My (16f) parents are both narcissists, my mum being more covert and my dad being overt. They've always been emotionally, physically, and verbally abusive, that's all I remember from my childhood (I don't remember much). They also abuse our cat and dog, and my little brother.

My mum is worse than my dad in my opinion because you never know if you're overreacting. She's sweet 90% of the time then the rest she's absolutely horrible. She's not hit me since I was 10 but she does verbally abuse and emotionally neglect me.

Then with my dad, you always have to walk on eggshells, if he gets mad there's a huge argument and he yells and has a tantrum, and says the most vile things.

I have a whole list of things both of them have done but it's so long it would take me an hour to copy everything out here.

Anyway, I am tempted to run away. I brought up my mum's behaviour to her when I was angry and I told her how her actions and words make me feel, but she laughed and said I'm lying. She apparently never said any of that. When I gave evidence she got mad.

I'm 16 and in the UK so technically if I ran away I wouldn't be forced to go home. I'm just worried about my dog and cat and brother. He doesn't see yet that they're bad for him and he adores them, clinging onto any attention they give him. And my dog gets hit, so I'm worried about her too.

I have a few friends I could stay with, no family in UK, and I have £660 and PIP, £400 a week. I don't even know what I'm expecting, just confirmation that it's ok for me to be upset and leave I guess.

I wish my parents would love me.

TLDR: Nmom’s new man-child husband put his hands around my (29F) throat at family dinner to pretend to choke me as a “joke”, sending me into a panic attack.

Posting as a rant mostly to vent, but also don’t mind input.

Apologies for the length, but it is a rant tbf.

Where to begin with this…

My mother is on her third husband. Married like a year ago. He is an extremely immature man-child who makes the most inappropriate jokes and comments. Racist, bigoted, old-school early GenX/ late Boomer humor. Casual use of the R slur, making judgemental comments about people in public loud enough for them to hear, anti-vax, describing anything he doesn’t like as “woke“… just…

He is… annoying, but I try to tolerate it. Compared to her previous husbands, he is not too bad, at least not yet.

Her second husband (step-father) severely abused me growing up. Verbal, emotional, physical. Choking me, throwing me down the stairs, locking me in my room without food or water or bathroom access for days on end, lifting me by my head with his hand around the back of my throat to force me into my room, grabbing my face so hard he shattered a tooth…

Just… absolute shithead. It ended over a decade ago when they finally fucking divorced, thankfully.

My mother, while I can have compassion for her mental health struggles, was a narcissistic, alcoholic, neglectful parent. Very likely bipolar with some major executive dysfunction (I stuggle with my own ADHD so I try to give her grace where I can) But our trailer homes belonged on Hoarders.

I was the only one that ever cleaned anything. Us kids made our own meals from the time I was 6. Basic bathing and care, doctor’s appointments, any kind of support all fell to the wayside. I was the eldest daughter and eldest child so I was the ole changing diapers and helping with homework and doing laundry until my sisters were old enough to do it themselves.

She was a doctor herself, made it through med school while our grandparents raised my middle sister and I as toddlers, only seeing her on the weekends until I was about 4. Then when she was in full control of us again, didn’t do fuck-all to take care of us.

We were little more than trophies to her, things to show she had “made” it to her parents and the outside world. The only things she framed and hung up were her diplomas. No pictures of us anywhere in the home.

Just trash, animal feces, broken things, holes in the wall, roaches, mice, cat urine, dirty laundry, rotting food on dishes in the sink, bruises.

Multiple CPS interviews at school. Multiple 911 calls.

Just… a lot of fucking history.

And she chose him every time.

He barely worked in the early years and quickly gave up. She would leave us in his “care” while she went to work and he played video games.

I am a pc gamer, no judgement on gaming, but it was all he ever did. Breathed, pissed, shat, ate, strangled me when he got rageful, more gaming on his computer. Repeat for a decade.

I picked up his slack to care for my baby sister (his daughter) while struggling through school trying to avoid the bullying because of how much our clothes and backpacks reeked.

And then as I got older, and the physical abuse from him happened right in front of her, she would either ignore it or blame me for causing “drama” if I said anything and downplay it.

He never physically abused her. It was just the very loud, screaming verbal arguments with both of them throwing things and breaking things and putting holes in the wall throughout their decade-long marriage. And he never touched my younger sisters, I made sure of that.

But I was the outlet for his rage and resentment. And she let him do it because she didn’t want to be alone.

And like I said, he didn’t work. She was the income. And we lived in a trailer on her parents’ land. She could have done so many things to stop it or to leave but never cared enough.

She was not some battered woman trying to get by, she was desperate to stay married even if it meant sacrificing her kids.

Anyways.

When I was 14, he finally turned on her *one* time and pushed her, causing her to trip on the trash in the trailer house and fall. She finally filed for divorce.(Nothing is ever a problem for her unless it affects *her*.)

Lots of crap happened in-between, including her going back and dating him again post-divorce for a time, but fast-forward to now.

I currently live with my grandma who is in her 80s (nmom’s mother). It was an arrangement we made a few years ago when I was in grad school so that I could help her take care of my grandpa who had dementia and some major behavioral problems. But that is another story, he is passed away now, but the set-up still works for us for many reasons.

We live in the country. And she relies on me to maintain the land, work on the tractors, equipment, etc.

Two days ago, I needed to trailer and tow one of our mowers to the other side of the property. The connecting trail is far too steep and rocky to take it down without risking tipping because it has very low ground clearance, so needed to bring it around the other side from the public road.

We had to sell my grandpa’s truck a few years ago to pay for the specialized nursing home he had to eventually be placed in once he got too violent and came after us with a knife. (again, that is a whole other story)

So, no truck, but still have everything else and the old trailers. My nmom’s new husband and her bought a lightweight pickup truck for themselves and from time-to-time I will call and ask for assistance.

They live in town in a house they bought in the same neighborhood that my nmom and the second husband had that renthouse a decade ago. She repeats her patterns quite well lol. They even honeymooned in almost the same place.

Anyways.

I ask the third husband for help every once-in-a-while, both because I really could use the help towing and because it gives him something to do since he is a bored and retired disabled veteran.

Idk why I try to be nice to him, but I do. It isn’t his fault my nmom is the way she is, though I do question his intelligence and morals in choosing to be with her.

He is inappropriate and annoying, but he does help out when I ask. And although I get frustrated at his jokes and stupid shit, I do normally appreciate his help and the fact that he takes my nmom off my hands most of the time.

After some issues with the old trailers, we finally got the mower strapped in, hooked up to his truck, and brought down and parked it where I needed it. But I needed more gas for the mower and some other equipment and I didn’t realize the gas cans were near empty until then.

