I grew up in a house of domestic violence and abuse

[Oversharingnamechanged]

N/C for this. Regular poster and I've considered this for years.

T/W - abuse of sexual, violent nature. Towards women and children.

Last night I had a dream my father was attacking me on a bus and I'm going to go about my bank holiday as normal, but in the back of my mind I'm still that child scared of a now dead man.

Both parents were alcoholics.
My dad was an extremely abusive and angry man who beat my mother daily. He almost killed her through strangulation twice.
He also called us both names such as stupid, fat, ugly cunts. Constantly. He called me a slag and whore when my mother wasn't home.
He abused me sexually as well as physically and emotionally.
He'd spit in his hands and rub into into our hair after beating us.
He was also a paedophile although I'm one of the few that knew. Not because he abused me but because aged 11 I found files of child sex abuse images on family PC. He told me it was a virus, but I checked the search engine results and He'd actively searched for CP.

Ask me anything from ptsd, how I coped with education, how it's affected relationships, how I became addicted to drugs, night terrors at almost 40.
Relationship with my mother.
How we escaped.

Anything you want.

It won't be easy to read but who I really hope ask me questions are people in Relationships with abusers who think leaving will do more harm to their children than staying.
Of course ask anything if you're curious.

No question too extreme or silly. I'll be really honest and I'll tell you how everything went down and I hope it will ease some stigmas of DV victims.

Were social services involved?
Do you think it would have been better for you long term if you had been removed and placed in care / adopted?

How did you get out?

What do you do now?

Is your mum still alive? What's your relationship like with her?

@TeenDivided no. I was clean, well spoken and even though there were plenty of other signs, such as being weird and withdrawn, no SS were ever involved. However, once my father was arrested and the local paper printed a story about it. I 100% should have been removed and given to other family. I would have longed for my mother if I'd have been adopted or fostered, however, I ultimately would have been safer and far less traumatised. I was told under no circumstances do we tell anyone what my dad does. My mother would plead with me.

@BlastedPimples
Mum is still alive, very rocky relationship. She is very co dependent and I've spent my whole life trying to care for her, but due to her trauma she lashes out at me regularly. She's quite abusive in her own way and can't see it. I love her so much but I have had to pull away because of how badly she affects my MH.

I'm currently on maternity leave but I have no real education (not a single gcse, my father beat me so badly once I missed so much schooling it was hard to return) I've only ever worked in nursing homes which is fine as I love my job caring for people, however, I'm actually quite bright and it's a shame that I simply don't have confidence to get the education I need.

We got out after my father attacked me one evening after school, he saw I was on the phone to my friend and came home drunk. He started yelling at me I was a slag and I hung up, however my friend kept calling to ask what was happening.
I ran upstairs and picked up the phone to ask her to stop ringing, anyway, he dragged me out the room, kicked me down the stairs and bashed my face and head into the banister, then he just went out. My friend still says it was one of the most harrowing moments of her childhood.
After that I told my mum i was leaving, my mum is quite weak if I'm honest, and begged me not to leave. I told her I was going to move in with a local creepy junkie (I had no intention whatsoever of doing so) and my mum filled with terror that I was moving in with a junkie 3 times my age asked her friend to help.
She managed to get some money for a deposit and we packed up the things we needed and kept them safe.
She gave my dad money to get a bedsit. He went from scary to pathetic and begged her could he come with us for a fresh start and she begged me to let him. I felt like the world's biggest bitch refusing to let him, like it was me tearing our family apart.
But by age 15, I'd gotten us out through sheer lies, gaslighting and manipulation.

I am very sorry you went through this OP.

What are some signs we should look out for that children are being abused at home?

What would have made you confide in someone, a teacher for example?

A bit of a personal question and feel free not to answer but I grew up with alcoholic abusive parents, not as bad as your situation. When I had DD (and still now if I'm completely honest) my biggest worry is one day I will just stop loving her and, like my parents, I will resent her the way they resented me. It's impossible I would stop loving her, but I still irrationally fear this will happen one day. Do you ever have feelings like this?

I'm so sorry to hear what you've been through op.

My father is an alcoholic and has been my whole life. I was always far too embarrassed to have friends over as a child and would choose to hide away in my room instead. I was very lonely and never kept any friends.
Did you have many friends growing up? And did they know what your home life was like?

Gosh, I’m so sorry, how awful for you.

Do you think your father had a similar childhood?

