Abuse By Mother

My Mom has always been physically and verbally abuse,ever since i can remember.My mom is bipolar and has a lot of anxiety problems,and i understand that but i just hate the way she treats me.Since I'm 15 now and I'm older my mom is less physically abusive,when i was little my mom used to sit on me and hold me down so i couldn't get up,she also used to hit me with a belt, and one time i remember she put a pillow over my face when i was about 7 and wouldn't let me up until i almost suffocated.

Now she does stuff like that to my little brother who is 8, but i do help my brother when my mom acts like this.....My mom is now very verbally abusive she now calls me things like Fat,Stupid,Useless,Worthless,Lazy and a *****. And now she is holding one little thing against me that makes me feel so stupid which is that i lost $20 that she gave to me to hold on to for a sec while we were in the car ,and when I got out of the car my mom asked me where the money was and i said i  didn't know and it happened to blow off my lap when i got out of the car...i told i didn't mean to and i was sorry and she keeps saying how stupid i am and how my friends wouldn't have lost $20 when it was sitting right on there laps ..no wonder they make straight a's and you make 70's and 80's.

Since my mom is Bipolar and has other problems she always does this thing where she will get so mad and yell at me and hit me and then 10 minutes later she will come in my room and be so nice and apologize and say stuff like i didn't mean to do that and you know i love you...and I am bipolar too and i have been cutting cause i feels worthless and i have been starving myself because i feel so fat and my cutting and bulimia is not all because of what my mom does and says its a lot of other reasons but  i just don't know what to say to her and i just can't take it anymore and i don't know what to do! please help!

[specialmom]

Sweetie, I'd talk to your dad.  I assumed he wasn't in the picture from your first post and that is why I said to talk to grandparents, aunts or cousins.  But dad is a good one to talk to.  He has to be aware to some extent as he does live with her too.  So expressing to him what is going on when he is not around is important.  Your brother is young and needs his other parent to protect him.  You did to and I'm sorry your dad didn't.  Maybe he didn't know----  I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.  But when a two parent household had one member with untreated mental health issues and they are abusing the kids and they do nothing about it, that is double abuse in my opinion.  

I get that you love her.  The sad truth about abuse is that really, all we want is to be loved by our parent that is hurting us.  You, like any other, feel great when she is being "nice".  You can love her while protecting yourself and your brother.

Talk to your dad.  It may be a matter of your brother having another arrangement after school.  You also need to talk to him so that you can get your own help dear.  YOu are cutting and starving yourself.  This is dangerous and needs professional help.  I would think that a therapist that could help you address any emotional trauma you've had and help you find healthy ways of coping with it would be of such benefit to you and would think your dad would be happy to make this happen.  

So, please talk to him.  Peace

[specialmom]

Oh my dear.  You are so young and been through so much.  I'm very sorry for the abuse you've endured and the outlets you've chosen to help you cope.  Listen to me here-----  your outlets hurt no one but you.  Cutting is a bad idea, starving yourself and using food this way is a bad idea.  If I could, I'd swoop in and get you to a doctor (psychiatrist) and counselor (clinical psychologist).  You have classic signs of a young woman that has been traumatized and adding on top of that, you say you are bi polar.  Do you receive treatment for this?  Do you see a doctor?  Your mom seems so unstable but would she be willing to let you see a therapist or psychiatrist?  I ask this because your time under your mom's rule of terror and mood swings is going to come to an end.  But, as you know, you've started habits/coping skills that are very dangerous and self destructive for you.  If you do not address them, those self destructive habits could go on for your life time.  You need to focus on life ahead of you and how to get and stay emotionally healthy.

What other support do you have in your life?  Who could you talk to?  Grandparent, aunt, cousin?  School counselor?  You need to find positive people in your life as best you can.  Make plans for your future.  The BEST reason to work hard in school?  Because it is your ticket out of there----  setting yourself up to go to college or trade school and work on getting a job that turns into a career that fully financially supports you is the goal.  Freedom is right around the corner if you do that.  

I'm so sorry.  And I know it is confusing because your mom hurts you and then loves you and back and forth.  No one is all bad (well, almost no one . . .  I guess some are pure evil) and it sounds like your mother is untreated in her bipolar.  Shame on her as she has a responsibility to be treated to be a better parent----  but again, I'm sure it is confusing.  I feel for you dear.

