I Just Need to Tell Someone

Only my closest friends and girlfriend know I had an abusive childhood. None of them know the details and now at 24, for some reason, they are boiling inside of me and I need to get them out. I need to tell somebody, anybody. We were poor, 3 kids, 2 parents, different miscellaneous jobs and a lot of liquor. My mom did the best she could. She took the brunt of any made up issues my dad had and took a lot of punches (literally) for us. I remember him coming home at 2:24am on a school night and beating me awake with a belt. He choked my mom with the telephone cord until she turned blue and my older siblings could finally get him off of her. I saw him lift my older brother off of the ground by his throat and threaten to kill him. I remember the night it all finally ended, when he kicked the front door in and in his drunken state decided to beat the hell out of my mom. That was it for her. She couldn’t do it anymore. I’ve witnessed him beat a chained up dog with a mop. He taught me to shoot cats and raccoons with pellet guns, thank God I grew out of that. He was one of nine children, all of whom were also beat unmercifully by my grandmother, who was beat by my grandfather. It’s been a cycle for generations. I’ve ashamedly found myself in the same boat a time or two. I decked an ex girlfriend in the face for screaming at me, and put the same one thru a wall. I got help. I forgave myself and have sworn to every lover since then that I’d never let that be me again. I’ve kept my promise. Idk what the point of this is. I just needed somebody to read it.

— Survivor, age 24