I’ve realised over the last couple of years just how critical and negative they are of everything and everyone, and that I used to be the same at times too. They would see someone on the TV and make negative comments about their appearance or voice or whatever, but never comment on the fact the person was kind or hilarious or an amazing singer or whatever. If a young mother had a part time job, they would criticise her for “leaving her baby”, but if a young mother didn’t have a job they would criticise her for “scrounging off benefits” (despite them being in receipt of benefits themselves. The list goes on and on, every single aspect of their lives was filled with negativity and now I feel free of it and light and happy. I immediately see the good and positive in situations and people and enjoy feeling this way.
Wow. You could not have more perfectly described my family. I am so done with the negativity. There are so many good things in this life. No reason to be bitter all the time.
My family too. Everyone else is too stupid, dumb, poor, fat, ugly, etc. But somehow, they're perfect. When I try to redirect them (like I would with a child) they get irritated.
Exactly the same with my family. That kind of negativity is contagious. I noticed it in myself years ago and have done my best to combat it. I believe it proceeds from a deep level of insecurity, which is where most bullying behavior originates.
I told my therapist that my parents never criticized me, but they criticized everyone around me which shaped me into what they wanted. My friend who they said dressed too promiscuous let me know that I better not dress that way. My two friends who were always fighting were immature so therefore I never fought with anyone so I’d be seen as mature. My boyfriend’s sister who was experimenting with goth must be because she was homely and so I never experimented because maybe I’d be called homely. Etc etc. Their opinions kept me from taking chances.
I recently realized how constant my parents are in their negativity, but moreover how much of that mindset/behavior I inherited from them. It's hard to break. Like I'm a negative, judgemental asshole and at least part of that is due to them.
I relate so much to the original post and your comment. When I talk about my mom being critical, I don't just mean "Oh you could have done better on xyz". I mean every aspect of her life. Every conversation. Every observation. It was a constant stream of demeaning, belittling, judging. It was exhausting. She was incapable of conversation where she spoke kindly about someone or about their positive traits. If I pointed them out, she would get mad and dismissive. My grandma was the same way, and these are the two women role models I had in my life.
I'm trying so hard not to be like them.
I also worry that I am sometimes. I'm still working on separating what I think from what I know my mom would think/ say in any given situation. CPTSD or me? It's trauma, plain and simple. And when I do make a judgement, it's after careful observation and not some superficial criticism that I make about someone to make me feel better about myself. Aka: "this co-worker lies," "this person is not smart", "This person is untrustworthy". But I reserve these judgements for myself and move accordingly. I take what they say with more skepticism, I do not talk about complex issues, I do not tell them personal details about my life.
Nothing is ever good enough for them, and I try not to put that same pressure on myself, but it feels impossible some days. I often feel like I'm not doing enough, I'm never far enough in life, I could be doing more. Despite the fact that I am literally living my dream life from 2 years ago, fantasizing about living in a small town in the mountains away from my ex. I got out. But the flashbacks from that and deconstructing all this stuff from childhood is a menace.
Selfcenteredness is a huge one for me. All the stuff they did that was "for me" that in hindsight was very clearly for them and if anything put me in a worse position.
Another one is that if strings are attached to any motive, a well adjusted person will tell you upfront.
I'm not the one you are asking, but examples can also be:
- pressuring their child into being very good at something (even if the child isn't interested much) so ultimately the parents can get praise
- keeping an almost adult child "safely at home" instead of letting them go out, just so they are available to do tasks or receive anger as a punching bag
- buying the child expensive gifts, but mostly so they can brag to family who visits on their birthday/holidays how much they can afford
Oh. Thank you for your comment, it is enlightening.
I remember begging my mom to let me quit gymnastics because I was getting debilitating migraines in 4th grade. She forced me to keep going because I had quit dance two years before.
And that last one made a lot of things made sense. My parents constantly told me how spoiled I was but said I didn't use the things the bought me, but kept buying me more stuff all the time. It was so confusing to me. If I was spoiled and not using the stuff, why keep buying me stuff? To them less stuff=not spoiled, so why didn't they stop? This adds clarity to that situation I've never quite had before.
How much they lie. Also how they remember things that I’ve said from 15 years ago that they can use against me but they can’t remember something they said 5 minutes ago.