Could you see a doctor or psychiatrist for the cutting and eating issues (and depression/bi polar)?

[margypops]

I am so sorry this is happening to you, is there a counselor at school some one you can talk to ,this indeed, especially the physical things you have mentioned here,  abuse in my opinion  and you can ask to speak to a CPS worker regarding your 8 year old brother and yourself . You need some help so reach out , speak to someone at school who will help .

[allmymarbles]

You make no mention of your father. Is he available to help you and your brother?

Also, you say you are bipolar like your mother. This is not necessarily so. Growing up in that environment you may simply be behaving in a manner that is familiar. In other words, I am saying that your behavior may be environmental. Change the environment and your will become the person you really are. But of course, for that you need help. If your father is not available, do you have any relatives who can aid you?

[margypops]

I agree with allmymarbles, if Dad or family is around speak to them for help..do they know about your Mom's behavior?

[Summerlove3]

Yes my dad is around but I don't exactly like to talk about it ...I mean my mom can be so nice sometimes but when she is mad she acts like this and it's so wierd cause like when she is not mad at me I feel so close with her and I can't belive that she would ever do that to me....but back to my dad he is around but not a whole lot...he works every day from 5am to 6pm and sometimes he doesn't come home cause he has to take care of his mom ...so he sleeps over there...I mean one time my dad threatened to call the cops on my mom but he never did...and they fight alot too so my dad is ussally on my side...but when my mom is yelling at  my brother or whatever only I'm home cause he gets home from school at 2 and my dad gets home at 6

[specialmom]

Sweetie, I'd talk to your dad.  I assumed he wasn't in the picture from your first post and that is why I said to talk to grandparents, aunts or cousins.  But dad is a good one to talk to.  He has to be aware to some extent as he does live with her too.  So expressing to him what is going on when he is not around is important.  Your brother is young and needs his other parent to protect him.  You did to and I'm sorry your dad didn't.  Maybe he didn't know----  I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.  But when a two parent household had one member with untreated mental health issues and they are abusing the kids and they do nothing about it, that is double abuse in my opinion.  

I get that you love her.  The sad truth about abuse is that really, all we want is to be loved by our parent that is hurting us.  You, like any other, feel great when she is being "nice".  You can love her while protecting yourself and your brother.

Talk to your dad.  It may be a matter of your brother having another arrangement after school.  You also need to talk to him so that you can get your own help dear.  YOu are cutting and starving yourself.  This is dangerous and needs professional help.  I would think that a therapist that could help you address any emotional trauma you've had and help you find healthy ways of coping with it would be of such benefit to you and would think your dad would be happy to make this happen.  

So, please talk to him.  Peace

[margypops]

I think a talk with a school counselor may help you, I also think that your Dad and maybe any other relative in your life would be someone to speak to about your concerns for your brother, its great you are looking out for him .

[Ramona17]

You somehow have to get away from your situation.  There are people who will help you, you have to find them.  Is there a teacher who you think you can trust? Or a school counselor.  If you find help, you can not only help yourself and your brother, but your mother will be able to get help, that she doesnt realize she needs.  If you dont get help you will continue to abuse yourself, and I'm speaking from experience.  I'm 46 years old and was so horribly abused by my parents, but never knew that I could get help.  I have done such horrible things to myself over the years and it gets worse not better.  I also had trouble in the past with my temper and would yell at or hit my pets, .  Somehow I have stop mistreating them,  and it was never often., but now I will never even yell at them or even want to yell at them.  (I'm just explaining myself here, because if I read anything about any kind of pet abuse, it makes my blood boil, but I'm committed to being completely honest here).  But every other thing in my life has suffered, because I never got help because I never thought that I was worth being helped.  So, I hope that you get some help for you and your brother, because childhood abuse doesnt end when you leave your parents.  It can ruin your entire life.  It's ruined my life up to now, and hopefully now is a turning point for me.  I'm just trying to get health insurance for several physical medical issues, but also I desperately would like to go to counseling, or group therapy when I can afford it.

