I can't get over the fact that they harmed animals too.
⚠️!!! 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.