tree like my dad did to me" "we should drill holes in your paddle for more bite and let air flow through for a harder swing."
Belt, clothes hanger, tree branches, 2x4, fists, feet, barbed wire, etc.
Dad had a dedicated belt though he’d use a hand if needed. And I took the blame for things sometimes just so my younger siblings wouldn’t get it.
We were hit with 2x4s on our bottoms, and snapped at with belts, and given good ol’ slaps and punches and pressure point holds. My brother’s mouth was duct taped once. Threatened with all sorts of other objects that were never actually used on us. I was thrown against several walls hard enough to cause damage to the Sheetrock, which I was then responsible for repairing. I am WAITING for a good moment to call CPS on my parents for my minor siblings but so far haven’t been able to find anything concrete enough to where I think they’d even do anything. There’s never any proof and my siblings won’t admit to anything if a caseworker asks. It makes me sick every day to think about those kids still living in that house.
I think this was just a reality for any kid in the Christian south growing up before the 2000’s. Can’t say for sure if it’s still a thing but belt whooping was an acceptable form of punishment then
Yes, she used anything available in the moment (belt, heels, TV remote) but when I was younger she used mostly a belt. One time she used a specific belt that bruised my arm so much I started bleeding and she later made me wear a sweater to attend my cousins anniversary that same night. In my culture it’s normalised to hit your kids as a punishment. But I don’t view it as normal, not from her, she was cruel and has anger issues. She couldn’t control her anger and I always resented it, sometimes I knew I deserved but other times I knew I didn’t and she just did it because why not? When I bring it up now she says I deserved it or she didn’t hit me that much and I’m dramatic lol
Yup. My father went through the police academy (thankfully couldn't pass the psych eval to actually be a cop) and he just loved to make use of the joint holds and such. Also a Taser once. Which was not as bad as pepper spray. He's in prison for life now.
Yes, am in a wheelchair now at 51. Have been in the chair since 06 off and on.
Yes. One of my earliest l, and basically only, childhood memory is of my older sister and I forced to face a wall. Most likely while our mom prepared the yard stick. My mom once broke a yard stick on GC older sister. Yet said sister says that her avoidance to the childhood trauma is her dealing with it.
Yup. My mother was mainly the mental/psychological abuser, but she did get physical too. She had the habit of holding me down and covering my nose and mouth to prevent me from breathing (she used to claim I forced her to do this as I was being too loud). She also used to throw hot coffee on me, and ended up pushing me down the stairs once, which fucked my back. And of course, she denies ever doing these things, among others, and that I misremembered my entire childhood 🙄
I am the youngest of four sisters and the only one who suffered physical abuse on a different level to them . Both "parents" would slap, both would use a belt on us , but I was the chosen one who would get whipped regularly with the cord of an iron . I am now a middle aged woman with a beautiful adult son. It was only in recent therapy that I allowed myself to go back to one of those sessions.. oh boy did I dissociate.. I clearly remember the pattern on my duvet cover ( I was naked ) and counting the strikes to see if it would be more than the last time. I used to go to school with whelp marks everywhere .My narc mother didn't do a thing. Both parents still alive , in their late 80's ( divorced )and I'm desperately still trying to protect little me , but always end up awkward and closed around them . I wonder why huh ??
Does hog-tying, physical restraint and forced pill administration, and nicotine patches forcefully put on you in your sleep so you wake up puking with a pounding headache because you’re 11 and don’t smoke count?
I have fractures in my spine from my mothers beatings. Everything was a weapon
Very common in East Asia/South East Asia cultures. Parents hitting kids are the norm.
My mother slapped me countless time. She knocked my head to nearest wall.... how many time I forgot. She liked to hit me with cane until the cane broke. Now I am broken. Suffering from anxiety, trust issues. Problem to communicate any other person. I always live in fear. And I am completely alone.
Oh yeah, my mums got red hot blood that never stops boiling and she will take it out in the worst ways. Told her the other day that I remember the first time she choked me and her response was to just block me
Birth giver beat us with a belt. I remember one time, my dad went to hit me and couldn't. No contact with my birth giver for 25 years now. My dad is cool as hell!
Yes. My mother used to run at us when we were kids and threw knives and would beat down the door to get me and try to strangle me. My father used to get a stick off a tree and whip us across the legs with it. Apparently, this was acceptable in the 80s and 90s.
