It's hard to pinpoint one particular event. As a kid, my siblings and I witnessed the abuse of my mom by my dad. I remember one incident when my mom, my sister, and I were walking home from my dad's house after their divorce, when he bolted out his door at full speed, tackled my mom, and began beating her relentlessly as my sister and I screamed for him to stop. He casually got up, dusted himself off, and silently walked back to his house. The moments after are a blur, but I remember watching my mom put on loads of makeup to hide the cuts and bruises. This happened frequently. I also remember watching my dad beat my older brother several times with the same blacked out look in his eyes. I never thought my sister or I suffered that kind of abuse.
But that's the thing: I don't remember. I have no idea if he ever hit us the way he hit my brother. As I get older, I now know how cruel, manipulative, and emotionally abusive my mom was at that time and still is to this day, so abuse and manipulation from her is a certainty that we have come to live with. My dad tells us he only did what he did because my mom tried taking us away from him several times and he couldn't imagine a life without us. Of course mom's side is different. My brother admitted that he attempted to hurt my dad several times, so my dad retaliated.
That absolutely does NOT make my dad the victim and what he did IS abuse, no matter how you slice it. It's just hard coming to the realization that we all were or may have been abused by both parents countless times, whether physical, mental, or emotional. My sister and I especially were used as pawns and lied to and manipulated so much that I genuinely have a hard time knowing how much of my life was a lie leading up to this point. In the past couple years, some memories have seemingly "unlocked" and I'm able to remember bits and pieces of what I think is the truth. Is it real though? Can I even trust myself to know? My parents brush all this off now and say I'm simply trying to blame them for my own mental illness -- trust me, there's plenty of that now -- but that is not the case. All I want is the truth, either from the mouths of those who caused the pain, or from the brain that has done all it can to hide it from me for 30 years. It sincerely fucks me up any time I think about it.
As these realizations flood my mind, all I want to do is run away from my family. Some days I despise the hell out of them. I feel mad, sad, and even guilty that I love them so much that I feel I can't run away, yet they didn't love us enough to not put us through such hell. Cutting ties with family, even those who hurt us the most, is one of the hardest things to go through and I fear I'm not strong enough to pull that proverbial trigger.