My story
My mother met my father a year and a half before I was born, and by all accounts it was a great love at first sight. Already during pregnancy they often argued, which meant stress for mother and inevitably also stress for me, the unborn child. Parents argued more and more and their conflict eventually escalated even more after my father attacked my mother with a knife. My parents divorced when I was one year old.
I remember that after the divorce I began to have a difficult period when my mother started attacking me. I always had to behave exactly as she wanted or expected, otherwise some punishment always followed. Punishments were of different character from beating different parts of the body with various things (carpet whipper, belt, wooden spoon, hand), followed by the forced leaving into a corner where I had to kneel and wait for the forgiveness of wrong-doing, or prohibiting activities that made me happy. I had no other choice than to develop internal defensive mechanism, according to which I always had to behave to fully satisfy the imagination of my mother.
When I was seven years old, my mother met a man, whom she subsequently married, and he became my stepfather. At first it seemed that I will do better, because it seemed that this man quite likes me, but my mother began to argue with him maddeningly, so he gradually began to hate me too. During this period I began to be punished from both sides. Mother punished me physically whenever I dared to assert my opinion and I did not meet her expectations. My father did not use physical punishment much. I only remember that he tried to teach me to ski and whenever I did not meet his expectations, he beat me with a ski pole. The less my father used physical punishment against my mother, the more he cursed and used different psychological pressure on me. A frequent term of address of my person was a jerk. Sometimes parents probably came up with a common strategy. Although I was very good at school one year I was forced, for example, to carry a special piece of paper, which my teachers always had to sign for me after school and agree that I had behaved perfectly. Any mark that was not acceptable for my mother meant beatings. Certain form of physical punishment would represent the efforts of my parents frighten me constantly. My father frightened me for example by slashing the trousers belt that evoked beating me. My mother also used a sophisticated frightening. Let me state here a few cases, because some are really hard to believe.
Once it happened to me that when I was playing with my friends I hit the back of my head, and as I was already confused from all the frightening I could feel at the nape of my neck a "hollow" (which is a normal physiological shape of the skull). My mother vividly portrayed that if the hollow did not disappear until the morning, we would have to go to the hospital, where my head would be inflated. The second example has something to do with my sister. I had to keep an eye on her when she was a child. Unfortunately she fell on her head, she cried a little and then she seemed fine. However, my mother said that if something like that happens a child often dies of apneusis at night. I still remember holding my breath and watching my little sister all night if she was breathing or not. Another example was my mother's warning which I heard many times that I should pay attention on the toilet because it happened several times that an animal attacked somebody when sitting on the toilet. Perhaps you can imagine how long as a little boy I used to sit horrified on the toilet and waited what animal would damage my backside. The last example was the joint work of both of my parents, who found my member too small and thus recommended me a specific strategy to extend it - take your member between your hands and using opposing movements of the hands try to make a longer roll. I tried doing it for a couple of weeks but then I told myself that it is nonsense and stopped doing it.
In addition to numerous prohibitions, my mother managed to destroy my multiyear child work just because she just did not like my behaviour or my marks. At Primary School, we were three classmates interested in Prehistory and we competed among themselves who would have more magazine articles about Prehistoric animals. My two-year work, my two wonderful books which meant an escape from everyday stress for me were thrown away by my mother.
Unfortunately I had worse years ahead. Although the relationship of my father and my mother was not good, they decided to build a house, which meant more arguments and more beatings for me. Unfortunately, only once I almost decided to go to the Police. It was the moment when my alleged not greeting the neighbour became the alleged reason for my punishment. My mother was in such frenzy that she beat me in the bath-tub so that I had bruises all over my body. At that moment I first told myself that something was wrong and it is not normal. Yet, as usual, my mother kept telling me: "Don't you dare say anything to anybody".
When I was fifteen, we moved into a new house, which was built next to my stepfather's parents. Although they helped us all the time with the construction of the house, our mother forbade us to speak to grandparents and we were not allowed to even say hello. She watched us at every step we made, and if we or more often our father greeted them there was a quarrel almost every day. Although I grew up and my mother stopped beating me, it was for me negative environment and quarrels 365 days a year, and knowing that I am observed at every step was great stress. Due to the pressure my father was experiencing, he vented his anger on me at every possible opportunity. I could not eat what I wanted; I could not wash the dishes the way I wanted to, I could not even use the computer as I needed and so on.
My entire childhood I was standing between these two people while they were handling their own problems. My school studies represented a separate chapter of my life. Especially in Primary School I was frequently bullied by classmates. Because of my mother's obsession with good grades, I developed a careful strategy how to rewrite my marks in the pupil's book so that the physical punishment did not follow. Retrospectively, I realize that I usually came home with great fear and uncertainty of what awaits me at home again. In High School my classmates laughed at me because they did not understand (even I did not understand) why when they walked past me and just indicate the movement of the hand, I would hide my head immediately (when I was small I got so many slaps that that resulted even in these harmful consequences).
