Was I physically abused? (TW)

[HiggyHop]

First off I know I was. I'm a mum now and I know these things weren't normal.

But I need to work through them. And part of that feels like telling people and facing upto the fact that my mum wasn't just 'strict' or it wasn't just 'normal back then' or 'it wasn't that bad really'.

This all happened in Primary school and first few years of High School.

The physical abuse stopped when I was about 14 and fought back.

Smacking. Open hand slaps, leaving raised red hand prints.

Smacking with objects. A paddled brush (she used to say 'get the brush') A clothes hanger. I think maybe a wooden spoon once but could be mistaken there.

Hair pulling/grabbing. Pulling me by the hair.

Pinching.

I distinctly remember she spat on me once.

Strangling. This happened quite a few times. Most memorably on my first day of High school because I couldn't find my pencil case and had no equipment to take. It made her look bad.
I was strangled against the door to the point I was in my tippy toes as she lifted me up by the neck. My sisters were screaming.

Another time I remember her pushing me on the bed and she straddled me across my chest, pinning my arms down with her knees and she used one of her hands to cover my mouth and the other to pinch my nose.

She stared directly into my eyes as I suffocated.

I'm sorry. I know it's horrible.

I was always so scared at bath times as I was scared she would drown me. I feel like she purposely poured water over my face to watch me panic but I can't prove that she just said I moved around too much.

I feel like I should hate her. But I have forgiven her even though she has NEVER acknowledged or apologised

She just vaguely said it was different back then.

(late 80s/ealy 90s)

But when I read that back. Especially the bed pinning thing I feel like I should hate her. Absolutely hate her.

I just don't have the energy to

I've been affected so much I think. I have no friends. No confidence. Not had a job in 20 years. Barely leave the house. Can't socialise.

Am waiting on an ADHD diagnosis but just been classed as depressed/anxious for years.

How could she do that to me. I look at my kids and could never

Yes. Thats physical abuse.

You can report it to the police you know. Even historically.

Sorry you went through that 😢

See, this is the mad bit. I would never ever want her to get in trouble for it.

She's a completely different person now.

Even in the space of raising me, to raising my youngest sibling she changed. I don't think my youngest sibling was ever even smacked at all!

Then she was a lovely grandma to the kids. Never even raised her voice to them.

She's a completely different person now and I do love her.

I do think she had something mentally wrong but she knew that and never made the choice to get help.

I have terrible mental health an dit may be hereditary (and down to my childhood too) but as soon as I had kids I got help. I took the pills. I cried to the GP. I went to therapy.

Anything to avoid taking it out on my kids.

Do you allow her to be alone around your children?

So v sorry she sounds absolutely horrific and just because she has been fine with everyone else doesn’t make it right. She left you scarred.
I hope you can get some therapy to work through this

Yes, this was definitely abuse.
Someone I know is getting therapy for things that happened with their mum.
It is very confusing when the one person that you're meant to trust above all others does things to hurt you.
I would say that although she's acting like another person now, be very wary.
I'm so sorry you're dealing with this.

Forgive me if I say that if she has never apologized or regretted this abuse she is not a “completely different person.”

The need to love our abuser—to submit to their tyranny almost willingly, to praise them and love them, is itself a trauma response. After fight, flight, freeze, and fawn is attach and submit.

I suppose it’s possible your mother herself was abused as a child or as a wife snd treated you as she was treated. But if she had learned and consciously changed she would grieve for her actions and the harm she caused you.

Please get therapy for your traumatic childhood. You didn’t deserve it then and you deserve it now.

So sorry you went through this OP, there is no excuse for it. It must be so difficult for you to process if she's changed so noticeably.
If you haven't had counselling, please consider getting some so at least you can be heard and your terrible childhood treatment acknowledged.

It's hard to understand I know. But she's not that person. I tried talking to my siblings but she never hurt them or hit them so they don't understand, though they did witness it happening to me so know I'm being truthful.

I think she had an epiphany and changed and she's never even raised her voice to her younger kids and grandkids.

It caused alot of anger in itself because I felt resentful.

Why would she not even tell them off verbally for something but she would beat me for much less?

But like I said. I feel disconnected from her.

My kids are all teenagers now.

She's never laid a finger on them.
. I told them a while ago that they were lucky they never got physically punished as I had. Alot as a kid. And they couldn't believe that 'nana smacked me' as she gives them whatever they want, spoils them to bits, never tells them off etc.

Please Dobt turn this into me being a bad mum for allowing my kids to be round an abuser

If I thought for one second she would smack them thy would never see her again.

But she's been the perfect nana since day one.

This is historical and between me and her.

See I think you reap what you sow. I would never have let her near my kids and I would have cut her out of my life. She has been allowed to get away with it with no consequences.

You've obviously never been abused which is, of course, wonderful for you.

But when you spend 18 years being love bombed then hurt by the one person in the world that's supposed to protect you, it's not that simple.

She's my mother. And she changed.

It would be so easy now, as an adult with all my adult experience, to walk away from someone who was still behaving that way.

But when you've not seen the bad side of them in so long you start to forget that and just appreciate them for the person they are now.