My parents were ridiculously violent people and my brothers began to emulate this behavior (as children often do) by beating the snot out of me. My mother, in her infinite wisdom and even more far-reaching apathy, told me what I needed to do was fight back so that they would stop picking on me.

I, being ten or something, thought she was trying to harden me up and didn't recognize it as the "Like a I give a f---" move that it really was.

The next day, when my brother came at me all fists and fury I pushed his hands away until he started kicking and then grabbed his leg and pulled it out from under him. In a frantic bid to keep himself from toppling over he grabbed onto my hands and pulled me down with him. I went knee first, caution be damned, and landed a pretty solid blow to his lungs.

We were both fine, save for a little bruising, which I was used to by then because I'd always "bruised easily" and the constant pummeling wasn't exactly toughening me up. I added the quotations because I don't actually know if I bruised easily or was just always bruised. My mother used to say I looked like the "poster child for child abuse." Kinda ominous when I look back on my childhood and realize....I don't have a mark on me right now.

Anyways, my mother completely lost her mind. I had almost "killed" her son. Her sweet sweet boy. How dare I leave a mark on her precious precious child. It was SURREAL.

I just started locking myself in my room after that. There were literally times when I would be doing nothing. Sitting in front of the TV like a zombie watching some ridiculous thing and he would walk up to me, smack me, laugh, and walk away. Years of this went on until he finally outgrew it. The funny thing is, I don't blame him at all. He was just a kid. He didn't know any better. My mother ......No matter how many psychology papers I read I will never be able to figure out what her major malfunction is.