I Got Beat Up

[SorryIsGoodEnough]

I don't have any friends really here in WAshington state. I moved here from Wyoming and I don't know how to make friends.

So my family is all I have. I just have to lick my wounds and move on.

Thank you all for the advice. If I don't feel better by tomorrow, I'm calling Hopelink to get help getting to the E.R.

Thank you so much for the support.

[Eric the Grey]

I don't have any friends really here in WAshington state. I moved here from Wyoming and I don't know how to make friends.

So my family is all I have. I just have to lick my wounds and move on.

Thank you all for the advice. If I don't feel better by tomorrow, I'm calling Hopelink to get help getting to the E.R.

Thank you so much for the support.

I've heard some of the exact same excuses from women who are married to abusive husbands.

Think about it.



Eric the Grey

[Megg]

If that family was all I had, I would rather have nothing. I'm just saying. Also, go to a doctor, quit being stubborn.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Thank you all for the advice. If I don't feel better by tomorrow, I'm calling Hopelink to get help getting to the E.R.

Why not now?

If I lived anywhere nearby I'd come get you...

[SorryIsGoodEnough]

Because I don't want to ruin anyone's holiday by wasting someone's time. What if someone is in more pain but they have to wait in the waiting room while I take up a room?

Everyone tells me I'm a waste of time (My sister today said 'Heather, if I'm capable of loving YOU, then I'm capable of anything!') so I don't want to take up space. I have vicodin and naproxen. Bad for my stomach lesions, but it'll help my chest and back and maybe when I fall asleep, I'll sleep off the breathing problems.


AT least I'm willing to go tomorrow. It would be best to wait til Monday when my kid will be at daycare again so I don't have to worry about her.

[Soulstealer]

They ruined their own damn holiday by not helping you and your brother beating you. You'll make friends eventually. Stop making excuses for them, go to the hospital, and don't speak to them any more.

They way your family treats you isn't healthy or right. They don't deserve you in their life and what kind of example are you setting for your child if she witnesses them abusing you?

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I know ya'll aren't doctors, but if you were me, would you play better safe than sorry? Or just try to enjoy the New Year without bothering?

Is this a trick question? Seriously?

"You don't want to waste a doctor's time?" You're right, he's got better things to do than to take care of sick and injured people. His golf club is not gonna swing itself.

Don't waste the cops time, either. I mean, think of how much of their time would get pissed away if they actually had to deal with assault victims and crime and stuff like that.

Are you fucking joking me?

[SorryIsGoodEnough]

I'm on probation for pulling my sister's hair last Christmas. Stupid charge, so I don't even want to deal with the cops. If my brother so much as IMPLIES that I got violent first, I'm off to jail for the weekend.

I can't involve the cops. My family would never forgive me.

I can deal with the violence as long as it doesn't cause a permanent problem, like my dad's violence caused permanent brain damage. As long as it doesn't get THAT bad, I'm okay.

[Broomjockey]

I'm okay.

I'm sorry, but no, you're not. Neither psychologically nor physically. If you've got internal injuries, and you wait for treatment until after you've slept, you might not wake up. The very idea that you'd rather leave your kid parentless than piss off your family shows you're not okay.

I can't involve the cops. My family would never forgive me.

As for this: Who gives a fuck? They already don't give a shit about you. If they did, your mother would have been checking to make sure you weren't in immediate danger of dying, and then *forced* you to go to the hospital. Hell, if they did, you wouldn't be in this position in the first place. You may not have any friends there, but with family like that, you sure don't need enemies.

[Pedersen]

Everyone tells me I'm a waste of time (My sister today said 'Heather, if I'm capable of loving YOU, then I'm capable of anything!') so I don't want to take up space. I have vicodin and naproxen. Bad for my stomach lesions, but it'll help my chest and back and maybe when I fall asleep, I'll sleep off the breathing problems.

Similar to the "waste of time" sentiment would be someone saying "You're worthless", right? You have no value?

Let me tell you a little story that, at first, will sound completely unrelated. Humor me, and read it anyway.

The company I used to work for implemented SAP, which is a very very pricey piece of software (as in licensing costs hundreds of thousands of dollars), and requires a team of consultants to make it happen. Computer consultants cost, at a low number, $150/hour. No, there's not a typo there: One hundred fifty US dollars per hour. One such consultant asked me for a set of files from our existing system, and asked me to put them into what's called comma separated value, or CSV, format, so she could open them in Excel.

She then complained to me because the files were missing data: Some zip codes were only 4 digits long. I check the files, and all of them were 5 digits. Dug some more, and found out that she couldn't use Excel properly. You have to tell Excel that the columns are text, not numbers, or Excel will remove leading zeros.

If you don't know Excel, or CSV files, then that will sound complex. It's not. It's a matter of clicking about 3 extra buttons when opening the file. I had to tell this consultant how to use the tools she had told me she would be using to read the files she asked me to make.

Put a different way: I had to teach someone billing my company $150/hr how to use a tool she was supposedly already familiar with.

I think it's a safe bet that you're worth more than that consultant (maybe not for implementing SAP, I'll admit, but she wasn't worth much there, either .

Keep that in the back of your mind: You're worth at least as much as a $150/hr consultant.

As for what you've described, you have some severe issues in two categories, and both of them must be resolved as soon as possible.

Your body was damaged. You're having trouble breathing, you're having trouble talking, and I'd be surprised if you weren't having trouble swallowing (liquid and solid). Your throat has taken some damage, your chest has taken other damage. At the least, you've got potential torn muscle tissue. At the worst, I can't even guess at the damage that was done.

