Abuse

Hi, my name is H3ru. I'm here because
abuse,trauma,misunderstud,sexualyabused

Hi!
I'm a psychologist(clinical, not a psychotherapist which in my country is different than USA) and ironically I very much struggle with mental health. I've been in therapy for the past years, on and off, switched since 4 months to a new therapist and I'm struggling with alcohol addiction ( I'm highly functional tho, only drink at nights or on the weekends), symptoms of dissociation (which is ironical, because I knew damn well the theory and symptoms, but forgot how I reality things translate differently), childhood abuse, feelings of inadequacy , imposter syndrome and severe loneliness. I don't know what I expect posting this, especially hence I saw there's no other post here . Perhaps a place where I can turn the roles around, where I can be the one that's listened to.

One of the most common misconceptions we face as women today is the belief that being strong means we never need help!. Because many people see us handling everything on our own, managing crises, holding ourselves together and showing up even when it’s hard. They often think we don’t need support, that we’re strong enough to take on anything. But what they don’t realize is that our ability to carry so much isn’t a choice, it’s the only option we’ve ever known.

Many of us were never taught how to ask for help. For a long time, we didn’t know how to voice our needs, and when we finally tried, we were often met with disappointment. That rejection taught us to stop asking altogether. Sure, there were moments when help and support came through, sometimes in beautiful and surprising ways, but more often than not, we were left to figure things out on our own. So we adapted. We learned how to survive quietly, privately, and sometimes even in extreme ways.

Some people might go to what seems like “too far” in how they cope or isolate, but before you judge them, ask yourself: do you know what they’ve been through? What made them hesitant, or even terrified, to reach out? You can’t understand someone’s silence until you’ve felt the weight behind it.

Think of it this way, no one refuses food unless they’ve been fed poison for years. And sometimes, that poison came dressed as love, wrapped in fake care and false promises. When someone you trusted gives you something that hurts you, again and again, you eventually stop trusting anything at all even kindness.

What we truly need is to treat one another with genuine kindness and honesty to show up with sincerity, not with empty words or gestures disguised as care. We must stop offering emotional poison, especially to those who are starving for real love and connection. It’s cruel to abuse the hearts of those who long to be loved, to keep them hanging in confusion while treating them like just another option in a sea of distractions. People deserve clarity, not mixed signals, and real care not the illusion of it.

I wrote this piece as a way to process and summarize parts of my story that I’ve carried for a long time. It’s personal, raw, and reflects the heavy realities of growing up in trauma, losing a parent, and eventually finding love and safety in unlikely places.

Sharing this isn’t easy, but I’m doing it in the hope that someone who’s lived through similar experiences might read it and feel even a small sense of comfort or recognition. You’re not alone.

(This was shared under a pen name for privacy. Thank you for reading.)—

Content Warning: Addiction, child abuse, death, emotional/physical neglect

Before I was ever took my first breath, my mother had already introduced me to crack, meth, cocaine, heroin, and pills—substances that formed the foundation of the world I was brought into. From the earliest years of my life, I slept on floors, park benches, sidewalks, and in homeless shelters. I was exposed to violence—physical, domestic, and even sexual—long before I could fully understand what any of it meant.

By the time I could form full memories, I had already seen things no child should. Strangers wandered in and out of our homes, often in altered states. I never knew their names, only that they weren’t safe. I learned early how to be quiet and careful. I lived anxious, always on edge, always afraid of what might happen next.

My parents, both worn down by addiction and desperation, tried to provide the only ways they knew how. If they weren’t selling food stamps or drugs, they were dumpster-diving, reselling expired snack cakes or stale chips—whatever they could find. When I was hungry, that’s what I ate.

Even when we had a roof over our heads, it was never truly shelter. Roaches, bed bugs, and fleas infested everything. Even if I had a bed, it wasn’t safe to sleep in. And when I didn’t, I lay on the floor, bugs crawling across my skin. The lice on my scalp got so bad, I remember people staring at me with wide eyes—pity, judgment, concern. Maybe all three.

School wasn’t a refuge. I missed it constantly—sometimes because my parents didn’t care to send me, sometimes because I couldn’t bear to go. Other kids whispered and pointed, calling out what was crawling on me. As cruel as it was, I understood. Who would want to sit next to the girl with bugs? So I stayed home. Truancy letters came, but nothing changed.

Eventually, our house was raided. CPS took me when I was around six. As terrified as I was to be separated from my parents, the roaches were gone. The strangers were gone. And for the first time, the fear was quieter—still there, but different. I was still a scared child. But I could breathe.

