<h1>THE ABUSED</h1>

It felt like nothing made sense… ‘The true story of an abused teenager’

When I was eleven years old, my mum’s new boyfriend moved in with us. I thought it would be good for mum because she had a drinking problem and was depressed, and I thought it would make her feel better having him there. At first he was ok and bought me presents, but then mostly he ignored me. Then after a few months he started doing things that made me nervous, like when I was at home alone with him he’d walk around naked. Then he asked me to touch him – I tried to avoid him all the time, but sometimes I couldn’t and I was scared to tell him to stop.

I didn’t know how to tell mum what was happening because I didn’t even know what to say. One day when I was 13, we were fighting because I said I hated him (mum’s boyfriend) and she got angry with me. Then I told her how she doesn’t know what he does when she’s not around. At first she said I was making it up and exaggerating. Then she said I shouldn’t wear skimpy clothes around the house. It upset me deeply because it seemed like she didn’t really care about me and she didn’t blame him for what he did, it was like she thought it was my fault. I started staying over at friends’ places and avoiding going home. I told my friends I hated mum’s boyfriend but was too embarrassed to say I’d been abused by him. Sometimes mum told me I couldn’t go out, but often she was too stressed or pissed to notice what I was doing.

I couldn’t handle the way I was treated at home. Sometimes I’d sleep in empty buildings in the city, or couch hop at different people’s houses. I hung out with older guys and stayed with different guys for protection or for somewhere to sleep because I had almost no money. Sometimes I went back home but it was too hard being there and my mum’s boyfriend was openly rude to me. I tried to go to school but I drifted away from my friends and I got into using drugs, which made it harder to keep up with school. I was angry all the time and even the slightest thing would set me off yelling or walking away from people. It felt like nothing made sense, I hated myself and I didn’t know if mum really cared about me.

Why do people abuse?

Recently, I’ve been studying on causes of abuse in our society and made amazing discoveries. Most of the world’s greatest abusers today in our societies are people who have suffered some sort of abuse in the past or even lived in an abusive environment or home.

Research shows that abuse begets abuse and that in many cases the abused becomes the abuser. When people break free from an abusive person or thing there is a very high tendency that they would become the abuser, they switch roles. This is very common with those who often seek revenge and in most cases this abusive behavior goes beyond having vengeance on those who have hurt or abused them in the past, even when vengeance has been achieved most people find it difficult to live a normal life ever again. Scars are not healed by vengeance, rather, they change forms which is why the people in this category become possessed by this abusive nature and begin to abuse others often not been aware of their lack of control; they become robots unable to feel pity, mercy and love. Even when they love, they love abusively. In most cases, the people in this category abuse even themselves and happiness eludes them. Very many of them never end well.

Abused by my step dad

16 year old Jenni was abused by her step–dad. This is her heart–breaking real life story…

My mum is a nurse and my dad isn't around anymore. For ages it was just me, her and my two baby brothers. Then one day she brought a new man into our lives.

“At first it was great, almost like having a dad again...”

Jenni

We called him Uncle John, but I knew that he was really mum's new boyfriend. At first it was really great. Almost like having a dad again. John was always buying us presents and taking us out places. He let us move into his house and I couldn't remember seeing my mum so happy.

As a nurse, my mum sometimes had to work nights. When she wasn't around John would be in charge of putting us to bed. It was one of those nights that it happened for the first time.

Sometimes I caught John looking at me strangely, but it wasn't often and anyway I was just glad that our family was finally back on track. I was really pleased when John popped the question to mum, and she said yes.

Then one night I was getting changed for bed when I looked up and saw John was standing in the doorway. He said he had come to tuck me in, but I said that it was ok. I wasn't a baby and I could do it myself. He shut the door and came in anyway.

The first time he touched me I was really confused, I didn't really know that what he was doing was wrong. But I knew I didn't want him to do it again.

“I didn't know that what he was doing was wrong...”

Jenni

He told me that it was our secret and that mum didn't need to know about it. He had that weird look in his eyes and it frightened me, so I never said anything. I never said anything even when he started to come up to my room most nights, mum was so happy and I worried that I would spoil things for her.

I couldn't sleep and I wasn't comfortable in my own home. Memories of things that John would do and say were always coming into my head. I couldn’t concentrate at school and I didn't feel like telling my friends about it so they stopped talking to me.

Eventually I was so depressed that I started to cut myself. The pain of the cuts helped me forget about John.

Luckily a friend's big sister noticed the cuts on my arm one day at school. She took me off to give me a good talking to; telling me that cutting myself was just stupid.

“What John was doing was evil, and unfair...”

Jenni

As I was talking to her I broke down and told her everything. She was really shocked, but she handled it really well.

She told me that I had to tell my mum about John because what he was doing was evil and unfair.

I was terrified. I didn't think mum would want to hear. But I went home, waited until I was sure John wasn't in, and I told her everything.

She started to cry, and held me really tightly. I think she was in shock or something.

Then she went mental. John came home and she started shouting at him and throwing things. I hid upstairs.

He was shouting back at her and then I heard a crack and a scream, John had hit my mum.

“I heard a crack and a scream; John had hit my mum...”

Jenni

She came running upstairs and yelled at me and my brothers to pack. She had a cut over her eye and she was white as a ghost. We took what we could and then we legged it.

We had to stay in a hostel for a while. Mum made me tell the police all about what John had did. To be honest I don't know what's going to happen about it because we never talk about him now unless we have to.

