I'm not sure if I was abused in my family or not-what should I do?

Remember that abuse is not only physical. If you were bullied, put down, called names or felt unloved there's a very real chance you were emotionally and/or verbally abused. Talk to a counsellor or therapist about your personal concerns and they can provide professional insight and help.

There are several kinds of abuse: emotional, physical, verbal, and sexual. Emotional abuse can involve shaming, game-playing, and blackmail among other things. Physical abuse can involve hitting slapping, punching, and also threats to harm. Verbal abuse can involve swearing, shouting, yelling, and insults. Sexual abuse entails unwanted and/or inappropriate sexual contact. If you feel like any of these things have happened to you, talk to someone you trust, and seek professional assistance. If you feel you are unsafe, get to a safe place and get help. You have the right to be free from abuse. You have the right to have your physical boundaries respected, and to say "no" to unwanted touch.

Do your best to recollect the events you're thinking of, then look up the legal and psychiatric definitions of abuse and see if you fall somewhere in that range.

Abuse takes a lot of different forms. Sometimes it's obvious (violence, sexual trauma), sometimes it's more subtle (emotional abuse, abandonment, family pressures). Just like when our body gets hurt, our minds and emotions also experience trauma when they are stressed or hurt. So the question is, are you feeling stressed or hurt? And if so, where does that come from? If you think about it, and find a cause, the next question is, what do you do with that cause? Do you confront, or let go? Do you seal yourself off, or let others into that pain? Personally, I have found that talking about these deep hurts with close, trusted friends, helps a lot. It allows me to process it, and figure out what I need to do. It also helps give me perspective (with my friend's viewpoint). And it also strengthens the friendship, as I learn that my friend loves me, even with my trauma, abuse, and broken parts. Sometimes after talking about it, I decide to let the hurts go. I try my best to forgive them and move on. Other times, it becomes clear that I have to talk to the person who hurt me, and get some resolution. Still other times I feel like I have to do something else to gain peace and acceptance for my unresolved brokenness. No matter what the situation is, you can start to work towards accepting yourself, the way you are. (Broken, and all.) That will go a long way towards getting some peace, in the internal world of struggles and hurt feelings.

Talk to an adult, friend or therapist. Confide in someone that you trust about what happened specifically and they may be able to clear up any confusion for you.

If you are feeling depressed or unhappy and think that your childhood was not good enough or you are scared of anyone from your family then it may be a sign that you were abused in your family. Irrespective of whether you were abused or not you should take proper care of your mental health and physical health well. Take five or ten minutes each day and sit with yourself. Try to observe your thoughts. We get fifty thousand thoughts everyday but not every thought is a disturbing one. Observe yours. Find out which thoughts are disturbing your mental peace. Work upon them. Restructure them to positive ones. If you can't do this activity on your own then take help of a professional counselor.

I would consider seeking professional mental health in order to explore possible abuse in your past.

For this answer, I'm operating under limited information and the assumption that you think and/or feel that you were being hurt or harmed, yet what you're unsure of is whether or not this hurt or harm falls under abuse. If my assumption is indeed the case, then I had a similar experience with you. For a while I've always known that there was something unhealthy if not wrong, and I've always classified the individual acts as individual instances. It took me eight years to accept that, regardless of label, those acts have done enough damage to my relationship with a person. I didn't have to wait for the relationship to become toxic, nor for the acts to become abuse. In fact, the earlier I realized I wasn't content with the way things were, the earlier I could have stopped keeping myself from being healed. If my assumption is indeed the case, would the label still matter to you? And if my assumption is indeed the case, what do you want to happen and what do you want to stop? If you know the answers to these two questions, it will be easier for you to find out what you want to do.

Talk with a professional to speak and see what you can do to understand your past better and cope with your abuse .

First step is To smile :D Second is to ask yourself the question do they Hit you/Mentally Abuse you... If they hit you more that once a week then you may be in a abusive relationship with your family. If they scream at you and tell you things to put you down for no reason. Then you may be in a abusive relationship. If this is the case then you need to seek help immediately whether it's the police or a guidance counselor at school. I'm sorry try to keep your head up!

Read up more about abuse and what kind of abuse there are. The internet will help or you could talk to a therapist to be sure.

Speak to a professional or if it is physical or sexual abuse, the police. If a question like this ever comes to you, something probably happened. Do not attempt to face such demons alone, it will end in self-destruction.

What is the reason that you think you have been abused?Have you talked to anyone about this issue before?well done for coming on to 7 cups of tea to talk to one of our fantastic listeners

Seek help, talk to others around you about what happened. A adult or teacher. Maybe even someone in the group. Abuse is a scary thing, and talking about it will help you get a better understanding on things that have happened and what to do about it or if it happens again.

There's different kinds of abuse. Emotional abuse is when the abusers attend to tell lies or half truths to avoid having to explain their actions, accuse and blame to divert attention away from themselves, refuse to accept the perspective of others, withhold information in areas affecting those who are being abused, avoid acknowledging the feelings of others, slight or take digs in a non-aggressive or joking matter, change the subject to divert attention from themselves, make others feel worthless in an attempt to lower their self-esteem, threaten or hint of physical, mental, or sexual abuse, deny anything is wrong, show inappropriate emotional outbursts, try to control others, forgets commitments and promises, takes advantage of your vulnerability, cut someone off, ask inappropriate questions, humiliate others in public situations, keeps pushing your button. Physical abuse is scratching/punching/strangling/kicking, throwing something at you, pulling your hair, pushing or pulling you, grabbing your clothing, using any form of weapon. touching you inappropriately/without consent, forcing you to have sex or perform a sexual act, grabbing your face to make you look at them, preventing you from leaving or forcing you to go somewhere. Verbal abuse is yelling, shouting, swearing, consistent arguing, interrupting you, putting down, intimidating, threatening you. Economic abuse is withholding money, forcing you to leave your job, not allowing you to get a job or an education. Mental abuse is playing mind games with you, twisting everything around so its not their fault, accusing you of things that they're doing, lying, manipulating you, distorting reality so you think you're losing your mind. Lastly there's sexual abuse which is rape, unwanted sexual touching, vulgar comments, pressure for sex, forcing you to have unprotected sex, forcing you to get pregnant or have an abortion, forcing you to have sex with someone else or watch them have sex with someone else, forcing you to use or participate in pornography. If you feel like your family has done any of this criteria you should talk to someone outside of your family. There's multiple help lines for abuse, and you can always talk to a listener.

There are many different types of abuse. Emotional, physical, sexual and so on and there is the questions of how healing would work best for you.

call a advocate hotline for people who are abused and ask them questions! Or if you are in school talk to a teacher that you trust or the counselor

If abuse involves hitting, slapping, kicking then yes that is abuse and to be honest It's not your fault. Don't ever blame yourself if your family is abusive all you need to call many helplines whom can support you from this situation for example Woman's aid, National Domestic Violence, and many more out there organisations . These are in UK. I can ensure each country have different domestic violence organisations you just need to search or ask any of us listeners where we can help and find for you :) we want your safety and we want you to be safe both health and phsyical wise. To relate to my situation I am in the same boat. But as soon I get a job I will sure move out from this family. Hope this helps x

The best option, is to call a domestic violence hotline or other professional family abuse hotlines and describe your situation to them.