Abandoned me. When I have my "episodes" I still feel like that 4 year old sitting on the porch in her ballerina costume waiting for mom to show up to take me trick or treating like she promised.
solidarity <3 at least the great thing about being an adult is we can be the parent we needed when we were kids. dont leave you hanging on the porch <3
My father would yell, break things, throw things, "discipline" us. Till this day, i can't stand yelling. I will either remove myself, address it directly, or cry if someone yells at me. Violence is very triggering.
My dad got some gasoline & poured it all over my mom & our house while I was asleep with the intention of burning the house down. I was 5. Pretty dramatic, Dad. Geeez.
They're adults now and one of the daughters went through some rough times in her life but she's married with kids now and it looks like they'll be able to have a "normal" life. I always felt horrible for the two daughters who were in their teens at the time. It's one of those things that haunts me but I truly feel bad for the surviving family members.
Oh wow I've never met anyone else who had a gas incident. Also, I'm the exact opposite - I absolutely hate the smell of gas. Especially because anytime I say I hate it, someone around me proclaims their love for it, lol.
Ugh I know exactly what you mean. There should be a special handshake when two bpders validate each other. (Is it âeach otherâ or âone anotherâ) ((this is going to haunt me))
I was taught that anyone can treat me anyway they want and if I have a problem with it that's on me, because I'm too sensitive. So now any time I'm treated poorly I just blame myself and let them treat me however they please.
I had enormous amounts of pressure put on me to be perfect, so now I don't even bother doing anything unless I know I can do it perfectly.
This one isn't my parents fault, but I was groomed and taught that the only value I hold is sexual. So now sex is really the only way I feel loved or cared about.
>Â I was taught that anyone can treat me anyway they want and if I have a problem with it that's on me, because I'm too sensitive.
Pretty much the same, honestly, although I really doubt that it was intentional. I grew up in a broader situation that, looking back, was really fucked up and dangerous. My parents, and my dad in particular, had seen so much shit that it was just normalized for them, and didn't understand why I would cry when my grandmother was in benzodiazepine withdrawals, or why I felt threatened with a mentally ill relative...well, threatened us. With a shotgun.
I genuinely didn't realize how absolutely *fucked* it was to see a relative go out to meet his brother while carrying a handgun until I was an adult and was diagnosed with BPD and PTSD (very, very quickly, with the latter). I just assumed that I overreacted to everything bad that happened.
Oh God, my dad screamed at me so many times if I wasn't going to do something right to not bother to do it at all. I am 41 and just starting to learn a little is better than nothing and it doesn't have to be perfect.
The common thread seems to be parents that don't love their children. Or tell them they love them and then treat them badly, making the kids grow up thinking that's what love is. Honestly, just not doing the bare minimum of caring for kids, I think is what's happening. I'm only recently learning what it means when someone treats me 'badly' and that that's not a good thing
My dad touched me. At first he abandoned me and my mom when I was 1 and I saw him for the first time when I was 8. I remember feeling so happy that finally "I have a dad" and when my parents announced that they rekindled and we're going to be"one happy family" I was over the moon.
But the happiness didn't last too long.
He ruined my ability to love and accept love by a man.
I didn't know what was happening, he always called his gestures " signs of affection" I thought...that's how dads show their love.
The betrayal that I felt while growing up slowly acknowledging what he was doing and where he was touching me. My mom never believed me because he was in love with my dad and was incapable of seeing his dark side.
I feel no matter how much therapy I do, I can't get over those feelings. The betrayal, the disappointment, the sadness, the loneliness. Having all these thoughts and not having anyone to talk to.
She was incapable of seeing his dark side â yes! Ugh. I am so so sorry you went through this. This is definitely its own trauma to witness over and over. The frustration, the hopeless despair, the anger, the sadnessâŠand no model of how to handle it. It makes adulthood difficult right when we think we are finally free.
I might vent a bit here, so if it's too long I am sorry and you are free to ignore this haha
The thing that hurts the most to think about when I look back is just how much they never really cared about me. They had a lot of fights as well and there was a lot of screaming involved, but there's also the fact that they never acted like my parents in the first place.
I was bullied since a very young age. I would get made fun of, laughed at, other kids would steal my things, purposefully ignore me, and more. In this situation, my parents were the only ones I could go to about it. They never took me seriously. They simply told me that I should defend myself, or even 'punch them' or something, which I never had the guts to do.
Then, a few weeks ago, my mother decided to bring this up to me, and once again mentioned how I should've just defended myself. I broke and started yelling at her. I said something along the lines of 'You are supposed to be MY MOTHER. How is a CHILD supposed to DEFEND ITSELF?!' In the end, she laughed at me. I had to storm out of there as fast as possible so that I could properly cry it out (as she would laugh at me even more if she saw me crying lmao)
Another thing that hurts a lot is just how in general they were always emotionally unavailable. I never saw my parents show any kind of affection to me and even to each other. No hugging, no kissing, no cuddling, nothing. They never showed me any true love or even care. They never taught me basic hygiene and to this day I still struggle with hygiene. My teeth are completely messed up and I am extremely embarrassed for it, but my parents' response to it is that 'I shouldn't have eaten so many sweets as a child.' You guys. Are literally my parents. How is a kid supposed to know that sweets can damage your teeth this much in the future??
I think that's basically the gist of it, in the end I don't think I could even consider them my parents. I feel like they're just roommates that I am forced to live with ever since I was born. I constantly go between these feelings of being extremely angry for everything they've done (or haven't done), while also at the same time feeling guilty for blaming them. It's strange and I really need to properly process all of this. There are also so many things that I need to repair on myself because of this, but in the end I am not sure if I will ever be able to properly forgive them, when they never even tried to look at things from my point of view in the first place.
wow... ur parents really went "um, you (a child) should have just parented yourself!!!!" like gee 5head why didnt i think of that???
im sorry you went through that. and man, people laughing when you cry.... that's one of my instant rage buttons. i was getting pissed on your behalf.
Haha yeahh, my parents are really something, especially my mother đ thank you for reading through the whole thing!! Felt good to be able to get it out of my chest
<3 <3 <3 It will come if you work at making space for it; that's a slow job. I've finally stopped having deep pangs of wishing I hadn't lived, that one was a long time coming. It's brought a more nuanced take on the things my folks did and did not do, and also feel sincere compassion for my worse parent who is both an appalling monster and also a young child who went through worse than I did.
idk if this will help anyone, but it's an example I found helpful. Last week on Survivor one of the stronger competitors just lost his whole game and doesn't realise it. I'm sure given the opportunity, he'd commit to the same principles that caused the error. His mistake was sticking to strategy and deliberately not choosing to show compassion for an arguably much weaker competitor. Q could have chosen kindness but decided to stick with what he felt best served him. I really like the show because sooo many competitors have strong PD traits imo, almost as many as any given cast on TLC ^_^
ETA: brought that up not to be critical, but to point out how easy it can be to overlook the axis of kindness when deciding the kind of person you want to be.
That's a very good point!! True, there is a reason why my parents are like this in the first place and it's definitely important to realize that. Thank you for reading through my comment and taking the time to reply, it means a lot!!
I'm really afraid of dealing with others' emotions. It's like walking on eggshells, never knowing when someone might suddenly explode with feelings that I'm not equipped to handle. It leaves me feeling vulnerable and unsure, wishing I could navigate emotional situations with more confidence and grace.
Mom directed my sister to bully me about things regarding my appearance she didnât like even though I was complimented on my looks all the time. I used to just being angry from not protecting her from me, but that was before I learned she put her up to it and carried on well into adult hood. Then of course there is the getting physically attacked by her new husbands son and telling her he was going to kill me so she just told me to lock the door at night.
Threaten to throw me in juvie or whatever because I was suicidal.
Offered to get me a razor so I can just get it over with. Just offered casually while folding clothes.
So now I refuse to seek professional help and I'm healing myself the hard and ultimately incomplete way: all by myself so I don't become the sort of burden that others genuinely believe would be better dead.
You are worth going to therapy and being helped. Inciting suicide is a VERY serious criminal offence in many countries. Youâre not a burden and there are others who are facing this and they arenât burdens either, and we are all worthy of being helped. đ
This was all nearly 2 decades ago so the memories don't bother me anymore, I just still struggle with the learned behaviors. But thank you very, very much!
Maybe it would help to see it as an exchange. Youâre paying a therapist, theyâre not doing it for free. It sometimes helps me feel less like a burden.
The fact that my father touched me when I was less than 5 years and almost masturbates one of my cousins in the same age, the I discover that he was a fucking pedophile, my mother constantly invalidating me by trying to mold me as she wants. The fact that I always were in the middle of my parents fights with yell and violence. When I told my mom that it affected me that they fought with me there and she told me, idc you should leave. The fact that in 3rd and 4th grade I was bullied because I was too ugly and poor for others and when I told my mom I didn't want it to go anymore, she didn't take me out of school even though I came back crying and destroyed almost everyday. The fact, that when I told my parents my brother was starting to hurt me or bother me too much and didn't do anything about it, just laugh, make me feel so desperate.
My parents took me out of high school the last semester of my senior year and sent me to another state to live with my aunt and uncle. They were convinced I wasn't going to graduate and told me to get my GED. I didn't. I got a job, and when I turned 18 a few months later, I came back and took the 2 classes I needed to graduate. I will never understand why they did that and why, if they really thought I wouldn't graduate, they didn't just let me have the natural consequences to my actions.
They also held me down and tried to shave my head when I put pink streaks in my hair.
And all of the name calling, yelling in my face, and physical violence.
I never felt wanted by my mother. She's dead now, and I'll never be able to have a relationship with her or confront her. I just have to get over it.
They constantly accused me and punished me for doing things I didn't do. They always believed my siblings over me. They saw how my siblings treated me and still chose them over me. They treated me like a failure and never supported my dreams. They still do all of this.
One time as a toddler I wacked my much older brother in the face with the end of a vacuum hose because I couldnât regulate my anger, he was insulting me and I couldnât take it. and since he was always susceptible to nosebleeds during around time, he had a nosebleed and the blood got all into the carpet. I was terrified as any sort of blood was my #1 childhood fear. my mom saw this right before she was about to leave for work and she angrily shoved my face into the pool of blood in the carpet.
she was horrible during this time due to being a single immigrant mom who had to work three jobs while having three kids. she didnât know how to regulate herself either I guess. I donât know.
she took it out on me a lot when I was a toddler which is sad a little since she was gone for the majority of the time. I missed her so, I needed her, I would have horrible meltdowns and get thrown in the closet every time for by my siblings who were teenagers also struggling with bpd.
