whippings **Triggers SA/PA***

[audacious]

SparklingDawn, Learning,
Very well said. My only point of reference for realizing how awfully I was treated is seeing my own kids and knowing I would never do to them what was done to me. Even if sometimes I don't know what to do and look like a fool. I minimized and denied for so long, logged those beatings and brutilizations under the oddly socially acceptable heading of spankings and brushed over them because of the much more "taboo" things that happened to me. But the beatings, slappings, threats where all a symptoms of what was truly wrong... a lack of love. Every thing that happened to us in our childhoods comes back to that over and over.
THeHusband,
I used to get slapped alot as a child, also. My mom said even recently that my nose bled too easily ("you weakling") and I got a nose bleed every time I slipped in my patent leather shoes (sure blame the shoes, she hated the shoes because my foster mom gave them to me).
Everyone,
Thank you for sharing.

[dreamykitten]

**PA Triggers**
The only beatings I ever had was being slapped across the face by my father.

He would get a horrible angry look on his face and then hit me.

I don't remember many incidents, but it reached the point where if he raised his hand I would immediately shrink back. He could get me to obey him just by raising his hand; he didn't even have to bother to hit me.

I even remember him once raising his hand to me and saying something about how I was afrad of being hit and how he had control of me, or something like that.

The things that triggered my father to slap me were normal behaviours that I think a normal parent wouldn't punish someone for. For example, once we were in the train station and we were going down the stairs and I put my hand on the banister. My father smacked me across the face and then said "Don't put your hand there, it's dirty." I assume I would have been watching other people in the train station with their hands on the banister.

Like the husband, I also reached a turning point one day.

I think I was around eight years old.

I was very angry at him (I don't remember what for) and I was sitting and thinking and I decided that if he ever threatened to hit me or if he ever hit me again I wasn't going to show that it bothered me. I told myself that pain is just a sensation in your mind that can be ignored, and that if he ever threatened to hit me again I wouldn't act frightened, and if he hit me I would just ignore the pain, and I would hit him back.

I never told anyone about that decision, but something about my appearance must have changed after that because my father never threatened me or hit me again.

**End of PA Triggers**

[Writer203]

**PA Triggers**

I remember whippings, too. I don't remember the ones my first stepmother used to inflict, though I remember that they happened. She told me later one involved her going into a fugue and beating me so badly with the bristle-end of a brush that I had to stay home from school for days. I don't remember this. However, I remember the whippings by my second stepmother and father with perfectly clarity. The belt was the weapon of choice, though there were also rice paddles, switches, and wooden spoons. They had a whole drawerful of belts of which to draw upon for punishment. At first, the belt is just for very serious infractions. We are to get as many lashes as how old we are, and if we flinch, cry out too much, tense up, or otherwise try to avoid the punishment, we get more. Even K, my youngest sister at the time, only four, got the belt. Eventually, it was used with more regularity. I remember one day my stepmother laughing about it with a friend while my father beat my sister upstairs. We learned that my father's large belt would hurt, but not sting like my stepmother's thin ones. We wore out at least one with how much we were whipped. Finally, when I became pretty much the sole target of abuse, it was used every day, several times. Pretty much everything I did warranted a good belting. However, I learned something during that time. Eventually, when you're beat with a belt that often...it stops hurting. I felt empowered by that bit of information and simply lay there and pretended I was in terrible pain. In reality, I felt nothing. I think my father and stepmother caught on, but they couldn't beat me any harder than they were without leaving permanent marks or drawing blood, so they did nothing.

Slapping was used, too, though with less regularity. I was slapped for dirty looks that I didn't even realize I was giving (I'm convinced they were simply used as an excuse to hit me). My older stepsister was quite fond of slapping and hitting me about the head when her mother told her to, and sometimes umprompted. I was also slammed into walls, doors, and furniture in anger. But mostly it was the whippings that happened with the most regularity. To this day, the sound of a belt slapping together makes my skin crawl. I hate it when parents tout this type of behavior as the best way to discipline children. It's not okay.

I don't know about it being SA, as I was always whipped with my pants on. Maybe they thought they were inflicting the most pain if there was no padding between the belt and skin?

*End PA Triggers*

[lonelylife]

Writer, you reminded me of something. I seem to recall my father wearing out a few belts too. The beatings never stopped hurting me though. My aunt (not the crazy one) said there was one time that she knew about where my father beat me so long he had to sit down and catch his breath. I can't really remember it, it must have been while I was still younger, about 7-8 or so was his "going to start beating" age. Though in my latter life he was threatening one of my niece's kids who was only 6, so who knows. As I was also saying, my father would draw his fist back, cock it, like he was going to hit, and then also he'd cock back liquor bottles towards us. It was just horrible to feel I was going to get hit this way and he'd always make sure he was inches from your face before he did it. It would make me pre-feel the blows, like anticipate how they would be, and made me scared of the impact. It also pissed me off greatly to know how he wanted to hit us with those things, but he didn't want to leave additional evidence. To want to punch one's kids, to want to bang them in the head with a fifth of whiskey (and then a gallon when he graduated to bigger bottles) is beyond sick, not to mention beating us at all. And like you writer, he also made up sh*t to come after us over, which wasn't hard in his drunken, scrambled up state. Teetering around and staggering back and forth raising hell. I'm sorry you went through any of that.

[Lilo]

***triggers PA***

I used to get tied up for a couple of days , no clothes, no food, just a little water and beaten with belts till the guy doing the beating was too tired to hit anymore, several times. Made to eat my own filth before release.

Not fun at all.

Never had anything thrown at me though.

***end triggers***

[audacious]

(((Lilo))) if ok.
It amazes me how evil adults can be to children (or anyone), and it amazes me that we are surviving. That you are surviving, Lilo. I hope you thrive.

[Lilo]

same for all of you, audacious and friends !

Survive to thrive!

I like your signature

[recover]

**trigger PA/SH**

hi audacious,

so so sorry you had to endure such horrible abuse.

i stay away from this forum usually because it is so triggering, more even than the others. thats because the only crystal clear memories i have of abuse is my father beating my brother, either naked or in underwear, with a belt in a violent and out of control manner. he is two years older than me and was always provoking and getting in trouble. sometimes i saw and sometimes i just heard his pleas and screams (my room was adjacent to his). it terrified me no end. i felt very worried that my father would kill him one day. i did everything to stay out of trouble, i was so "good". internalized everything, got ED, SU, SH, etc. never got beaten by my father, guilty for that too. then my brother would turn on me, get sadistic and abusive to me, the youngest. i never fought back, and i never told. i would never tell because i knew he would get beaten and i couldn't stand that more than anything. so i just took it.

where was my mother?? i am a mother, if my husband EVER laid one hand on them i would kick him out. no second chances. and he knows it, not that he ever would. and where was she when my brother did stuff to me? i know i would know if one of my children was hurting the other, not that they ever would either. i never remember her being anywhere around what was happening.

i always thought it was normal. i still minimize it ALL THE TIME. and i know it is somehow linked to sexual stuff, but not sure how.

i am sorry i went on about me on your thread. i just relate so much, and i have never spoken about this here in detail. i am sorry you went through this. and i hope you don't mind me sharing this here.

thanks.
please take gentle care.
love,
recover

[SparklingDawn]

I do believe many of us survivors minimize our abuse. Maybe if we think we "deserved it," or maybe if we tell ourselves that "it wasn't that bad," we don't have to face how painful it was.

[eff]

hi audacious....

sorry you have this happen to you...is cruel and we don't understand why they do it. we remember belt too.

eff