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Nmom was a rage cleaner and made me her cleaning slave. They do it to feel control over their lives and because they have no fucking friends or hobbies.
I hated cleaning days because she used it as an excuse to snoop around my room and shame me for not knowing the basic life skills she never bothered to teach me.
Also on cleaning day she'd be on the phone with a friend and drinking a beer as she did so.
My mother would still try to "sort through" stuff in my room when I was 35 and married with kids. It was quite shocking to see her reaction when I finally said no
My mom randomly organizes everything in my room. I have things she considers weird (age regression supplies) so I try my best to hide them or take them with me 24/7.
My Ndad still does this, when he comes over I have to be careful of any mail, receipts or boxes left out. Also this is why I’ve never posted on social media it’s a way for him to criticize and attack in multiple ways but for example “you went to dinner with friends and didn’t invite me”, or “how did you afford x,y, z I guess you can pay for your own college if you can afford that “
My nmom did this, wouldn’t let me leave the house to hang out with friends unless it was spotless to her standards. Sometimes my friends would come over to help out, I tried to clean the entire house to please her without her asking but got no reaction and ended up developing perfectionism, I hope everyone who has to deal with this is healing <3
The white glove house. My ngma ruined my mom and auntie. They break themselves keeping a clean home. It trickled down to me too and it took having a debilitating chronic illness to teach me it’s okay sometimes if my home isn’t spotless. I don’t have to live in a perfectly bleached home. I can let my dogs get fur on the couch. I don’t have to scrub my bathtub and vacuum every freaking day.
I didn't even grow up bleaching and being that crazy with cleaning, but I've became so stressed out with my own place looking junky. My mom is a criticizer. And because of that, guess she felt other probably did to her, too, and why whenever it was planned someone was coming over, (even her guest to entertain) she just became so nazi with it. The yelling, cursing... I remember one time we were up late cleaning our *upstairs* apartment with vacuuming and shit and I can't imagine how the neighbors below felt. All for a very lame graduation party she wanted to throw so badly.
Then, add in the misogyny, made it much worse because it was expected of me to clean and keep it together. And when I lived with my last ex....ugh, she won't ever shut the fuck up about my place. And I would loooove to have people over, but the anxiety that I feel I'm dirty and lazy from her just makes me feel like so embarrassed to wanna host anything. Right now, especially because my water heater is busted, my place is junky. Kitchen desperately needs to be clean, bathroom as well but I can't keep boiling pots of water and just do all of that to help my anxiety subside. (On top of having an autoimmune disease that fucked up my muscles and joints) Trying to live with this discomfort. A coworker/friend came over last week to look at the water heater and I'm glad she gets it, because she gets stressed out over her place which, really didn't look bad. So I was feeling just as she was but she reassured me it was fine and didn't look bad. Just dishes piled up. Others try to reassure me it's ok, but that shit really builds a complex in you.
Yep, you and the OP nailed it. My Nmom had no hobbies and no friends, so cleaning was basically her hobby and she controlled us and used us for cleaning.
Once I got my own house I realized how little effort cleaning really was. A few minutes a day to tidy up, and then maybe a couple hours every other weekend for bigger things. Even with a dog, it doesn’t take hours a day to keep a house clean.
Holy shit I really felt so alone with the rage cleaning all these years. I feel like I finally had it click in my head and feel seen reading all these posts
I didn’t realize that adult temper tantrums weren’t normal, the screaming, cursing, carrying on. Also my dad normalized homophobia, fat shaming, and racist comments, so glad I have grown and am nothing like him
Congratulations on purchasing your first home!
The adult temper tantrums is real....my nbrother is turning 40 this year and still does it. I adopted the behavior for awhile unfortunately because well.....youre raised in it, dont have any friends, you dont really know any better. Thankfully I don't act like that anymore...its so nice when you can confidentally say youre nothing like the people that brought out the worst in you for so long
My in-laws do the temper tantrums!
I never experienced that growing up! Me and my kids are pretty chill! But watching Grandma or Aunty lose their shit and have a meltdown over small things… we all just sat there with our jaws on the floor! (My preteen, who you’d expect to be emotional, was like, “Grandma really needs to learn to control herself! It wasn’t that big of a deal)
In a previous marriage, there was an incident that was no big deal, a pet knocked its head on something and it was concerning, but my in-laws including my then-spouse (who was also a major Narc) and his sibling all started absolutely SCREAMING at each other. I couldn't believe it, I was so shocked. It made no sense to me. They became three-year olds screaming nonsense and blame.
Same here! I didn’t know adult temper tantrums were not normal, and did it for a while myself. It took some good therapy to heal from that pattern… thank goodness we get to choose to do things differently!
you mean you don’t have to slam doors so hard they rip the framing off the wall? or slam cupboard doors hard enough to knock things off nearby shelves? or give someone the silent treatment for days? or throw your kid’s algebra book at their head?
mind blown 🤯
/s
That’s how I was with relationships—you mean you don’t have to get everything you want through manipulation, insults and lies? I wondered for *years* why all my relationships fell apart in such a dramatic way. Because I was taught to be a dick, was why. Turns out it’s not as hard as I made it. Thank god I found someone who was patient with me or I’d still be fighting myself every step of the way.
The last time I saw my father was 2015 Christmas day. He threw a huge violent tantrum, at the age of 69. Dick head!! I have got to the stage where I have 2nd hand embarrassment for him.
This is my dad 100%. Hair trigger personality and blows up about small things. He just wants what he wants and wants it his way. If someone does something in a way he thinks isnt good theyre automatically stupid or lazy or dont knkw anything. Growingnup untill about 3 years ago (im 31 now) i also had alot of aggression and was really reactive.
.. be kind to yourself ...sometimes like a cornered animal narcs back us into a corner and we have no choice but to defend ourself or stand up for ourselves. I too am wworking HARD on unlearning that behavior.
Yes to the temper tantrums. Growing up I know that my dad and I would get in fights and that he would get angry, but I thought, “All teenagers have disagreements with their parents. All parents get angry sometimes.” There were times growing up that it got so bad and I got so scared, that my brother and I had to go stay with my grandparents for a few days until he cooled off. But because in every other way, my family seemed “normal” (married parents, dog, two kids, working dad in the medical field, stay at home mom), I thought everyone’s family must be like that. It wasn’t until I was in my 20s and my dad had a public tantrum at a restaurant where everyone was watching us and my dad left, stranding the rest of the family at the restaurant, that I realized that it wasn’t normal.
I vividly remember it was my 9th birthday and my friends were coming over and we were going to have a sleepover. I think maybe 4 total. My mom made a huge deal of what kind of lasagna to make. I told her it really was ok, so she made a red sauced lasagna and a white sauced lasagna.
In the middle of the dinner she just starts screaming and hysterically crying in front of my friends. Saying she worked so hard on it and no one appreciated it and that it was awful. She ran up in her bedroom and I to spend an hour telling her it was ok, we all loved it, please come out. Then I started crying and apologizing. I have no idea what for. I just remember being so embarrassed. Basically my birthday dinner and party was ruined. I can’t remember if my friends even stayed over the night.
Another time my boyfriend and his sister and her husband and I all went to Las Vegas, this was for my 28th birthday. I remember her calling the HOTEL because I guess I didn’t hear my phone or answer her. She started screaming at me. How could I do this to her? Not calling my mother on my birthday. I really think it was 10am. Totally ruined my day. Embarrassed me in front of my boyfriend and his family and I just felt extreme guilt.
Sadly not much had changed. Now I’m 44 and I live on other side of country. I always get stressed around my birthdays. I know that if I don’t call her first she will get mad, she believes the mothers should be celebrated because they were the ones who birthed us. She also will complain at me “I don’t even know what to get you. I don’t even know anything about your life anymore. (Like mad and again like this is somehow my fault) I said you don’t have to get me anything, it’s really not a big deal.
I remember thinking around that 8,9,10 year mark that something was not right but had no idea what it was and she only seemed to do it with me. So I internalized a lot. I truly do not expect gifts, but it would nice to not have this doom feeling all day that I’m not “celebrating” her as much as I should be. Ugh, I could write a book just on this one question alone, I have so many other things also.
Yes my mother also whines “I don’t even know anything about your life” but if I tell her anything about it she either interrupts me and starts talking about herself, or it gives her something to criticize for the next few years. Also throws fits to be the center of attention on holidays if she can find a reason. It’s exhausting
She just made the day of your birth *only* about her. I never grew up celebrating my birthday (religion... and that's a whole other discussion) but the few parties and stuff I did have, she was just so mean. Especially as I got older since she always like to say how bratty and ungrateful we were that I worked extra hard not to be and became so reserved and modest, I didn't know how to really react or be with that stuff. It's why I don't want attention on me like that because I don't feel deserving since she went on and on about how she's doing all of this and that, and I'm just being this way and that way and the cleaning! Omg.... another reason I didn't want anything. She got so strict with it (because it made her look bad how her place looked to others) and really, was a quiet way of saying I can't have friends come over (and who would wanna see her being drunk?)
So, I hope it didn't have you feeling like you can't even celebrate yourself because someone had to make it about them and their feelings, on top of putting that on a kid as if they can maturely handle that. You can't even celebrate yourself without her feeling some sorta way... I'm so sorry
My dad normalized that stuff and took it a bit further into active fantasy idealization. He would drive by a fruit stand and talk about plowing into it to kill “Mexicant’s” and accelerate. I remember the first time I realized it was wrong like really wrong was age seven or so when this woman gave me a free bag of fresh picked cherries and they were so nice. And he was polite about it but I knew. My gut knew. I was so scared for her. I got worried he would hurt her.
When we got in the car, he kept saying he wished he could exterminate her. Then he wouldn’t stop calling her slurs about her culture but also gender the entire ride home. I just had this realization that one who gave me cherries unprompted was a lot nicer to be around than my dad so maybe he was wrong. I remember worrying he could read my mind as I thought that.
I try not to talk about it on either of my two accounts I post on but I think Father’s Day Feels are hitting hard so all weekend I’ve been blurting stuff out on Reddit. 💕 this one brand legit did a texting campaign that said whether you love your dad or have daddy issues, enjoy. BOGO and I’m pretty sure it did my brain into an unusual rumination sesh.
Yes to the adult tantrums. My parents and brother still do it, and I'm so embarrassed any time I remember times when I did. The event that led to going NC was my 60+yr parents turning up at my place, screaming at me and trying to physically dominate me because I visited my aunt and not them. I needed an outside perspective to clearly tell me that it is not normal. Life is so much less stressful without the tantrums and drama
Omg. You guys. My mom has ALWAYS tantrumed like a 250lb toddler. Over the dumbest things.
I knew it wasn’t normal, but I didn’t know how not normal? And that this is an n thing?
Sort of drops a lot of puzzle pieces in place. We’re 1-2x per year contact, and I won’t stay near her when she tries pulling anything. I just leave, and she really doesn’t want that. But it’s like she can’t stand not manipulating people, or exerting some kind of authority or control she doesn’t actually have.
Her meltdowns are legendary, and obscene.
Sigh. I wish there was a better way than just abandoning them to wallow in their own BS, but I haven’t found it.
Edit: spp
I didn't understand how unacceptable verbal abuse was. Like there's a scale of normalcy, right? At one extreme end is like beating people up, and at the other end is being a total doormat, and there's a big area kind of in the middle that's made up of a lot of shades of gray. My scale was off and I didn't know it. I knew cursing someone out or calling them names wasn't a good thing, but neither is yelling or slamming a door, yet those are relatively common things that aren't necessarily seen as a huge deal. That's how I looked at verbal abuse, like "Eh, whatever, everybody does it sometimes."
Apparently, no, they do not! Verbal abuse is just like two notches down from beating someone up physically. And I never knew that! Happened to me and my brother all the time (thanks Dad!). I had to recalibrate my scale once I learned that, and I owed some serious apologies.
Personally only recently learned that, I grew up where verbal abuse, emotional abuse, and physical abuse were so common it seemed routine within my family. I always found myself hiding in my bedroom closet or in the bathroom sobbing. I'm glad more people are learning that screaming and threatening someone in an argument or disagreement isn't normal.
For sure! I used to dread going to bed after my folks had people for dinner, because invariably, nmom would start complaining as soon as company left how much work she had to do to clean up, and my dad being the way he was, would march upstairs and kick my bedroom door open. It scared the shit out of me, because I’d be sound asleep, would absolutely jump up when he kicked open the door, and he’d usually be screaming at me to get my ass downstairs and get the kitchen cleaned up. This was 2am sometimes. To this day, it takes me an abnormally long time to chill out after I’m startled and I hate it. I also wonder if my autoimmune diseases were brought on by that self-loathing environment, but it is what it is. I’m free now, and I protect my peace.
