Hi, this is my first post here. I was abused as a kid. It wasn't a lot of abuse. I didn't think that it was serious or anything. But I talked to my best friend and to my brother about some of it and they disagree. There's this huge mess inside of me now and I want to make some sense of it. I was hoping maybe I can talk to you guys and you can help me because I can't talk to people I know again...

Sexual abuse
A stranger molested me when I was 8. Then a doctor molested me during the appointment when I was 13. The first incident was kinda serious but the second not much. I kicked him in the balls, too, so that fixed it.

Physical abuse
Until I was 16, my mom would often hit me with her shoe and she'd pull me around by my hair, too. Other than that, my grandma (mom's mom) thought that boys build testosterone by being violent so she made my younger brother beat the crap out of me. He'd hit me with anything he could get his hands on (mostly belts, branches and brooms). He also threw things at me and he'd run me over with things (usually his bicycle or his toy car but on one special occasion he ran over my legs with my dad's car). Most of it should be children playing or bullying at worse but I wasn't allowed to respond to it, so it felt more like my grandma was using him to abuse me.

Emotional neglect/Verbal abuse
God, there was a lot of this. This was the only serious abuse, I think. My mom and grandma told me I was worthless in every way they could. They both had very short tempers, they flew off the handle in a matter of seconds and did all they could to hurt me. At the slightest provocation, they'd yell at me for a long time and then they'd sit in the living room for hours and talk badly about me. Then, my dad didn't let me hug or kiss him. He often said that I was boring. He just ignored me all the time. He showed preference to my brother, too, like my grandma did. He just kept doing stupid hurtful things but he doesn't understand it. He was like a complete stranger to me and I felt very nervous around him.

Last but not least, mom didn't believe me when I said I was sick, so I didn't go to the doctor often. She made me go off painkillers when I was 12 even though I was in serious need of painkillers for a chronic issue I had. Also, starting at 10, if I could prove that I was sick, I stayed home alone.

There were many more bad things but, of course, there were also many good things that I haven't mentioned. It's just that my entire family is pretty dysfunctional. Both grandfathers were WW2 veterans that suffered from PSTD and both grandmothers ended up being servants and living at the stable. They did a lot better than they could have, given the circumstances. I just wish they'd put in some effort, like, maybe read a parenting book or something.

Lately, I keep thinking about how I'd decided that my family didn't want or love me when I was 5, etc. I'd distanced myself from all the bad things and now the feelings are back and they won't go away. I remember how I felt when I was a kid and I understand why I felt unloved. But I don't know if my feelings were right? My mom doesn't deny any of it but she thinks that I feel like I've been abused because I don't know what abuse is. I don't know...

If anyone manages to read all of this, I'm sorry for it being so huge and I guess I'd just like some insight? I don't know. Was I seriously abused? Do I need to do something about it? I can't afford therapy. What else is there?