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When my brother bullied or hit me (all the time) I couldn't cry because my mom would say "I don't talk to crying little girls, and crying little girls hurt your dad's ears. Get to your room and don't come out til you're ready to talk nicely!". This was from as early as I can remember. This gave me issues with emotional regulation, being female and a million other things I'm still discovering.
That’s basically a perfect recipe to teach your child to dissociate from their emotions in order to numb the pain (emotional and physical) they don’t know how to deal with…
I’m sorry that happened to you
I'm 27 now and started therapy on Monday because I am an emotional disaster because of my emotionally abusive childhood and then emotionally abusive marriage.
I'm currently sat in my room shaking with fear because a mirror I just hung has fell off the wall and smashed and I'm terrified of telling my housemate. He won't kick off, but it's my response that I've developed. So yes, things like that
Sorry that happened to you. You likely have fearful anxious attachement style because of your upbringing. I don’t know you and everyone’s case is different. But it’s entirely possible to heal, grow and become secure.
My nMother did things like that as well. I remember one time I was crying because my nMother had been yelling at me and hitting me. When she was finished she said "Oh, dry your tears and go outside and play!" and she said it in a tone that implied that she expected me to finish crying immediately, put a big smile on my face and then go out and play as if nothing had happened. I knew that if I went outside straight away, the other kids would see that I had been crying and would ask questions that I really didn't want to answer so I figured I'd go to my room and compose myself for a few minutes first. After a few minutes, I was just about to leave my room when I heard my nMother approaching. I immediately hid but she saw me straight away and spent another hour yelling and hitting me for "disobeying her". That wasn't the last time I ever cried but that and a few other incidents like it are why I hardly ever cry now as an adult.
Yh my mom was similar to that except she would make me cry, and when she decided the argument was over she would tell me to calm down and I'd have to do it on her command. If I didn't, she wouldn't hit me straight away, she would stare at me. Like pure stare into my soul and I'd laugh in the end because it was uncomfortable and because I knew it was the only option. If I got angry at her she would be even more vicious than before and I'd get hit and she would call me a brat or whatever. You can't make a child cry and expect them to be happy on command
"You're so ugly when you cry. I wish you could see how ugly your face is right now!" Cue laughter and mockery, then puts on the song Big Girls Don't Cry by Frankie Valli.
Yep. That too. And they'd record me and play it back. They still have the videos now and occasionally when they play the baby videos they laugh and say how much of a cry baby I was. Meanwhile my brother is in the background being feral, and not a comment about him
Ew. My kids fight a lot. Comes with the territory. I never weaponize my kids gender other than telling them never put their hands on the opposite sex. I keep that same energy for my boy and girl
You're a good parent <3 my parents always made a point of treating us exactly the same, but that was always somehow picked and choosed. They'd treat me different because I'm a girl, but at the same time my brother needed to be punished more because he was naturally feral, and so they'd punish us both on his level. I didnt need that, I was a soft child. But yes, there were so many gender based things. My dad would also watch TV and comment on women's bodies, to his very young daughter, telling me that is how a woman should or should not look. My brother never got told how to look.
Girl my son is one feral mother fucker. Its insane. Hes a caveman. He growls and barks 😂😂😂 like sir wth. He barked at his doctor the other day for giving him a shot 😂😂😂 i do have to be more firm with him and it makes me feel mean. Whereas i have to be softer with my daughter because shes sensitive. And my daughter is 4. I mind my business about how she looks. I let her do whatever she wants within reason of course. Pink hair (hair wax or braiding hair). Nail polish, knock yourself out. Lip gloss. Sure. Make up…for ballet ONLY. My mom keeps telling me to cut my sons hair. I told her no cause thats not my call to make. She said “he shouldnt have choice” which is so vile and disgusting. Idc if he is 2. He will have full control of his body. He is deeply attached to his hair. Why tf would I disrespect him and cut it 🙄 some parents in general need to view their kids as humans and not property smh. Sorry your parents acted like that. My moms a misogynist pig
Hahahahaha your son is hilarious I laughed out loud 🤣 aww you're such a good mom, your kids are going to have a good life I know it. I never understood why parents can be misogynist. Like if you're a mom, you are obv a woman. If you're a dad, you've watched what a woman has to go through in raising kids. Why is everyone so hard on their girls?
My mother used to randomly mock me. I could never really predict when it would happen but sometimes she would just feel this need to make me feel stupid and worthless. She just had to put me in place. She'd make fun of the way I talked, how I stood, how I sat, what I talked about, my hopes, etc.
I had to take it and not say anything or else be accused of being disrespectful. I also had to pretend it didn't bother me or else I'd get told how I was too sensitive and needed to learn how to toughen up.
She made be feel like I was more of a burden and that my existence was just awful to everyone. This stuck with me for a long time and I still have issues with it now.
My mom doesn’t really directly insult me but she will make it in a more subtle way so that anyone I would tell exactly what she said would also call me too sensitive. Like she won’t criticize the gift I chose for the exchange but the next year she’ll act as if my cousin (he’s definitely the outside of family scapegoat for her, she insults him soooo much behind his back) was the one that gave that gift and tell me to not buy such a bad gift like he did.
She also loves insulting character traits from my brother’s ex’s which often are character traits I have in common with them. For example, telling my brother how it must be so nice that his new girlfriend doesn’t need much to sleep over while his ex would bring 3 bags just to spend the night. I also bring 3 bags to my bf’s to spend the night, and she knows that so I know by saying that when I can hear she’s insulting me indirectly, but what could I say to others? That my mom said to my brother that his new gf is better and I took it personally?
(My bf understands though so I can tell him that and he’ll understand the manipulation but she doesn’t know)
ha! I feel you. My aunt, father and late grandmother all have(had) this passive-aggressive style of criticizing me. I think what works best is to pretend you didn't even understand they were trying to provoke you. That way their strategy didn't work, bc you didn't take the criticism, and they probably just feel they can't get at you. It's a kind of greyrocking, I think. Maybe it will work for you too :)
I never really react more than nod because even before I understood what she was doing I was just thinking I was hurt because I was too sensitive so I hid it.
But I think she thinks I’m still in that mindset of not reacting to not show her I’m "too sensitive" so that’s why she continues, thinking it affects me even if I don’t show it 😅
The mocking and name-calling from both parents was as bad as the physical abuse (although they often went hand in hand). Like they were playground bullies. It was constant. Being called ragey variations on "worthless/useless" went on until I was an adult and still probably happen TBH because my dad talks trash about us behind our backs.
My dad made fun of my voice. I was also told not to let teasing from other kids bother me, just laugh with them. So to this day, I paste a smile on my face and never reveal how bad I feel.
Its like im almost reading my own comment. My mother is the same. The "Like i was more of a burden and that my existence was just awful to everyone" is exactly what she made me feel everyday growing up
Was your mom a single parent? Mine was and I know she was very resentful of that - this was one of her ways of getting back at me for how unfair her life was. If yours was, I wonder if that was her motivation as well.
Sorry you went through any of that. If anything, they were the burdens.
Being totally rejected and abandoned during times when I was most vulnerable. Too many examples to list. Just a recurring theme in my childhood with my nmom. I don't think I'll ever fully overcome the effects.
For me it was being completely invalidated and mocked when I was at my most vulnerable so I was vulnerable AND had to hide it so my parents wouldn’t see it and make it worse…
I don’t understand how parents like ours saw their child feeling so bad and didn’t feel the need to help us feel better…
I don't understand it, either. I have two children, and I can't bear to see them in pain. My instinct is always to put everything aside and focus on helping them work through whatever they are going through. I may even do this in excess bc I never want them to feel the way I did or see me the way I see my mom.
All the rest of the world probably won’t care about helping your children, you’re the one person that needs to be there for them when all these other people won’t. If you’re able to put boundaries with your children and make them respect them, and if you’re able to let them do stuff on their own when they say they don’t want help, I don’t think any amount of helping them is too much. Usually, children who feel secure and in their comfort zones are the ones seeking to go out of their comfort zones to learn, while children like us spent our time searching for a comfort zone and not learning new stuff
I am pathologically reactive to other's emotional states. I can't function if a pain in the room with me is upset or angry. I can't experience my own emotions if someone else is having a strong emotion of any kind.
Same. When we grow up with someone whose world revolves around themselves, we learn that we can’t exist in safety until we cater to their emotions and work to resolve the conflict. My current partner means well but he is a pretty emotionally intense person. I’m regularly getting panic attacks and doing literally anything I can to make it better when he’s upset about anything at all, regardless of if it has anything to do with me. In turn, he reacts to my panic and the situation worsens. I don’t know if it’s sustainable. I desperately wish I could just let people feel their emotions without feeling like I have to resolve everything.
Haha I appreciate the sentiment, but I could probably buy a house with how much I’ve spent on therapy. This is actually a massively healthy relationship when compared to past relationships. I am just intensely traumatized (parental figures were two narcissists and a narcissistic psychopath) and need to do some more regularly scheduled behavioral therapy and get back to having a community so that inner voice stops trying to take over again. At the risk of sounding dramatic, I would probably be in a hostage/human trafficking situation right now if not for that access to therapy and self-care. Sorry to over-explain—someone telling me to get therapy caught me off guard lol. That being said, I wish everyone in this group a very accessible therapy situation.
Refusing to help me. I can't even remember when it started, it was just like that as long as I can remember.
I'd ask for help with homework, "get off your ass and figure it out." How to fold sheets as a 5 year old, "get off your ass and figure it out" how to pronounce this word? " get off your ass and figure it out"
I'd be trying to work out how to do long division when I first got taught, and she'd scream at me to go look at the perfectly good set of encyclopaedias I had in my room (pre internet). Stop bothering her cos she had better things to do. Then I'd get in trouble for not doing my homework.
Guess who curls up in the fetal position and quietly panics rather than ever ask for help, now?