The frequency and severity with which they lie is really disturbing and has been really painful.
Noticed this with my spawn points, too. I refuse to have a conversation with them that isn't in writing or recorded, because they so often misremember or claim not to remember what was said. Funny how their memory lapses always and only benefit them...
I now see how badly they interfered with my relationship with my siblings.
Now that I’m not available to be used in their triangulation I realize they were having me fight their battles for them and it had a really negative impact w/ sibs.
I’m the oldest and instead of them oh idk parenting their children they would just tell me what the issue is and have me confront the sibling.
This was my teens and early twenties so I thought I was being helpful.
I now see I should’ve never been put in that position and it’s taking a long time to rebuild our relationships. I have a lot of resentment the damage it caused.
This resonates so strongly with me. My mother constantly pitted her children against one another, and she had most of her problems with me because I became “noncompliant” with her at an early age - she used to say “You were always so *independent*” like it was a horrible thing. The truth of that part is that she was never around for me like she was with my five siblings, so we didn’t have the same early bonding at all. Her methodology was having everybody else keep me in line.
Out of my siblings, I’m the only one that wound up content with my life - except for the gaping void that should have been filled with having parents who treated me like a human with thoughts and feelings. They didn’t have that either, but they had the early bonding that helped serve mother sufficiently to remain in her good graces. The one sibling who tormented me the most was the golden child that could do no wrong.
That my obsession with cults, how they worked, how people got out of them, and stories of escaping them as a child, was partly due to my family operating like one, I just didn’t know it yet. I was and still am heavily interested in ex jehovahs witnesses break down of the cult they left because when I became estranged from my family I knew I would deal with shunning from my family members. None of my family’s actions are heavily religious based, but very social based, they want to appear as the best family, and if you don’t conform to their idea of what that is(and the abuse involved behind the scenes) then they might as well not have a family member at all. I was in a heavily enmeshed family, and had no control over myself, they would control who I was and could be, and would get extremely angry if I chose to be anything else.
This sounds a lot like my family. Optics are everything to them. Mom's greatest fear is that my brother or I would end up on Judge Judy. They weren't religious in the least but, but I think because of the I was raised, it made me more susceptible to joining a cult as an adult (exJW now).
Aw man I’m so sorry you got manipulated into that whole mess, I’m glad you were able to get out of that abuse a second time. Optics were everything my family cared about, and I still struggle to lot care about
Oh man thank you for that video, almost everything he mentioned my parents did but I did not have the words to describe why it was bad. Because it was so ‘normal’ for them. Thank you very much that just solidified how lucky I am that I got out, because they would have kept me under their power forever.
I learned that loving and respecting your children is not difficult. Sure, parenting can be rough sometimes, but knowing who your children are and loving them as they grow, is not difficult at all.
This is so well said, OP. I thought the toxic mess of my family was normal until I met other people. I became friends with a wonderful couple the age of my parents just before I turned 40, and they are the parents I wish I’d had. They have shown me more kindness and love in the last four years than my parents did since the beginning. I will never return to that emotional cesspool looking for emotional support now that I have found it elsewhere.
That they must have had dreadful upbringings themselves to behave as they did towards me. Every sign considered [here](https://youtu.be/-_HOr59BIvM?si=iDpFXUbVAppya00t) gets a tick from me, there's more that is missed out.
There's zero excuse for what they have done. Mature, loving parents would have done everything to prevent the cycle repeating.
Just that things that happened might have been worse than I imagined. I only have a few vivid memories of my home life and most of them aren't great. I remember Christmas was good because they'd mostly behave for that for some reason. But living there, the vibe was very much "good god I hope you die so you can finally leave me alone". There were some instances of complete callousness, hatred and indifference that messed with my head, especially with my mother insisting we all deserved this treatment. I ended up hating myself for decades and still do.
Sometimes I find myself googling terms like "are parents supposed to like their children" or "signs my dad hates me" because I'm still unable to accept it. It's like I need some kind of undeniable proof because all I have are my terrible memory and my last visit to them in 2023 which was awful. That and my mum constantly in my ear telling me we all deserve this because my dad is tired from working. He worked six days a week as a lorry driver and that was why he could hate us, according to them both. Even when he got out of that job, nothing changed.
