Beth claims she grew up in a “house of horrors” filled with abuse allegedly at the hands of her mother. “Living through the abuse from my mother was a living hell,” says the 22-year-old, claiming that her mom spanked her, would whip her with a belt that had been soaked in hot water, put socks in her mouth, spit on her, locked her in a room with no food or water, fed her hot sauce when she talked back, and forced her to do sit-ups and push-ups as punishment.
“My mother’s abuse was never-ending because when she wasn’t being physical, then she was being mentally, verbally abusive,” says Beth, who hasn’t spoken to her mom, Cecilia, in two years. Turning to Dr. Phil to help give her closure on a painful past, she says, “I do want to confront her. I’m tired of going through this.”
Cecilia denies many of her daughter’s allegations — like soaking the belt in hot water, slapping her with anything other than an open hand, and beating her kids into “bloody pulps” — and calls her daughter a “master manipulator” with “psychological issues.” But she admits she “whooped” her kids. “I did spank them — usually with my hand or I had a flat sandal … but if I brought out the belt, you knew that you messed up.”
Cecilia, who reveals her childhood scars from what she says was a violent home, says, “I had my issues, but I didn’t know how to be any other way. As far as I knew, as long as I didn’t burn my kids with cigarettes or put them in a closet, I thought that was being a good parent.”
See what happens when the two women reunite for the first time in years, and find out how Dr. Phil suggests they move forward.
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