Emotional Abuse: The Quiet Killer

Not sure if you’ll see this, John, since I am way late to the game here, but man, your comment really hit a nerve. I recognize quite a bit of myself in your words, although my abuser was my mom. She beat me, mentally abused me, has called me a f***ing b*tch, said “f*** you” numerous times, told me I was crazy on many occasions, threatened physical violence against me when she wasn’t beating me, you name it. The feeling of living in a time warp from back when we were in our formative years seems to be pretty common, since they attempted to arrest our development and tear us down back in those days. But because we have stayed strong and held on to our very correct perceptions and convictions that they were the wrong ones (to abuse us, manipulate us, outright lie to us), our development has not actually been arrested. In short, although we may feel like overgrown teenagers and although we may struggle with the demands of adulthood, we have made the crucial first step of recognizing the abuse heaped upon us and how wrong it is. We are aware of our enemy, therefore we can begin the fight against him/her.
And oh, do I hear you on no one else stepping in to do something about the abuse they had to at least suspect was going on. I never told anyone about my mom beating the crap out of me, gaslighting me into a char, lying over and over to me, and calling me crazy. I didn’t even tell my own father (they were long ago divorced and he is now deceased), even though I had a great relationship with my dad and loved and trusted him very much. The problem is, I feared her more than I ever trusted him. And just typing those words makes me very sad. I put my faith and trust in the wrong parent.
I will say that once — once — two friends of mine were witness to an act of physical abuse against me by my mom. She must have forgotten herself, because she was usually pretty good about not blowing up too much in front of anyone other than her now ex-husband and my half brother. My one friend told her mother about it, and according to my mother, the friend’s mother called my mother and asked her about what happened. According to my mother, the friend’s mother eventually agreed that I deserved that bloody lip. Of course, because I never got my friend’s mother’s side of the story, I have no idea what to believe was said in that conversation, although I do believe that my friend’s mother at least confronted my mother, since my friend was obviously horrified and concerned about what happened before her very own eyes. And that’s just the thing — I now realize how much my mother brainwashed me into giving over a mental submission to her in which she was the “gatekeeper” (I believe the term is used) of all information I received. I never even bothered to ask someone else for a version of any story my mother told me, because from very early on, she threatened, beat, guilted, and intimidated me into thinking twice about such “betrayal” against her. I realized very recently that many stories — in fact, much of what I know it means to be a member of this God-forsaken family — has come solely from her lying lips. I used to take so many things for granted, but now I don’t know what to believe, so I believe nothing that has come out of her mouth. She also never leaves me alone with her current husband for more than 2 minutes and demands to know anything we’re talking about if she catches us dare trying to make small talk without her. She will get enraged if we say “nothing.” She will also call me to ask what I was doing calling my step-dad’s cell phone. She makes up some innocuous excuse about why she was asking, and how she even knew in the first place that I called his PERSONAL cell phone. So, I don’t even bother calling him anymore.
And here’s the sickest part of it all — there are times when she is exceedingly generous, seemingly loving and doting, even in private — but it is all a lie, because as soon as I piss her off again (and that always seemed to happen), the love, generosity, etc., was taken away. So, in recent years I have walked on absolute egg shells, not even taking her to task when catching her in a flagrant lie. I wasn’t even actively conscious of my exceptional meekness and submission in the past few years … until now.
I have now finally awaken to the truth, and I’ll tell you — it scares the ever-loving hell out of me, because it makes me feel like I’m going crazy, but as this great website put it, while I may consciously believe a lie, my unconscious is not fooled. That’s why I’ve been sick to my stomach. That’s why it’s always in knots when I talk to her.
I have recently asked her, very nicely and apologetically, in a letter to basically leave me alone and get a shit-ton of therapy (after all, I got years of my own counseling under my belt, which saved my life), and then maybe we’ll talk about moving forward in our very deeply fractured relationship. She is acting like she never received the letter, which I figured would happen and she’s demanding — out of a place of concern, of course — to know what’s going on. I said that everything I wrote in that letter explains everything and that I would be mailing her another copy. I am marshaling all the support I can from my loving husband and not letting her drag me into a debate about anything I said in the letter. After all, an abuser wants to pull you back in, to do the same awful things to you all over again: tell you how wrong/crazy you are, how awful you are, how cruel you’re being, etc., and all this, while NEVER acknowledging your own hurt feelings. They never own up to anything.
About your siblings — up until as recently as a few weeks ago, I was where your sisters are. I took my mother’s side, even after she treated my older half brother like absolute garbage. I also took her side, even up till very recently (talking about how awful he is is one of her favorite pastimes.) But I am no longer taking her side. I now recognize that he was the victim all along. I also recognize how taking her side was the ultimate betrayal to the very memory of the abuse he endured right alongside me. I’m very ashamed and know that reaching out to him would be selfish on my part, not to mention exceedingly difficult, since he’s made it very hard for family to find him. (I don’t blame him one bit.) But even if you never get validation from your own sisters, please take the validation from THIS sister of an abused brother: You never deserved your abusive treatment. You were right to feel violated, abused, and diminished. And even if your dad/parents were abused themselves, the buck stops with your dad, etc.: his/their abusers didn’t cause you pain — he/your parents did. Besides, not all abused kids go on to abuse their own children. It all comes down to a deliberate decision on part of the abused individual to say, “not my kid. This will not happen. I will do everything in my power to prevent this legacy from being passed on, even if it means doling out for therapy to confront and address some very painful things about myself.”
You are a worthy, lovable individual and it’s not too late to set yourself free from the abuse. You don’t have to be a saint and keep forgiving the unrepentant! I’m not going to tell you to cut them out of your life; no one can make any decisions for you, but please, please don’t believe them when they try to diminish your past memories of abuse. Your perceptions were indeed correct, and no, you didn’t deserve their cruelty then, and you don’t deserve it now. (P.S. Sorry so long and sorry about the curse words.)