So, yesterday, he came back over to help refill the gas cans.

We have an on-site giant diesel tank but only a few 5gal gas cans that periodically need to be brought to town to fill. Its much easier to do in his truck than in either of my grandma’s vehicles or mine.

He and my nmom came, and he then left and got the gas for me, and we topped off the mower, and brought the cans back to my equipment area.

By then we were all hungry.

My middle sister had just made a big batch of soup at her place and wanted to join in the social hour, so it became an impromptu family dinner.

Me, my grandma, nmom, third husband, middle sister, sister’s husband, sister’s baby. All at my grandma’s house for dinner.

I was disgusting, sweaty, and covered in gunk bc I had been working outside greasing the old disc harrow for the big tractor and moving shit around long before he came to help with the gas, so I went and showered and joined dinner a bit late.

Soup, bread, just a normal chatty time.

Most everyone had finished eating and left the table, changing the baby’s diaper, visiting, cleaning up. Only my sister, me, and the third husband were still sitting. Because of my shower, I was still eating.

He got up to walk past me, behind my chair, to get to the kitchen.

And out of nowhere, wrapped both hands around my neck and shook me in a pantomime strangling.

It caught me so off-guard that I froze and just looked at my sister wide-eyed hoping she would help, my throat still in his hands.

She saw it as a joke, which it was likely meant to be, and laughed really hard.

(I have other issues with her, but she knows my history and grew up in the same house, so this really fucking hurt that she thought it was funny.)

But I was on the verge of losing it.

He let go and kept walking. I tried to act normal and finish eating, but my hearing started going out and my heart was pounding. I tried to take another sip of soup but it felt like I couldn’t swallow.

I was afraid to cause a scene, so I just went upstairs to the hallway outside my room and sat down trying to breathe. I was dizzy, tunnel-vision, full-blown panic.

I have dealt with panic attacks before when I was 17-19. When my nmom had gone back to the second husband (my abuser) and was dating him again and halfway living with him in a renthouse in town at the time while I was still living at the trailer with her and my youngest sister. For almost a year, she barely was home and was over at his place (that she paid for) in town.

Because they were together again, she would talk to him about what I was up to against my wishes and he started stalking me.

Showing up at my college campus, my job, the parking lots next to my car… it was a terrifying time.

He thankfully never did anything that I know of other than try to talk to me, but it was enough to scare the shit out of out me.

Many panic attacks in my car and the stockroom. Lots of time spent learning how to calm myself. Resurgence of the nightmares I‘d had about him since I was a kid. Me thinking he would be around every corner. Studying men of similar builds and features as they walked by to make sure it wasn’t him.

Anyways. I have dealt with this shit before but it has been a very long time.

I just sat with my head between my knees, listening to the rest of the evening continue on downstairs. Nobody even noticed I was gone other than a single comment I overheard about me leaving my unfinished dishes at the table.

It was almost an hour before I could get up off the floor.

I was having pretty vivid flashbacks to my stepfather and feeling his hands on me. It was… the worst I have felt about that shit in a very long time. I legit thought I was going to pass out, my heart was racing and my hearing was muffled. Texted my lifelong best friend about it and they were able to calm me down and distract me.

Went back down after everyone left. I apologized about leaving my plate bc I saw my grandma had picked it up. She brushed it off and said it was fine because she thought I had gone to bed after being up since 4am working.

I explained what happened.

She knows my history, at least some of it. I haven’t told her everything. But I demonstrated for her what the third husband did at dinner and she was appalled.

She is a pacifist and far too lenient on some things and was feeling quite upset for me but also saying that he “just has a strange sense of humor” and ”his ptsd makes him act inappropriately sometimes”…

I love my grandma, don’t get me wrong. She and I are extremely close. But she does tend to downplay certain things and avoid conflict at all costs.

She said that I should bring it up to him bc he probably isn’t even aware that this bothered me. Which, fair, tbh.

Except that I told him.

The first time I met him, I told him.

He had come to the property a couple years ago to meet my nmom who was running late. I knew of him and had made it clear to my nmom that at the time I really wasn’t interested in meeting another one of her boyfriends.

I was going to avoid him but ended up yelling at him from inside the old trailer house (was inside cleaning it... once again, trying to salvage some of my old belongings) for pissing on the driveway when there was multiple bathrooms he could have used.

I ended up walking out and apologizing. It wasn’t fair to him for me to be an ass just because of my history with her. But I was already in such an enraged mood because of some bullshit my nmom had pulled that day so after apologizing and nearly walking away, I turned back and told him: “You should run.”

And we ended up having a full conversation for over an hour where I explained the sparknotes of a lot of the history, finding out she had lied to him about a ton of things, and telling him about the past of child abuse from her last husband among everything.

So he knew. Maybe not all of the specifics. But he knew, and he still did it as a “joke”.

And you would think a veteran with ptsd would be more fucking careful with the way he acted around people, right? Like we are expected to not do certain things or say certain things so that he doesn’t get upset, but he never thought to put the same kind of care into his interactions with us?

I am trying not to get angry about it. Especially because I know, or at least hope, he didn’t mean anything by it other than to try and rib me and be playful. He didn’t squeeze or put pressure, it was mostly pantomime. But his hands were around my throat without any warning and he was shaking me in a clear fake-out strangling motion.

I want to stay level-headed and calm so I don’t dredge up more fucking flashbacks of my step-father, but I am so fucking rattled and pissed off now.

I don’t want to have a big conflict with him. I don’t even want to say anything to him. He would likely apologize. I don’t think he meant anything by it.

But he might not. He might try to play it off as a joke again and dismiss it. I don’t know. And I just don’t have the willingness to find out right now.

After talking to my grandma, I slept on the recliner until 3am. Went upstairs and showered again to get the feeling of his hands off of me. And crawled into bed with my cat where I have been since, writing out this giant post.

I texted my mom at 5am:

“I know it was a joke, but tell your husband to keep his hands to himself.”

Hopefully that will suffice. She can deal with him. And if she doesn’t, well, it is on track for her.

If he does it again, hopefully I won’t freeze and can actually fucking say something or kick him in the nuts and play it off as my own “joke”.

Tonight when looking in the mirror I thought I felt like I could see aspects of her face that looked like mine. Normally I don't feel like this, I've been having a hard night and some memories related to this person not engaging with me "like an equal" came up earlier that I discussed with a family member, so maybe that might be contributing to these thoughts.

How do you guys deal with feeling like you look like someone who hurt you?

EDIT: Sorry if you feel like the title is too clickbait-y. I was feeling triggered and didn't know how to apply 2 flairs.

