Source: Reddit
Part One: The childhood
My parents have always had a toxic and mutually abusive relationship. Physical fighting, screaming matches, destruction of each other’s property and then a short honeymoon phase… I witnessed it all. It was a cycle.
Not only did they abuse each other, but my mother would physically abuse us with regular beatings and my father would neglect us, allowing her to hurt us. We (my siblings and I) would see the worst of it on weekends. They would have events that lasted days, and often argued well into the late hours. My mother would even take us from home out of spite for my father and have us stay with her abusive family members for days and sometimes weeks.
This, of course would Interrupt school and put us behind other students. I would often come to school tired after being kept awake by an incident between them. In addition to that, I was prevented from building meaningful friendships outside of school because of how strict my parents were. I wasn’t even allowed to take part in extracurricular activities because they insisted they were meaningless and would corrupt me.
Part Two: A Child’s revenge
I became resentful and angry. I hated that they would torment me and my siblings and then could cuddle and be lovey-dovey with each other during the honeymoon periods of the cycle. It disgusted me. By the time I reached my early teenage years, I made a decision to sabotage them at any chance I got.
It was easy – since I had been watching their patterns for years.
I stole money from my father in small amounts. I destroyed emotionally valuable items from each of them. I threw out food they were saving as treats for themselves. I found receipts of purchases they were hiding from each other and left them out for the other to find. I destroyed clothing. I made each of them think I was siding with them after arguments, getting them to talk to me and then took their dirty secrets back and forth to increase their distrust of each other.
The funny part was – they never suspected it was me. I was just repeating the same behaviors they had already been doing, so they always assumed it was the other one.
Part Three: The Next Level Revenge
As the years passed, I knew I would be leaving the household when I was an adult, so I expanded on my plan. I knew that my younger siblings would suffer in a household with both of them together especially after I left.
I had been sexually abused in childhood by one of my mothers family members. My father and siblings didn’t know, but my mother did. She knew what this person was and left me alone with him multiple times. She hinted to me that if my father ever found out about anything her family had done, I would be responsible for breaking up the family. That was how she got me to keep quiet about all of the abusive things her family members had done to us. Between the two of them, she was the worst.
My father was really just neglectful and willfully ignorant of the deep levels of abuse she put us through. He thought that his role as a father was to go to work, bring home the money, and relax. I knew it would take something powerful to make him step up. I also knew that if they were exposed to the authorities, there was a chance my siblings would get separated or be forced to live with worse family members whose evil deeds couldn’t be proven.
I waited all the way until a few months before I was prepared to leave the household.
Then I told my father what had happened to me. I told him all the secrets my mother had kept from him regarding how her family would abuse us whenever she took us to visit and stay with them. My siblings were never sexually abused. But they were beaten and starved.
I told him I was only telling him this now, because I was planning on moving out and I needed him to wake up and protect my siblings after I left. I told him there wasn’t any hope of saving anything with me, but there was still time for the others to still have a good life. He cried.
It had the desired result.
The news traveled through the grapevine in the family quickly. All of their secrets were out. It caused a divide and shook the foundation of everything. People who had married into my mothers family, took their kids away quietly. The family’s reputation was destroyed in the religious community as well. I got tearful calls from some of them begging me to forgive and forget. Some accused me of lying, or accused me of enjoying it, and even asked me to take it back.
I had successfully set my family on fire. I left on schedule. I cut off contact with my mother. I had extreme limited contact with my father. I talked to my siblings constantly.
My father stepped up. He cut my mother’s family off and didn’t allow them to see my siblings anymore. He divorced my mother a while later, once he had the means to take the youngest siblings away and live alone with them. My mother has extremely limited custody. The older ones had already moved out by that time.
Part Four: The Result
I now am living without any family in another state. I’m getting mental health treatment and living my life the best way that I can.
I still talk to my siblings. They kept me updated on what’s going on. My father is really taking care of the youngest ones and he helps out the older ones when they need it. They have a far better life than I had, because he cares now. We don’t talk that much about what happened and what I did for them. We still have a bond – and that’s all I want.
