What do you do with the rage?

[KorkiiEffenkrakers]

I've been thinking about this one for a long time. I had a very abusive childhood - beatings, verbal abuse, weird 'torturey' things at the hands of my dad etc which left me suicidal and with no self esteem at all by the time I was 18.

There were 4 kids in our family - me and my sister (1 year apart) then a boy then 5 years later another girl. Me and the sister closest to me were treated dreadfully, punched, kicked etc. I think I was pretty odd by the time I was at grammar school but just got victimised by the teachers etc for that too. Not one person ever asked us were we ok. Not one. I can never believe in some kind of caring society because I know it does not exist.
Now I live in another country and my sister lives far away from them too. The 'golden children' live very close to my parents. They created a company so that my brother could work for them and earn big money (before that he had 1 GCSE and worked in a factory). They helped him buy a big house and gave him a jeep etc. My youngest sister is being bought a house by them too, despite never even having kept down a permanent job and she is nearly 30.

I am so bitter. They wouldn't give me any money towards my 4 years at uni. They never send anything for the children and my dad comes to a place close to where I live on business all the time but pretends he hasn't been there as he does not want to visit me. They have only seen one of my kids once and never seen the other.

I don't even know why I bother keeping (minimal) phone contact. I am so angry. I am nearly 40 and I have been angry all my life. No matter what I do, I will always be unlovable and a failure in their eyes. I am not a bad person but somehow there is a 'script' in our family where two of us are bad and two of us are good.

I used to get on really well with my younger two siblings but the difference in the way our parents have treated us is really severing the ties. They used to, at least, acknowledge the abuse. Now my brother says 'he doesn't give a f*ck' about what happened in our youth and that we should move on. My youngest sister says that it was just dad's job making him like that and he's 'lovely' now and they're really close.

My parents are evil. They have done so many evil things to me and my sister and are still doing them. I think if I didn't have kids to care for, I'd kill them.

I 've had loads of counselling but am still sick with anger. It is going to kill me in the end. My father is a bigwig in his local community and my mother helps out in the church and goes to the Mother's Union every week (ffs!). They get away with it and my siblings are helping them now and will agree with anything my parents say as they are on the payroll. It is devastating.

Korkii, Im not sure what I could post that would make your awful childhood at the hands of two abusers, and what you are suffering now, go away in some small way, but I wish I could

But I agree with other posters - you need to cut contact with these evil people, and I hate to sound lentil weavery, but surround yourself with positive people who you love and who love you back. Every second you are wasting time, listening about them off your siblings, talking about them, thinking etc, is just keeping you in that negative loop of thinking, and if you keep going with it, you will not ever recover. Dont think you'll ever get an apology off this type of abuser, you cant use logic on illogical people (sp?), and you can just wear yourself out trying.

Your parents are messed up scum to have done what they did to you and your sister, and people like this will never be happy. Explaining why their trying to be pillars of the community, they sound like a cliche!

They know what they did was wrong deep down, even if they dont care about it. I wouldnt be surprised if the 'golden' siblings werent being controlled in some way either, as their pay off. Either way they are probably not having a healthy relationship with these people.

The best revenge is living well, which is easier said than done, but if you cut contact you will have made the first steps.

My own father was very violent and unpredictable, but only to me and my disabled sister, not my 2 other brothers, one of which was the golden son. Like you describe we had to endure weird torture stuff too, my father also had a personality disorder which made his behaviour bizarre. I clearly remember the 'rage' you describe, I ended up exploding and punched him (not that im advising this!), not my best moment, but on a postive note, I havent had contact with him since. A good few years on, and I barely think or remember much about him or the bad bits of my childhood. I used to dream of his approval, but time has been a great healer for me since Ive had no contact, and I honestly hand on heart couldnt care less now.

Cut these awful people out and focus on living your own life with your own family, and it will get easier. Please let us know how you get on. Unmumsnetty hugs x

Korkii, it doesn't sound like your younger brother and sister are in a good position either, they sound infantalised and under the power of your parents, probably totally emotionally stunted. I don't know what you do with the rage but perhaps you make things harder for yourself by picturing a cosy family unit when really it sounds awful and dysfunctional still between the 4 of them? You have got away and built a life for yourself. Admire you for that.

korkii, sorry to hijack your thread. But it has struck such a chord with me. Particularly the fact that not all the siblings in your family were abused.

I know, because I have read many books on it and have been told repeatedly by others that even though my sisters were not abused like I was and even though to me it appears as if they and my parents have now and have always had a 'normal', close and loving family, from which I was always excluded, that in fact they too are being abused and exploited by my parents, but in a very different way to the obvious and overtly abusive way in which I was treated.

It still hurts me now to think that my sisters and parents still have a relationship, and that my stepping out of the family has in fact brought them all closer in a way they would never have been other wise, ie if I had remained as a part of their family. Because I think they can all now 'unite' in labelling me as the baddie, the ungrateful, unreasonable, troublesome child. This is how I felt they all saw me before I cut ties, but now I have cut ties, in their eyes they have the proof that they were right all along, that I was the bad egg. None of them, neither my parents nor my sisters, recognise that I was abused and neglected and so to all of them, it appears as if I am either mad/bad/ungrateful for cutting ties with them all when they think they have done nothing wrong.

So in a funny way I can understand, I think, your reasoning behind not wanting to cut the final ties that you do have with your parents, but from my experience, whatever you do, they will still see you in the same negative light they have always seen you in. None of them can actually see the real you and they have never been able to see the real you. Because if they could, they would see the beautiful, kind, caring, loving person that you are. If they could see the real you they would know you had feelings just like everybody else, feelings that had been badly hurt by their cruelty and that needed to be heard, not brushed aside and pushed away as if they, you, were not important.

Sorry, I'm getting carried away.

I wish you the best of luck in whatever you decide to do and always remember there is plenty of support on here whenever you need it.