u/KiroDrago

When people hear the word "discipline", the first thing that usually comes to mind is being spanked, having belongings taken away, and doing extra chores. I have never heard anyone mention the type of verbal abuse that I went through. I feel like some of my trauma doesn't fit into the "stereotypes".

Perhaps you feel the same way that I do. It's an alienating feeling to endure certain things that aren't mentioned very often, which is why I'm making this post. Let's start small by talking about the punishments that we were given while growing up.

Here are some of the things that occured on my part:

At four to six years-old, I had time-outs. While that's considered a "typical" punishment, my time-outs had their small twists to them. While I had to sit down for a set amount of time, my old step-dad, Cory would purposely play with my sister in front of me, giving her much of the attention that he would refuse to offer me.

His favoritism towards my sister was clear. These small acts alone only rubbed it in further.

Another thing about these "time-outs" was that I was considered "annoying" for sobbing during them. I was sometimes told to "shut the fuck up" and Cory once went as far as taping my mouth shut while laughing at me about it.

In the same house, I had to stand in front of the bathroom mirror and stare at my reflection to "see what I have done". It was for tiny acts such as eating a cookie, over-cooking a hot dog, and simple mistakes such as that. It's kinda funny now that I think about it - but it was so consistent that I became avoidant over my own reflection for a pretty long time.

I'd use most of the "mirror time" to analyze my flaws and I couldn't help but to notice how "ugly" I am whenever I started crying too. This all led to habits that were related to the guilt that I'd feel towards my reflective self.

I would lift up my phone high up or fold my computers back far enough so that I couldn't see my own face. I'd make the toy mirror in my playroom turn in the opposite direction. I am thankful that Cory was once so mad at me that he stomped on to the mirror and broke it.

Cory left shortly after these events and I had a new step-father come into my life. He was less physically abusive than Cory, but much worse in the verbal area.

I have been given the role to be my sister's protector. This is relevant. I'd sometimes feel insecure about my "failed" attempts at saving her. My step-dad knew about this thought process of mine and wanted to "show" her that my desire to protect her is useless against him and that I am a "failure" of a protector after all.

He would target me as a means to get his anger out. He'd have my sister stand at the doorway and watch as he screamed at me until I started shaking or until I sobbed. I kept thinking, "please leave, you don't want to see me like this" whenever it happened.

It was humiliating. I wanted to be "tough" and show her that she is safe because our mother refuses to step-up and save the two of us. Now my sister doesn't feel secure because I just had to be so weak.

This cycle also continued on for very long. It has gotten to the point that I stopped sobbing as a response and instead started to vomit or lose my ability to breathe properly. My legs sometimes gave out and I'd breathe in loud, short gasps. I couldn't control it, either. I wanted it to stop every time.

Why did I turn out like this? I had years in my life when I was an emotionless robot. If only I would stay that way against this pathetic excuse of a "father".

An ex-best friend that I had for three years. The only reason I was hanging on to our bond was because I have nobody else. I can't go outside unless I have a friend, but I unfortunately graduated high school with just this single person. I would put up with the way this "friend" had been mistreating me. I'm not going to go into detail, but there was something that they did that made me cut ties with them once and for all.

She attempted to sexually assault me, despite me making it clear that I have trauma involving intimacy and romance. I wrote a goodbye letter that'll go more in depth of how she has abused me. Some information has not been included for privacy, but she has done more than the things mentioned below.

The message that I made yesterday:

There are things that you haven't realized yet. And like I have said before, you deserve the truth about everything. I am leaving you, and this time, I will not accept an apology.

I have been dragging this dead body of a "friendship" instead of putting it into the grave. I want to keep pushing this bond with you, even if it isn't alive anymore. But (...), I can't keep doing that alone. There's no point in reviving something that's already long gone.

You do not view me as a friend. You see me as a mere therapist. For years, you have vented your issues to me. It's always been about your problems, but never mine. Whenever I have tried to open up to you, you always offer a single sentence or cut me off with a "you know what's scarier?" comment. Yes, even towards the time I tried to open up about a leg deformity that you have the fortune of not suffering from.

But I brushed that off, just like how I have been brushing off the many other ways you've been mistreating me. What you don't see is that my entire family feels unsafe with me coming over, but I still plea to visit you. I push so hard while you pretend to do the same with your petty lies.

Do you think I don't see you ignoring me? Or how you can have boyfriends come over but not me? "It's the boxes" is a common excuse of yours too... it took you one hour to clean your room, but apparently months to do the rest of your house? I have cleaned up an entire apartment within two weeks, an apartment three times as big as your home.

"If I had to settle for someone, it would be you!" I am so honored to hear that while you pull up four dating apps and actively message other people in front of my face, shortly followed by you pulling up anal pornagraphy without my consent.

What kind of idiot do you take me for? I am smarter than you think. It just so happens that I'm easy to take advantage of, and I'm sure you're very much aware about that specific weakness of mine.

That's why you tried to sexually assault me, and I know you don't feel an ounce of shame for it. You refuse to take accountability for the way you exploited my lack of relationship experience. You made fun of the way I kissed. It was nothing short of humiliating. I did not appreciate your "I guess it's obvious who's the top" comment either - none of that was me being "submissive", it was me being terrified.

Truth is, I want to be a friend. A best friend, but I can't be a lover. I can't be the "one who failed to please your frequent 'oh I miss making out with a girl' remarks".

And I heavily believe that the only reason you "apologized" for abandoning me was because you lost your boyfriend, not because you "missed" me - you didn't want to be left empty-handed, so you used me as your back-up plan.