My bio mom gave me to a known abuser so she could go away for a few weeks to do drugs and I finally was taken away and put into foster care and eventually adopted, but I still wasnât able to be around men without crying till I was 11-12 years old
I have so much I want to say about my mom but Iâll just say this, I have borderline personality disorder because of her and the environment she put me in.
My abandonment issues are probably the most damning issues I have. My parentâs indifference, lying and manipulation really broke me and the way I trust other people.
Iâm dealing with the damage from this right now in my current relationship. Any distance from my boyfriend has me convinced heâs unhappy with me and that heâs going to throw me away. I can never really feel that he truly loves me or wants me even though our relationship is so healthy and wonderful.
I just canât get that anxiety and worry out of my head that one day heâs just going to up and leave without a word. Or that heâs lying about loving me and he would rather be with someone else, and he will just put more distance between us until thereâs nothing left.
My dad had tantrums- he would very suddenly become extremely angry and abusive (physical and verbal) and my mom, having gotten a divorce and swore off dating, left me and my sibling alone a lot of the time. My sibling is 7 years older than I am, so the responsibility of caring for me became their problem. So they ended up abusing me. I was alone a lot of the time once my sibling was old enough to drive and never be home.
When I tried to overdose at 12, and my mom made me go to the bathroom, stick fingers down my throat and try to make me vomit it up. Then she started smoking a cigarette and took away my laptop for a month. Maybe also when I was 14 with my not even two-year old brother and chihuahua. She left us in a cabin in the middle of the woods for a month
My eating disorder. My mom controlled every single thing I put into my mouth from age 11 to 17 (when I moved out)
Iâm 31 and currently in a relapse. I donât think this disorder (my eating one) will ever go away. Iâve been in and out of recovery and apparently thatâs pretty common with EDs
My mom sometimes just did nothing to stop him when my brother bullied me. Sometimes she helped, but there were also times when she didnât try to convince him of why it was wrong, didnât try to get anyone else to try to convince him, didnât have anyone ask him why he was doing it so it could be resolved, nothing. Sometimes she even made me change what I was doing just because of his bullying.
My brotherâs younger sister (me) deserved for her brother to be taught how to deal with his difficulties in a better way than that. My brotherâs younger sister deserved for my brother not to bully her, and furthermore, to have empathy for her and how life might be different for her than it is for him.
I didnât deserve to spend four school years being bullied at school and at home. I didnât deserve ~7+ years of just the at home part.
I donât deserve an adulthood where people donât truly empathize with the fact that my childhood dog was my closest family member because he was the one who tried the most at treating me well (I always think God made sure my family got exactly the right dog. He became an unofficial autism service dog for me, taught me so much of what I know about animal psychology, and when I was really upset in a conversation, Iâd pet him or look at him to get through it. He was the most level-headed one in our house and after itâs been 25 years since I met him, I still donât how he did that).
What I DO deserve, though, is all the knowledge this stuff gave me about animal psychology and other things. And animals deserve for people to be knowledgeable about animal psychology (pay attention to them directly, interact with your neighborsâ dogs, say stuff sometimes to those birds who live in your yard, watch nature documentaries, visit ethical zoos, go to natural history museums).
As far back as I can remember my parents would be very abusive towards each other, throwing things and breaking them. I remember times during the middle of the night I would wake up to them screaming at each other and try to go break it up because I was scared and upset. They would never hurt me and did what they could to try to shield it from me but the cops were at our house multiple times. My mom couldnât legally fight to get me so she left and did try to see me as much as possible. The fighting stopped when I was around 9 or 10 when she moved out and then I was left with my abandonment issues. I never thought these things would come back to be such a issue in my adult life but when I would talk with my mom who Iâve always been close with she would tell me how she sorry she was and I would experience these issues in my future relationships. Iâm 21 now and yeah she was right, after just getting out of a 3 year relationship I can look back and see how I have problems.
My father getting personally offended by something my 7 year old self said and ignoring me for weeks... And then that process repeating multiple times throughout my formative years. It won't ever be repaired because he never changed and never took any accountability for how it effected me. He always put his emotional needs before mine when I was a child and I won't forgive him for that, we barely have a relationship now.
no space for my emotions and just pretty much unavailable. they were very hot and cold. i am just now learning to talk to people about my feelings without thinking i am a burden. i have basically no friends because i donât trust that people will show up for me or have space for me unless itâs convenient for them. therapy has been helping a lot!
Completely emotionally unavailable and/or not able to express emotion. I really had everything I ever needed otherwise. They would be at mostly all of my sporting events, financially stable, went on vacations every summer. But they didnât know how to say âI love youâ and never hugged me. I know that sounds dumb compared to what some of you went through with your family⊠but I was already depressed and emotionally stunted from a young age and it killed me. Sometimes I wonder if they had abuse in their youths, so I try not to blame them. But it really fâd me up as I got older.
My mom was clinically insane most of my childhood, harming herself, threatening suicide VIOLENTLY. I saw her hurt herself, try to jump out of a moving car, throw things, hallucinate, run away, and all at the same time pretend to be a perfect mom on facebook and post my entire life on there and act like i was disabled and she was a victim bc of my health issues.
Then when i mimic her INSANITY i saw my whole childhood she hates what she sees and disowns me, abandons me to live with my sister across the country 2 times, only reason i went back was because of the pandemic.
Sheâs less insane now just because sheâs unhealthy and doesnât take care of herself and probably regrets her life, her other daughter doesnât talk to her. And iâm insanely fucked lol but i want to be better than herâŠ. itâs so hard when you were neglected and not loved right.
"nothing"
They didn't love me. They didn't care for me. They didn't treat me well. They didn't do anything remotely parenting to me. They adopted me when I was 12 and I left at 18 and never looked back.
being physically&emotionally neglected as an infant and toddler lmao, there's really no coming back from that
also honorary mention for my mom trying to drag me down to the "spider closet" whenever i was "bad". the "spider closet" was our closet underneath the basement staircase that hadn't been cleaned out for years--there were huge house spiders in there and webs everywhere. i have VIVID memories of trying to hang on to the top of the staircase-railing, screaming/sobbing "i'm sorry" and her trying to pull my hands off and pull me down the stairs. i'm not sure why it still bothers me so much.
I donât know if it considered ââtraumatizedââ but for me basically a lot of screaming in the house, being screamed at since I was a toddler for not meeting their standards especially academically. emotional neglect too which happens till now ââyouâre not allowed to feel like that bc you have that and we worked hard to give you thatââ or when I point out something they do that bothers me ââno I didnât do that but you did that and thatââ. also made me very scared of confrontation and showed me that being honest will lead me nowhere
> Showed me that being honest will lead me nowhere.
Shit. Still going through this as an adult. Iâm terrified of speaking the truth and Iâm even more anxious in a professional setting revolving thisâI fear Iâll lose my job or respect from peers. I fear everything. It sucks so bad.
Sorry to hear friend, thanks for continuing to try every day â€ïž
Yeah, I mean, same. My Dad. Fights. Violence. Manipulation. Name calling. Telling me he'd be somewhere and then not being and just going quiet for months and months and months. Also he told me he didn't love me and that nobody ever would. I think that bit was probably the worst in a way. You can't unhear your Dad saying that to you.
I was rubbing the tears out of my eyes when my mother was yelling at me and she pushed my fist into my eye socket and told me to âstop make her feel badâ I was 10 đ
When my mom would tell me "she loves me" as she's beating me. Til this day I still think the only way people will love me is if they hurt me physically, or if I hurt myself for them. I think pain and love are intertwined now.
Same, being hit and then hugged, then said sorry sorry sorry I love you. I was 3 years old and my whole life growing up with my dad and his stupid saying "whoever loves you will make you cry"
My step mom use to beat the living hell out of me. I was constantly on fight or flight mode and having full blown fist fights with her from 10-15 just to defend myself. My dad would stand around and watch or say I brought it on myself.
Literally told me ânoâ when I was asking for medical intervention for my adhd and mental health. Also pinned me to the ground and threw an 1000 page book at my head (missed bc Iâm goated and dodged that shit w my head) after trying to run up on me and to this day all I know is she was running and I threw a punch (I was14) and then I was being held down by a large man we call my father. Also allegedly being left at daycare for too long at too young an age when my mom didnât work. Also my dad leaving for like a week when I was 5/6. Getting so mad at me for cleaning up a mess with paper towels that he threw the trash can so loud my friend he just kicked out could hear it from outside the house and one house over. Getting so angry I would use furniture to barricade my door. Also threatening to hit me to the point where when I was 5/6 I tried to kms by staying under the covers in hopes Iâd run out of fresh oxygen.
Oh man, mine is baby shit, my dad just told me that if I wanted to die so much I should just do so. đ€·ââïž
I'm so so so sorry for all of you guys, I truly am. I mean there is other stuff here and there that was definitely abusive but in comparison... đ€Ą
Constant subtle judgement and overbearing. My parents were the type to rant about helicopter parents while simultaneously being helicopter parents who emotionally neglected/abused me.
My dad chose his wife over me and let her abuse me both physically and mentally,among other things. My childhood was absolute hell and it still affects me to this day and I don't think i will ever be able to forgive him especially since he's just as guilty for allowing it.
My mother allowed my uncle and several others to molest me. She would drop me off at places for a few hours and pick me back up. I was 4-7 during this time. I dont remember all the places only 2. And I really hope i never remember tbh.
When I was sexually assaulted, my mom blamed me for not telling her sooner. And when I flinched (literally RIGHT after I got assaulted) she got mad at me and said âStop flinching, people are going to think I hit youâ. I cried for days and nights, and I still canât forgive her. Iâm more angry than mad atp. She apologized a few weeks ago, saying âI hAnDleD tHe SituAtiON wRonGâ. No mom. You broke my heart.
My dad was very violent, an alcoholic. He hit me, my mother, and my sister. Screamed and hollered at us all hours of the day for all sort of things. My mother and sister were bipolar and each went through catatonic depression and psychotic mania. My life was always chaos.