Endless days of fear and uncertainty took a heavy toll. Later, I realized that even as a child I became very sensitive to stress. I lost the ability to relax, I was very irritated and quality of my social life was very low, because I was forbidden almost everything by my parents, or I had to fight for permission of anything for very long time.
In my life I suffered from a similar fate as the majority of abused children. Even in childhood I developed a tendency to depression and anxiety. It was not until ten years later that I realized that it was not completely normal, though that when I was young I often imagined how my parents have an accident somewhere and tragically die and I would have to live without them. I was not able to relax, I had to do something all the time. At night I used to wake up repeatedly with feeling of breathlessness. In adolescence I replaced parental love with alcohol and then smoking marijuana. Only with the help of these could I establish social contacts.
Unfortunately, the worst was still about to come. When I became independent and finally got rid of the life in the tyrannical system, my anxiety and depression showed up to the extent that I had to seek the help of a psychologist and a psychiatrist. Because my abuse began at a very early age, I did not have the opportunity to acquire one of the FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF CHILDREN, which is the right to the opportunity to tell anything at any time to a loved one. Therefore it took several long years before I managed with psychologists to open my Pandora´s box completely.
I graduated from university, and I hold a prestigious post. People around me like me and I am considered to be a decent and good man. Like once in my childhood, even today, no one knows what hell on earth I lived through and how hard it is to live with my anxiety and depression. The worst thing is my haunting feeling that life around me is incredibly beautiful, but I internally due to a disturbed psyche can hardly ever feel it, especially because of my almost constantly lasting anxiety and panic attacks.
This website was created to inform the public about violence against children and what can happen if people are blind and oblivious to their surroundings. Although our family seemed to be working as a compact body, there still were a lot of indications according to which you might have found out that I was suffering and I needed help. First it was my own father, who knew the mother, and who gave me up completely and thus did not protect me against her, knowing what my mother is like. During my school years they were the teachers who played a game with my parents on signing a special paper on the correctness of my behaviour. Also neighbours in the block of flats where we lived, and who had to hear me screaming with pain and then crying for several years. As well as some members of our family who had plenty of evidence of how badly the parents treat me. Some tried several times to stand up for me, but in fact nobody rescued me.
For the outside world our parents managed to create the perfect illusion of a happy home, which was based on the meeting material needs. Unfortunately, there were many people who, although did not know how much I suffered, knew that life in our family was hell, yet said incredible sentences like:
„Aren't you sorry for the loss of property if your parents get divorced?“
or
„Get in your room with your sister, when parents argue.“
All this just illustrates the absent-mindedness of some people who prefer property benefits - things to mental values.
Some of you might say how deplorable acts my parents did to me, especially when due to them I took incurable health problems from childhood. But I need to add that my parents are themselves victims of genetics - my mother, or abuse - my father. From my mother's side it was her grandfather, who was violent, and for example, he managed to burn the house in which his family was present. From my father's side it was his stepfather, whose beating of his own children was widely known. Therefore, the parents cannot be found guilty, because they just did what they had seen in their families, or what they inherited genetically. But we cannot be reconciled with the parents (in my case with my mother) who excuse their actions with statements like "Even in other families they beat kids" They cannot admit what happened and they continue to revolve in a vicious circle and they destroy other people even though they would be able to get help from the family and me, as the victim of their educational experiment.
Unfortunately, I learned firsthand this vicious circle. I myself was abused for many years and at the first opportunity, when I myself could mistreat, I did it. At that time I was with my best friend at a children's camp. We shared a room and because I was stronger, I played a game with him every night. Every time he relaxed his hand I took it and I slammed it against a wooden wall, until he began to cry. My weaker friend became the only way I could release my accumulated anger. Of course I did not realize until much later. Fortunately, thanks to many circumstances, I was able to leave this vicious circle.
Thank you, if you've read to the end of my story, and found some advice and positive inspiration for your life in it. Do not forget that YOUR LITTLE BEINGS are THE MOST VALUABLE THINGS YOU HAVE and if they are now somewhere nearby, take them up in your arms, give them a hug and kiss them and tell them that they are THE MOST VALUABLE THINGS YOU HAVE IN YOUR LIFE.
Please remember that the majority of child abuse happens in families that are outwardly respectable, but little human beings experiencing hell on earth suffer a lot.
PLEASE, DO NOT BE INDIFFERENT TO ANY VIOLENCE AND ESPECIALLY VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN, WHO CANNOT DEFEND THEMSELVES.
Knowing that many people I have met on my life journey have experienced a part of 'My Story' has become the initial idea for creating the website. I would be grateful if you share the message; if you discuss the ideas contained in it; and especially, if you no longer are afraid to speak of your traumatic experiences. This is the only way to change parents’ insights into the upbringing of their children and, ultimately, their rescue. Thank you...
BYTUSTKA@BYTUSTKA.CZ
