I'm never sure what to say when this topic gets brought up around me. Even as a kid, I'd hear other children talk about how strict their parents are or how mean they are to them, and I think...that doesn't sound bad at all...that sounds awesome! Then I feel stupid because I feel like I'm having a pity party for myself and I end up mentally yelling at myself because of it.

Do I consider myself a victim of abuse? I never thought so when I was a child. I thought it was normal. Then I got older and I saw and heard what people called abuse these days. I'm 24 years old, it's not like I'm old, but I realized there was something wrong back then. Realized it back in middle school...that what was happening to me, wasn't supposed to happen.

So yes, I consider myself abused. I spoke with people about it, tried to figure things out, and they were all shocked. They never knew, had met my parents, and never suspected. Half didn't believe me, thinking that I made it up because my parents were 'so amazing and kind.' No one knows. I work as a teacher right now and a parent told me...'I hope my daughter becomes similar to you.' In my mind, I hope that they don't. I like who I am but...no one should have to go through what I did to become me. I know that the parent would have agreed but no one knows.

Then I think back about when my mother hit me all over with a hanger for being on the front porch at night. Hit me so bad that my muscles spasmed and I had bruises all over my back. When she hit the backs of my thighs and calves with a wooden spoon, saying that her mother had done that to her when she was bad, and that since I was bad, I deserved it too. I remember my mother always making me feel guilty, telling me that she would have divorced my father if I hadn't been around. Telling me that men were evil and that I would be miserable if I married a man. That I should be alone, that my personality made it that I should be alone.

I remember my father slapping me across the face when I was eight for asking for something. I remember making my father a sandwich and he threw the plate and sandwich at me, angry that I hadn't made it correctly. When he threw tools at me, angry that I didn't know what all of them were called and knocking me in the head with a wrench. I remember my father getting wasted and telling me how much I reminded him of my mother when she was younger. Saying that all fathers dreamed about touching their daughters.

I remember my parents getting angry at my sister and me jumping up, telling them that I did it. They would yell and scream at me for hours, spank and slap me, but only to go back and spank my sister anyway. Luckily, they were too tired from taking care of me, to spank her for too long. Then as she got older, she blamed me for not loving her enough for taking her away from the family, and ran away. No one knows where she's at now and I feel stuck.

I work with my parents in another country. My parents know that I carry around a baseball bat at my house. That I'll leave any second, so they haven't hit me for years. Yet my mother guilt-trips me about wanting to go to graduate school back in America. That I want to leave. She thinks I'll get married, which I'm going to in November. My father tries to bribe me with a car, the deposit money for my apartment (that I paid for but he threatens to take away if I leave now), and a possible job in America. Then they use me, going to America themselves and making me work three shifts. It's been two weeks. I'm lucky to get five hours of a sleep a night. I don't get enough time to eat. Then I wonder why I'm doing this to myself. I know what I want to do. I know how.

I left my parents when I was eighteen for school and took care of myself. I worked two jobs and went to school. I got all my education by myself. I pay for my own apartment, all my bills, and I paid off one college loan already. I have a fiance in America who loves me, wants to take care of me, and to take me away from the mental and physical abuse of my parents. My best friend asks me everyday, why do I let them do this to me? Why don't I leave? I ask myself this too.

Why do I feel guilty for leaving? Why do I feel like I'm a horrible person for leaving my parents?