How was your abuse covered up or denied?

[Jefis]

So, I am trying to wrap my head around the idea that most abusers do not realize they are being abusive. That most abusers don't think what they are doing is at all close to abuse. They might think or say:
What I do is not that bad.
What I do is discipline and it is for you own good
You drive me to do this
Insults and put downs are delivered under the guise of helpfulness
Events did not really happen at all, you are making it up and being dramatic

I am thinking mainly of parental relationships, but this can apply to other situations as well.

I am trying to figure this out because it has been my experience that when I think about my mother I think these things:
She really did love me
I was bad and she just felt so exasparated
She really was a good mother, because she looked nice and was a good cook
She only wanted to help/guide me
This is how all mothers are
She did the best she could

When in reality my mother:
Left us with babysitters a lot
Let her boyfriend beat us
Constantly insulted me, belittled me
Manipulated me through guilt
Controlled me, blamed me (for everything)
Made discipline about my inherent badness, shamed me
Discipline was extreme and often unreasonable
Let me be assaulted and bullied by my the men she loved
Did not believe me
Victim blamed me when I was sexually abused and also when I was bullied at school
Communicated through her words and actions that I was worthless
Ignored/neglected me
Cold shouldered me and withheld love as punishment
Denied my identity

Yet, she always told me she loved me. Yet, she thought and believed she was doing a great job.

Any thoughts? Stories?

 

[Ucoz]

It took me a long time to realize and to be able to sit with the fact that my parents were only doing what they had learned was "normal" survival and such based on what they had learned and the experiences they endured, albeit damaging and dysfunctional as all get out.

Neither one of them were able to break the cycle of abuse, for whatever reasons, but rather fostered even more of it by staying silent and always pretending things were what they weren't. It seemed the image of being a happy family was way more important than the actuality.

I hope my experiences of finding relief in heightened awareness and in all the places I was taught to avoid can go a long way in my ability to break the cycles of abuse as best I can. It's a jungle out there.

 

[Ofikon]

most abusers do not realize they are being abusive

I could maybe buy into this if it was between two adults, IMO. But between a child and a parent? No.

 

[Ifiz]

I guess I covered it up myself and denied it. I just did not know what all that stuff meant. I mean, how could I possibly behave the way I did? How could I have been like that? Why did all that stuff happen? So since I was not able to answer any of those questions, I mean really I did not even ask them? I just did not know how. Then in my forties (I have said this a lot but to me it is important) I was lying in bed in the morning. I was thinking about my "sex life" when I was a pre teen. Something just happened in my head. I was like "that's not right, that can't be right." I walked into the other room where my wife was and I said "I think I was sexually abused when I was a kid, I think that's what that means."

 

[Mokoro]

When some of us called CPS about a student of mine, they determined the case to be a "miscommunication" between parents and 12 year old. CPS believed the mother's lies.

So now, every once in awhile, I am trying to validate and weave some thoughts about what a healthy parent child relationship is to the child. It broke my heart when my student casually said that parents can do what ever they want to a child because they are adults/parents.

No sweetheart, physically hitting you (mom and step-dad), giving you wedgies, snapping your bra and pinning you down (step-dad)... is assault.

 

[Izuda]

Believe me, they know. Even if they were detached from reality and thinking they were doing the right thing, deep down they know what they did.

My father tried to substitute my mother with me, making me his wife. My mother albeit oblivious to the whole situation, let me continue to go see him despite me crying that I hated him and didn't want to go (I was 6 years old). The whole family, with the exception of my sisters that were also abused, permited that he continued to manipulate and abuse me. They made me believe he was a good guy with good intentions, just a little odd. And I believed them. For years I was not his child, I was his wife. How messed up is that? Only when I was 18 I went no contact, but because I couldn't take it anymore. He died 2 years later. I still believed he was a good guy for years. Then I believed my mother did the best she could, when she clearly didn't.

We put ourselves in these roles because we are made to believe they're our roles, only later we start to come out of that fog.
It's good that you reached out here, you're the sane one, they're not.

 

[Ocik]

My mom & step dad had "real world face". They looked fully normally and our family a normal loving god fearing family. The alter was in a closet. The animals hidden. The dead ones buried in the back yard. The back yard had a privacy fense so what was done was hidden. A cop one of them so he would be the one to pick me up when I ran away and cover up some of it. The rentals would be "sleep overs" and all of it hidden by straight up money londering inside of a business they owned. And the night before i moved out thet threw a paper and burned it all (along with any writings and some of my art which had nothing to do with it). Bruises and cuts coveres by clothing and makeup or I had sick days out of school. The teachers just didnt say anything.

