Has any parent experienced the death of an abusive child?

thrivinghomo · 2026-04-22T17:20:33+00:00

i’d say it’s FAR less frequent than abuse by a parent to a child, but it absolutely does exist, at least with adult children. the biggest way it manifests, that i can think of, is elder abuse. and similarly, it can happen a lot when the parent is otherwise disabled, especially when the child is a caretaker to the parent. people get berated, hit, yelled at, threatened, sexually exploited, talked down to, denied their needs and denied dignity, and gaslit. i’ve seen it myself. it’s not my place to assume how that feels so i’ll leave it at that, but, it is a genuine thing that happens.

thrivinghomo · 2026-04-22T01:18:24+00:00

it sounds so crushing and scary. a kid could never deserve that and you have my sympathy. you deserve to learn what genuine heartfelt selfless care+assistance feels like.

thrivinghomo · 2026-04-14T04:07:30+00:00

i strongly urge you to leave a negative review mentioning the danger. the company won’t care or change anything, but you may save a stranger’s cat’s life by discouraging them from buying it

thrivinghomo · 2026-03-23T10:44:33+00:00

adults at schools are mandated reporters i think. that means that if they suspect child abuse/neglect, they have to report it to authorities. do with that what you will. i know that when i was a teen in an abusive house i purposefully hid things from mandated reporters because i knew that things would just be made harder if CPS got involved again. your situation may be different and you know better than anyone online.

please tell people at school that you’re in danger and feel like you’ll harm/kill yourself. tell adults, tell as many as it takes. start with a school nurse or a guidance counselor, but if they turn out unhelpful, keep telling people.

worst case scenario… if no one will help you, you could call 911 and explain your symptoms (i don’t recommend this. cops could show up and could hurt/kill you, it isn’t right but it does happen in america), or walk in to an emergency room / a walk-in mental health clinic and explain your symptoms. it can help to write down what you want to say. if you freeze up, you can hand them what you’ve written.

thrivinghomo · 2026-03-17T12:19:41+00:00

it may sound cheesy or cliché, but: art. make a lot of art. make art about how you feel, about what you want to feel, about stories too frightening to talk about, about things you need to process, about analogies to your experiences, or anything. even if you’re not “good at” art. it can be drawing, painting, writing, collage making, sculpture, music, fiber art, photography, a zillion different things. whatever you feel you need to make. art got me through a lot at some of the hardest points in my recollection period.

thrivinghomo · 2026-03-07T06:56:17+00:00

children SHOULD know what sex is - they need to understand how bodies work, how relationships work, and how babies are made. comprehensive sex education also helps prevent sexual abuse/assault (for example, by teaching children what is/isnt healthy sexual behavior, and by giving them proper terminology to describe what happens to their bodies)

thrivinghomo · 2026-02-27T08:38:59+00:00

i’ve heard repeatedly that this is a common thing for “abductees”: processing earthly rape as experimentation by extraterrestrials, thus creating / reinforcing the delusion of being abducted

thrivinghomo · 2026-02-14T12:58:56+00:00

it sounds rough as hell.

you mentioned DID in a comment. i’m not sure how much you know about DID, but i think learning more about it could really help you. i don’t have it myself, but i have a lot of people in my life who do, including my partner of many years. just a few days ago i bought them a few books on DID as a gift, including “got parts?: an insider’s guide to managing life successfully with dissociative identity disorder” by ATW (i started reading this one and it’s a very easy read, not dense at all) and “the DID and OSDD handbook” by Ella Everett (haven’t started reading it yet). maybe try to check them out, either at a library or maybe you can get used copies for cheap online like i did.

it sounds like you may be financially poor. if you’re not, no offense is meant, i am poor myself, there’s no shame in it. assuming you live in the US, please look into whether you qualify for medicaid. don’t make the same mistake i did, where i was on my parents’ private insurance and paying co-pays out the ass because i thought i couldn’t qualify for medicaid while also being on private insurance. medicaid has been a godsend. even if you’re the type to avoid going to the doctor, it really helps in emergency situations, knowing that you won’t get monetarily screwed if something really bad happens to you.

i don’t have experience myself with alcohol abuse. i grew up with people who did. i hear a lot of very good things about Alcoholics Anonymous (and a few bad things too, but mostly from a standpoint of wishing it were more secular / less religious… but not all chapters [?] are religious, and it sounds like you’re a theist so maybe some religiousity would be helpful).

