My father was raised on capital punishment, therefore, he decided he wanted to raise his children on that too. As I grew up, disciplining was usually spanking by my father and mother, but as I got older spanking turned into choking, pushing, punching, and hitting me with whatever object my father could get his hands on if he disagreed with me or didn’t like something I did or said.
A specific example of this would be in 2020 my father and I were having an argument about sexual assault, his stance being girls are “asking for it” when they wear certain clothes and go to certain places, and so I called him a sexist pig. Was that disrespectful, probably, but this is a topic I am passionate about and I couldn’t believe he thought that way.
His response to me calling him that was slamming my head down on the counter twice, my brother and mother not hearing me screaming until the second one. I was either 19 years old at the time or turning 19.
My mother would usually stick up for me and get my dad off me, but as I’ve become a young adult my mother has started physical fights with me and has left some scars on me.
What has often hurt more than the physical abuse has been the verbal. Both of my parents have turned simple arguments into monologues of degradation at me. Often out of nowhere, or blown up from such a little problem like dirty dishes, the trashcans, or a piece of cake.
I blame a lot of this on mental health issues my parents refuse to admit to and get care for, but it has taken a toll on me and my health.
I noticed myself treating my brother sometimes like my parents treated us. Quick to get angry with him, and willing to smack him around and shout at him, and I realized I don’t want to be like my parents, I can’t be like my parents, especially to my maybe future husband and children.
I wanted to break the toxic generational cycle of abuse my parents were continuing from previous generations. I didn’t want to be the mom that “should’ve gone to therapy so her kids didn’t have to” because the abusive actions would have hurt their mental health, and they would have to be in counseling because of the unhealthy environment they’re forced to live in.
This constant abuse affects your relationships with yourself, family, friends, and romantic partners. I saw it affect me and how I treated others, so after I was consistently having vivid dreams of my dad either hurting me and my family, or himself, I started seeing a therapist, and gosh was it one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
The implication of domestic abuse is not worth dealing with on your own. It’ll eat at you until you become the version of yourself you’re running from, or you became the parent you resented for most of your life.
Now that I’ve been in therapy, I’ve learned how to treat others the way they should be treated, not the way that my parents treated me, and that I don’t need to think of myself the way my parents thought of me. I also have learned how to have a better relationship with my parents, and even de-escalate some abusive situations, or even just learn how to cope and heal with what has been done to me or sometimes is still being done to me.
Therapy will also help you learn what people to avoid, so that you don’t end up in a relationship with someone who is going to treat you the way past abusers have. I’ve had to learn that the hard way.
Doing research for this website has actually shown me abusive traits some of my past partners have shown that I didn’t even recognize because I didn’t know there’s so much more out there that is considered abuse, especially verbal.
This page will include a broader set of perspectives on the issue, drawing from on my research project. Let's dedicate 500 to 750 words to this page.