My memories of my childhood begin from when I was around four years old. From then I can remember that my parents did a lot of fighting and arguing. I can remember once they got into it because my mother was apparently staring at my father too much and he had a problem with it. This behavior carried on until they officially separated when I was 16. They never made any effort to try and discuss their problems calmly and did not hold back even if my sister and I were in the room with them. My mother took it upon herself to involve us in her disputes with my father and often would often play the victim. Being children, we fell for her ploy and rushed to comfort her when she would sit and cry after a big fight. Besides the fact that she was our mother and that she could effectively portray herself as the victim, what made it especially easy for her to draw us in was that was my father was very distant and we weren't very close with him even though we lived together. She had gotten me so well that at some point I began to feel strong contempt for him. My sister and I were brainwashed. She kept us by her side by telling us that if she were gone tomorrow we would have nobody else because our father didn't care about us, that she would do anything for us, etc. She made sure to feed and clothe us, but as far as I can remember she never made any attempts to delve deeper into my thoughts, feelings or interests. She did hit us and was verbally abusive. The one thing she often did with me as a form of discipline was enlist my father to yell at me. As a child, the contempt that I mentioned before was mixed with an intense fear of him. The times when I was put in front of him to be disciplined were very distressful for me. It was literally like a trial or something. If I did something wrong my mother would say that she would tell my father about it. It wouldn't leave my mind and I would think about it for the whole day. When he arrived home and was settled, he would yell for me to come to him and I would take a slow walk to see him. What usually happened in these sessions were him shouting questions at me while I cried and was unable to answer. He would then aggressively pressure me for an answer by repeating himself. For example, there was one occasion where I was around six years old. I had spilled juice a couple of times over the course of a week or something and my mother was fed up. She had hit me for the first few times and then resorted to putting me in front of my father. This time, I was unaware that she had reported me and I was unexpected called by my father. He began to angrily ask how old I was and if I was a baby because someone my age shouldn't be spilling things so much. All I could do was cry.
These are some of the earliest experiences that I can remember. I had no idea that writing this would make me so anxious. When I was re-reading it and playing back the events in my head it was came across as unbelievable. Thank you for the kind words and support.