My parents seemed obsessed with the impression people had of them through my appearance and demeanor. Keeping up a good front was their number one priority...so it would have been difficult to spot my abuse. Probably the major signs were my unusually low body weight and poor health, and my extreme timidity and fearfulness.

I doubt if anyone looked for things like that when I was young. Even if they knew about my abuse, who could they report it to? Children who were beaten severely were the only kids that might get interventions in those days. My dad was very careful to stay within the boundaries of legality...unless of course he thought he wouldn't ever get caught...like stealing tools from the company he worked for.

Like RichieD I was timid and fearful, and I always wore dirty clothes to school. My aunts and uncles and cousins all knew I was abused and neglected and they didn't care at all. They made excuses for my mom. I don't know what signs people could have seen, the pastor of my moms church knew we were neglected and didn't care. I grew up thinking everyone knew and just didn't care.

It's hard to remember, but I think I also felt like nobody cared about what was happening to me. It seemed like parents in general were never wrong in everyone's view, it was bad kids that were always the problem. If there was something wrong in my young life, it must have been my fault. Even I believed that.

what people should have seen within me is the fear i had with people after we moved to AZ from CA. i became so withdrawn from people, develop all kinds of fear about everything, etc because of my parents lying about people and the world. try being sheltered not being allowed to go out and make friends always huddled on the computer for hours on end.

people also should have seen my barrage of violence from my anger that shows right there a person is acting out abuse. a normal person wouldnt scream/yell like that and break things. my mom has race issues with people especially white people always their fault for the kind of kids, life, and hubby she has. my parents love to put on phony images to the public about how we r such a loving family that they did this or that for us liars!

both sides of my family are rotten like my parents. i wished that my brother or sister should have taken me away from our parents when i was 10 to give me a better life instead of telling me wait until your 18 to move out blah blah blah and i am 27 still at home with no job and cant move out.

I think the biggest red flag was that I just wasn't happy and I really had no identity. There was also a really big difference between me and other girls: they fit in. I desperately wanted to fit in....at least appearance-wise.....but it just wasn't meant to be. I just couldn't relate to my peers because I grew up faster than I should have.

I have always been a quiet person.....because my opinions and thoughts never mattered. Aunts and Uncles welcomed us into their home for whole summers.....but they never spoke up on our behalf.

I once burned my thumb (3rd degree). Mom let me have ice for 30 minutes and then took it away.
My sister drove her bike into me and sliced my leg from hip to knee. Mom used band aids for 6 weeks and still it was bleeding.

When we had recess, I sat on the curb and cried myself sick.
I never ate my lunch.
I fell asleep in my favorite classes.
At times the anger would boil over, I would quietly leave class and go sit in the Vice Principal's office and cry.

But like someone else said, children with bruises were the only ones who could possibly be abused.

Basically my social ineptitude, just not 'acting right', not knowing how to get into the rhythm of fitting in and being myself simultaneously. But as I recall them, those that could have done something about it preferred to gossip and bitch and just continuously punish me. I remember there was one teacher I confided in and the principal actually took me aside one day - I was a child mind you - and told me that said teacher 'doesn't get paid' to talk with me after school.

I'm learning now that I was no angel, but I was after all JUST A CHILD!!! There were issues with race, but it became evident that my 'family' was THAT family - the ones that everyone talks about. There may have been some compassion, but I don't recall.

teacher doesn't get paid to talk with me after school? omg then why are these teachers trained to recognize abuse? the paycheck shouldn't have anything to do with reporting abuse or listening to a child who is abused. that proves it right there that these teachers would do a better job for their careers if they got paid more sounds like my hs teachers.