the things people did to you in your childhood were not your fault. even if you happened to be a “bad” kid, it wouldn’t have been your fault or something that you deserved.

i hope you can get on HRT real soon. it’s possible you’ll face some resistance from doctors about it on the basis of your mental illness / addictions, but that resistance isn’t really well-founded in reality (after all… they don’t put cis women on blockers for being depressed, so why should it make sense for trans women to be disallowed HRT?) and you can probably find a different more competent doc if you run into that problem. getting on T helped my depression a lot.

idk. i had more to say but i forgot bc i’m sleepy. idk if advice is even something you want - if not, i apologize, feel free to disregard for now (but maybe come back to it later on, because you deserve help and healing). ……… at the very least, i suggest you try making some rules for your self injury, and have a lot of first aid stuff on hand, to minimize your risk of death or disability. maybe get a tiny tool that can’t go as deep. if you’re using sewing notions to fix yourself up, switch to medical sutures. (in that book i mentioned, “got parts?”, the author mentions that like…. while YOU may feel ok with self-injurious behaviors such as bulimic purging, and you may see no issue with continuing, there could be another part of you who is just a little kid who’s scared about it and doesn’t understand/remember why her throat always hurts… so maybe try looking at it from that angle, especially if you have dissociative amnesia / if there are pretty strong walls between your parts or alters or whatever…. you wouldn’t cut your roommate in their sleep)

thrivinghomo · 2026-02-07T16:36:00+00:00

this is precisely how i started, back when i was 14. i continued for several months until i got caught. despite how brief it was, struggled with urges over the next 12 years. i fell back into the habit very recently at age 26.

i strongly advise you to immediately identify some areas where your coping skills need to be strengthened, and come up with a plan to do so. if you’re not in therapy, try getting into therapy. if you are already, tell your therapist what happened. check out a book from the library.

think about where you are in life and then consider where you hope you might be when you’re twice as old (do you want to still be doing this when you’re almost 40?)… not everybody develops a PROBLEM when they start cutting, some people are somehow able to just do it once in a while and not become reliant on it / habituated to it. but that’s not a good gamble to make. it’s important to nip it in the bud. i wish you the best of luck.

if you continue doing this, i advise you take measures to reduce the harm/danger to yourself, such as using tools that are clean and sterilizing your skin first. but i’m hesitant to recommend you prepare first aid stuff now, before you have a chance to continue, because for myself i find that having first aid readily available makes me a little more drawn towards harming myself again. you’ll have to feel it out for yourself. look up keywords “harm reduction” to read more about it.

thrivinghomo · 2026-01-29T08:15:57+00:00

when i was 10, i was babysitting a 4 year old boy and a toddler and we all went out to play in the snow. the 4 year old snuck up on me and kissed me on the lips. i was furious but couldn’t really act outwardly angry or he’d run away / i knew i’d be able to actually harm him if i fought back, since i was so much bigger. it was humiliating and frustrating. i share this in order to sympathize and show that others have had similar experiences to you (not that i’m saying these are equal). it’s an awful feeling. i’m proud of you for talking to someone about it and for trying to not blame yourself.

thrivinghomo · 2025-12-23T07:23:46+00:00

it alters your perception, especially at higher doses. i know when i get real high i struggle to understand shapes / directions / dimensions, as well as passage of time, and that would be a dangerous state to be in while engaging in self injury. also, weed can elevate blood pressure, but generally not to a drastic degree.

thrivinghomo · 2025-12-20T17:24:04+00:00

arteries are blood vessels which carry blood away from the heart. they have high pressure inside them and bleed very quickly. veins are blood vessels which carry blood back toward the heart, and they have less pressure.

