I’m not putting this in a tweet, because tweets are ephemeral and I don’t save them except for the tea ones.

After this last bout of nightmares (involving angrily telling my father not to beat me, him telling me angrily he wouldn’t, him doing it anyways of course, and waking up expecting bruises, it was that bad), I think summers are hellish because school would cut out for summer. My parents wanted me home, and, well. My father just couldn’t resist hitting me, I suppose. And I remember, even though I don’t want to. Dreams are amazing at correlating across time to the ancient memory banks, which anyways aren’t so ancient thanks to how PTSD can’t file away memories.

It’s amazing, the things I would do to please him, the amount of obedience I gave him for so long to the point of destroying my capacity for logic (if someone who has the power to beat you senseless says that you’re doing poorly in school when you’re getting straight A’s, you start to believe that shit. It was very much a four-or-five-lights situation).

It was never enough. I would have given my life for the sake of him, even though he beat me. I only punched him once, and it belied the idea that abusers only beget abusers, because I couldn’t bear causing even him pain. So he just beat me more.

I’m not even going into the verbal and emotional abuse, which were also hideously bad.

Anyways. It’s summer, and summer used to just be one long holiday of hell, as all holidays are to me. Heck, my father likely thought, your kid’s not in school, the least you can do is beat them.

I would almost laugh at the people who suggest perhaps I deserved the beatings for being a bad girl, but right now phantom bruises hurt too much.