Hi, I'm new to the group.

I suffered every kind of abuse from my father and emotional, mental and some physical abuse from my mother. My father found her when he was traveling in Europe and married her after only knowing her 2 months. My mom was escaping a poor country. It's a typical "mail order bride" situation even though they met face to face instead of writing letters. My mom probably would have gone with any halfway descent seeming guy who offered to take her to the US. She is Scandinavian. Ironically, her country is doing better than the US now.

My father and mother started out with him in control since she needed him to get a green card, so that set the stage for horrific abuse. He turned out to be a control freak, alcoholic and abuser. He was a college professor with two masters degrees so he saw himself as "superior" to us. So there you have it- Hell. Some of my earliest memories are of him shaking and strangling me in my crib for crying, and him physically struggling with my mom and hitting her. From the time I could understand words, she told me she hated him and one day we would leave and get away, so I grew up waiting for that day- that would never come. She is still with him now, 43 years later.

My dad drank, cursed, controlled the house, didn't let my mom have friends or a life or go out and do anything. Worst of all, he hurt and hit me when he thought nobody was looking. He did it under the family's noses, like if I grabbed a knife by the blade when I was two years old, he saw a chance to hurt me and ripped it out of my hand so that it cut my palm. He did this in the car right when everyone was looking(his parents and my mom), but they excused it saying "it was an accident". He bounced me on the bed and I was laughing, asking to go higher, and he slammed my head into the ceiling. And so forth. One time while drunk he took me out to see some cows that were across the street that were behind an electric fence. I didn't know what the fence was and he told me to touch it. I was thrown to the ground by the electric jolt. To this day I can't stand electric shocks. These were the types of sneaky and severe abuse he would pull, in addition to the average arm wrenching, hitting, slapping, yelling, intimidating, joy-stealing and constant oppression. My mother would sometimes protest this, other times not, other times she would join in blaming me. But she never just grabbed me and left, never called police or told anybody what was going on. That's why I blame her for most of what happened. She didn't care about me and wasn't emotionally connected to me, she said that she was the oldest and had to help raise her 6 brothers and sisters so didn't want to raise another child. She said the reason why she had me was because the mother of an American citizen (someone who was born in the USA) legally could not be sent back to her country. She was cold and unloving, and after I was around 5 or 6 she didn't touch me, hold me, pick me up, etc.

He was also a "nudist", and I was forced to see him naked. He walked the house naked till I was 12 years old and I was forced to see him perpetuate sex acts on my mother which she did not want. My mother thought he was disgusting and never wanted to have sex with him, but he would do things like threaten to hurt me in some way like turning off the TV in the middle of one of my favorite shows unless she would do it. She also walked naked in the house. I did not like this and felt terrible seeing it, and always kept my own clothes on. Once she screamed "ok, do it in front of your own daughter!" and started taking her jeans off while sitting right next to me, making me feel dirty and horrible. She used me to deter him. Another time he was rubbing her crotch right next to me on the couch and I still squirm uncomfortably and want to cry thinking about that. I had to listen to their sex acts in the next room and listen to her screaming and screaming again and again, I don't know what was going on. Other times, before we settled down into one house, we would be traveling and he would make me go outside alone in the parking lot at whatever motel we were in for the night for them to have sex. My mother NEVER actually WANTED to do it with him, she avoided it whenever possible.

I loathed my father and used to dream of the day when he would either die or we would leave him. Yet, that never happened. Finally when I was 10 my mother got a good job with the govt, met another man, had an affair with him and got pregnant. Instead of leaving my father, she stayed with him because the man she truly loved was already married and wouldn't leave his own wife and kids. My mom had my half-sister and had my abusive father raise her too. She had her when I was 13. I got in deep trouble when I was 18 for vandalism and breaking into things and was arrested when I was 18. I ran into a crazy country judge who judged me for my appearance (at that point I was "punk rock") and gave me a huge sentence, very innapropriate for the things I had done. He is now being investigated by the Feds for accepting bribes, innapropriate sentencing, etc. I went to jail for 3 years. During that 3 years I got a lot of therapy and counseling, and also completed 33 college credits. I was immediately accepted to UMD upon my release. I was 21.

As we well know, I was facing a very long journey of healing from all this. I failed to complete my degree at UMD although I tried my hardest. I had nightmares constantly not just of the abuse but now prison. I picked pretty much the worst men alive to have relationships with. I was ALWAYS sad and crying because of a man. When I think of the losers I almost killed myself over during that period, I shudder- guys with no jobs, no education and not even looks to speak of, who enjoyed emotionally abusing women. This is who I thought I'd give my life for, whom I was SO UPSET when they did not love me, whom I moped about for months to the exclusion of any other activities.

I didn't want to do ANYTHING except fit into an "alternative scene clique", I guess I wanted acceptance by SOMEBODY, so badly. I went from one to another. These cliques were filled with formerly abused young people who were now trying to find a sense of belonging. But somehow they were never spiritually nourishing, never enough to replace the sense of personhood that had been stolen. Many were drug, religion or other types of addicts. Some had strict rules governing relationships, others had hiearchies based on who you were friends with.

All my relationships broke up, some lasted 3 or 4 years before breaking up. Some were abusive, others just dissapointing. I am in one now that I am currently looking to get out of because he is chronically underemployed and an alcoholic.

I have never been married, had children or been a homeowner. I haven't completed a lot of the projects I wanted to, even though I have a good steady income now. I have had opportunities to model, sing and dance and for that I am grateful. But I in no way have lived up to my potential.

My saving grace is that I never touched drugs and was able to not become an alcoholic. Ages 21-30 I drank too much socially but was not an alcoholic in the true sense of the word, but have not drunk hard for this long. I have known many who have died of drugs since college and I'm grateful not to be one of them.

I would like to become a homeowner and live up to my potential as an artist. Getting married and having kids comes in second to these things. I think my experience of abuse and then the subsequent bad relationships with men have made me feel that marrige and kids is not really for me- but at the same time I know I probably feel this way because I was abused.

If there is one piece of advice I could give to abuse survivers, it is take care of your body and mind. Not just with exercise, with meditation. The importance of meditation to an abuse surviver can't be overstated, because our ability to concentrate has been impaired. They even have studies of trauma on the brain showing this. PLEASE- find a Zen school or some other type of meditation and start right away. Stay away from drugs and alcohol, work out frequently and take care of your mind! It's your MIND that will pull you through all this. Eat a healthy diet too, the diet affects our moods so much. I spent months lying in bed behind on the bills because of depression and bad moods, only alleviated by working out and eating a great diet.

And please, don't get attached to some man just because you crave love and affection. Get a counselor, dog, etc because we crave these things more than normal people and can be taken advantage of through it. Know that you can wait untill the perfect, loving partner comes along instead of falling head over heels for an abuser.

Also know that I was not suceptible to physical abuse which everyone knows is wrong but I was very susceptible to emotional abuse and control. When you are abused, you feel that you are worthless and don't deserve the good treatment "normal" people get, so you accept bad behavior more often. Don't do it, be single for years if necessary but don't accept any emotional abusers. They might flock to a formerly abused woman because she is a target for them. Make for damn sure the man you let into your life is not an emotional abuser and manipulator.