Second, your psyche has been damaged, and quite badly by your family. Quite frankly, you need help that is beyond the capability of this board's membership (well, unless we have a psychiatrist or therapist around that I don't know about). Think about what you've described here:

We have a person with extreme feelings of lack of self-worth, unwilling to seek medical treatment even though she is unable to breathe comfortably. The breathing issues were caused due to a violent altercation with a family member, and said family member expressed a desire to have the injured person die. In fact, said desire was expressed repeatedly. Despite all of this, the victim here is unwilling to seek any sort of assistance, either medical or legal, in order to return herself to fully functioning. Finally, the victim of this altercation has a child, and is bringing this child up in an environment that many outside observers describe as abusive. Even with that fact in evidence, the victim is unwilling to seek help.

You need the help. There are ways to get it. Go. Now. Get the help you need. Once done, get your child out and away from that environment. Failure to do this is condoning the actions and hurt that were placed upon you. Depending on the age of your child, such allowance by you may be perceived as acceptable by the child, thereby allowing your child to become injured in future due to your own inaction.

If you don't put a stop to this, your own child may well suffer for it.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

The very idea that you'd rather leave your kid parentless than piss off your family shows you're not okay.

.

This.

You know what else?

You aren't posting this here because you want to hear some new takes on this situation. You have had probably every sentiment expressed here come to your own mind long before you posted this.

You posted it here because you didn't trust the thoughts when they came from your own feelings on it. You needed it expressed by others.

You're a parent. You need to do whatever you need to do to get your own basic instincts for self preservation to kick in. For your kid's sake, if not for yours. Is your kid worthless?

[SorryIsGoodEnough]

I'm not bruised. There are no visible marks on my body. And I can breathe and I can talk it just hurts to.

Vicodin helps.

Of course I care about my daughter, I just...I don't think I'll die I just...hurt.

And my mom says it's not a big deal. She says even if I cracked a rib, there's nothing they could do anyway and I'd just be wasting my time, my kid's time, everyone's time.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

And my mom says it's not a big deal. She says even if I cracked a rib, there's nothing they could do anyway and I'd just be wasting my time, my kid's time, everyone's time.

Why the hell do you keep listening to her?!?! Do you really think you're such a waste of time? Do you really think getting what could be a serious injury checked out is a "waste of time?"

You keep saying you're a "waste of time." The people here who've given you advice obviously don't feel that way.

You deserve better. You deserve not to have to deal with a family that thinks swift and blinding violence is an A-okay way to solve its problems. And so does your daughter. You think she's going to be able to break the cycle when she sees this going on in her family?

You've gotten advice on what to do from several different posters here, and you just don't want to take. Heck, I shouldn't even be giving it if you don't want it. But it's 4 minutes to 2010 here, and I don't want to see you ending up like Jester's friend Tiny Dancer. I don't want to read another story about.

[Pedersen]

I'm not bruised. There are no visible marks on my body. And I can breathe and I can talk it just hurts to.

You need to read about what a broken rib can do. Here, let me help: Rib Fracture. In particular, note the information about what it is, what it can do (including the potential for damage to heart, lungs, and liver), and the various treatment options. If you have damage to your rib cage, you run the risk of any of those consequences.

Generally speaking, you don't want to damage those organs. Not if living is something that matters to you.

Of course I care about my daughter, I just...I don't think I'll die I just...hurt.

The only people who think they're going to die are the ones who are being told they're going to die by either their doctor or their weapon-weilding attacker. The rest of the people who die weren't expecting it. It just happened.

And my mom says it's not a big deal. She says even if I cracked a rib, there's nothing they could do anyway and I'd just be wasting my time, my kid's time, everyone's time.

Now there's a good source for unbiased information. When seeking the opinion of people on what should be done, as a rule, you probably should not ask someone who will be negatively affected (for instance, a mom who doesn't want to have her home invaded by cops, possibly getting her son arrested, due to violence perpetrated by said son).

That goes right on up there with asking any given terrorist for his/her opinion on the USA, and expecting to get an unbiased answer out of them.

I'll go ahead and finish out with this: Another forum member, Jester, told us about a friend of his that he had named Tiny Dancer. She died due to her abusive boyfriend. At least he could tell us about her. Right now, it sounds like no one here will know when that happens to you. Since you're not doing anything about the abuse, could you at least let someone know how to find you, so that when you simply stop posting, we can find out if you died due to your family?

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I just...I don't think I'll die .

An average of three women a day die in this country of domestic abuse. I would bet that they all thought this, too. But hey, I'm sure your case is entirely different from theirs.

And my mom says it's not a big deal. .

Your mom raised your brother.

Your mom ever get knocked around by a man? Don't answer that, I know the answer. It was rhetorical.

If you care about your child, do not teach her that this is okay. Unless you are looking forward to the day where she comes to you beat to hell and you are planning on telling her it's not a big deal, she shouldn't waste anyone's time.

Or unless you think you might enjoy going to the funeral of a child who died as a result of domestic abuse. Been there. I know it sounds like a fucking laugh riot, but in all honestly, it's nowhere near as fun as it sounds. Although the kid I knew, her idiot mom was dead too, so I guess at least for her mom, it worked out. She got to dodge the aftermath.

I'm sorry if I sound harsh...no, fuck that. No I don't. Your attitude towards this, especially as the parent of a DAUGHTER is really upsetting to me.