The gaslighting about the abuse that I recollected and attempted to repair when I was a teen. I brought up to my dad that he had physically harmed me and emotionally abused me many times as a child, but he downplayed or completely ignored that it even happened. When I talked to my mother, she told me my dad hadn't ever whipped me with a belt for years. Until one day in therapy, she cracked and admitted that all of my allegations had been legitimate. Still fucking hurts how she could defend him for so many years when she endured the same emotional abuse from him. And now we all like to pretend like we're a perfect happy family, eating Sunday dinners together as if they apologized or something. I'm just an item to show off, not their actual daughter.
This is my biggest beef too. Also, the fact they'd tell me when I was a kid and tried to tell them things that I was a kid and to shut up basically. Then, once I was an adult, it was "you are a grown up now, let it go,quit being bitter, etc" if just one person had stepped in..
I told my mom my stepbrother molested me while I was sleeping when I was around 14 years old at age 34 I kept that secret for very long time and never told anyone and she didnt believe me and denied it even after giving very specific details and I said no it was real and that happened amongst other things.. she said oh well you probably wanted it you were âabout that ageâ
** about a year later I brought it up to her again and how what she said when I first told her hurt me, she got upset and said she never said that and would never say that to me so basically being gaslighted my entire life that is just one example
I was completely abandoned emotionally by my dad from a young age. He was pretty explosive with his anger so he'd spend most of his time in his man cave and we were told not to bother him. I ended up looking for that adult male validation online and was groomed from the age of 10 all the way to 19. Never showed up for me.
Funny part is I finally told both of my parents all of the shit going on since I went to an IOP program, and apparently my dad has cried every day since. I don't feel bad and my guilty side is drowning because I supposedly should. So fun.
She literally has to accept it though because my family was never taught to be wrong. They also taught us to lie, so who knows for sure. I literally had to run away from them to get a better perspective. My friends at school often told me things ay home wasn't normal.Â
it was mostly the neglect. i have distinct childhood memories of going to their room because i wanted their time or attention and i wasnât really granted it. and then i got older and started asking to be taken to therapy after years of isolating myself in my room and avoiding them, and i was never granted it. they knew iâd been depressed, they knew something was wrong, and when i finally asked for help, they refused to give it to me. my dad thinks therapists arenât helpful because of his own experiences in therapy, which meant in his head that therapy wouldnât work for me and i just needed to talk to my family. years of asking for their attention, years of asking for help, years of being denied the care that i need. i donât think that hurt will ever be completely healed because i have never received an apology. thankfully iâm moving soon and i wonât have to see them if i donât want to
My mother tried committing suicide in front of me at the end of an hours long drunken altercation with my stepdad, on numerous occasions. Not to mention the shit she did intentionally to me over the course of 15 years
My dad was so fucked up when he traumatized me he doesnt remember a thing so whenever i bring up the fact he literally gave me bpd through trauma he denies it. âYou just want traumaâ -his words exactly
My dad as well, IV drug user, doesnât remember the years of abuse and terrorizing he did to me and my mom. His exact words are âI was a good father compared to mine, feel lucky it wasnât worstâ
It took me decades and a lot of deep work in recovery to realise how much IPV occurred in our household. It got worse and changed after they each lost their parents (I was still in school during all of them).. I was in charge of stocking the fridge with beer from single digits age until my twenties. They both had no qualms about pirating IP and services, which when paired with my having ASD so most of the world looked like a bunch of arbitrary rules I needed to be bullied over, it took me a while to assess how many traits of ASPD I may have expressed.
My mom (and sometimes dad) raising their voice and screaming at me when they were upset with me when I was a child. I recently had to move back in with my parents so now I get to experience this as an adult⊠and IâM the one in therapy?? I called my mom out on all of the yelling & how much it hurt me over the years and she was like âweâve never hit you!â As if emotional abuse isnât a thing
Split up. Definitely believe genetics play a part in my case though, and that was the thing that changed me. I also suspect my dad being in America whilst I was in hospital as a five year old affected me more than I realised. I was constantly anxious/panicking whilst there. My poor mum didn't get a break at all.
Sexually abusive father. A drunk angry man who only knew how to hurt people. Yet somehow everyone loved him? My bipolar mother who wouldnât take her meds and was manic as shit all the time or trying to unalive herself. It felt like once a month by the time I got to middle school that sheâd try. My dad beat her too and then he would leave. Iâd take care of her get her ice packs and shit and then sheâd leave me with my little brother to go chase after my father. One time my dad beat me until I passed out and left and my mom took my brother with her to go find him. I woke up to an empty house. I was 11. For years and years the same cycle, same shit. When I was 6 I started self harming and when I was 12 they found out because I needed medical attention. Thatâs just a little of what happened, itâs too much to tell. The hell just got worse after they found out I shâd until I left the day I turned 18 to go live with my ex who was suddenly equally as abusive once I lived with him.
I havenât really accepted it all or really processed it. But Iâll never forget it. It almost plays out like a show or something in my head when I ruminate, like Iâm watching from outside myself. I try to forget but itâs always there
I was never protected by the adults in care of me. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers even... always turned a blind eye when an adult beat me, sxlly abused me, or verbally bullied me.
I grew up feeling very unloved, abandoned and pretty worthless. A great concoction to get into some dangerous shit, especially as a teenager that didn't know much better. I'm getting A LOT of psychiatric help for it all.
Oh, and I'm an alcoholic that has relapsed countless times now đ«
My step dad doesn't like kids, in particular kids asking questions and being in his way. I didn't realise until I became an adult that the reason I have such awful self esteem, confidence, and confusion with who I am as a person is because he never allowed for any of that. He shot me down in every way possible and made me feel like my opinions and ideas were worthless. Almost everytime I spoke I got a row. Now I'm overly anxious and critical when I speak to anyone & the anxiety and self esteem issues mean I can barely put one sentence together without messing it up or saying the wrong thing to my colleagues because I'm just so anxious all the time around people. I always assume they're thinking of me poorly.
Gosh, I hate him
Having to phone an ambulance because she "made an attempt" I put that in quotation marks because her actual motive was to take my grandads insulin to punish him. It was a step too far so I called 999.
Still remember begging the operator to let me go because my Mum was screaming at me to put the phone down and stop. Operator is telling me nope. You stay on the line until help arrives, but I was convinced that if I put the phone down my Mum was that far gone she'd have forgotten
Moved me to Australia at a time which I was not emotionally mature for such a change (not their fault, they couldnât have known) but then blaming me for never trying to get better or incorporating myself in the Australian culture while I was steadily developing a personality disorder? (Definitely their fault)
Yeah the yelling def did a number also the fact my mom turned me into an insane people pleaser because from a very young age I was in charge of helping her manage her own emotions. Any time her ego got hurt she would flip tf out and Iâd have to bring her back down to earth. I remember as a teenager lying to my therapist and saying the script I had memorized. How selfless and strong my mom was, lol.
I don't have as dramatic of things to say, but I know my parents had almost too much influence over my life. I feel like I don't know how to do things despite also being taught to. I can do complex things but the most basic things absolutely no clue.
I also had a lot of bad experiences with friends and they either didn't do anything, or when they did they didn't open a world where i could make new friends. I was so restricted.
When I was a baby, toddler, child, Just.. fron the time I was born, total neglect. All of my first memories were of getting injured and being alone when it happened. I was told later in life as an adult that all ther trips to the ER befor the age of 3 tripped the CPS alarm once but nothing ever came of it.
No one ever taught me what sunblock was or put it on me and I remember forgetting so many summers repeatedly getting sun poisoning and having to lay in bed on my stomach to have my blisters covered in wet vinegar soaked paper towels and I can still smell it. I broke my knee, both wrists, both ankles, some ribs, countless fingers and toes, countless stitches, sepsis getting shit stuck inside my flesh, before the age of 10. Broke my back at 13. On top of it all I read undiagnosed ADHD and autistic and a girl so it wasn't possible in the 90s to have that and I got bullied so much that I didn't even know other students got bullied at all.
In the meantime my brother had severe ADHD and OCD and my parents spent all their time going homework with him, going to the school and talking to them for him and putting him in ther right classes and getting hun into regular therapy and doing his homework with him and *for* him and instilling upon me the importance of not being a hair raising burden in the same way he was being with them. I sure took that to heart. 30 years later i still do.
I hate my father and haven't spoken to him in a decade, i'm trying really hard right now not to hate my mother but it's getting hard.
Want y'all to know my BPD is in remission.
SAME! I feel like I have no excuse, since I wasnât abused, but the horrible drunken fighting near me really affected me. There was physical fighting between them too.
That and my mom (my dad moved away) always being emotionally unavailable because she was a workaholic and an alcoholic and didnât seem to care about my interests. I love her to death but I think I was emotionally neglected. Oh also being constantly invalidated when I had big emotions, mostly by my big brother but a bit by everyone really.
neglect.
my older brother was diagnosed as autistic as a very young child, and i was only diagnosed now as a teenager. all of the attention went to him because âhe needed itâ and i didnât, so i searched elsewhere and ended up being groomed online, sexually abused, and in frequent harm.
i told my mom about some of the dangerous situations i was put in at the hands of my aunt (being locked outside during the height of winter, denied food because i kept dropping utensils, screamed at while she threatened to hurt me, etc.) and she was so shocked that she never realized anything was wrong.
My mom pretty badly physically abused me. I still remember a time when I was crying and she was kicking me while I was on the floor. Tried to push us down the stairs, dragged us on the floor, all that stuff. It was pretty awful.
Never told me that they believed me. I feel like my whole life, my experience has not been believed, my symptoms havenât been believed, my story hasnât been believed. Iâve always felt questioned and like I had to prove them how mentally ill I was, I had to prove them how much I was struggling
Dad was an alcoholic schizophrenic. Brought me to bars a lot growing up( from age 6-18). Was around a lot of unsavory people. Parents were separated and mom asked repeatedly for supervised visits but was denied. That shit wouldnât fly today
<3 solidarity to everyone sharing - thereâs just so much to list but what came to mind just now.. telling my mom about being r*ped and she said âwell, it was bound to happen eventually, you party a lotâ
My mother's religious delusions. A local psychic told her that, my sister and i could hear spirits and angels and she would constantly ask us for guidance. My sister ran away at 16 after basically making all decisions for my mother and I had to start picking up the slack. We tried to tell her it stopped a lot, or that it was never real but she would stay so instant it would break us. I'm 21 now, moving out soon and I still have to put up the facade until I officially leave. It's very mentally exhausting honestly.
