My dad hit me (I'm 48)

[Frogtits]

I don't see my parents often as we live in different parts of the UK.

I've posted on MN under my current name as I want to cut down my consumption of alcohol.

On my last visit to my parents, I accidentally set off the smoke alarm in their house because I burned toast.

It was early in the morning.

My dad came storming downstairs, shouted that I had woken every one up and kind of pushed/thumped with his hand.

I am so upset.

To give background - my parents regularly hit me or threatened to slap / spank me during my childhood.

My mum slapped my face so hard, when I was 14, that my jaw was bruised and I found it hard to eat. The reason she hit me was because I accidentally spilled some rice on the floor.

She often threatened to slap me after that incident.

If I'm honest, I want to distance myself from them...

Can any of you relate to this?

Well, I'm not yet 48 and my father won't be slapping me around (again) when I am because he's dead but yes...I do relate to being hit a lot, being threatened with being hit, and I can imagine that no matter how old you get, some dynamics are just almost impossible to eradicate.

Hit the bastard back. I'm serious. My biggest regret is never ever hitting my violent bastard father back. He's bullying you and bullies are cowards. You don't have to actually even hurt him, you just have to let him know that there are indeed consequences and he can't get away with it.

Tell them they were abusive, whether or not they admit it (they won't - it'll be your fault, they're the good guys) and they are not welcome under your roof unless they make amends. Tell him that if he ever touches you again you will fucking hit him right back and MEAN IT.

My goodness, Yorick - that is a very powerful piece of advice.

Thank you so much.

My mother has a very creepy "joke" about how she stopped hitting my little brother (who was small at the time) when he hit her back. She seems to find this funny.

That is incredibly creepy. But significant.

The problem is that however old you are, however accomplished, however much you achieve as yourself, those family dynamics just never go away. My grandmother was still dismissing her youngest sister as "a silly little girl" when they were both in their 80s. You have to try to break out of the filter and see things for how they really are. And despite how it feels, they don't own or control you and you are an adult in your own right now.

So tell them it was wrong of them to hit you then and it's just as wrong now, in fact the law of assault is finally on your side. And if they don't make amends and can't be trusted not to assault you, they are not welcome under your roof. And if they do meet you, and hit you, you will fucking hit them back.

Thanks, Yorick

You are right - my parents like to play down their physical attacks on me and my siblings.

Yes, I totally relate.

The last time I saw my grandmother, who raised me after my mother abandoned me, she pulled a phone out of the wall and smashed it into my face. I was twenty eight years old and had endured a life time of beatings, physical abuse, emotional abuse, nasty comments, lies, attempts to destroy my other relationships and general sabotage of my life. It was the final straw and I never saw her again. She's dead now and I feel absolutely nothing about it.

I never hit her back. Not once. I wish that I had to be honest.

You aren't alone.

Of course they do. In their minds, they are the good guys. At the absolute worst, they might have been imperfect and made mistakes, but only as much as any normal parent would do, completely forgivable and understandable and certainly not anything that would actually damage or harm their kids.

I feel so strongly about this and it's odd because I'm really not a violent person at all. I'm definitely not saying descend on your parents with a baseball bat or beat them as hard as you possibly can, or anything like that. I'm simply saying that if they, or anyone else, thinks they can lay a hand on you, you should strike back. They're cowards, you don't NEED to hit hard...you just need to hit. They just need to know that there will be SOME reprisal for it.

In fact I have just remembered...at one point in my 20s, my father started screaming that he was going to slap me silly and I screamed back that he should try it and see what happened to him this time. (The phrase "bring it, old man" might have been involved...the only time in my life I have ever made a derogatory remark about someone's age, but I wanted him to know he no longer had the physical edge and I wasn't scared of him.) He screamed and ranted....but he didn't come near me.

So chances are you don't even need to hit back, really...you just need to let them know, for damn sure, that you WILL.

How early in the morning op? I don't understand the link to alcohol, were you drunk? Not that that in anyway justifies it, im trying to contextualise it.

As for the hitting, yes my father, but more so his second wife, were handy with their fists. The last time she slapped me hard, in front of my friends. I was 15 and I raised my hand instinctively to hit her back, I was so angry I saw red, my father grabbed my arm and stopped me, he was standing behind me.

He said exactly " I told you x. I told you one day she would turn"

I would have hurt her. The look of abject shock and fear in her eyes I will never forget.. She never ever hit me again. She never even threatened it, it was like the power balance shifted. If she had hit me or even attempted it , it would have been a fight, and she knew it. I genuinely often wished she would, just to give me the opportunity.

It taught me a huge lesson. When a bully hits you, hit them back. Hard. Don't fuck about. Don't take it. Don't think about it. Do it back. Do it properly, mean it, It will put an immediate stop to it. 💐

My mother hit me always and has done so several times as an adult.

The last time was a while ago now though. Maybe even 10 years ago (I'm 41).

