I am thirteen years old, almost fourteen right now. My parents got divorced when I was three years old, my mom moved out of state, so I visited her during the school breaks. At home, with my father, he got a new girlfriend right away, only months after his divorce, and now they are married. When I was very little, younger than six, when I would misbehave, my dad would strike me, very hard, on my back with his leather belt. He has since stopped that, but it still makes me afraid of him. My life with my dad is fairly stable. He has a good job, I have a step-sister and a half-sister whom I love very much. My step-mom and I don't always get along, but it is tolerable. My childhood was fairly decent, until I turned ten.

At my mother's house, I have experienced many things. My mom is a recently recovered alcoholic. However, I have seen her very, very wasted many times. It didn't get bad until I was ten. She was in a very good relationship with her fiancée for six years, but then, they broke up. When they broke up, my mom came back to drinking and drugs. Once, my mom took my sister and I to her ex-fiancée's house, and at first it was pleasant. Both of the adults began to drink, and they got in an argument. I'll call her ex-fiancée Kevin. I won't reveal his real name. Mom and Kevin got in an argument, and my mother recognized that she was too drunk to drive, so Kevin gave us permission to spend the night. However, he told my sister, mom, and I to sleep in the living room, on the floor. Throughout the night, Mom kept drinking more and more, and was talking to me about how she wanted to punch Kevin in his face. Kevin heard this, and grabbed his loaded gun, and pointed it at me, and told us that we have five seconds to leave the house. He kept his gun pointed at me the entire time until we left. When we got in the car, he opened his window, and pointed the gun at our car. Keep in mind that Mom is wasted, I am ten, and my sister is 12 years old. And, it was dark and pouring rain very hard. Mom was trying to drive us home, but she got lost in the neighborhood, and grew agitated and my sister ended up driving us home. I still have nightmares about that night.

That was the worst drunken night with my mother. However, there are many more. Once, when she was drunk and high on marijuana, my sister wasn't in the room, and she asked me where my sister was. She didn't recognize me. She didn't recognize her own daughter. She told me that she was going to cut me, and grabbed her pocketknife, because I told her that my sister wasn't in the room. She didn't touch me, but she almost did.

Another night, my mom was describing how her dad died when she was seven years old. He killed himself. She described to my sister and I, in detail, exactly how he looked when she found him in the bathtub after he shot himself. She told us exactly how his face looked, in detail.

Once, when she was drunk, she hit me, in my eye, because I didn't bring her the bottle of vodka. Once, she forced me to roll a joint for her, while she was already drunk and high on some other drug.

I have never told anyone any of this, I still have the nightmares and flashbacks about it. But, does this count as abuse? I feel like I am just being a wimp about it.

I'm sorry for such a long post. Thank you, if you read it. I'm sorry.