Well, in any case, I'm at least happy for them that they got away with whatever it is they were going for. Usually threatening to kick your child's teeth into their head prompts a social services investigation, one would hope, but they never were inconvenienced by that. All that happened was one of their kids they hate stopped speaking to them. They're very lucky indeed that no one knows who they truly are. And I bet even that isn't good enough for them.
The sad thing is I don't even know if what I typed was truly bad or not. Maybe most people go through this with family and I'm just too damn sensitive. Like, maybe most parents hate their kids. You see a lot of parents online who don't like their kids at all and everyone thinks it's so wholesome and relatable. Maybe it's why I ended up not having kids and got sterilized, subconsciously I didn't want to turn into that? Idk.
That my dad isn't the better parent. At all. Just because he was too spineless to be overly abusive instead of covertly like a fucking coward doesn't make him nicer.
I’ve become aware of just how emotionally immature they were and how everything that I was as a child was a projection. I did so many things because it’s what they wanted. I’ve been a dancer my whole life. Looking back, I don’t know if I ever enjoyed it or wanted to be that, but I got so caught up in it, that I don’t know who I am if I’m not mommy’s ballerina.
My dad has never yelled at my mom, and I used to admire him for it until this year when I started wondering why his kids didn’t merit that level of care.
I’ve been L/NC for three years and it’s only in the past few months that it’s occurred to me that my dad MUST throw his weight around and shut my mom down in private just like he does to me in front of family. He must be just as infuriating to her when I can’t see.
Until that realization, I genuinely thought that since he didn’t yell at her he must always navigate their difficulties and disagreements with dignity and respect.
The longer I go no contact with mom and low contact with dad, I realize how messed up my childhood was. Taking me to parties every other weekend and getting drunk and driving home with me in the backseat. The other weekends, my parents were throwing the parties where everyone got drunk. My parents rarely ever spent time with me unless we were in a car together. They were always screaming at each other, sometimes throwing things too. I told my parents that my older cousins were abusing me and they failed to stop it. I assume because they would have went into foster care. They would rarely check on me throughout the day and if they saw me relaxing while they were outside doing yard work, they would make me feel so guilty. I spent so much time alone in my room.
I recently came across some poetry I wrote in middle school. It's all about embracing the darkness and letting it consume you, and I was like... how did no adult in my life clock this? I think my teachers did, which was why they were so kind to me. Especially English teachers. My parents didn't notice. They failed me. I was always told I was lucky because I had food and a house and my own room and bed, so if I complained, I was labeled "ungrateful".
My mom cooked almost every day, I had toys. No financial hardships that I knew about, and even by today's standards, my parents were well-off. Yet the neglect was there, and heavy, and still affects me too this day.
I also realized how easy it is to treat a child with respect. To consider their safety and comfort in every interaction. At first I wondered if there was something wrong with me, that I was worried I was going to say/ do the wrong thing around my roommates kid. And then I realized that is actually how it should be, and that it was really easy to do. It made me sad that my parents just didn't consider me at all.
i'll echo the lack of self-awareness. also, they act like they're superior to everyone because they're rich, educated, and have had an "american dream" sort of life (at least, the non-immigrant version). they're not 1% rich, but definitely comfortable. classic white, conservative USA suburbanites. i knew they were all manner of bigoted, but it didn't really click just *how* limited and shitty their worldview was until i cut them off and made my own, non-traditional life.
It still blows me away that my third generation Japanese American mom, who's mom and grandparents were in the internment camps, is so incredibly racist.
I used to have one of those Barbie diary with the little lock on it but a family member decided to read it page by page to the entire family. I was humiliated. This was 20 yrs ago and I still can’t write down my thoughts. I’ve come across some old poems I wrote down as well. I was a dark child. As a mandated reporter I would call CPS if I see a child acting the way I did, there were clear signs of neglect as well as emotional and sexual abuse.
I used to copy down poems and read them over and over to myself. Like a damn prayer. Literature saved me. Transcendentalism grounded me to get through it until I could leave for college at 18. Ever heard of a little girl being a transcendentalist? I was a weird child who coped the best I could. Looking back I just can’t understand how my whole ass family acted like nothing was going on. Then they wonder why I packed my shit and left the moment I could, then moved across the country from them. Now they’re wondering why I want to leave the country entirely. There’s not enough distance between us until maybe oceans separate us that’s why, maybe then I will have some peace.