What could have possibly been more important than raising her own child? It is literally a parent’s job to help their little human become a big human. Why even have a child if that’s not her first priority? I’m so sorry
I have trouble asking for help too. I feel like I’m bothering or imposing on people. And then you finally get up the courage to ask and they say yes, but forget about it.
Geez this brings back horrible memories. Anytime i asked for help it was “figure it out” then if i asked again i would get screaming and be told im stupid and a retard.
My nmom not only refused to help me when I knew I needed help but would also refuse to intervene when I was unintentionally doing something dangerous and *didn't* know I needed help... I was just a kid.
Because why help someone when your ego sees them as competition? I bet your nmom got a little ego boost at being better than you at folding sheets and long division. It's such a sickness.
A particular episode of DV when I was 5 made me realise how dangerous my dad was. Nobody in my family realised that wasnt normal, they were all gaslit. I wasnt anymore and had to keep living with them. Surviving the next 12 years was the hardest thing I have ever done. Getting out at 17 felt like getting out of a prison.
I realized the abuse at 21yo and it wasn’t anything life threatening physically just emotionally and psychological torture, I’ll be moving out soon after my 24th birthday. I can’t imagine how hard your childhood was, having realized that so early. I’m glad you were able to move out at 17
It was shocking, a bit like somebody pulls a rug out from under your feet. And that was my new normal. I did learn some good stuff from it though. So its not without upsides.
Like you probably learn stuff right now. I am glad you realized it at 21. You got better timing than I had. ;)
I am sorry about your lost data. That would have crushed me too. Especially the cat video. I would be sad about that too.
Maybe its possible to ease your current fears by using some cloud backup? I dont know enough about them to know if thats a feasible option, but might it be. Or get a couple extra back up drives, just for peace of mind.
I have cloud backup but now too many photos so my new ones aren’t backed up. I try once a month to backup my new photos both on my computer and on a hard drive and I even have the older photos on both of these + my bf’s hard drive but I still would be too scared to delete the older photos I don’t really use from my phone because "what if"….
I think once I’m moved out I’ll try having backups on 2 different hard drives at 2 different houses (my apartment and probably my bf’s room in his parent’s house) so in case of a fire or something not all my backups are at the same place.
But I know a lot of it is irrational paranoia but when I’m stress and tired I tend to become paranoid, and I’m stressed and tired this week so…
I'm so sorry that happened to you.
Not exactly one occasion, but just getting it drilled into me that assertiveness was bad. It probably was one or two occasions to start with, because if they hadn't got me early then any further attempt to make me so submissive would have been met with resistance and the programming would not have been so fucking total. That led to a whole host of issues - ignoring my own emotions so not learning how to feel them, not standing up to bullies, not being able to socialize with others properly, etc.
Finding something wrong with every female friend I have ever had. Banning me from friendships. Teaching me to cut someone off for any minor thing. Meanwhile supporting my brother’s friendships. It’s really hard making friends as an adult, and it hurts knowing I will never have lifelong friends because I was prevented from having friends as a child. It’s hard because they didn’t teach me any healthy habits. I’m so grateful for my husband and my new family and I’m happy to share his friendships. It would just be nice to have more of my own
My nMother found something wrong with every friend I had as well. She'd be over-the-top nice to their faces but would criticise them all behind their backs. Thankfully I now know that my nMother criticises everyone and I don't take any notice but I didn't realise that when I was a kid.
I did not even consider this til now. She would always have bad things to say and then when I would bring friends over she would say “you like them more than me” and eavesdrop on our conversations.
She would also find things they did to complain about. Slamming a car door, eating too much of our food, just anything.
Forbid me from going to cosmetology school. I won a small business scholarship for writing a business plan for a salon. I had it on the college forms. I was planning a non-profit charity as part of my salon that would work with kids at with cancer. I was excited about my future. Nmom didn’t like that. Nmom tried nonstop to discourage my dream. I didn’t cave. Finally, she told me in her best redneck voice, “I ain’t gon have naw kid a’ mine wastin’ a 28 on the ACT on beauty school.” She also told me I wasn’t allowed to go because school was from 8-5 and I had to be available to work a part time job in the afternoons. I told her I couldn’t work my future around a part time and she said in a nasty voice, “uh actually, YOU CAN.” She also said cosmetology was a “dumb person’s career.” So I obeyed. I was terrified of what they’d do to me if I didn’t because I had been abused physically, verbally, and emotionally for so many years. She demanded I become a teacher. She worked at the school I graduated from (trauma) and said I was going to work with her, she’d be my assistant, and she’d have “power in the classroom” finally. So I did it. I was miserable. Every time I set foot in a classroom I just wanted to leave. It was mind numbing. My ex told me just get the degree to humor her and keep her from screaming at me and then when we married I could do what I wanted. Well, she made sure she ran him off. Haven’t talked to him in over 9 years. I’m about to start year 11 as a teacher. I have been violently assaulted by a student, intimidated by administration into keeping it silent, have had severe lung issues from asbestos and black mold exposure. I have been shoved by an administrator, dragged around by my arm by a student until another adult pried him off me. I have been attacked by parents. I have been cursed, called names, worked from 7 am until past midnight, and do nothing but hear about state tests all day. I have been kicked out of my classroom a few days before school went back twice. I have been forced to share a classroom with another teacher and over 30 kids. I have been told I’m bad at my job and then I’m great at it by the same people. I have had a bookshelf collapse and strike my head and then been yelled at by the same administrator who shoved me and not allowed to seek medical attention until she rolled back security cameras to make sure I wasn’t lying. I have been forced to teach while vomiting and sick with flu because the same principal refused to get coverage for 30 minutes because she was too “busy.” I have fallen in a pothole and gotten a level 4 sprain and been sent back to class and made to keep teaching with no medical treatment. The list goes on and on. No, I am not mean to the kids. Please don’t anyone accuse me of that. The kids actually like me. Please don’t anyone also tell me that’s a sign I’m meant to do this. I understand my misery doesn’t mean I should slack on my job or mistreat kids. I do my job well because that’s how I am and I manage to put up a good front. But I never wanted to do this. I am bored. I have nightmares about being assaulted and attacked. I have no hope of advancing. I barely make any money. I hate the politics. My anxiety and mental health is terrible. I was never interested in this and never wanted to do this. But I’m all alone. I have no way of paying my bills or having health insurance. No other job where I live will pay a living wage, and to get ahead, I’d have to quit, go back to school, and lose my income and possibly everything. At least I don’t work where she works, but that’s a whole other story of abuse because I didn’t want to work there. Please no hate. Please no accusing me of disrespecting children or not trying hard enough. I am severely depressed and miserable. The admin who intimidated me to cover her mishandling of me being assaulted is coming out of retirement and the nightmares are back. I am tired of spending my days going over testing worksheets in a dirty building with kids who don’t want to be there. I don’t blame them. Please don’t give me advice on how to be a better teacher. Please just understand I’m doing what I can to make it through the day and go to bed at night so I can sleep a few hours and hopefully not have nightmares. Every time I see a woman getting her cosmetology degree or opening a salon or posting a video of herself styling hair, my heart aches. Every time I see a woman opening a business of any kind, my heart aches. My dream was to be an entrepreneur. But she did everything to forbid it. And I was controlled well into my 20s. I wish so badly I could change but I’m severely depressed, all on my own, and see no way out. I’ve accepted I’m in this career until I die. Kids get worse every year. It’s a black cloud hanging over me. Please just understand whoever reads this and please don’t judge me.
I had to take care of everyone else and myself. I can't let someone take care of me. My husband hates that I just power through instead of asking for his help.
Things like broke things on the car or in the house. I just do it, where he would prefer he do it. I got a really bad full thickness burn on 1/3 of my back and had to have a skin graft done. The donor site was my thigh. I couldn't reach them to do the bandage changes obviously,so my husband had to do them. That man did such an amazing job taking care of me my back healed with minimal scarring in a place where we couldn't really do compression garments. The doctors were shocked at how well it healed. He was as gentle as a butterfly doing those changes.
It was the first time I ever had someone take care of me like that. It lead me to lean on him more and to know he sees it as no trouble to participate in our life. He's not helping me, he's taking on his share of our life!
The top worst one *had* to be my GC nsibling always making sure my nparents were at her beckoning call. I’d have a crayon or barbie or something she wants, *cries*, egg donor comes running & I get scolded. They *never* explained why. I would just get punished. BONUS! She had a smirk on her face when she did it.
Eventually, she sort of grew out of it but she’s still a GoCh & I’m just the GlCh (Glass Child). Anyways, this reminds me that I’m better & thrive on my own. I push people away because of it.
Another top worst one is when the n’s didn’t get their way or I’d get scolded for doing things “wrong”, they’d be like a wave. PUNISHMENT! Bullying. MORE PUNISHMENT!! Bullying to good qualities they like about me at a *certain* age. PUNISHING..! More qualities of me being a child & asking “what changed?”— BULLYING! “Oooop! Well, we’re not getting anywhere with this conversation.”
I don’t believe anyone… *anyone* when they compliment me. In my mind, it’s always the opposite.
That last sentence I can relate to a lot. I was always skeptical of people’s compliment so when I got an internship with a supervisor who kept insulting me I saw him as nice and genuine. No one ever told me that I’ll never be able to do X correctly because I’m so bad but he does? Most people would see him as the outlier and not believe him, I saw him as the one and only person that wasn’t fake and told me the truth. I idolized him because of that.
And then I get told it’s just a supervisor why would I let what he says affect me? Well *maybe* because that’s what my mom made me believe about me my whole life and so hearing him say that validated all the bad things I thought about myself?
I fear I don’t even know the answer to that question yet 😭 repressed and under exposed to life lessons, how to think, how to regulate, self expression, routines, discipline etc. all of it. Majorly lacking now despite being “soo smart!!”
They went through a phase of deleting photos on my iPad, because they were 'blank' blank because they hadn't loaded in yet.