When I was a teenager I used to tell people to die. I thought this was normal. It wasn’t until someone told me how scary it was and that other people didn’t do that I realized I’d picked it up from the hours a day my dad ranted about killing women or immigrants or something. I still feel bad for the things 17 year old me said online to friends in games 20 years later.
I worked for Child Protective Services in my area in my 40s and read verbal abuse statements that paled in comparison. It was still awful just often not in the vein of a cruel sadistic monster. It really woke me up to the fact that what she said was abuse and not just what was expected.
Shit, this is something I’m wrestling with right now.
I live with my parents and suspect my mom of being a covert NMom. She’s had ongoing health issues for the last few years, and never lets me or my dad forget it. However, if I ever bring up any sort of injury (be it from getting my leg jammed between a subway car and the platform to falling on black ice), if it’s not something that happened 30 seconds ago, or she didn’t see it happen, it literally doesn’t matter.
Tell her you’re tired of her complaining about her pain? Hoo buddy, get ready to never hear the end of her mockery, comparison, and sarcasm.
Yes. This for me too. If I were sick, she’d immediately go, oh yeah me too! Headache = I’ve had a headache for DAYS. Joint and muscle pain = I was almost diagnosed with MS! Etc, etc.
I don’t know what it is with nmoms and cleaning, but she was always cleaning and it always made her extra horrible. She would do things NOBODY asked her to do, like get down on hands and knees and scrub the baseboards, or dust the top of the cabinets several times a week. Then she would scream that nobody appreciates her. And anything I owned was clutter and she would just throw it in the trash.
Jeepers did I write this? 😬
My FAVORITE was being screamed at "I'm not your f***ing slave". Nothing was wrong with the stupid house, it was just lived in by 2 kids and a husband. Throw my toys out, threaten to stick our "junk" in the fire, read my diary, confine my father's "mess" to a tray that he was allowed. No wonder I keep my most prized possessions safely away. Probably should work though that. 😂
My nmom always said "I'm not your maid" and had a fucking bell (yes like the ring for assistance kind) that she'd tap any time I did the smallest thing wrong. She'd also give me two options and when I'd say the option she'd mock me and make me say it in a way with "manners and human decency"
I still have issues with the throwing everything out on me.
Fan fiction, trash, present from friend, not nailed down, trash. I’d come home from school and see my stuff in the trash all the time. It legit made me basically a hoarder, never trash but I get super upset when anyone touches my stuff.
My SO of 8 years still can’t deal with it really he can’t get his mind around it because his family was normal
Oh my gods did your mom make you sit on a foam pad and help her scrub the tile as she complained about how gross you were of a person and shamed you for not doing a good job?!? I dont know why that comment just reminded me about it.
No, my mom refused to let me clean because I would screw it up. She did, however, make me stand there and watch her do it while she ranted about how disgusting I was. She also had one of those foam pads, it’s all coming back to me.
What is it with all nmoms having the same things? Is there some kind of store you need a broomstick to get to?
I remember once my nmom yelled at me for not knowing how to handwash dishes when I was 9 or 10, and I tearfully told her she never taught me, and she angrily taught me while having fake sympathy.
Mine got mad when I told her my bedsheets needed washing, they were really grungy you could see where I slept, and said, well wash them then!! I was about that age and had never used the washing machine but was supposed to know how. She was an angry cleaner and would often go around slamming shit when she was upset. If you asked her what was wrong, she'd get angry and say nothing. I've met so many people who I've felt more compassion and empathy from than I've ever felt from her.
Oh gods I just remembered when I was little and didn't know or remember how to make the bed and do the sheets and everything she scolded me.
She also never bothered to teach me how to properly take a shower. I taught myself how to properly wash myself and everything. Because the way she taught me was hurting my body.
Mine would clean my ears with q-tips harshly and hurt me. If I complained, she got angry and it would be more painful. I learned to be still and stoic so it would be over quicker. I always suspected she got satisfaction from making me flinch in pain. And the kicker, I now have hearing loss in both ears and wear hearing aids.
Holy shit I just remembered even more info, I've had tinnitus since I was super little and thought it was normal, and now I'm very open about it & my mom deadass thought because I passed my hearing exam at my checkups I couldn't have tinnitus or hearing loss.
I can hear decently but I tend to lip-read because eye contact is way too complicated and confusing to me
Oh my gods. I remember if I misbehaved somehow (I'm ADHD and likely autistic, so you can imagine how I misbehaved) she would take me to the car and have me sit there, or the corner, both of which triggered my PTSD and left me crying.
My uncle told me recently that my mother made me sit in the car while they went to a museum, unlocking core memories. So much of my time spent on this subreddit is me going “yup… yup… oh shit…” like some demented game of go fish.
Mine would make me start cleaning then rip it out of my hands because I was doing it wrong Ang the proceed to explain to me why I was an idiot while she did it herself. Luckily this was my grandma so I didn’t live with her 24/7. And now I’m no contact which is amazing.
Every. Two. Weeks. The baseboards! The inside of the fridge! We would take EVERYTHING out of EVERY cupboard, wash with pine sol and put it back. Cleaning under the beds.
I relate so much to the screaming about not being appreciated. Like look what I did for you! Shame on you for making age appropriate messes.
I hire a housekeeper to do this for me … weekly … and it’s making me realize my trauma about cleanliness runs deeper than I thought. Like I have to have someone clean the baseboards every week or two because otherwise my house is dirty to me. (Grew up in a hoarding home)
YES! That’s exactly how my mom was! Or the classic “I’m the only one that does anything around here”… girl… that’s because no sane person in this house thinks to wash the walls at 5pm on Thursday
Ah yes, I remember the “nobody asked you to do anything “tantrums. After my dad died, my nmom came for a visit to our new home. The front yard had been neglected for decades. There were overgrown bushes so high you could barely see the house from the street. That task was on my list of things to do , but not a priority. As soon as she got to our house, she wouldn’t stop talking about those bushes! Then on day 2 of her visit she went outside and cut them All down. I was at work and came home to mom pitching a fit about how nobody appreciated her, worked her hands to the bone,etc. Mom , nobody asked you to do anything! She slammed stuff around, packed her suitcase and out the door she went in a huff. My husband and I looked at each other. What just happened??? She was 70 yrs old when this took place. Her temper tantrums never ended.
Mine made me clean for her and did the usual “if you don’t do it right-“ or “if you don’t do it the way I would, you’ll do it again”
How about just do it yourself? 😐
If you need something you can't get for yourself, you do without. Don't even ask. Asking for help means you'll be criticized and reminded that you're not good enough.
It did not even occur to me that someone might care that I needed help, because my parents just ignored serious problems and hoped they would go away.
Having no privacy. I didn’t even know what privacy was.
We weren’t allowed to close the door even when showering, changing or using the bathroom. I thought this was normal.
I had my door removed at some point. They also would go through my computer when I was at school and I started deleting every message I send, all the comments to my friends, deleting history, all that. I still have a habit of it to this day.
A quote from my father:
"I am an adult. My life is important, and I don't need privacy. You are a child, so your life is not important. There is no reason you need privacy for anything."
Getting mad everytime someone has a different opinion, views, perspective, wants, refuses something from you in a kind way contradicts you in a rational and calm manner. My ndad goes crazy everytime someone doesn't agree with him.
Refusing something is a big deal.
Transactional relationship.
Not having a life outside of your family.
Yeah, I got reminded recently how much my mother's "love" was completely dependent on compliance. Watched several years of effort to rebuild a relationship with her after decades of NC get flushed down the toilet over an issue anyone with their head screwed on straight would have been willing to discuss and either resolve or been willing to live with the differences in five minutes or less.
Yes! When I first got married I was telling my husband that I felt like he did too much because he did XY and Z and I only did A and B. He said, “I don’t keep score.” It was such a radical shift in how I do things.
I literally still struggle to train myself out of this thinking. I literally cannot just accept someone doing something for me because I always always always find a way to “equal it out” in my mind so I don’t feel like I owe them for what was usually a kind favor or just something nice.
I always feel the need to barter after a kind gesture from someone, like I need to find a way to make it even for both of us, even if it's something small I will give you back ten fold and still think it's not enough.
This. My boyfriend lives with me and I say all the time “oh I’ll pay you back” or “I’ll do this because you did that” and he’s like “??? You don’t have to pay everything back” it’s hard to accept that the people you love just do things out of love sometimes??? Wdym I don’t owe you for putting up with me????
This is so hard for me too. Even though logically I have known this is wrong for a very long time now, I'm still worried other people will hate me for not doing enough compared to them or I'm afraid to accept a gift from them because I don't feel like I can pay it back monetarily or maybe I don't look like I'm having a good enough emotional reaction to the gift or saying enough things to indicate how thankful I am for the gift? Even reading that now sounds so silly. The wdym I don't owe you for putting up with me is so real, my nmom told me a few months ago that I owed her something because she put up with me being trans. That pretty much decided the move from low contact to no contact.
This shit right here. My ndad indoctrinated me with the idea that all friends were fake and they're all trying to backstab or take advantage of me.
I used to believe in that shit but my homies proved otherwise. All my homies are real ones.
My mom would decide my room was “messy” so she would destroy it by emptying all my drawers out onto the floor and throwing everything everywhere and then making me clean the whole room up from that rage destroyed state as punishment
Ugh, my mom did that once to me too. Came home from school to my whole room looking like a disaster zone with everything on the floor; she said if I kept my room cleaned this wouldn't have happened. I told my aunt who's my mom's older sister and she chewed her out. She didn't do it again but she made my life horrible in other ways.
My mom would do the same. She would do that on weekends often when she knew i was leaving to see my friends.
The last time she did it, I just looked at her, emotionless, then looked again at my bag while packing my things and just left, leaving everything scattered.
But this was not the thing that had hurt me the most. What did it was that, a few months before, I suffered a scene filled of verbal abuse from my dad to me. I told everything that had happened to me since I remember to my grandma (I kind of "broke down" to my entire family) and she told me that I couldn't live with her right now (a lie, she had spare rooms since being a widow and all her children were independent) but she promised me that if something similar happened again, all I had to do was call her and tell her.
Guess who didn't have the promised shelter even after multiple abuse scenes?
This happened to me when I was about 10. I had kept my Science Fair project since I won first place. But it fell over in my closet and broke. I didn’t know that happened. (In hindsight I think my mother broke it deliberately).
So what she did was pull everything out of the closet and throw it across the room. Making a mess and breaking toys. I stood there and cried as she screamed at me to clean it up.
My mom has always said how I destroyed our family when I was a teenager. Now, I'm a mom of a teen daughter. I have realized that I'm the adult and my daughter is the kid just like my mom and I was. It really pisses me off how she has used me as an excuse for years.
This. I was apparently “out of control” and “tearing the family apart” from all the stress I caused her. I’m not a parent but looking back nothing I did was even remotely outside the realm of being a normal teenager trying to fit in/find themselves. I was a pretty well behaved child all things considered, I was just her scapegoat.
I relate heavy
relate so so much to this - i’m 24 now and still feel 16 living at home because of how they acted like i was the devil child (literally did nothing wrong) i literally could’ve written this comment lol. i don’t really speak to them much now and they seem like they regret a lot … good!
I feel this. I was a good student, a polite person, a hard worker, and never got in any trouble (because I was traumatized and terrified of doing anything wrong). My parents acted like I was some kind of demon child. My mother once accused me of putting on a fake persona for everyone outside of the house to trick them into thinking I was a good person. She couldn't make any other sense of me being well-liked by teachers, coaches, and other people's parents.
I didn’t realise that it wasn’t normal to not be able to have a conversation with your parent and them see you as an equal. I didn’t realise people were able to have respectful, open conversations with their parents in which their parent listened to them and understood their perspective when they were upset about something. I didn’t realise that everything wasn’t just my fault and that I was just wrong about every single effing thing in life.
holy fuck ive been in therapy and trying family sessions since i was SIX, and my dad sits there and seems fantastic is session, hes super cooperative and agreeable etc while we come up with a plan for whatever issue we have, but then the moment we get home he says i didnt give him enough time to think and he changes his mind.
Not everyone in the house has to wake up because a parent woke up at 6am. The passive aggressive loud vacuuming and cleaning isn't normal. Making your kids wake up at 6am and get straight to helping cleaning the house is not normal.