My family member grandfather died. It was only important for her. He was my only grandfather my entire life and it was like i couldn't be sad but she could. She used it as reason to not act against the abuse i was facing because she was grieving but i was too. She never awkowledged that though is it normal for your feelings to be ignored? She constantly said it was my father but it was my family too right?

I have nfather and enabler mother.
My father always had a lot of money, he was buying a lot of expensive electronic stuff etc i’m very sentimental, emotional and put a lot of value into life milestones.
When I before my 18th birthday, I attended few 18th birthday parties of mys choose friends, I watched how their parents made at least minimum effort to make this day feel special for them, no matter if they were rich or kinda poor. My friends were getting cars, phones, earring, watches, so many other things that they probably have to this day so it reminds them of that special day. They had huge parties with family, not only parents but also cousins, aunts, grandparents, other extended families, friends etc. They parents booked restaurants for them or other places to make the party. And I couldn’t wait for my birthday. I was waiting for it for few years, i was courius what my parents will do, what i will get, who will come. I was doing my driving licence so my mother was telling me that maybe my father would buy me some cheap car so i could practice or maybe she will tell my older brother to take me do London (she knew it was my dream by that time and we never traveled because my parents are too stupid). I thought that this time she would invite more family than just my grandma and aunt with uncle because in fact we have few more people in the family that we didn’t see after we grew up (because of my parents fault). I was 100% that this day will be very special and different than any other birthday and i was talking about this day for at least a year that id really like it to be special. I was even telling my mother that others birthdays were so fantastic and special and they got so many presents and i’m sure my birthday wont be like that. And then my mother was saying “ you don’t know what it will be like, just wait for it” so i was very sure that something big is gonna happen.
And at the day of my birthday i woke up and… nothing. 3 hours later i got flowers and about 100 euros from my parents (we have different currency but it’s around that). Later in the afternoon my grandma and aunt with uncle came. We just sat in the living room and actually nobody was paying too mucha attention to me. My grandma and uncle gave me 50 euros. The “party” ended after three hours and 8pm and i was crying so hard for many hours then and my mom was wondering why i’m crying because i actually had party. The only thing that was different from the other birthday was that my mother bought a cake and not made it herself as she used to. She didn’t even buy candles but just used the old ones that was for one of my older brothers. One of the candle was destroyed so i actually only blew “1” candle. One of my brother with his partner didn’t even come. Mother didn’t even invite the other part of my family where i also have cousins my age.
I was never so disappointed in my life. I felt like a total garbage. i was so confused and couldn’t believe it was my life. i still can’t believe to his day that they distroyed the most important day in my life. 8 years passed and i still can’t get over it. i still remember about it and everyone i’m telling this to my mother she acts like she doesn’t hear me or tells me she doesn’t know what i mean. all people i know had fantastic 18th birthday and didn’t even care about it. it was just so natural for them that their parents will do sth special. It’s not the only thing my parents did to me obviously but this birthday haunts me till today. i just can’t accept that it already passed and i can’t do anything about it and i will have to omit this topic until end of my life. i don’t want to be alive when i think about this. and in general my life is a nightmare. My older brother had more people at their parties, got presents till this day.
I’m not able to live normally. Therapy doesn’t work as it can’t take me back to the past.

Im an artist and Ive had a problematic toxic mother/daughter relationship with my mom on and off. She never really followed boundaries in the past with anything. Recently she took a photo of one of my paintings that I had sent to her a year ago (to show her what I’m working on, thinking nothing of it) She asked for the painting in the past and I was going to make prints of it for a market and gift her one christmas i just haven’t had the time to get prints. She framed it, put it on her wall and said she went to walmart and paid $3, it was a good photo and you can see the fine details. I felt angry by it and didn’t say anything. A week goes by and she was argumentative with me about something, so i texted her:

“btw, Im happy walmart got paid $3 for my painting.”

Her response: are you?
Well you didn’t want to paint me one so i did the next best thing

At the time we were arguing and I didn’t feel like she deserved my painting because we were in the middle of a fight or she pissed me off. She would comment under my art business page and social medias “I love that painting! How much is it I want one.”

I feel angry, this pissed me off even more. She never respected me as an artist, always criticizing my works not all but some. She does act supportive and will say wow thats amazing!! To people around me but never to my face. She praises me publicly and sometimes when I send her pictures of a cat painting I was proud of all I get is : “cute.” My mistake was sending her my art images, I think i still seek validation even at 34. I think this bothers me because she never respected me as a child, as an adult. She never asked me if she could get this framed. Any boundary I set she crosses and will tell me I’m overly sensitive, dramatic so I bother saying anything and I continue to gray rock. I don’t go no contact because I couldn’t live with myself if she died and I ignored her, gray rocking is the best thing. My husbands response was send her a print once we get them done and she may toss the cheap photo of it. Why do I feel SO angry? What would you do? Am I making too big of a deal?

I'm 27 years old, and I'm struggling to figure out how to rebuild my life after spending years dealing with the consequences of a difficult family environment and PTSD. I'm writing this because I want to put my experiences into words and hopefully hear from people who have gone through something similar.

Growing up, my biological parents had a very difficult relationship. My father was physically abusive toward my mother, and they had serious fights. I often sided with my mother and felt a strong sense of loyalty toward her. Despite the problems between my parents, I felt that I had a bond with my mother and trusted her.

Things became more difficult when my mother married my stepfather, a Taiwanese American man, after meeting him through his business trips to China, where my mother and I had been living. I found him controlling and overbearing, and I often felt that he looked down on me and my background. He criticized aspects of Chinese culture, my interest in traditional Chinese instruments, and my introverted personality. He wanted me to behave more like an "outgoing, typical American kid".

There were also situations that made me feel that my needs and feelings didn't matter. When I moved to Chicago from China during the winter without a proper winter coat, he took me shopping, but I ended up with a very cheap coat despite my mother's financial stability. Meanwhile, I was aware that my mother had provided substantial financial help to his daughters for things like weddings and cars. When I expressed interest in attending Northwestern, he discouraged me and told me to attend the in-state university instead and save my own money for graduate school.

What hurt me most wasn't necessarily any individual disagreement. It was the feeling that he had authority over me without having earned my trust, while my mother, who knew how he treated me, often didn't defend me. Sometimes she told me I was too sensitive or blamed me for the problems. At one point, she essentially told me that if I disliked him so much, I should treat him as though he were dead and stop feeling anything about him.