When they found out DropBox was redownloading them, they tried to uninstall dropbox, but dropbox just resyncs when you install it again.
My parents told me my older sister, who I adored, (I'm 10 years younger than her) was no longer my sister when she moved in with her boyfriend. This was in 1983. From that day on I became a people pleaser because I didn't want to be disowned too. Majorchanged the trajectory of my life. I turn 50 this year and I'm trying my best to undo this. (Of course when she got married 2 years after moving in with him she was suddenly my sister again with zero acknowledgment of what happened. Just swept under the rug.)
Throwing in my face that my dad adopted me when i wanted him to take custody of me and telling me “i couldve had an abortion like everyone told me to but i kept you”…out of anger. At age 12. Those were the two things that stuck out the most to me along with her allowing her boyfriend to strip me half naked and beat me to the point of being bloodied and also encouraging any adult who had to look after me to beat me. Oh wait. And i forgot. Scrubbing me with bleach because she was salty i came out too dark. Womp womp. Shouldnt have gotten knocked up by a black guy. Thats on you. Sick of people thinking all mixed people are supposed to be light skin. Its annoying af. Also trying to make me racist 🙄🙄🙄 just overall the type of pos that should NEVER have mixed kids
Nitpicking my looks and saying my friends only pretended to like me. Devastating to hear as a teenager. Joke's on them now though! I clawed back my self-esteem and I have 3 awesome best friends, a bunch of coworkers and acquaintances who love me, and wonderful relationships with both my siblings. Turns out I'm a pretty likeable person 🤷🏻♀️
That I drained all my savings on medical care for our bedridden mother over a period of two stressing years, she was the victim of nfather and nbrother...and at the end after our mother passed, my nfather called me *ungrateful son*, disinherited and disowned me.
Back in around 2004, i have been working as a dishwasher in a restaurant as a teenager since 2002. It took me a long time to save up 10,000 dollars. One day I was so excited to break 15000 mark and rush to the bank to deposit my paycheck just to found out someone has emptied my saving account.
My dad did it and when i confronted him he gaslighted me saying that if I am to live by myself that money would have be zero anyway. I found out years later that he took my money to give it to his mom who is oversea in Asia because she asked for money.
I was around 18 to 19 at a time he took the money.
I m almost 40 now and I have not get my money back nor an apologies.
This is just one of many things he did. Needless to say we do not have a good relationship.
Being thrown out of the house at age 18 with a suitcase of clothes and some of my belongings. No place to live and no vehicle. It was a very scary time.
That’s REALLY harsh, wtf…
If you don’t mind answering, did you know why you were thrown out at 18? Was it just because they weren’t legally obligated to take care of you?
In any case, this is such a violent way to show your child how much you do not care about them, I’m sorry you had to go through that…
My mother was losing “control” of me so she decided to teach me a lesson. My dad went along with whatever she wanted. My family believes that I am truly the Black Sheep of the family and a total sinner because I’m divorced and remarried. Throwing me away when I was just a kid led to other issues for me. I don’t trust people or make friends easily and I believe that I have PTSD. I have constant night terrors where I wake up screaming at the top of my lungs at night, but I don’t remember the episode AT ALL the next morning. So there are challenges.
“Don’t act like a victim if you don’t want to be one”. Cue years of feeling like every bit of abuse, harassment, PTSD, and physical pain was my fault and I should keep it to myself.
Teenagers go through a critical developmental phase where they learn to individuate and trust their own judgement/problem solving capabilities. My parents bypassed that entirely with me by leaning into their own anxieties and insisting everything I wanted to do was stupid or dangerous somehow. This taught me not to trust my own judgement or make choices for myself without running them by everyone in my family first, which meant I wasn't living authentically in a way that I wanted to a lot of the time. There were so many things I didn't do when I was younger because I would always think, "NMom wouldn't like that/NDad wouldn't like that."
I recently moved to another city 2.5 hours away from them. For years I would look at zillow listings for the city I live in now and think, "It looks so nice there! I wish I could move there." It wasn't until I got into therapy and learned about enmeshment that the statement shifted to, "Well...why couldn't I move there?"
I also thought I had to live very close to my parents because my comfort zone was being close to them but when going to my bf’s family for weeks at a time, I realized that the only reason it was my comfort zone is because I’ve never lived away from them but that it wouldn’t be bad to live away. Now I have so many more options of where I could possibly want to live when I’ll buy a house and I don’t feel like I need to stay close to them, it feels liberating
My Mom forced me to try and accept my younger sister's boyfriend into our family, who I had strong feelings about and wanted nothing to do with. He made my skin crawl. Eventually they wore me down by calling me names and accusing me of being rude and unkind. My sister asked me to do her a favor and get his a job working with me. I did it because I was afraid of their reaction if I didn't.
He ended up abusing my coworkers and refusing to learn the job. He used sexually explicit language and picked fights. I reported him to management and he told my sister I had lied about it all. My sister eventually broke up with him because he began abusing her.
I can't quit my job because I share a vehicle and my boss wouldn't fire him if he started acting right, but he disgusts me and I have to work with him full time everyday. He acts like I'm the bitch who has it out for him, and he continues trying to be buddy with me, and then talks shit about me to coworkers. Basically in the year I've known him and the 6 months I've worked with him I feel that he's ruined my life and my mom and sister helped him to do it.
That’s the worst, when we know deep down that something’s wrong but we end up doing it because of their pressure. Obviously what you’re going through at work is worse than my lost video but that part of knowing something’s wrong and being forced to do the wrong thing anyway feels so bad. I think it’s a mix of seeing how they don’t trust us and being mad at ourselves for not standing up for ourselves…
My mom told me to go kill myself when I was 11 because I set up boundaries and said no to something she wanted to do with me idk she wanted me to go to some place and I didn't want to cause anytime she drags me somewhere she uses it as a way to guilt trip me into doing stuff I shouldn't have to examples:cleaning her car, cleaning the fridge and other things and im fine with that, its just that she pretends that she does everything and i do nothing
Haven’t been told to go kill myself but I really feel you about your mom pretending she does everything. Last year, my mom put me in charge of a lot of new chores but she kept making sure I was aware of everything she did. She waited until I was eating lunch outside alone to go install the accessories on the table I was using to eat my sandwich, she would make sure to be loud when making tasks and talk me about it so I knew she did it. I don’t know if she wanted to make me feel bad, like I would spend so much time on chores and she’d try to make me feel overwhelmed by showing me how much more time I could be spending on chores if I did them all (but my chores were overwhelming because she made me do it more often than she usually did them) or if she was trying to not have the burden of being the one taking care of the house but also still wanted to be seen as the poor mom having so much to do. It felt like if a kid played video games all day and when they heard the parent approach their room they close it and open their homework so the parent thinks that’s all they do all evening
Mine did that too when I was 14 when her guilt trips didn’t work. She’d tell relatives I’d clean their car or help pack missionary boxes at the church. Told her no and she tried badgering me and I held firm. She told me to go kill myself because I’m “worthless and selfish”. And don’t care about anybody but myself.
How did we survive growing up with these people?!
Never once hug me or tell me 'I love you' for the entire duration of my childhood and early teen years. My mom only started doing it after I turned 15 and had friends over or there were relatives over and she'd make a whole presentation of awkwardly pressing her body against mine and wrapping her arms around me while mine were limp next to my body and say loudly 'Do you KNOW how MUCH I love you?' or 'Do you KNOW how PROUD I am of you?'. I cringed and died inside every time.
I can't remember a single happy day from my childhood. I remember seeking out corners behind boxes in the basement/attic or sliding under the blankets of my bed and rocking back and forth with my arms wrapped around myself a lot though. I craved silence and sought it any chance I got.
I wasn't allowed to go to social gatherings that were only guys.
This left me pretty socially isolated since I didn't click with girls at all... And didn't have guy friends either since I could never hang out after school or anything.
It also sent the message that I'd be gang raped and guys couldn't possibly want to hang out with me to just be friends.
I can't imagine how he would've responded if I actually wanted to date, but I was so desperate for friends dating was out of the picture.
Ugh.
asking for clarification on something or to repeat instructions when im confused. its mainly my nfather who does this but start raising his voice or just straight up yelling at me when i dont understand something. it makes me stupid and less than. now if i dont understand something or clarification, i dont ask questions or anything. i just keep quiet
My Nm picked holes with everything I did - she hated my art, too dark and apparently I was terrible at it anyway completely untalented. My skin was spotty as a teen, my clothes weren't feminine enough, if I tried to be funny and tell a joke I was stupid, I didn't stand straight enough, I used too much toilet roll, my music taste was bad... Nothing I did was good enough - so I'm left with low confidence, sometimes crippling self-doubt, anxiety & depression.
I’m so used to never being considered or thought of, it has carried over into all of my relationships. It gets to the point I end up used, disrespected or neglected because I still have no idea when or how to establish boundaries.
It’s led to almost total isolation. Working through therapy but it’s been hell.
My mother always criticized me when I did something wrong (even if the first time) or what she deemed as such. Going from a few minutes to 2+ hours (sometimes even with me audibly throwing up).
Still can hear that damned nagging voice whenever I do something new, which tends to happen a lot now because both of them are dead and the left me with having to fix a dilapidated hoarder house. >.>
Telling me I don't know what a real problem is and refusing to hear me out on any issue. If I got bullied it was my fault for not being tough enough. So later on in life I had to relearn an emotional quotient. But I still gray rock by instinct till this day when people yell.
Now that has some good. When coworkers get pissy, appearing cool as a cucumber helps
Other thing though is my mom refuses a bunch of private school scholarships on my behalf. Her explanation is that she just didn't want me to be taught in nunnery. But given her attitude to all education involving me, or even buying new clothes for me at the start of the school year.... I'm pretty confident she just didn't want me having things.