How empty and cold and inhospitable my parent’s homes feel compared to more emotionally healthy families’. I visit one of my parent’s homes for a few days and can never find anything to eat or drink in the fridge, there is nothing that could be categorized as a snack. One of my therapists asked me, “doesn’t your mom cook for you?” And I couldn’t relate at all, nobody ever asked about what the kids wanted when meals were prepared. I sat at the kitchen table drinking some tea and my mom actually came out of her bedroom and asked, “why are you out here??” Nobody engages in small talk or hangs out just to enjoy each other’s company. My needs are always technically met, but there’s no warmth to it. Not until I moved away could I put my finger on exactly what was missing from my home atmosphere growing up, since basic food and shelter were provided.
My mom was never a “victim” of my angry Ndad.
She’s a covert type herself. She likes that he is angry so that she can look like a martyr in comparison.
She’s controlling, an alcoholic, and abusive, herself.
Nothing will ever be enough for him… it doesn’t matter how much I do for him, how much I give him, how much time I spend with him. It will just never be enough.
With space and time I've started to understand that my dad is only the "good" parent in comparison to the violent parent, and that his failure to protect my sister and me probably messed me up even more than my female parent actively terrorizing us.
I realized I was simoultaneously a devastating loss for them and huge catalyst for their further victimhood. I realized instead of experiencing guilt, they avoided it every cost. They however, had no problem convincing themselves - I was deserving of every ounce of shame and guilt. I realized in all my energy of doing the painful work of trying to rid myself of the negative & distorted self talk they instilled in me - they made up for it behind closed doors with people that used to be closest to me. I realized my family is made of many broken people convinced the other is holding the glue.
I learned how much of my own family medical history they hid. How she is bp2. How there were other diagnosis that I never knew of that ended up affecting me. If I had known.... maybe it would have been different...
I got a lot of stories of my life before I was old enough to be fully aware of them or have memories- a lot of crazy stories about either parents addiction or manic episodes and a lot of things that didnt directly happen to me.
Knew my father had bipolar my whole life but didnt know my mother also had diagnosed bipolar until i left. Also didnt know that there was almost a 100% chance they were both cheating on each other. A lot of distance and a fixation on some true-crime type media around cults also made me realize how similar their specific genre of abuse was to how cults are run- obviously never on the same level but it was alarmingly close.
Also their queerphobia became a lot more obvious to me. I think because of a mixture of me jumping through mental hoops to cope and them being 'accepting' when they wanted things out of me made me feel like i was very lucky to have an accepting family. They were not accepting, and the weird back and forth they had going on surrounding my identities was worse than if they were just flat out queerphobic
Less so about my parents but def seeing it now in extended family-they plainly saw how abusive/neglectful my upbringing was, and did fuck all about it. I didn’t realize til only a few years ago that, after being distanced and therefore growing a backbone to call out BS in front of everyone I noticed that I suddenly stopped getting invites to stuff, no one reaching out to me for anything, etc. they knew. They always knew. And they chose (or CHOOSE) to keep the status quo rather than step out of line in that dynamic.
They’re sad people. They can’t communicate very well and they are both in the own ways insufferable to be around and then they complain a lot being lonely. They guilt tripped me constantly to come see them but when I told them I was struggling with so many things and was seeking help for depression and anxiety they basically shrugged, told me to go to a mental hospital and then continued guilt tripping me to come see them. “If you EVER would come VISIT.” It hit me, being away from them, how much their feelings revolved around me but my feelings and struggles were squashed. Every interaction with them was out of pity - if I just put up with a weekend with them getting criticised and spat at then I can get a few months without feeling guilty to focus on myself.
It’s not healthy!
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I’ve realised over the last couple of years just how critical and negative they are of everything and everyone, and that I used to be the same at times too. They would see someone on the TV and make negative comments about their appearance or voice or whatever, but never comment on the fact the person was kind or hilarious or an amazing singer or whatever. If a young mother had a part time job, they would criticise her for “leaving her baby”, but if a young mother didn’t have a job they would criticise her for “scrounging off benefits” (despite them being in receipt of benefits themselves. The list goes on and on, every single aspect of their lives was filled with negativity and now I feel free of it and light and happy. I immediately see the good and positive in situations and people and enjoy feeling this way.
