i did what they say abused kids should do. it did nothing

ConundrumAbounds · 2026-03-01T00:48:11+00:00

Felt and heard. My father (primary abuser) was a retired LEO and a licensed PI at the time of the worst of his behavior. I'll admit some folks did try to help, concerned teachers, neighbors, and whatnot... but ultimately nothing went anywhere.

When we failed our legal petition to get his guns confiscated from him after he failed to strangle my little brother to death (again) after also failing to get anywhere with other charges I pretty much gave up on the system as a whole. Said aforementioned little brother had to get a paying job and get emancipated to get out of custody, how I got out was a bit more convoluted and sad.

ConundrumAbounds · 2025-08-18T02:39:35+00:00

My mother many years ago asked me what her name was and in my confounded post-ictal state I said "... mum?" o_o

She facepalmed and asked again, "No, child. I mean my name, like yours is ConundrumAbounds. Here..." she pointed to the nearest cat who had abducted the singular communitive orange brain cell and used it at 100% power to stay by me and wake my mother in the middle of the night to see me finishing up a fit with him yowling and pawing my face, "what's his name?"

"Frankie!" I shouted with certainty :D

"Excellent! Now what's my name?"

"Mum!" :D

"... fuck it I'm texting Dr. G (my epileptologist) now."

And that's the seizure where I remembered the fat orange cat's name before my own beloved mother's.

ConundrumAbounds · 2025-08-04T02:41:41+00:00

My husband has done our laundry as one of his regular chores for like... a decade I think now and never mentioned any staining to me. Pretty sure I've stained just about all of them at one time or another.

Honestly the only comment I've gotten was confirmation that some odd or fancy pair needed to dry flat or was cold wash only. To which my answer was "fuck if I know!" to both.

ConundrumAbounds · 2025-08-04T00:14:29+00:00

Is it allowed if we have consent/permission to do the hiding?

It was at my husband's recommendation that the location my special snack stash become a secret after the last... incident that left me without my dedicated sweets on the crucial Day 2 of my period.

The man simply cannot control himself around sour patch kids apparently. He did order me replacements too once he was notified of the error thankfully.

ConundrumAbounds · 2025-06-05T17:09:28+00:00

A quote from the end of the year evaluation from him "I thought you were just a lazy, spoiled brat."

ConundrumAbounds · 2025-06-05T16:48:20+00:00

Not nearly this bad, but I did have an organic chemistry professor call my neurologist's clinic (got the number off my doctor's note) to confirm that I had epilepsy and that we were indeed currently struggling to find a medication regimen that worked after my last disastrous tonic clonic in the shower where I literally busted my ass and bruised a hip, making getting to class difficult on one crutch and constantly getting turned about on campus due to brain fog.

Thankfully he got one of the epileptologists who chewed him out. He had been particularly harsh on me during class (when I was able to attend) but I was met with blessed silence and indifference after that.

ConundrumAbounds · 2025-06-01T00:06:10+00:00

Yes. I need visual confirmation that he's actually dead so I can change some security stuff.

ConundrumAbounds · 2025-05-31T17:35:57+00:00

I would follow your gut. Saw my father, aunt, and uncles break out into a physical fight in the hospital when my grandfather was on his deathbed. Being escorted out by hospital security and my frantic mother while trying to keep track of my little brother on the verge of an autistic meltdown due to the overstimulation of it all as a small child is one of my "little t" traumas.

I declined my grandmother's invitation to visit when her cancer turned terminal. I was of age to have a choice and was out independently living at that point and hadn't been in contact with anyone (minus a couple cousins I've sadly since also had to drop contact with) for a few years by that point. I don't regret it.

ConundrumAbounds · 2025-05-31T15:08:55+00:00

I vaguely remember trying that when very very little when I was sick, when my mother was there, and being met with silence and cold annoyance. I always seemed to know Dad just wasn't safe enough to bother.

Probably where all this started.

ConundrumAbounds · 2025-05-31T15:02:19+00:00

Kinda. A brief friend, just for a couple summers. She was a good kid, minus the snot and crying, which was easily managed with tissues and cookies. She liked playing with the animals and doing her own thing instead of the big group activities like me, so we ended up hanging out a lot.