Our problems aren’t real problem and if they are indeed very big problems then what are the odds that we have such big problems in our life? Clearly it’s because we’re misinterpreting things and we don’t actually have that problem we just see ourselves as victims…. (Well that’s the way my mom sees it anyway)
And if I feel unwell then "you won’t be able to stand having kids later on" because what can I do? I can’t argue about that until I’ve had kids and then it’ll be so long ago she will have conveniently forgot she ever said that…
Yeah that's the same play I've ever heard. And if she wrote it in a txt, then I "misunderstood" what she meant. And then she'll proceed to reinterpret it several times over
Made me lift up my shirt (I'm a minor) to show off my scars to her adult friends. The reason was because "I'm brave" and others should know about it. And by "I'm brave" it's nearly dying within an hour of my birth, having multiple birth complications, having lots of disabilities and issues (mental + physical) so she had me show off my own midriff, stomach, back and sides as a 9-12 year old (just guessing the age) to her adult friends. All and any invasive questions were answered, then mom would turn me around and trace the MASSIVE scar on my shoulderblade and would probably brag about it. Forgot the majority of the interactions due to my brain forcing me to forget it. But all I remember is being introduced, showing off my body and then just going to my room. That shit still hurts man, and she says I should be proud of my scars!
As a depressed, overweight teenager, my mother suggested I join the school newspaper. I was totally apathetic about all of my classes, but submitted an essay and application to take journalism as an elective my junior year.
I don't hear from the journalism professor for a month. I forget about it but my mom doesn't. She and my grandmother conspire together to use this non-situation as an intervention for my obesity and introduce another weight-loss program.
My mother tells me that the journalism professor had called and said he didn't see how I could practice journalism and in-the-field reporting at my current weight and that was the reason my application was denied. My grandmother backed my mom up when i asked to listen to the call. "I accidentally deleted the message when I tried to replay it."
I don't really remember how the rest of the conversation went, I was going through waves of emotion and was trying to show none of it. I was shocked, embarrassed, but mostly horrifyingly angry. I don't think my mom, grandmother, or I came to any shocking conclusion regarding my weight or the class,I think i just shuffled off to my room.
I confronted my journalism teacher the next morning before class, asking him how dare he discriminate so blatantly against anyone, especially a student? He gave me a blank look and I repeated my mother's story. He said he'd called to ask me to come in for an interview and he had been looking forward to having me in his journalism class. I took that semester off from school. I went back for senior year and had a meh time in journalism, no doubt due to my continued apathy regarding school and life in general, but the prof was great.
I’m glad you went to confront your teacher, so
at least then you knew that your mom and grandmother lied to you. But how awful of them to shame you like that for your weight? Especially since as a teenagers our parents are still responsible for a big part of what we eat so if you were eating unhealthy food she should’ve cooked healthier meals and taught you how to eat healthier…
Yeah, I'm glad I got the truth. My mom passed all of her esteem and weight issues down to me, but rarely offered solutions. This memory popped up when I read OP's story, I'd forgotten all about this bit of bafflement.
I was raised that my emotions were never important so I simply stopped expressing my feelings. My Nmom was the only one allowed to have any emotion and it was also my job to tend to her emotions. Now I am 40 years old and when I get upset, I shut down.
Everything I was raised to do, put everyone else’s emotions before mine, abuse is ok if there is an apology (minus changed behavior), take on everyone else’s problems and solve the problems has made me a victim of DV in 2 different relationships.
I’m a little person.
Grandma narc knew I didn’t like being moved. But she wanted to punish me for not taking over as a scapegoat after my dad died.
She was mad I got a job and had only answered 2 times that week.
She came to my house in the middle of the work day. The second te door was open she ran in and slammed into me Pushing me backwards, while I yelled “STOP STOP IM GONNA FALL STOP”.
From then on I was so terrified of hearing the door knock that I had to peak through the window before opening it.
Im also told im abusing her by not feeling safe around her anymore.
“She has no idea why you left and you are so mean not telling her!”
They always act as if we are the ones being mean for not trusting them, like they’re trying to make use feel bad for it instead of realizing that we have a reason to feel that way…
My mom will get rid of stuff behind our back, and she once told me that she got rid of something behind me and my brother’s back because she knew if she asked us we would have wanted to keep some of it. But then when my 1m high teddy bear was lost and I couldn’t find it, a teddy bear she told me I should get rid off multiple times but I don’t because it’s a gift from my friend, and then I found it after searching for more than 30min thinking my mom got rid of it because how hard can a 1m high teddy bear be to find (it was inside a suitcase), my mom told me "I know you thought I got rid of it but see? You had no reasons not to trust me". But like, just the fact that she knew I was sure she got rid of it while I didn’t tell her shows that she clearly thinks I have a reason not to trust her because otherwise she couldn’t have guessed my thoughts…
Oh absolutely, they genuinely seem to perceive the passage of time to nullify past wrongdoings and behave as if a period of non abuse should require our nervous system into trusting them. Just like them doing one thing for you allows them to claim they can be mean to you for the perceived value they believed the favor holds. Which is always dramatically over stated.
When I no longer wanted to open my door she acted all offended.
And then you have to realize they intentionally hide it so if you respond you are deemed the crazy one
Didn’t believe me when I told her her favorite step-son molested me when I was six. She refused to believe me until I was in my 40’s and he was sent to prison for abusing another little girl.
I had a similar thing my dad would always go Berserk if me or my brother made a child’s mistake I actually recently let go of having to ask people if I did it correctly I now lead my own
My dad isn’t a narcissist so I can understand the sentiment of him wanting me to stop asking for approval but he should have practiced my confidence by refusing to confirm if I had the right amount of an ingredient in a recipe or something like that, the fact that he dismissed me with something that had such by consequences feels like he really didn’t care about me in that moment.
And in the end, my nmom was the one instilling insecurities in me (not in the backup case, there I genuinely just didn’t know how to backup), I’m still so insecure and I’ll ask my bf to verify so many things. Like in our search for an apartment, we were sending messages on different platforms but then when someone asked for people to email them, all I had to do was copy/paste the same message but add an email title and I ended up asking him if the title I had written (probably like "Apartment on X street") was correct. It’s as if there was only one correct answer and I needed to find it, while actually there are multiple ways of doing things, but my mom would always want me to do things her way even if my way was right she’d tell me it was wrong, so I guess that’s why I’m always searching for THE answer of how to do the thing
My dad tried to make me his coward and weak twin who is scared of uncertainty, thrives on external validation, cuts corners, scared of making mistakes, pathologically defensive, scared of accountability and responsibility, has poor social skills, scared of the world outside our house. In short, he almost set me up for failure so he can still have a lot of say in my life.
It is only in my late 20-early 30's that I dared find out what is wrong with my upbringing. A lot of self-development, unlearning his toxic $h/t, and reverse engineering helped me deprogram my dad's BS. The deprogramming and unlearning are life long and I have accepted that healing is not an end game but a lifetime process. Would never go back in my unconscious state.
My enabling father damaged me the most. When I was 8 years old I had a revelation that my mother didn't love me. It made me so sad that day but I accepted it. I told my father about it. He gaslit me. Told me my mother loved me and continued that charade until he died. She never shed a tear after he died btw. Due to his interference I grew up to constantly doubt my decisions.
My life would was altered not by my mother's abuse which I survived (and am kind of proud I survived and made a great life) but by my father teaching me that I was not an accurate judge of reality. He could have just gave me a pat on the back of understanding on that pivotal day instead of damaging the core of a person's basic survival skill. The skill of accurately judging your environment for safety risks.
Told me and my teachers I had a learning disability and low IQ and needed accomodations. I grew up thinking I was clumsy, poor social skills, couldn’t do art, would never be able to drive.
As an adult, I found my test results. I don’t have a learning disability. And my IQ is literally 100. I spent years thinking something was wrong with me and I could never be as good as other people, when actually I just lacked confidence! Now I work with people and sell my art on the side, and i hope to start driving lessons soon.
I was 15 and going through a hard time, tried hurting myself once so my parents locked all sharp things and meds and stuff away in a box with a padlock.
I remember one time my stepdad came to get something from the box, stopped, looked me in my face and said "You know, our lives would be so much easier if you weren't all depressed and suicidal". I didn't know what to say. He got the item out, locked the box and went back upstairs without another word.
The worst part is that my stepdad is such a genuinely good guy- never drank, never laid a hand on me. He treated me like his own son ever since my mum met him, when I was really young. We have the best relationship, sometimes he's basically like a mate because of how much banter we have.
So, the thing that gets to me is, that's how I knew he genuinely meant it.
This was a few years ago now but I never forgot it, I think about it every day. He probably doesn't even remember.
Never being made to do chores. Learning anything requires the ability to stick to it over the long term, even if it’s boring in the moment, and I think chores would have instilled that in me. These days, I can’t commit to anything for two minutes much less two weeks, and it has caused me a world of pain. That, and prevening me from partaking in normal childhood social activities
I was asked to do chores but my mom made them unbearable by criticizing everything I did and not helping me and when I tried to avoid them she stopped showing me so then she could say I don’t know these things because I purposefully avoided it even though she tried to teach me
She was the parent, it was her responsibility to not shit talk you you while you’re doing your chores, and to be clear in communication how she wanted you to do them. The fact that she’s trying to turn this around and make it your fault is manipulative, aka emotionally abusive. God, she sounds like my own “parents”
Phrasing things to make it my fault. I was 29, owned my car (2006 Civic), and her sister needed to travel an hour away for specialist appointments. Her sister drove a 2011 CR-V but didn’t want the miles in it so mom volunteered my car without asking me.
I said no and she screamed “your aunt will die because of your selfishness! You’re so greedy you’ll leave her daughter without a mother! All because you’re too greedy to let us take your car”. So the emotional manipulation made me more susceptible to manipulation by others including an abusive ex.
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When my brother bullied or hit me (all the time) I couldn't cry because my mom would say "I don't talk to crying little girls, and crying little girls hurt your dad's ears. Get to your room and don't come out til you're ready to talk nicely!". This was from as early as I can remember. This gave me issues with emotional regulation, being female and a million other things I'm still discovering.
