Quote:
Originally Posted by reb569
I can relate to this. I used to hide my little brother and sister in my room under my bed when things got really bad. Made it a game for them. When I was older I used to deflect his abuse towards my mother onto myself because I knew that I could stand there and take it without crying or getting mad and eventually after he got it out of his system he would stop and go take a nap or get in the car and drive away for awhile. My mother though would often "talk back", which usually led to an escalation to physical abuse, so my main goal was to prevent that. When my older brothers were around, he wasn't as bad because although he abused them when they were younger, as they got older, he became wary of them and usually wouldn't escalate to physical abuse. Taking the verbal abuse was the only way I had to protect my mother.
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I made it a game for my little brother, too. Every time, whether it be my dad, my mom or our older brother. I even had a code-knock to get into the bedroom after it was over. 'In the game', he wasn't allowed to open the door until he heard that. Whenever I got hit and it showed, I'd tell him that I was 'wrestling the monsters away'. After a while, that didn't work anymore because he started sneaking out to see what was actually happening. He was a smart kid. Too smart.
As I got older, my mom got better but my dad and brother hadn't. With both of them, though, I was always deflecting their attention towards me. If my older brother looked like he might attack my sister or brother, I'd strike him and re-focus him at me. I knew I could take a hit and they couldn't. If they could, I didn't want them to. With my dad, same thing just without fists. I knew I could take his words, his yelling and his 'discipline' (which entailed punishments like: cleaning broken glass because he threw something in my direction, cleaning the messes he'd make because 'I needed to learn responsibility' as he'd turn the house into a state of disarray, being forced to stay awake throughout the night and/or being cast out of the house for the night, no matter the weather).
Stealing a quote from the Breakfast Club, "Sounds like your dad and my dad should go bowling."