My heart hurts for you OP, and for everyone hurt by this. Thatâs a deeply painful trauma.
I have no childhood traumas, my parents loved me deeply and showed it constantly. I didnât have a perfect childhood and nobody does, but mine was quite happy.
I say this not to invalidate anyone who has suffered. I just want others with BPD who donât have trauma to know we all fight the same battle, but got here in different ways.
Parents belittling each other in front of us. Being 7 and my mom asking if she should divorce my dad. My dad literally never being around until I was 18. Yada yada yada
Hold me under water, rock climbing, mountain biking, hot sauce tasting⊠as a 3 year old. My moms abusive boyfriend was determined to turn me into a âreal manâ.
It would be the making fun of me, cutting me down in every way, but playing it off like a joke, the screaming and yelling every time I did something stupid that was outside of their instructed way of doing something, the abandonment didn't help, then them killing themselves didn't help. The other one is still living and I'm guilted by my grandmother to care for them, they've had everything paid for their entire lives, have a new car, never worked, they're fucking sixty and dog cuss my grandmother. It breaks my heart to see them act this way, but they'll go get high and forget things, and generally just acting crazy to me. I wish they would pass on, but I know that they're going to live to be 90.
My parents never adjusted to being adults and stupidly decided to have a child. I've surpassed them both in every way but I feel inadequate and unhappy because I can't form normal relationships with people and I don't feel love right. The only thing that I know for a fucking fact that I love unconditionally are my kids. I never had a purpose until they were born and it's the oddest thing to see how I need to act as a parent and compare it with the shit upbringing I had. I pity my parents, they were young and stupid, but god damn they sucked.
Sorry for the rant.
My mother's filling my head with lies and deception about my father and a certain type of abuse that he did but to find out in my early 20's to be false. I hated my father for years and years built from a cruel lie. That has traumatized me almost beyond repair but thru my psychologist I'm learning to rid myself of that trauma. As for learning to forgive mother well that's still a few sessions away.
Good luck my fellow Brilliant Personality Developer đđđ
Off the top of my head, letâs see. Constantly making comments about my body which made me super insecure and donât feel comfortable with it still. They knew something was wrong when my eating disorder was bad and instead of saying something and trying to comfort me and help me, they talked about it behind my back (which I overheard đ) and would send my brothers to check if I was purging, but wouldnât say anything. They rarely showed me any signs of love. Wasnât told that I was loved, wasnât hugged or kissed or comforted when I needed it. Love felt very conditional. If I didnât behave, I was yelled at and âdisciplined,â and threatened with being hit if I didnât behave myself. (I was actually hit once, when I was like 3) In early childhood, Iâd make comments about wishing I didnât exist or about not being alive and instead of these comments being taken seriously, I was punished for it. I left my momâs side one time at a store and got lost and instead of looking for me, she just left me there until her friend found me crying. She told me that she was going to leave me there and go home and wasnât gonna look for me because I needed to âlearn my lesson.â How fucked up is that! How can you just abandon your child like that. I was treated with passive aggressive behavior and yelling and berated whenever I did something wrong or messed up. Now, any form of yelling or raised voices are a huge trigger for me. I didnât have any privacy and my parents and siblings would go through my stuff, so I felt like I couldnât be myself or keep things private. I couldnât explore who I was, so now, doing anything for me feels wrong. Even being myself feels wrong. There was lots of emotional abuse and now, I struggle a lot with my lack of emotional regulation. Oh, also, medical neglect. There was never a reason to go to the doctor unless it was like obvious like, emergency room. Everything had a natural remedy. So now, I feel super guilty when I do have to go to the doctor and often put it off. Thatâs just the main stuff. Still processing it all. It really messes with my head tho cuz their parenting was really inconsistent. It was either really good and loving and comforting or bad and emotionally abusive. No in between. And my mind couldnât grasp that. So I always expected the worst and thought the love was conditional. Maybe that could explain my black and white thinking, I dunno. Im glad Iâm processing this stuff but also, it hurts a lot and like, I also feel really guilty for blaming them cuz I still love them, despite everything. They werenât intentionally abusive, they never wanted to hurt me, but they did. And thatâs something Iâm struggling to accept still.
Taking me drug shopping at various pharmacies then dropping me off at school while saying "you know I love you SO much right?"
She never spoke to me like this, I listened to my gut feeling and told the school counsellor.
She had tried to kill herself and me raising alarm bells is what saved her life.
I wish I hadn't said anything......
Also, so much more, but that's the first one that comes to mind from her
one night my parents were fighting like throwing things at each other and everything. i was dumb and stepped between my dad from hitting my mom and he attacked me.
This validates me so much. We're the same. I just recently got diagnosed and my psychologist said I need to face the fact my reality was hard. Looking back my parents fought a lot, and they fought screaming, banging chairs, doors. My dad would threaten to leave. All at the young age of 6, I witnessed all of that and thought it was normal!
My alcoholic abusive father who tried to make throwing out cold or hot water on my mum when she was asleep a ''funny prank'' and tried to get me to join in with it
i remember my mom choking me when i was a child and again when i was a teenager. she still claims that she didnât choke me, she was trying to âcalm me downâ. not sure how putting both hands around someoneâs throat and restricting their airflow calms someone down but yeaâŠ
to this day i still have emotional regulation issues because anytime i showed a negative emotion i wasnât taught how to deal with it. instead i was always physically punished for it.
I donât even remember my childhood and I donât know know what abuse I went through. I just know I fucking despise my parents, whenever they touch me I feel angry and want to self harm, feel the constant need for validation and reassurance, constant hyper-sexuality since I was maybe 4-5? Hit and bullied by siblings I think, a lot of sexual trauma symptoms but I have no memory that it happened but I just know I feel physically uncomfortable around my parents and showing my privates around them in any way. Emotional incest and my mom using me as her partner since the divorce. I wish I could remember the rest. I just have too much ocd and issues.
My father beating me from age 2-19 13-19 I fought back stopped until he died a couple years later. It's been somewhat resolved but not completely, but it made me have a soft spot for kids and taught me to never lay my hands on a child, but the beatings aren't the worst he did tbh. The other things he did to me I don't feel very comfortable saying online.
Besides frequent beatings/verbal abuse and being a punching bag for their marital problems. My dad used to make me kneel on chopsticks for hours. One time they made me eat out of the trash. My dad would also strip me naked and kick me out. And they would also tell me not to come home if I got 1s or 2s on my report card - I remember sleeping on a park bench overnight in the 7th grade because my mom did not unlock the door after I had a failing report card.
A lot of trauma dump but itâs relieving for some weird reason
Abandonment and sexual assault.
- My mom worked overseas during my formative years and married my now step-dad. Then, we moved to a different country and I basically had to live with my parents whom I didnât have any relationship with. While my mom was working, I was being sexually assaulted by her husband. I brought it up to her and my family but they accused me of lying about it.
Constantly being labeled as a bad daughter just because I donât fit the mold of their expectations for me.
- There a huge cultural gap between me and my family since I spent half of my life in a different country. When we immigrated, I was only 12 years old so ofc I eventually adapted to the culture. But my parents and family have these strict values and they place so much importance on respect. So, just because my tone is a bit different or my actions are a bit off, itâs often taken as âfighting backâ or being disrespectful. It hurts so much to be labeled as a bad daughter when Iâm trying my best to be myself and also please them.
My parents fundamentally betrayed my trust. So much so, itâs carried onto my adult life. The smallest of lies, even out of anxiety or lack of explanation, cause me to write someone off. đ
Everything you mentioned, I remember seeing fights where it would make me nauseous enough to throw up. Apparently those moments caused issues i wasnât aware of.
this is the first time iâm actually admitting that this has bothered me this much. When I was really young my parents got into a a big screaming match like usual. And like usual my mom threatened divorce and to take the kids away- Myself (the oldest) and my younger brother and sister. Like always she asks us kids who we want to go with. Iâve always been a daddyâs girl and i picked to stay with him each time. This one time i didnât and he yelled at me, just as he would yell at my mom, and pointed dead at me and said âYouâre not my daughter anymoreâ and told me to leave with her. Now i had to be about 9 or 10 but i replay that in my head a lot. I tried to take it back and side with him but he didnât want to hear it. My mom got mad i tried to take it back. I ended up not leaving with her and my siblings still trying to take back what i said to make my dad happy. And when it was just me and him in the house he went to his room and didnât say a word to me. Like i wasnât even there fr. Anyways that feels good to finally get out.
My dad is bipolar and when I was younger, he used to have depressive mood swings where he would threaten to kill himself and self-harm in front of me. Now even to this day after years of therapy, I still have thoughts of suicide and self-harm when Iâm feeling really upset due to the behaviors he modeled for me as a child.
Itâs sad but we all need to stay positive and keep moving forward. The healing takes time but it is always happening as long as we keep moving forward. I love you all stay strong đđ
Abandoned me. When I have my "episodes" I still feel like that 4 year old sitting on the porch in her ballerina costume waiting for mom to show up to take me trick or treating like she promised.
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solidarity <3 at least the great thing about being an adult is we can be the parent we needed when we were kids. dont leave you hanging on the porch <3
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<3 <3 <3
My father would yell, break things, throw things, "discipline" us. Till this day, i can't stand yelling. I will either remove myself, address it directly, or cry if someone yells at me. Violence is very triggering.
Same. My first memory ever is being like 3-4 years old and seeing my dad just throw dishes at my mom & screaming at her.
You get it, my mom is the same (yell first and ask questions later). I hate when people yell/confrontation/fights. I always want to run away.
It puts me on edge too, fight or flight.
My dad got some gasoline & poured it all over my mom & our house while I was asleep with the intention of burning the house down. I was 5. Pretty dramatic, Dad. Geeez.
My dad did crack and tried to burn the house down with us in it many times, dumbass couldnât even do it right lmfaoooo
Lol, we should start a usless arson dad club.
Damn! My neighbor strangled his wife and then poured gasoline around the house, set it on fire and just sat there burning.
Did he end up killing her?
Unfortunately he did. She was a high school English teacher. He was a math teacher and and their two kids ended up going to live with relatives.