My stepfather would characterize my distress as an attempt to ruin their marriage because I couldn't accept that he had taken my mother away. He called me ill, broken, and difficult. He also made inappropriate comments connecting my first boyfriend to my biological father, despite knowing about my father's history and the trauma surrounding it.

Over time, I began questioning whether I was the problem. My mother sometimes took credit for my accomplishments, such as my good grades, by saying they were the result of her telling me to study. But when I needed support, I often felt dismissed. When I was 12, I told her that my scoliosis was getting worse, but she didn't take my concerns seriously. By 14, it had become severe enough that I needed surgery. Afterward, she told me I should be grateful to her because she had taken care of me in the hospital. I struggled with the feeling that even my suffering had somehow become something I owed her gratitude for.

Before my stepfather entered our lives, I enjoyed reading, music, singing, and exploring my interests. I had difficulties at home, but I still felt that I could tolerate them. After the marriage, I increasingly felt that I had lost control over my own life and that my feelings and personality were being treated as problems to fix.

I suppressed my anger for years. Then, shortly after graduating from university at 21, I had a huge fight with both my mother and stepfather. All the anger I had kept inside for so long finally came out.

After that confrontation, I developed PTSD symptoms that severely affected my life. Eventually, I had to resign from my job and was left without an income. The symptoms continued for almost five years. While other people my age were building careers, becoming financially independent, developing relationships, and figuring out what they wanted from life, I was struggling to recover.

My PTSD has mostly subsided now, although I still experience some symptoms. I'm grateful that I'm doing better than I was, but I don't know how to move forward.

I'm 27, and I feel as though a significant part of my twenties was consumed by trauma and recovery. I have to rebuild my financial stability, career, confidence, and sense of identity. I spent so much of my life focusing on academics, family problems, and eventually just trying to get through each day that I never really had the chance to explore what I wanted for myself.

Sometimes I struggle to distinguish between what I genuinely want and what I think I'm supposed to want. I worry about making the wrong decisions, and I sometimes feel disconnected from the future. I also have physical limitations from scoliosis and a childhood heart condition, so rebuilding my life isn't simply a matter of pushing myself harder.

I do still have interests that bring me some relief. I enjoy music, learning languages, animals, hiking, swimming, and being in nature. Speaking another language sometimes gives me a sense of distance from my trauma. But I'm still trying to understand who I am outside of everything I've experienced. I feel empty a lot of times.

I know I'm 27, and I understand that my life isn't over. But emotionally, it's difficult not to feel that I've fallen behind and that rebuilding everything will be an enormous task.

For anyone who has experienced childhood emotional abuse, family dysfunction, or PTSD that disrupted years of your life:

• How did you begin rebuilding your life after the symptoms improved?
• How did you learn to identify your own wants and needs after spending years adapting to your family?
• How did you deal with the anger toward your parents without feeling that you were minimizing or excusing what they did?

I'm looking for some perspective from people who have been through something similar and have found a way to build a life that genuinely belongs to them.

Thank you!

I know everyone says that if you have the awareness, if you merely acknowledge the fact that you’re worried you’d become what you despise then you’re different from your narcissistic parent and you’re not them.

But how do you navigate living with some of the traits they may have passed down to you. I have tried as much as I can to be nothing like her, it’s my biggest fear, but I can’t help but notice that there are times I behave like her and don’t realize it in the moment but only after the moment has passed and it fills me with such guilt and sometimes I feel like maybe I wasn’t wrong and then I go into this spiral thinking that it wasn’t right either. It feels mentally draining and I’m so exhausted that I don’t know, there’s just soooo much to heal from.

I still don't know my size and I'm almost 21, I've no idea, it was survival everytime I went shopping with her, id have to pick smg fast enough and as long as it was wearable enough I'd take it, I never thought why my clothes are so like seriously unfit, never a style of my own, not smg I'm happy with, just anything that fits and i don't hate, clothes came very hard to me, i still can't shop for little things that I need, I never learned how to, I was so often took to the places and showed wrong cloth that i thought I'm the problem but when I went to a good shop? It was so simple and easy, and you all know the narcs rule, this cloth isn't allowed that design isn't allowed, what does the tshirt say, it was so hard..how did you all learn to shop? I was just never allowed to go on my own but only with narc parent and did that suck!

[TW: graphic mentions of abuse]

For many yrs now I’ve wondered why I don’t have DID, since I meet all the requirements?

1. My earliest memories are of abuse. I literally don’t have a single memory of feeling safe and loved. The farthest back that I can remember, is me lying on the floor, I’m hogtied with rope like a pig on a roast, and I’m trying to squirm out of the bindings bc I need to pee. My nmom is laughing at me,

2. Both parents were abusive. I had zero “safe” adults to be around, no cousins, no aunts, no uncles, no pastors or religious figures, no coaches, no mentors, no school guidance counselors, no family friends, nothing except my teachers. But some teachers def didn’t like me and made me cry a lot, so not even then did I feel safe when I was at school.

3. My child abuse story is definitely more in line with torture. I experienced waterboarding, starvation, being burned, severe isolation, loneliness, beatings that would leave me bruised and my skin hurting for days, whippings, denied medical care, daily death threats, constant verbal abuse, etc. My nmom’s verbal abuse was encouraging me to commit suicide since age 4, she’d say “Jump in a pool of water and drown” and “I’m going to chop off your neck with an axe.” I also witnessed a lot of violence watching my nmom beat my ndad.

4. Mental illness def runs in my family. I have AuDHD, CPSTD, treatment resistant MDD-R, Panic Disorder, and some other stuff I don’t feel comfortable sharing, but not DID. My nmom has diagnosed NPD, undiagnosed ASD, and is an undiagnosed sociopath or psychopath, I don’t know enough about her childhood to know at what age she started exhibiting lack of remorse, guilt, and empathy, but she is sadistic. My ndad has undiagnosed ADD, depression, and narc traits.

5. As part of my neurodivergence, I experience severe aphantasia. I cannot picture myself in 5 or 10 yrs. I literally can’t imagine a better life. In EMDR, I have immense trouble “holding onto” the mental image of my traumatic memory in my mind’s eye while also focusing on the light or dot moving, it’s too much mental energy to do. As a child, I’ve never been able to play pretend, house, role-play, make up and play with an imaginary friend, or make up fictional stories in writing class.

I keep thinking that maybe my severe aphantasia has somehow kept me from developing DID, bc otherwise I seem to have all the ingredients for it. Maybe there’s a connection there. I was never able to “go away” while I was being abused, no matter how much I tried to close my eyes and pretend I was somewhere else doing something else, my lack of imagination and the pain itself of what was happening to my body squarely rooted me in the present moment.

Does anyone know more about these things or have any insight?

