AIBU to think my mum slapping me as a teenager was unacceptable?

Of course it's not okay but it was one slap, once in the context of family difficulties. She should not have done it but if she was otherwise a really great mum, why torture her with this one thing and ignore everything else she has done for you and what exactly do you want her to do, a year's penance? Stop feeling sorry for yourself, millions of people have far worse childhoods. I also REALLY doubt that one slap from your mum has made you afraid of anyone coming near your face. Get over it.

I don't imagine it at all. Friends Mothers had to leave in the 70/80s. They were factory workers and cleaners, but got their kids out. Sometimes women stay because they've reasoned it out to be the best for everyone. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't acknowledge the damage done. If you stay in an abusive situation, or just some of the , living-with-angry-men, situations on here, you are affecting your children's mental health. To help your children heal and most important, not repeat, it needs discussions and apologies.

Me too. Hitting their kids and then telling themselves that it's ok, the child was being a little shit and so deserved it.

I'm 35 OP and vividly remember my mum slapping me across the face really hard once at a similar age! I think I was probably being incredibly unpleasant at the time.

I've actually never brought it up to her because I think she'd be really upset to relive/admit it. We used to get smacks on our legs if we were really naughty when younger but I think the slap was just a total human loss of control and I can imagine she's very ashamed of it.

I hope you can move past it x

Edited to add- I do think you're right and it's completely unacceptable, but I also think we're human and we all fuck up sometimes

This is an absolutely wild take. She hit her kid around the face! If she’d done that to another adult she’d have been arrested. Instead she violently slapped the child who depended on her for security and protection.

I think it’s a despicable thing to do and she probably feels very ashamed and hoped you didn’t remember it. You deserve a heartfelt apology. Have you spoken to a therapist at all?

It was one slap that OP's mum has denied ever happened until now. The slap was understandable and forgivable, the denying reality and gas lighting was not.

OP lived in an abusive home with an abusive father and her mum was her safe person. An act of physical violence by that person has obviously affected OP for years, particularly as whenever she brought it up her mum's response was minimising and denial.

Of course many people have much worse childhoods. That doesn't make what OP's mum did OK and it certainly doesn't give you the right to tell OP that she is lying about being afraid of anyone coming near her face.

The worst thing is her gaslighting you. She should have owned what she did. Your experience being denied is almost a bigger insult than the physical slap. There may have been all manner of reasons behind why she snapped, but pretending the whole incident didn’t occur is awful.

It's not okay, and her making fun of it and saying the poltergeist was out to get you is awful. At least she has finally owned up but I'm not sure how you can put this behind you. She needs to apologise. She should have apologised back then, rather than gaslighting you for years. Classic abusive behaviour.

Oh C'mon! The OP is wildly self centred and needs to get a grip on reality. When I stopped reliving the past and blaming everything in my present on other people inclusive of my childhood my life got much better. It sounds like her mum was a great mum who fucked up literally one time. What do you want her mother to do????

It sounds as though, in your heart, you've forgiven her. It's okay to forgive her, and move on from it. Ruminating over it is your issue now, rather than the experience itself.

Oh absolutely how will she ever get past this? I know the solution! She should immediately go NC with her terrible abusive gaalighting mum. No wonder no one wants kids anymore....

Discussing it honestly twenty years ago would obviously have been the right thing to do.

Weird of you to support hitting and lying.

You're the one being hyperbolic. The consensus is not for NC.

I'm sure many men tell themselves that their relationship with their wives are so intense that it's acceptable to hit her in the face when she's being hormonal and he's lost control. Those men are abusers. But a mother doing the same to her daughter is just someone who made a "mistake".

I am with you OP.

When I was 14 my father once attacked me while I was simply sitting down reading a book and slapped me so hard in the face that I fell down hard from my chair. His reason? He was angry that I was 'looking at him the wrong way and not respecting him because he was unemployed''. I was simply sitting there reading...

My mother saw the whole thing and did and said nothing. Nobody ever apologised. She also slapped me on other occasions.

I consider that both of them were abusive and have little contact with them when I became and adult and I moved to a different country to have much distance as possible. I have had no contact at all with my mother for years.

Slapping someone in the face is disrespectful and abusive. No one should hit a child or a teenager because they have lost their temper. I always think it is cowardly to hit someone who can't hit you back and when there is such an unbalance of power.

I love this comment @JasmineMac ! So often on here we see posters dwelling on things from the past and it's clear it's the obsessive overthinking rather than the incident which is now the issue.

I’m genuinely surprised at everyone saying “it was only one slap” “she was finding it really hard” “she had an abusive husband” “if she’s a good mother otherwise then she was finding it hard”

Absolutely no one would excuse a partner for hitting their spouse in a moment of frustration so why is it okay to minimise and reason when a parent smacks a child?

I thoroughly agree with this. While she should not have glazed over it, this may have been a defence mechanism. If she was otherwise good I can imagine she carries great guilt. Remember she was the victim of abuse too and I'm guessing much more than once. If this incident has clouded your life then imagine what her suffering of abuse and guilt has done to her. I think you need to let it go OP. But needless to say, you absolutely did not deserve this and your feelings about it now are understandable. If you become a mother I think you will experience stress like you've never imagined sometimes (like a teen refusing to get ready in the morn and making you panic about being late for work) and you'll empathise more.

Thank you. As someone who does have facially-related PTSD, I really feel like OP is trying to make a bigger deal out of a simple mum slap, which is not a trauma.

Sorry meant to tag @LVPLVTpost here.

It's not okay. However nuance is key. For example, a single instance of lashing out at a partner who has, without relent, mentally tortured you would be regarded as reactionary as opposed to intent. The dynamic of parenting someone is different to that of being in a romantic relationship with someone.

I have a good relationship with my now elderly parents, but I’m still bearing some small grudges about times they smacked me. They grew up in the 50s when it was much more normal, and indeed considered a parental “duty”. Smacking for disobedience might have been one thing, but the times I’m most angry about are when they did it to make a point: aged seven, I once bumped into a blind man because he stopped walking unexpectedly. My mum explained carefully why I shouldn’t have bumped into him, then smacked me, which I think was totally unnecessary. This and other moments made me terrified of accidentally doing wrong, and I think it seriously held me back as a teenager and young adult: I was afraid to take risks, and I felt I had to have everything I did “validated” by an adult. I had a lot of mixed messages later, as a teenager, because I think my parents realised that I was a bit too compliant, and they tried to encourage me to be a bit more outspoken, leaving me very confused.

Oh we love some empathy.

It's never ok for a child to hit their parent, and for an adult at one time or another had quite a significant power imbalance.

I never once hit my parents, I was a terrified kid.

The point wasnt to trauma dump, the point was its not acceptable

A child can’t “mentally torture you” any more than your pet dog can, because they’re children and you’re the adult.

You’re quite right that the relationship is very different because there’s a huge imbalance of power and so hurting a child is even less defensible for me.