@backof I'm sorry you had it rough also x
So I definitely had signs but was almost trained to not say anything. Unfortunately I was clean and well spoken, but we lived on a really rough council estate however my mum was raised middle class. So she never seemed "the type" despite things such as neck braces, cut lips, black eyes, broken nose, broken cheek bones, a broken back and once broken leg. They were almost just pretending she was clumsy.
I once wrote about aged 8 or 9 a very dark poem about a suicidal girl, my teacher thought it was tremendously written and my mum went mental at me saying I was to never write like that again.
I think the fact I was so introverted and bullied regularly was a sign also, I was just so worn out by home life, I didn't have any fight in me to stand up for myself at school really.
I think if a child looks sad, as I did mostly, there's an issue somewhere. I was put on prozac in my early teens and my parents were furious, as though I was just this big attention seeker. I'd have confided in anyone who would have asked me why I was sad I think.

I have the opposite thoughts to you but just as irrational.
I often wonder would I snap if anyone was in any way harmful towards my children. Like, full on, machete to the skull crazy simply because my kid gets some form of generic child insult. I'm sure I won't get myself an assault rifle over my DD getting called freckle face, but the fear is real 😓

@paddingtonBee sorry for your rough time also! X

Yeah it was embarrassing having friends over but I didn't realise we weren't "normal" until High School. I describe it was being in a cult, you aren't aware how fucked up it is until you see outside it.
I can be desperate for friends and have almost love bombed people to like me, not anymore, but I have.
Now I've some good friends who understand me and get me, they know why I'm so strange or why my humour is so dark and love me. But it's taken years of casual friends who've used me because of my desperate to be friends nature.
It was a wake up call to me when I was about 15 and it was just my mum and I, I brought home a boyfriend and he was shocked at the surface counters in our kitchen, all filled with empty bottles and bottles of vodka. The massive smirnoff ones? He filled 6 bin bags with them and dropped them off at the bottle bank because he was so uncomfortable. I didn't even register it wasn't normal as I'd never seen the work surfaces clear.

@Sundaefraise thank you x

His childhood was pretty sweet actually. Happily married parents and the youngest and only boy of 5 doting sisters.
I think he was spoilt and entitled.
His parents were very typical Irish Catholics, did lots of charity work for the church with very humble and hard working jobs. They lived surrounded by aunts, uncles and cousins up north, surrounded my woodlands and beaches and lakes. They had little money, but they were very rich with love.
I didn't spend much time with them really, but they were always kind. It was a house filled with the smell of baking so if I went I'd always be excited to see what cakes or biscuits were up for grabs!

@Oversharingnamechanged I don't want to derail your thread but did just want to say that I am 2 years into a degree with the Open University and I really love it, it's distance learning and there is no expectation to turn up to face to face tutorials, there are no entry requirements, although I did an access course for a year before the degree which helps you figure out how to learn, make notes, write essays etc. I would really recommend it and it has done wonders for my confidence.

Well done! That's really good to know actually! Thank you! 😊

NC too!
Thanks for creating this thread. I grew up in a dysfunctional family (violent dad while mum went on holidays with other men) and funnily enough was told I shouldn't say a thing outside of home and it was all kept a family secret.

I'd learnt to keep everything to myself and was good at pretending things were fine when they weren't. Mum has been very dependent on me and she has control issues even in my adulthood.

I am happily married with kids but still have friendship issues of not being able to be as open as I'd like to be as I'm always terrified of saying stuff I 'shouldn't' although I know I'm now free to say anything I want. I have very few friends because of this and I have social phobia.
I also suffer from multiple anxiety issues that affects our lives. I can't tidy up my house it's always in a mess.

How do you manage to live your day-to-day life? How is your trauma affecting you now? Have you tried counselling and have they helped?

Did your extended family know what he was like? Did you ever tell anyone afterwards about the abuse? And I’m sorry OP, no-one should ever have a childhood like that.

