Carlos grew up in a home where insults were the norm. Verbal and also physical violence were part of a day to day of destroyed chairs and doors. He claims to have suffered harassment and finds himself unable to lead a normal life. María attempted suicide when she was 18 and she runs away from any relationship when she sees the slightest sign of an attitude similar to the one her father had. And María J. was born in an environment of verbal violence: she has anxiety, fear of the dark and she recognizes that she sets many limits with people. Their stories and their way of being and coping with adversity are different, but they all have in common having been born and raised in environments of physical or psychological abuse. Or both. They are sons and daughters of abusers. And they tell in first person how what they experienced has marked them with the hope of helping other people.
According to the latest data, more than 1.6 million minors live in abusive environments. After leaving that hell, they have a path of psychological work to ensure that what they experienced does not mark their lives. It can be achieved, experts say, but it is necessary to truly consider them victims of gender violence and dedicate more resources.
“My father was a real monster.” Carlos (fictitious name) has not had contact with his father for 30 years, but what he experienced in the first eight years of his life has marked him to the point that three decades later he is still unable to lead a normal life: “He should face the situation. like an adult, but my reaction is to escape and hide,” admits this 38-year-old man. There are smells that still remind him of him today and he trembles every time he hears keys opening the door. He was born into abuse, but so was a good part of his environment. In an environment in which beating women was more than normalized. The first stage of his childhood was spent with his mother, his sister (three years older than him), and his father. “His obsession was to grab us by the neck,” says this man who is still undergoing psychological treatment.
Carlos’s mother suffered verbal abuse, “hitting on the glass of the table to avoid punching” and also physical and sexual attacks – heard from the other room – in the presence of her two children, who were also victims. In addition, psychological abuse. Carlos directly endured the constant contempt of a father who never took care of covering the family’s basic needs, something that forced them, for a long time, to eat thanks to the help of neighbors and family.
María (not her real name) is 29 years old and has never been hungry because she comes from a wealthy family. She never lived with her parents because they separated soon. Her maternal grandparents took care of her. She did not see, although she assures that it happened, the mistreatment of her father towards her mother, but she has experienced it with other partners of her father and herself until at the age of 22 she broke up every relationship with him. “I saw that she was repeating patterns with my partners.” And when she ended up in court for “physical abuse,” she decided to undergo therapy. At the age of 18, she attempted suicide and it was the psychological help that followed – although she criticizes that the health system only visited her every three months – that pushed her to distance herself from her father, whom she defines as “narcissistic and psychopath”. And she asks, “Does a minor have the right to be with her father or should he have the right to stay away from an abuser?”
María J., 24 years old, thinks something similar. She grew up in an environment of psychological abuse and she remembers that at the age of five she begged her father to leave her mother alone. Her environment was abusive. When Maria J was six years old, her mother decided to separate from her and he moved to another city with her. Her father’s “emotional blackmail” made her sister C. – nine years older – want to stay in her family home. Three years later, she visited them and decided to move in with them when she discovered that “it was possible to live in a house without shouting or insults.”
Maria J., Carlos and María are abused children. It is one of the “advances” that has been achieved in terms of gender violence, explains the coroner and professor of legal medicine at the University of Granada, Miguel Lorente Acosta, because before they were considered “indirect victims.” And this abuse has consequences for the minors who witness it and suffer, explains the coroner. “They are more at risk of suffering from depression from consuming toxic substances – especially alcohol – and they can also exert violence on their children or normalize it,” he details. The clinical psychologist, expert in victimology and violence against women, Sonia Vaccaro, adds problems with relationships – especially with couples -, eating and sleeping disorders, phobias, fears and insecurities. Ella Vaccaro assures that these children have great difficulty relaxing and that this “state of alertness” can last into adulthood. Despite this, she points out that the consequences vary – and also their intensity – depending on each story.
Carlos continues in therapy since his parents’ separation. For Maria J. it was a relief because he has grown up without a father but without shouting. And the same thing happened to Maria. Despite this, the distance is not enough. Lorente and Vaccaro assure that it is possible to overcome a childhood of abuse, but that psychological help is necessary. The coroner recognizes that there is a “deficit in institutional support” first because there is still the conviction that “if the mother recovers, the children will recover and that is not the case.” He warns that it is difficult to put the planned measures into practice and asks that a “more restorative approach that includes boys and girls” be used. He also believes that children cannot see their father until he undergoes therapy, something that happens, he says, in very few cases.
The bad life was forging Carlos’s personality. At school no one knew his story and his situation was one of “total isolation.” This put him, he explains, in the target of “predators” and he assures that he suffered bullying first and then workplace harassment. Rheumatoid arthritis has caused him to be unable to work and has forced him to return to his mother’s house due to financial difficulties. He now “survives” and says that he runs away from any smell or appearance that reminds me of his father. Social relationships are very difficult for him “I set a very high bar and when someone flatters me I distrust that person.” And he is not capable of having a romantic life.
María J. and her sister C. started therapy just a year ago. She takes medication for depression, has anxiety and is afraid of the dark. She is bisexual, but she claims that she often feels more comfortable in relationships with girls and that she believes it may be a consequence of the relationship between her father and her mother. “I know that all men are not the same, but it is difficult for me,” she explains. Carlos goes further and assures, although he admits that it sounds harsh, that for him “all men are abusers until they prove otherwise.”
And María explains that she has been “strong” practically but has not had an easy life. “Being a child of hate has had destructive consequences,” she says. She continues with therapy and admits that she is fine because she is alone.
The absence of complaints is one of the aspects that makes it most difficult to repair the damage. Lorente Acosta recalls that 77% of women “come out of violence through separation” and only aspects related to custody or visitation are decided there. She warns that “the majority of violence is not in women’s courts but in family courts” which is why she believes it is essential to articulate detection measures at the health level, “which is where 100% of women and boys and girls are.” .
During a good part of Carlos’s parents’ coexistence there was no complaint. “If my father slapped my mother or humiliated her and she went crying to my grandparents’ house, they would tell her not to be so surly,” he laments. And when she tried, she claims that the police “practically laughed at her” assuring that it was going to be “worse” because she would have to return home. The only accusation of gender violence that Carlos’s mother filed was once the separation from her was decided and she did so forcibly by her sister after an attack in her presence. During the separation period they spent two years practically confined with the awnings lowered for fear of reprisals.
In the case of María J. there was never a complaint but she is recognized as a victim of gender violence and also as a vicarious one. Despite everything, she has not completely severed her relationship with her parent because she has two little sisters and she wants them to know that “I am there to help.”
María, Carlos and María J., aged 29, 38 and 24, still need psychological help at this time. In some cases, like Carlos’s, because of the harshness of what she experienced, and in others, like María J. because she sought her out later. But all of them are clear that this support is crucial to moving forward. Carlos has an alter ego on Twitter, HMaltratador, through which he reflects on his life, releases thoughts and tries to help other victims. Something similar happens to María who has now started to set up ARIMA Association for the Reparation of Misloved Childhoods. María, who has studied art history and cultural journalism, also has a YouTube channel. And she has created the association to offer psychological help to put on the table that there are children who “are not loved by their parents and that this leads to problems when you are an adult.” María J. and her sister C. collaborate in the association Against Violence Vicaria M.A.M.I, whose president, Rosalía, is now fighting to recover her children after separating from her partner, who psychologically abused her.
All those interviewed have hopes of moving forward. They put will into it. And they also work to help any minor or adult who, like them, has experienced a childhood marked by abuse.
