Are you a Victim or a Survivor of Child Abuse? Share Your Story and Seek Support

It's hard to talk about and I've never really told anyone what's happened

im 28 and I've realized that it has affected me as an adult. I don't respond to certain things that people should react to (like if someone was in an accident or something like that), I don't like fighting, I struggle with emotional relationships and letting people close to me. Relationships never last. My last relationship was abusive. I've just always felt like something was wrong with me and I know it's from the childhood abuse and neglect I've gone through.

i have a problem with expressing my feelings, or getting my thoughts together and completing sentences sometimes. I feel emotionally detached

I always considered myself as a victim, until I saw your question. It made me really think. Now I consider myself a bought: a victim and a survivor. After almost four decades I still can't explain it to me myself: How I did it? But then I realize that I was very strong, young, more or less healthy and this how I make it through. Now, many years later I have consequences. I feel physical pain all owe my entire body because of depression, anxiety and stress. Sometimes I feel my hair is hurting me which is something like really absurd but however, I am still here able to talk about this. It is still so unbelievable for me to think that the most dangerous people I could even met in all my life was my own parents. People with serious issues who decided to live together and start a family transmitting all their frustration, failure and anger on their two sweet and good baby girls. Outside the door we were a perfect young family, inside the house it was like living in a bubble. It was a place of absurd control over our thoughts, emotions, ideas, food and all basic needs, and every kind of prohibitions and punishments. They could definitely decide about our existence. We were so skinny and weak. I remember when I was twelve years old but my weight was like I seven or eight years old. They definitely didn't take care about our nutrition or any kind of development. One time when I was eight years old y went to the doctor and took my baby sister who had a very high fever and when doctor saw us he got on a search for our parents to figure out why we are in such poor condition, sick, underfed and completely alone. I took a bus alone to get far to the city. I still wonder how we didn't get lost then. Humiliation was our daily bread. I still can't believe how that could be. I was always scared and sleeping with my eyes wide open because I really believed that we are on complete mercy of this two criminals. Psicologycal and physical abuse and torture of children is a crime. What still many people don't understand is that parents are not owners of their children. Children are not stuff. Even though, this behavior and show of power and control is very common in lots of families. Then the worse can happen and it is the deep sense of guilt and shame that a child keeps inside because starts to believe that that what this sick people are saying is everything actually truth. That really is what made me fragile and sick. But after all I am still here, I will not give up looking on into the better future. It will be a great struggle but I will keep fighting. Many times I cought myself in observing a small children and checking if they are ok, if they look healthy and how their parents treat them because they could simply be me and nobody would ever notice. I watch them and I wonder. I hope that they all have a good parents who love them. As a survivor I am on constant alert.

I was a victim of child abuse, physical violence & emotional abuse, for 23 years. When I was not being abused at home, I was being racially bullied at school. 10 years later and although I have forgiven and love my parents, I believe that parts of me are still haunted and am impacted for life because of this. I wonder if this is why I am still single. I wonder if this is why it’s difficult for me to make eye contact. I wonder if this is why I shut down even at work. I wonder if this is why I feel unworthy so often because when something I want doesn’t workout, the inner child in me cries out in pain. I feel so unlovable more often then not— I know it’s not entirely true bc I have so much love, but I still feel this way. I wonder if this is why I suffer from paralyzing imposter syndrome. I still jolt if a door is opened too quickly or if I here a stomping footstep. I can’t watch certain violence in movies or shows. I close my eyes and ears, I just can’t do it. Idk if I will ever heal or what that looks like...but I believe the trauma has has left it’s last mark on me.

I’m not sure if this counts as abuse but here goes. As a child I was different. I had undiagnosed ADHD and was constantly picked on by my family. I was homeschooled up until college so family was all I had. That being said I got spanked with wooden or rubber spatulas ALL THE TIME. I remember one time I was hit so hard with a bamboo spoon that the handle snapped. I think my mom laughed about it. I would get slapped with a hand that had a sharp diamond ring on it. Anyway through high school the physical stuff happened less but idk if I’m now being mentally manipulated. I hate being home. There is no place for me and I feel stifled. However, this upsets my mom. I tried to explain to her why I feel more comfortable without them but she just keeps mentioning how much money they spend on me (we are not at all well off) and then I feel guilty for not being grateful and not wanting to be with them. I just kinda feel like that is manipulative but there’s nothing I can do. Until I graduate I can’t really distance myself from them because I rely on them. Also my mom has full control over my savings so even if I tried to distance myself it would be hard to even buy food without her say so.

*possible trigger warning*

In 2006, at the age of 2, I walked into the room where my parents were, foaming at the mouth, turning blue, focusing my eyes to a certain direction, and going into the first few phases of a type of seizures that would control my life for the next 5 or so years. I was flown in a helicopter to Wesley's Medical Center. After nearly dying I spent a few days recovering from what doctors falsely assumed was grand mals. I was diagnosed with a type of epilepsy my foggy brain has since forgotten and I'm too scared to ask my parents about. EEGs showed that i had a shrinkage on the left side of my brain.

What happened? Did I get into some kind of pills? Drugs? Cleaning supplies? What I'm coming to a conclusion of is far worse. Someone had sexually abused me. Who? Why would anyone do such a thing? How did they get me alone? How many times? Where? When? So many questions are going through my head rn.

I've watched TV shows and documentaries about survivors of this atrocities but I never once thought "God, that happened to me too" I never once wondered where my shame, excessive masturbation, and sexual fantasies at three years of age came from. I just knew it was wrong and i was a very dirty child. I saw things about chronic vaginal pain and I always thought, there's always another explanation. Maybe I don't even have that. I listened to my own mother talk about her experience with possible sexual trauma as a child. The story of the way she played with her barbies was always mild in what I knew I did with mine. Denial is still going through my head, but it is quickly being shadowed by anger and anxiety.

I can't look at myself in the mirror anymore. I can't meet my little brother's gaze. What if I did something to him? I remember being violent and choking him, kicking him, shoving him when he was little. I don't remember certain times in my childhood. In fact some days i would suddenly snap into the present and stand there bawling while my parent is berating me for something i didn't remember doing. Worst thing is, he has a lot of the symptoms of aftermath of child abuse. I don't have any friends, BPD as well as multiple personalities have pushed them all away. I'm afraid to tell my parents about this. What if they hate me? What if they don't believe me? What if something didn't happen? What if they are repulsed by my confession of a sexual addiction even more than I am? Will they wrinkle their nose and try to settle their stomach when i tell them of my obsession with sexually related crimes and abuses? Especially featuring children? I have numerous physical and mental health problems due to this. I am also an asexual tomboy. One day i was a very girly girl who had crushes on numerous boys the next day i turned into a nonsexual tomboy. Asthma, depression, anxiety, PTSD, shame, guilt, denial, dermatillomania, as well as anorexia nervosa are my biggest problems today. I'm hoping through posting anonymously and seeking help in various support groups I can overcome these fears, addictions, and such, and get help in the real world.

Im a victim of it (since Im still a minor and im trying my best to legally move out). Its a long story, probably one day I'll come back to reply to this post with my whole 14 years of trauma essay :')))

My dad is an alcoholic. And it got really bad after my parents divorced. He can't go more than a week without getting drunk. And when he drinks, he gets violent. He hits me and my brother. I just feel so stuck. It seems like there is no way out. He said if he finds out that I told anyone he will kill me. And he said that if I tell someone and they file a report that he will kill me, my brother, and whoever I told. I just don't know what to do anymore.