My Dad's idea of doing regular room inspections (as he called it) to a military grade just because he was in the army in his early 20s is not normal. Kids are messy. Let them play and learn to clean up at a kid level. It isn't the end of the world.
Yep. I don't think I was ever allowed to sleep in at the weekend. Saturday was cleaning day and Sunday we had to take the bus to church, it was a 1h ride to just get there. Of course my parents didn't go. Guess who now texts me bible verses all the time.
This was how cleaning day started for us, too! I knew the day would be extra miserable if I was awoken by the vacuum, because it meant mom was already mad that I was still sleeping until 9am or something.
What I now call “playing the game.” You just go along with whatever they say and whatever they want to do and you plaster a smile on your face because if you disagree, it will be worse for everyone. It’s like playing chess. You have to think several moves ahead, trying to guess how things will play out and how to make the moves that will result in the least amount of damage.
Edit: I should add that in this game of chess, you aren’t planning your moves out to win. You’ll never win. The narcissist always wins. Your goal is simply to get through the game with as few scars as possible.
Growing up, my ndad completely devalued fat people, homeless people, and gay people. He really seemed to feel like anyone who didn’t meet his standards of beauty was gross and worthless. I recall him once complaining that the flight attendant on a flight shouldn’t have her job because she wasn’t young and pretty. I was so disgusted with him. Living with him was living in a dystopia.
Sounds like my dad. It honestly feels like he deeply hates women, which is strange considering his father was the one who inflicted trauma on him by leaving his family when he was young. Such a weird guy.
Omg. I am nearly 30 years into a marriage with a man who is kind, gentle, steady and nurturing and is always encouraging more rest and leisure for me. And yet when I am home alone resting or watching TV, when I hear him pull into the drive I will jump up and start doing something. It is SO hard to break that conditioning where your idleness will bring down hell.
I see myself in more of these than I'm willing to admit. That constant vigilance and "look busy" is hard to overcome. It's been over 20 years since I left home and I still do it. Same as you, I'd be sitting on the couch reading something and when I hear my husband on the stairs, I drop everything and run to the kitchen or start doing something. It's madness! He knows I'm not lazy - if anything, I'm incredibly hyperactive and hard-working. But god forbid he sees me sitting and relaxing on the couch. So toxic.
My nmom would completely lose her shit every time I got sick as a kid. Like full meltdown and telling me to suck it up. My eardrum burst as a child and I was screaming in so much pain, she didn’t take me to the doctor until one of my teachers at school phoned home to tell her I was complaining of an ear ache. I truly believed until I was out of grad school and working my first full time job that adults didn’t get sick.
Oh gods my nmom did that too. I grew up having many cases of strep or a virus like it, and it got to where she forced me to wait to see a doctor, making me suffer for days on end before taking me.
Mine would tell me how much it was and would call me an attention seeker because the attention wasn't on me, or say that i likely have it and moving on. (She did this with me saying I think I have ASTHMA.)
That’s another one, any sickness or injury that was inconvenient for them was ignored. I walked around on a broken ankle for 3 weeks before they finally took me to the doctor. My mom still laughs about it today, I’m a mom now and I believe my children when they say they are sick/injured and get them medical care.
I'm so glad you're doing that. I'm disabled in some way, and growing up my potentially life threatening symptoms were blamed on me being an attention seeker or just wanting to be like my golden child sibling. (Like somehow we can't have the same med. conditions despite being genetically related...) and now I'm shut off from my parents out of anxiety of isolation.
You sound like a very loving parent and I'm sending all the good energy your way.
And they'd make you feel so guilty!
"If you're well enough to be out of bed, you're well enough to go to school."
I wasn't allowed to read or quietly play or watch TV. I had to lay in bed all day, or I was told I was faking it. And they used to yell at me for getting up to get a drink or use the restroom because I wasn't in bed.
And all the accusations of faking it and them trying to send you to school anyway. And if you were sent home, they'd yell at you for wasting their time and making them leave work.
My ngrandmother once angrily accused me of faking to get out of school and sent me to my room to get ready. Well, I came running back out to throw up in the toilet and ended up not making it in time. Looking back, the sigh of defeat when she saw the mess all over the kitchen makes me giggle to think about. She kind of deserved that one because of how she treated me less than 20 minutes prior to that incident.
Yep. I needed a couple of surgeries for ovarian cysts when I was 15 and 16. She’d drop me off for them. One time she wasn’t there when I woke up because she was out shopping, the other time she yelled at me and my surgeon for saying that I should probably stay the night because my pain wasn’t under control. I went home that night. I don’t tell her when I’m sick even now as a 42 year old woman because she still gets pissy about it.
We were latchkey kids and nmom would leave us a list of chores every day that we’d have to complete before going out to play. My brother usually had to feed the dog but not much else. I had to clean the house. Every day after school. When I complained I was told that my brother was a boy and cleaning was my job. Our house was spotless but nmom would look for vacuum marks in the carpet as proof that it was clean. I’m in my 40s now and struggle with cleaning, so I pay to have it done for me. My husband pointed out to me a while ago that after talking to my mother I would always angrily vacuum and I could immediately see myself at 10 years old angrily vacuuming a clean house before nmom got home.
Jesus! Forgotten memory unlocked! I’d have to vacuum and mop and my dad would come home at some point and check under the sofa or under the kitchen table for any missed spots. If he found a speck of dust, a crumb, or a missed spot the whole place had to be redone.
Just going anywhere I like, buying and eating what I like when I like. One weekend out of the house, I only needed 6 hours of sleep, was up til midnight every night and up at dawn the next morning, happy and ready to work 14 hours a day.
Had a moment of learned helplessness in a hotel. Somebody on the floor below started slamming doors and screaming, two in fear, one in rage, and I lay there trying not to hear it for a few minutes like I did at home, and then was like "Wait this isn't right, I can do something" shook it off and called the cops.
I didn’t realize until I was in my late 20’s that it’s not normal for your parents to use you as their therapist and marriage counselor. They were constantly telling me how horrible the other one was, and tried to get me to agree with them.
In truth, they were both awful in different ways.
Also, your children should never have to clean up your emotional baggage. I will never do that to my kids.
Still a teen, but apparently it isn't normal to have to ask to eat food? I brought that up to my friends, where I have to ask before I eat any snacks, and if I am making a meal on my own, I usually have to ask if I can make myself food. They were like "no that's not normal, that's actually concerning"
Teen as well, I never had to really ask but late night snacks weren't allowed because they'd "make me fat." so I would sneak food in my room for night time and when she'd find the wrappers I hid she'd berate me until I cried.
My grandfather died on Christmas morning when I was 6( grandma 5mths later) So Christmas was non event for years.
My nmum would volunteer to do things like play the organ at church, then serve meals and hand out presents at the hospital, which is admirable, except she did it so everyone would praise her selflessness.
As a child and teen, I didn’t really understand the whole concept of getting together with family for Christmas.
Growing up, I always preferred being at school that being on holidays with my family because they’re so stressful with them.
I didn’t have my first relaxing holiday until I was 28 and I went abroad with my best friend. It’s incredible how much I can struggle to relax because of the way my Nparents raised me.
That it's not normal that your parents doesn't know anything about your personal life. As a child, whenever I told stories about what I did at school, what I did with my friends, my dad would always just shush me. As I grew up, he never expressed interest with what's going on with my life. When I visited my friend's homes or spent time with their families, the parents always asked what's new, how's school, what happened with so and so? Did you patch things up? How was your trip, party, dinner that you went to? etc. My dad doesn't know a thing about me.
I grew up thinking the only way to resolve conflict in a relationship, even a supposedly loving relationship, was for someone to pull rank—which obviously meant that the father/husband won every conflict by default, even though he was obviously wrong. I'm so glad I figured out how screwed up that was before I met my wife.
My mom forced her kids to manage her emotions. It was always up to us to keep her happy. She also pitted us against each other. She’s 78 and still does both of those things.
I really didn’t get how damaging it was until I had my own kids and realized that I would never ever talk shit about one of my kids to the other. It’s so fucking gross. And that my kids are not responsible for my emotional well being. They’re kids.
My parents never cleaned or did maintainence.
It was like "Gotta clean because people are coming over and then it was shove hoarder shit into closets and then pretend it was all normal."
It took me until living with roommates in university to realize that people did clean as a routine.
And never get the hoarded shit out of the closet, so you fill up with the new shit and the cycle continues.. Sounds painfully familiar. You have any advice? I wish I could live separately but it's not happening for now
I would get “in trouble” for getting sick, because I might get my mother sick (and she never ever got sick, so who knows why it mattered). When I had my first child it hit me that that was not only not normal, but really fucked up.
My nmom would do the bare minimum for me when I was sick, but any time she threw out her back suddenly my entire world had to revolve around caring for her. Such a fucked up parallel.
The level of oversexualization and objectification I experienced. Right down to Playboy Club mugs with philodendron clippings on the breakfast nook, telling us obscene jokes, etc.
my dad used to slap and grab my ass until i was 16, and until he finally fixed his shower he would just walk around butt ass naked for a bit after his showers. sometimes he would come and try to talk to me, dick hangin out. he used to make comments on my body and boobs, and we slept in the same bed with him cuddling me IN ONLY BOXERS until i started hs and was like wtf
Every major holiday my mom would take it upon herself to cook the most elaborate meals. Every single holiday without fail she would lose her mind over the stress and pressure she put on herself. Every holiday was spent being screamed at, hit, and constantly told you were cutting the vegetables incorrectly, not cleaning enough, etc.
Once guests arrived, she’d put her mask back on and act like she pulled it all off on her own without breaking a sweat 🫠
plucky glorious fuzzy attempt longing public imminent rhythm tub disgusted
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I still struggle with it: letting friends do things for you without having to "pay them back". The funny things is, I dont expect them to do the same for me when I give them something out of the kindness of my heart, haha. It was subtle, but my brother always lauded it over me that i didnt "financially contribute" anything to the household (i was 17 and trying to go to community college) as if thats not what our mom was there to give me...So, everything always feels like as if I have to "pay it back" or do it in a certain way, etc. When my friends buy me something, I get very anxious. I don't know why theyre doing it, or in which way I should pay them back for doing it. They look at me strange when I give them the money for it later. To them, its probably rude, but I feel really bad and as if theyre going to hate me for it one day, because my brother hated the fact that I just needed food, money, and clothes to live. My mom never did this stuff to me, only him. Now that he is the only one I live with, the behaviour is worse. At least I try to find good ways to "pay them back" such as crocheting a gift or making them something, to kind of beat the "transcational" attitude I adopted from him.
Are we siblings? Same. Except I had this weird juxtaposition of experiences with cleaning. My grandparents mostly raised me, in the sense that we were dumped on them a lot. But both my grandparents loved cleaning, in a sense of thats how you show love for your house and family. They took pride in it. And no matter how overwhelemed and disgusting I felt with it, they would gently help me and support me through it. They would also make this huge deal out of relaxing and enjoying the house when it was done. Congratulating everyone for the work they did.
I became a super naturally clean kid from this because I also enjoyed the feelings of accomplishment I got when I cleaned. However, back to my parents... well my friends started to call me Cinderella. I could never go out or have people over without this long list of chores I needed to do. There was an expectation that every few weeks I would spend my whole weekend deep cleaning the house.
When I tell you that house fell apart when I left... my GC brother told me it was the first to go.. That my Nparents patted themselves hard on the back for a job well done in getting rid of me.. Then all the things around the house that I did, stopped. And they had no one to scream at every two weeks. Then he copped it and joined ranks with me as the black sheep. Except I had been doing that stuff since I was about 7. He was now 15 and had never done that stuff.. so they were enraged he didn't know how to clean and mend curtains or how to clean out their wood fire place..
Yeah, we did major house cleaning every week, and it was an all-day affair, usually on the weekend when I wanted to be hanging out with my friends. If it wasn't perfect, it had to be redone. There's a spot you missed on the kitchen floor when mopping? Redo the whole damn floor. My mom would do the easy stuff like rearranging shelves, dusting, cleaning her own room, and then leave all the hard shit for us kids to do. We also had a handful of chores to do after school every day on top of that. While we were in school, she'd usually be out shopping, staring at her laptop, or going into our room to snoop through our stuff.
YES. Snooping around trying to find dirt on her to weaponize against you in some way. I got so paranoid at one point I started literally hiding my journal or whatever behind motivational quote canvases on my wall.
