I just need to write and share something that happened to me when I was a child. I feel like I am ready to put this out there into the world, no more carrying it alone.
My parents split when I was 5. Their marriage was perilous. My dad was physically and psychologically abusive to my mother, and my mother was not always the victim, she never deserved the abuse but sometimes it was her screaming at my dad and causing strife in the home. I don't want to paint my mother as an innocent DV victim because she fed into the cycle of abuse as well.
My dad remarried shortly after my parents divorced and my mom immediately started dating a creepy guy with the same name as my dad.
From the moment they split, I was subjected to psychological abuse. Both of my parents and my stepparents worked hard to make me hate the other parent. My mom told me details of the abuse she endured and my dad did the same. They coached me into saying bad things about the other parent. My stepparents did this to me as well. They would sit me down at the table for "talks" where they'd tell me about how bad my mom was or my dad was and then they'd try to get me to say things.
I was very young and I felt like I had to talk back to them, telling them about the other parent. I always felt horrible about these talks and I beat myself up constantly even at that young age. I felt that it was all my fault for telling them what they wanted to hear.
My mom would tell me stories of how dad was taking her to court and didn't want to pay child support. Dad would tell me that mom didn't spend the child support appropriately. Mom would take dad to court regularly to get more child support. I felt like my mom only loved me for the money she could bring in, and dad didn't love me at all because he didn't want to pay anything for my care.
I have a hard time articulating the toll this took on me, the constant back and forth. I loved my parents but I had to pretend to hate them. I had no safe space away from this tug of war.
My brother suffered as well, but we never got a chance to heal together because he was killed in a motorcycle accident when he was 26 and I was 30. Its been six years and I know if he was alive we would have a chance to talk about this and heal together. I hate that he died with all this trauma in his heart and no way to get it out. I wish we had talked about this when he was alive.
I feel like I am not explaining myself well, I can't get this pain out in a way that makes sense. I was literally tugged back and forth between my parents. I remember in 8th grade I had to get up in front of the class and say where I lived, but my parents were fighting each other for custody, and I said that, and everyone laughed including my teacher. No one understood what it was like to be pulled in two different directions.
I am trying to heal from this. But I feel like I will never be whole. I love my parents but part of me hates them for this. How could they do this to me? How could they not see the damage they were doing? They hated each other more than they loved me, and I have internalized this and live with this thing hanging over my head every day.
My parents still do this to me. My mom still talks shit and my dad still tries to get me to hate my mom for things she did to me in the past. I cannot escape. I have asked them not to do this but they do not respect me and continue to pull me in different directions. It isn't fair and I hate them for doing this to me.