Hello I’m actually 12 here in 2024. For a long time now, my mom has been hitting me and my older brother. She hits me more often than my brother, but still. After reading someone’s story about their mother being physically/mentally abusive, I thought I might write something too. I’m in a similar position as that person (being a little disobeying of the mother but doesn’t think hitting is a good option) except my mother says less things about my appearance and more about how I cause all of her health problems like her hormone issues (am I truly the cause of this?) and her gaining of weight. The most recent time she hurt me was when I forgot to do my Korean homework so she started yelling and screaming next to me in my ear and I started crying a lot. Then she hit me really hard and kept screaming at me about how I’m so irresponsible. A little bit later while she’s stilling yelling and I’m still crying, I throw up and she tells me how she “knows what I’m trying to do”, saying that I threw up because I wanted her sympathy. After that, I kept slapping myself in the face and thought a lot about dying for a while. I slap myself a lot and I cut myself, too. Is this a sign of self harm? Anyways, the main reason I wanted to submit this was because I want to get help from a paid professional like a therapist. I have had a therapist in the past, maybe year or so ago, and she really helped with my lack of self confidence and my mom’s recurring hate for transgender people (I was questioning my gender at that time). At school, I had told one of my close friends about how my mom had been hitting me and had hit me with my music stand (that for sure left a bruise) and she, being a good friend, told a counselor at our school that helped with mental health about my situation. I talked a lot to the counselor for about a week, since this was the end of the school year, and he suggested telling my father. My parents are divorced so they have quite different mindsets from each other so my dad cares more about non-corporal punishments and good mental health than my mom. He’s even the one who helped me get a therapist, who, now I don’t talk to since everyone thinks I’m okay. But, nonetheless, I refused to tell my dad because I knew that since he’s so caring, he would confront my mom. And my mom would totally think I was snitching and trying to make her a bad guy which would result in a lot more anger from her. I really really want someone to talk to like a therapist again but I don’t know how because I fear that if I ask my dad, he’ll wonder why I want one again and I’ll have to end up telling him all the times Mom had been hurting me. Please, can someone reply?
THINGS YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW
- Thank you so much for contacting the TeenCentral community—we are always willing to help in any way we can! It sounds like you’re going through some very tough times and have been facing some very uncomfortable moments. Reaching out to our community is a great way to gather some tools and advice while protecting yourself and taking proper steps to ensure your physical and mental health.
- You mentioned talking to your guidance counselor in the past as well as a therapist. These are amazing people to connect with that can further help you with your situation. Your father could be a great person to help get you into therapy again since he aided you before, but your guidance counselor can be a super helpful professional resource as well. Abuse in any form is absolutely not okay and you should support and protect yourself with these people.
- If you are ever feeling unsafe with yourself or like there’s no one to talk to about how you feel including the people just mentioned, please reach out to the Suicide Prevention Lifeline. They are available 24 hours a day at 1-800-273-8255 or https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org. You can also text “Hello” to 741-741 if that’s more comfortable. Help is literally a text away. You can also look at this post on our What’s New tab called, Getting Help for Abuse On Your Own – TeenCentral
CONSIDER THIS
- WRITING/JOURNALING—You could try writing down your feelings and then sharing them with your mother. In the “Tools” section of our website there is a “Conflict Conversation Organizer” that could help with ways to approach interactions with your mom more positively. This can help you organize your feelings and also gives you an area to write a letter to the person you’re struggling with.
- There’s another wonderful page in our “Tools” section about Positive Self-Talk Statements—basically things we should be saying to ourselves to fill our minds with good feelings and not hurtful, negative ones. It sounds like your mother is putting a lot of pressure on you with negative statements and actions and you should protect your thoughts by being your own best friend. How would a best friend treat you? That’s the way you should treat yourself.
- Please don’t hesitate to reach out again, but also please take steps to protect yourself and help improve your situation. No person deserves to be treated poorly—and you are no different. Please continue to empower yourself and never stop seeking help.