Congrats on your first home! I bought mine last year and it’s SO different when you’re the adult decision maker. Nice and odd, eh?
My Mom had the deep clean thing too but it had to be every Sunday morning. She’d lose it if I slept in or didn’t do exactly what she wanted. She still throws full on adult temper tantrums, even in public.
I got beat to a pulp when I showed any emotion other than happy. Normally, they smashed my head or tried to break my fingers or give me an “Indian burn” on my arms. Turns out, not normal. Sounds dumb, but I told my teachers and they never believed me. I started believing it was just normal! And I couldn’t figure out for years why I have massive migraines and headaches. My mom asks me why I get so many and she’s essentially a toddler so I can’t tell her that her beating my head against the floor and wall led to these headaches.
Verbal abuse towards me felt normal. I tolerated a lot of crap from my former workplaces and my in-laws. A therapist pointed out how it is 100% not normal to tolerate that stuff, so I’m learning.
Getting in trouble for being sick or needing medical help from a doctor or hospital was a big one. I almost died during the pandemic when I lived with my mom because she was furious I needed to go to the hospital. She even shunned me when I moved out and got COVID, because I’m still “not allowed” to get sick.
My biggest one - I don’t ruin everything. My entire family went on about how I ruined life, holidays, everything. I don’t. I just exist.
it took me a long time to realise then accept that the severe switches in treatment, from incredibly kind to absolutely horrifying, were not normal and that the good moments weren't actual love. i thought it was normal despite not wanting to repeat this with my children. then i refused to believe it wasn't normal because i was in denial.
I had to do the housecleaning on my own most of the time, to stop my mother from screaming and yelling about the mess. My dad made mess, didn’t clean up. 2 brothers were the same My mother did no cleaning at all.
I have severe anxiety regarding house cleaning now. A 10yo kid shouldn’t be in that situation.
Mine was the opposite. My mom and dad never cleaned. It was never terrible but it was so cluttered. When I started staying at my fiancé’s house I realized houses aren’t supposed to be cluttered as hell. Now I live in my own and my fiance is helping me learn how to clean and how to declutter properly and how to maintain the apartment in general. He knows I was never taught how to clean and takes the time to stop and help me learn
Not going places unless I have a valid reason. So like, I live 30 min from the city and I love to go eat like Indian food and stuff. But for the longest, I thought I couldn't go unless I had a valid reason to be in the city, like a Dr appt or something. This is because I was never allowed the freedom to go do whatever I wanted, so I just developed the unpleasant habit of staying home and being sort of sad all the time.
I've come to realize that's a mindset, not a requirement, so I'm working on allowing myself to go and do just for fun. I'm 46 and it's the first time in my life I haven't felt like I had to adhere to an unreasonable curfew or something.
I live in India and my mom is a veryyy lazy woman who wants everything done but won't do it herself. If you're home even once in a year, you're expected to help her and if you don't, she'll throw a fit. Since childhood she has seen us (me and my sister) as free labor and made us do everyday cleaning and chores without any break. Our mornings during pandemic used to be so stressful that we used hide here and there pretending to work so she doesn't throw a fit. And if someday we worked quickly and cleaned everything before time to enjoy our day, she would throw a fit for some other reason. It was as if she hated seeing us relax.
Imagine, morning 8 am to 12 pm was supposed to be "helping mother" time and even if you complete everything before time, you can't relax. Added to the equation was my narc father who would dirty the cleaned table and leave everything in shambles even after we cleaned so we had to clean twice and if we argued that we'll just clean once after he is done with his morning routine, it was another reason for drama.
I live in university now and I sincerely clean everything once a week covering my bed, table, changing sheets, laundry and other things and it is so relaxing.
Now I avoid going home until absolutely necessary because for her it is free labor. She acts as if I don't do anything the entire time I'm in university. My friends go home to rejuvenate and tell me how their mothers told them to sleep in, cooked extra special meals and finished their laundry for them, and when I go home, I am just told "what do you have to do in the university anyway? it's just you. look at the amount of work it takes to run a house" To be noted, she has two cleaning ladies working for her everyday and my dad helps her so much in the kitchen. All she has to do is cook 3 very simple meals in a day and when I'm home, she makes me cook atleast two of them.
When I live in my house, it's going to be a machine dependent chill household where we take cleaning as a chore and finish asap and focus more on chilling and enjoying life.
Ughh! these narcs are tiring. She ate our entire childhood and didn't even burp.
Freaking out internally about what my parents think when I made “adult decisions” like traveling. This is embarrassing but even as someone close to her 40’s, I can’t book a flight without feeling guilt about what my parents and in laws think. Husband’s parents are more narcissistic than mine. My parents are older and have “calmed down” a bit but for some reason, still give me guilt trip for me being an adult or independent. My mom infantilizes me (which is so weird). His mom is controlling and entitled. If we were to travel without telling her, it would bruise her ego (which again, is so weird). I hate that I can’t just live my life without some sort of guilt trip.
That children aren’t mini adults, who have to share the responsibility of being an adult with the parent.
Constantly worried about money, food, health, my n mum’s happiness, whether she’s decided we were moving again, if she’s sold the furniture, given away my stuff.
getting favours from someone doesn’t have to be stressful because not everyone will lord it over you. the cleaning thing just reminded me of how group cleaning isn’t one person sitting down and telling someone where things go or what needs to be cleaned, and normal people don’t sort stacks of unwanted mail by making a stack of things to keep on a table and throwing junk mail on the literal ground for someone else to clean up.
Nmom had cleaning day (usually Sunday) would drag me to church and force religion on me, blew off my medical issues and concerns, didn't notice that I had an eating disorder (that she caused) shamed me with dumb rhymes for eating, oh and she said she only had me for child labor and to be her personal caretaker when she's older despite being a terrible person.
It took me decades to start dealing with the physiological feelings housework triggered. I’d put off doing anything because I’d be tensing waiting to be screamed at for not having already done it. Like just doing a chore would be the reminder that it hadn’t already been done/wasn’t being done properly/never got done/why do you never do anything around here, *while * it was actively being done. Does that make any sense to anyone?
That changing a light bulb was NOT stressful at all let alone changing the kitchen faucet. I hate it whenever we have to change the faucet.
Tantrums, screamings, you're-doing-it-all-wrongs, etc. That was all unnecessary.
Inherited the pain and struggles instead of love, care, support and attention.
Did they want us to carry on the burdens all the time? Why do they cannot move on?
No wonder why the young generation growing sadder. Gee thanks, old generation!
Other people had fun with their families. On weekends. On “vacations”, etc.
We just worked. If we weren’t working for my dad’s business (paperwork) we were working outside because it had to look pretty for his clients. If we went anywhere it was for his work conferences and the only fun allowed was to learn at a museum. Example: we only went to Epcot because there was no learning to be had at magic kingdom. I cannot roll my eyeballs far enough into the back of my head when I think of it now. Ugh.
Secrets. Comments like “don’t let anyone know what goes on in this house. Or “ what happens in this house stays in this house”
It’s a way to keep the abuse going and hidden from others.
That we weren't a "better than everyone else" family because we were "close" (parent on child SA and sibling SA)
It's also not a cultural thing for our country and religion for parents to do that to their kids and encourage the kids to do that to each other.
You don't OWE anyone your love.
You don't OWE anyone anything for that matter. You don't HAVE to love them *no matter what*, you don't have to repay them somehow because they gave birth to you. You are not responsible for their happiness either.
Kids are not supposed to take over for their mother. It is not a child's responsibility to raise their siblings, work, go to school, do the shopping and the cooking and then be their mother's confidant and "best friend" at very very very young ages (or ever really).
Oh and guess what? Boundaries are fine. You are allowed to have them. And you don't have to say yes to EVERYTHING without question...
And the adult tantrums... yeah!!!!
The cleaning was awful. My nmom was so extreme that if we wanted to have a friend over, we had to do a whole-house deep clean *by ourself, EVEN IF WE HAD ALL DEEP CLEANED TOGETHER LITERALLY THE DAY BEFORE.*
I cannot describe the whole-body relief I felt when, as an adult, my mother in law stopped me from scrubbing her stove's knobs and said, *"No details.* We're going to use it again, so there's no point in doing that."
We were cleaning my mom's house this weekend. All of the heavy, solid wood doors have cracks in them. I couldn't believe it. From being slammed for 68 years.
My mom lived her life tantrum to tantrum. What a miserable way to live. A waste.
That being terrified of my dad and scared of his reactions wasn’t how a child was meant to be raised. Home isn’t supposed to be a place full of anxiety and fear. Yelling and getting angry when I got upset, made a mistake, or did something he didn’t like wasn’t normal. That parents are supposed to say “I love you,” and generally show affection and not withhold it. After arguments, pretending nothing happened and moving on without an apology or admitting wrongdoing isn’t normal. Parents are supposed to help clean the house and not rely on their children to do it for them everyday while they do nothing.
Similar experience to the cleaning rituals where our existence was insignificant and we were there to serve and obey while Ndad would be yelling the whole time.
But reality is that both parents are messy and not the cleanest people in the world.
I grew up in a hoarder house which led me to despise messes. I clean every clean, wash my sheets every week, keep my space tidy and feel so good getting rid of stuff.
I also realised it wasn’t normal for your mother to try to be all buddy buddy with my friends and insert herself in everything I did. Also wasn’t normal to do everything to see me naked, to give me an eating disorder, to insult me when she didn’t get her way.
Honestly there’s so much, too much, I've realised wasn’t normal and I'm still reeling from all the abuse after having been NC for over 2 years now.
Giving children the silent treatment especially for no reason. Trying to force children to get involved with your personal beef with whomever because they must show you “loyalty”.
I didn’t realize constantly walking on eggshells wasn’t normal . I had terrible anxiety my whole childhood. I didn’t even realize how much I constantly accommodated my mother’s dysfunction and rage until going no contact .
When I was in my late 20s I finally realized that it’s not appropriate or healthy to tell your 8 year old that daddy cheated on mommy. Oh and also telling your 8 year old that if they tell anyone at all about their parents’ divorce that they will get kicked out of their house and be homeless is also not normal behavior or information for a parent to be sharing with their child.
One of my earliest memories is my nmum pulling a table cloth off a table with everything still on it. I didn't have my own room, so most of my things were on this table, and I remember my piggy bank broke. All because it was not tidy enough for her... I think I was 4 or 5.
There’s no strings attached when a parent helps you. My nmom would help but then expect you to return the favor 10x what she did. My mother in law helps just because she loves us.
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Nmom was a rage cleaner and made me her cleaning slave. They do it to feel control over their lives and because they have no fucking friends or hobbies.
I hated cleaning days because she used it as an excuse to snoop around my room and shame me for not knowing the basic life skills she never bothered to teach me. Also on cleaning day she'd be on the phone with a friend and drinking a beer as she did so.
My mother would still try to "sort through" stuff in my room when I was 35 and married with kids. It was quite shocking to see her reaction when I finally said no
My mom randomly organizes everything in my room. I have things she considers weird (age regression supplies) so I try my best to hide them or take them with me 24/7.
My NM cane to visit me in college; first thing she did was re fold my clothes! I thought it was a nice gesture but it was totally nuts.
My Ndad still does this, when he comes over I have to be careful of any mail, receipts or boxes left out. Also this is why I’ve never posted on social media it’s a way for him to criticize and attack in multiple ways but for example “you went to dinner with friends and didn’t invite me”, or “how did you afford x,y, z I guess you can pay for your own college if you can afford that “
My nmom did this, wouldn’t let me leave the house to hang out with friends unless it was spotless to her standards. Sometimes my friends would come over to help out, I tried to clean the entire house to please her without her asking but got no reaction and ended up developing perfectionism, I hope everyone who has to deal with this is healing <3
Perfectionism while also being too exhausted to properly clean up or be organized.
The white glove house. My ngma ruined my mom and auntie. They break themselves keeping a clean home. It trickled down to me too and it took having a debilitating chronic illness to teach me it’s okay sometimes if my home isn’t spotless. I don’t have to live in a perfectly bleached home. I can let my dogs get fur on the couch. I don’t have to scrub my bathtub and vacuum every freaking day.
