The Six Words That Saved Me Years of Therapy

If only I’d thought of this myself…

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“I’m sorry you felt like you had to be so isolated from us. You learned to cope by studying about domestic violence and how to deal with things no kid has any business dealing with.

We never gave you a choice.”

Trigger warning: instances of domestic violence, mention of child sexual assault

There was a food chain in my home; an unspoken hierarchy in which the bigger, stronger ones poured the hot, caustic sludge of their rage onto the weak and dependent. This is what I was discussing with my decade-older sister over the phone.

My father would silently bear the anger of a boss who occasionally threw corded telephones at his employees’ heads, only to unleash his green monster on my housewife mother. My mother, like a true martyr, took it out on my older sister, just as much with an open palm or a closed fist as with sheer cold ruthlessness.

Then, my sister had no choice but to go to me, the youngest, and regurgitate the anger she’d carried from multiple others onto my person. It was a violating feeling, being so aware that the angry red handprint on your cheek wasn’t your fault.

We were exposed to physical assault as well as child sexual assault. Today, some of…