#“If I wanted hear mature grown ass adults gaslighting me I would just stay at home”- Amity

[drawer-ghost]

I am sorry.

[teaboot]

Hi there! I want to ask you something, but feel completely free to not do so if it makes you uncomfortable ok? It's because my best friend comes from an abusive house, and I just wanted to understand better about this uncomfortable feeling you mentioned in your last post, if it's ok :)

A warning in advance for discussion of abuse.

The experience of being in an abusive situation as a child is different for everyone, and I can only truly speak for myself.

For me, the process of realizing it WAS abusive took the longest time- much longer than it took to realize instinctively that something about it wasn't normal.

From my memories of being a young child, my first sort of awareness that I was being treated unfairly was when I was tasked with chores, and no matter how hard I worked or for how long, somehow it was never *done*. Cleaning my room, my parent would come in, take a look, and tell me, "it's a good start".

That was the first time I was conciousness aware of my parent being unfair. The first time their actions weren't automatically rationalized as 'they're the adult, they're doing the right thing' before I had the chance to actually think about it. That was an important step, and I was about five years old when the concept occurred to me: my best work does not impress them. They expect more. I must try harder.

From there came a greater awareness, but no deeper understanding. They would yell when work wasn't completed, despite not having made it clear what work was expected. A common order was, "if you see something that needs doing, do it". Perhaps an expectation an employers may have of an employee, but in hindsight, not a fair standard to set for a child of six years.

My solution? The first experiment, and the first act of rebellion: Be Perfect, Always, All The Time. It seemed simple. Do everything I could think of to 'be good', to the absolute maximum letter of the law, and if they came to yell anyways, I could ask them why, and they wouldn't have an answer. They would feel foolish, I would be validated as a good child, all would be right in the world.

It turns out that perfection is impossible. Nobody had told me that at the time, do that was a fun discovery. Not only that, but no matter how close I came to it, it still wasn't enough; even while actively focusing my efforts to be the quietest, politest, hardest-working child, nothing was good enough.

Slowly, over a period of years, I came to the conclusion that meeting their expectations was beyond my ability, and that their praise or approval wasn't something I had any real hope of attaining.

Even then, though, they weren't abusive. Not in my eyes, at least. Abuse was something unspeakably horrifying, not something normal and boring and everyday as simply having high expectations, strict rules, a harsh tone, no respect for personal boundaries, regular threats of bodily harm, invasions of privacy...That wasn't abuse. That was Tuesday, 3:30 PM. The concept of 'abuse' was like... Something that happened to other people, like house fires or car accidents or cancer. They were things that I sort of knew existed, in an abstract way, but not things I associated with myself.

I read a lot of books, growing up. Looking back, it was probably escapism. I woke up to read, read on the bus to school, read during class, during recess, after class, on the bus home, at home, before dinner, after dinner, outside, inside, in the bathroom, in bed, under the covers, and while dreaming. When I was punished, sometimes I wasn't allowed to read. Sometimes my books were confiscated. Once they came into my room and pulled everything out of my bookshelf and onto the floor, then left me to clean up the mess. Books and fantasy were my life more than my life was my life. Later, as I started writing, I'd lose that, too. Stories were the best things in the world, and they became an odd sort of arms race.

It was while reading that I learned the most important things I know and where I adopted my favourite parts of myself- An awareness of others. A respect for strength and perseverance. A resolve to withstand pain and hardship. Self-sacrifice. Kindness. Maturity. Determination.

Books were where I looked to find people I admired, and where I learned to recognize the behaviors of a villain.

Interestingly enough, the characters I wanted to be like and the characters that turned out to be evil did not coincide. At all. In fact, the person I looked up to who acted most like the villains did lived in my house.

So, something was obviously wrong. As the internet came within reach, I had access to stories my library didn't have: fictionpress.net and fanfictiction.net; stories written by people my age for people my age. And a lot of stories discussed things like depression, child abuse, suicidal ideation, self-harm, isolation, etcetera.

Which blew my goddamn mind, because holy shit. Holy shit, that's me. Why is it tagged 'abuse'? That happened to me. Am I being abused? I don't have it THAT bad. Maybe I'm blowing things out of proportion.

Better look up the dictionary definition of 'abusive behavior' just in case. And 'clinical depression', because geez that seems familiar.

Cue two to four years of on-again-off-again obsessive research into long and short term effects of emotional, psychological, and physical abuse, as well as how to recognize abusive and manipulative behavior in others.

This all led to a very quiet, nagging, persistant realization: Holy shit, am I being abused?

Yes. Yes I was. My parents refused to acknowledge that anything was outside the ordinary, but I became aware of it. Threats. Gaslighting. Holding friends, family, and pets hostage as a tool of control. The physical isolation. The unreasonable standards. The hair-pulling, slapping, grabbing, humiliation, name-calling. Not just me deserving something terrible, but actions I didn't deserve that never should have happened.

And then one day, I went camping.

And somewhere nearby, I heard a father and his daughter arrive in their car to their own campsite, right next door.

And I hear him tell her, "Wow, we made it! Let's have a hug for the trip!"

Nonsense. Long drives happen. Why does that deserve a hug? Sappy and ridiculous.

Then the kid starts running around and screaming. Obviously shitting themselves with excitement. Being a nuisance. Disturbing the quiet. Running ruckshot, not helping the father set up camp at all.

And instead of telling her to shut up and be more considerate, or giving her a job to keep her busy, or hissing something else, he just... Let her. And it was annoying. Irritating. An aggravation that got under my skin like nothing else, because I never would have gotten away with that kind of behavior.

Hell, I never would have considered acting like that at her age. What was she, seven or so? Eight? I knew better at her age. That sort of shreiking and horseplay would have gotten me slapped, and I would have deserved it for being such an obnoxious, ignorant little puke.

Then I realized I wasn't breathing.

I wasn't moving.

I was sitting perfectly still, in a tent, in the middle of the woods, all alone, waiting to jump in.

Waiting to run out into the next camp and intervene.

Because soon enough he was going to get sick of playing the fun dad, and he was going to start screaming, and then he was going to hit her, and I'd have to stop him and make sure she was safe, because she was just a small little kid who was happy to be there and he was a grown ass man who knew better and if he so much as stepped harshly in her direction then I was going to tear his lungs out through his fucking throat, because she doesn't deserve that.

Because she's just being a kid.

Because I was just a kid.

So why did it happen to me?

I spent the rest of my time there hiding in my tent, one part too scared of my own shadow to come out and maybe actually see these people or God forbid talk to them and have to act like I wasn't losing my mind being within a thousand miles of them and an equal part ready to sprint out at a moment's notice if things got ugly the way I was used to.

And through the tarp I heard laughing, and jokes, and the father mentioning a mom coming to visit who apparently shared custody and still stayed friends, and a few more requests for a hug, and the girl put up some arguments over bedtime here and there but not even once did the father even raise his voice.

The screaming never came.

On Sunday morning, they packed up and left, and I never even saw their faces.

It's been a few years since then. I started therapy. Started keeping a journal. Work on cognitive behavioral homework so I can recognize when I'm being a bad parent to myself, so I can be kinder and more aware of my thoughts and actions. It's helped a lot. I still remember things sometimes that bother me, but they don't affect me the way they used to, and I'm not the scared and angry person I used to be.

So, yeah. Seeing something normal and healthy when you're not expecting it can be a bit of a jolt, and it can be a bit extra distressing if you're alone and unprepared.

Sorry for the long post. Hope it helps

[drawer-ghost]

Self reblog cuz it's still epic(+my old tags cuz I think they are gold

I am sorry.