Hi there,
I'm not sure where to start exactly, I'm 22 I have 3 younger sisters 21, 15 and 9 and we have an alcoholic Mum. Tonight I was the target of her drunken rage and I need to know what to do.
She is in an abusive relationship with my stepfather of 7 years. She left my Dad for this man after having an affair with him and as her parents, my grand parents, are very religious they kind of turned their back on her when she chose to leave my Dad.
My grand parents told my Mum that leaving my Dad would be the worst thing she ever did because my Stepfather (Mick) doesn't really care for her. Well, I'm sure this didn't help because when Mick started hitting her my Mum never told anyone. I feel like this is because she is trying to prove my grandparents wrong... and that she doesn't want to admit that the relationship is flawed.
So between here and there, I went to university, away from home. One night around midnight I get a phone call from my Mum who is crying and hysterical because my stepfather has just held her head under the bathtub. She tells me he ran out of the house shortly afterwards. I should point out I don't drive and obviously was now really worried for my Mum being at home with this man who could come home at any point. My youngest sisters were 6 and 11 at the time and I later learn that the two of them had witnessed my stepdad holding my mum's head under the water. Which I can only imagine must've been horrific at such a young age.
But this was just the beginning of the violence. That was over 4 years ago now and my Mum won't leave him. Instead she drinks, on average, a bottle of wine to herself a night.
When my Mum was married to my Father she never had to work. He's a successful graphic designer we have some stables and a few horses and farm animals but beside this he was never around much, which I'm guessing was the reason for the affair. The affair that myself and one of my sisters were aware of and when my Father found out that we knew and didn't inform him he called us traitors.
We haven't really had him around as a Dad ever since.
Well like I said my mum never had to work, but when she divorced my Father she got the house and the stables but had to get a job to pay the bills and be the sole breadwinner... as my Stepfather didn't work. She started up a burger van. This was pretty much when my Stepdad started beating her, and I've come to deduce that this is because he feels immasculated with her working and earning money for the family without his help.
I was still at university when this was all happening, and I would ring up and hear about how my mum had been drinking and got in a fight with my stepdad, who had then run off out of the house - something which is a regular pattern in their arguments - and that my mum had driven off after him. Drunk. As usual they usually end up at the stables fighting and Mick had dragged her across the fields by her hair and rubbed her face in the grass.
He has also thrown gravel in her face, the racks that are used to store bread for the rolls at the snack van, he has driven into her in a car, thrown books and shoes at her, strangled, hit, kicked and slapped her.
She always has bruises on her arms and neck, i know that he hits her and then runs off. Telling her he is going to leave but never does. During such a fight she smashed the shed window with a broom and then slashed up her arm with a shard of the broken glass. She ran from the garden... blood through the house... where my youngest sister who was 7 at the time got her towels to stop the bleeding. She had to have 26 stitches and later revealed that she didn't want to live without our Stepfather. She has told me and my sisters on many occasions that she picks him over us.
I sent emails to the domestic abuse website asking for advice but there is nothing they can do for her if she wont leave my stepfather.
So the drinking escalated, my Stepfather is no good with money so my Mum does all the bill paying and accounts by herself, which I admit is quite a feat for someone who has only worked for the last 7 years.
Money troubles and life have got to her so she drinks "to forget it all". When she is drunk she is abusive and reckless. My youngest sister is often the target of her rage, at 9 years old, it gets to her and the teachers have been alerted by this tired looking little girl coming to school crying, but they too have done nothing.
My 15 year old sister is at a difficult age as it is. She has to take care of my youngest sister and when my stepfather runs away she takes care of my Mum. Both the two youngest sisters are aware of the violence and are usually the ones who tell me about the fights as my Mum makes no effort to hide it from them.
Having finished uni last year i feel like i have moved home to a minefield. It's horrible here. So I try to spend as much time as I can at my boyfriends in London, though I suspect that he is getting sick of hearing me cry about my mum, seeing as there is nothing he can do about it... its been the same for 7 years. I don't tell anyone else about how home is.
My 21 year old sister is the luckiest of us. She has a boyfriend who lives in the town, so she sleeps at his house away from here. Mum is drunk everynight around 6.00 for the rest of the night. If she is not fighting with my stepfather then she will pick a fight with myself or my younger sisters. It really is a form of bullying.
There is no need to try and make sense of any argument you ever get dragged into with her, it is better to just hide in your room away from her when shes drunk and just say whatever she wants to get her to leave the room faster.
She slurs her words and squares up to you if you disagree with anything she says, it really is disgusting. My stepfather does nothing to help matters, he is like a seperate entity altogether, never helps us with her, never protects any of us from her violence and outbursts. when home from university I had been home for 6 weeks without him saying a single word to me.
Tonight as usual she was drunk and she was clearly looking to fight with someone, snappish and agressive by 7.00 we all just stayed out of her way. But as my sisters went to bed she singled me out, slurring and swearing at me. I have to admit it is difficult staying out of a fight with my mother and when she wont leave your room and stares at your face and stands an inch away from you it is like looking actual hatred in the eyes. I don't even recognise her anymore.
She held me by the neck and threw me into the doorframe tonight. She's never done that before, though she has hit my other sisters alot more than me. I don't remember what happened after but I remember being sat at the toilet on the floor with my 15 year old sister holding a flannel on the back of my head. It wasn't bleeding but i felt really really sick. Surprisingly my stepfather was there asking if i was ok and got me a cup of water. It is the weirdest thing not remembering something that happened. But I have a feeling that it's for the best.
She will apologise, because she always does, but its not that she is sorry, but that she doesn't want to talk about it and that saying sorry will put an end to it. I know she didn't mean to hurt me, but thats the point. She is drunk she has no idea what she is doing. But I don't think that makes it ok. And the morning after stuff happens and she remembers or is told, why doesn't she stop? If i ever physically hurt someone I care about I would be mortified.
I hate her for that, because It makes it so much clearer that she doesn't care about myself or my sisters. I am moving out for good in January, I am looking forward to it, I dont want to live in the house with someone who will openly subject their children to such an aggressive home environment.
I ahve never reported my stepfather for beating my mum, or my mum for driving drunk among other things, but I am beginning to feel like WHY am i protecting her? She is my mother but she is not protecting me? When she drives drunk and angry she is not thinking of the people she might crash into and the lives she would ruin.
I know this is an awful lot to write, and that probably no one will read it, but it feels even a little bit good to write it down and get it out there... i guess as some kind of release. I hope that anyone out there who is feeling as lost and useless as I am can get help. At the end of the day you need to think of yourself and your own priorities, because I can guarrantee you that your parent isn't.
I just wish she'd stop drinking and I want her to show she cares for my sisters before she ruins their lives.