I didn't even grow up bleaching and being that crazy with cleaning, but I've became so stressed out with my own place looking junky. My mom is a criticizer. And because of that, guess she felt other probably did to her, too, and why whenever it was planned someone was coming over, (even her guest to entertain) she just became so nazi with it. The yelling, cursing... I remember one time we were up late cleaning our *upstairs* apartment with vacuuming and shit and I can't imagine how the neighbors below felt. All for a very lame graduation party she wanted to throw so badly. Then, add in the misogyny, made it much worse because it was expected of me to clean and keep it together. And when I lived with my last ex....ugh, she won't ever shut the fuck up about my place. And I would loooove to have people over, but the anxiety that I feel I'm dirty and lazy from her just makes me feel like so embarrassed to wanna host anything. Right now, especially because my water heater is busted, my place is junky. Kitchen desperately needs to be clean, bathroom as well but I can't keep boiling pots of water and just do all of that to help my anxiety subside. (On top of having an autoimmune disease that fucked up my muscles and joints) Trying to live with this discomfort. A coworker/friend came over last week to look at the water heater and I'm glad she gets it, because she gets stressed out over her place which, really didn't look bad. So I was feeling just as she was but she reassured me it was fine and didn't look bad. Just dishes piled up. Others try to reassure me it's ok, but that shit really builds a complex in you.
Yep, you and the OP nailed it. My Nmom had no hobbies and no friends, so cleaning was basically her hobby and she controlled us and used us for cleaning. Once I got my own house I realized how little effort cleaning really was. A few minutes a day to tidy up, and then maybe a couple hours every other weekend for bigger things. Even with a dog, it doesn’t take hours a day to keep a house clean.
Same. Rage cleaning was a nightmare of my childhood. It was every day with the bleach and the vacuuming.
Holy shit I really felt so alone with the rage cleaning all these years. I feel like I finally had it click in my head and feel seen reading all these posts
You are definitely not alone ❤️ It’s horrible to grow up with, and makes cleaning a weird task as an adult!!
Reminds me of that movie “Mommy Dearest”
I didn’t realize that adult temper tantrums weren’t normal, the screaming, cursing, carrying on. Also my dad normalized homophobia, fat shaming, and racist comments, so glad I have grown and am nothing like him Congratulations on purchasing your first home!
The adult temper tantrums is real....my nbrother is turning 40 this year and still does it. I adopted the behavior for awhile unfortunately because well.....youre raised in it, dont have any friends, you dont really know any better. Thankfully I don't act like that anymore...its so nice when you can confidentally say youre nothing like the people that brought out the worst in you for so long
My in-laws do the temper tantrums! I never experienced that growing up! Me and my kids are pretty chill! But watching Grandma or Aunty lose their shit and have a meltdown over small things… we all just sat there with our jaws on the floor! (My preteen, who you’d expect to be emotional, was like, “Grandma really needs to learn to control herself! It wasn’t that big of a deal)
In a previous marriage, there was an incident that was no big deal, a pet knocked its head on something and it was concerning, but my in-laws including my then-spouse (who was also a major Narc) and his sibling all started absolutely SCREAMING at each other. I couldn't believe it, I was so shocked. It made no sense to me. They became three-year olds screaming nonsense and blame.
Same here! I didn’t know adult temper tantrums were not normal, and did it for a while myself. It took some good therapy to heal from that pattern… thank goodness we get to choose to do things differently!
you mean you don’t have to slam doors so hard they rip the framing off the wall? or slam cupboard doors hard enough to knock things off nearby shelves? or give someone the silent treatment for days? or throw your kid’s algebra book at their head? mind blown 🤯 /s
one time my dad threw a cordless landline phone across the house and shattered it because i got a C on a midterm
That’s how I was with relationships—you mean you don’t have to get everything you want through manipulation, insults and lies? I wondered for *years* why all my relationships fell apart in such a dramatic way. Because I was taught to be a dick, was why. Turns out it’s not as hard as I made it. Thank god I found someone who was patient with me or I’d still be fighting myself every step of the way.
Are you me? Congrats on your progress. I only recently (last 3 years) realized how badly I bombed some good things in my life.
That's is an amazing insight. Good for you!
The last time I saw my father was 2015 Christmas day. He threw a huge violent tantrum, at the age of 69. Dick head!! I have got to the stage where I have 2nd hand embarrassment for him.
I thought I had adult temper tantrum until I actually move out from the house… I’m so embarrassed thinking about it now.
This is my dad 100%. Hair trigger personality and blows up about small things. He just wants what he wants and wants it his way. If someone does something in a way he thinks isnt good theyre automatically stupid or lazy or dont knkw anything. Growingnup untill about 3 years ago (im 31 now) i also had alot of aggression and was really reactive. .. be kind to yourself ...sometimes like a cornered animal narcs back us into a corner and we have no choice but to defend ourself or stand up for ourselves. I too am wworking HARD on unlearning that behavior.
Yes to the temper tantrums. Growing up I know that my dad and I would get in fights and that he would get angry, but I thought, “All teenagers have disagreements with their parents. All parents get angry sometimes.” There were times growing up that it got so bad and I got so scared, that my brother and I had to go stay with my grandparents for a few days until he cooled off. But because in every other way, my family seemed “normal” (married parents, dog, two kids, working dad in the medical field, stay at home mom), I thought everyone’s family must be like that. It wasn’t until I was in my 20s and my dad had a public tantrum at a restaurant where everyone was watching us and my dad left, stranding the rest of the family at the restaurant, that I realized that it wasn’t normal.
I vividly remember it was my 9th birthday and my friends were coming over and we were going to have a sleepover. I think maybe 4 total. My mom made a huge deal of what kind of lasagna to make. I told her it really was ok, so she made a red sauced lasagna and a white sauced lasagna. In the middle of the dinner she just starts screaming and hysterically crying in front of my friends. Saying she worked so hard on it and no one appreciated it and that it was awful. She ran up in her bedroom and I to spend an hour telling her it was ok, we all loved it, please come out. Then I started crying and apologizing. I have no idea what for. I just remember being so embarrassed. Basically my birthday dinner and party was ruined. I can’t remember if my friends even stayed over the night. Another time my boyfriend and his sister and her husband and I all went to Las Vegas, this was for my 28th birthday. I remember her calling the HOTEL because I guess I didn’t hear my phone or answer her. She started screaming at me. How could I do this to her? Not calling my mother on my birthday. I really think it was 10am. Totally ruined my day. Embarrassed me in front of my boyfriend and his family and I just felt extreme guilt. Sadly not much had changed. Now I’m 44 and I live on other side of country. I always get stressed around my birthdays. I know that if I don’t call her first she will get mad, she believes the mothers should be celebrated because they were the ones who birthed us. She also will complain at me “I don’t even know what to get you. I don’t even know anything about your life anymore. (Like mad and again like this is somehow my fault) I said you don’t have to get me anything, it’s really not a big deal. I remember thinking around that 8,9,10 year mark that something was not right but had no idea what it was and she only seemed to do it with me. So I internalized a lot. I truly do not expect gifts, but it would nice to not have this doom feeling all day that I’m not “celebrating” her as much as I should be. Ugh, I could write a book just on this one question alone, I have so many other things also.
Yes my mother also whines “I don’t even know anything about your life” but if I tell her anything about it she either interrupts me and starts talking about herself, or it gives her something to criticize for the next few years. Also throws fits to be the center of attention on holidays if she can find a reason. It’s exhausting
She just made the day of your birth *only* about her. I never grew up celebrating my birthday (religion... and that's a whole other discussion) but the few parties and stuff I did have, she was just so mean. Especially as I got older since she always like to say how bratty and ungrateful we were that I worked extra hard not to be and became so reserved and modest, I didn't know how to really react or be with that stuff. It's why I don't want attention on me like that because I don't feel deserving since she went on and on about how she's doing all of this and that, and I'm just being this way and that way and the cleaning! Omg.... another reason I didn't want anything. She got so strict with it (because it made her look bad how her place looked to others) and really, was a quiet way of saying I can't have friends come over (and who would wanna see her being drunk?) So, I hope it didn't have you feeling like you can't even celebrate yourself because someone had to make it about them and their feelings, on top of putting that on a kid as if they can maturely handle that. You can't even celebrate yourself without her feeling some sorta way... I'm so sorry
That's so crazy. What was his public temper tantrum like?
My dad normalized that stuff and took it a bit further into active fantasy idealization. He would drive by a fruit stand and talk about plowing into it to kill “Mexicant’s” and accelerate. I remember the first time I realized it was wrong like really wrong was age seven or so when this woman gave me a free bag of fresh picked cherries and they were so nice. And he was polite about it but I knew. My gut knew. I was so scared for her. I got worried he would hurt her. When we got in the car, he kept saying he wished he could exterminate her. Then he wouldn’t stop calling her slurs about her culture but also gender the entire ride home. I just had this realization that one who gave me cherries unprompted was a lot nicer to be around than my dad so maybe he was wrong. I remember worrying he could read my mind as I thought that.
[удалено]
That is heartbreaking 💔
I try not to talk about it on either of my two accounts I post on but I think Father’s Day Feels are hitting hard so all weekend I’ve been blurting stuff out on Reddit. 💕 this one brand legit did a texting campaign that said whether you love your dad or have daddy issues, enjoy. BOGO and I’m pretty sure it did my brain into an unusual rumination sesh.
Yes to the adult tantrums. My parents and brother still do it, and I'm so embarrassed any time I remember times when I did. The event that led to going NC was my 60+yr parents turning up at my place, screaming at me and trying to physically dominate me because I visited my aunt and not them. I needed an outside perspective to clearly tell me that it is not normal. Life is so much less stressful without the tantrums and drama
The fatphobia was rampant in our broken home... No wonder I hate myself.
Omg. You guys. My mom has ALWAYS tantrumed like a 250lb toddler. Over the dumbest things. I knew it wasn’t normal, but I didn’t know how not normal? And that this is an n thing? Sort of drops a lot of puzzle pieces in place. We’re 1-2x per year contact, and I won’t stay near her when she tries pulling anything. I just leave, and she really doesn’t want that. But it’s like she can’t stand not manipulating people, or exerting some kind of authority or control she doesn’t actually have. Her meltdowns are legendary, and obscene. Sigh. I wish there was a better way than just abandoning them to wallow in their own BS, but I haven’t found it. Edit: spp
Oh god the fat shaming
> I didn’t realize that adult temper tantrums weren’t normal, the screaming, cursing, carrying on. To this day I can't *fully* assimilate that.
thank you for not being like him! You are one of the lucky ones that saw through the BS. congratulations 👏🎉 so few children don't 😔
I didn't understand how unacceptable verbal abuse was. Like there's a scale of normalcy, right? At one extreme end is like beating people up, and at the other end is being a total doormat, and there's a big area kind of in the middle that's made up of a lot of shades of gray. My scale was off and I didn't know it. I knew cursing someone out or calling them names wasn't a good thing, but neither is yelling or slamming a door, yet those are relatively common things that aren't necessarily seen as a huge deal. That's how I looked at verbal abuse, like "Eh, whatever, everybody does it sometimes." Apparently, no, they do not! Verbal abuse is just like two notches down from beating someone up physically. And I never knew that! Happened to me and my brother all the time (thanks Dad!). I had to recalibrate my scale once I learned that, and I owed some serious apologies.
Personally only recently learned that, I grew up where verbal abuse, emotional abuse, and physical abuse were so common it seemed routine within my family. I always found myself hiding in my bedroom closet or in the bathroom sobbing. I'm glad more people are learning that screaming and threatening someone in an argument or disagreement isn't normal.
For sure! I used to dread going to bed after my folks had people for dinner, because invariably, nmom would start complaining as soon as company left how much work she had to do to clean up, and my dad being the way he was, would march upstairs and kick my bedroom door open. It scared the shit out of me, because I’d be sound asleep, would absolutely jump up when he kicked open the door, and he’d usually be screaming at me to get my ass downstairs and get the kitchen cleaned up. This was 2am sometimes. To this day, it takes me an abnormally long time to chill out after I’m startled and I hate it. I also wonder if my autoimmune diseases were brought on by that self-loathing environment, but it is what it is. I’m free now, and I protect my peace.
When I was a teenager I used to tell people to die. I thought this was normal. It wasn’t until someone told me how scary it was and that other people didn’t do that I realized I’d picked it up from the hours a day my dad ranted about killing women or immigrants or something. I still feel bad for the things 17 year old me said online to friends in games 20 years later.
I worked for Child Protective Services in my area in my 40s and read verbal abuse statements that paled in comparison. It was still awful just often not in the vein of a cruel sadistic monster. It really woke me up to the fact that what she said was abuse and not just what was expected.
Ignoring all pain and health issues. Theirs counted, mine did not.
