coping as an adult child of dv/abuse

Hi Stu and welcome here,

Thank you for sharing your story. I care about what happened to you and I believe you.
Now before you read on, please note that none of us here are licensed mental health counselors. Most of the members here have either experienced abuse at home,
or are currently experiencing it.

I strongly recommend that you contact a DV hotline to talk to someone immediately, or if any of the responses to your post make you feel sad or depressed, to reach out to a suicide hotline and/or a licensed therapist. I believe you and your siblings have been victims of very serious abuse by the hands of your father. What I am about to write may trigger PTSD. post traumatic stress, and I want you to feel safe first, and to have phone numbers ready for emergency hotlines just in case.


I have to say that the emotional, verbal, physical, and sexual abuse your father chose to use to control and abuse and manipulate his family is horrendous. I am appalled and shocked.
None of this was ever your fault. You have my compassion.

What he did was wrong.
Only he, and he alone, is 100% responsible for the abuse you experienced.

I also believe your mother is abusive in the sense that she is protecting the abuser, instead of her own children.
There is no excuse for that. It is like standing by watching someone murder someone else, without doing anything.

She failed you as a mother and enabled the abuse.
Your father abused you.

I read your post twice because the first time it made me feel sick to my stomach and I had a very strong physical reaction.
The reason is that believe not only is your father an abuser, but also a pedophile who performed illegal sexual acts on his own children and on at least one other occasion, on a child from outside of the family.

Now let me reply by working through the 4 questions you posted.


1) What is the best thing to say to well meaning friends and relatives who ask whats going on? i really dont like talking about anything, but it pees me off that they think ive fallen out with my dad over something petty. how much detail should i give and what words should i use?


The sad truth is that there will probably always be people your father manipulates, and these people will believe that he is right. There is nothing you can do about this. It is not fair and it is not right. I consider every single one of these people as enablers of child abuse and domestic violence. Now, some may honestly believe him because he is good at manipulating. They heard his story first. But whatever their reason is for not believing you, they are not healthy for you right now. If possible, distance yourself from everyone who sides with your father, as painful as it may me.

As for the others, if it feels right, say the truth. Say what happened. If they choose to not believe you, they have no place in your life.
How would you react to someone who tells you their father did this? You would be shocked, offer your ear and support. You would believe them I bet.
You can expect the same from other people around you.


2) Also, ive never confronted my dad about the weird stuff, my worry is other people not taking me seriously. if they make excuses for my dad when i hint that he's a bit on the violent side, what are the chances of being believed that he nearly killed my mum, and had some kind of bumhole perversion!?

I agree with you. It will be hard and maybe impossible to make some people believe you. These are the people you want to keep far away from you.
Your father did not "only have a little bumhole perversion", your father is a pedophile who commited illegal sexual acts on his children, and I would label this as sexual incest.
What you described is horrendous sexual abuse and definitely a way for him to control you and show off his power. The message is clear - even your body is controlled by me.
To stick your finger into your rectum and then force your children to put the finger into their mouths is a form of rape in my opinion.

I too am surprised the friend he did it to never reported it to police, but when we are traumatized we go into flight or fight or freeze mode.
I would not be surprised if the shame kept him from reporting it, just how many rape victims never report a crime because they feel responsible or ashamed or worried about talking about the experience again and again.

It is never the fault of the victim. Whether we talk about domestic violence or sexual abuse or verbal abuse.



3) Has anyone else found that their siblings don't want anything to do with them over standing against violent parents?

This is sadly quite common and called 'traumatic bonding'. It is the reason why a battered wife stays with her husband until he kills her. It is the reason why many rapes are never reported. It is why so many children still side with their parents even after they have become victims of abuse. I am not saying it is ok, because ideally they would all together with your mother report your father and bring him to court. But it is a normal reaction to traumatic events. Not fair, but common.

4) It feels like the older i get the worse i feel about everything-is that normal?

Yes, very normal. As a child your life was dependent on your parents. That is why many children endure a lot of abuse before they tell anyone about it. It is the worst crime of humanity, in my opinion, when a father or mother abuses his or her own children. Children are programmed to love and forgive and to attach to parents. It is biology. It is one of our strongest basic human needs- the need to belong.

Now that you are older and had some distance and got to know a different world, outside of your core family's home, you start to see that what you thought was normal, is not normal.
This is common because as children we only know the world our parents choose to introduce us to. We often assume this is how it's like in most houses, but it is not.

Your father committed very serious crimes.
None of this was ever your fault.

I strongly encourage you to seek professional counseling to work through these experiences and get expert advice on how to go on from here.

One word of caution - this might be the most difficult part of it all.
You have to be prepared to grieve the fact that your mother and siblings may never admit the abuse happened.
But what you can do, is to heal your own inner child and to be very self-compassionate and focus on clearing away all of the fog and see things for what they really are.

I am disgusted that your father did all of these things.
He is a worm, a coward who thought it was ok to cruelly abuse his children.
I am angry your mother enable the abuse by failing to protect you, and by siding with the abuser even now.

None of this was ever your fault.
Ever.