Family Abuse

The things you see on television and in the newspapers about family abuse tell you stories of horrible bruises, internal injuries, hideous murders, things that will heal with proper care and attention. What they don't tell you is about the careless word that cuts someone to the bone and leaves a scar for life. People pay such attention to flesh wounds, but forget that sometimes the damage is so much deeper and more painful. You can set a broken bone, heal a cut, but your memories will stay with you as long as you live. Even now, I can remeber almost every name I was ever called in primary school by other kids who never bothered to get to know me. The names though, the names I can and have dealt with. The tone in which they were said, however, is something I try hard to forget. It's not easy though, when those same tones come out in my parents' voices when they've had a hard day. When they don't want to deal with their 18-year-old daughter telling them how interesting she thought her day was. It's funny, I used to be able to tell my parents anything. Anything at all. They would listen and give their perspective. I miss those days. I've missed those days for around ten years now. Because around the time I turned 7, I realised I can't rely on them to help me heal the pain of being excluded, picked on and put down. Not being able to rely on them is one thing. Not being able to trust them, an entirely different situation. That came when I was in high school. My dad got ratted out to the police for dealing pot, except they couldn't find any proof of dealing, only possession. Mum threatened to divorce him if he got back into it, that he was on strike two. I was such a fool to believe that would stick. She loves him too much. When we moved into our current house, he started having his friends around again, and he started smoking pot again. I thought mum would kick up a stink again. No such luck. They actually followed my advice for once - they talked about it. I heard this and something in me broke. I wanted to yell and scream about what she had said just a year previously. It hit me then - I could no longer trust what either of them said. This was the thing that hurt worse than anything else in my life - I had always been able to trust my parents, even if my friends deserted me, everyone around me snubbed me, I could talk to my parents if I was desperate, communicate. I can't even do that any more. Luckily in my last year of high school last year, I re-found someone I didn't think I would get close to again. She was just like eveyone else, a part of the background. Something she said, though, made me start talking to her again. It turns out we have just enough in common to see each others' points of view, but just enough differences to give a different perspective. Like yesterday, when my dad said one of the most innocuous yet damaging statements I have heard from him yet. It shouldn't have hurt. I know he doesn't notice things that happen around him, yet hearing that he doesn't notice when I do things around the house just plain hurt. I still haven't spoken to him. It wouldn't have bothered me nearly as much if anyone else had said it. Why does it hurt when he or mum say things like that when I can brush it off so easily if someone else says it? My theory is this: the closer they are to you, the more it hurts when they say something nasty, even if it's unintentional. Funny. My heart is still focused mostly on the pain, but my brain races ahead to the why and figures it out within minutes. I'll have to work on not caring just a bit harder from now on. Anyone I can't trust like this needs to be in the back of my mind not the front.

The moral of all this, I suppose, is to think before you speak. I don't think my dad meant to say what he said quite like he said it, he simply didn't think about it. You have no idea how much words can hurt, and people will never see the scars they leave behind.