Interview with victim of child abuse

Budimirovich, Natasha, interviewee and victim of child abuse. 21 November 2009

Natasha is 31 years old Croatian girls who immigrate in America ten years ago. She spent the first 20 years of her life in Croatia with her mother and brother. Her parents divorced when she was ten. Things changed in her life after her parents divorced, and she explains how in a short interview/confession.

1. What kind of child abuse/child neglect did you experience in your childhood?
First, I felt neglected by my father who left when I was 4. Even though we were in contact, we never developed a relationship where I would feel safe to confine in him. My mother, on the other hand was mentally abusive to me and my brother. She was a single working parent, and even though she did all in her power to raise two children, the stress of her life would be released upon us. She would many times compare my brother and me to our father, whom she hated. I felt as I war worthless and hated sometimes from her. When we got into our teen years, she would say that us and our father were the ones who destroyed her life. So as I was growing up, I felt like I was a mistake and in the way of her happiness.

2. How old were you when the abuse started?
I was just starting school, so around 6 or 7.

3. How did abuse affect you then and how does it affect you now?
Back then, I felt as if that's how life is supposed to be. I found a shelter from our domestic abuse in my friends, whom I held more precious and important than my parents. I put my friends in front of me, in front of everything. I had problems interacting with strangers, even if they were our neighbors or new kids in school. I was very closed down into myself and I always thought that kids with both parents who did everything together were the luckiest kids. My parents always argued and I don't remember 4 of us ever being together, not even having a conversation. I also had minor problems in school, like focusing and figuring out why was I even going to school. Today, I see some of these early problems in me. I grew up being extremely shy (which is fading away with years), mistrusting, and clinging to my friends, being afraid of loneliness and being left alone in general. For the longest time I felt as if I wasn't worth of even breathing the air with everyone else, I felt like I will never find peace inside myself. I realize today that family is such an important backbone of one's life. If I feel lonely or sad or even suicidal, I don't have any words of wisdom from my mom or dad that they could have given me while I was growing up. I fell like everything I know I thought myself.

4. Did you realize or comprehend that you were experiencing abuse?
Not at first. I felt that everything my mother told me was true and that's how it was supposed to be. I thought of abuse as only physical. My father never physically hit me, and all my peers were physically abused by their fathers, so I actually felt lucky because of that. I wasn't aware how mental abuse will leave me later in life. Next to the physical abuse, my mom made an emotional cripple out of both my brother and me by being negative to us all our lives. She
isn't alive anymore and she asked me if I could forgive her for all the bad she did to us when we were little. I did.

5. Were you aware of any institutions and did you seek help?
I wasn't aware of any institutions. I ran to my friends to find shelter. I always hated going home from school and wished I could just be somebody else’s child.