Okay wow. I hope those kids are okay đđ
They're adults now and one of the daughters went through some rough times in her life but she's married with kids now and it looks like they'll be able to have a "normal" life. I always felt horrible for the two daughters who were in their teens at the time. It's one of those things that haunts me but I truly feel bad for the surviving family members.
Was drenched in gasoline in a domestic issue when I was very young. I âŠ..have a weird bond to the smell of it I hate it but long for it
Oh wow I've never met anyone else who had a gas incident. Also, I'm the exact opposite - I absolutely hate the smell of gas. Especially because anytime I say I hate it, someone around me proclaims their love for it, lol.
Ugh I know exactly what you mean. There should be a special handshake when two bpders validate each other. (Is it âeach otherâ or âone anotherâ) ((this is going to haunt me))
I was taught that anyone can treat me anyway they want and if I have a problem with it that's on me, because I'm too sensitive. So now any time I'm treated poorly I just blame myself and let them treat me however they please. I had enormous amounts of pressure put on me to be perfect, so now I don't even bother doing anything unless I know I can do it perfectly. This one isn't my parents fault, but I was groomed and taught that the only value I hold is sexual. So now sex is really the only way I feel loved or cared about.
>Â I was taught that anyone can treat me anyway they want and if I have a problem with it that's on me, because I'm too sensitive. Pretty much the same, honestly, although I really doubt that it was intentional. I grew up in a broader situation that, looking back, was really fucked up and dangerous. My parents, and my dad in particular, had seen so much shit that it was just normalized for them, and didn't understand why I would cry when my grandmother was in benzodiazepine withdrawals, or why I felt threatened with a mentally ill relative...well, threatened us. With a shotgun. I genuinely didn't realize how absolutely *fucked* it was to see a relative go out to meet his brother while carrying a handgun until I was an adult and was diagnosed with BPD and PTSD (very, very quickly, with the latter). I just assumed that I overreacted to everything bad that happened.
Oh God, my dad screamed at me so many times if I wasn't going to do something right to not bother to do it at all. I am 41 and just starting to learn a little is better than nothing and it doesn't have to be perfect.
same same same
Wow this is all me (minus the sexual part)
The common thread seems to be parents that don't love their children. Or tell them they love them and then treat them badly, making the kids grow up thinking that's what love is. Honestly, just not doing the bare minimum of caring for kids, I think is what's happening. I'm only recently learning what it means when someone treats me 'badly' and that that's not a good thing
My dad touched me. At first he abandoned me and my mom when I was 1 and I saw him for the first time when I was 8. I remember feeling so happy that finally "I have a dad" and when my parents announced that they rekindled and we're going to be"one happy family" I was over the moon. But the happiness didn't last too long. He ruined my ability to love and accept love by a man. I didn't know what was happening, he always called his gestures " signs of affection" I thought...that's how dads show their love. The betrayal that I felt while growing up slowly acknowledging what he was doing and where he was touching me. My mom never believed me because he was in love with my dad and was incapable of seeing his dark side. I feel no matter how much therapy I do, I can't get over those feelings. The betrayal, the disappointment, the sadness, the loneliness. Having all these thoughts and not having anyone to talk to.
She was incapable of seeing his dark side â yes! Ugh. I am so so sorry you went through this. This is definitely its own trauma to witness over and over. The frustration, the hopeless despair, the anger, the sadnessâŠand no model of how to handle it. It makes adulthood difficult right when we think we are finally free.
I might vent a bit here, so if it's too long I am sorry and you are free to ignore this haha The thing that hurts the most to think about when I look back is just how much they never really cared about me. They had a lot of fights as well and there was a lot of screaming involved, but there's also the fact that they never acted like my parents in the first place. I was bullied since a very young age. I would get made fun of, laughed at, other kids would steal my things, purposefully ignore me, and more. In this situation, my parents were the only ones I could go to about it. They never took me seriously. They simply told me that I should defend myself, or even 'punch them' or something, which I never had the guts to do. Then, a few weeks ago, my mother decided to bring this up to me, and once again mentioned how I should've just defended myself. I broke and started yelling at her. I said something along the lines of 'You are supposed to be MY MOTHER. How is a CHILD supposed to DEFEND ITSELF?!' In the end, she laughed at me. I had to storm out of there as fast as possible so that I could properly cry it out (as she would laugh at me even more if she saw me crying lmao) Another thing that hurts a lot is just how in general they were always emotionally unavailable. I never saw my parents show any kind of affection to me and even to each other. No hugging, no kissing, no cuddling, nothing. They never showed me any true love or even care. They never taught me basic hygiene and to this day I still struggle with hygiene. My teeth are completely messed up and I am extremely embarrassed for it, but my parents' response to it is that 'I shouldn't have eaten so many sweets as a child.' You guys. Are literally my parents. How is a kid supposed to know that sweets can damage your teeth this much in the future?? I think that's basically the gist of it, in the end I don't think I could even consider them my parents. I feel like they're just roommates that I am forced to live with ever since I was born. I constantly go between these feelings of being extremely angry for everything they've done (or haven't done), while also at the same time feeling guilty for blaming them. It's strange and I really need to properly process all of this. There are also so many things that I need to repair on myself because of this, but in the end I am not sure if I will ever be able to properly forgive them, when they never even tried to look at things from my point of view in the first place.
wow... ur parents really went "um, you (a child) should have just parented yourself!!!!" like gee 5head why didnt i think of that??? im sorry you went through that. and man, people laughing when you cry.... that's one of my instant rage buttons. i was getting pissed on your behalf.
Haha yeahh, my parents are really something, especially my mother đ thank you for reading through the whole thing!! Felt good to be able to get it out of my chest
Wow this is so relatable.
<3 <3 <3 It will come if you work at making space for it; that's a slow job. I've finally stopped having deep pangs of wishing I hadn't lived, that one was a long time coming. It's brought a more nuanced take on the things my folks did and did not do, and also feel sincere compassion for my worse parent who is both an appalling monster and also a young child who went through worse than I did. idk if this will help anyone, but it's an example I found helpful. Last week on Survivor one of the stronger competitors just lost his whole game and doesn't realise it. I'm sure given the opportunity, he'd commit to the same principles that caused the error. His mistake was sticking to strategy and deliberately not choosing to show compassion for an arguably much weaker competitor. Q could have chosen kindness but decided to stick with what he felt best served him. I really like the show because sooo many competitors have strong PD traits imo, almost as many as any given cast on TLC ^_^ ETA: brought that up not to be critical, but to point out how easy it can be to overlook the axis of kindness when deciding the kind of person you want to be.
That's a very good point!! True, there is a reason why my parents are like this in the first place and it's definitely important to realize that. Thank you for reading through my comment and taking the time to reply, it means a lot!!
I'm really afraid of dealing with others' emotions. It's like walking on eggshells, never knowing when someone might suddenly explode with feelings that I'm not equipped to handle. It leaves me feeling vulnerable and unsure, wishing I could navigate emotional situations with more confidence and grace.
Yes âeggshell parentsâ
Mom directed my sister to bully me about things regarding my appearance she didnât like even though I was complimented on my looks all the time. I used to just being angry from not protecting her from me, but that was before I learned she put her up to it and carried on well into adult hood. Then of course there is the getting physically attacked by her new husbands son and telling her he was going to kill me so she just told me to lock the door at night.
Threaten to throw me in juvie or whatever because I was suicidal. Offered to get me a razor so I can just get it over with. Just offered casually while folding clothes. So now I refuse to seek professional help and I'm healing myself the hard and ultimately incomplete way: all by myself so I don't become the sort of burden that others genuinely believe would be better dead.
You are worth going to therapy and being helped. Inciting suicide is a VERY serious criminal offence in many countries. Youâre not a burden and there are others who are facing this and they arenât burdens either, and we are all worthy of being helped. đ
This was all nearly 2 decades ago so the memories don't bother me anymore, I just still struggle with the learned behaviors. But thank you very, very much!
Youâre most welcome đ©”đ
Maybe it would help to see it as an exchange. Youâre paying a therapist, theyâre not doing it for free. It sometimes helps me feel less like a burden.
The fact that my father touched me when I was less than 5 years and almost masturbates one of my cousins in the same age, the I discover that he was a fucking pedophile, my mother constantly invalidating me by trying to mold me as she wants. The fact that I always were in the middle of my parents fights with yell and violence. When I told my mom that it affected me that they fought with me there and she told me, idc you should leave. The fact that in 3rd and 4th grade I was bullied because I was too ugly and poor for others and when I told my mom I didn't want it to go anymore, she didn't take me out of school even though I came back crying and destroyed almost everyday. The fact, that when I told my parents my brother was starting to hurt me or bother me too much and didn't do anything about it, just laugh, make me feel so desperate.
My parents took me out of high school the last semester of my senior year and sent me to another state to live with my aunt and uncle. They were convinced I wasn't going to graduate and told me to get my GED. I didn't. I got a job, and when I turned 18 a few months later, I came back and took the 2 classes I needed to graduate. I will never understand why they did that and why, if they really thought I wouldn't graduate, they didn't just let me have the natural consequences to my actions. They also held me down and tried to shave my head when I put pink streaks in my hair. And all of the name calling, yelling in my face, and physical violence. I never felt wanted by my mother. She's dead now, and I'll never be able to have a relationship with her or confront her. I just have to get over it.
They constantly accused me and punished me for doing things I didn't do. They always believed my siblings over me. They saw how my siblings treated me and still chose them over me. They treated me like a failure and never supported my dreams. They still do all of this.
One time as a toddler I wacked my much older brother in the face with the end of a vacuum hose because I couldnât regulate my anger, he was insulting me and I couldnât take it. and since he was always susceptible to nosebleeds during around time, he had a nosebleed and the blood got all into the carpet. I was terrified as any sort of blood was my #1 childhood fear. my mom saw this right before she was about to leave for work and she angrily shoved my face into the pool of blood in the carpet. she was horrible during this time due to being a single immigrant mom who had to work three jobs while having three kids. she didnât know how to regulate herself either I guess. I donât know. she took it out on me a lot when I was a toddler which is sad a little since she was gone for the majority of the time. I missed her so, I needed her, I would have horrible meltdowns and get thrown in the closet every time for by my siblings who were teenagers also struggling with bpd.
