I suppose starting a thread is a way of saying that what we think does actually matter...

During my not very nice childhood, I was chronically shy. It was more than shyness, of course. I was shutting down, and trying to almost play dead so as not to cause any parental violence.

It was also an expression of disgust at the world I found myself in. I was desperately unhappy and frightened for a lot of the time. This was from birth to until my father died (when I was in my early twenties). That's a lot of years to be terrified!

I won't go into it too much but, basically, there was no way out. My poor mum was too scared to leave him, so we existed in this sort of treading on eggshells kind of mode.

I remember one thing that used to make me feel sick with rage at that time. My brother and I were 'well-behaved' children, and our father used to take the credit for it when his friends mentioned how 'nice' we were.

A couple of times, he boasted about how he kept us in line. I can't quite bring myself to say the words, but yeah, he was giving the friend advice on how he should treat (mistreat) his own kids etc. And right in front of us!

Your situation perhaps was similar, in that terrible parenting also silenced you. I'm so sorry that it did!