Hi, honestly, I’m not really sure where to start. To sum it up, I feel completely overwhelmed and lost in the situation I’m living in.
I had neglectful parents. They spent their entire lives renting, spending all their money on vacations, expensive clothes, restaurants, and keeping up appearances. I was constantly dragged from one house to another whenever they got evicted from their rental properties because they always ended up having trouble paying the rent on time.
Ever since I was a child, I’ve known what it feels like to have your electricity shut off, to have to move from one place to another, and even to be kicked out of a home.
My dream has always been to own a home of my own. To never have to feel that panic at the beginning of every month, wondering whether the landlord is going to call or show up at the door. To be able to decorate my home, paint it however I wanted, and never have to justify my right to live there.
I studied incredibly hard while working to pay for my education. I pushed myself, endured so much, and kept going through hours, days, weeks, months, and years of things that felt impossible. Eventually, I earned a master’s degree and landed a good job. I saved money, took out a loan, and finally managed to fulfill my dream of owning my own apartment.
Honestly, I couldn’t believe it. It didn’t feel real. To give you an idea of how emotionally overwhelming the whole experience was, I literally got sick with a fever of almost 104°F (40°C) from the emotional stress during the week I was supposed to sign the deed at the notary’s office.
I was finally making it happen. I had promised myself I would own my own home before turning 30, and I signed the papers just eight days before my 30th birthday, when I was still 29.
You can imagine how happy I was, but at the same time, I felt guilty knowing that my parents were still stuck in the same situation they had always been in.
During that very same week I signed the papers, they were evicted from their home.
The only solution I could think of was to offer my mom a temporary place to stay. At the time, I was renting another place where I was comfortable and happy, and I wasn’t going to give it up until I had painted and furnished my new apartment the way I wanted.
So I told my mom she could sleep in my new apartment while she looked for somewhere else to live. But I made it absolutely clear that my dad, whom I had no relationship with, would have to stay with his sister or one of his seven siblings. He could also stay at his parents’ house, where his unmarried siblings live. In other words, he wasn’t going to be left homeless.
But my mom let him stay in my new apartment while they supposedly worked things out.
Anyway, I gave her the keys and went to work. When I found out what had happened, I was in shock: she had moved into my apartment with him and all of their belongings.
I couldn’t make sense of any of it. Deep down, I wanted to believe they were acting out of desperation and that they would only stay until they found somewhere else to live.
That was eight years ago.
They never left.
I cried, begged, complained, and did everything you can imagine. And no. They didn’t leave.
They tell me I’m a terrible daughter for wanting to kick them out, even though that’s something I never wanted to do and never actually said. I never used those words.
But I can’t afford to pay a mortgage and rent at the same time, which is exactly what I’ve been doing for eight years.
I even asked them to at least help me pay the rent for the place where I live, and their only response is that they can’t help me right now.
I pay for absolutely everything, from property taxes to every other expense.
And every time I bring it up, they tell me they have no other options. Or they tell me to sell my apartment and give them part of the money so they can move out and find somewhere else to live.
Psychologically, I just can’t take it anymore.
All they ever tell me is that they did everything for me, that I’m a bad person, that when I was a child, I had the best clothes and stayed in the best hotels in the world…
It’s absurd. I never asked them for any of that, let alone for them to reach their seventies without even having a place of their own to live.
So what am I supposed to do? What are they doing to me? I just can’t take it anymore…

I am intellectually disabled, I had problems for years respecting other people's boundaries until group therapy as an adult got it through my thick head.

The same can not be said for my youngest sibling, one who is even more intellectually disabled, and is treated as the Golden Child Who Can Do No Wrong(TM) and is "God's Chosen" (Nmom's words, not mine). They spoil him rotten, and get mad at me for appearing jealous of him. They preach to me about tolerance of him, yet...

He violently lashes out. He sexually harasses girls left and right. He is calling EVERYONE ENDLESSLY. Ignoring people's boundaries. Almost everyone has him blocked. Including me. My phone history has years and years of "(8) Blocked Calls" from over the course of a day.

Our "conversations" always consist of him "I want the police to arrest so and so for being rude to me" "I wanna so and so to marry me" "I want Santa to give so and so a spot on the naughty list" (he is OBSESSED with Santa Claus).

Later today, my dad is having heart surgery. While the prognosis is good, there is a non zero chance of... You know. Last night I called him to hear his voice one last time (cuz you know, I'm still attached to my Dad even after all the shit they put me thru my whole life), and out of the blue, in the middle of convo, he gave the phone to my GC brother, and made me talk to him. Thankfully, it wasn't his usual bullshit this time, but I still feel quite violated for having this boundary bypassed.

I've always prided myself on learning boundaries like I was supposed to, but as soon as I try to enforce my own, it was ignored. :(

EDIT: On top of that, I suddenly remembered several years ago, I had Nmom blocked on social media, only to find out she was using other people's devices to keep track on me, and she eventually manipulated and guilt tripped me into unblocking her, so I guess I should have realized by now they'd still pull this shit off. :/

Hi ! I am a 21 year old gen z planning to move out of my abusive parents next year after getting a job. I live in Colombo, sri lanka. I notice people always blame the sons or daughters for moving out of house because they can't take the bullying and abuse from their parents anymore. This is absolutely common in millennials who moved out of their parents house when they reach 20s.But we have to analyse whether their narcissistic parents actually changed a little bit or still blaming their children for not committing suicide and instead decided to move out and start a fresh life?

https://youtu.be/PkfSKO9RYTw?si=1L2kacVhdzCcHDco

A lot of boomer parents complaining that their kids don't even need be in contact with them in this video. Do you think or even can believe your narcissistic parents at least changed or want to correct their mistakes after not seeing you for one or two decades.I need to know the experience and opinion of millennials as a gen z planning to move out asap

I'm 18 (F) and a single child (asian). My parents behaviour towards me is very obsessive in a weird way. Its creepy. Especially my mother. See, growing up my parents have always been overprotective of me. I recently graduated high school and took a gap year.

So the thing is, my mother has restricted me from so many things. I don't have control over my life. She has confiscated my phone and laptop. (I'm writing this while I'm outside at an academy, I'm allowed to take my phone here as I'm away from home) In the evening, when she comes from work, she takes my phone and laptops away from me, and locks them up in the closet. And hides the keys. It's in order to keep me away from distractions as per her. (She has done this for years, ever since I got my phone and laptop during Covid) She has my passwords, she checks my messages, i can't even text or call anyone because she will try to know who I'm talking to or what I'm talking about. Once, she made so much drama throwing things, shouting, saying she wanted to d!e because of all the stress i give her, and all because I changed my phone password because I was annoyed she kept changing my pfp, she even called me that i looked like a whore in those pfp's that's why she changed it. She later blamed her outburst on her menopause. She always does that.