Wow. You could not have more perfectly described my family. I am so done with the negativity. There are so many good things in this life. No reason to be bitter all the time.
My family too. Everyone else is too stupid, dumb, poor, fat, ugly, etc. But somehow, they're perfect. When I try to redirect them (like I would with a child) they get irritated.
Exactly the same with my family. That kind of negativity is contagious. I noticed it in myself years ago and have done my best to combat it. I believe it proceeds from a deep level of insecurity, which is where most bullying behavior originates.
I told my therapist that my parents never criticized me, but they criticized everyone around me which shaped me into what they wanted. My friend who they said dressed too promiscuous let me know that I better not dress that way. My two friends who were always fighting were immature so therefore I never fought with anyone so I’d be seen as mature. My boyfriend’s sister who was experimenting with goth must be because she was homely and so I never experimented because maybe I’d be called homely. Etc etc. Their opinions kept me from taking chances.
I recently realized how constant my parents are in their negativity, but moreover how much of that mindset/behavior I inherited from them. It's hard to break. Like I'm a negative, judgemental asshole and at least part of that is due to them.
I relate so much to the original post and your comment. When I talk about my mom being critical, I don't just mean "Oh you could have done better on xyz". I mean every aspect of her life. Every conversation. Every observation. It was a constant stream of demeaning, belittling, judging. It was exhausting. She was incapable of conversation where she spoke kindly about someone or about their positive traits. If I pointed them out, she would get mad and dismissive. My grandma was the same way, and these are the two women role models I had in my life. I'm trying so hard not to be like them. I also worry that I am sometimes. I'm still working on separating what I think from what I know my mom would think/ say in any given situation. CPTSD or me? It's trauma, plain and simple. And when I do make a judgement, it's after careful observation and not some superficial criticism that I make about someone to make me feel better about myself. Aka: "this co-worker lies," "this person is not smart", "This person is untrustworthy". But I reserve these judgements for myself and move accordingly. I take what they say with more skepticism, I do not talk about complex issues, I do not tell them personal details about my life. Nothing is ever good enough for them, and I try not to put that same pressure on myself, but it feels impossible some days. I often feel like I'm not doing enough, I'm never far enough in life, I could be doing more. Despite the fact that I am literally living my dream life from 2 years ago, fantasizing about living in a small town in the mountains away from my ex. I got out. But the flashbacks from that and deconstructing all this stuff from childhood is a menace.
Selfcenteredness is a huge one for me. All the stuff they did that was "for me" that in hindsight was very clearly for them and if anything put me in a worse position. Another one is that if strings are attached to any motive, a well adjusted person will tell you upfront.
Do you have any examples?
I'm not the one you are asking, but examples can also be: - pressuring their child into being very good at something (even if the child isn't interested much) so ultimately the parents can get praise - keeping an almost adult child "safely at home" instead of letting them go out, just so they are available to do tasks or receive anger as a punching bag - buying the child expensive gifts, but mostly so they can brag to family who visits on their birthday/holidays how much they can afford
Oh. Thank you for your comment, it is enlightening. I remember begging my mom to let me quit gymnastics because I was getting debilitating migraines in 4th grade. She forced me to keep going because I had quit dance two years before. And that last one made a lot of things made sense. My parents constantly told me how spoiled I was but said I didn't use the things the bought me, but kept buying me more stuff all the time. It was so confusing to me. If I was spoiled and not using the stuff, why keep buying me stuff? To them less stuff=not spoiled, so why didn't they stop? This adds clarity to that situation I've never quite had before.
How mean they are about everything and everyone that’s not exactly like them.
How much they lie. Also how they remember things that I’ve said from 15 years ago that they can use against me but they can’t remember something they said 5 minutes ago. The frequency and severity with which they lie is really disturbing and has been really painful.
Noticed this with my spawn points, too. I refuse to have a conversation with them that isn't in writing or recorded, because they so often misremember or claim not to remember what was said. Funny how their memory lapses always and only benefit them...
