Hello there.
I'm currently having counselling for a number of problems that keep showing up in my life, including being extremely harsh in my judgement of myself, feeling like I am not a valid human being at times - that I'm simply too flawed to be able to reasonably expect to be honestly welcome and accepted in people's lives, etc.
I grew up with different members of my family to my birth parents, and the female relative to all intents and purposes was my mother. She was brilliant and nurturing, we were extremely close until her death, she was a fantastic mother and I wish I still had her - it makes me so sad to think she won't ever meet my children when I have them.
Her marriage was not good though, and her husband appeared to actively dislike me at times. Sometimes he was cheerful enough, and did some very kind things for me, and he was reliable in terms of driving me to school etc.But quite a lot of the time he ignored me (when I was an older child) and when I was younger, he could be terrifying and in my perception, full of hate and anger directed at me. I remember once I told a lie at a friend's house, in order to be able to come home sooner because I missed my mum, and he found out and got extremely angry at me. I remember him full of quiet, white hot anger calling me a horrible name, and me feeling embarrassed and ashamed and not knowing what to do. I remember an aunt dying, and me bursting into tears when we found out and him roaring at me to stop. I remember being quite ill and in shock and frightened and starting to cry, and again him telling me to stop my nonsense. Stuff like that.
I suppose I want to know if these things count as emotional abuse? Or should I just have accepted he was a grumpy man and not been affected by it?