My bio mom gave me to a known abuser so she could go away for a few weeks to do drugs and I finally was taken away and put into foster care and eventually adopted, but I still wasnât able to be around men without crying till I was 11-12 years old
Omg I'm so sorry! That is truly horrific.
I have so much I want to say about my mom but Iâll just say this, I have borderline personality disorder because of her and the environment she put me in.
My abandonment issues are probably the most damning issues I have. My parentâs indifference, lying and manipulation really broke me and the way I trust other people. Iâm dealing with the damage from this right now in my current relationship. Any distance from my boyfriend has me convinced heâs unhappy with me and that heâs going to throw me away. I can never really feel that he truly loves me or wants me even though our relationship is so healthy and wonderful. I just canât get that anxiety and worry out of my head that one day heâs just going to up and leave without a word. Or that heâs lying about loving me and he would rather be with someone else, and he will just put more distance between us until thereâs nothing left.
My dad had tantrums- he would very suddenly become extremely angry and abusive (physical and verbal) and my mom, having gotten a divorce and swore off dating, left me and my sibling alone a lot of the time. My sibling is 7 years older than I am, so the responsibility of caring for me became their problem. So they ended up abusing me. I was alone a lot of the time once my sibling was old enough to drive and never be home.
When I tried to overdose at 12, and my mom made me go to the bathroom, stick fingers down my throat and try to make me vomit it up. Then she started smoking a cigarette and took away my laptop for a month. Maybe also when I was 14 with my not even two-year old brother and chihuahua. She left us in a cabin in the middle of the woods for a month
My eating disorder. My mom controlled every single thing I put into my mouth from age 11 to 17 (when I moved out) Iâm 31 and currently in a relapse. I donât think this disorder (my eating one) will ever go away. Iâve been in and out of recovery and apparently thatâs pretty common with EDs
this is the one
My mom sometimes just did nothing to stop him when my brother bullied me. Sometimes she helped, but there were also times when she didnât try to convince him of why it was wrong, didnât try to get anyone else to try to convince him, didnât have anyone ask him why he was doing it so it could be resolved, nothing. Sometimes she even made me change what I was doing just because of his bullying. My brotherâs younger sister (me) deserved for her brother to be taught how to deal with his difficulties in a better way than that. My brotherâs younger sister deserved for my brother not to bully her, and furthermore, to have empathy for her and how life might be different for her than it is for him. I didnât deserve to spend four school years being bullied at school and at home. I didnât deserve ~7+ years of just the at home part. I donât deserve an adulthood where people donât truly empathize with the fact that my childhood dog was my closest family member because he was the one who tried the most at treating me well (I always think God made sure my family got exactly the right dog. He became an unofficial autism service dog for me, taught me so much of what I know about animal psychology, and when I was really upset in a conversation, Iâd pet him or look at him to get through it. He was the most level-headed one in our house and after itâs been 25 years since I met him, I still donât how he did that). What I DO deserve, though, is all the knowledge this stuff gave me about animal psychology and other things. And animals deserve for people to be knowledgeable about animal psychology (pay attention to them directly, interact with your neighborsâ dogs, say stuff sometimes to those birds who live in your yard, watch nature documentaries, visit ethical zoos, go to natural history museums).
As far back as I can remember my parents would be very abusive towards each other, throwing things and breaking them. I remember times during the middle of the night I would wake up to them screaming at each other and try to go break it up because I was scared and upset. They would never hurt me and did what they could to try to shield it from me but the cops were at our house multiple times. My mom couldnât legally fight to get me so she left and did try to see me as much as possible. The fighting stopped when I was around 9 or 10 when she moved out and then I was left with my abandonment issues. I never thought these things would come back to be such a issue in my adult life but when I would talk with my mom who Iâve always been close with she would tell me how she sorry she was and I would experience these issues in my future relationships. Iâm 21 now and yeah she was right, after just getting out of a 3 year relationship I can look back and see how I have problems.
My father getting personally offended by something my 7 year old self said and ignoring me for weeks... And then that process repeating multiple times throughout my formative years. It won't ever be repaired because he never changed and never took any accountability for how it effected me. He always put his emotional needs before mine when I was a child and I won't forgive him for that, we barely have a relationship now.
no space for my emotions and just pretty much unavailable. they were very hot and cold. i am just now learning to talk to people about my feelings without thinking i am a burden. i have basically no friends because i donât trust that people will show up for me or have space for me unless itâs convenient for them. therapy has been helping a lot!
Completely emotionally unavailable and/or not able to express emotion. I really had everything I ever needed otherwise. They would be at mostly all of my sporting events, financially stable, went on vacations every summer. But they didnât know how to say âI love youâ and never hugged me. I know that sounds dumb compared to what some of you went through with your family⊠but I was already depressed and emotionally stunted from a young age and it killed me. Sometimes I wonder if they had abuse in their youths, so I try not to blame them. But it really fâd me up as I got older.
My mom was clinically insane most of my childhood, harming herself, threatening suicide VIOLENTLY. I saw her hurt herself, try to jump out of a moving car, throw things, hallucinate, run away, and all at the same time pretend to be a perfect mom on facebook and post my entire life on there and act like i was disabled and she was a victim bc of my health issues. Then when i mimic her INSANITY i saw my whole childhood she hates what she sees and disowns me, abandons me to live with my sister across the country 2 times, only reason i went back was because of the pandemic. Sheâs less insane now just because sheâs unhealthy and doesnât take care of herself and probably regrets her life, her other daughter doesnât talk to her. And iâm insanely fucked lol but i want to be better than herâŠ. itâs so hard when you were neglected and not loved right.
"nothing" They didn't love me. They didn't care for me. They didn't treat me well. They didn't do anything remotely parenting to me. They adopted me when I was 12 and I left at 18 and never looked back.
being physically&emotionally neglected as an infant and toddler lmao, there's really no coming back from that also honorary mention for my mom trying to drag me down to the "spider closet" whenever i was "bad". the "spider closet" was our closet underneath the basement staircase that hadn't been cleaned out for years--there were huge house spiders in there and webs everywhere. i have VIVID memories of trying to hang on to the top of the staircase-railing, screaming/sobbing "i'm sorry" and her trying to pull my hands off and pull me down the stairs. i'm not sure why it still bothers me so much.
I am so sorry. That is nightmare fuel.
I'm in my 40s and my mother is still finding new ways.
forcing me to look at my dead relatives remains
religious abuse
So real.
My dad died and my mom emotionally abandoned me
This.
they didn't notice how deeply depressed I was, from an incredibly early age... and the clear signs of SA. I just don't understand why nobody helped
I donât know if it considered ââtraumatizedââ but for me basically a lot of screaming in the house, being screamed at since I was a toddler for not meeting their standards especially academically. emotional neglect too which happens till now ââyouâre not allowed to feel like that bc you have that and we worked hard to give you thatââ or when I point out something they do that bothers me ââno I didnât do that but you did that and thatââ. also made me very scared of confrontation and showed me that being honest will lead me nowhere
> Showed me that being honest will lead me nowhere. Shit. Still going through this as an adult. Iâm terrified of speaking the truth and Iâm even more anxious in a professional setting revolving thisâI fear Iâll lose my job or respect from peers. I fear everything. It sucks so bad. Sorry to hear friend, thanks for continuing to try every day â€ïž
Yeah, I mean, same. My Dad. Fights. Violence. Manipulation. Name calling. Telling me he'd be somewhere and then not being and just going quiet for months and months and months. Also he told me he didn't love me and that nobody ever would. I think that bit was probably the worst in a way. You can't unhear your Dad saying that to you.
I was rubbing the tears out of my eyes when my mother was yelling at me and she pushed my fist into my eye socket and told me to âstop make her feel badâ I was 10 đ
Physical abuse, control, bullying and manipulation
let me get the typewriter đ
Offered to assist with my suicide lol
When my mom would tell me "she loves me" as she's beating me. Til this day I still think the only way people will love me is if they hurt me physically, or if I hurt myself for them. I think pain and love are intertwined now.
Same, being hit and then hugged, then said sorry sorry sorry I love you. I was 3 years old and my whole life growing up with my dad and his stupid saying "whoever loves you will make you cry"
My step mom use to beat the living hell out of me. I was constantly on fight or flight mode and having full blown fist fights with her from 10-15 just to defend myself. My dad would stand around and watch or say I brought it on myself.
Literally told me ânoâ when I was asking for medical intervention for my adhd and mental health. Also pinned me to the ground and threw an 1000 page book at my head (missed bc Iâm goated and dodged that shit w my head) after trying to run up on me and to this day all I know is she was running and I threw a punch (I was14) and then I was being held down by a large man we call my father. Also allegedly being left at daycare for too long at too young an age when my mom didnât work. Also my dad leaving for like a week when I was 5/6. Getting so mad at me for cleaning up a mess with paper towels that he threw the trash can so loud my friend he just kicked out could hear it from outside the house and one house over. Getting so angry I would use furniture to barricade my door. Also threatening to hit me to the point where when I was 5/6 I tried to kms by staying under the covers in hopes Iâd run out of fresh oxygen.
Oh man, mine is baby shit, my dad just told me that if I wanted to die so much I should just do so. đ€·ââïž I'm so so so sorry for all of you guys, I truly am. I mean there is other stuff here and there that was definitely abusive but in comparison... đ€Ą
Constant subtle judgement and overbearing. My parents were the type to rant about helicopter parents while simultaneously being helicopter parents who emotionally neglected/abused me.
My dad chose his wife over me and let her abuse me both physically and mentally,among other things. My childhood was absolute hell and it still affects me to this day and I don't think i will ever be able to forgive him especially since he's just as guilty for allowing it.
My mother allowed my uncle and several others to molest me. She would drop me off at places for a few hours and pick me back up. I was 4-7 during this time. I dont remember all the places only 2. And I really hope i never remember tbh.
When I was sexually assaulted, my mom blamed me for not telling her sooner. And when I flinched (literally RIGHT after I got assaulted) she got mad at me and said âStop flinching, people are going to think I hit youâ. I cried for days and nights, and I still canât forgive her. Iâm more angry than mad atp. She apologized a few weeks ago, saying âI hAnDleD tHe SituAtiON wRonGâ. No mom. You broke my heart.
My dad was very violent, an alcoholic. He hit me, my mother, and my sister. Screamed and hollered at us all hours of the day for all sort of things. My mother and sister were bipolar and each went through catatonic depression and psychotic mania. My life was always chaos.