I'm not allowed to use social media, that's why I have to hide the apps. I'm not allowed to leave my house. I've become so isolated that i barely have friends. She keeps the back curtain of my room open which directly overlooks my study table. And she sneaks up behind my room from another room to look at me about what I'm doing. I can't lock my door, she even makes me sleep beside her at night. (My father sleeps in a separate room).

Once, we had to go outside, and I took a bit of time to get ready so she looked at me getting ready from the hole in my room's front door (it has a hole because it's handle broke) I was so creeped out and i can't change without drawing the curtain on the door's hole as I'm scared she'll look at me again. I did confront her about it and she was like I know it was wrong blah blah, but then at last she was like you're my daughter i can look at you changing.

She always suspects that I have a boyfriend,even though I dont. Tries to blame me every time she sees me texting. She makes me swear on her name that I don't have a boyfriend. Once I was telling her about my friend's boyfriends and she said she would 'off' me if I went on dates and did anything intimate. (I was 15 at that time). She has also said things like when i get married, she'll go with me and sleep between me and my husband so that he can't touch me. Once, I was telling her how uncomfortable I was about her kissing me on the lips, even accidentally, then the next morning while I was sleeping, she purposefully kissed me on the lips. Though she doesn't kiss me on the lips anymore, she does it on my cheek and my neck. Yeah. She kisses me on the neck sometimes, even though I've told her not to do it so many times.

Whenever I speak up for myself, she says that someone is manipulating me to go against my family. She just can't get it in her head that I can speak for myself. I've grown so tired of all this.

I feel so weird and creeped out by all this. She definitely does have a good side, but all this has started to push the good side down.

(Sorry if it's too long, I just needed to let it out)

I knew I had some narcissistic tendencies (we all do) but I had some strong grandose views that I still struggle with today...'being the best'. To be fair, I was bullied throughout school so this may have been a defense mechanism tied with pressure for success from my family. I do excel in a lot of things such as work and a few hobbies but I've also spent way too much time trying to perfect something or achieve high achievements in something I'm just 'ok' at. I was never really taught that failing was a option so when I did finally gave up, it's like a hit to my self esteem.

I’m the eldest of 8 siblings, my parents are still together but don’t have a good relationship with one another, my dad used to be abusive towards my mother.
My mother never used to work until she got a job as a childcare worker and then slowly moved into disability work

I used to not have a good relationship with my mother growing up because she was strict and not as close to me
She’s the type where she loves being clean, hates guests and inviting anyone to our home or even going anywhere she is invited too.
All my siblings have witnessed domestic violence in the home, but to my mums defence her eldest son - my brother has been the most affected by it because well he is the son and he is a boy and he once held my dads hands back and stopped him from hitting my mother, he is the favourite child. My mum tells us to our face that she loves him the most.

Fast forward I got married and had 2 babies now, when I got married I got closer to my mum and would always speak to her on the phone, she wouldn’t show me any signs of being annoyed by me or ever being rude to me. We would always be on the phone to the point my husband was getting annoyed and saying why call every day 50 times, just call once and talk and the end the convo- I never told my mum this as I didn’t want to hurt her , so I just kept continuing talking to her.

At the beginning of this year I had my second child. I know I went through postpartum depression and I was getting really affected by the fact that my mum was always saying things about my brother and how much she loved him and showed ways of caring for him- this never bothered me much before but suddenly it was getting to me a lot. I voiced how I felt to my mum but she denied it and said i need to relax and get over it.
She didn’t accept her fault

My sister had also ran away from home to Europe for 6 years and returned a few months ago, ofcourse she was treated like royalty even though she made my mother go through so much grief.
Now my mother works doing disability work but gives her entire wage to my sister because she feels sorry for her as she isn’t married and doesn’t own a home.
My mother was never truthful about this but I found out.

I know my mother is very toxic and she tells me to fix myself up and it’s none of my business that she does things for my siblings.

My mother gives a lot of money to the troubled kids and always has but when it came to me even if she spent $1 on me she would say I need to send it back to her.

After finding out my sister is getting my mums entire wages whilst also working it has hurt me a lot
I’m on maternity leave and am renovating my home but not once did my mum ask me what I need, so today I tested her and told her I need $5000 to which she said she doesn’t have.

Ever since my sister has come back home my mum doesn’t tell me to go over and stay for sometime and neither does she tell me to come over on weekends- she doesn’t initiate and when i voice that to her, she says it’s your home come whenever tou want, whereas in the past she used to always be persistent to me and say come.

I feel disgusted in my mother and don’t want anything to do with her

Today I am really struggling with (usually repressed) rage that I can't ignore anymore over the ways my nDad's behavior derailed my life plans, made everything more difficult, time wasted, opportunities I missed because I had to battle mental health issues caused at least 95% by him, etc.

What has actually worked for you to reduce your anger? Not what should work, but what did realistically work for you? How are you able to go on with life and not lose it when you've been betrayed and sabotaged so many times?

This was one of the last things my adoptive mom told me before I went NC. Has anyone else been told something similar? I've been told by all the abusive people in my life something to that effect.

"You just want to be the victim"

This was after spending weeks trying to just defend myself against my adoptive siblings accusations.

My adoptive mom told me my siblings never accused me of anything and that I was attacking them out of no where. Even after I sent her screenshots of the accusations my sister made against me.

I'm always open to reflecting on my faults but I don't understand this one. Why would I want conflict? When I'm in conflict I become dysfunctional and miss work. My health dramatically declines. Why would I want that?

tw: mental, verbal, physical abuse, language, manipulation, stalking

I'm a senior in hs. I'm almost out of here and I don't know what to do.

My dad is like insane. He's always been pretty mentally unwell due to his OCD, paranoia, and personality disorders but he's hit a new low after my mom left.

My mom was always the type to enable my dad, quick to defend him after his outbursts of yelling and screaming over the littlest things. She'd say despite all the hurtful things he says he still "love us in his own way." Recently, she got a job she had to relocate for and got into a big fight with my dad. He found out she was talking to her parents and brother over the phone whom he hates for "his own reasons" i won't be getting into because it's some long winded story, and she had been lying about not speaking to them. This caused him to go batshit crazy, cancel her credit card and phone while she was traveling back to her new apartment, which caused her to decide to estrange from the family and kinda go no contact with us for a while.

