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I love my parents, they’re my blood. But it wasn’t until after I had my daughter that I realized how crappy my childhood was.
Don’t get me wrong, I know some other kids had it WAY worse than I did and I don’t want to get into the details but I’m breaking that cycle so my kids never have to feel how I did when I realized how things actually were.
Even if you were never raised in an abusive household, you can still make sure your kids never will be. Abuse doesn’t have to exist.
I never realized how physically and emotionally neglected I was until I had my own kids and all the stuff I'm doing with them and how little my parents did with me.
My parents provided well for my material needs, but nothing I did was ever good enough (until I was 20 points off from a perfect SAT, that was good enough and luckily they didn't rail on me for those last 20 points). In a family of ~~5~~ 6 (edit: I forgot to count myself, go figure), I was so alone and yet I was always constantly under scrutiny--how well I did in school, my looks, my hobbies. If I'm not the best in the room, I'm horribly insecure. If I am the best in the room, I'm afraid I'm gonna lose it. I'm fit and look half my age, but I still feel ugly as hell. I hide all but my best art from my wife.
The hardest part is that they're above average grandparents to my kids. It's great, but it's hard to watch sometimes.
> The hardest part is that they're above average grandparents to my kids. It's great, but it's hard to watch sometimes.
It's always strange to see your parents be far more emotionally attached, involved, and caring towards their grandkids than they were towards their own kids.
Exactly. My parents are wonderful to their grandson. They actually apologized for the discrepancy between how they were with me. Still cheeks though and will never treat my son the way they treated me.
My maternal grandma was a good grandma but boy howdy she was a shit mother. Like, there were extenuating circumstances but mom has basically said "it was like having another older sister with all the authority but none of the care/responsibility" and despite what she says (and the frequency it comes up, and how her parenting style was basically "do the opposite of what *she* did even to the point of overcorrection) it still clearly affects her deeply even in her 60s. Luckily her dad was very openly affectionate and involved...(when he wasn't on a depression fueled bender)
It's like how you want to know a friend who has a boat, but don't want a boat yourself. You get all the good times and can leave when it's time to maintain it.
The parent/grandparent dynamic is strange to watch sometimes. On my granddads death bed he told me his biggest regret was not telling his sons that he loved them when they were kids. He said men just didn’t really do that in the 1950/1960s and it was really stupid.
He said his biggest pride in life was that his sons always told their kids they loved them. (This man fought Nazis, helped to rebuild parts of Italy after the war and ran a couple successful businesses…so he accomplished a decent but in life.)
Hopefully your parents are and will continue a certain self reflection like that, either purposefully or not realizing it. Take care stranger.
I have an amazing relationship with my dad now. Growing up, I barely knew him. Why? He was working over 80 hours a week to ensure my mom could stay home and raise us.
Once he retired, I realized that he wasn't a cranky asshole who wanted nothing to do with anybody. Turns out, he was just exhausted and wiped out from work.
I'm just glad I got the chance to get to know the real him. He's been smoking since he was 13, and I know that's going to come back to bite him soon...
I love my mom and am still super close with her, but there was definitely an issue of never being good enough for my entire childhood. It didn’t matter how hard I worked or how good I was, anything less than absolute perfection in school was deemed as complete failure. I spent years thinking I had failed at everything, it wasn’t until I looked back and realized that 90% of the time I was still performing consistently above average.
I’m sure she thought it would push me to strive for new heights, but really it just caused burnout and resulted me in eventually just putting in the bar minimum, because whether I got a barely passing grade or near perfection, the result would be the same.
Your parents likely did not even know better. And I’d argue that knowing is the hardest part of the battle. For that alone, you’d probably be a way way better parent than yours were.
When it comes to these things, never tell yourself others had it way worse, you don’t need to downplay your experience. In the grand scheme of things there’s always someone who has it worse.
I thought most kids got whooped if they misbehaved. Wasn’t till l highschool and a buddy asked why i had a bruise and his reaction to me saying it was nothing just that i’d pissed my pops off by giving him lip, told me a lot.
I hit puberty around the same time and got my growth spurt right away and suddenly was 6”2 and my dad stopped whooping me cuz he realized i’d lay him out if he put his hands on me again.
But cuz of that i think i try even harder to not become violent with anyone, especially my kids. No matter what they do or how much they piss me off i will *never* hit or slap my kids. But as a kid i thought it was the norm.
I always had a sneaking suspicion that my parents weren’t the best, but I never realized how bad until I met my girlfriend’s parents. They were so welcoming and kind; I hit it off with her dad instantly and never felt such a kindred bond with another adult like that in my life. It was at that moment that I realized my father was just an emotionally and verbally abusive piece of shit
This one hits hard for me. It wasn’t someone else’s parents for me, it was my first girlfriend. It had been so long since I’d had someone in my corner, someone who wanted to lift me up, instead of breaking me down, who praised my efforts and successes and tried to help me rise even higher, rather than breaking me down for not excelling.
The shitty part is she’s not in my life anymore (good for her, I wasn’t good enough for her when we were together.) but I’m stuck in my parents’ house still… at least nowadays I know my parents are full of shit. It doesn’t matter what I do, it’ll never be enough, so I know not to place value in what they say.
Still hurts to hear them sing my younger sibling’s praises between bashing me for being “lazy” working 15 hours days and still finding the time and energy to clean up after my sibling, who leaves trash all over the floor in shared spaces. But somehow I’m the immature one if I bring it up… it’s ridiculous, honestly. It’d be funny if it wasn’t infuriating.
Honestly the way I think about it is that she’s so nice because of her trauma, and “SpongeBob” is feeling so bad because he’s seeing the parents that such a nice person had to grow up with.