I just let her. I've no intention of hitting her back and sinking down to her level. The last time she actually pulled my top down so that she could get a better slap on my shoulder / back. I just walked away, she was following me, walloping my back. The time before that she hit me with a wooden hammer thing, a meat tenderiser with a metal edge. She just uses whatever is to hand.

I could write an essay on her shortcomings but what's the point.

I wouldn't be visiting them again. End of story.

Why are you even talking by to these people? Hitting children?! Not the kind of people you want in your life, blood relations or not.

I'm sorry this has happened OP. You must be so upset. I have emotionally abusive parents, they no longer hit me now that I'm an adult (I'm also bigger than them now )

They stormed off in a huff when visiting a year ago and I haven't heard from them since. I'd put acceptable behaviour boundaries in place to which they wouldn't adhere.

I love my parents but as people I think they are very unpleasant and I feel very sad admitting that. Take care OP.

Maisie, you would not be sinking to her level by striking back, you would be responding in the only language she understands, defending yourself and standing up to her. The law allows for self defence against assault.

If you really won't though, then I don't understand why you would maintain any contact at all with someone who sees nothing wrong with assaulting you.

I've just remembered something else. At primary school, a few of my friends and I were being picked on by one of the resident bullies. He terrified us all until one day he kicked a disabled friend of ours and reduced him to the worst mess you can imagine. I saw red, lost my mind and started hitting the little shit with my school satchel, over and over again. I remember him turning and running away, covering his head, and I ran after him hitting him again and again until he got away.

He said he was going to tell on me and I am sure he did....and yet no teacher ever said a word to me about it and I was never punished for it.

I wouldn't have punished me, either.

I also have abusive parents. I did eventually fight back and have been marred by the consequences for the rest of my life. The last time my dad beat me I fought back, biting, scratching and I still remember the absolute visceral fury. If I had had a knife to hand I would have stabbed and stabbed and stabbed him until he was dead and beyond and it scared me so much that I have not been able to express anger or most negative feelings ever since.

Hitting back didn't stop them being abusive but it did give me lifelong difficulties.

When I was younger about 10/11 if I had done something wrong ...never anything really bad my mother would say wait till your father gets home he will sort you out. As soon as he walked through the door she would tell him and he would drag me crying and wetting myself with fright into the front room ...close the door and hit me with a stick or a slipper...my mum would wait outside and when she felt I had been hit enough she would come in a tell my dad to stop. I will never forgive them ever...my dads dead now...and my mother won't be around for to long....I won't miss her and I don't miss him.

Oh offred that's awful. I hope you are nowhere near him these days.

I'd be afraid an incident would escalate if I ever hit back at someone. I'm more of a 'get out of there' person. It's terrible all the same. Families are meant to be loving.

My mother did all the hitting in our house, until I was 15 and bigger than her, she was laying into DB and I got between them, she raised her hand and I caught her wrist and told her if she ever laid a finger on either of us again I'd break her arm.

She never did, if she raised a hand to me as an adult I'd have never seen her again tbh.

She jokes about how she was a terrible mother now, we're both pretty LC, occasionally NC if she's having a nasty phase. She's been all sweetness and light since first GC but I'll never really forgive her, or leave her alone with DC.

I'm sorry to hear your experience, Offred. I would say that I think those feelings would have come out somewhere anyway, as they had already been created, and most probably you would have turned them inward on yourself...but your post implies that that did happen.

If you think the best way to handle it is to get out of there, then properly get out of there. Don't just walk away while they're hitting you - don't let them impose their company on you in the first place.

Obviously that's not an option for children.

Abuse victims often feel they can't do without their abusers but really it's the abusers who need the victims. That's why they tend to move quickly on to another one if the first one escapes.

I did. I was kicked out at 16. I spent my late teens and early 20s being passed around various men/in abusive relationships.

i said to my brother recently that I was desperate to get away from them from about 12. His response was 'yes, but you couldn't cope with looking after yourself that young' and it's been in my mind since. Because I couldn't.

I've just left yet another abusive relationshit and this time I have reported it to the police and followed it through.

I OD'd in march after reporting to the regular police and not getting anywhere. Was unconscious for two days and when I woke up and I wasn't dead something just changed and I thought 'no, now you have to fight for you' and I have.

I can virtually see my parents' house from mine it is so close but I am LC with them. I was diagnosed with ms in November last year and my DD has just been diagnosed with ASD so I'm under pressure to rely on them to help.

And yes, they turned inward after that time when I could have killed him.

I did some inner child therapy a couple of years ago and it was the best thing. My heart hurts for the child I was and how I didn't really get a chance to exist in their house. It's a pattern that has repeated in every relationship I've had, because I have just always felt I was bad (like they think) but slowly that feeling is being unpicked now, at 33.

We're your DC with you?

Were^

No

I got to crisis because the kids weren't there, the police hadn't been able to speak to ex and had just left a note through his letterbox and I was scared he would come round to my house (as he often had done in the past).