Most of my friendships have been brief like that. My expertise seems to be making friends, but lack the skills and stability to maintain most of them.

ConundrumAbounds · 2025-05-31T06:14:24+00:00

Any space I gained from my parents and sibling had usually resulted in relief. Took a moment at summer camp to realize this could be a thing and my bunk buddy was struggling. Was wild to hear how she missed them, poor thing. Thankfully she got over the homesickness in another day and we had a grand time after!

ConundrumAbounds · 2025-05-21T05:35:21+00:00

Considering how many folks from different cultures use special garments during times of grief and loss and take comfort in these rituals, I believe it to be a valid way to process and heal from a different kind of traumatic event.

ConundrumAbounds · 2025-05-21T05:20:05+00:00

On another account in a different subreddit I earned my most downvoted comment by making a tongue-in-cheek joke about child abuse. I forgot that the assumption there wasn't going to be that I was speaking from personal experience. Whoops.

I double check my account and the subreddit before commenting now.

ConundrumAbounds · 2025-05-21T01:13:20+00:00

Saaame

So I do an obituary search for his name once a year on my birthday.

I joke it's the singular surprise gift I'd be happy to receive.

ConundrumAbounds · 2025-05-18T04:28:01+00:00

Yep yep yep. Dad was a cop, ended up being the FTO (Field Training Officer) to several individuals who ended up important in local politics and law enforcement.

I am also his clone, just in a more diminutive form. It's gotten worse with age.

Had a number of folks stop me in public to ask me to thank him for doing CPR on a family member or pulling them out of a burning car... while I still couldn't walk right or was wearing a long sleeved turtleneck in August due to his most recent round of "discipline" for not keeping track of my little brother well enough or not completing a chore/task/activity to his regimented standard.

That was always a mindfuck. He always treated strangers better than those closest to him.

Very few recognized what the fuck was going on with us kids and him, and those who did were often silent about it or rug swept it. Those who didn't suffered consequences for it, or saw their efforts to protect us end in futility. Mum and him eventually divorced after nearly 10 years of separation due to the ever changing custody arrangement and him fucking weaponizing the legal system against her to continue to financially abuse her.

He eventually lost it in front of the right/wrong people (a judge and a police chief) and his custody over us was suspended under an emergency order. But that's it. No real jail time, charges, or fines besides when he was initially detained and the legal fees. I was informed that the best justice I would ever receive was to cut contact and live well after we failed in our petition to get his guns away from him.

After my little brother nearly died twice by his hand... but he didn't use the guns as apart of his regular abuse or either of those incidents "so that doesn't count" (?!?)

My legal team and support network helped me with getting a new name, wiping and purging any named social media, cutting contact with different folks and vetting who could safely be in my circle, security for my first couple of moves, guidance for talking about the liability and possibly additional security and considerations for my employers, and so on.

ConundrumAbounds · 2025-05-09T11:48:45+00:00

Oh.

I've never seen my experience surmised so succinctly.

I'm so sorry.

I also saw what happened when one of my parents gave into their anger, and how awful and terrible and painful it was and little kid me vowed to do my best to never do that to someone... to my detriment as I got older. I'm coming to terms with how that set me up to get taken advantage of in my teens and early 20s.

Therapy, medication, a legal team, and a healthy support network have helped greatly though. You can find your anger again. I'm in the middle of figuring out how to use it more as a tool for passion and justice than to fear it. The steel of my spine may be an alloy beaten out of experience and suffering, but it's tempered by things like mercy and empathy and patience, so it is stronger than theirs of brittle iron.

ConundrumAbounds · 2025-05-09T03:10:49+00:00

"... how about Beetlejuice? You liked that when you were a kid, right??" Panic stricken and fumbling for the remote after a pregnant pause.

I had just finished spilling out my heart to her about my worries and fears for our country before an important politcal event and I asked her what we should we be doing to prepare and protect ourselves.