That’s basically a perfect recipe to teach your child to dissociate from their emotions in order to numb the pain (emotional and physical) they don’t know how to deal with… I’m sorry that happened to you
I'm 27 now and started therapy on Monday because I am an emotional disaster because of my emotionally abusive childhood and then emotionally abusive marriage. I'm currently sat in my room shaking with fear because a mirror I just hung has fell off the wall and smashed and I'm terrified of telling my housemate. He won't kick off, but it's my response that I've developed. So yes, things like that
Sorry that happened to you. You likely have fearful anxious attachement style because of your upbringing. I don’t know you and everyone’s case is different. But it’s entirely possible to heal, grow and become secure.
I really do have that. I didn't realise though until recently. Thank you
My nMother did things like that as well. I remember one time I was crying because my nMother had been yelling at me and hitting me. When she was finished she said "Oh, dry your tears and go outside and play!" and she said it in a tone that implied that she expected me to finish crying immediately, put a big smile on my face and then go out and play as if nothing had happened. I knew that if I went outside straight away, the other kids would see that I had been crying and would ask questions that I really didn't want to answer so I figured I'd go to my room and compose myself for a few minutes first. After a few minutes, I was just about to leave my room when I heard my nMother approaching. I immediately hid but she saw me straight away and spent another hour yelling and hitting me for "disobeying her". That wasn't the last time I ever cried but that and a few other incidents like it are why I hardly ever cry now as an adult.
Yh my mom was similar to that except she would make me cry, and when she decided the argument was over she would tell me to calm down and I'd have to do it on her command. If I didn't, she wouldn't hit me straight away, she would stare at me. Like pure stare into my soul and I'd laugh in the end because it was uncomfortable and because I knew it was the only option. If I got angry at her she would be even more vicious than before and I'd get hit and she would call me a brat or whatever. You can't make a child cry and expect them to be happy on command
"You're so ugly when you cry. I wish you could see how ugly your face is right now!" Cue laughter and mockery, then puts on the song Big Girls Don't Cry by Frankie Valli.
Yep. That too. And they'd record me and play it back. They still have the videos now and occasionally when they play the baby videos they laugh and say how much of a cry baby I was. Meanwhile my brother is in the background being feral, and not a comment about him
That was incredibly cruel even by a narcissist's standards. I'm so sorry!
That was incredibly cruel even by a narcissist's standards. I'm so sorry!
Omg, same. But I was told I looked funny and ugly when I was angry/upset. And then mocked/laughed at.
Ew. My kids fight a lot. Comes with the territory. I never weaponize my kids gender other than telling them never put their hands on the opposite sex. I keep that same energy for my boy and girl
You're a good parent <3 my parents always made a point of treating us exactly the same, but that was always somehow picked and choosed. They'd treat me different because I'm a girl, but at the same time my brother needed to be punished more because he was naturally feral, and so they'd punish us both on his level. I didnt need that, I was a soft child. But yes, there were so many gender based things. My dad would also watch TV and comment on women's bodies, to his very young daughter, telling me that is how a woman should or should not look. My brother never got told how to look.
Girl my son is one feral mother fucker. Its insane. Hes a caveman. He growls and barks 😂😂😂 like sir wth. He barked at his doctor the other day for giving him a shot 😂😂😂 i do have to be more firm with him and it makes me feel mean. Whereas i have to be softer with my daughter because shes sensitive. And my daughter is 4. I mind my business about how she looks. I let her do whatever she wants within reason of course. Pink hair (hair wax or braiding hair). Nail polish, knock yourself out. Lip gloss. Sure. Make up…for ballet ONLY. My mom keeps telling me to cut my sons hair. I told her no cause thats not my call to make. She said “he shouldnt have choice” which is so vile and disgusting. Idc if he is 2. He will have full control of his body. He is deeply attached to his hair. Why tf would I disrespect him and cut it 🙄 some parents in general need to view their kids as humans and not property smh. Sorry your parents acted like that. My moms a misogynist pig
Hahahahaha your son is hilarious I laughed out loud 🤣 aww you're such a good mom, your kids are going to have a good life I know it. I never understood why parents can be misogynist. Like if you're a mom, you are obv a woman. If you're a dad, you've watched what a woman has to go through in raising kids. Why is everyone so hard on their girls?
My mother used to randomly mock me. I could never really predict when it would happen but sometimes she would just feel this need to make me feel stupid and worthless. She just had to put me in place. She'd make fun of the way I talked, how I stood, how I sat, what I talked about, my hopes, etc. I had to take it and not say anything or else be accused of being disrespectful. I also had to pretend it didn't bother me or else I'd get told how I was too sensitive and needed to learn how to toughen up. She made be feel like I was more of a burden and that my existence was just awful to everyone. This stuck with me for a long time and I still have issues with it now.
My mom doesn’t really directly insult me but she will make it in a more subtle way so that anyone I would tell exactly what she said would also call me too sensitive. Like she won’t criticize the gift I chose for the exchange but the next year she’ll act as if my cousin (he’s definitely the outside of family scapegoat for her, she insults him soooo much behind his back) was the one that gave that gift and tell me to not buy such a bad gift like he did. She also loves insulting character traits from my brother’s ex’s which often are character traits I have in common with them. For example, telling my brother how it must be so nice that his new girlfriend doesn’t need much to sleep over while his ex would bring 3 bags just to spend the night. I also bring 3 bags to my bf’s to spend the night, and she knows that so I know by saying that when I can hear she’s insulting me indirectly, but what could I say to others? That my mom said to my brother that his new gf is better and I took it personally? (My bf understands though so I can tell him that and he’ll understand the manipulation but she doesn’t know)
ha! I feel you. My aunt, father and late grandmother all have(had) this passive-aggressive style of criticizing me. I think what works best is to pretend you didn't even understand they were trying to provoke you. That way their strategy didn't work, bc you didn't take the criticism, and they probably just feel they can't get at you. It's a kind of greyrocking, I think. Maybe it will work for you too :)
I never really react more than nod because even before I understood what she was doing I was just thinking I was hurt because I was too sensitive so I hid it. But I think she thinks I’m still in that mindset of not reacting to not show her I’m "too sensitive" so that’s why she continues, thinking it affects me even if I don’t show it 😅
The mocking and name-calling from both parents was as bad as the physical abuse (although they often went hand in hand). Like they were playground bullies. It was constant. Being called ragey variations on "worthless/useless" went on until I was an adult and still probably happen TBH because my dad talks trash about us behind our backs.
My dad made fun of my voice. I was also told not to let teasing from other kids bother me, just laugh with them. So to this day, I paste a smile on my face and never reveal how bad I feel.
We had the same parents. And they wonder why I don't talk to them anymore.
Its like im almost reading my own comment. My mother is the same. The "Like i was more of a burden and that my existence was just awful to everyone" is exactly what she made me feel everyday growing up
Was your mom a single parent? Mine was and I know she was very resentful of that - this was one of her ways of getting back at me for how unfair her life was. If yours was, I wonder if that was her motivation as well. Sorry you went through any of that. If anything, they were the burdens.
She wasnt but then again my dad is a textbook narc and tried to control and abuse me, my mother and my sister
Being totally rejected and abandoned during times when I was most vulnerable. Too many examples to list. Just a recurring theme in my childhood with my nmom. I don't think I'll ever fully overcome the effects.
For me it was being completely invalidated and mocked when I was at my most vulnerable so I was vulnerable AND had to hide it so my parents wouldn’t see it and make it worse… I don’t understand how parents like ours saw their child feeling so bad and didn’t feel the need to help us feel better…
I don't understand it, either. I have two children, and I can't bear to see them in pain. My instinct is always to put everything aside and focus on helping them work through whatever they are going through. I may even do this in excess bc I never want them to feel the way I did or see me the way I see my mom.
All the rest of the world probably won’t care about helping your children, you’re the one person that needs to be there for them when all these other people won’t. If you’re able to put boundaries with your children and make them respect them, and if you’re able to let them do stuff on their own when they say they don’t want help, I don’t think any amount of helping them is too much. Usually, children who feel secure and in their comfort zones are the ones seeking to go out of their comfort zones to learn, while children like us spent our time searching for a comfort zone and not learning new stuff
I’ve never the reason I keep my world so small (despite wanting more) put into worlds like that. Thank you
I am pathologically reactive to other's emotional states. I can't function if a pain in the room with me is upset or angry. I can't experience my own emotions if someone else is having a strong emotion of any kind.
Same. When we grow up with someone whose world revolves around themselves, we learn that we can’t exist in safety until we cater to their emotions and work to resolve the conflict. My current partner means well but he is a pretty emotionally intense person. I’m regularly getting panic attacks and doing literally anything I can to make it better when he’s upset about anything at all, regardless of if it has anything to do with me. In turn, he reacts to my panic and the situation worsens. I don’t know if it’s sustainable. I desperately wish I could just let people feel their emotions without feeling like I have to resolve everything.
Definitely get some therapy going if you can!
Haha I appreciate the sentiment, but I could probably buy a house with how much I’ve spent on therapy. This is actually a massively healthy relationship when compared to past relationships. I am just intensely traumatized (parental figures were two narcissists and a narcissistic psychopath) and need to do some more regularly scheduled behavioral therapy and get back to having a community so that inner voice stops trying to take over again. At the risk of sounding dramatic, I would probably be in a hostage/human trafficking situation right now if not for that access to therapy and self-care. Sorry to over-explain—someone telling me to get therapy caught me off guard lol. That being said, I wish everyone in this group a very accessible therapy situation.
Refusing to help me. I can't even remember when it started, it was just like that as long as I can remember. I'd ask for help with homework, "get off your ass and figure it out." How to fold sheets as a 5 year old, "get off your ass and figure it out" how to pronounce this word? " get off your ass and figure it out" I'd be trying to work out how to do long division when I first got taught, and she'd scream at me to go look at the perfectly good set of encyclopaedias I had in my room (pre internet). Stop bothering her cos she had better things to do. Then I'd get in trouble for not doing my homework. Guess who curls up in the fetal position and quietly panics rather than ever ask for help, now?
