I’ve been doing a lot of research on abuse and I still can’t tell if I’m being abused. My mom has hit me, grabbed my face, called me a bitch, and once briefly wrapped her hands around my neck. But she’s almost always super nice, supportive, and fun to be around. When I told her about my anxiety around her, like being afraid she’ll randomly hurt me in the car, and about an attempt I had when I was younger, she said I wasn’t being abused and have never been abused. I love her more than anything and she says the same about me. So is this abuse???

Thank you for trusting us. You have clearly put a lot of careful thought into this. Loving someone deeply and being afraid of them at the same time is so disorienting. I am so sorry you are going through that. 

Perhaps part of why the research hasn't given you a clear answer is that most of us picture abuse as something constant (e.g. a parent who is cold or cruel all the time). Real families rarely look like that. Many survivors describe a parent who is genuinely warm, fun, and supportive most days, with moments of hitting, grabbing, or name-calling in between. Psychologists sometimes call the effect of that pattern intermittent reinforcement, meaning the good times are real, and they also make the hard times harder to hold onto, because you keep waiting for the person you love to come back. Her kindness and the harm can both be true at once. One does not erase the other.

The specific things you listed are ones that nurses, therapists, and child welfare workers take seriously when they hear them. Being hit, having your face grabbed, being called a bitch, and especially having hands wrapped around your neck are very serious ways to cause harm. I want to pause on that last one. Even when it is brief, pressure on the neck is something clinicians treat as a serious red flag, because it can cause injury without leaving visible marks and because it tends to show up in relationships where violence can escalate. Your fear of her hurting you in the car is not coming out of nowhere. Hypervigilance, meaning your nervous system staying on alert for danger, often develops when your body has learned that safety with someone is not predictable. So it stays watchful, even when things seem calm.

When you told her how you felt, she said you have never been abused. Her perspective matters to you. It makes sense that you want her to agree. But the person whose actions are being questioned is rarely in the best position to decide what those actions meant for you. Many parents genuinely cannot see their own behavior clearly, especially when they love the person they hurt. None of that has to be intentional to cause harm, and it does not make her a monster. You are still allowed to hold onto your own experience when she remembers it differently.

You also mentioned an attempt when you were younger. I do not want to move past that. It matters that you are still here, asking these questions. If anything like those feelings comes back, you can call or text 988 at any hour, and you do not need to be in crisis to reach out.

What you call this is yours to decide, and you do not have to settle on a word today. Something that might help with the confusion is keeping a private record, somewhere she will not see it, of what happens and how your body feels when it does. Write the date, what she said or did, and what you felt afterward. Over time, a record like that gives you something steady to come back to when your memory starts getting rewritten by someone else's version. You do not have to stop loving her to trust what you lived. Thank you for reaching out to us. We are here if you need anything.