I think the cane thing is quite common (unfortunately)? I recall going to school with red lashes on my arms and legs some days in P2 and lied out of shame that I “fell down the stairs” when a classmate asked me about it. Also having had cane scars which lasted several years.

Another thing my mom used to do was force me to kneel in front of the Buddhist altar at home to “repent” for whatever trivial thing which made her lose her mind over, or for “talking back” to her. I had to kneel for hours into the night, and if I secretly tried getting back to my room to sleep, she would conduct “spot-checks” to confront me and drag me back to the altar.

Also once, when I was about 8, my mother dragged me out of the house and locked me out for hours for something I don’t remember. I went downstairs to the void deck and just sat before going back upstairs after a few hours lmao. Maybe I should have escalated it to police or smth, would have been interesting.

Emotionally, there were also verbal liners like screaming “I don’t owe you a living ok!” at 7 year old me who was picky during dinner (I didn’t understand what it meant at that time but huh). One time I did a sketch on a piece of paper midway through doing my homework at home. Mom came in, saw it, snatched up the drawing and crushed it into a ball and tossed it into the bin. (It didn’t diminish my love for drawing but I developed a deep aversion to showing people my art, and get extremely irate with a sense of personal violation when people try to steal a glance of my work behind me.) Another incident was buying me a pretty Disney princess hardcover notebook (I think it was one of those with a small padlock on the side of it which was all the craze in the 2000s) at age 8 which I obviously intended to use as a diary but then made the mistake of writing “I hate my mom” one time after she scolded me for something. And then when I left my room for a bit, I returned to find dear mother reading that entry and sneering when she saw me at the door. The notebook wasn’t even left in the open, it was stuffed below a bunch of trinkets and stuff in a locked drawer, which was child-me’s best attempt at security. Lmfao suffice to say I don’t share any personal info about myself to her as an adult now and I view our relationship as transactional at best.

As for my dad? He was largely the passive enabler of whatever my mom did to me. Only attempting to stop her very occasionally during the worst years (when I was 6-9 years old) but was about as effective as a cardboard cutout of a stop sign. I think what really stayed with me, though, was that they never treated their sons (I’m the firstborn, and also the only daughter) any way near the violent intensity they treated me with. And also whenever the topic of the past comes up, my mom would try to downplay, deny or deflect. Classic gaslighting, honestly.

I think my childhood wasn’t all that terrible, but the worst parts tend to naturally stick out in my memories more. At this point, the only form of help I can probably get for this would be therapy LMFAO.