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Living with abusive family

When do you draw the line with family? When you love them and share good memories, but all they are is verbally, mentally and emotionally abusive. And a little physical now. What do you do as a mum with two children living in a toxic, manipulating household? But its okay right? Because they’re "family".

By Jessica ChristiePublished 4 years ago 5 min read
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It‘s hard to know when you’re around abusive people when it’s become the norm. It happens that often and somehow justified every time it does happen.

“He’s just stressed because we have a lot to pay for” .

“He’s only being like this because he’s in pain”.

“He has a lot going on right now”.

“He is depressed”.

And the list of excuses literally go on to why it’s some how okay for them to treat me and my kids the way they do.

Whenever I bring up an Idea, or even just a question I need answered, majority of the time I get called an idiot or stupid by my dad for even thinking like that. It got to the point where I was nicknamed Triple D Jess (Dumb decisions daily). I went along with it and laughed and tried to even make a blog with it. But quite recently I’ve realised it’s really degrading and kills my self esteem And confidence about who I am and what I decide to do and how to do things.

Having two of my own children whilst living with my parents and two brothers who are young adults, is hard. They’re all people who like to sleep in all the time unless they have to wake up for work. So every morning that people are sleeping in, I have to try keep my two YOUNG children (7 & 3) as quiet as possible so it doesn’t disturb my parents or brother. If it wakes up my brother he would yell at my children (sometimes reasonably; mostly unreasonably). When it was unreasonable, I’d tell my brother off, which resulted in him yelling and verbally abusing and threatening me with words such as, whore, slut, cunt, fat bitch... the list goes on. He’d threaten to smash my head threw a concrete ceiling, to hit my kids if he thinks they deserve it or tell me to get out of “his” house. Which it’s no where near.

That would result in waking up my parents every time it happened, saying what the fuck is going on, and I’d be told to shut up and let him do it and not say a word to keep it going, where all I am doing is defending myself and my children. My dad said, “If this happens again, come to me and I’ll deal with it myself, not you.”

Well one day, just like any other normal day... I was getting lunches ready for my son for school. I needed to go to the toilet, and as always my kids choose those times to argue about toys etc. That arguing has woken up my brother, and my brother has come out to tell them off. Which was reasonable at the time. I’ve come out to tell them off and as my oldest son walked past my brother, he slapped him in the back of the head, so I told him that’s unacceptable and to not hit my kid again. And here we are again, getting called a whore and to get the fuck out of the house and being called a bitch etc. He threatened one of us so I said I’d smash his head in if he ever did that, (we all know I wouldn’t be capable but when you’re threatened, you make threats back.) so he shaped up to me and said, go on then hit me.

At this point I have now remembered what my Dad told me a while ago about going to him. As I have reached his bedroom door, he was already on his way out to yell at us. I told him to kick my brother out as I’ve had absolutely enough of the verbal Abuse and threats, especially in front of the children.

He then started yelling at ME, to shut the fuck up. I’d back off because he was in my personal bubble. But he would keep moving forward, so I told him to back off and he said will you shut up mum is sleeping, and I yelled back I don’t give a fuck (because he wasn’t taking the time to listen) . After I said that, he shoved me into the couch with all his force. Something I never thought he would do was lay a hand on me ever, no matter what way it was. I was shocked and got up and told him not to do that, and he did it two more times. I felt trapped and scared, and my mum was up by this point and I felt no protection from her At all. Because I think she’s just scared of the possible abuse she could maybe cop. I don’t know if she does cop any physical abuse, but I know she gets other abuse like mental and emotional, financial etc. I went to get my phone and my Dad snatched it off me. I tried to grab it back but he said no, it’s not yours it’s mine. (he lent it to me).

I ran to my room with the kids to message my kids step mum on the iPad to see if I could come over. So I started packing the kids up and got my oldest son out of uniform into normal clothes. My Dad came in to try to apologise for pushing me, but I didn’t believe him so I didn’t accept it so he started verbally abusing and teasing again. I just finished putting my youngest sons shoes on when he went to walk out Of the room. My dad tried to pick him up but I snatched my son away and said to stay away from my children. He looked at me in disgust and kicked my hard up the ass. I was so shocked and scared, he made fun of me “what you’ve never been kicked in the bum before?”

I got all my stuff together and began to leave with the kids. My dad willingly handed me MY keys. I said thanks and left. As I packed the kids in the car he threw my phone towards me across the yard.

It took that pushing and kicking to finally take a stand and get out of that toxic household. The household my mum would always try “justify”. Somehow make it seem okay that it was happening. Nothing about it was okay, at all. It took my boyfriend and kids step mum to make me realise how toxic it all was.

My mum keeps trying to put all the blame on my boyfriend like it’s his fault, that if he never moved in none of this would happen. And what she means by that, is that I would never have moved out. because they need me, financially and for my car. They don’t care about me, they care about what I have that’ll help them. They don’t care that what they do is mentally damaging me. They’ve made me so anxious and stressed that I didn’t even realsie it was them until now. And they’ll never realise or accept that.

so here’s to a new life, in protecting mine and my kids memetal health.

immediate family
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