One of the most difficult emotions for survivors of childhood abuse to talk about is the desire to see an abusive parent suffer. Society expects children to love, forgive, and honour their parents, no matter what happened behind closed doors. As a result, many adult survivors carry feelings of anger, resentment, and even thoughts of revenge in silence, believing there is something wrong with them for feeling that way.

In reality, these feelings are often a normal response to abnormal circumstances.

A child who grows up in an abusive household experiences more than isolated incidents of harm. They may lose their sense of safety, self-worth, trust, and security. They may spend years living in fear, walking on eggshells, anticipating the next outburst, criticism, humiliation, or act of violence. While other children are learning confidence and independence, they are learning survival.

As adults, many survivors look back on what was taken from them and feel overwhelming anger. They see the opportunities they missed, the relationships damaged by trauma, the anxiety they continue to carry, and the years spent trying to recover. It is not uncommon for them to think:

“Why should I be the one suffering while the person who caused this carries on with their life?”

For some, the desire to see the abusive parent suffer is not about cruelty. It is about balance. It is about wanting the person responsible to finally understand the pain they caused. It is about wanting accountability after years of denial, minimisation, excuses, or family secrecy.

Many survivors long for an apology that never comes. Others hope for acknowledgement, remorse, or recognition of the damage done. When those things are absent, anger can intensify. The wounded child inside the adult may believe that if the parent experienced the same pain, justice would finally be served.

Yet revenge rarely delivers the healing people hope for.

The reason is simple: revenge focuses attention on the abuser, while recovery focuses attention on the survivor. One keeps the past alive; the other creates a future.

This does not mean survivors should forgive, forget, or excuse what happened. It does not mean they should remain silent. Accountability matters. Truth matters. Boundaries matter. Reporting abuse, exposing harmful behaviour, protecting others, and refusing to participate in family denial can all be important parts of healing.

What matters most is understanding that the desire for an abusive parent to suffer often comes from a place of profound hurt rather than malice. Beneath the anger is usually grief—the grief of a child who needed love, protection, and safety and did not receive it.

The greatest tragedy is not that survivors feel anger. The greatest tragedy is that they were placed in circumstances that made such anger inevitable.

Healing begins when survivors recognise that their feelings are valid, but their future does not have to be defined by them. The goal is not to become what hurt them. The goal is to reclaim the life that was always theirs to live.

In the end, the most powerful response to an abusive childhood is not revenge. It is refusing to let the abuse dictate the rest of the story. The child who once dreamed of making the parent suffer becomes the adult who chooses truth, strength, and freedom. And that is something no abuser can ever take away.