Every human is a potential abuser

Abuse comes in several forms; mental, physical, emotional etc. my research shows that every human is born an instinctive abuser but of different percentage abuse levels with the highest form been mental abuse i.e. most humans are born natural mental abusers. This is seconded by physical abuse. Example, children learn to cry in other to get what they want, and then they begin learning how to attack, mostly when they realize that crying is no longer enough to get them what they want. Here, parents have a major role to play.

Abuse begets abuse

A single form of abuse is capable of abuse is capable of giving birth to several other forms, which is why people move from abusing the person who have abused or hurt them to others who know nothing of their story, or moving from financial abuse to health, freedom, physical or even being capable of taking a life. People can easily move from abusing guilty people to abusing innocent ones.

Individual battle in confronting the habit

The addictive habit of abuse is much more dangerous than any other form of addiction; this is due to the level of difficulty experienced in stopping it. Our research shows that why most people remain abusers till death is because of the fear of being abused in return or being abused a second time in life as the case may be for those that have been abused before they became the abusers. They don’t want to go through it again. People who abuse are very aware of the fact that their victims are waiting anxiously for the slightest of opportunities to get back at them so they don’t want to drop their guard even for a second, this is the kind of life abusers live, a life of total warfare. At this stage, total repentance is very difficult, there is no limit to their abusive habit, its war, war, and war. They live a life of total warfare. This explains why most corrupt politicians always want to remain in power or acquire more money in other to remain powerful; they steal more money and engage themselves in very dirty businesses. They continue to abuse the society and every other person till they die or are finally imprisoned.

Letting go

Further research showed that most people who forgive without forgetting often hurt more people than they would if they didn’t forgive at all. This so because they subconsciously abuse those who are close to them, people who would have stayed clear off them if they came out plain to announce there revenge mission. Yes, I said revenge mission because people in this category often find themselves at the end coming back to take revenge. They claim to have forgiven but never forgot, revenge, abuse and hurt are emotions and emotions like this one are very powerful and can posses anyone who harbors them in his/her mind feeding them with nutrition of remembrance. They get paranoid and skeptical about everything and everyone and would attack in the slightest whiff of suspicion. They end up destroying their marriages and friendships. A clear example of this is explained in the difficulty faced in attaining healthy level of trust in second and third marriages, especially if the both or one spouse has been previously divorced from an abusive marriage; he or she finds difficulty in trusting their new partner. This is precisely why most men would say that all women are the same and most ladies would say that all men are the same, because at some point of their lives themselves or their trust have been abused so they take it out on every body on the opposite sex.

No-one talked about it… But it did affect me growing up… ‘A teenager who lived in an abusive home’

I always used to think 'what's wrong with me and my family?' Every few weeks dad would get aggressive and weird, he said nasty and rude things about mum. Mum would just start crying - sometimes she would run out of the house and up the road to a neighbor’s, sometimes it took hours for us to find her. We used to all get really worried.

No-one talked about it - it was just one of those things. Dad never really hit mum, just threatened her, so maybe we didn't think it was that bad. But it did affect me growing up, and my other sisters too.

TOWARD FREEDOM

It is essential to know that abuse is an enemy you must fight; hate it all forms; hate it in others; and most especially, hate it in yourself. Now, if you must heal from an abused life or an abusive habit, you must learn to share. You must never hide the fact that someone has or is abusing you or that you have or are abusing someone. If you have abused someone in the past you may wonder why it is necessary to go back confronting it, perhaps you still feel remorse, or you are trying hard to forget. The worst of all prisons you can be is to become a prisoner of conscience. You need to talk to someone about an abused or an abusive life, someone you can trust, someone who can really understand and help the situation. If you keep to yourself an abused life someday you too will become an abuser and just like the person who abused you, you too will create another abuser.

One of the most tragic examples of this is seen in the case of rape. Research has shown that women who were raped especially brutally that never told anyone are never fully recovered. Very many of them become numb afterward and could even take the life of an opposite sex. Just like the popular saying goes “a problem half shared is a problem half solved”, you need to talk to people who can understand and help, if you are a religious person, talk to God about it, tighten your relationship with him and let him direct you. But most importantly, you must learn to forgive others and to forgive yourself; you must also learn to love, love others, love yourself and love God. True healing comes from forgiving, forgetting, and loving. I didn’t say it will be easy, Mahatma Gandhi once said, “the weak can never forgive, forgiveness is the attribute of the strong”. You must face up to it and be strong enough to forgive all things. Lewis B. Smedes said, “to forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you”. If you have abused others in the past and now you seek change, change and healing are always around the corner but you must understand that you cant undo anything you’ve already done, but you can face up to it, you can tell the truth, you can seek forgiveness, and let God do the rest. Said Sara Paddison “sincere forgiveness isn’t colored with expectations that the other person apologize or change. Don’t worry whether or not they really understand you, love them and release them, life feeds back truth to people in its own way and time”. You have the right not to be abused as much as you don’t have the right to abuse anybody. My mentor –Patricia Omoqui thought doctor, life coach and author of clarify your purpose and live it, once said, “love is what is – all that is, the very essence of all that exists. It is the pure energy beneath all the fear and self-doubt in the world. It is all encompassing kindness of the universe expressed in every form imaginable”.

Embrace peace today; stay free, stay happy, and stay loved. Let’s make the world a better place.

THE ABUSED by Ike Zion Quotes

MindLink international

Speaker, life coach, thought doctor and author.