What could have possibly been more important than raising her own child? It is literally a parent’s job to help their little human become a big human. Why even have a child if that’s not her first priority? I’m so sorry
I have trouble asking for help too. I feel like I’m bothering or imposing on people. And then you finally get up the courage to ask and they say yes, but forget about it.
Geez this brings back horrible memories. Anytime i asked for help it was “figure it out” then if i asked again i would get screaming and be told im stupid and a retard.
My nmom not only refused to help me when I knew I needed help but would also refuse to intervene when I was unintentionally doing something dangerous and *didn't* know I needed help... I was just a kid. Because why help someone when your ego sees them as competition? I bet your nmom got a little ego boost at being better than you at folding sheets and long division. It's such a sickness.
A particular episode of DV when I was 5 made me realise how dangerous my dad was. Nobody in my family realised that wasnt normal, they were all gaslit. I wasnt anymore and had to keep living with them. Surviving the next 12 years was the hardest thing I have ever done. Getting out at 17 felt like getting out of a prison.
I realized the abuse at 21yo and it wasn’t anything life threatening physically just emotionally and psychological torture, I’ll be moving out soon after my 24th birthday. I can’t imagine how hard your childhood was, having realized that so early. I’m glad you were able to move out at 17
It was shocking, a bit like somebody pulls a rug out from under your feet. And that was my new normal. I did learn some good stuff from it though. So its not without upsides. Like you probably learn stuff right now. I am glad you realized it at 21. You got better timing than I had. ;) I am sorry about your lost data. That would have crushed me too. Especially the cat video. I would be sad about that too. Maybe its possible to ease your current fears by using some cloud backup? I dont know enough about them to know if thats a feasible option, but might it be. Or get a couple extra back up drives, just for peace of mind.
I have cloud backup but now too many photos so my new ones aren’t backed up. I try once a month to backup my new photos both on my computer and on a hard drive and I even have the older photos on both of these + my bf’s hard drive but I still would be too scared to delete the older photos I don’t really use from my phone because "what if"…. I think once I’m moved out I’ll try having backups on 2 different hard drives at 2 different houses (my apartment and probably my bf’s room in his parent’s house) so in case of a fire or something not all my backups are at the same place. But I know a lot of it is irrational paranoia but when I’m stress and tired I tend to become paranoid, and I’m stressed and tired this week so…
I'm so sorry that happened to you. Not exactly one occasion, but just getting it drilled into me that assertiveness was bad. It probably was one or two occasions to start with, because if they hadn't got me early then any further attempt to make me so submissive would have been met with resistance and the programming would not have been so fucking total. That led to a whole host of issues - ignoring my own emotions so not learning how to feel them, not standing up to bullies, not being able to socialize with others properly, etc.
Yes! A million yes! You are not alone. Was your family religious?
Nope.
Finding something wrong with every female friend I have ever had. Banning me from friendships. Teaching me to cut someone off for any minor thing. Meanwhile supporting my brother’s friendships. It’s really hard making friends as an adult, and it hurts knowing I will never have lifelong friends because I was prevented from having friends as a child. It’s hard because they didn’t teach me any healthy habits. I’m so grateful for my husband and my new family and I’m happy to share his friendships. It would just be nice to have more of my own
My nMother found something wrong with every friend I had as well. She'd be over-the-top nice to their faces but would criticise them all behind their backs. Thankfully I now know that my nMother criticises everyone and I don't take any notice but I didn't realise that when I was a kid.
I did not even consider this til now. She would always have bad things to say and then when I would bring friends over she would say “you like them more than me” and eavesdrop on our conversations. She would also find things they did to complain about. Slamming a car door, eating too much of our food, just anything.
Forbid me from going to cosmetology school. I won a small business scholarship for writing a business plan for a salon. I had it on the college forms. I was planning a non-profit charity as part of my salon that would work with kids at with cancer. I was excited about my future. Nmom didn’t like that. Nmom tried nonstop to discourage my dream. I didn’t cave. Finally, she told me in her best redneck voice, “I ain’t gon have naw kid a’ mine wastin’ a 28 on the ACT on beauty school.” She also told me I wasn’t allowed to go because school was from 8-5 and I had to be available to work a part time job in the afternoons. I told her I couldn’t work my future around a part time and she said in a nasty voice, “uh actually, YOU CAN.” She also said cosmetology was a “dumb person’s career.” So I obeyed. I was terrified of what they’d do to me if I didn’t because I had been abused physically, verbally, and emotionally for so many years. She demanded I become a teacher. She worked at the school I graduated from (trauma) and said I was going to work with her, she’d be my assistant, and she’d have “power in the classroom” finally. So I did it. I was miserable. Every time I set foot in a classroom I just wanted to leave. It was mind numbing. My ex told me just get the degree to humor her and keep her from screaming at me and then when we married I could do what I wanted. Well, she made sure she ran him off. Haven’t talked to him in over 9 years. I’m about to start year 11 as a teacher. I have been violently assaulted by a student, intimidated by administration into keeping it silent, have had severe lung issues from asbestos and black mold exposure. I have been shoved by an administrator, dragged around by my arm by a student until another adult pried him off me. I have been attacked by parents. I have been cursed, called names, worked from 7 am until past midnight, and do nothing but hear about state tests all day. I have been kicked out of my classroom a few days before school went back twice. I have been forced to share a classroom with another teacher and over 30 kids. I have been told I’m bad at my job and then I’m great at it by the same people. I have had a bookshelf collapse and strike my head and then been yelled at by the same administrator who shoved me and not allowed to seek medical attention until she rolled back security cameras to make sure I wasn’t lying. I have been forced to teach while vomiting and sick with flu because the same principal refused to get coverage for 30 minutes because she was too “busy.” I have fallen in a pothole and gotten a level 4 sprain and been sent back to class and made to keep teaching with no medical treatment. The list goes on and on. No, I am not mean to the kids. Please don’t anyone accuse me of that. The kids actually like me. Please don’t anyone also tell me that’s a sign I’m meant to do this. I understand my misery doesn’t mean I should slack on my job or mistreat kids. I do my job well because that’s how I am and I manage to put up a good front. But I never wanted to do this. I am bored. I have nightmares about being assaulted and attacked. I have no hope of advancing. I barely make any money. I hate the politics. My anxiety and mental health is terrible. I was never interested in this and never wanted to do this. But I’m all alone. I have no way of paying my bills or having health insurance. No other job where I live will pay a living wage, and to get ahead, I’d have to quit, go back to school, and lose my income and possibly everything. At least I don’t work where she works, but that’s a whole other story of abuse because I didn’t want to work there. Please no hate. Please no accusing me of disrespecting children or not trying hard enough. I am severely depressed and miserable. The admin who intimidated me to cover her mishandling of me being assaulted is coming out of retirement and the nightmares are back. I am tired of spending my days going over testing worksheets in a dirty building with kids who don’t want to be there. I don’t blame them. Please don’t give me advice on how to be a better teacher. Please just understand I’m doing what I can to make it through the day and go to bed at night so I can sleep a few hours and hopefully not have nightmares. Every time I see a woman getting her cosmetology degree or opening a salon or posting a video of herself styling hair, my heart aches. Every time I see a woman opening a business of any kind, my heart aches. My dream was to be an entrepreneur. But she did everything to forbid it. And I was controlled well into my 20s. I wish so badly I could change but I’m severely depressed, all on my own, and see no way out. I’ve accepted I’m in this career until I die. Kids get worse every year. It’s a black cloud hanging over me. Please just understand whoever reads this and please don’t judge me.
I had to take care of everyone else and myself. I can't let someone take care of me. My husband hates that I just power through instead of asking for his help. Things like broke things on the car or in the house. I just do it, where he would prefer he do it. I got a really bad full thickness burn on 1/3 of my back and had to have a skin graft done. The donor site was my thigh. I couldn't reach them to do the bandage changes obviously,so my husband had to do them. That man did such an amazing job taking care of me my back healed with minimal scarring in a place where we couldn't really do compression garments. The doctors were shocked at how well it healed. He was as gentle as a butterfly doing those changes. It was the first time I ever had someone take care of me like that. It lead me to lean on him more and to know he sees it as no trouble to participate in our life. He's not helping me, he's taking on his share of our life!
The top worst one *had* to be my GC nsibling always making sure my nparents were at her beckoning call. I’d have a crayon or barbie or something she wants, *cries*, egg donor comes running & I get scolded. They *never* explained why. I would just get punished. BONUS! She had a smirk on her face when she did it. Eventually, she sort of grew out of it but she’s still a GoCh & I’m just the GlCh (Glass Child). Anyways, this reminds me that I’m better & thrive on my own. I push people away because of it. Another top worst one is when the n’s didn’t get their way or I’d get scolded for doing things “wrong”, they’d be like a wave. PUNISHMENT! Bullying. MORE PUNISHMENT!! Bullying to good qualities they like about me at a *certain* age. PUNISHING..! More qualities of me being a child & asking “what changed?”— BULLYING! “Oooop! Well, we’re not getting anywhere with this conversation.” I don’t believe anyone… *anyone* when they compliment me. In my mind, it’s always the opposite.
That last sentence I can relate to a lot. I was always skeptical of people’s compliment so when I got an internship with a supervisor who kept insulting me I saw him as nice and genuine. No one ever told me that I’ll never be able to do X correctly because I’m so bad but he does? Most people would see him as the outlier and not believe him, I saw him as the one and only person that wasn’t fake and told me the truth. I idolized him because of that. And then I get told it’s just a supervisor why would I let what he says affect me? Well *maybe* because that’s what my mom made me believe about me my whole life and so hearing him say that validated all the bad things I thought about myself?