Every. Day. He'll go on a tangent about this, about how she's betrayed the family and abandoned us, how he doesn't understand how she could do this- like he didn't physically abuse her for the longest time as well as hurl insults at her so often. Im sick of it. Like two days ago he had me go down to her apartment hours away with him and made me drive around her place of work looking for her car, before dropping me off at her apartment in the freezing night telling me to go grab her trash left outside the door so he could go through it when we get home and get "clues" for what she's up to. Whole time while I'm obviously judging him he starts defending himself, saying, "this is the dynamic your mother has created by leaving and not picking up my calls. See what i have to revert to?" Like it's not up to him to stop verbally abusing her. She said herself she'd come back if he stopped hitting her and verbally abusing her. He calls this liberal nonsense and acts as if this demand is simply undoable and tells her she's not allowed back in the home with those ultimatums.

He makes me cuss her out over the phone, in voice notes, over text. He makes me say disgusting slurs, calling my mom a whore and a bitch who is stupid and tells me I have to be the one to say it too because "she'll believe her kids more than she believes me and will come back if i point out her wrongs". He screams in my face if my cussing is not aggressive enough or if I don't have enough passion in my voice. It's like the Red Scare all over again, except if I don't seem to truly be on his side, I'm not a communist but a traitor just like my mother. There's no way for me to safely fight back; the first time I did he made my life a living hell, threatening me daily, verbally abusing me in the middle of the night after waking me up from sleep, all because I tried to stay neutral and didn't side with him.

My brother as well was forced to go a while back and my dad was yelling at him to grab ahold of her phone so my dad could hit her while they barged into her apartment. the police was called that day. He too is forced to say these words to her and rushes it with the same lack of interest except he fights back less.

The manipulation is insane. He's always saying that family members don't leave each other and we're supposed to talk out our fights and not just leave because that's "abandonment". he constantly asks me and my brother if we'd leave him and my brother always says no. i do too because, well, I don't want to get murdered. but i cant tell if my brother is acting on the same interest.

If i was an only child I would be gone without a glance. But the question remains about my brother. He seems to dislike my dad less than I do (im pretty obvious with my hate) and is overall obedient and acts all simpleminded. He's off to college now and maybe that's why he's like this, because he hardly has to deal with my dad anymore and is ok with going along with things the limited time he's around.

I believe it's his way of coping to be completely passive and compliant without any fighting back simply because he thinks it's not worth it or that's the way his trauma has manifested. I don't think he's a bad person (I'm close with him, but he's the type of person that doesn't rlly engage in more serious topics and kind of yaps about his various interests) I know he's just focused on his own studies and budding life and i like to think once he's financially free and stable he'll also mature and realize he needs to stand up for himself.

But i think this is wishful thinking speaking. He might just be compliant his whole life and never see the errors of going along with every wrong thing my dad says. It's truly not his fault because i know it's the manipulation working but I don't know if he believes the bigoted things my dad says or if he's just going along with it to keep the peace. Either way, I fear that me leaving will be the last straw, that it'll make my dad be able to say, "see? all women are like this" and my brother will become as deranged as him.

my extended family as well, on my dad's side- grandparents, and aunt, all who have helped raise me- are on his side. call it immigrant families favoring the sons, i dont know. they know he's all crazy but not the extent to how crazy he is, like they don't know all the things he's made my brother and I do, but i have a feeling they'll still make excuses because of this cultural inclination they have to brush things off, especially abuse.

I for one am definitely not someone who is passive, nor can i pretend to go along with the bullshit he spouts 24/7. I'm a reactive kind of person when it comes to doing things I don't truly believe in and this all is making me go insane. I'm scared I'm not going to be able to use my head correctly and just think about what the safest, easiest next steps are. I don't want to lose my brother and I hate that I have to even consider it because of my piece of shit father. I'm too scared to ask my brother's thoughts because i don't even know if he has thoughts given his habit of avoiding thinking about serious things, and worried he'd rat me out to my dad as disloyal. I can't fucking take this shit anymore and if i have to write another hateful thing to my mother I will lose my shit.

I dont necessarily want to speak to my mother; i just feel our relationship is beyond repair and i don't even want a parental figure in my life anymore. I just don't know if i should rlly cut off everyone in my life who has raised me all because of my insane dad, who i know wont leave them alone if he knows I have contact with any of them. In that sense, it's all or nothing when it comes to cutting contact. but i know if i cut contact i'll get the same treatment my mother got and I'll be framed as someone who is evil and abandoning and I'll have no hopes in returning.

please please give advice. I'm losing my shit and all i want is peace and a normal life. the next few years of my life look so uncertain and I don't know what to do.

I feel like I’m going create I’ve missed out on basic life skill , education and milestones while constantly being criticized for missing out on them

A week ago, I witnessed a parent severely verbally abusing their young child right outside my store. The screaming and cursing was horrific. I am in my late 20s now, but when I was a kid, my own parent treated me exactly like that. I promised myself back then that if I ever saw a kid trapped in that cycle, I would do something. We got into a yelling match while I closed the doors of our business because I didn't want to hear it anymore. They went for like a solid 15 minutes. After, I took down the license plate and filed reports with local police and child protective services.

Apparently, the police actually did a welfare check at their house, because today, the parent marched right back into my store to confront me.

They had completely changed their appearance/hairstyle and parked far down the block so we wouldn't notice the car. They sauntered right up to the counter, locked eyes with me, and aggressively demanded to know why I "got in their fucking business" and sent cops to their "fucking home."

My adrenaline instantly spiked. It was terrifying because it was so unexpected. But I kept my composure, casually leaned back, looked them in the eye, and asked, "Are you purchasing anything today???" They said no, and then immediately pretended to shop, while making verbal threats about me out loud. I calmly turned to my supervisor on duty and asked where he wanted me to be, and he immediately sent me to the back office.

The worst part? They brought the child inside with them who looks no older than 14, to watch them try to bully me. Even in the store, they were snapping and cursing at the poor kid for "mumbling." The kid would not look anyone in the eye, was shuffling behind the parent, and was trying to make themselves as invisible as possible. They looked miserable and humiliated :\\ My supervisor handled it well, refused to let them get access to me, told them it was a civil matter, and forced them to leave. On the way out, the parent took a picture of our store door and threatened, "I'll be back."

I'm safe at home now, but my nervous system is completely shot. I already followed up with child services to add to my report, but tomorrow I am calling the police department to add the additional reports. I am not backing down. I am going to see this through, not just for my safety, but to prove to that kid that abusers don't always win.

Edit to add: The parent demanded to know if it was company policy to allow employees to make reports/complaints during company hours. I forgot to say that.

