I'm posting on behalf of my girlfriend (reddevil) because she feels very fragile when discussing this but would like some answers.

ok...

When she was younger her parents, mostly her father though, in my opinion, abused her.

An example of this is that when she was a child she went to a national trust building with her family. She cant remember what she did but in response her father hit her and this threw her onto the cobbled floor in a room full of people. A woman from the NSPCC was in the room at the time and spoke out against it.

There were many incidents like this in her past of varying degrees and she is very confused as to whether this could be counted as abuse or not.

Other instances have included times when she has been crying and having 'i'll give you something to cry about' yelled at her, to be slapped and called a *****, to be hit so hard she goes flying, to be shaken bodily until she felt sick and having to learn to cry silently because crying out loud will get her told off.