When I returned, things seemed… better. My parents had a new house. They looked happy. Maybe even sober. I remember being hopeful. But it didn’t last. The drugs came back. The strangers came back. The bugs. The hunger. The fear. It all came back.

If not for a friend’s mom down the street, I wouldn’t have eaten. Our fridge and stove were overrun with roaches. I remember asking my mom for a sandwich. She pointed to the bologna. It was already crawling. The fridge. The sink. The walls. Anywhere you looked—something was moving.

The few moments of joy I remember from childhood were always shadowed by fear, hunger, or exhaustion.

And then came the day that changed me forever.

I was nine. Five days before my tenth birthday. I walked through the side door, into the living room, and found my dad face down, unresponsive. I’d seen people pass out before—but this was different. I felt something shift inside me. I knew.

I ran to get help, but it was too late. I could feel the thread between us snap. The universe paused long enough to let my heart break.

That day never left me. The tightness in my throat, the weight in my lungs, the helplessness of knowing I couldn’t save him. Wanting to scream so loud it shattered the world.

“You don’t have a daddy anymore,” my mother sobbed.

When I went to say goodbye, it didn’t feel real. His blood still stained the carpet from the paramedics. His body was pale. Still. Cold. And that was strange—because I remembered how warm he always was. I held his finger one last time. His hands were always too big compared to mine. Then I let go.

He never came back. I’m not sure I did either.

I thought it couldn’t get worse. But it did. My mother unraveled. She disappeared emotionally, swallowed by grief and addiction. She was no longer a parent. I was alone. I cried myself to sleep most nights, wishing my dad would come back just to hold me one last time. But he didn’t. And no one else really did, either.

So I became the caregiver. I wiped her tears. I sat through her meltdowns. I tried to be strong. I was a child, trying to save a mother who had stopped trying. Eventually I realized—I was drowning too. And if I wanted to survive, I had to let go. Again.

At 13, my brother and his wife took me in. They were barely adults, just kids themselves, but they gave me what I never had: a home. My own room. A clean bed. A TV, a phone, even a game console. A full fridge. I never went to bed hungry again.

They stayed up with me night after night, combing every single bug and egg out of my hair—patiently, gently, lovingly. Until one day… they were gone. The bugs. The itching. The shame. The fear. They made sure I went to school every day. They stood up for me. They celebrated my birthday. They celebrated me. They cared.

They gave up their youth, their peace of mind—so I could have mine. They became parents when they hadn’t even finished growing up. They gave me what every child deserves: safety, love, stability, and most importantly—hope.

Life hasn’t been perfect since. But I can say, without hesitation, they saved me in every way a person can be saved.

They gave me a second chance at life. They are the reason I believe in love that heals. In people who choose to do good, even when life hasn’t been kind to them.

I owe them everything.

And to anyone out there who has lived, or is still living, through something like this: you’re not alone. You may have been dealt an impossible hand—but you are not broken. You are still here. You are worthy of love. Of healing. Of comfort & peace. If no one else has told you that—they should have.

So let me say it now:

I see you.
I hear you.
I believe you.
I love you.

#Childhooodtrauma #Grief #MentalHealth #Addiction #Healing #Survivor

About myself, I am 40, currently living in London and have been since 2019, I am a mother of 3 (sons who are 19 and 20 years and daughter who is 12). I was married at 19 to a man I didn’t know, as arranged by my parents. I was born and raised in India and my ex-husband was a British National, settled in Mozambique, came from a good financial standing and network; he lived with his family and immediately after my marriage I moved to live with him in a joint family setting. I cannot begin to say the horrors I experienced during my marriage. Plainly putting, I got married to a coercive controlling maniac who went on to abuse me in every possible imagined way for 11 years and one day, when he was totally high on a substance he shouted the talaak, For once I was free, however what ensued was nothing less than a nightmare, from being abandoned in a foreign country, without recourse, resource or any form of support. There was a terrible incident thereafter whereby my ex lost all control and dragged me hanging on to a speeding car door until the end of the street. I ended up in a wheelchair briefly. Later after some months of legal battles ensued in two countries, I had to find myself lawyers to support my application to relocate to the UK. My ex-husband abducted the children and removed them from my care after losing a high court verdict in my favour.

My family back home in India never supported me throughout my abusive marriage, they were not on my list of hopes.

At one point I even got kidnapped and held for 30 days in Johannesburg, after my children’s abduction, there was a rescue by the UN and then I was repatriated home to India. Having lost everything, not even a relationship with my children.

