MY FATHER RECENTLY PHYSICALLY ASSAULTED ME WITH A MATCHETE AND I AM NOT OKAY
I'm a 19-year-old male, and my sisters and I grew up in an extremely abusive household. Out of the three of us, I had it the worst. The only form of abuse I never experienced from my parents was sexual abuse.
Growing up, I was constantly insulted, humiliated, and told I was useless. Both of my parents repeatedly told me they regretted having me. My father treated me like an errand boy, constantly sending me on long trips just to satisfy his own needs. My mother was never innocent either. She always defended my father's behavior and had her own ways of putting me down. Living with them felt like growing up with two narcissistic, emotionally unstable people.
Last year, my father traveled away for almost a year. During that time, I finally found peace. I found happiness, hope, dignity, and a sense of self. It honestly felt like I had reached enlightenment. For the first time in my life, I could look at myself in the mirror and smile.
I tried to earn enough money to move out, but I couldn't. School was supposed to be my escape, but my parents kept frustrating my education, so I ended up stuck at home and depressed.
In May this year, my father came back. Almost immediately, that familiar feeling of fear and uneasiness returned. The peace I had worked so hard to build started disappearing. By this point, my siblings and I had matured enough that we no longer cared about his manipulation or attempts to control us. I think that made him feel powerless because control has always been his biggest obsession.
Last Friday, during one of his angry outbursts, he suddenly started throwing punches at me. At this point, I was physically stronger than him, but I chose not to fight back because I didn't want to become violent or risk making the situation worse.
When he realized I wasn't afraid of him and that I was blocking his punches, he became even more enraged. He went into his room, grabbed a long machete (thankfully it was blunt), and repeatedly struck me with it. Throughout the whole thing, my mother stood there laughing at me and defending him.
Eventually, he used the machete to force me out of the house.
I ran to my neighbor's house, and that's when everything hit me. I wasn't crying because of the physical pain. I was crying because the weight of my entire life crashed down on me all at once. Years of abuse, humiliation, and trauma finally caught up with me.
I spent one night at my aunt's house before having to return home because I had nowhere else to go.
Since then, both of my parents have been acting as though nothing happened. They try to speak to me normally and pretend the assault never occurred. It's honestly making me feel like I'm losing my mind. I'm living in the same house as the people who traumatized me, and every day I see them, it feels like the wound is being reopened.
Before this happened, I genuinely liked the person I was becoming. I had hope, confidence, and self-worth. Now I feel like I've lost all of that. This incident has shattered the way I see myself and left me feeling constantly anxious, uneasy, and traumatized.
Has anyone else experienced something similar? More importantly, is there any coming back from this? Right now it feels like everything I worked so hard to heal has been destroyed.