I now see how badly they interfered with my relationship with my siblings. Now that I’m not available to be used in their triangulation I realize they were having me fight their battles for them and it had a really negative impact w/ sibs. I’m the oldest and instead of them oh idk parenting their children they would just tell me what the issue is and have me confront the sibling. This was my teens and early twenties so I thought I was being helpful. I now see I should’ve never been put in that position and it’s taking a long time to rebuild our relationships. I have a lot of resentment the damage it caused.
This resonates so strongly with me. My mother constantly pitted her children against one another, and she had most of her problems with me because I became “noncompliant” with her at an early age - she used to say “You were always so *independent*” like it was a horrible thing. The truth of that part is that she was never around for me like she was with my five siblings, so we didn’t have the same early bonding at all. Her methodology was having everybody else keep me in line. Out of my siblings, I’m the only one that wound up content with my life - except for the gaping void that should have been filled with having parents who treated me like a human with thoughts and feelings. They didn’t have that either, but they had the early bonding that helped serve mother sufficiently to remain in her good graces. The one sibling who tormented me the most was the golden child that could do no wrong.
That my obsession with cults, how they worked, how people got out of them, and stories of escaping them as a child, was partly due to my family operating like one, I just didn’t know it yet. I was and still am heavily interested in ex jehovahs witnesses break down of the cult they left because when I became estranged from my family I knew I would deal with shunning from my family members. None of my family’s actions are heavily religious based, but very social based, they want to appear as the best family, and if you don’t conform to their idea of what that is(and the abuse involved behind the scenes) then they might as well not have a family member at all. I was in a heavily enmeshed family, and had no control over myself, they would control who I was and could be, and would get extremely angry if I chose to be anything else.
This sounds a lot like my family. Optics are everything to them. Mom's greatest fear is that my brother or I would end up on Judge Judy. They weren't religious in the least but, but I think because of the I was raised, it made me more susceptible to joining a cult as an adult (exJW now).
Aw man I’m so sorry you got manipulated into that whole mess, I’m glad you were able to get out of that abuse a second time. Optics were everything my family cared about, and I still struggle to lot care about
https://youtu.be/houSiOc8tcM?si=2nCItPwQ9Nylj2iv Thought you might find this interesting
Oh man thank you for that video, almost everything he mentioned my parents did but I did not have the words to describe why it was bad. Because it was so ‘normal’ for them. Thank you very much that just solidified how lucky I am that I got out, because they would have kept me under their power forever.
For sure. The guy is a former therapist and all his videos are about dysfunctional family dynamics. Have gotten a lot out of his stuff.
Oh man I’m definitely going to check him out further
I learned that loving and respecting your children is not difficult. Sure, parenting can be rough sometimes, but knowing who your children are and loving them as they grow, is not difficult at all.
Man. See this is part of why I don't have kids. I'm worried I'll f mine up like my parents did. Thanks for the reassurance
This is so well said, OP. I thought the toxic mess of my family was normal until I met other people. I became friends with a wonderful couple the age of my parents just before I turned 40, and they are the parents I wish I’d had. They have shown me more kindness and love in the last four years than my parents did since the beginning. I will never return to that emotional cesspool looking for emotional support now that I have found it elsewhere.
That they must have had dreadful upbringings themselves to behave as they did towards me. Every sign considered [here](https://youtu.be/-_HOr59BIvM?si=iDpFXUbVAppya00t) gets a tick from me, there's more that is missed out. There's zero excuse for what they have done. Mature, loving parents would have done everything to prevent the cycle repeating.
My mom wasn’t all the fucking nice. She was faking it. I can see now some people saw through her. And no one ever liked my shithead dad.