Anyway, thats how my abuse was covered up. Was a group effort. People dont believe because "how could no one know?" Sadly, its all true and I guess no one figured it all out.

 

[Ulok]

thet threw a paper

Threw a party with a bon fire I mean

 

[Utol]

How my abuse was covered up and denied: society's misguided belief that "children should be spoken to and not heard," and "all guardians have a right to discipline a child (and know what's best, so we shouldn't question them or intervene)", when they don't bother to think that perhaps the guardians are mentally ill and abusive.

1. For several years, in several stores (while growing up), if I spoke or asked question, my taller abuser(s) would angrily get down in my face, point their finger at me, and threaten me with punishment. Adults would stare, watch, and not do or say anything to my abuser, nor tell them to stop.

2. When meeting my teachers (who praised me), abuser(s) would act nice and caring about me. So, the former didn't think anything was wrong.

3. Abusers and I moved a lot, so no one really got to know anything was amiss.

4. Policeman told me he grew up being hit, too, but that corporal punishment was legal. I tried to explain that it was more than that, that I wasn't doing anything wrong to upset my abuser(s), yet they still would go on a rampage and whip, hit, and shout at me; so, I said that they didn't know my abuser(s) and didn't live with them, but the other policeman said that, "You know that parents say things they don't mean," and told me that I had to work harder at not upsetting my abuser(s), assuming I was misbehaving and brought the abusive punishments onto myself. Policemen refused to believe me that something was wrong, choosing to blame me. (After that conversation, I had very strong suicidal urges: being blamed for your own abuse when you didn't do anything wrong will do that to a child/teen who isn't being listened to or believed by people they tell.)

5. Because I was angry at being abused and blamed for the stress in my abuser(s) lives, wanting love and respect, my abusers took me to a psychiatrist for around 30min. before they were closing. Neither the psychiatrist and assistant cared to talk to me; they barely said anything. I tried to, briefly, make small talk with the assistant who wanted me to draw something and was watching me, by saying, "I could do this all day," but he literally took me at my word and replied by scolding me with a short, "Well, we're not going to do that, today." Then, when I was taken to the psychiatrist, he only had me sit in a chair. He didn't speak to me or ask me anything. I thought he might ask me why I was feeling angry lately (I was prepared to say that I was angry because I was tired of being abused), but he didn't. Then, I was given a long questionnaire, which seemed like 500 questions, that they expected me to fill in in 20 minutes; I couldn't do it. I only could answer a few before breaking down crying because I realized that, again, these adults were still assuming that I was the problem, that something was wrong with me and not my abuser(s). I wasn't taken back there, again, but later, the psychiatrist called my abuser(s) to say that they thought I should be put on medication for, I think, depression. He diagnosed me with getting to know me. That wouldn't have solved my problem; my problem was being abused for everything in my abuser(s)' lives. So, again, I still felt suicidal because adults were refusing to listen or believe me.

 

[Utol]

Ugh, I didn't know I'd mistyped. I meant, "He diagnosed me without getting to know me."

 

[Mupi]

I was repeatedly sexually assaulted and brain washed by my supervisor and when we reported it he was fired by being forced into retirement. The police did nothing even though the employers investigation verified what I reported.

 

[Jefis]

This raises several questions:
Do abusers know they are abusing?

I am not sure if my mother and the men abusing me knew. I think on the surface they did not think they were abusing me. They had so much denial so much ego at play to justify and normalize their actions. Thoughts like, "This little girl is bad. She deserved this." It is like they think that through insults and discipline that I will learn and be better. But, in reality, I was doing nothing wrong. They thought I was inherently bad. In reality, I was just a normal kid who could make a bad choice or misbehave just because I am learning and growing
I think that deep down, my abusers were unable to tolerate their pain, their self hate. They could not tolerate their rage. They could not tolerate their shame. So they passed them onto me in the form of abuse. Adult bullies. They could not see these emotions, own them, label them and process them correctly. My mother was selfish, though she called me selfish. She was selfish when she took herself shopping and could not buy me clothes. When she put men above me and my safety. She was blind, she had blind spots. She let me be abused repeatedly and did not stop it. Could she have helped this? She was weak. She was just like him. They were both narcissists. Can a person help it? What if they have a personality disorder centered on blindness? On perfectionism?
My mother was perfect. She covered her abuse with symbols. Wear pearls, bake cookies, clean house, go to church, plant flowers-these are not things abusers do. She told herself, deeply subconsciously. And she passed the "badness" to me. Her token trash receptacle. So, how do I label her, name her as an abuser, as a villain, as a bully? She always told me she nurtured, me cared for me, was the perfect mother. But actions speak louder than words.