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.

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

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

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

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.

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.