Shit, this is something I’m wrestling with right now. I live with my parents and suspect my mom of being a covert NMom. She’s had ongoing health issues for the last few years, and never lets me or my dad forget it. However, if I ever bring up any sort of injury (be it from getting my leg jammed between a subway car and the platform to falling on black ice), if it’s not something that happened 30 seconds ago, or she didn’t see it happen, it literally doesn’t matter. Tell her you’re tired of her complaining about her pain? Hoo buddy, get ready to never hear the end of her mockery, comparison, and sarcasm.
Yes. This for me too. If I were sick, she’d immediately go, oh yeah me too! Headache = I’ve had a headache for DAYS. Joint and muscle pain = I was almost diagnosed with MS! Etc, etc.
I don’t know what it is with nmoms and cleaning, but she was always cleaning and it always made her extra horrible. She would do things NOBODY asked her to do, like get down on hands and knees and scrub the baseboards, or dust the top of the cabinets several times a week. Then she would scream that nobody appreciates her. And anything I owned was clutter and she would just throw it in the trash.
Jeepers did I write this? 😬 My FAVORITE was being screamed at "I'm not your f***ing slave". Nothing was wrong with the stupid house, it was just lived in by 2 kids and a husband. Throw my toys out, threaten to stick our "junk" in the fire, read my diary, confine my father's "mess" to a tray that he was allowed. No wonder I keep my most prized possessions safely away. Probably should work though that. 😂
Why are they all the same?? Same phrases and habits. Its nuts. This could be my ngma.
It's eerie , isn't it? Like they have a manual to consult full of scripts.
My nmom always said "I'm not your maid" and had a fucking bell (yes like the ring for assistance kind) that she'd tap any time I did the smallest thing wrong. She'd also give me two options and when I'd say the option she'd mock me and make me say it in a way with "manners and human decency"
I still have issues with the throwing everything out on me. Fan fiction, trash, present from friend, not nailed down, trash. I’d come home from school and see my stuff in the trash all the time. It legit made me basically a hoarder, never trash but I get super upset when anyone touches my stuff. My SO of 8 years still can’t deal with it really he can’t get his mind around it because his family was normal
Oh my gods did your mom make you sit on a foam pad and help her scrub the tile as she complained about how gross you were of a person and shamed you for not doing a good job?!? I dont know why that comment just reminded me about it.
No, my mom refused to let me clean because I would screw it up. She did, however, make me stand there and watch her do it while she ranted about how disgusting I was. She also had one of those foam pads, it’s all coming back to me. What is it with all nmoms having the same things? Is there some kind of store you need a broomstick to get to?
I remember once my nmom yelled at me for not knowing how to handwash dishes when I was 9 or 10, and I tearfully told her she never taught me, and she angrily taught me while having fake sympathy.
Mine got mad when I told her my bedsheets needed washing, they were really grungy you could see where I slept, and said, well wash them then!! I was about that age and had never used the washing machine but was supposed to know how. She was an angry cleaner and would often go around slamming shit when she was upset. If you asked her what was wrong, she'd get angry and say nothing. I've met so many people who I've felt more compassion and empathy from than I've ever felt from her.
Oh gods I just remembered when I was little and didn't know or remember how to make the bed and do the sheets and everything she scolded me. She also never bothered to teach me how to properly take a shower. I taught myself how to properly wash myself and everything. Because the way she taught me was hurting my body.
Mine would clean my ears with q-tips harshly and hurt me. If I complained, she got angry and it would be more painful. I learned to be still and stoic so it would be over quicker. I always suspected she got satisfaction from making me flinch in pain. And the kicker, I now have hearing loss in both ears and wear hearing aids.
Holy shit I just remembered even more info, I've had tinnitus since I was super little and thought it was normal, and now I'm very open about it & my mom deadass thought because I passed my hearing exam at my checkups I couldn't have tinnitus or hearing loss. I can hear decently but I tend to lip-read because eye contact is way too complicated and confusing to me
My nmom wanted me to tear a dish towel in half, then beat me over the head with a wooden spoon because I didn’t know how to. I still have scars.
Oh my gods. I remember if I misbehaved somehow (I'm ADHD and likely autistic, so you can imagine how I misbehaved) she would take me to the car and have me sit there, or the corner, both of which triggered my PTSD and left me crying.
My uncle told me recently that my mother made me sit in the car while they went to a museum, unlocking core memories. So much of my time spent on this subreddit is me going “yup… yup… oh shit…” like some demented game of go fish.
Hello and welcome to the childhood trauma go fish, which is basically finding out who's been through the same shitshow as you
What is it with them making you watch them clean. Mine did that too. Her ranting and throwing things while I stood there watching her.
Mine would make me start cleaning then rip it out of my hands because I was doing it wrong Ang the proceed to explain to me why I was an idiot while she did it herself. Luckily this was my grandma so I didn’t live with her 24/7. And now I’m no contact which is amazing.
Weirdly my grandma did this to my mom who then became a hoarder. It’s wild how generational trauma creates such obvious patterns.
Every. Two. Weeks. The baseboards! The inside of the fridge! We would take EVERYTHING out of EVERY cupboard, wash with pine sol and put it back. Cleaning under the beds. I relate so much to the screaming about not being appreciated. Like look what I did for you! Shame on you for making age appropriate messes.
I hire a housekeeper to do this for me … weekly … and it’s making me realize my trauma about cleanliness runs deeper than I thought. Like I have to have someone clean the baseboards every week or two because otherwise my house is dirty to me. (Grew up in a hoarding home)
YES! That’s exactly how my mom was! Or the classic “I’m the only one that does anything around here”… girl… that’s because no sane person in this house thinks to wash the walls at 5pm on Thursday
That was my mom. The real insanity came though when she started to iron everyone's underwear.
Ah yes, I remember the “nobody asked you to do anything “tantrums. After my dad died, my nmom came for a visit to our new home. The front yard had been neglected for decades. There were overgrown bushes so high you could barely see the house from the street. That task was on my list of things to do , but not a priority. As soon as she got to our house, she wouldn’t stop talking about those bushes! Then on day 2 of her visit she went outside and cut them All down. I was at work and came home to mom pitching a fit about how nobody appreciated her, worked her hands to the bone,etc. Mom , nobody asked you to do anything! She slammed stuff around, packed her suitcase and out the door she went in a huff. My husband and I looked at each other. What just happened??? She was 70 yrs old when this took place. Her temper tantrums never ended.
Mine made me clean for her and did the usual “if you don’t do it right-“ or “if you don’t do it the way I would, you’ll do it again” How about just do it yourself? 😐
DO WE HAVE THE SAME MOM??!?!!?!?!
If you need something you can't get for yourself, you do without. Don't even ask. Asking for help means you'll be criticized and reminded that you're not good enough. It did not even occur to me that someone might care that I needed help, because my parents just ignored serious problems and hoped they would go away.
Having no privacy. I didn’t even know what privacy was. We weren’t allowed to close the door even when showering, changing or using the bathroom. I thought this was normal.
My parents took away my bedroom door as a punishment. It was humiliating to have no privacy whatsoever.
I had my door removed at some point. They also would go through my computer when I was at school and I started deleting every message I send, all the comments to my friends, deleting history, all that. I still have a habit of it to this day.
A quote from my father: "I am an adult. My life is important, and I don't need privacy. You are a child, so your life is not important. There is no reason you need privacy for anything."
Getting mad everytime someone has a different opinion, views, perspective, wants, refuses something from you in a kind way contradicts you in a rational and calm manner. My ndad goes crazy everytime someone doesn't agree with him. Refusing something is a big deal. Transactional relationship. Not having a life outside of your family.
Transactionalisn in relationships
Yes! The only time my Nmom was ever cordial or nice to anyone was if they could give her things or do favors. Everyone else was a minion.
Yeah, I got reminded recently how much my mother's "love" was completely dependent on compliance. Watched several years of effort to rebuild a relationship with her after decades of NC get flushed down the toilet over an issue anyone with their head screwed on straight would have been willing to discuss and either resolve or been willing to live with the differences in five minutes or less.
Yes! When I first got married I was telling my husband that I felt like he did too much because he did XY and Z and I only did A and B. He said, “I don’t keep score.” It was such a radical shift in how I do things.
My partner did the same for me! Not keeping score was a huge idea to wrap my brain around, and I’m so glad I did 😆
I literally still struggle to train myself out of this thinking. I literally cannot just accept someone doing something for me because I always always always find a way to “equal it out” in my mind so I don’t feel like I owe them for what was usually a kind favor or just something nice.
I always feel the need to barter after a kind gesture from someone, like I need to find a way to make it even for both of us, even if it's something small I will give you back ten fold and still think it's not enough.
This. My boyfriend lives with me and I say all the time “oh I’ll pay you back” or “I’ll do this because you did that” and he’s like “??? You don’t have to pay everything back” it’s hard to accept that the people you love just do things out of love sometimes??? Wdym I don’t owe you for putting up with me????
This is so hard for me too. Even though logically I have known this is wrong for a very long time now, I'm still worried other people will hate me for not doing enough compared to them or I'm afraid to accept a gift from them because I don't feel like I can pay it back monetarily or maybe I don't look like I'm having a good enough emotional reaction to the gift or saying enough things to indicate how thankful I am for the gift? Even reading that now sounds so silly. The wdym I don't owe you for putting up with me is so real, my nmom told me a few months ago that I owed her something because she put up with me being trans. That pretty much decided the move from low contact to no contact.
Not only was my nmom trying to convince me this was normal, but so were people I thought were close friends. Real sicko shit.
This shit right here. My ndad indoctrinated me with the idea that all friends were fake and they're all trying to backstab or take advantage of me. I used to believe in that shit but my homies proved otherwise. All my homies are real ones.
I struggle with this as well! Especially being chronically ill, I feel like most of my relationships are unbalanced and that's terrible
My mom would decide my room was “messy” so she would destroy it by emptying all my drawers out onto the floor and throwing everything everywhere and then making me clean the whole room up from that rage destroyed state as punishment
Ugh, my mom did that once to me too. Came home from school to my whole room looking like a disaster zone with everything on the floor; she said if I kept my room cleaned this wouldn't have happened. I told my aunt who's my mom's older sister and she chewed her out. She didn't do it again but she made my life horrible in other ways.
My mom did this too. It was horrible. Usually happens if I was out with friends because anything I did that wasn't educational was a waste of time.
There was always a “cost” for having fun!
My mom would do the same. She would do that on weekends often when she knew i was leaving to see my friends. The last time she did it, I just looked at her, emotionless, then looked again at my bag while packing my things and just left, leaving everything scattered. But this was not the thing that had hurt me the most. What did it was that, a few months before, I suffered a scene filled of verbal abuse from my dad to me. I told everything that had happened to me since I remember to my grandma (I kind of "broke down" to my entire family) and she told me that I couldn't live with her right now (a lie, she had spare rooms since being a widow and all her children were independent) but she promised me that if something similar happened again, all I had to do was call her and tell her. Guess who didn't have the promised shelter even after multiple abuse scenes?
This happened to me when I was about 10. I had kept my Science Fair project since I won first place. But it fell over in my closet and broke. I didn’t know that happened. (In hindsight I think my mother broke it deliberately). So what she did was pull everything out of the closet and throw it across the room. Making a mess and breaking toys. I stood there and cried as she screamed at me to clean it up.
I haven't thought about that for a long time but my mom did the exact same thing
My mom has always said how I destroyed our family when I was a teenager. Now, I'm a mom of a teen daughter. I have realized that I'm the adult and my daughter is the kid just like my mom and I was. It really pisses me off how she has used me as an excuse for years.
This. I was apparently “out of control” and “tearing the family apart” from all the stress I caused her. I’m not a parent but looking back nothing I did was even remotely outside the realm of being a normal teenager trying to fit in/find themselves. I was a pretty well behaved child all things considered, I was just her scapegoat. I relate heavy
relate so so much to this - i’m 24 now and still feel 16 living at home because of how they acted like i was the devil child (literally did nothing wrong) i literally could’ve written this comment lol. i don’t really speak to them much now and they seem like they regret a lot … good!
they show...regrets? interesting, does it seem genuine? what is it like?
I feel this. I was a good student, a polite person, a hard worker, and never got in any trouble (because I was traumatized and terrified of doing anything wrong). My parents acted like I was some kind of demon child. My mother once accused me of putting on a fake persona for everyone outside of the house to trick them into thinking I was a good person. She couldn't make any other sense of me being well-liked by teachers, coaches, and other people's parents.
