Mental Abuse Within the Family

The Mythomania Project: File 1-5

Mental abuse within the family... At first, you don’t see it coming. Even when your gut screams, “Watch out!”, you brush it off, scared of sounding paranoid.

I remember my childhood and that gnawing feeling of unease during family gatherings. I was constantly mocked at school, always the odd one out. When I came home crying, hoping for a shred of comfort in what should’ve been my safe space, I’d hear, “You need to toughen up. Stop being such a baby!”

"When parents become the first abusers, they shatter the foundation meant to nurture. Silence may bury the pain, but the cracks remain."

Comparison: The Ultimate Weapon

I wasn’t like my sisters. My parents always said they had character.

Character… yeah, right. Now I laugh when I think about it. My eldest sister? Obsessed with money and business, she dropped out of school at 13 and got into all kinds of crap. And the youngest? My parents practically worshipped her because her preschool teachers once called her gifted.

And me? I was stuck in the middle—too young for my eldest sister to tolerate me, too old to connect with the youngest. The eldest called me a fat cow and bullied me nonstop, while the youngest broke my markers and decapitated my Barbies. But apparently, I was the one with no character.

In a toxic family, comparing siblings is the ultimate weapon. Family dinners felt like some kind of farm show. The three of us sat in a row while my parents, a loveless duo, praised one and tore down another. When my dad got mad, he’d call us useless or animals, swearing that words cut deeper than fists.

Mental Abuse Within the Family: The Lingering Echoes

Sometimes I wonder if his words hurt more than his silence. But one thing’s for sure: even now, I carry the echoes of those dinners and those cold stares with me.

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."

John Milton - Paradise Lost