[Ramona17]

I'm very happy to find this forum.  And, in case it helps anyone, and, because this is the only place that I feel kind of safe to write this, I'm going to write about some of my childhood abuse.  When I about 5 or 6 my parents divorced and neither of them wanted to take care of me or my sister.  So, we were taken care of by my grandmother who wasnt t hrilled about it either, but she literally was my mother's personal servant, so she did what she was told to do.  When I was 13 I lived with my mother and grandmother, my mother had a new boyfriend.  My mother thrives on drama, and created drama were there wasnt, and to make a long story short, I would wake up by being punched in the face by the boyfriend, for something my mother would have said that I said, etc.... About a year later, I found a homeless kitten, which my mother told me to get rid of, or move to another country to live with my father.  I chose to keep the kitten, and was sent to live with my father, who, was also not thrilled.  ( have you ever seen people play the game of "hot potato"-well, that is what my childhood was: I was the hot potato, and no one wanted to have it.). SHortly after moving in with my father, he started to sexually abuse me, in subtle ways, also, at the same time, telling me how fat, unpopular, ugly, deformed, I was.  He would sit on the couch, and when I would walk by he would laugh in disgust and just give his opinion of how disgusting I was,  I would just nod to acknowledge him, and continue on with what I was doing. --and then just stuffed my face with food later to deal with whatever pain I had)  Then about 2 years after moving in with him, he told me to move into the basement one night, but to not wake him up.  So, of course, as I was moving my (furniture?) into the basement, it made some noise, and he woke up. I was in the basement, and he came down with no clothes on and tried to rape me.  I struggled with him, and tried to talk to him rationally.  Then he told me that he was going to have to kill me with a shotgun he had upstairs, because otherwise he was going to get into trouble.  For the next 12 hours I spoke to him, and in between he would try to rape me, then calm down again.  Finally in the morning, I convinced him that I would not tell and that we would both go to "counseling" or talk and get help.  He told me if I mentioned anything to my mother, that I would be killed.  He left the house, and I went numb but knew I had to get out.  I only had 2 months of high school left, and desperately wanted everything to stay the same.  I didnt want anyone to find out what had happened, but knew I had to get out or I would finally be raped or killed the next day.  I called my mother (who lived in the US, -I was in Canada) and told her that he "hit" me, but that she could not tell him or he would kill me.  I asked my  mother to ask her friend if I could stay with her until I finished high school.  My mother promised not to call my father.  but she did, of course.  Every day after that, I feared for my life.  I went into mental shock, and coudln't concentrate on school, but went through the motions of going.  I lived only feet away from my fathers house, choosing to stay with a very unpleasant, possibly psychotic, elderly friend of my grandmothers'--just becasue I could take the same schoolbus-and no one would notice anything with me had changed.  I just remember not wanting anyone to notice anything had change since that night.  I already had no friends, and no one would have even noticed if I came to school with purple hair, naked and walking on my hands!--But I, not wanting to give anyone of my peers a single hint of what had happened, chose to stay with a bad lady, who didnt want me there, but tolerated it in exchange for money from my mother and grandmother (who was her friend)  and only a few feet away from the place where I had almost been murdered--instead of going to live with a "friend" of my mothers who, really wanted to welcome me, and to this day is one of the nicest people I have ever met.  A few years later, I told my mother what had happened, during a heated arguement, and her response was, that I was a liar, and if I ever repeated it to anyone, that she would have my uncle(my father's brother)- "take care of me" (meaning, she would have him murder me?).  Although by that time, I knew that my mother is either severely disturbed or she's just pure evil--I have always kept it with me that if I ever exposed my father, that I would still, now 30 years later, be murdered by him or someone he hired.  About 12 years ago  my fathers wife tried very hard for my father and I to "make amends".  Although she had no idea what the problem was, she kept on telling me how he wants to make amends.  Of course I forgave him, although he would never admit to what it was, just that he was sorry.  Unfortunately I realize now that he is a pure narcissist and just wanted the relationship so that I could help him with his tenants at his rental property.  And, as soon as my usefulness was gone, he doesn't want anything to do with me again, until the next time he needs to talk about his problems, or ask advice about something.  Never in my life has he ever asked if I needed anything, and also, it has always be an unspoken rule to never ask him  for help .  It is so warped.  I just want to be able to stop letting the hurt inside my brain ruin my life.  I don't want a relationship with him or my mother, but I want to get the pain out of my life.  Thank you to anyone for reading this long comment.  I would really appreciate hearing from anyone who has had any similar experiences.

[kidsmom95045]

DON"T CUT. Put a rubberband or two around your wrist - not too tight - and when you feel the urge to cut then just snap the rubber band.