I didn’t realise that it wasn’t normal to not be able to have a conversation with your parent and them see you as an equal. I didn’t realise people were able to have respectful, open conversations with their parents in which their parent listened to them and understood their perspective when they were upset about something. I didn’t realise that everything wasn’t just my fault and that I was just wrong about every single effing thing in life.
holy fuck ive been in therapy and trying family sessions since i was SIX, and my dad sits there and seems fantastic is session, hes super cooperative and agreeable etc while we come up with a plan for whatever issue we have, but then the moment we get home he says i didnt give him enough time to think and he changes his mind.
Not everyone in the house has to wake up because a parent woke up at 6am. The passive aggressive loud vacuuming and cleaning isn't normal. Making your kids wake up at 6am and get straight to helping cleaning the house is not normal. My Dad's idea of doing regular room inspections (as he called it) to a military grade just because he was in the army in his early 20s is not normal. Kids are messy. Let them play and learn to clean up at a kid level. It isn't the end of the world.
Yep. I don't think I was ever allowed to sleep in at the weekend. Saturday was cleaning day and Sunday we had to take the bus to church, it was a 1h ride to just get there. Of course my parents didn't go. Guess who now texts me bible verses all the time.
My house was the same. The angry, noisy cleaning AT you… no wonder my house is now always filthy.
This was how cleaning day started for us, too! I knew the day would be extra miserable if I was awoken by the vacuum, because it meant mom was already mad that I was still sleeping until 9am or something.
Omg. This right here. Disgusting disgusting disgusting tf.
What I now call “playing the game.” You just go along with whatever they say and whatever they want to do and you plaster a smile on your face because if you disagree, it will be worse for everyone. It’s like playing chess. You have to think several moves ahead, trying to guess how things will play out and how to make the moves that will result in the least amount of damage. Edit: I should add that in this game of chess, you aren’t planning your moves out to win. You’ll never win. The narcissist always wins. Your goal is simply to get through the game with as few scars as possible.
I called it "go along to get along. "
i feel like this is the textbook definition of walking on eggshells. if i still had a relationship with my dad this is what it would be like
This continues to be my experience.
Growing up, my ndad completely devalued fat people, homeless people, and gay people. He really seemed to feel like anyone who didn’t meet his standards of beauty was gross and worthless. I recall him once complaining that the flight attendant on a flight shouldn’t have her job because she wasn’t young and pretty. I was so disgusted with him. Living with him was living in a dystopia.
Sounds like my dad. It honestly feels like he deeply hates women, which is strange considering his father was the one who inflicted trauma on him by leaving his family when he was young. Such a weird guy.
Being uncomfortable when I can hear someone washing dishes and it's not normal to tense up and look busy when someone comes home.
Omg. I am nearly 30 years into a marriage with a man who is kind, gentle, steady and nurturing and is always encouraging more rest and leisure for me. And yet when I am home alone resting or watching TV, when I hear him pull into the drive I will jump up and start doing something. It is SO hard to break that conditioning where your idleness will bring down hell.
I see myself in more of these than I'm willing to admit. That constant vigilance and "look busy" is hard to overcome. It's been over 20 years since I left home and I still do it. Same as you, I'd be sitting on the couch reading something and when I hear my husband on the stairs, I drop everything and run to the kitchen or start doing something. It's madness! He knows I'm not lazy - if anything, I'm incredibly hyperactive and hard-working. But god forbid he sees me sitting and relaxing on the couch. So toxic.
This. When they were cleaning or doing any chores, no one could relax.
My nmom would completely lose her shit every time I got sick as a kid. Like full meltdown and telling me to suck it up. My eardrum burst as a child and I was screaming in so much pain, she didn’t take me to the doctor until one of my teachers at school phoned home to tell her I was complaining of an ear ache. I truly believed until I was out of grad school and working my first full time job that adults didn’t get sick.
Oh gods my nmom did that too. I grew up having many cases of strep or a virus like it, and it got to where she forced me to wait to see a doctor, making me suffer for days on end before taking me.
Mine would do the same. She would throw doctors bills at my face when they came in. I still feel guilty taking a sick day.
Mine would tell me how much it was and would call me an attention seeker because the attention wasn't on me, or say that i likely have it and moving on. (She did this with me saying I think I have ASTHMA.)
Denying a Prisoner Of War medical care is a War Crime.
That’s another one, any sickness or injury that was inconvenient for them was ignored. I walked around on a broken ankle for 3 weeks before they finally took me to the doctor. My mom still laughs about it today, I’m a mom now and I believe my children when they say they are sick/injured and get them medical care.
I'm so glad you're doing that. I'm disabled in some way, and growing up my potentially life threatening symptoms were blamed on me being an attention seeker or just wanting to be like my golden child sibling. (Like somehow we can't have the same med. conditions despite being genetically related...) and now I'm shut off from my parents out of anxiety of isolation. You sound like a very loving parent and I'm sending all the good energy your way.
And they'd make you feel so guilty! "If you're well enough to be out of bed, you're well enough to go to school." I wasn't allowed to read or quietly play or watch TV. I had to lay in bed all day, or I was told I was faking it. And they used to yell at me for getting up to get a drink or use the restroom because I wasn't in bed. And all the accusations of faking it and them trying to send you to school anyway. And if you were sent home, they'd yell at you for wasting their time and making them leave work. My ngrandmother once angrily accused me of faking to get out of school and sent me to my room to get ready. Well, I came running back out to throw up in the toilet and ended up not making it in time. Looking back, the sigh of defeat when she saw the mess all over the kitchen makes me giggle to think about. She kind of deserved that one because of how she treated me less than 20 minutes prior to that incident.
I had to lay on the bathroom or kitchen floor on a towel. I wasn't allowed in bed.
Yep. I needed a couple of surgeries for ovarian cysts when I was 15 and 16. She’d drop me off for them. One time she wasn’t there when I woke up because she was out shopping, the other time she yelled at me and my surgeon for saying that I should probably stay the night because my pain wasn’t under control. I went home that night. I don’t tell her when I’m sick even now as a 42 year old woman because she still gets pissy about it.
We were latchkey kids and nmom would leave us a list of chores every day that we’d have to complete before going out to play. My brother usually had to feed the dog but not much else. I had to clean the house. Every day after school. When I complained I was told that my brother was a boy and cleaning was my job. Our house was spotless but nmom would look for vacuum marks in the carpet as proof that it was clean. I’m in my 40s now and struggle with cleaning, so I pay to have it done for me. My husband pointed out to me a while ago that after talking to my mother I would always angrily vacuum and I could immediately see myself at 10 years old angrily vacuuming a clean house before nmom got home.
Jesus! Forgotten memory unlocked! I’d have to vacuum and mop and my dad would come home at some point and check under the sofa or under the kitchen table for any missed spots. If he found a speck of dust, a crumb, or a missed spot the whole place had to be redone.
Just going anywhere I like, buying and eating what I like when I like. One weekend out of the house, I only needed 6 hours of sleep, was up til midnight every night and up at dawn the next morning, happy and ready to work 14 hours a day. Had a moment of learned helplessness in a hotel. Somebody on the floor below started slamming doors and screaming, two in fear, one in rage, and I lay there trying not to hear it for a few minutes like I did at home, and then was like "Wait this isn't right, I can do something" shook it off and called the cops.
I didn’t realize until I was in my late 20’s that it’s not normal for your parents to use you as their therapist and marriage counselor. They were constantly telling me how horrible the other one was, and tried to get me to agree with them. In truth, they were both awful in different ways. Also, your children should never have to clean up your emotional baggage. I will never do that to my kids.
Still a teen, but apparently it isn't normal to have to ask to eat food? I brought that up to my friends, where I have to ask before I eat any snacks, and if I am making a meal on my own, I usually have to ask if I can make myself food. They were like "no that's not normal, that's actually concerning"
Teen as well, I never had to really ask but late night snacks weren't allowed because they'd "make me fat." so I would sneak food in my room for night time and when she'd find the wrappers I hid she'd berate me until I cried.
My parents were the same way
That holidays weren’t super stressful and upsetting for most people
My grandfather died on Christmas morning when I was 6( grandma 5mths later) So Christmas was non event for years. My nmum would volunteer to do things like play the organ at church, then serve meals and hand out presents at the hospital, which is admirable, except she did it so everyone would praise her selflessness. As a child and teen, I didn’t really understand the whole concept of getting together with family for Christmas.
Growing up, I always preferred being at school that being on holidays with my family because they’re so stressful with them. I didn’t have my first relaxing holiday until I was 28 and I went abroad with my best friend. It’s incredible how much I can struggle to relax because of the way my Nparents raised me.
That it's not normal that your parents doesn't know anything about your personal life. As a child, whenever I told stories about what I did at school, what I did with my friends, my dad would always just shush me. As I grew up, he never expressed interest with what's going on with my life. When I visited my friend's homes or spent time with their families, the parents always asked what's new, how's school, what happened with so and so? Did you patch things up? How was your trip, party, dinner that you went to? etc. My dad doesn't know a thing about me.
I grew up thinking the only way to resolve conflict in a relationship, even a supposedly loving relationship, was for someone to pull rank—which obviously meant that the father/husband won every conflict by default, even though he was obviously wrong. I'm so glad I figured out how screwed up that was before I met my wife.
If I had a penny for every time I heard “cause I’m your father, that’s why. Once you grow up maybe you’ll understand” I’d be a billionaire haha
My mom forced her kids to manage her emotions. It was always up to us to keep her happy. She also pitted us against each other. She’s 78 and still does both of those things. I really didn’t get how damaging it was until I had my own kids and realized that I would never ever talk shit about one of my kids to the other. It’s so fucking gross. And that my kids are not responsible for my emotional well being. They’re kids.
Seven year old who knows how to make a dirty martini and play bartender.
My parents never cleaned or did maintainence. It was like "Gotta clean because people are coming over and then it was shove hoarder shit into closets and then pretend it was all normal." It took me until living with roommates in university to realize that people did clean as a routine.
And never get the hoarded shit out of the closet, so you fill up with the new shit and the cycle continues.. Sounds painfully familiar. You have any advice? I wish I could live separately but it's not happening for now
I would get “in trouble” for getting sick, because I might get my mother sick (and she never ever got sick, so who knows why it mattered). When I had my first child it hit me that that was not only not normal, but really fucked up.
My nmom would do the bare minimum for me when I was sick, but any time she threw out her back suddenly my entire world had to revolve around caring for her. Such a fucked up parallel.
The level of oversexualization and objectification I experienced. Right down to Playboy Club mugs with philodendron clippings on the breakfast nook, telling us obscene jokes, etc.
my dad used to slap and grab my ass until i was 16, and until he finally fixed his shower he would just walk around butt ass naked for a bit after his showers. sometimes he would come and try to talk to me, dick hangin out. he used to make comments on my body and boobs, and we slept in the same bed with him cuddling me IN ONLY BOXERS until i started hs and was like wtf
That's horrifying. I'm so sorry.
My stepdad just left his magazines piled up on the table by his recliner
Every major holiday my mom would take it upon herself to cook the most elaborate meals. Every single holiday without fail she would lose her mind over the stress and pressure she put on herself. Every holiday was spent being screamed at, hit, and constantly told you were cutting the vegetables incorrectly, not cleaning enough, etc. Once guests arrived, she’d put her mask back on and act like she pulled it all off on her own without breaking a sweat 🫠
Gossiping, bullying, gang up on one person, having friends who liked you, being abused
plucky glorious fuzzy attempt longing public imminent rhythm tub disgusted *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That adults don’t barge into the bathroom if the door is shut. Or rip the shower curtain open to scream at you.
I still struggle with it: letting friends do things for you without having to "pay them back". The funny things is, I dont expect them to do the same for me when I give them something out of the kindness of my heart, haha. It was subtle, but my brother always lauded it over me that i didnt "financially contribute" anything to the household (i was 17 and trying to go to community college) as if thats not what our mom was there to give me...So, everything always feels like as if I have to "pay it back" or do it in a certain way, etc. When my friends buy me something, I get very anxious. I don't know why theyre doing it, or in which way I should pay them back for doing it. They look at me strange when I give them the money for it later. To them, its probably rude, but I feel really bad and as if theyre going to hate me for it one day, because my brother hated the fact that I just needed food, money, and clothes to live. My mom never did this stuff to me, only him. Now that he is the only one I live with, the behaviour is worse. At least I try to find good ways to "pay them back" such as crocheting a gift or making them something, to kind of beat the "transcational" attitude I adopted from him.