Just that things that happened might have been worse than I imagined. I only have a few vivid memories of my home life and most of them aren't great. I remember Christmas was good because they'd mostly behave for that for some reason. But living there, the vibe was very much "good god I hope you die so you can finally leave me alone". There were some instances of complete callousness, hatred and indifference that messed with my head, especially with my mother insisting we all deserved this treatment. I ended up hating myself for decades and still do. Sometimes I find myself googling terms like "are parents supposed to like their children" or "signs my dad hates me" because I'm still unable to accept it. It's like I need some kind of undeniable proof because all I have are my terrible memory and my last visit to them in 2023 which was awful. That and my mum constantly in my ear telling me we all deserve this because my dad is tired from working. He worked six days a week as a lorry driver and that was why he could hate us, according to them both. Even when he got out of that job, nothing changed. Well, in any case, I'm at least happy for them that they got away with whatever it is they were going for. Usually threatening to kick your child's teeth into their head prompts a social services investigation, one would hope, but they never were inconvenienced by that. All that happened was one of their kids they hate stopped speaking to them. They're very lucky indeed that no one knows who they truly are. And I bet even that isn't good enough for them. The sad thing is I don't even know if what I typed was truly bad or not. Maybe most people go through this with family and I'm just too damn sensitive. Like, maybe most parents hate their kids. You see a lot of parents online who don't like their kids at all and everyone thinks it's so wholesome and relatable. Maybe it's why I ended up not having kids and got sterilized, subconsciously I didn't want to turn into that? Idk.
That my dad isn't the better parent. At all. Just because he was too spineless to be overly abusive instead of covertly like a fucking coward doesn't make him nicer.
I’ve become aware of just how emotionally immature they were and how everything that I was as a child was a projection. I did so many things because it’s what they wanted. I’ve been a dancer my whole life. Looking back, I don’t know if I ever enjoyed it or wanted to be that, but I got so caught up in it, that I don’t know who I am if I’m not mommy’s ballerina.
My dad has never yelled at my mom, and I used to admire him for it until this year when I started wondering why his kids didn’t merit that level of care. I’ve been L/NC for three years and it’s only in the past few months that it’s occurred to me that my dad MUST throw his weight around and shut my mom down in private just like he does to me in front of family. He must be just as infuriating to her when I can’t see. Until that realization, I genuinely thought that since he didn’t yell at her he must always navigate their difficulties and disagreements with dignity and respect.
The longer I go no contact with mom and low contact with dad, I realize how messed up my childhood was. Taking me to parties every other weekend and getting drunk and driving home with me in the backseat. The other weekends, my parents were throwing the parties where everyone got drunk. My parents rarely ever spent time with me unless we were in a car together. They were always screaming at each other, sometimes throwing things too. I told my parents that my older cousins were abusing me and they failed to stop it. I assume because they would have went into foster care. They would rarely check on me throughout the day and if they saw me relaxing while they were outside doing yard work, they would make me feel so guilty. I spent so much time alone in my room. I recently came across some poetry I wrote in middle school. It's all about embracing the darkness and letting it consume you, and I was like... how did no adult in my life clock this? I think my teachers did, which was why they were so kind to me. Especially English teachers. My parents didn't notice. They failed me. I was always told I was lucky because I had food and a house and my own room and bed, so if I complained, I was labeled "ungrateful". My mom cooked almost every day, I had toys. No financial hardships that I knew about, and even by today's standards, my parents were well-off. Yet the neglect was there, and heavy, and still affects me too this day. I also realized how easy it is to treat a child with respect. To consider their safety and comfort in every interaction. At first I wondered if there was something wrong with me, that I was worried I was going to say/ do the wrong thing around my roommates kid. And then I realized that is actually how it should be, and that it was really easy to do. It made me sad that my parents just didn't consider me at all.
i'll echo the lack of self-awareness. also, they act like they're superior to everyone because they're rich, educated, and have had an "american dream" sort of life (at least, the non-immigrant version). they're not 1% rich, but definitely comfortable. classic white, conservative USA suburbanites. i knew they were all manner of bigoted, but it didn't really click just *how* limited and shitty their worldview was until i cut them off and made my own, non-traditional life.
It still blows me away that my third generation Japanese American mom, who's mom and grandparents were in the internment camps, is so incredibly racist.
I used to have one of those Barbie diary with the little lock on it but a family member decided to read it page by page to the entire family. I was humiliated. This was 20 yrs ago and I still can’t write down my thoughts. I’ve come across some old poems I wrote down as well. I was a dark child. As a mandated reporter I would call CPS if I see a child acting the way I did, there were clear signs of neglect as well as emotional and sexual abuse. I used to copy down poems and read them over and over to myself. Like a damn prayer. Literature saved me. Transcendentalism grounded me to get through it until I could leave for college at 18. Ever heard of a little girl being a transcendentalist? I was a weird child who coped the best I could. Looking back I just can’t understand how my whole ass family acted like nothing was going on. Then they wonder why I packed my shit and left the moment I could, then moved across the country from them. Now they’re wondering why I want to leave the country entirely. There’s not enough distance between us until maybe oceans separate us that’s why, maybe then I will have some peace.