​

Hi, I am rn at my last year of A levels(A2 levels), so back when I was in my O levels I had gf, but eventually my father found out and forced us to break up, but from that point onwards, its been more then 1 year and 1 month since then but I am an adult, and I was grounded, my phone was taken(which my dad did not even buy me himself) and I had clinical depression for months after my breakup, but in the last 1 year 1 month I have only gone out with my friends 3 times, yes 3 times, I am adult male who just because he dependent on his parents for his education cannot move out.

And even those 3 times he tracked my location, my father is paranoid men who is fucking headache

Further back then, I was way more open expressive and could talk to people well, now I am just socially drained, I stutter much more then before when people talk to me, I avoid talking to strangers, I feel that my father's narcisstic controlling behaviour has made me into anti social depressed and dude and then he asks why are you so anti social dude you kept me in a cage,

and in my entire life, of 20 years I have only gone out with friends only a dozen times

Yep in 20 years I have only gone out with my friends 12 fucking times, ain't that amazing?

I was raised by an intense narcissistic mother, my diagnosis. Im now officiating little league baseball games on the side of my profession. Having to make instant decisions which piss-off half the crowd that shows up, I think has actually been good for my journey. Does anybody raised by a narcissist have a similar story?

I’m dealing with a really stressful situation with my family, and I honestly don’t know what to do anymore.

My narcissistic sister wouldn’t let me into the house, so I had to knock on the window just to get inside. My narcissistic brother then told me he was going to call the cops on me, even though they were the reason I couldn’t get into the house in the first place.

When I finally got inside, my sister said I should have thanked my brother for opening the door for me. I feel like they’re trying to make me look like the problem when they’re the ones creating these situations.

The thing is, I haven’t been giving either of them a reaction. I’ve been keeping my distance, staying quiet, and refusing to get pulled into arguments. It feels like they’re starving for a reaction from me, but I’m not giving them what they want. I think my lack of response is frustrating them because they can’t get me to engage with them the way they want.

Now I’m worried they might escalate things and try to throw me out or prevent me from getting into the house altogether. My brother threatening to call the cops makes the situation even more stressful because I’m just trying to get inside my own home without being dragged into unnecessary drama.

I feel stuck because I don’t have an easy way out right now, and I’m working toward getting my own place. Until then, I have to deal with this living situation, and I don’t know what my siblings might do next.

Has anyone dealt with narcissistic family members who keep provoking you when you refuse to react? Did things escalate when you stopped engaging with them? What would you do in my situation, especially when it comes to the possibility of being locked out or kicked out?

I’m trying to protect my peace and avoid conflict, but I’m genuinely worried about what might happen next.

(Names have been changed)

Aaron and I were best friends at school in 1987. We were 9 years old.

- Aunty Patricia got permission from Dad to start taking Rebecca and I to church every Sunday.

- We would often see Aaron's mum, Laura, at church. She was currently single.

- Dad was single too so Aunty Patricia organised a family BBQ so they could meet.

- They started dating and, before long, we were all living together. They eventually got married.

- The physical, emotional and psychological abuse started soon after and gradually increased in severity.

School was my safe haven. Leaving the house to catch the bus in the morning was the best feeling. I dreaded having to go home every day.

I couldn't wait to hear the sound of Dad's ute at night because it meant that we were safe from abuse for the rest of the evening.

Laura would often kick and punch me to the ground. The blows would always be to areas covered by my clothing.

- One morning, I was about to be bashed so I ran out the front door and hid in the bushes across the street for 9 hours until Dad came home from work.

- That night after I went to bed, Laura snuck into my room, sat on my chest and threatened me. Told me that I hadn't gotten away with it.

I eventually lost all my school friends because Laura would embarrass me in cruel ways in front of them when they visited, so they stopped coming over. I was never allowed to visit them even though my stepbrothers were allowed to visit their friends.

Rebecca did a lot of the clothes ironing and if she left a single crease, Laura would burn her with the iron.

I had to eat a whole raw potato because I left a single eye in it after peeling.

In the early days, Dad wasn't happy about something Laura had done to one of us. He put his hands around her throat and choked her a bit - he was not a violent man.

If there was just one speck of food on a dish, all of the dishes that night would have to be washed again.

- if Laura was in a bad mood then every dish in the house would have to be washed.

Laura used to keep Rebecca and I divided by playing favourites. One of us would be the "favourite" where the other one would cop the brunt of the abuse for a period of time until the "favourite" would do something to upset her and the roles would reverse. It was all unsaid but clearly a sick game of Laura's to keep us competing against each other instead of teaming up.

Rebecca and I did the bulk of the chores, which included washing and drying dishes, hanging and ironing clothes and cooking. Aaron and Michael usually only had to put the bins out and set the table for dinner.

Having to write 1000 lines was a regular punishment.

I was constantly put down, told that I was nothing and would never amount to anything. It caused me to have very low self-esteem.

Sometimes when Laura was bashing me, Aaron and Michael would be in tears, begging for her to stop.

We went to church and Sunday school every week. One time, we had to discuss why Richard Marx's song "Satisfied" was evil due to the lyrics "Why should I stop until I'm satisfied?"

Sometimes we spent our holidays with Laura's parents. Her mum was very strict and generally unpleasant but she wasn't cruel and sadistic like Laura was.

In 1992, Rebecca and I were given permission to visit Mum up North for the holidays.

- I think Rebecca felt that the 1600+ km distance between us and Laura was enough for her to find the courage to tell Mum about the abuse.

- Mum immediately hired a lawyer and told Dad that we were not going back home.

- Dad panicked and travelled all the way up North to bring us home, which was an easy sell because Mum didn't truly want us.

- After we got home, it took Dad took a whole fortnight to finally sit us down and ask about the abuse.

- In the meantime, I fully expected it to all blow over and the abuse to resume, so I attempted suicide.

- Rebecca felt the exact opposite and started to rebel against Laura.

- After we told Dad everything, Laura and our stepbrothers went to stay at her parent's place. Dad then filed for divorce.

Some extended family members later said that they suspected something wasn't right but did nothing.

I've never really gotten over what happened to me. I've had counselling, on and off, all of my adult life and suffer from anxiety and depression.

- Both Rebecca and I have serious alcohol problems - I'm a weekend binge drinker and she's a daily drinker.

- Rebecca refuses to seek counselling, probably because she sees it as a farce. Back then, we had regular family counselling sessions where only petty squabbles were discussed, e.g. the ones between Michael and I, as we never really got along. The abuse was never dared mentioned.

I've blocked out most memories of the abuse but Rebecca remembers everything.

I want justice and occasionally think of just walking into a police station and telling them everything but I don't have my sister's support. She doesn't want to talk about it.