Thanks for sharing what you endured, I'm sorry it was shit for you! X
My mum is very controlling also, I've blocked her on SM platforms because she would see a post on FB and immediately ring me to discuss it. Even just a meme. If she saw me online on messenger she'd call, presuming it meant I was free to talk. Same for what'sapp and Instagram. She would call me 20 times a day if she could and sometimes just to be horrible, but if I say anything to put boundaries in place she'll cry and say that I'm a bully like my dad. It's caused me so much pain over the years that I'd like to be NC but I'm not able to abandon her.
I am also extremely messy, I'd love to live in a clean and organised home but really really struggle with the basics, my kids rooms are nice etc but how I live in my bedroom and living area is quite chaotic.
I just can't seem to do day to day stuff.
I'm also very happy in my relationship and being a parent, but anxiety and depression can rule me.
I was always gaslit growing up from DM more so than father. So I'm still unravelling all of that now and processing what happened.
I have had lots of therapy, cbt, emdr, counselling. Lots of different antidepressants over the years and truthfully only meds have helped. Talking about it just unlocks more and more forgotten memories and because I've been so manipulated by mum I wonder sometimes if I have psychosis and I'm imagining it, but I'm not. She just doesn't want to admit how badly she failed me and I understand that but it's hard.
I struggle day to day with loud noise and sleep paralysis and night terrors.
My sleep paralysis demon is my father, not a gremlin or a witch, but my dad. Happened last night which isn't uncommon, but it's sad I've lived out of his house over 20 years and I'm still scared I'll wake up to him strangling me.
Friendships were tough, but easier now I'm older and probably care less.
Growing up though having to be secretive with friends or lying about being ill when I was just beaten up was tough.
I also lied loads to cover up what was happening which didn't help me because other kids aren't stupid and I just seemed like a liar.

@Noicant thank you x

I have said bits and pieces but people are quick to defend him or blame my mum for staying.
They minimise what he did because he wasn't himself around his family.
I haven't told them he sexually abused me but many years back he slept with a teenage sex worker and refused to pay her, he got beaten up by her pimp. (I got told this from a very reliable source) and I did mention it to someone in his family but despite this teenager being raped by him they excused it as, "he would have just thought he was too good to pay".
This sex worker was about 15 years old according to the person who told me.

My OH knows lots about what happened. We knew each other for long time before becoming a couple and we both had vile childhoods. So we've actively worked to make the best possible lives we can for each other and our kids.
Our kids are in massive bubbles of being quite twee and young for their ages, we worry were doing harm but they are so happy and kind kids, we want them to be as innocent and happy as they can be whilst they are still little.

Thank you so much for answering my questions. I'll consider therapy etc hopefully they will help.

How did your father pass away?

Youre welcome, therapy is a roll of a dice but talking and hearing someone professional say "it wasn't your responsibility" etc is priceless. 💐

Very uncreatively for an alcoholic, drank himself stupid and tripped over, bumped his head.
It was only noticed by his family because he hadn't called anyone to complain about having no money for his whiskey.
He had alcohol related illnesses for a long time.

I'm not NCing because I don't feel any embarrassment about the things that happened to me, as it certainly wasn't my fault I was neglected and abused and this is the internet - nobody knows who I really am. It was stuff that happened to me, not my fault. And I got out though doing some pretty unhealthy things, I lied, I made mistakes, but what else do you do when you're a vulnerable kid who has been abused and trained to not tell anybody what's going on? You've got to survive and short of going full front page of the Sun, you do what you've got to do.

The thing that I would say is that your sleeping environment could be affecting you more than you realise, as it's a direct link to the place you grew up with it being messy, dirty and cluttered. Sleep paralysis is something that often comes because you are exhausted (possibly due to you subconsciously trying to stay awake as long as possible because you're in a similar messy environment?). You've made your children's sleeping space clean and organised and safe for them - you can do it for yourself.

Could you take a roll of binbags and just shove things that are in the way, overhanging or looming over you into them? As soon as you have a clear line of sight to your door and there aren't clothes or other things that an exhausted mind can turn into an attacker, that might help reduce some of the dreamstate fears.

Subconsciously, the clutter isn't a wall defending you, it's things that are trapping you and preventing your escape. Maybe giving yourself the space and fresh air to breathe could further reassure you that you can escape your dreams? Getting rid of things could be telling yourself that you don't need to hold on to the fears, as it's your space - the smell of dust and less fresh bedlinen, the textures, the sounds of things shifting where you've needed to step between them to get to bed could be changed into easy movement, fewer sounds and the fresh, clean scent (make sure you don't use a washing powder/conditioner/cleaning things that you associate with them - I will never use Ariel or Lenor because of this) and feel of nice bedlinen, polished furniture, clean windows and curtains could all tell your subconscious that you're somewhere that is yours and it is safe.

Once you have your sleeping space as pleasant a place as your children's bedrooms, you could start looking at what would make your life easier in bathroom/kitchen and then your living room - but the most important one is your bedroom. It's yours.

I've honestly never ever made that connection and you're completely right.
It's something I'll take on board and thank you.
I know it's gross, but I just struggle so much.
Every few months I'll do a massive clear out but I never keep on top of it.
My OH keeps on top of lots but he works full time in a physical job and I wouldn't want him to clean my mess.
It must drive him wild though because he is naturally very tidy.

Thank you for that, I really appreciate your advice x