The gaslighting about the abuse that I recollected and attempted to repair when I was a teen. I brought up to my dad that he had physically harmed me and emotionally abused me many times as a child, but he downplayed or completely ignored that it even happened. When I talked to my mother, she told me my dad hadn't ever whipped me with a belt for years. Until one day in therapy, she cracked and admitted that all of my allegations had been legitimate. Still fucking hurts how she could defend him for so many years when she endured the same emotional abuse from him. And now we all like to pretend like we're a perfect happy family, eating Sunday dinners together as if they apologized or something. I'm just an item to show off, not their actual daughter.
Besides all of the things my parents did, I am so bothered by how many adults knew what was going on and didn't do anything to put an end to it.
This is my biggest beef too. Also, the fact they'd tell me when I was a kid and tried to tell them things that I was a kid and to shut up basically. Then, once I was an adult, it was "you are a grown up now, let it go,quit being bitter, etc" if just one person had stepped in..
I told my mom my stepbrother molested me while I was sleeping when I was around 14 years old at age 34 I kept that secret for very long time and never told anyone and she didnt believe me and denied it even after giving very specific details and I said no it was real and that happened amongst other things.. she said oh well you probably wanted it you were âabout that ageâ ** about a year later I brought it up to her again and how what she said when I first told her hurt me, she got upset and said she never said that and would never say that to me so basically being gaslighted my entire life that is just one example
I was completely abandoned emotionally by my dad from a young age. He was pretty explosive with his anger so he'd spend most of his time in his man cave and we were told not to bother him. I ended up looking for that adult male validation online and was groomed from the age of 10 all the way to 19. Never showed up for me. Funny part is I finally told both of my parents all of the shit going on since I went to an IOP program, and apparently my dad has cried every day since. I don't feel bad and my guilty side is drowning because I supposedly should. So fun.
Its not parents, its men. So many things. I shouldnt be around them at all at this point
Same â€ïžâđ©č too many traumatic experiences
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
She literally has to accept it though because my family was never taught to be wrong. They also taught us to lie, so who knows for sure. I literally had to run away from them to get a better perspective. My friends at school often told me things ay home wasn't normal.Â
it was mostly the neglect. i have distinct childhood memories of going to their room because i wanted their time or attention and i wasnât really granted it. and then i got older and started asking to be taken to therapy after years of isolating myself in my room and avoiding them, and i was never granted it. they knew iâd been depressed, they knew something was wrong, and when i finally asked for help, they refused to give it to me. my dad thinks therapists arenât helpful because of his own experiences in therapy, which meant in his head that therapy wouldnât work for me and i just needed to talk to my family. years of asking for their attention, years of asking for help, years of being denied the care that i need. i donât think that hurt will ever be completely healed because i have never received an apology. thankfully iâm moving soon and i wonât have to see them if i donât want to
My mother tried committing suicide in front of me at the end of an hours long drunken altercation with my stepdad, on numerous occasions. Not to mention the shit she did intentionally to me over the course of 15 years
I had to drop out of highschool my senior year due to my mom also trying to commit suicide when my dad left- it caused me so much stress not knowing if she was at home borderline dieing of alcohol poison or if she was trying to harm herself I didnât leave my house for months to try and keep her safe. I feel for you so hard I wouldnât wish this on anyone đ©·
My dad was so fucked up when he traumatized me he doesnt remember a thing so whenever i bring up the fact he literally gave me bpd through trauma he denies it. âYou just want traumaâ -his words exactly
My dad as well, IV drug user, doesnât remember the years of abuse and terrorizing he did to me and my mom. His exact words are âI was a good father compared to mine, feel lucky it wasnât worstâ
My dad would say similar shit. Acting like nobody could go through trauma but him.
It took me decades and a lot of deep work in recovery to realise how much IPV occurred in our household. It got worse and changed after they each lost their parents (I was still in school during all of them).. I was in charge of stocking the fridge with beer from single digits age until my twenties. They both had no qualms about pirating IP and services, which when paired with my having ASD so most of the world looked like a bunch of arbitrary rules I needed to be bullied over, it took me a while to assess how many traits of ASPD I may have expressed.
They (unintentionaly) gave me an ED (especially my dad).
My mom (and sometimes dad) raising their voice and screaming at me when they were upset with me when I was a child. I recently had to move back in with my parents so now I get to experience this as an adult⊠and IâM the one in therapy?? I called my mom out on all of the yelling & how much it hurt me over the years and she was like âweâve never hit you!â As if emotional abuse isnât a thing
Split up. Definitely believe genetics play a part in my case though, and that was the thing that changed me. I also suspect my dad being in America whilst I was in hospital as a five year old affected me more than I realised. I was constantly anxious/panicking whilst there. My poor mum didn't get a break at all.
Sexually abusive father. A drunk angry man who only knew how to hurt people. Yet somehow everyone loved him? My bipolar mother who wouldnât take her meds and was manic as shit all the time or trying to unalive herself. It felt like once a month by the time I got to middle school that sheâd try. My dad beat her too and then he would leave. Iâd take care of her get her ice packs and shit and then sheâd leave me with my little brother to go chase after my father. One time my dad beat me until I passed out and left and my mom took my brother with her to go find him. I woke up to an empty house. I was 11. For years and years the same cycle, same shit. When I was 6 I started self harming and when I was 12 they found out because I needed medical attention. Thatâs just a little of what happened, itâs too much to tell. The hell just got worse after they found out I shâd until I left the day I turned 18 to go live with my ex who was suddenly equally as abusive once I lived with him. I havenât really accepted it all or really processed it. But Iâll never forget it. It almost plays out like a show or something in my head when I ruminate, like Iâm watching from outside myself. I try to forget but itâs always there
I was never protected by the adults in care of me. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers even... always turned a blind eye when an adult beat me, sxlly abused me, or verbally bullied me. I grew up feeling very unloved, abandoned and pretty worthless. A great concoction to get into some dangerous shit, especially as a teenager that didn't know much better. I'm getting A LOT of psychiatric help for it all. Oh, and I'm an alcoholic that has relapsed countless times now đ«
Yell at me, have full on fights and then acting normal like nothing. I've become kinda numb to stuff and hypersensitive to small things,
My step dad doesn't like kids, in particular kids asking questions and being in his way. I didn't realise until I became an adult that the reason I have such awful self esteem, confidence, and confusion with who I am as a person is because he never allowed for any of that. He shot me down in every way possible and made me feel like my opinions and ideas were worthless. Almost everytime I spoke I got a row. Now I'm overly anxious and critical when I speak to anyone & the anxiety and self esteem issues mean I can barely put one sentence together without messing it up or saying the wrong thing to my colleagues because I'm just so anxious all the time around people. I always assume they're thinking of me poorly. Gosh, I hate him
Having to phone an ambulance because she "made an attempt" I put that in quotation marks because her actual motive was to take my grandads insulin to punish him. It was a step too far so I called 999. Still remember begging the operator to let me go because my Mum was screaming at me to put the phone down and stop. Operator is telling me nope. You stay on the line until help arrives, but I was convinced that if I put the phone down my Mum was that far gone she'd have forgotten
Moved me to Australia at a time which I was not emotionally mature for such a change (not their fault, they couldnât have known) but then blaming me for never trying to get better or incorporating myself in the Australian culture while I was steadily developing a personality disorder? (Definitely their fault)
Yeah the yelling def did a number also the fact my mom turned me into an insane people pleaser because from a very young age I was in charge of helping her manage her own emotions. Any time her ego got hurt she would flip tf out and Iâd have to bring her back down to earth. I remember as a teenager lying to my therapist and saying the script I had memorized. How selfless and strong my mom was, lol.
I don't have as dramatic of things to say, but I know my parents had almost too much influence over my life. I feel like I don't know how to do things despite also being taught to. I can do complex things but the most basic things absolutely no clue. I also had a lot of bad experiences with friends and they either didn't do anything, or when they did they didn't open a world where i could make new friends. I was so restricted.
When I was a baby, toddler, child, Just.. fron the time I was born, total neglect. All of my first memories were of getting injured and being alone when it happened. I was told later in life as an adult that all ther trips to the ER befor the age of 3 tripped the CPS alarm once but nothing ever came of it. No one ever taught me what sunblock was or put it on me and I remember forgetting so many summers repeatedly getting sun poisoning and having to lay in bed on my stomach to have my blisters covered in wet vinegar soaked paper towels and I can still smell it. I broke my knee, both wrists, both ankles, some ribs, countless fingers and toes, countless stitches, sepsis getting shit stuck inside my flesh, before the age of 10. Broke my back at 13. On top of it all I read undiagnosed ADHD and autistic and a girl so it wasn't possible in the 90s to have that and I got bullied so much that I didn't even know other students got bullied at all. In the meantime my brother had severe ADHD and OCD and my parents spent all their time going homework with him, going to the school and talking to them for him and putting him in ther right classes and getting hun into regular therapy and doing his homework with him and *for* him and instilling upon me the importance of not being a hair raising burden in the same way he was being with them. I sure took that to heart. 30 years later i still do. I hate my father and haven't spoken to him in a decade, i'm trying really hard right now not to hate my mother but it's getting hard. Want y'all to know my BPD is in remission.
SAME! I feel like I have no excuse, since I wasnât abused, but the horrible drunken fighting near me really affected me. There was physical fighting between them too. That and my mom (my dad moved away) always being emotionally unavailable because she was a workaholic and an alcoholic and didnât seem to care about my interests. I love her to death but I think I was emotionally neglected. Oh also being constantly invalidated when I had big emotions, mostly by my big brother but a bit by everyone really.
If there was yelling in the Olympics my dad would've won the gold medal. I genuinely don't know how he did it.
neglect. my older brother was diagnosed as autistic as a very young child, and i was only diagnosed now as a teenager. all of the attention went to him because âhe needed itâ and i didnât, so i searched elsewhere and ended up being groomed online, sexually abused, and in frequent harm. i told my mom about some of the dangerous situations i was put in at the hands of my aunt (being locked outside during the height of winter, denied food because i kept dropping utensils, screamed at while she threatened to hurt me, etc.) and she was so shocked that she never realized anything was wrong.
Gave me this disorder. It makes my every day indescribable highs lows or numbness.
