My parents repeatedly told me, "You'll never do anything right." They ridiculed just about everything I did. If I came home with an 'A" on a spelling test, I was told that, "Who do you think you are - do you think you're better than me?" by my mother. There were a lot more things that she said, but in summary, every interaction I had with her involved abusive words or violence against me. I don't think I ever had a moment in which she treated me as if we had a normal, health parent-child relationship.

Were you emotionally abused as a child, and have you recovered from it, even slightly?

For me, the hardest thing to get over is the emotional abuse and neglect. There was physical abuse too but that was driven by my parents' inability to control their own emotions. Emotional abuse is the person in power "dumping" all their crap on you. They had a shitty day so they take it out on you. All you need to do is breathe wrong so they can use that as an excuse. Emotional abuse is always about the inner struggles of the abuser. They can't control their lives and their emotions so they need to find victims to take it out on. As children, we are not taught how to put up boundaries against this and of course our abusers wouldn't teach us this. As adults, we finally learn we have a choice.

I've lived with the after-effects of my childhood for a lifetime.

I can see now where it all comes from, that's a big improvement I think. I used to think I was just a weak person who's prone to emotional disturbances and anxiety. One thing that I've always done, something I now understand, was to constantly seek support from my friends. That can be wearing for people, so they tend to eventually back away from my "neediness". I've spent so much of my life's energy searching for somewhere I can belong and feel wanted.

I didn't understand until recently that I'm searching for the parts of my childhood that were missing. I have no memories of hugs or even reassuring pats on the back or shoulders...no one ever telling me that things would work out. Instead, my parents pulled back whenever I showed signs of weakness and a need for their support. I guess they just could not deal with it.

Both my parents had severe problems. My father was not a drinker in those days, but he was prone to violent rages and emotional storms. We were all afraid of him. My mother did drink...she was in worse shape than Dad. I remember her tendency to have complete meltdowns and panic attacks. She always seemed to have a haunted look about her.

So there was not a lot of support or stability in my family life for me or my sisters. The three of us grew up being "strange" in many ways...not at all surprising when your father is a sadistic bully and your mother is an emotionally unstable drunk.

We never knew why we were that way. We never even talked about things like that. In our family you were expected to deal with your personal problems yourself.

I'm not entirely certain how to classify my mother; she had a lot of borderline traits and was also incredibly narcissistic. She was raised in what sounded like extreme poverty (10 kids, one provider) by parents that either didn't have the time to give her any specific attention or merely had an aversion to physical affection. She had some obvious unresolved issues concerning a rape at 16(crowded public bus) and possibly molestation as a child(rumored). This lead to a very unstable mother who didn't understand anything. She was too anxious to bother to improve her English(which she was terribly ashamed of), and too afraid of failure to continue an education. She had an extreme fear of everything outside her front door, but she didn't think twice about keeping me around her husband. She was the type of person who went into hysteria every time something new was on the news. If caught in traffic, she would try frantically to find an escape from the vehicle and would have to be talked down into staying inside. I suppose the last word I would use to describe her would be "strong".

Well, she decided to pop a child out anyway, and even though I owe my existence to this action, I believe it was completely wrong of her to do. She had no clue about the most basic child psychology. Her goal seemed to be to raise a person who would serve her and listen to her against all reason and logic. She flipped back and forth between bragging about how intelligent I was to other people and telling me that I didn't know anything. This was awkward because I always felt that I surpassed her sometime around 8. She couldn't even help me with homework when long division came around.

Despite report cards filled with check +'s and A's, she was always disappointed. Every bit of information concerning my personality had to be suppressed. She didn't like my interests, she didn't like my hobbies, she didn't like the subject matter in the books that I read-- everything was offensive. Some kids were hiding drugs in their backpacks. I was hiding any shred of myself. With major depression, I had no outlets. Not a sliver of paper with writing on it, not a drawing, not a journal, not a poem. Everything was wrong. Evidence of my sadness was evidence that who I was should be declared incorrect. And when I couldn't slap a false expression on my face to appease her during church functions, her only complaint was that I needed to smile and not actually BE happy.

Friends let me borrow books, and she would threaten to throw them away. I was only allowed to know what she wanted me to know; see what she would allow me to see. In the 8th grade she found something I scribbled down about wanting to die, and she angrily confronted me about it like a raving lunatic. She didn't show any concern for my feelings, instead she just wanted to know how I could dare feel something without asking her first. At times I regret not making it easier for myself and pretending harder to be someone else, but I don't think that anything could have ever possibly have been to her liking. It would have been a fruitless effort.

I fall into the "innapropriately adult" and "fearful of doing something wrong" categories, I'm afraid.

I think part of the reason I try to take care of others is partially because I'm the oldest sibling, but also because I sometimes feel that I was able to save my sister from suffering the abuse I went through by being the one abused; so, I have to always look out for her. And I've always been told that I've been very mature for my age.

Saying something or doing something wrong or 'stupid' (besides being purposefully goofy) is one of my biggest fears and always has. I worry about it all the time, often without realizing it. I just thought it was a personality quirk, I had no idea it could be a sign of emotional abuse.

My egg donor said mean horrible things to me as a child. I never understood why she hates me so much. When my egg donor said to me she hateds me and I do not know what hate is,. I saw the anger in her eyes. All I could do was she look at her. I was lost

trying to get away from my birth family feels like i left my homeland to live in a foreign country where i don't know the customs, language, culture, or anything! all i know is abuse, all i know is the wrong way to be. then there are the opposites of what i know, which i seem to be able to understand--but those aren't right either because it's two opposite polarities.

hey im wondering how long it takes ta obr com all da neglect an abuse i want it ta b obr know im getin tired of diz constat fight i got away from da abuse an neglect about a month ago i thought evy ding would b better i got a temporarily place ta stay im not on da streets any more da peoples who adopted me r not herz but y am i still scared? any time derz yellin i hide i hate yellin how did i guys get obr it?

I've been working on writing an essay on ways to detect emotional manipulation. According to my therapist, it is a form of abuse and like anger is often a learned trait.

That list summarizes most of my childhood.