Long and short of this is that I went through the lengths of heaven and earth to get my children’s custody – it took me 8 years and multiple rounds of court hearing to prove that I was wronged and reversal of this time only daughter who was 10, when abducted and taken away from me she was 3. This is not to boast about my achievements in spite of the hardships, failures and then relief.

The consequences of this are that I have a severed relationship with my sons as the justice took too long to serve, and lives have been destroyed beyond damage. They live with dad between Mozambique and South Africa now. My ex-husband is not allowed to have any contact with my daughter, a court order has been issued to make sure that he doesn’t manipulate her and also to ensure she has a safe place to thrive with me, an environment free from abuse and harm.

Coming out of this was nothing less than a miracle.

I can give you details if you’d be interested in knowing. This I am sure alone is an exhausting read.

2 years ago, I met an Arab man through a dating site. He was a refugee living in London and was separated from his family (kids and estranged wife who was a Muslim Russian woman); I am working for a legal consultancy and having been through this myself I understood his pain of staying away from his children. He asked me to help me with reuniting with his children, I did everything in my means, which included writing to the Home Office and the local MPs, getting all sorts of support from social services as well.

He lived in a shared house, and I am more comfortable with a two-bedroom flat, for just myself and my daughter.

I succeeded in reuniting this family, and the relationship carried on. Then his children needed housing and school and every admin, advice, who would turn to me so totally dependent on me and I just couldn’t say no or let go.

This family was evicted from the one room shared house, I had to help him and ex wife with applications to the council for social benefits. Any and everything he needed he would just turn to me; he would drive my car since he didn’t have one at that point.

I will admit, although a haram relationship, I liked the touch, the caress, which I never for once received in my marriage with ex-husband, my marriage was miserable since the beginning, my ex-husband to out it straight would only have relations with me to use me as a conduit to make babies, there was no love and care just abuse, belittling and humiliation, I was never good enough for them.

Moving on – due to the social housing crisis, he and his family were moved to a hotel by the council for 5 months. Eventually, his ex-wife kicked him out or he moved out, God knows best, he moved in with me. I wasn’t too sure about this in the beginning; however, I couldn't abandon him. He wasn’t working at that time and was using all of his savings; I wanted to support him through his trying times.

I am a proud person; I don’t know how to receive gifts without giving anything back or feel as if they are sort of a burden on me. Therefore, I never took anything, not even money to split bills, not even groceries.

Anyways, I used to cook, clean, wash and do everything in addition to the already existing role I played in his life, a relentless support or maybe stupidly manipulated and taken for granted. The exploitation is beyond words.

At some point I figured he was engaged to a young girl half his age in Syria, I confronted him, and he said you knew that I was going to get married to a woman from Syria, so why are you surprised. I explained, I wanted him to marry me, he said I will marry her but if you want, I can marry you and this will be a secret marriage. I disagreed with this preposition, I said your sisters and mother would know the least if not everyone.

I wonder what 19-year-old girl marries a man who was previously married to a woman older than him, a father of two reasonably old daughters, double her age at 40 years old. No background, financial checks by family, where he stayed, where he worked, what his income was. I found it very strange, if not for the greed of moving to the UK and showing off in her circle she bagged a rich guy. Not knowing full reality of his finances.

I helped him find work too, he worked for two months as a contractor in construction work and then his contract finished, He was still living with me, then he went to Lebanon in September last year, upon his return I asked him whether he got married, he said no.

I had previously, very clearly mentioned that if he got married, I didn’t want anything to do with him. I wanted a peaceful exit. He lied, eventually in February ‘25 it came out that he got married in September ‘24 and his wife’s visa application was successful, and she was moving to London.

Upon his return from Lebanon in October ‘24, withholding info on his marriage, he asked me to help him find a house and convince the many landlords and estate agents to give him the rental although he wasn’t eligible for proving affordability criteria. I lend a decent amount of money to buy furniture and other stuff.

This man kept lying, manipulating, deceiving.

He only moved out the night she arrived, he continued coming to see me, even though I told him to stop multiple times. He came to my house on occasions even with her. I felt so sick.

I am so ashamed of myself, I have not made the right choices in my life.

Please, I beg you, help me find a good man, who will care for me, a selfless man. Financially I cope, I am looking after myself and my daughter. I don’t have much but we are okay, I had some money saved up which I have given this man.

I do not have any financial security, and I am only going to get settled status in the UK in 2030. With no money to my name, no family involved, and a lot of damage; would there be a man, a good, kind hearted, a real gentleman who would be willing to accept me the way I am and provide some sort of security and protection from any further harm, Allah knows I need it desperately.

