Were you abused as a child by your parent or caregiver?

In this question, I asked about handling the death/dying of an abusive parent. It got my mind racing.

Were you abused as a child? To what extent? Is any abuse ever acceptable? How has it affected you as an adult?

Have you come to terms with your abuse? Does it seem foreign to you? Are you a parent now and being conscious about raising your own children differently?

In my case, I always accepted these behaviors as normal. I grew up in an area where punishment went above and beyond spanking. As kids, we were forced to go and pick branches off trees “switches” to be whipped with. If we didn’t pick an adequately thick enough “switch”, we were hit even harder.

Abuse wasn’t only physical, it was verbal. My father’s limited intelligence resulted in calling his kids and nieces and nephews “ugly” and “fat” all the time. I grew up believing this was ok.

In the South where I am from, when I was sexually abused at age 5 by a mentally handicapped relative, both of my parents were embarrassed and pretended it never happened. Nor did they address the damage that it did to me or explain to me that what happened was not ok.

When my mother fell ill from MS and became dependent on pills, she began to create grand stories of how I was a drug addict and a prostitute (I was 13, a virgin, and never touched drugs) and accused me of sleeping with my father while he stood by and did nothing.

I know people who have experienced far worse circumstances and I always diminished my experiences as not significant enough to be labeled abuse.

Thank you for all your stories. It will help us all heal.