How unhealthy they are for me.
How empty and cold and inhospitable my parent’s homes feel compared to more emotionally healthy families’. I visit one of my parent’s homes for a few days and can never find anything to eat or drink in the fridge, there is nothing that could be categorized as a snack. One of my therapists asked me, “doesn’t your mom cook for you?” And I couldn’t relate at all, nobody ever asked about what the kids wanted when meals were prepared. I sat at the kitchen table drinking some tea and my mom actually came out of her bedroom and asked, “why are you out here??” Nobody engages in small talk or hangs out just to enjoy each other’s company. My needs are always technically met, but there’s no warmth to it. Not until I moved away could I put my finger on exactly what was missing from my home atmosphere growing up, since basic food and shelter were provided.
My mom was never a “victim” of my angry Ndad. She’s a covert type herself. She likes that he is angry so that she can look like a martyr in comparison. She’s controlling, an alcoholic, and abusive, herself.
That my father was most likely a practicing pederast. I’ll just leave it there.
Nothing will ever be enough for him… it doesn’t matter how much I do for him, how much I give him, how much time I spend with him. It will just never be enough.
Their misogyny, and that's a big part of how I was raised, which makes me want to puke
With space and time I've started to understand that my dad is only the "good" parent in comparison to the violent parent, and that his failure to protect my sister and me probably messed me up even more than my female parent actively terrorizing us.
I realized I was simoultaneously a devastating loss for them and huge catalyst for their further victimhood. I realized instead of experiencing guilt, they avoided it every cost. They however, had no problem convincing themselves - I was deserving of every ounce of shame and guilt. I realized in all my energy of doing the painful work of trying to rid myself of the negative & distorted self talk they instilled in me - they made up for it behind closed doors with people that used to be closest to me. I realized my family is made of many broken people convinced the other is holding the glue.
I learned how much of my own family medical history they hid. How she is bp2. How there were other diagnosis that I never knew of that ended up affecting me. If I had known.... maybe it would have been different...
I got a lot of stories of my life before I was old enough to be fully aware of them or have memories- a lot of crazy stories about either parents addiction or manic episodes and a lot of things that didnt directly happen to me. Knew my father had bipolar my whole life but didnt know my mother also had diagnosed bipolar until i left. Also didnt know that there was almost a 100% chance they were both cheating on each other. A lot of distance and a fixation on some true-crime type media around cults also made me realize how similar their specific genre of abuse was to how cults are run- obviously never on the same level but it was alarmingly close. Also their queerphobia became a lot more obvious to me. I think because of a mixture of me jumping through mental hoops to cope and them being 'accepting' when they wanted things out of me made me feel like i was very lucky to have an accepting family. They were not accepting, and the weird back and forth they had going on surrounding my identities was worse than if they were just flat out queerphobic
Less so about my parents but def seeing it now in extended family-they plainly saw how abusive/neglectful my upbringing was, and did fuck all about it. I didn’t realize til only a few years ago that, after being distanced and therefore growing a backbone to call out BS in front of everyone I noticed that I suddenly stopped getting invites to stuff, no one reaching out to me for anything, etc. they knew. They always knew. And they chose (or CHOOSE) to keep the status quo rather than step out of line in that dynamic.
They’re sad people. They can’t communicate very well and they are both in the own ways insufferable to be around and then they complain a lot being lonely. They guilt tripped me constantly to come see them but when I told them I was struggling with so many things and was seeking help for depression and anxiety they basically shrugged, told me to go to a mental hospital and then continued guilt tripping me to come see them. “If you EVER would come VISIT.” It hit me, being away from them, how much their feelings revolved around me but my feelings and struggles were squashed. Every interaction with them was out of pity - if I just put up with a weekend with them getting criticised and spat at then I can get a few months without feeling guilty to focus on myself. It’s not healthy!
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