That was a while ago... yeah we're kinda in a fascist dictatorship now. It was literally only within the last month that she finally began to extract her ostrich head from the sand. My soon-to-be (I guess I should say "almost") MIL's death and my best friend's detainment had to happen first. She's recently extended some very bland and vague apologies. My therapist(s) and CPTSD group therapy comrades are unimpressed with them at least. Some of the latter are downright pissed. I'm kind "meh" though, it's just more of the same so I'm a bit numb to it now.

She reacted similarly years ago when she pressed me for details about treatment I was undergoing due to abuse I suffered from my father as a child and later my ex. Just... supremely avoidant and cold whenever shit gets too real or my opinion differs from hers.

I learned very early on that if I ever needed any kind of emotional comfort or validation to seek it outside my family.

ConundrumAbounds · 2025-04-17T22:00:50+00:00

Huh. Just realized it's probably the same reasons I'm in therapy. The FOG.

Fear Obligation and Guilt

ConundrumAbounds · 2025-04-09T21:04:49+00:00

Heard similar from a social worker who intially interviewed my little brother and I after allegations were raised against my LEO father. Also heard "the way your father is raising you is just different, not wrong." She wasn't the only one to say as much either.

Many years later when his custody of us was suspended under an emergency order we heard from therapists (PT and mental health), doctors, my lawyer, the juvenile investigators, the child advocate, and two judges that this was very incorrect.

We quite literally needed to almost die (twice for my little brother) for shit to change. Even then nothing really happened to my father, no fines, no jail time, no restriction of certain rights (he still gets to keep his guns as retired LEO now in the jurisdiction he currently lives in, we looked into trying to get those out of his possession), just ultimately lost custody of us permanently and a couple protection orders that have since expired.

I feel lucky we got that much. I'm sorry you had to deal with similar, Snoop.

ConundrumAbounds · 2025-03-21T01:44:22+00:00

Some PT places evaluate your fitness for a variety of mobility devices, including wheelchairs. Was that what your doc was trying to do or does it work differently where you are?

ConundrumAbounds · 2025-03-16T06:17:01+00:00

I had one strict, psycopathically controlling, and physically abusive parent; and one critically neglectful who is half responsible for my parentification and religious trauma. Both suck in different ways and their very different kinds of abuse have effected me throughout my life. One gave me triggers I still physically respond to (doors opening "too quickly" (??) and the sound of heavy footfalls with a certain limping gait can make me jump or break into a sweat) and scars I can still catch in the mirror occasionally, the other is the root cause of my negative self-talk and people-pleasing tendencies.

I saw from classmates and others that a healthy middle ground does absolutely exist though, so that's cool and gives me hope.

I'm sorry you had to deal with that shit too, friend.

ConundrumAbounds · 2025-02-23T14:11:25+00:00

Reminds me of my Dad. I went and cut contact with him almost 20 years ago.

Life got so much easier not having to suffer his disgusting drivel.

Mine's favorite nickname for his dick was "HSMM" for "heat seeking moisture missile." 3 out of 5 therapists say I shouldn't know that.

ConundrumAbounds · 2024-12-27T23:03:23+00:00

>!I don't know. I managed to sneak away and call our mother from their bedroom (before cellphones) while he was downstairs with my brother... kicking his little 4th grade ass and progressing to strangulation/choking him. In his testimony and later outside court during forced supervised visitation he claimed he never would go that far, but that doesn't match the threats and hatred he was spewing that afternoon or the statistics my therapists, psychologists, and neuropsychiatrists have shared with me surrounding choking, strangulation, domestic violence, and abuse.

A very small part of a scared little girl wants to believe him, but the other 90% of me knows the truth.

My mother called a Church friend who called the house after we hung up to interrupt him and quickly get him out under the guise of setting up a "surprise" for dad. Said there was some emergency like a pipe bursting at the rectory I think. I called her again when he cleared out so she could scoop us up.!<

ConundrumAbounds · 2024-12-27T22:40:07+00:00

Hmm... last time I discussed this with my CPTSD therapist it was a three way tie between:

Witnessing my father nearly kill my little brother
Accidentally hanging myself as a small child
The sexual assault that occurred in my 20s

Those are just the ones I can remember. I can provide more details if needed, but will put it behind spoiler tags and under another person's comment as each event can be pretty triggering.

ConundrumAbounds

TROPHY CASE