This might be triggering for some people. It certainly has been for me and it has distorted my dealings with other people.
Possible trigger:
I was abused by my grandmother emotionally and physically since I was almost 7 years old back in El Salvador until the time I came to the United States to live with my parents when I was almost 14 years of age.
Now, I didn't know it was emotional and physical abuse until I was much older and I saw her behavior and I thought back and said "this isn't right". She would beat me and my brothers with whatever object she had at hand -- whether it was a shoe or a tree branch. She also didn't care where she hit us as long as she did hit us.
She also said nasty things about us. That perhaps we deserved to be abandoned by my mother, that it was our fault she left. that she [my grandmother] regretted the day she chose to be our caretaker, and said nasty things about our mom too like she was a ***** and a bad mother. This wasn't the entire gamut of things she did either. Whenever I had normal child crushes on girls she'd shoot it down by saying I was too immature and that I had no business chasing after girls (I was in 2nd grade, mind, a time when kids are being kids; but I had issues growing up without a mother, issues that grew worse with time). In other issues, like personal issues with the fact I had lost my mother, I just got the stereotypical response from her "you're a man, you're not supposed to be weak. Man up". Funny how that works, looking in hindsight.
The worst part? My dad wasn't around us. He came to the United States to make a living. We were threatened by my grandma not to say anything bad about her to my dad, or how she was hitting us and the things she told us, and so we learned how to lie about our feelings and just how scared we were of my grandma. I guess that started my habit of lying about my feelings to others; letting them know things are okay when they really are not. I don't know. The point is that even though we could count on my dad we couldn't say anything until we were safe with him when we came to the states and we told him. The harm was done though, I never knew how to recover from that, given I had no positive female influence in my life and my father and oldest brother were more concerned about us excelling in school, being the perfect children in front of others and at the same time under the implicit threats of my grandmother ultimately never let me recover fully from the damage that was done.
Nowadays? My grandmother lives with my uncle her last days. I don't see her anymore, but I wonder sometimes if I truly forgave her, or if I truly felt anything for her other than familial obligation. I also wonder if my issues as an adult stem in part from the abuse I received from my grandma. Also, I wonder if sometimes I am being just dramatic and I should just take it as part of life; after all, I think sometimes, everyone's life is bad up to a degree and mine isn't bad enough to warrant me putting myself out there and seek help. Sometimes I truly think that, and I battle with it every day thinking that perhaps I shouldn seek help, but I am too scared for the fear of reprisal because of the fact I have always been assumed to be strong and have a thick skin, but in the inside I am dying for someone to hear me and help me out. I just never learned or knew how to ask for help.