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I just wanted to let some things out, get some stuff off of my chest.

my mother emotionally abused me for most of my life. I was never good enough, I couldn't do anything right. she used to call me names like princess, stuck up, snob, fatso, lazy, b***h, stupid.

when I was about 8 she stopped hiding the fact that she smoked pot and started pulling bongs when I was around. she used to get me to get her bong and mull bowl for her. sometimes I had to pick up her deals for her. I guess she thought that no one would suspect a little girl of carrying pot on her.

my mother started talking to me about her relationship problems with my dad. she would talk to me about her sex life too. she used to tell me that she thought my dad was gay because "he liked doing it doggy style and he looks at gay porn".

she didn't get on with my half brothers (they are all much older than me and didn't live at home" and she would always put them down, call them abusive, tell me they were "no good" and that they didn't like me. she would also put my father down all the time and would tell me every thing he did wrong. she was convinced that my dad's family was all bad. she once said "the 'Smiths' are all bad, their DNA is bad". all I could think was "but I share DNA with them, does that make me bad too?".

for as long as I can remember, I would hurt myself when I was upset. when I was really young it would mean that I'd bang my head, bite myself, pull my hair, hit myself. when I got a bit older it turned cutting. the first time I cut I went and told my mother and she did nothing. the first time I attempted suicide my mother found me and she did nothing. she didn't get me help, she didn't take me to the doctor, a child and adolescent psychologist or psychiatrist. she took me to her marriage counselor. I cut for a really long time. when I said to her I needed to go to the hospital for stitches, she told me I was an inconvenience to her.

one of the bits of my life that hurts the most is when I told her that one of my teachers had touched my bottom and it made me feel uncomfortable, she told me it was probably an accident and it was nothing. she did nothing. when I was 13, she made me get a massage from this guy that she met. this quacks idea of "fixing my back" involved putting his hands down my knickers and feeling around the tops of my thighs and between my legs. all I could do was giggle hysterically while he did this, I felt horrible, I felt powerless. I didn't want him to give me a massage, but my mother made me let him. years later when I told her about what happened and how I felt, she said I was probably mistaken.

when I got older and my parents marriage had ended, I started having to take care of my mother. I was expected to clean, do the laundry, look after the house, look after the pets, cook and look after my mother when she'd passed out drunk and stoned or when she was throwing up from too much booze.

the result of all the years of emotional abuse is that I have Borderline Personality Disorder and I still have problems with depression and anxiety. I lost most of my teenage years to mental illness. while everyone else was going to parties and getting boyfriends, I was locked inside my room with a razor blade in my hand. now, I'm in my early 20s, I live with my fiancee, I try to limit the amount of contact I have with my mother and I see a psychologist every week and have been doing so for around 4 years now. I no longer cut, haven't done so regularly for 2 years, but I still have the urges every single day. I'm much improved than what I was, but I still have a long way to go.

I just needed to get this out. and if you've managed to read all the way through this, thanks and good work. I just need people to know what happened as my mother still has no idea that what she did was wrong.

I need people to hear this and I need other people who are going or have gone through similar things to hear that emotional abuse is just as bad as other types of abuse. it's not talked about, hardly ever recognised but it hurts just as much and it's okay to say it hurts. a lot of the time people try to act like it's not as bad as physical abuse, but it is. it's worse. it leaves no physical
evidence so people don't know what's happening and can't help.

thanks for reading my ramble.

You are awesome for telling your story. I wish you luck in all your endeavors.