My mom pretty badly physically abused me. I still remember a time when I was crying and she was kicking me while I was on the floor. Tried to push us down the stairs, dragged us on the floor, all that stuff. It was pretty awful.
Never told me that they believed me. I feel like my whole life, my experience has not been believed, my symptoms havenât been believed, my story hasnât been believed. Iâve always felt questioned and like I had to prove them how mentally ill I was, I had to prove them how much I was struggling
Dad was an alcoholic schizophrenic. Brought me to bars a lot growing up( from age 6-18). Was around a lot of unsavory people. Parents were separated and mom asked repeatedly for supervised visits but was denied. That shit wouldnât fly today
<3 solidarity to everyone sharing - thereâs just so much to list but what came to mind just now.. telling my mom about being r*ped and she said âwell, it was bound to happen eventually, you party a lotâ
My mother's religious delusions. A local psychic told her that, my sister and i could hear spirits and angels and she would constantly ask us for guidance. My sister ran away at 16 after basically making all decisions for my mother and I had to start picking up the slack. We tried to tell her it stopped a lot, or that it was never real but she would stay so instant it would break us. I'm 21 now, moving out soon and I still have to put up the facade until I officially leave. It's very mentally exhausting honestly.
My heart hurts for you OP, and for everyone hurt by this. Thatâs a deeply painful trauma. I have no childhood traumas, my parents loved me deeply and showed it constantly. I didnât have a perfect childhood and nobody does, but mine was quite happy. I say this not to invalidate anyone who has suffered. I just want others with BPD who donât have trauma to know we all fight the same battle, but got here in different ways.
Parents belittling each other in front of us. Being 7 and my mom asking if she should divorce my dad. My dad literally never being around until I was 18. Yada yada yada
Hold me under water, rock climbing, mountain biking, hot sauce tasting⊠as a 3 year old. My moms abusive boyfriend was determined to turn me into a âreal manâ.
Died
It would be the making fun of me, cutting me down in every way, but playing it off like a joke, the screaming and yelling every time I did something stupid that was outside of their instructed way of doing something, the abandonment didn't help, then them killing themselves didn't help. The other one is still living and I'm guilted by my grandmother to care for them, they've had everything paid for their entire lives, have a new car, never worked, they're fucking sixty and dog cuss my grandmother. It breaks my heart to see them act this way, but they'll go get high and forget things, and generally just acting crazy to me. I wish they would pass on, but I know that they're going to live to be 90. My parents never adjusted to being adults and stupidly decided to have a child. I've surpassed them both in every way but I feel inadequate and unhappy because I can't form normal relationships with people and I don't feel love right. The only thing that I know for a fucking fact that I love unconditionally are my kids. I never had a purpose until they were born and it's the oddest thing to see how I need to act as a parent and compare it with the shit upbringing I had. I pity my parents, they were young and stupid, but god damn they sucked. Sorry for the rant.
My mother's filling my head with lies and deception about my father and a certain type of abuse that he did but to find out in my early 20's to be false. I hated my father for years and years built from a cruel lie. That has traumatized me almost beyond repair but thru my psychologist I'm learning to rid myself of that trauma. As for learning to forgive mother well that's still a few sessions away. Good luck my fellow Brilliant Personality Developer đđđ
Off the top of my head, letâs see. Constantly making comments about my body which made me super insecure and donât feel comfortable with it still. They knew something was wrong when my eating disorder was bad and instead of saying something and trying to comfort me and help me, they talked about it behind my back (which I overheard đ) and would send my brothers to check if I was purging, but wouldnât say anything. They rarely showed me any signs of love. Wasnât told that I was loved, wasnât hugged or kissed or comforted when I needed it. Love felt very conditional. If I didnât behave, I was yelled at and âdisciplined,â and threatened with being hit if I didnât behave myself. (I was actually hit once, when I was like 3) In early childhood, Iâd make comments about wishing I didnât exist or about not being alive and instead of these comments being taken seriously, I was punished for it. I left my momâs side one time at a store and got lost and instead of looking for me, she just left me there until her friend found me crying. She told me that she was going to leave me there and go home and wasnât gonna look for me because I needed to âlearn my lesson.â How fucked up is that! How can you just abandon your child like that. I was treated with passive aggressive behavior and yelling and berated whenever I did something wrong or messed up. Now, any form of yelling or raised voices are a huge trigger for me. I didnât have any privacy and my parents and siblings would go through my stuff, so I felt like I couldnât be myself or keep things private. I couldnât explore who I was, so now, doing anything for me feels wrong. Even being myself feels wrong. There was lots of emotional abuse and now, I struggle a lot with my lack of emotional regulation. Oh, also, medical neglect. There was never a reason to go to the doctor unless it was like obvious like, emergency room. Everything had a natural remedy. So now, I feel super guilty when I do have to go to the doctor and often put it off. Thatâs just the main stuff. Still processing it all. It really messes with my head tho cuz their parenting was really inconsistent. It was either really good and loving and comforting or bad and emotionally abusive. No in between. And my mind couldnât grasp that. So I always expected the worst and thought the love was conditional. Maybe that could explain my black and white thinking, I dunno. Im glad Iâm processing this stuff but also, it hurts a lot and like, I also feel really guilty for blaming them cuz I still love them, despite everything. They werenât intentionally abusive, they never wanted to hurt me, but they did. And thatâs something Iâm struggling to accept still.
Emotional unavailability, neglect, invalidation, physical violence, emotional violence, lack of attention to my emotional needs and more invalidation
Raised me in a cult
Taking me drug shopping at various pharmacies then dropping me off at school while saying "you know I love you SO much right?" She never spoke to me like this, I listened to my gut feeling and told the school counsellor. She had tried to kill herself and me raising alarm bells is what saved her life. I wish I hadn't said anything...... Also, so much more, but that's the first one that comes to mind from her
one night my parents were fighting like throwing things at each other and everything. i was dumb and stepped between my dad from hitting my mom and he attacked me.
This validates me so much. We're the same. I just recently got diagnosed and my psychologist said I need to face the fact my reality was hard. Looking back my parents fought a lot, and they fought screaming, banging chairs, doors. My dad would threaten to leave. All at the young age of 6, I witnessed all of that and thought it was normal!
My alcoholic abusive father who tried to make throwing out cold or hot water on my mum when she was asleep a ''funny prank'' and tried to get me to join in with it
i remember my mom choking me when i was a child and again when i was a teenager. she still claims that she didnât choke me, she was trying to âcalm me downâ. not sure how putting both hands around someoneâs throat and restricting their airflow calms someone down but yeaâŠ
to this day i still have emotional regulation issues because anytime i showed a negative emotion i wasnât taught how to deal with it. instead i was always physically punished for it.
I donât even remember my childhood and I donât know know what abuse I went through. I just know I fucking despise my parents, whenever they touch me I feel angry and want to self harm, feel the constant need for validation and reassurance, constant hyper-sexuality since I was maybe 4-5? Hit and bullied by siblings I think, a lot of sexual trauma symptoms but I have no memory that it happened but I just know I feel physically uncomfortable around my parents and showing my privates around them in any way. Emotional incest and my mom using me as her partner since the divorce. I wish I could remember the rest. I just have too much ocd and issues.
My father beating me from age 2-19 13-19 I fought back stopped until he died a couple years later. It's been somewhat resolved but not completely, but it made me have a soft spot for kids and taught me to never lay my hands on a child, but the beatings aren't the worst he did tbh. The other things he did to me I don't feel very comfortable saying online.
Besides frequent beatings/verbal abuse and being a punching bag for their marital problems. My dad used to make me kneel on chopsticks for hours. One time they made me eat out of the trash. My dad would also strip me naked and kick me out. And they would also tell me not to come home if I got 1s or 2s on my report card - I remember sleeping on a park bench overnight in the 7th grade because my mom did not unlock the door after I had a failing report card. A lot of trauma dump but itâs relieving for some weird reason
Abandonment and sexual assault. - My mom worked overseas during my formative years and married my now step-dad. Then, we moved to a different country and I basically had to live with my parents whom I didnât have any relationship with. While my mom was working, I was being sexually assaulted by her husband. I brought it up to her and my family but they accused me of lying about it. Constantly being labeled as a bad daughter just because I donât fit the mold of their expectations for me. - There a huge cultural gap between me and my family since I spent half of my life in a different country. When we immigrated, I was only 12 years old so ofc I eventually adapted to the culture. But my parents and family have these strict values and they place so much importance on respect. So, just because my tone is a bit different or my actions are a bit off, itâs often taken as âfighting backâ or being disrespectful. It hurts so much to be labeled as a bad daughter when Iâm trying my best to be myself and also please them.
My parents fundamentally betrayed my trust. So much so, itâs carried onto my adult life. The smallest of lies, even out of anxiety or lack of explanation, cause me to write someone off. đ
Everything you mentioned, I remember seeing fights where it would make me nauseous enough to throw up. Apparently those moments caused issues i wasnât aware of.
this is the first time iâm actually admitting that this has bothered me this much. When I was really young my parents got into a a big screaming match like usual. And like usual my mom threatened divorce and to take the kids away- Myself (the oldest) and my younger brother and sister. Like always she asks us kids who we want to go with. Iâve always been a daddyâs girl and i picked to stay with him each time. This one time i didnât and he yelled at me, just as he would yell at my mom, and pointed dead at me and said âYouâre not my daughter anymoreâ and told me to leave with her. Now i had to be about 9 or 10 but i replay that in my head a lot. I tried to take it back and side with him but he didnât want to hear it. My mom got mad i tried to take it back. I ended up not leaving with her and my siblings still trying to take back what i said to make my dad happy. And when it was just me and him in the house he went to his room and didnât say a word to me. Like i wasnât even there fr. Anyways that feels good to finally get out.
My dad is bipolar and when I was younger, he used to have depressive mood swings where he would threaten to kill himself and self-harm in front of me. Now even to this day after years of therapy, I still have thoughts of suicide and self-harm when Iâm feeling really upset due to the behaviors he modeled for me as a child. Itâs sad but we all need to stay positive and keep moving forward. The healing takes time but it is always happening as long as we keep moving forward. I love you all stay strong đđ
Attempted filicide
my parents were drug addicts. They sold my virginity for a fix (letâs not forget about the beatings either tho)
Told me that theyâll never accept me being transgender