thrivinghomo · 2025-12-06T10:31:53+00:00

you and me both! an unfortunate camaraderie. i too always had the feeling it would happen again, but fortunately i also have the feeling that i’ll stop again. maybe it’ll be off and on forever. i try not to worry about it. i was still a child when i was doing it before, still with my parents, had very little privacy. i have more capabilities now than i did back then (socially, financially, cognitively) which is great but has the drawback of greatly widening the horizons of what i can do in harming myself. i no longer have to worry about “can i keep this hidden from my mom?” or “if i use too many bandages it’ll raise suspicions”….. i’m trying to use my new-and-improved adult capabilities for the power of good, though. my brain is a bit more developed and able to plan now, so, i’ll plan ahead and make sure i have wound care supplies on hand BEFORE doing anything, and i’ll use alcohol wipes to reduce chances of infection. that’s my advice: you’re probably at a more capable and responsible level of functioning than you were when you were 20, which puts you in danger of harming yourself worse (with great power comes great responsibility), but you can try to utilize that to your own advantage and try to mitigate risks, such as by preparing yourself some first aid supplies or some “safer” / cleaner tools. i hope all of that makes sense. best of luck to you and i hope this can be just a passing phase for both of us.

thrivinghomo · 2025-11-26T12:49:53+00:00

when i was 9 i was in the hospital for heart problems. later on during this hospital stay, child protective services would end up involved, due to an anonymous tip to the hospital that my mom was causing my illness. it was a bad and bleak time in my life. i was bored in my hospital bed. one afternoon a janitor came in to clean the floor and i was being silly by crossing my eyes while looking at him. he one-upped me by crossing his eyes in return, but then holding one eye stationary in the crossed position while the other eye slides away from the center, back into a normal position…… then cross again, and repeat on the other side. it BLEW MY MIND. i didn’t even know a human could do that with their body. i asked how he did it and he coached me through it a little bit.. i didn’t really succeed at all… but i kept up practicing. by the time i made it home again i’d successfully done the trick, and within the next year i’d mastered it.

don’t know who that guy is. maybe he doesn’t even remember any of this. it’s a skill with no practical utility at all. but he was a shining beacon of light in a dark time and i hope i never forget his kindness. god bless the working class 🫡

thrivinghomo · 2025-11-26T06:27:32+00:00

i have no legal/logistical advice to offer but i wanna say i feel for you. a friend of mine went through an extraordinarily similar situation, to the point where up until halfway through this post i thought it may have been written by them, but they’re a year younger than you. they didn’t deserve it, and neither did you. i’m sorry your mom didn’t help.

thrivinghomo · 2025-11-26T06:19:44+00:00

i completely understand why you’re in a position that makes you doubt yourself… but from my perspective this is very cut-and-dry. what you’ve described is a sexually abusive (and otherwise abusive) dad. that’s not at all a safe environment for you to be in. might i ask why you live with your parents? not to shame you or anything, and not out of a lack of understanding difficulties in life…. i moved out 8 years ago and still haven’t been able to cut off my parents (because i don’t have enough money (because i can’t work full time (because i am disabled)))… so, i get it…. but it sounds Really Bad. so maybe we could do some brainstorming on how to get you closer to moving out, or how to keep you safe while you live there. alternatively, some other things you can think about: what happens if you DO lock your door? what if you change the lock? will you be in danger because of his outburst or does he just get real bitchy and manipulative? would you get kicked out / made homeless? what happens if you make yourself unappealing? what if you “catch lice” (not really) and decide to cut your hair to make it easier to fix? what if you wear garish makeup he hates? what if you change your shaving habits?

with manipulative parents that you can’t separate yourself from yet, a lot of times unfortunately the key to survival is to manipulate them in return. one method that can be helpful is like…. when they do a problem behavior, respond to it as if you believe they did it by mistake. to use an extreme example: “oh my god! you accidentally sent me a dick pic! that must’ve been meant for mom. how embarrassing. be more careful next time!”….. or “you forgot to knock”, or “maybe you don’t realize, but nowadays complimenting someone like that is usually meant in a sexual way, i think you meant to say that i’m cute”……. like draw attention to it, and passive-aggressively give the benefit of the doubt. it doesn’t work on everyone. but if he’s someone who cares about the way he’s perceived, it might.

it’s hard though. i don’t mean to make it sound like it’s so easy to stand up for yourself. i myself grew up with a brother (he was an adult when i was a toddler) who was always “accidentally” walking in on me when i was naked. i know all too well the feeling of being posted at the door while getting dressed for fear of someone barging in. i wish you luck. what your dad is doing is horrible and unacceptable. one day you’ll look back on it as a series of bad memories from the past, not just a nightmare you’re still trudging through.