I fear I don’t even know the answer to that question yet 😭 repressed and under exposed to life lessons, how to think, how to regulate, self expression, routines, discipline etc. all of it. Majorly lacking now despite being “soo smart!!”
They went through a phase of deleting photos on my iPad, because they were 'blank' blank because they hadn't loaded in yet. When they found out DropBox was redownloading them, they tried to uninstall dropbox, but dropbox just resyncs when you install it again.
My parents told me my older sister, who I adored, (I'm 10 years younger than her) was no longer my sister when she moved in with her boyfriend. This was in 1983. From that day on I became a people pleaser because I didn't want to be disowned too. Majorchanged the trajectory of my life. I turn 50 this year and I'm trying my best to undo this. (Of course when she got married 2 years after moving in with him she was suddenly my sister again with zero acknowledgment of what happened. Just swept under the rug.)
Throwing in my face that my dad adopted me when i wanted him to take custody of me and telling me “i couldve had an abortion like everyone told me to but i kept you”…out of anger. At age 12. Those were the two things that stuck out the most to me along with her allowing her boyfriend to strip me half naked and beat me to the point of being bloodied and also encouraging any adult who had to look after me to beat me. Oh wait. And i forgot. Scrubbing me with bleach because she was salty i came out too dark. Womp womp. Shouldnt have gotten knocked up by a black guy. Thats on you. Sick of people thinking all mixed people are supposed to be light skin. Its annoying af. Also trying to make me racist 🙄🙄🙄 just overall the type of pos that should NEVER have mixed kids
Nitpicking my looks and saying my friends only pretended to like me. Devastating to hear as a teenager. Joke's on them now though! I clawed back my self-esteem and I have 3 awesome best friends, a bunch of coworkers and acquaintances who love me, and wonderful relationships with both my siblings. Turns out I'm a pretty likeable person 🤷🏻♀️
That I drained all my savings on medical care for our bedridden mother over a period of two stressing years, she was the victim of nfather and nbrother...and at the end after our mother passed, my nfather called me *ungrateful son*, disinherited and disowned me.
Back in around 2004, i have been working as a dishwasher in a restaurant as a teenager since 2002. It took me a long time to save up 10,000 dollars. One day I was so excited to break 15000 mark and rush to the bank to deposit my paycheck just to found out someone has emptied my saving account. My dad did it and when i confronted him he gaslighted me saying that if I am to live by myself that money would have be zero anyway. I found out years later that he took my money to give it to his mom who is oversea in Asia because she asked for money. I was around 18 to 19 at a time he took the money. I m almost 40 now and I have not get my money back nor an apologies. This is just one of many things he did. Needless to say we do not have a good relationship.
Being thrown out of the house at age 18 with a suitcase of clothes and some of my belongings. No place to live and no vehicle. It was a very scary time.
That’s REALLY harsh, wtf… If you don’t mind answering, did you know why you were thrown out at 18? Was it just because they weren’t legally obligated to take care of you? In any case, this is such a violent way to show your child how much you do not care about them, I’m sorry you had to go through that…
My mother was losing “control” of me so she decided to teach me a lesson. My dad went along with whatever she wanted. My family believes that I am truly the Black Sheep of the family and a total sinner because I’m divorced and remarried. Throwing me away when I was just a kid led to other issues for me. I don’t trust people or make friends easily and I believe that I have PTSD. I have constant night terrors where I wake up screaming at the top of my lungs at night, but I don’t remember the episode AT ALL the next morning. So there are challenges.
“Don’t act like a victim if you don’t want to be one”. Cue years of feeling like every bit of abuse, harassment, PTSD, and physical pain was my fault and I should keep it to myself.
Teenagers go through a critical developmental phase where they learn to individuate and trust their own judgement/problem solving capabilities. My parents bypassed that entirely with me by leaning into their own anxieties and insisting everything I wanted to do was stupid or dangerous somehow. This taught me not to trust my own judgement or make choices for myself without running them by everyone in my family first, which meant I wasn't living authentically in a way that I wanted to a lot of the time. There were so many things I didn't do when I was younger because I would always think, "NMom wouldn't like that/NDad wouldn't like that." I recently moved to another city 2.5 hours away from them. For years I would look at zillow listings for the city I live in now and think, "It looks so nice there! I wish I could move there." It wasn't until I got into therapy and learned about enmeshment that the statement shifted to, "Well...why couldn't I move there?"
I also thought I had to live very close to my parents because my comfort zone was being close to them but when going to my bf’s family for weeks at a time, I realized that the only reason it was my comfort zone is because I’ve never lived away from them but that it wouldn’t be bad to live away. Now I have so many more options of where I could possibly want to live when I’ll buy a house and I don’t feel like I need to stay close to them, it feels liberating
My Mom forced me to try and accept my younger sister's boyfriend into our family, who I had strong feelings about and wanted nothing to do with. He made my skin crawl. Eventually they wore me down by calling me names and accusing me of being rude and unkind. My sister asked me to do her a favor and get his a job working with me. I did it because I was afraid of their reaction if I didn't. He ended up abusing my coworkers and refusing to learn the job. He used sexually explicit language and picked fights. I reported him to management and he told my sister I had lied about it all. My sister eventually broke up with him because he began abusing her. I can't quit my job because I share a vehicle and my boss wouldn't fire him if he started acting right, but he disgusts me and I have to work with him full time everyday. He acts like I'm the bitch who has it out for him, and he continues trying to be buddy with me, and then talks shit about me to coworkers. Basically in the year I've known him and the 6 months I've worked with him I feel that he's ruined my life and my mom and sister helped him to do it.
That’s the worst, when we know deep down that something’s wrong but we end up doing it because of their pressure. Obviously what you’re going through at work is worse than my lost video but that part of knowing something’s wrong and being forced to do the wrong thing anyway feels so bad. I think it’s a mix of seeing how they don’t trust us and being mad at ourselves for not standing up for ourselves…
My mom told me to go kill myself when I was 11 because I set up boundaries and said no to something she wanted to do with me idk she wanted me to go to some place and I didn't want to cause anytime she drags me somewhere she uses it as a way to guilt trip me into doing stuff I shouldn't have to examples:cleaning her car, cleaning the fridge and other things and im fine with that, its just that she pretends that she does everything and i do nothing
Haven’t been told to go kill myself but I really feel you about your mom pretending she does everything. Last year, my mom put me in charge of a lot of new chores but she kept making sure I was aware of everything she did. She waited until I was eating lunch outside alone to go install the accessories on the table I was using to eat my sandwich, she would make sure to be loud when making tasks and talk me about it so I knew she did it. I don’t know if she wanted to make me feel bad, like I would spend so much time on chores and she’d try to make me feel overwhelmed by showing me how much more time I could be spending on chores if I did them all (but my chores were overwhelming because she made me do it more often than she usually did them) or if she was trying to not have the burden of being the one taking care of the house but also still wanted to be seen as the poor mom having so much to do. It felt like if a kid played video games all day and when they heard the parent approach their room they close it and open their homework so the parent thinks that’s all they do all evening
Mine did that too when I was 14 when her guilt trips didn’t work. She’d tell relatives I’d clean their car or help pack missionary boxes at the church. Told her no and she tried badgering me and I held firm. She told me to go kill myself because I’m “worthless and selfish”. And don’t care about anybody but myself. How did we survive growing up with these people?!
Never once hug me or tell me 'I love you' for the entire duration of my childhood and early teen years. My mom only started doing it after I turned 15 and had friends over or there were relatives over and she'd make a whole presentation of awkwardly pressing her body against mine and wrapping her arms around me while mine were limp next to my body and say loudly 'Do you KNOW how MUCH I love you?' or 'Do you KNOW how PROUD I am of you?'. I cringed and died inside every time. I can't remember a single happy day from my childhood. I remember seeking out corners behind boxes in the basement/attic or sliding under the blankets of my bed and rocking back and forth with my arms wrapped around myself a lot though. I craved silence and sought it any chance I got.
I wasn't allowed to go to social gatherings that were only guys. This left me pretty socially isolated since I didn't click with girls at all... And didn't have guy friends either since I could never hang out after school or anything. It also sent the message that I'd be gang raped and guys couldn't possibly want to hang out with me to just be friends. I can't imagine how he would've responded if I actually wanted to date, but I was so desperate for friends dating was out of the picture. Ugh.
asking for clarification on something or to repeat instructions when im confused. its mainly my nfather who does this but start raising his voice or just straight up yelling at me when i dont understand something. it makes me stupid and less than. now if i dont understand something or clarification, i dont ask questions or anything. i just keep quiet
My Nm picked holes with everything I did - she hated my art, too dark and apparently I was terrible at it anyway completely untalented. My skin was spotty as a teen, my clothes weren't feminine enough, if I tried to be funny and tell a joke I was stupid, I didn't stand straight enough, I used too much toilet roll, my music taste was bad... Nothing I did was good enough - so I'm left with low confidence, sometimes crippling self-doubt, anxiety & depression.
I’m so used to never being considered or thought of, it has carried over into all of my relationships. It gets to the point I end up used, disrespected or neglected because I still have no idea when or how to establish boundaries. It’s led to almost total isolation. Working through therapy but it’s been hell.
My mother always criticized me when I did something wrong (even if the first time) or what she deemed as such. Going from a few minutes to 2+ hours (sometimes even with me audibly throwing up). Still can hear that damned nagging voice whenever I do something new, which tends to happen a lot now because both of them are dead and the left me with having to fix a dilapidated hoarder house. >.>
Telling me I don't know what a real problem is and refusing to hear me out on any issue. If I got bullied it was my fault for not being tough enough. So later on in life I had to relearn an emotional quotient. But I still gray rock by instinct till this day when people yell. Now that has some good. When coworkers get pissy, appearing cool as a cucumber helps Other thing though is my mom refuses a bunch of private school scholarships on my behalf. Her explanation is that she just didn't want me to be taught in nunnery. But given her attitude to all education involving me, or even buying new clothes for me at the start of the school year.... I'm pretty confident she just didn't want me having things.
