Emotional/Verbal Abuse is Abuse

I have expressed a hatred of teasing and emotional/verbal abuse to my parents and my siblings all of my life. My parents and some of my older siblings gave us children very abusive nicknames. Some were given to my older siblings when they were teenagers. Mine was given to me when I was three. My siblings around my age were given their nicknames when they were older children. Just based on the age when abusive nicknames were given,  you can see they started after mine in age and in time. I was named two nicknames filthy and abusive and my siblings had very less damaging and abusive nicknames and they were done when they were much older than I was

My mother, who I used to confront often on this issue, would gaslight me and say, well all your siblings have nicknames they don’t like either, like well they are all being treated like shit and I am normalizing shit, so you can’t complain and have no right to complain and have no rights  that you can appeal to, because this is normal, they are all treated like you are treated, it is not mistreatment, it is normal, it is okay, no one is going to stop. And if you want to stop them, if you want this to end, then what you have to do is not be hurt or complain or say anything. They are getting a reaction and that is why you are to blame for the perpetuation of their treatment of you. My mother was a master at blaming victims for being abused, even while she abused them.

When the only person that I could go to for relief from emotional and verbal abuse against me by my siblings was my mother, who was my sexual abuser and my emotional/verbal abuser and who encouraged and perpetuated sibling emotional and verbal abuse against me , that made life very hard for me. Still, I was very determined that they should stop and that I deserved better treatment by my siblings, that I persisted. I don’t know where I got this strong belief in myself and that I deserved good treatment, but I had it, all my childhood. I think that is very strong of me and I am very proud of myself.

I knew that I deserved better from them all, even though none of them agreed with me. I knew that none of them should be called nasty and vicious and filthy nicknames. Some of the nicknames were not very bad, compared to mine, though they were all emotional and verbal abuse.

I didn’t just ask my mother to intervene and stop abuse. I asked other siblings as well. I don’t recall any of them trying to stop.

I don’t remember ever asking my father to stop. I don’t believe that I thought that he would, since he was the one who gave me the nicknames and the one who spread it all around the family and who allowed it to continue without ever once commenting about it or ever once trying to stop it.

When I was ten years old my father retired and was at home all the time, all day long and all night long. That was when the two nicknames about me stopped. I know that he did nothing to stop it. I just think that having him around, as a witness, is what stopped others from abusing me as much as they were. I suppose it was a shock to him to see how bad it was, how much of a scapegoat that I was, and how much I was being verbally abused.

I know that he enjoyed mistreating others, especially with words, especially with his children, but the bad nicknames stopped. I don’t believe that he ever lifted a hand to stop it. In fact, he started verbally abusing my brother more directly, who is 18 months older than I, during that time period.

It’s hard when this is the closest man in your life; someone who cruelly enjoys mistreating you with words and mistreating your emotions. It’s horrible that this was the closest example of an adult man that I had. It’s sad and pathetic that this is the best that he could be for his own children. I didn’t have a male teacher in my life until sixth grade, and that was a physical education teacher who was verbally and emotionally abusive to students. So not a good man or a good human being either.

I never felt that my father was on my side. I never believed that he would protect me. never felt that he loved me, though there was a time in my childhood when he would say that, though that had been some time before that.

If only there had been one person in my family who loved me and was good to me through my childhood. That would have changed my life so much. But none of them were willing to stand up for me and to suffer the consequences. With my mother, there was always consequences. I know that I deserved their love and loyalty.

My Creative/Artistic Self and Dysfunctional Family Stuff

My family has never been supportive of my artistic or creative work. After a long period of that, being diminished and ignored, I really would not look to them to be supportive, loving, kind, or good about anything that I really care about. I tend to share less and less as the years have gone by and I have to say they don’t seem to notice that I don’t share about my heart and what fills me with joy with them. Since that is so important to me and to my life, it makes it hard a lot of the time to find something to talk about, since so much of it is private and needs to be protected from them.

One time I did try to describe the inner creative process to one of my brothers and he burst out laughing and after my asking him repeatedly to share what he found funny and why, he made fun of me and the way that I had chosen to talk about my collage artwork.

I really have to admit that he broke my heart. That’s my family… and that in no way is diminishing how much he and they have hurt me and hurt my heart. That’s my family… they break my heart. Interacting with them means being self-protective of my life, myself, my creative self, my thoughts, my emotions, my beliefs, and so much more.

Sometimes it just leaks out of me, and I can’t stop myself from sharing, and it doesn’t go good and it doesn’t lead to good. It’s sad to me that sometimes I can’t stop myself or us from sharing things with our family and that it leads to more pain, more hurt, and more of a broken heart. It’s so sad to me that this is my family.

I don’t tolerate anything from my sister and when I started seeing her again almost three years ago, after not associating with her for almost ten years,  I promised myself that I was not going to endure another incident of emotional/verbal abuse from her and that if it happened I would never see her again. She hasn’t. Bizarrely she hasn’t. But I can’t talk to her about all the pain that she has caused me and how all that pain is still inside of me/us and how much it still hurts and how she derailed my life, many times, and made it so hard for me to have self-respect or self-love, because she undermined and humiliated me and verbally/emotionally abused me all my life and how my mother was my primary abuser and bully and how my sister was her toady, until I cut her out of my life. Part of her doesn’t know, part of her doesn’t care, part of her loves being clueless, part of her loved and still loves being both of our parents favorite little girl, part of her has cut me off when I’ve tried to explain in the past, and part of her would hurt if I tried to talk to her about it all now. I know, because I have tried.

One of my other brothers routinely makes fun of me, the things that I say, my politics, my beliefs, facts that I relate from studies, if I have to pause while finding the right words, etc, etc, etc. I limit him in my life, but even a little bit means emotional and verbal abuse. He only gets a little bit of me. After a few conversations in the last couple months I have decided to start hanging up on him again, it is the only way to have a healthy boundary with him.

The worst part of this all is that these are the two brothers who have the most interactions with me in my life right now. They have collectively done the most for me and at different times been my best support. They wound me and that is the best I am getting. Saying no means absolutely nothing.

My brother that shouts at me on the phone refuses to stop shouting at me, insulting me, demeaning me, misrepresenting me, and mischaracterizing me, no matter what I say to him. If I thought the things about him that he thinks about me, I would never have anything to do with that kind of person, I would hate that kind of person, I certainly would not have even one phone conversation with them.

I know all of it is lies, but it makes me wonder why he feels the need to be thinking so little of me and still associate with me. I don’t want to have anything to do with him, but then he acts like he cares about me, but then turns around and treats me like excrement. I know he finds it highly enjoyable, but I don’t. He is going to get the click on the phone line the next time we talk, if he goes there.