My dad spanked me once. And you know... when I think of what I did... yep. I deserved it. He did it with an open hand and believe me, it was a few hours before I was sitting down. Was that abuse? No. I don't think so. He never had to do it again. Even to this day, and I'm 30, all my dad has to do is give me the "eyebrow" and I'm instantly behaved. So, I think that tactic worked. I stayed out of trouble my whole life because of it. If I was misbehaving, all my mother had to say was, "You'd better straighten up or I'm calling your daddy!" ... That was all it took. From one spanking.
What you are describing, I would call abuse. When blood is drawn it's too much. My mom used a belt on me once, but there weren't even welts or anything. My grandmother made me go pick my own switch once, and that was the hard part, she barely spanked me with it... I got paddled on more that one occasion at school... And through all that, not once was I ever bruised or marks left on me. It stung and that was about it.
I was however in an abusive relationship and unfortunately that did more than sting. And one of the reasons I wanted to comment here is that he wasn't the only one doing it. His friends knew, and they didn't say anything about it. We were living with 2 of his friends and usually he was careful not to do anything like that when anyone else was home. But, Deb witnessed it once because he didn't know she was there. She said nothing. She acted like it never happened and then once he hit me and I retalliated. Effectively. He had a black eye for 2 weeks and that (insert four letter word) called me up and asked me why I would hit him?!!!? I said, "um.. because he hit me first.." And she had the nerve to say, "He would never hit a girl. You're abusive." ??? Qua? She SAW him do it to me!!!! * * *??? He had everyone believing that he was the victim because he was usually careful to never mark up my face. He did try to bite my nose off once. That sucked. My point is that you can't depend on other people to get involved and save you. And, they may be in denial about it occurring because then they would have to admit to themselves how weak they were in not doing anything about it.
I agree that you should get counseling for this. It may help you get rid of some stress concerning the issue and it always helps to talk about it. I wish you luck.