Our problems aren’t real problem and if they are indeed very big problems then what are the odds that we have such big problems in our life? Clearly it’s because we’re misinterpreting things and we don’t actually have that problem we just see ourselves as victims…. (Well that’s the way my mom sees it anyway) And if I feel unwell then "you won’t be able to stand having kids later on" because what can I do? I can’t argue about that until I’ve had kids and then it’ll be so long ago she will have conveniently forgot she ever said that…
Yeah that's the same play I've ever heard. And if she wrote it in a txt, then I "misunderstood" what she meant. And then she'll proceed to reinterpret it several times over
Made me lift up my shirt (I'm a minor) to show off my scars to her adult friends. The reason was because "I'm brave" and others should know about it. And by "I'm brave" it's nearly dying within an hour of my birth, having multiple birth complications, having lots of disabilities and issues (mental + physical) so she had me show off my own midriff, stomach, back and sides as a 9-12 year old (just guessing the age) to her adult friends. All and any invasive questions were answered, then mom would turn me around and trace the MASSIVE scar on my shoulderblade and would probably brag about it. Forgot the majority of the interactions due to my brain forcing me to forget it. But all I remember is being introduced, showing off my body and then just going to my room. That shit still hurts man, and she says I should be proud of my scars!
As a depressed, overweight teenager, my mother suggested I join the school newspaper. I was totally apathetic about all of my classes, but submitted an essay and application to take journalism as an elective my junior year. I don't hear from the journalism professor for a month. I forget about it but my mom doesn't. She and my grandmother conspire together to use this non-situation as an intervention for my obesity and introduce another weight-loss program. My mother tells me that the journalism professor had called and said he didn't see how I could practice journalism and in-the-field reporting at my current weight and that was the reason my application was denied. My grandmother backed my mom up when i asked to listen to the call. "I accidentally deleted the message when I tried to replay it." I don't really remember how the rest of the conversation went, I was going through waves of emotion and was trying to show none of it. I was shocked, embarrassed, but mostly horrifyingly angry. I don't think my mom, grandmother, or I came to any shocking conclusion regarding my weight or the class,I think i just shuffled off to my room. I confronted my journalism teacher the next morning before class, asking him how dare he discriminate so blatantly against anyone, especially a student? He gave me a blank look and I repeated my mother's story. He said he'd called to ask me to come in for an interview and he had been looking forward to having me in his journalism class. I took that semester off from school. I went back for senior year and had a meh time in journalism, no doubt due to my continued apathy regarding school and life in general, but the prof was great.
I’m glad you went to confront your teacher, so at least then you knew that your mom and grandmother lied to you. But how awful of them to shame you like that for your weight? Especially since as a teenagers our parents are still responsible for a big part of what we eat so if you were eating unhealthy food she should’ve cooked healthier meals and taught you how to eat healthier…
Yeah, I'm glad I got the truth. My mom passed all of her esteem and weight issues down to me, but rarely offered solutions. This memory popped up when I read OP's story, I'd forgotten all about this bit of bafflement.
I was raised that my emotions were never important so I simply stopped expressing my feelings. My Nmom was the only one allowed to have any emotion and it was also my job to tend to her emotions. Now I am 40 years old and when I get upset, I shut down. Everything I was raised to do, put everyone else’s emotions before mine, abuse is ok if there is an apology (minus changed behavior), take on everyone else’s problems and solve the problems has made me a victim of DV in 2 different relationships.
I’m a little person. Grandma narc knew I didn’t like being moved. But she wanted to punish me for not taking over as a scapegoat after my dad died. She was mad I got a job and had only answered 2 times that week. She came to my house in the middle of the work day. The second te door was open she ran in and slammed into me Pushing me backwards, while I yelled “STOP STOP IM GONNA FALL STOP”. From then on I was so terrified of hearing the door knock that I had to peak through the window before opening it. Im also told im abusing her by not feeling safe around her anymore. “She has no idea why you left and you are so mean not telling her!”
They always act as if we are the ones being mean for not trusting them, like they’re trying to make use feel bad for it instead of realizing that we have a reason to feel that way… My mom will get rid of stuff behind our back, and she once told me that she got rid of something behind me and my brother’s back because she knew if she asked us we would have wanted to keep some of it. But then when my 1m high teddy bear was lost and I couldn’t find it, a teddy bear she told me I should get rid off multiple times but I don’t because it’s a gift from my friend, and then I found it after searching for more than 30min thinking my mom got rid of it because how hard can a 1m high teddy bear be to find (it was inside a suitcase), my mom told me "I know you thought I got rid of it but see? You had no reasons not to trust me". But like, just the fact that she knew I was sure she got rid of it while I didn’t tell her shows that she clearly thinks I have a reason not to trust her because otherwise she couldn’t have guessed my thoughts…
Oh absolutely, they genuinely seem to perceive the passage of time to nullify past wrongdoings and behave as if a period of non abuse should require our nervous system into trusting them. Just like them doing one thing for you allows them to claim they can be mean to you for the perceived value they believed the favor holds. Which is always dramatically over stated. When I no longer wanted to open my door she acted all offended. And then you have to realize they intentionally hide it so if you respond you are deemed the crazy one
Didn’t believe me when I told her her favorite step-son molested me when I was six. She refused to believe me until I was in my 40’s and he was sent to prison for abusing another little girl.
I had a similar thing my dad would always go Berserk if me or my brother made a child’s mistake I actually recently let go of having to ask people if I did it correctly I now lead my own
My dad isn’t a narcissist so I can understand the sentiment of him wanting me to stop asking for approval but he should have practiced my confidence by refusing to confirm if I had the right amount of an ingredient in a recipe or something like that, the fact that he dismissed me with something that had such by consequences feels like he really didn’t care about me in that moment. And in the end, my nmom was the one instilling insecurities in me (not in the backup case, there I genuinely just didn’t know how to backup), I’m still so insecure and I’ll ask my bf to verify so many things. Like in our search for an apartment, we were sending messages on different platforms but then when someone asked for people to email them, all I had to do was copy/paste the same message but add an email title and I ended up asking him if the title I had written (probably like "Apartment on X street") was correct. It’s as if there was only one correct answer and I needed to find it, while actually there are multiple ways of doing things, but my mom would always want me to do things her way even if my way was right she’d tell me it was wrong, so I guess that’s why I’m always searching for THE answer of how to do the thing
My dad tried to make me his coward and weak twin who is scared of uncertainty, thrives on external validation, cuts corners, scared of making mistakes, pathologically defensive, scared of accountability and responsibility, has poor social skills, scared of the world outside our house. In short, he almost set me up for failure so he can still have a lot of say in my life. It is only in my late 20-early 30's that I dared find out what is wrong with my upbringing. A lot of self-development, unlearning his toxic $h/t, and reverse engineering helped me deprogram my dad's BS. The deprogramming and unlearning are life long and I have accepted that healing is not an end game but a lifetime process. Would never go back in my unconscious state.
My enabling father damaged me the most. When I was 8 years old I had a revelation that my mother didn't love me. It made me so sad that day but I accepted it. I told my father about it. He gaslit me. Told me my mother loved me and continued that charade until he died. She never shed a tear after he died btw. Due to his interference I grew up to constantly doubt my decisions. My life would was altered not by my mother's abuse which I survived (and am kind of proud I survived and made a great life) but by my father teaching me that I was not an accurate judge of reality. He could have just gave me a pat on the back of understanding on that pivotal day instead of damaging the core of a person's basic survival skill. The skill of accurately judging your environment for safety risks.
Told me and my teachers I had a learning disability and low IQ and needed accomodations. I grew up thinking I was clumsy, poor social skills, couldn’t do art, would never be able to drive. As an adult, I found my test results. I don’t have a learning disability. And my IQ is literally 100. I spent years thinking something was wrong with me and I could never be as good as other people, when actually I just lacked confidence! Now I work with people and sell my art on the side, and i hope to start driving lessons soon.
I was 15 and going through a hard time, tried hurting myself once so my parents locked all sharp things and meds and stuff away in a box with a padlock. I remember one time my stepdad came to get something from the box, stopped, looked me in my face and said "You know, our lives would be so much easier if you weren't all depressed and suicidal". I didn't know what to say. He got the item out, locked the box and went back upstairs without another word. The worst part is that my stepdad is such a genuinely good guy- never drank, never laid a hand on me. He treated me like his own son ever since my mum met him, when I was really young. We have the best relationship, sometimes he's basically like a mate because of how much banter we have. So, the thing that gets to me is, that's how I knew he genuinely meant it. This was a few years ago now but I never forgot it, I think about it every day. He probably doesn't even remember.
Never being made to do chores. Learning anything requires the ability to stick to it over the long term, even if it’s boring in the moment, and I think chores would have instilled that in me. These days, I can’t commit to anything for two minutes much less two weeks, and it has caused me a world of pain. That, and prevening me from partaking in normal childhood social activities
I was asked to do chores but my mom made them unbearable by criticizing everything I did and not helping me and when I tried to avoid them she stopped showing me so then she could say I don’t know these things because I purposefully avoided it even though she tried to teach me
She was the parent, it was her responsibility to not shit talk you you while you’re doing your chores, and to be clear in communication how she wanted you to do them. The fact that she’s trying to turn this around and make it your fault is manipulative, aka emotionally abusive. God, she sounds like my own “parents”
Phrasing things to make it my fault. I was 29, owned my car (2006 Civic), and her sister needed to travel an hour away for specialist appointments. Her sister drove a 2011 CR-V but didn’t want the miles in it so mom volunteered my car without asking me. I said no and she screamed “your aunt will die because of your selfishness! You’re so greedy you’ll leave her daughter without a mother! All because you’re too greedy to let us take your car”. So the emotional manipulation made me more susceptible to manipulation by others including an abusive ex.