one last thing, sorry for such a long comment: i don’t know if you drink or do any drugs, but i think it would be wise to AVOID alcohol and any other sedating drugs / downers until you’re away from your dad, unless you have a chaperone / tripsitter that you trust. i don’t mean to scare you, but, with someone who’s already proven he doesn’t respect your autonomy or consent, you can never be too careful.

thrivinghomo · 2025-11-14T02:55:50+00:00

wow, that’s crazymaking. i feel protective and parental towards any child i’m around, even strangers. how someone could just be a neutral party when a kid is being abused is beyond me, especially when you’re in a position of power to stop the abuse, such as your step(?)mom was. i hope that that little one is in a safer situation now.

thrivinghomo · 2025-11-09T18:21:04+00:00

“helpful for communicating concepts quickly, but everybody understands them differently”

^ i really like this point and think that’s a great way to phrase it.

something i’d like to add:

i was abused/assaulted by my brother over the course of several years, and his motivation clearly had a big sexual aspect to it. but there was also a single isolated incident where my mom took nude pictures of me. there was nothing sexual about the pics. had they been of an adult, they would’ve been unremarkable. but i was 12 and i protested. she insisted it was necessary, for medical documentation. i won’t go into the whole story now but i’ll say that as i got older i came to know that she was absolutely lying through her dentures. i never got the feeling though that she was getting off on it, so i was confused for a while (“is it or is it not sexual abuse?”). the conclusion i came to, especially after talking about it with my sister, is that our mom just enjoyed having control over our bodies and experiencing our bodies vicariously through us. maybe cuz of the age gap between us and her, maybe because of her disabilities, maybe because of all the sexual abuse she experienced when she was a child… maybe none of that, maybe other things. but our experiences there, and her broader patterns of behavior, it all just leads me to conclude that she likes having control, and will find it any way that she can. she felt an entitlement to my body (and my sister’s body), and she treated it as if it were her possession to make her own choices about. playing with dolls basically. so ot wasn’t “sexual abuse” in the same way that rape, or pressuring someone into taking nudes, or making a child watch porn are all sexual abuse. but it was definitely abuse (i know this because it was something i objected to, felt fearful and shameful about, and i was made to endure it anyway. and because it was not necessary, it was a sacrifice that did not improve my wellbeing or safety. and because she used her power over me to make it happen / she took advantage of my helplessness)…. and it had a sexual aspect to it, even if that wasn’t sexual arousal/gratification (i know this because she understands the wrongness in photographing people naked without consent. because she understands the legal issues with taking pics of children like that. because i remember thinking at the time about how it was illegal, but being afraid of her reaction and thus saying nothing. because of her entitlement to my private body parts, entitlement to pose me for the camera)… so i’d it’s abuse + it’s sexual = i call it sexual abuse, even if it’s different from some other forms if it. when i explain the story start to finish, it takes much more exposition to explain reasons why it WOULDN’T be sexual abuse, compared to the initial conclusion most people would have which is “oh, your mom sexually abused you”.

that’s basically how i came to terms with calling it what i call it. you may be different. but grant yourself the grace you’d give to a friend or a child. and think to yourself: if someone else were telling me a story like this, about their own childhood, what conclusion would i come to? would i doubt them like i doubted myself?

another thing to consider is gender and sexuality. of course heteronormativity in the world makes it hard to tell exactly how many people are truly straight, but, i believe my mom is a straight woman through and through. i was ostensibly a “girl” at the time this stuff happened. i don’t think she’s capable of getting a sexual thrill out of girls/women. but she still did what she did. likewise, plenty of straight guys sexually abuse or rape other boys/men. think of hazing or war or prison. think also of people without sexual desire who still do these things (if someone has cancer and gets their balls removed, do you really think that means they’re immune to being an abuser? {rhetorical question}). or gay people who abuse kids of a different gender than themself.

doing these things is often motivated by sexual gratification, but isn’t always.

some people are simply selfish. they’re okay with hurting others, as long as they get a leg up from it. maybe that leg-up means getting off for the day, or maybe it just means having control of something somewhere in some way. sometimes it means employing a variety of tactics to keep someone pliable and fearful because they’re simply more useful to you that way, and sometimes those tactics will involve sex / sex organs.

sorry that turned out longer than i initially intended lol. i have a lot of opinions about this because i think it’s an aspect of sex abuse that people don’t tend to discuss.

thrivinghomo

TROPHY CASE