I don't understand why you'd do such a thing. I've always been honest, kind, and despite me not being into those animes or webtoons, I still show that I at least care about what my friend is into. Everyone under the same roof as me has seen the effort I have put towards us. On the other hand, you haven't cared about anything that I ever liked.

It's okay, you don't have to see me as a friend anymore. In fact, I feel the same way. I see you as a rapey person who loves to take advantage of fellow mentally-ill people. Go ahead, make me look bad in front of your internet kids. Again. Just make sure to not leave out the part where you tried to force yourself on to me, as well as the other ways you have wronged me.

Not included: It feels incredible to take this weight off my shoulders. I'm really proud of myself for sticking up, even if it means losing the last person that I have. Hopefully in the future, I'll make a new in-person friend who'll actually treat me like a friend without disrespecting my boundaries.

⚠️!!! Please avoid this post if you're sensitive about this subject. I find animal abuse disturbing too, but I am tired of being silent about it. If this is not allowed on this subreddit, feel free to take my post down.

I grew up around violent fathers. I was an easy target to them, especially since I had a "intellectual" problem back then. I couldn't speak up on any of it because I wasn't able to talk until I was five. Developmental disabilities, physical deformities, extremely unstable emotional regulation issues / people-pleasing behavior - I was the perfect punching bag. However, I wasn't always around to play that role.

You see, this all took place in a household where our house was riddled with rodents. My old step-dad, Cory, took advantage of this and made a "stress toy" for himself, his own little mouse torture method.

He'd cut half of a two-liter bottle and keep the top half of it. He would apply screws on the opening where they'd point towards the inside. He thought this would be "entertaining" to show to a five year-old like me - he'd make use of this creation by grabbing a mouse, putting it inside of the bottle, and then pushing its head towards the opening full of sharp screws.

The mice were too large to fit through the space, so the screws would gash and tear at the rodent's skin. I watched and listened as the critter squeaked hysterically as a few drops of its blood spilled from the cap opening. I didn't want to upset Cory, so I put on a happy face and cheered whenever he did this to the rodents.

I also had a dog named, "Kingston". He was a black tuxedo miniature poodle.

Note that there was nothing I could do about these things. I tried calling Child Protection Services multiple times, but throughout the trauma, abuse, and all the other things, they were proven to be useless. I lived in a ghetto with a high crime rate and a community full of parents who also abuse their animals or children, so my experiences were just the "norm" to them.

(Please do not tell me that I didn't try to stop it)

He was a loving dog, but Cory didn't see him in that light. He would kick the small poodle, starting from when he was just a year-old. When Cory left and was replaced with a new abusive father, he would continue the cycle of physical discipline. The sounds of his yelps were engraved into my brain. I had the "blessing" of witnessing him grabbing Kingston by one ear and lifting him up like that. His entire weight was on the single ear, and I froze as Kingston cried and tried to escape his grasp. After holding him, he threw Kingston aggressively against the cabinet.

I was eight. I didn't know what to do.

We then got another dog, Zoey. A gorgeous husky. The problem with my parents is that they don't care much about these animals, they usually want them because they're "cute" without considering the responsibilities. While I fed and took care of the dogs, my dad had the pleasure of hurting her too. She is a big dog, so he'd smack her harder than Kingston. They got her a shock collar too, and they thought it was "funny" to set the shock level to twenty (max) to see how she'd react.

And what breaks me the most about Zoey is that she has trauma responses from the way she was treated. She always backed off or "dodged" whenever somebody tries to pet her. Mind you, she wasn't like this before this type of treatment. The carpets had some piss strains from how often she'd tremble in fear. Her tail was commonly tucked under her too, which is a sign of a terrified dog.

The overly-affectionate dog was now an easily-startled mess. But just because she was in the picture didn't mean that Kingston's torment was over yet.

Kingston favoritied my mom from the start. She's the only one he'd let clip his nails and cut his hair. This is important. Kingston's hair was starting to get severely matted, and no matter how many times me and my sister begged her to take care of it, she'd either ignore us or make a joke about it.

They hid the scissors from me and my sister because that's "not our job". I'm also not allowed around scissors due to a history of harming myself with them. Our freedom was heavily restricted in the place, I wasn't allowed outside either. I couldn't even whisper to my sister. We literally had to chat through our tablets and it didn't matter if we weren't in the same room.

Dad was the only one with power, so we had no other choice but to watch. Kingston became blind due to the hair in his face. His face had a matt covering each of his eyes. He was coated with urine, feces, and dirt. This caused him to crash into furniture and injure himself. It was heartbreaking and dad would make comments like, "stupid fucking dog" whenever he had an accident.

Enough was enough, and me and my sister had to enforce that she'll cut his hair. When she finally did it, his skin was full of dark red scars and nasty bumps. The effects were still there, though. He was mostly blind and still had his accidents due to the infections.

The day came around when Kingston reached age fifteen. He had strokes that were followed by even more strokes. He couldn't survive one of them and he died on the floor. I'm not really one to cry over the loss of a loved one, but something about his death made me distressed.

When I was eleven years-old, Kingston saved me from a child predator who broke into our place. He was a hero. And even if he wasn't a hero, he didn't deserve the life that he was given. He lived a horrible life. I sometimes wish my fathers drew the line at animal abuse and harmed me further instead. I've been through enough, but being abused a little more rather than experiencing animal abuse would've messed me up less.

Edit: Thank you for the upvotes. It's not much but it shows that my pain is being recognized to some extent.

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