If a man does something deliberately nasty once a year to a child

[Oversensitiv]

Is that low level emotional abuse? If the rest of the time they mostly just ignore them or are a little snappy?

I think it was normal. I don't think children are happier now either.

Obviously only you can know if it was wrong or not. Personally I remember being scared and I don't have a problem with that. Being a parent is bloody hard.

It’s absolutely not ok as you know, but it’s ok if it’s a mother doing these things because….she’s under his spell, being abused, neurodivergent, unaware, busy…add any more examples.

Mocking me in a very personal and unkind way, in front of other people, to try to embarrass me.

If I was ever vulnerable and let my guard down he would make me realise how insignificant I was if I was lucky, or twist the knife in anger if he was in a bad mood.

I can't write specific examples because I am still humiliated by them but I realise this makes it difficult for anyone to say if I am just being melodramatic.

You didn't 'bring out the worst in him', he deliberately let the worst of himself go on a little child.
Go a look at someone the same age as you were then and imagine charging into their room, roaring with rage and frightening them. I bet you can't. It was him, not you.

It's absolutely abusive. It's not your fault. There is/was something wrong with him.

The humiliation is also. No child deserves that.

Raised voices are normal in extreme circumstances. Though if someone really loses their shit yelling it may have been considered acceptable in the 80s and 90s. These days I would hope most parents might walk away to try and cool off (if safe) and certainly apologise to the child for losing it, explaining why the child’s behaviour was so wrong.

Something I would class as “deliberately nasty” is a mother I know who locked her young children in the under stairs cupboard when they were naughty.

Go a look at someone the same age as you were then and imagine charging into their room, roaring with rage and frightening them

I'd fucking call the police now as an adult if I witnessed a grown man re-enacting what happened with a child now.

@Oversensitiv Mine was like this too. I still can't handle being around shouting men, even as a big grown adult. My father used to tease, humiliate and belittle me whenever he felt like it. No self control, no real care, no responsibility. I have CPTSD from all of that. It was abuse.

Then it was abuse

If a child is hit once, it's abuse. Verbal or emotional abuse only has to happen once for it to be abuse too. You don't need to minimise anything, and if whether you feel it is abuse or not, your feelings are valid.

It shouldn't have happened, you didn't deserve it. He was wrong to harm you.

It wasn't you who brought out the worst in him, it was him himself who did that. You were a child and he was an adult. He was abusive because of who he was - you didn't cause it in any way. I'm sorry you went through that.

You aren’t over sensitive; there’s no such thing. Your life experiences and childhood trauma has turned up your freeze, fight or flight response.
What your father did was abusive and even when he wasn’t actively being nasty you were tiptoeing round not knowing when he was going to kick off.

What’s your relationship like now? Are you still in contact?

You were a victim of emotional neglect that dents self esteem amongst many other things and is classed as an adverse childhood experience (ACEs) added to that, the living in fear of the explosive temper even if it just happened once a year you were in fear the other days that's further abuse and another ACE.

No, that's not normal, my dad sometimes brought that kind of feeling out in myself and it was definitely traumatic and not normal. It has affected me in so many ways. That's the worst kind of parenting.

even when he wasn’t actively being nasty you were tiptoeing round not knowing when he was going to kick off

The thing is I wasn't really tiptoeing once I realised he would never hit me. I stopped being scared of him then and just worked on freezing out any comments.

It was scary when I was very little like I know he really really wanted to hit me but even when I was older and he would roar that he was going to beat the shit out of me I knew he wouldn't and as I got older I would rage back at him.

Sometimes we could get on quite well and chat as long as I did not relax and think he valued me sorry not sure that makes sense.

What’s your relationship like now? Are you still in contact?

He died a few years ago and apologised for some of what he did.

I have had another bereavement recently and some things have resurfaced now.

You weren’t to blame for his explosive outbursts or the low level insidious abuse. That was entirely down to him , he used you as a verbal punch bag. Is he still alive?

It's abusive to ignore a child or be snappy with them most of the time.

The once a year deliberate overt nastiness is the icing on the cake.

Yes this is all horrible abuse, and I am sorry someone did this to you.

You did not deserve any of it.

You didn’t bring out the worst in him, he did that all by himself. Yes, it’s verbal and emotional abuse. I’m sorry that you had to experience that during your childhood.

It was normal for kids in the late 80's or early 90's to be genuinely frightened if they were in trouble wasn't it?

It was common, but it was still shit and abusive. Parenting standards were in the fucking toilet. The traumatised products of this shit parenting are not the problem.

OP where was your mother or father in all of this? Assuming that the man was not your father. None of it sounds ok, it sounds abusive. You should have been protected.

Obviously I didn't die so that was just my child self being overdramatic?

As a small child you didn't know that - you're speaking with hindsight. Small children are usually very aware of how small and vulnerable they are compared to adults, so it makes sense you would have felt such fear.

I'm sorry that you were hurt so much by someone who should have made you feel safe and loved.

Given everything you have said, I'm not sure trying to decide whether or not it was abuse is that useful.

The fact is that your memory of him is one of fear, not of love and security. My father was a truly shit father. Fucked off with another woman when I was a year old, saw us when it suited him, let me down more times than I care to count and was a general all round hopeless father. And in the 70s, no one batted an eyelid at this and it was considered completely normal.

But I was never scared of him, and my memories of him are almost invariably loving. In his unbelievably crap, damaged way, he made me feel loved.

Your father was clearly a very damaged individual. Whether deliberately or not, he made you feel fear, and fear does long term damage to the brain of children. Instead of feeling security, you had elevated long term elevated cortisol levels. That's the stuff that gave soldiers in WW1 shell shock. You had massive doses of it as a child. Of course it affected your self-confidence, as well as just about everything else in your life. Even if you learnt to overcome it and fight back, that damage did not go away, you just developed coping mechanisms.

It's good that he recognised what he had done to you towards the end, which is good but doesn't undo the damage done. The only thing that can undo that is massive amounts of compassion from you for the child you used to be, and the part inside you that is still that hurt child.