My father beat me as a child. He saw emotion as a weakness in himself, and since he saw the most of himself in me (out of his three children) he tried to beat the emotion out of me from a young age. My mother saw this happening, and did nothing to stop it.
My dad had to have the best of everything, and thanks to his lackluster income, that meant his family got off-brand things and only when absolutely needed. My mother had to go to work. When that wasn't enough, she got another job. Since she couldn't do both jobs, she would take me and my brothers in to do her second job for her. We would wake up at 3am every weekday, get ready for school, and then go to work cleaning an office building while my mother caught up on her sleep in the car until it was time for us to go to school. Despite her children being beaten and forced to work, she stayed with him.
Only when she caught him cheating on her did they split up. The three months they were separated were the happiest I can ever recall being. My dad wrote her a long letter, and he requested that they get back together. Despite my brothers and I begging her to get a divorce, she decided to get back together with him.
The beatings continued until I became a teenager. The most vivid I can remember was the day I fucked up at football practice. I was put into a position I had never played before, and I screwed up while my dad was watching from the sidelines.
When we got home, he told me to take my shoulderpads off but leave my helmet on. He knocked me around the living room for a while, grabbing my facemask and ripping my head in multiple directions using his full force, throwing me to the ground and against the wall repeatedly while yelling about how much I sucked. My mother intervened, probably because my helmet saved me from dying when I was launched backwards, fell, and the back of my head (protected by my helmet) slammed into the edge of the brick mantle- like the scene from Million Dollar Baby.
He then took me to our backyard, pointed at a sapling tree that was about 12 feet high, and told me to hit it until I knocked it down. After an hour of ramming my shoulders into the tree, it still wasn't even close to budging, but my shoulders had become bloodied and bruised. He called me back inside, told me I was grounded, and sent me to the room I shared with my little brother. I spent the next 30 minutes slamming my head into the metal railing of our bunkbed while I cried because I convinced myself that I was a waste of space and I wanted to stop existing. After my forehead started bleeding, my little brother started crying and fetched our mother, who stopped me from doing any more damage to myself.
By the time I had entered high school, my father and mother had started abusing their opiod medications- soma and dilaudid. When I was 16, I got my first real job, and they started taking 90% of my paychecks. When I hit 18, they were full blown addicts, taking all but $20 of my paychecks- even if I tried to hide my money they would take it. I tried opened an account at the credit union near our house, but my mom worked there. She withdrew the money I put in. I couldn't move out because they never got me my driver's license so I would remain dependent, and they took any money I had so I couldn't save up for a move.
This continued until I was 20. My grandparents heard of my plight because my mother finally started feeling guilty for her inaction, and they offered to take me in. We moved to another state, and I started to feel something I hadn't felt in a long time- hopefulness. Thanks to connections my grandparents had, I got a decent paying job, and I managed to save up enough money for the down payment on a car and to get an apartment of my own. I got my driver's license, and my grandparents took me shopping for a car.
When we got to the dealership, I found a car that I could afford and that I had enough for the downpayment. Everything was going great until they checked my credit. Unbeknownst to me, my parents had stolen my identity several times to get loans in my name, credit cards in my name, and even kited checks in my name to get money to fuel their addiction. They did the same to my brother. My aunt how worked at a bank got me a printout of my credit report. I called my mom for answers, and she burst into tears. "I'm so sorry" she cried over and over.
Just like that, I was dead inside again. I have been ever since.