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Abused for 22 years

I can relate to this. I lived with abuse for 22 years ever since I was born. At 22 I decided enough was enough and I left home. I started a new life in Gauteng and sadly my dad died last year.
My father was an alcoholic and no matter how many times he went to AA or to church he couldn’t give it up, hence he could never keep a stable job and then my mum became the bread winner in the family. The first thing when he wakes up and the last thing he does b4 he goes to bed is drink. Every week there were broken dishes, food on the walls, broken windows and police officers at our door. My mum used to take all the hiding until I was old enough to “try to stop him from hitting her”, that pissed him off even more and then he started hitting me. There were nights we slept outside, there were nights he made us sleep on the floor with no food, there were days when my mum were locked outside till she gave him money for alcohol and I can remember waking up one night and see him standing at my bedside with a knife in his hand.

He used to drink, physically and verbally abuse us so badly that our neighbours felt sorry for us, our families couldn’t help us anymore and it became too embarrassing to walk on the road on your way to school. I couldn’t even invite friends home. I even wrote a suicide letter cos I couldn’t live in that house anymore, this being at the tender age of 9.

I always vowed and promised myself that I will never let any man do what my father did to us cos you cannot love someone and then hurt them. I became a very stubborn withdrawn person and up till this day I'm still like that. If I go through problems I never tell anyone cos I know no-one can help me. I not an affectionate person and this has caused many problems is many of my relationships. I never opened up to anyone, I always have “walls up” for my own protection.

When my current boyfriend and I fight he always tries to calm me down by holding me down and every time he comes near me I freak out cos I think he is going to hit or hurt me and I end up hurting him.

You can never forget this kind of abuse and unfortunately you have to live with the scars but one thing I promised myself is that my kids will never know this fear.

Natasha

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