is this abuse or not?
so im 17F and my parents have always been seen as the strict parents to all of my friends and ive always been so jealous of other peoples relationships with their parents because me and my parents literally have no relationship. the worst behaviour mainly comes from my stepdad and my mum just goes along with what he says and copies his behaviour to avoid arguing with him.
ever since i became a teenager, i have literally felt bullied at home. whenever i would cry or get upset i'd get mocked and mimicked by my stepdad and he would laugh and call me horrible names and sometimes during arguments even threaten me with violence which he never has done but things like this has really made me scared of my parents, which i think nobody should have to be scared of their parents. arguing with them can never end with it getting properly sorted out and nothing ever gets compromised to make things fair, its always their way and they always take my belongings like my phone or they ground me and isolate me from all of my friends to make me sad.
recently, i made posts on several other communities on reddit. to sum it up, my phone has been taken for almost 5-6 months now (i've lost track) and ive been grounded for most of these months and was only and am still only allowed my phone for an hour a day. my life is literally so depressing and im miserable all the time because my friends are all out having a fun summer whilst im sat in bed and i even get told off and told off for sitting in bed when its quite obvious im depressed and its my summer holidays at the minute and i dont want to be sat with my family because it just causes arguments. i'm barely allowed to go out either which is horrible for me because i have to sit at home all day.
my parents have stripped away at any sort of confidence i have by making me feel like a failure and even telling me im a failure when i didnt pass all of my exams because i was struggling and i tried my hardest and they tell me all the time im going to fail when i talk about getting exam results and they never make me feel good about myself or proud. when i last got my results back nobody told me they were proud that i had passed and i felt like shit. nothing is ever good enough and my whole character has been ruined living in this house. i havent got a stable father figure because my real dad is in prison and him and my mum havent been together since i was 4 and he hasnt bothered with me for a large portion of my life and i can even see in my relationships with other people that i cant handle arguments and i can see signs of my parents behaviour affecting me as a person. i get screamed at almost daily and i hate my life genuinley not even in a sarcastic or overdramatic way like i genuinley do.
i'm trying to explain my situation as much as possible but its hard to remeber a lot because my had has blocked most of it out but what can i do at this point? i dont know whether to try and leave for a bit to show them that i cant do this anymore. i feel like its abuse.
Posted Aug 10, 2026, 4:11 PM UTC