I feel like I’ve been writing about my parents my entire life. Even when I’m not explicitly writing about them, I’m writing about them. They’ve so wholely overtaken my life in a way. I guess that’s what happens when you’re abused. It changes who you are, what you do, and how you live.
I don’t want this piece to be a pity party. I don’t want people to feel bad for me. Of course, something terrible happened to me. In fact, a lot of terrible things happened to me. But, it’s past tense. It happened. I have to move on.
At some point, you reach a stage in life when you can no longer blame your parents for how you are. I think I’ve reached that stage. I turn twenty-one in two months, and I’m fully an adult. What my parents did to me no longer matters (well, it matters, but in a different way I guess). It’s time to heal.
I began this healing journey around three years ago when I first moved into my university dorm. It was the first time I’ve ever lived away from home for an extended period of time. It was also the first time I had access to free mental health services.
My university offered free therapy (by counselors in training) for all students. I would attend these offered sessions on and off until I found a counselor I really hit it off with my junior year. I’m eternally grateful to my college for offering these services. I think if they hadn’t I’d probably be dead, or at least severely depressed with no coping skills.
I titled this How to Heal from Abusive Parents because I want to help people who were in my situation — in a new place reckoning with the fact that something horrific has happened to them. So I’m going to explain what media consumption/coping mechanisms helped and hopefully, they’ll help you.
1. Read bell hook’s All About Love. For me, I couldn’t identify what love meant before reading this book. I conflated love and abuse so deeply that it led to me being in toxic friendships and relationships because I thought their bad behavior meant they loved me. hooks writes in her book that there is no love in abuse. I’m writing about this in one of my projects, so I don’t want to get too into this idea, but I want to tell you all that bell hooks is right. Something that is so sinister about parental abuse specifically is that they will convince you that they are hurting you for your own good. They are helping you. I don’t think that path of logic appears in other abusive relationships. Anyway, I want you to know that your parents didn’t hit you because they were trying to help you. They hit you because they couldn’t control their emotions. They hit you because they liked having a punching bag. They didn’t do it because they loved you. Once you realize that, you’re halfway free.
2. Watch The Haunting of Hill House. I don’t care if you don’t like horror, this show will help you so much. I won’t spoil it, but this mini-series uses a haunted house as a beautiful allegory for childhood trauma. Five siblings portray the five stages of grief and I think something is healing about seeing yourself and your situation on screen. Trust me, watch it.
3. Therapy! If you don’t like talk therapy, I understand. I didn’t either. I didn’t like the idea of telling a stranger my business. If this is you, and you’re absolutely certain talk therapy won’t help you, consider talking to a friend. I don’t mean to trauma dump on someone, I would discuss if they’re willing to hear your story first, but either way, you need to tell someone what happened to you. For me, I did therapy. But, I also talked to my friends and began writing an entire novella about what happened to me. It was hard, but there’s something cathartic in not keeping the secret anymore. When I was a kid, I knew I could go to CPS for help. But, I also knew it would get my parents in trouble. So, I kept their abuse a secret to protect them. Once I didn’t have to do that anymore, that began my pathway to healing.
These three main things helped me in my healing journey, but healing is such a process. You’re never fully healed. I’m constantly finding more literature to learn about complex PTSD and trauma to learn and grow as a person. I’ve most recently finished Stephanie Foo’s What My Bones Know: A Memoir on Healing from Complex PTSD. It’s a wonderful novel that explores trauma and explains how it affects the brain.
I think to heal you have to understand how and why the trauma affected you the way it did. I think a combination of fiction and non-fiction media consumption is what helped me. I do have a lot more media that I would consider to have helped me, so if you’re at all interested in hearing more, please let me know!
As always I appreciate you all for reading. I hope if you’re on a healing journey, some of my recommendations help you. I’m not a doctor, I’m just a twenty-year-old girl who's been through the wringer and wants to help as many people as she can. Please let me know if any of these tips helped you!
I really appreciate your vulnerability when writing these pieces. As you aim to help others I hope this is healing to you as well! 💛