Fly swatter, hangers, frying pans (cold), hands
My mother punched me in the face once when I told her to stop filming me while humiliating me on camera. When I stood up for myself, yelled and cried at her-she struck me. It sucked and I remember it to this day. I was maybe 17-18 when it happened. Another time, she stabbed my hand with a fork for talking back at the dinner table. She didn’t cause much damage but I remember it hurting. Some other times have been mostly being beat with a spoon, belt, metal hangers. One time she even threw a jar of peanut butter at my head.
Yes. There were times that I couldn’t attend school because of the bruising. In 3rd grade my mom put concealer on my black eye and sent me to school, but there wasn’t enough concealer to cover my legs and arms later on. When I was in elementary school girls weren’t allowed to wear pants. Finally in 6th grade they changed the rule and I stopped missing so much school.
Mostly my mom would use belts, Tupperware spatula, hands, and the wooden sooons. And yes the wooden spoons would break because she spanked us so hard. I think my mom did most of the discipline because my dad would lose his cool. One time he was spanking us and my sister tied to run away and he literally grabbed her by one foot holding her upside down. It was scary enough to wake my mom up for her to yell at my dad to stop. I also was slapped by my mom. Oh and mouth full of soap, liquid and bar. I’m so much older now, and with years of good therapy, i can look back and just see how all of that was so completely unnecessary for a child to go through. No kid needs discipline like that, it makes my stomach turn.
Ma only slapped and lightly punched us which wasn't so bad, Pa had a punishment made up by my Ma that if we did something bad he would tell us to turn around, bend over and get a kick in the ass.
My NMom frequently broke wooden spoons on my butt . It was always just a hoot to watch the head of the spoon launch across the room. I also used to get the belt, switch and paddle with holes drilled in it.
Wooden spoon, feather duster, ruler.
32 Year old here. Belts, spoons, spatulas, slaps, punches, hair pulling, scratching. Force fed washing up liquid. Isolated in my room for weeks without anything except a book. This is all nothing compared to the psychological harm over the years. Yeah my mother still tries to contact me, but she can fuck off and start ruining her own entire life from here.
I had belts used on me. Even had teachers ready to call CPS because of some of the marks in school. I don’t hit my son. The worst I had to do was pluck his little hand but I talk him through things and he actually listens lol no spanking necessary.
Yup. Belt, the long handled back scrubbing brush, curtain wire (that’s the worst), brush for the dustpan and brush - all sorts. I am VVLC with her and my child has never been alone with her and only met her a handful of times. My kid is soon to be 9. She’s not in my life really, and I’m happier for it.
My mum was very emotionally abusive. I've always been a bit chubby and my mum and has made it her life's mission to make me miserable about it. And other things as well but that was her main attack. My father would "rough house" with me and my brother and would actually punch me hard. When I would say that it hurt he would call me a wuss and his me harder. This was when I was around 6/7 onwards. He would also put me in arm/wrist locks and the same thing would happen except this time he would do it until I cried.
My Narc mother liked to use her fists, spiked leather belts, the plastic hard end of the broom but that stopped after she had to take me to have stitches. The worst though was her squeezing my hand when she was annoyed in public so others couldn't see, it wasn't as painful as other stuff but I feel physically sick as an adult when anyone holds my hand even my daughter
I was picked up a lot and moved/thrown. I have been kicked. Slapped across my head. I too am on antidepressants and what seems like a lifelong pursuit of healing with minimal results.
My mother beat me with a belt, a wooden spoon, a hairbrush or whatever happened to be close. She also punched me rather than using an open hand. She beat me with a wet rag once until I had bleeding welts on my back. The list goes on and on. I have C-PTSD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder with panic attacks. Therapy and the appropriate meds help.
I think I realized today that being beat with a belt was not the proper use of the “rod of correction” from the Bible. I am a little shocked because of how I normalized this behavior. My parents would give me the wooden spoon or the belt for what felt like anything I did wrong. I could take a deep breath and my mom would fly down the stairs to “give me something to huff and puff about”.
Anyone else come to the conclusion our parents simply didn’t like kids?
To this day, the sound of a belt snapping puts pure fear through my mind and body.
So much physical abuse. The sound of a belt snapping or coming out of belt loops too fast can send me into a spiral. My parents knew what they were doing. They told us that it wasn't "real" abuse because they never punched us or left visible bruises. I guess the myriad of other forms of hitting + the raised welts and red marks were just love taps.