Years ago I started dong a lady's hair who apparently read to me in class....I couldn't remember her. I was 4 - 5 years old. I asked her what I was like as a kid then, she said very quiet & withdrawn, I didn't play or speak to anyone. She remembers the dinner lady's struggling to coax me to eat. This really made me sad now adays that would be an issue. ... Or would it? Who wants to get involved?
I asked her why was I like that(I wasn't gonna tell her its cause I lived in hell) she shrugs and said thy thought it was cause of my sister and the fact I was away from my mum & dad. They forced me and my sister to go and live with them for a few weeks.....turned into years with little visits, they were as bad anyway.
I remember my gran beating me every morning, for various excuses, id wet the bed, hadn't washed my face properly, whatever, making me eat breakfast by force feeding literally or leaving me while I ate my breakfast then making me walk to school and be late and be in trouble. I remember her brainwashing into me that she spoke to the dinner ladies and would know what was said and what I ate and how much trouble I would be in if I didn't eat my dinner. I remember my sister colluding with her and her beating anyone me mostly up. I remember none wanted to talk to me cause they were scared of my sister. I remember a playground chat about babies and was made to feel bad cause I knew where they came from and what you had to do to get them. Why did nobody do anything? Deep down then I knew I didn't like my gran, sister and I knew what he did wasn't good. But it was all made out to be normal and I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone cause she would know, I was terrified and alone. No one to tell, they knew everyone. Wasn't allowed to play out or watch tv hardly. I had to learn the can can in the back garden to put on a ,show for them, had to sit behind grans chair in the corner because she couldn't stand the site of me....her words.
I was the kid everybody avoided, if you spoke to me you'd get beat up by my sister. I even begged one girl not to talk to me so got beat up more.
From being 2 1/2 my first feeling I can remember was fear, fear f having to go there and not remembering until it was too late why I was scared.
Next feeling was being alone in the world, in the small isolated shell I lived in, for years.
No helpline could of saved me I was too small, had no access to a phone no information like newspapers etc.... Abuse still is shoved under the carpet, like the dirt it is!
Later we changed schools and moved back home, my mother divorced, which made it worse, but I was still the same withdrawn isolated child. When school trips came up I never went on them, I only needed to ask once.
Dirty clothes when I was back home, odd socks, tatty hand me down clothes, shoes were always an issue and the cheapest or free old woman's shoes.
Never got an invite to other kids birthday parties, I was the only one, never had a party myself.
Always in a daydream apparently, was hyper alert, and scared, why couldn't they see this was not normal?
The ,stranger chat, we had in school at 10 years old made me think but that was for people who did bad things once to a stranger, never mentioned daily, why didn't they spot the shame and guilty look on my face?
As I grew older I knew it was wrong and tried many times to get caught in the act, he took us outdoors weekly. One person saw him but said nothing, they were a kid too and was never mentioned again but they were older why didn't they tell?
11+ I knew way too much and I just thought it Normal to have sex, I didn't know you could say no, I struggled with its different if its a boyfriend for a while.
Still isolated & alone, I gave up trying to fit in that I so desperately needed, nobody cared I wasn't worth it, I'd gone too far to tell and still didn't know how to make it stop. I did very well in exams 1/2 year and answered questions wrong on next exam so I couldn't get moved up a grade, I was comfortable with the lower grades and didn't care. I felt semi safe in class but nobody noticed my intelligence go from 0 to 60? Nobody noticed I was missing for most of a year,,,I had to wash & clean the house.
I did pathetic attempt at running away from home at 14, under the close supervision of my sister who forced me and then told my mum who got the police involved. I ran away with a girlfriend who I had told miner bits but not fully. She was supporting me, as my friend. We had no money so stayed down the road at an older mans house. This was because my sister had told my mum I wasn't a virgin and I panicked because she was referring to the fact I'd had sex with a 17 year old, another use and abuse but I thought I was in love by then. She said she was taking me to the drs next day to see if I was a virgin or not. When the police caught us...wasn't hard o find, they left me alone with my gran and mother while they took my friend home. By the time they had finished with me I had clear instructions what to say to the police when they come back to give me the telling off for running away from abuse chat.
They were listening at the door to what I said I was so confused and kept contradicting my answers and thought I was going to jail. At that point i didn't really know what a virgin was cause in my eyes id never been one? The policeman should of been trained to know it wasn't a clear teenage girl runs away case. I remember being terrified cause they were listening I must looked at the door hundreds of times, why couldn't he see fear? He explained that nobody should touch me but he was talking about boyfriends, he said I could go to the station and talk anytime if I needed when he realised he wasn't getting through to me? I was a meltdown mess the next day at school obviously I no longer had the drs appointment and. Later I realised it was never gonna happen anyway cause they already knew about him and what they did. They guarded me even more, one teacher picked up on the fact something was drastically wrong as I burst into tear with the lame excuse of not doing homework, but it was the wrong time or her to talk so offered to talk to me at lunch. She was the only one, I hovered over her class all lunchtime but didn't have the strength to walk in, so that was the end if it all under the carpet and kept going on.
All I wanted was for someone to notice and do something about it, I vocally said to many people that I wanted to live in a children's home. Why didn't thy listen?
The signs were obvious, what people don't get is that a child has not got an adult brain Ashanti got the resources to act anyway.
I wanted someone to find out but didn't want to be blamed because that would mean more abuse, I also didn't believe it was real abuse because it wasn't a stranger it was all of the family in different ways?
I have missed loads this is turning into a rant I my story sorry

I was the lost child who never spoke or laughed. If I did laugh, my mother went in to a tangent about how laughter was the devil's voice. Not that I had much to laugh at. But if there were times I was sad, everyone who knew about the abuse would tell me to
1 not let it bother me.............how does one do that!?
2 don't tell a soul or you will look like a pity case
3 no one will believe you

But I had brusies and some teachers told me I did something wrong or I got what I deserved. No one cared.

Linda