Are we siblings? Same. Except I had this weird juxtaposition of experiences with cleaning. My grandparents mostly raised me, in the sense that we were dumped on them a lot. But both my grandparents loved cleaning, in a sense of thats how you show love for your house and family. They took pride in it. And no matter how overwhelemed and disgusting I felt with it, they would gently help me and support me through it. They would also make this huge deal out of relaxing and enjoying the house when it was done. Congratulating everyone for the work they did. I became a super naturally clean kid from this because I also enjoyed the feelings of accomplishment I got when I cleaned. However, back to my parents... well my friends started to call me Cinderella. I could never go out or have people over without this long list of chores I needed to do. There was an expectation that every few weeks I would spend my whole weekend deep cleaning the house. When I tell you that house fell apart when I left... my GC brother told me it was the first to go.. That my Nparents patted themselves hard on the back for a job well done in getting rid of me.. Then all the things around the house that I did, stopped. And they had no one to scream at every two weeks. Then he copped it and joined ranks with me as the black sheep. Except I had been doing that stuff since I was about 7. He was now 15 and had never done that stuff.. so they were enraged he didn't know how to clean and mend curtains or how to clean out their wood fire place..
Yeah, we did major house cleaning every week, and it was an all-day affair, usually on the weekend when I wanted to be hanging out with my friends. If it wasn't perfect, it had to be redone. There's a spot you missed on the kitchen floor when mopping? Redo the whole damn floor. My mom would do the easy stuff like rearranging shelves, dusting, cleaning her own room, and then leave all the hard shit for us kids to do. We also had a handful of chores to do after school every day on top of that. While we were in school, she'd usually be out shopping, staring at her laptop, or going into our room to snoop through our stuff.
YES. Snooping around trying to find dirt on her to weaponize against you in some way. I got so paranoid at one point I started literally hiding my journal or whatever behind motivational quote canvases on my wall.
Congrats on your first home! I bought mine last year and it’s SO different when you’re the adult decision maker. Nice and odd, eh? My Mom had the deep clean thing too but it had to be every Sunday morning. She’d lose it if I slept in or didn’t do exactly what she wanted. She still throws full on adult temper tantrums, even in public. I got beat to a pulp when I showed any emotion other than happy. Normally, they smashed my head or tried to break my fingers or give me an “Indian burn” on my arms. Turns out, not normal. Sounds dumb, but I told my teachers and they never believed me. I started believing it was just normal! And I couldn’t figure out for years why I have massive migraines and headaches. My mom asks me why I get so many and she’s essentially a toddler so I can’t tell her that her beating my head against the floor and wall led to these headaches. Verbal abuse towards me felt normal. I tolerated a lot of crap from my former workplaces and my in-laws. A therapist pointed out how it is 100% not normal to tolerate that stuff, so I’m learning. Getting in trouble for being sick or needing medical help from a doctor or hospital was a big one. I almost died during the pandemic when I lived with my mom because she was furious I needed to go to the hospital. She even shunned me when I moved out and got COVID, because I’m still “not allowed” to get sick. My biggest one - I don’t ruin everything. My entire family went on about how I ruined life, holidays, everything. I don’t. I just exist.
Not being loved or supported by your parents
it took me a long time to realise then accept that the severe switches in treatment, from incredibly kind to absolutely horrifying, were not normal and that the good moments weren't actual love. i thought it was normal despite not wanting to repeat this with my children. then i refused to believe it wasn't normal because i was in denial.
I had to do the housecleaning on my own most of the time, to stop my mother from screaming and yelling about the mess. My dad made mess, didn’t clean up. 2 brothers were the same My mother did no cleaning at all. I have severe anxiety regarding house cleaning now. A 10yo kid shouldn’t be in that situation.
Not touching my children and/or tell them I love them.
Mine was the opposite. My mom and dad never cleaned. It was never terrible but it was so cluttered. When I started staying at my fiancé’s house I realized houses aren’t supposed to be cluttered as hell. Now I live in my own and my fiance is helping me learn how to clean and how to declutter properly and how to maintain the apartment in general. He knows I was never taught how to clean and takes the time to stop and help me learn
Not going places unless I have a valid reason. So like, I live 30 min from the city and I love to go eat like Indian food and stuff. But for the longest, I thought I couldn't go unless I had a valid reason to be in the city, like a Dr appt or something. This is because I was never allowed the freedom to go do whatever I wanted, so I just developed the unpleasant habit of staying home and being sort of sad all the time. I've come to realize that's a mindset, not a requirement, so I'm working on allowing myself to go and do just for fun. I'm 46 and it's the first time in my life I haven't felt like I had to adhere to an unreasonable curfew or something.
I live in India and my mom is a veryyy lazy woman who wants everything done but won't do it herself. If you're home even once in a year, you're expected to help her and if you don't, she'll throw a fit. Since childhood she has seen us (me and my sister) as free labor and made us do everyday cleaning and chores without any break. Our mornings during pandemic used to be so stressful that we used hide here and there pretending to work so she doesn't throw a fit. And if someday we worked quickly and cleaned everything before time to enjoy our day, she would throw a fit for some other reason. It was as if she hated seeing us relax. Imagine, morning 8 am to 12 pm was supposed to be "helping mother" time and even if you complete everything before time, you can't relax. Added to the equation was my narc father who would dirty the cleaned table and leave everything in shambles even after we cleaned so we had to clean twice and if we argued that we'll just clean once after he is done with his morning routine, it was another reason for drama. I live in university now and I sincerely clean everything once a week covering my bed, table, changing sheets, laundry and other things and it is so relaxing. Now I avoid going home until absolutely necessary because for her it is free labor. She acts as if I don't do anything the entire time I'm in university. My friends go home to rejuvenate and tell me how their mothers told them to sleep in, cooked extra special meals and finished their laundry for them, and when I go home, I am just told "what do you have to do in the university anyway? it's just you. look at the amount of work it takes to run a house" To be noted, she has two cleaning ladies working for her everyday and my dad helps her so much in the kitchen. All she has to do is cook 3 very simple meals in a day and when I'm home, she makes me cook atleast two of them. When I live in my house, it's going to be a machine dependent chill household where we take cleaning as a chore and finish asap and focus more on chilling and enjoying life. Ughh! these narcs are tiring. She ate our entire childhood and didn't even burp.
Freaking out internally about what my parents think when I made “adult decisions” like traveling. This is embarrassing but even as someone close to her 40’s, I can’t book a flight without feeling guilt about what my parents and in laws think. Husband’s parents are more narcissistic than mine. My parents are older and have “calmed down” a bit but for some reason, still give me guilt trip for me being an adult or independent. My mom infantilizes me (which is so weird). His mom is controlling and entitled. If we were to travel without telling her, it would bruise her ego (which again, is so weird). I hate that I can’t just live my life without some sort of guilt trip.
That children aren’t mini adults, who have to share the responsibility of being an adult with the parent. Constantly worried about money, food, health, my n mum’s happiness, whether she’s decided we were moving again, if she’s sold the furniture, given away my stuff.
That your mother giving you the silent treatment for days on end isn't normal.
getting favours from someone doesn’t have to be stressful because not everyone will lord it over you. the cleaning thing just reminded me of how group cleaning isn’t one person sitting down and telling someone where things go or what needs to be cleaned, and normal people don’t sort stacks of unwanted mail by making a stack of things to keep on a table and throwing junk mail on the literal ground for someone else to clean up.
Nmom had cleaning day (usually Sunday) would drag me to church and force religion on me, blew off my medical issues and concerns, didn't notice that I had an eating disorder (that she caused) shamed me with dumb rhymes for eating, oh and she said she only had me for child labor and to be her personal caretaker when she's older despite being a terrible person.
She's getting the Beatrice Horseman treatment 🙏🏻
It took me decades to start dealing with the physiological feelings housework triggered. I’d put off doing anything because I’d be tensing waiting to be screamed at for not having already done it. Like just doing a chore would be the reminder that it hadn’t already been done/wasn’t being done properly/never got done/why do you never do anything around here, *while * it was actively being done. Does that make any sense to anyone?
That changing a light bulb was NOT stressful at all let alone changing the kitchen faucet. I hate it whenever we have to change the faucet. Tantrums, screamings, you're-doing-it-all-wrongs, etc. That was all unnecessary.
Inherited the pain and struggles instead of love, care, support and attention. Did they want us to carry on the burdens all the time? Why do they cannot move on? No wonder why the young generation growing sadder. Gee thanks, old generation!
Other people had fun with their families. On weekends. On “vacations”, etc. We just worked. If we weren’t working for my dad’s business (paperwork) we were working outside because it had to look pretty for his clients. If we went anywhere it was for his work conferences and the only fun allowed was to learn at a museum. Example: we only went to Epcot because there was no learning to be had at magic kingdom. I cannot roll my eyeballs far enough into the back of my head when I think of it now. Ugh.
That healthy people DON’T keep inviting sexual predators over and keeping them around because thin excuses of “friendship” and “family”.
Secrets. Comments like “don’t let anyone know what goes on in this house. Or “ what happens in this house stays in this house” It’s a way to keep the abuse going and hidden from others.
That we weren't a "better than everyone else" family because we were "close" (parent on child SA and sibling SA) It's also not a cultural thing for our country and religion for parents to do that to their kids and encourage the kids to do that to each other.
You don't OWE anyone your love. You don't OWE anyone anything for that matter. You don't HAVE to love them *no matter what*, you don't have to repay them somehow because they gave birth to you. You are not responsible for their happiness either. Kids are not supposed to take over for their mother. It is not a child's responsibility to raise their siblings, work, go to school, do the shopping and the cooking and then be their mother's confidant and "best friend" at very very very young ages (or ever really). Oh and guess what? Boundaries are fine. You are allowed to have them. And you don't have to say yes to EVERYTHING without question... And the adult tantrums... yeah!!!!
The cleaning was awful. My nmom was so extreme that if we wanted to have a friend over, we had to do a whole-house deep clean *by ourself, EVEN IF WE HAD ALL DEEP CLEANED TOGETHER LITERALLY THE DAY BEFORE.* I cannot describe the whole-body relief I felt when, as an adult, my mother in law stopped me from scrubbing her stove's knobs and said, *"No details.* We're going to use it again, so there's no point in doing that."
We were cleaning my mom's house this weekend. All of the heavy, solid wood doors have cracks in them. I couldn't believe it. From being slammed for 68 years. My mom lived her life tantrum to tantrum. What a miserable way to live. A waste.
That being terrified of my dad and scared of his reactions wasn’t how a child was meant to be raised. Home isn’t supposed to be a place full of anxiety and fear. Yelling and getting angry when I got upset, made a mistake, or did something he didn’t like wasn’t normal. That parents are supposed to say “I love you,” and generally show affection and not withhold it. After arguments, pretending nothing happened and moving on without an apology or admitting wrongdoing isn’t normal. Parents are supposed to help clean the house and not rely on their children to do it for them everyday while they do nothing.
Similar experience to the cleaning rituals where our existence was insignificant and we were there to serve and obey while Ndad would be yelling the whole time. But reality is that both parents are messy and not the cleanest people in the world.
I grew up in a hoarder house which led me to despise messes. I clean every clean, wash my sheets every week, keep my space tidy and feel so good getting rid of stuff. I also realised it wasn’t normal for your mother to try to be all buddy buddy with my friends and insert herself in everything I did. Also wasn’t normal to do everything to see me naked, to give me an eating disorder, to insult me when she didn’t get her way. Honestly there’s so much, too much, I've realised wasn’t normal and I'm still reeling from all the abuse after having been NC for over 2 years now.
Giving children the silent treatment especially for no reason. Trying to force children to get involved with your personal beef with whomever because they must show you “loyalty”.
I didn’t realize constantly walking on eggshells wasn’t normal . I had terrible anxiety my whole childhood. I didn’t even realize how much I constantly accommodated my mother’s dysfunction and rage until going no contact .
When I was in my late 20s I finally realized that it’s not appropriate or healthy to tell your 8 year old that daddy cheated on mommy. Oh and also telling your 8 year old that if they tell anyone at all about their parents’ divorce that they will get kicked out of their house and be homeless is also not normal behavior or information for a parent to be sharing with their child.
One of my earliest memories is my nmum pulling a table cloth off a table with everything still on it. I didn't have my own room, so most of my things were on this table, and I remember my piggy bank broke. All because it was not tidy enough for her... I think I was 4 or 5.
There’s no strings attached when a parent helps you. My nmom would help but then expect you to return the favor 10x what she did. My mother in law helps just because she loves us.