I don’t want to be used and disposed – I want genuine care,

Glad you have read through. I could carry on giving you details – I sure have missed out more than half the details, but I am sure you will get a good idea by now.

Hi, I don't feel comfortable sharing my name yet, but it will probably come out eventually.

I've been carrying this with me for 9 years now. I need to tell my story, not for sympathy, but because I want the people who hurt me to be named. I want the world to know what they did to me. I want them to remember, because I will never forget.

This began in 2016, but I’ve known Sherri-Lee Clark since 2013, when we both started high school. We were in the same classes during 2015 and 2016. I never really paid much attention to her until one day in 2016 when a friend of mine, G, gave her my phone number without telling me. Sherri messaged me out of the blue, and I was surprised but happy. We started chatting on WhatsApp, and we got along well. We played texting games and had some fun conversations. I started to really like her, but I’ve always struggled with social anxiety, so I couldn’t bring myself to talk to her at school. But through texting, things felt good.

At some point, I introduced her to my friend K. That changed everything. K had a way of stealing the spotlight, and I felt like Sherri started giving more attention to him. But she still talked to me, so I tried to hold onto that. Then an incident occurred that changed everything. Soon after, the second school term ended. I remember being in English class that day, and my teacher, Mrs. LaRosa, caught me using my phone. She went off on me in front of the entire class, called out my poor grades, and completely humiliated me.

During the school holidays that followed, I was already feeling like absolute garbage. Then, to make matters worse, Sherri's brother messaged me and told me to leave his sister alone. I was crushed. But I still reached out to Sherri and asked if things were still okay between us. She said yes. That tiny glimmer of hope was all I had to hold onto.

Then the third term started. It was a Monday, and I refused to go back to school. I was terrified of seeing Sherri, facing my teacher, and confronting everything that had happened. That same day, I snapped. I took apart a toy helicopter, used the blades, and began cutting my neck. There wasn’t a lot of blood, but I left deep scars. My parents rushed me to a therapist. My brother told them about what happened with Mrs. LaRosa. My parents contacted the school principal, who then spoke to Mrs. LaRosa. While I was still at the doctor, Mrs. LaRosa called me, sounding genuinely apologetic. After that, she never mistreated me again.

I returned to school on Wednesday. Things were hard, but I tried to adjust. I kept texting Sherri. On her birthday, I gave her a present and wished her a happy birthday in person. She even sat behind me in English class. I thought things were getting better. But I was wrong.

A week or two after her birthday, during recess, Sherri and her friends: Bianca Brown, Demi Leigh Duplessis (now Demi Leigh Comradie), another girl named Didi, and another girl who I cannot remember the name of, all approached me and ganged up on me. They humiliated me, insulted me, and tore down whatever was left of my fragile state.

I went home that day and spiraled again. I became severely suicidal and confided in K, who then told Sherri. That same day, Sherri messaged me and tried to talk me out of suicide. The irony of it all broke me even more. She had just taken part in the group that pushed me to the edge, yet she was now trying to act like a savior.

My grades had hit rock bottom. I knew I wouldn’t pass the year. Not long after, Sherri blocked me. But the torment didn’t end. In December, she added me to a WhatsApp group chat with all her friends, and they continued to bully me. I kept leaving the group, and they kept adding me back, using different people. I kept blocking them, one by one. Eventually, they stopped.

I never went back to that school. I transferred to a new school in 2017, but the trauma never left. The mental scars are as raw today as they were then. 2017 felt like a year of relative calm (despite many other personal tragedies in my life occurred then), and things processed to go downhill in my life from 2018 to the present.

Outside of school, the person who contributed the most to my ongoing mental health struggles was my father. I won’t name him here, but his role in my decline after 2016 cannot be ignored.

I name these people.. Sherri-Lee Clark, Bianca Brown, Demi Leigh Duplessis (Comradie), and additional bullies: Sheldon Brooks and Curtly Arries, because I want them to be remembered. Because what they did left permanent damage. People often treat bullying like a phase. But what they did to me wasn’t just bullying. It was cruelty, manipulation, humiliation and sometimes physical abuse. And I’ve lived with the consequences every day since. I'm posting this because I really want there to be accountability despite how unrealistic it may be.

#Depression #Anxiety #Suicide #Trauma

My father touched me again, it's been happening since I started middle school and my body changed, it's been years but I can't find myself to tell anybody, my mother is still very much in love and I don't want to ruin her happiness. I just wished it stopped.
#Abuse

Hi, my name is Bianca8. I'm here because I've been abuse throughout my childhood and I want to release that trauma and empower myself back.

#MightyTogether #Depression