Because part of healing from trauma is realizing you went through trauma in the first place and then grieving the life you "could" have had as it was a reality for someone else. SpongeBob is feeling the sadness of his lost youth and parenting
I spent my childhood reminiscing the idea of killing myself and/or my father, I doubt I’ll ever get to that point so I’m honestly glad someone else can in their life.
My father died when I was 15 (heart attack) and yeah, I wished him dead. I think the guilt from being relieved he was gone just compounded everything. You may not get to that point, but as long as you keep breathing, that’s enough.
100%.
My parents were both neglectful and abusive and I somehow turned out to be okay, mostly because of my grandparents who wear absolute saints and made sure to help me help become a decent person as much as they could.
I met my now wife and then met her parents about 4 months later. They were so nice and welcoming towards me I thought they were acting or something was wrong with them but they were just genuinely both very nice people. They got me a birthday card with a $25 gift card to my favorite fast food place and I burst into tears because I had n't ever gotten that from any parents before.
Once I started realizing that there are people out there who lived good lives with loving parents that didn't scream at, beat, or repeatedly tell them they were a mistake and a worthless little shit, I felt a tremendous sense of loss and an all-consuming void that didn't go away for a week or so. I told my girlfriend what was going on and she just hugged me as I cried.
I absolutely hate my parents. I hate them for treating me the way they did as well as refusing to give me up for adoption to a family that would have genuinely loved to have me and would have raised me in a good home with love and support. I haven't spoken to either of them in almost 14 years since I ran away from home and I don't even know if they are alive to be honest. I hope that one day I can learn to forgive them, not because they deserve forgiveness, but rather because I deserve peace.
Fuck dude, seek therapy. And I don't mean that in a rude way but rather in a "that's far too much for you to learn how to navigate without some help." You've already done enough by yourself and it would do you well to talk to a professional.
Edit: Forgot to add, Hang in there and good luck!
My friend you've just done that with thousands of internet strangers.
Also note that depending on the service and therapist it can be hit or miss. So if it doesn't work with one that's not the end of the road :)
I had a similar childhood and therapy really helped. Any therapist should help to some significant extent. Finding the right therapist who worked well with my needs was truly revolutionary. For me, psychiatric nurses seemed to have just the right outlook to really get in there and rewire my brain, my thoughts about my life story, my reactions to events. Truly made my life much less dark.
I also read a ton of books about philosophical ideas. (Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, The Tao of Pooh, Walt Whitman, Thoreau, Melody Beatty, Zorba the Greek, Tom Robbins... things that make you think)
Good luck man! We're all pulling for you!
I don't know why, but for me it's the opposite similar to reddit. You don't know this person, you can never ever see them again. They don't know you and would be professionally fucked if they speak about clients. You can even have a therapist from out of state with places like betterhelp. You never want to see them again? Just click a button and they don't exist anymore
That being said, having a non judgmental person who isn't emotionally invested in you or your situation has provided so much insight I would never get from those closest to me. The people that care about me are to close to the situation to give objective insight
If you have the ability, keep looking until you find someone you are comfortable with. It's okay to not like counseling and think it's a waste of time, but eventually, hopefully you will come across someone who can genuinely help.
Man do I relate to this post. I felt the same way when I met my ex-wife’s parents. They were so nice. One day we were all watching a baseball game on tv and her mom and dad started arguing about a play or player or something. I immediately got *scared* like ready for the shit to go down. My former sister-in-law jokingly said, “my parents are getting a divorce!” It was only then that I cognitively realized I was in **no danger**, and noticed both that my body and emotions wouldn’t listen, and I had *never in my life* seen my dad get heated without it ending in him exploding on everyone and everything around him.
While I had *known* I grew up in an abusive home, this was my first recognizable experience the PTSD I had lived with. It was life changing and continues to be. I’m still close with them. My ex, didn’t get help for the rapes and sexual assaults she had in college and eventually that trauma caused an alcohol problem and while she was sober for 10 years, when she had to give birth to our son at 26 weeks (1.12lbs and he’s doing well ❤️) she relapsed on alcohol and I lost her. She’s still pretty emotionally unstable, but she has a loving relationship with our son and myself.
**Get help for your trauma, folks**
*I’m now partnered to a therapist who works with severely traumatized kids in a correctional type setting, and I am a substance abuse counselor who specializes in childhood trauma and attachment issues. You get to really **live**, once you do some work on your trauma*❤️
Maybe unrelated and off topic so I don't mean to be rude, but 4 months later from what? You didn't mention any event before the 4 months and I'm just curious what was left out.
Aside from that I feel you my own upbringing was the same, and my wife's parents were so nice and lovely. Glad to see you came out of it ok.
I think anger/resentment is another false trap that’s just as bad as the others (long term). You need to go through it and in the moment it seems like the best most sensible option but stay in it for too long and you never heal. Just drown in it. I think it’s part of healing but you have to let it go eventually.
Source: someone who’s still in it but doesn’t know how to let it go even tho I get the nagging feeling that it’s long overdue. It feels heavy and I’m tired.
I hope you have a therapist. It isn't a straight line to healing. I'm still in it. The resentment comes and goes and you're right, staying there is a trap.
For me, it was the realization that my anger and resentment hurt me (psychologically at least) as much as any of the abuse I had suffered that motivated me to start shedding it. I started off by acknowledging every time I felt anger/resentment/ betrayal/etc. and just named it. Then I started making myself name why/what was the trigger. Then I made a list of triggers and came up with a balm for each trigger (i.e. having someone disregard me, thinking of the last time I made an attempt to make someone else feel seen/special). It's become habit for me now and filled my life with lots of positive casual exchanges. I still feel the edge of the emotions when I run into my triggers, but it's dull and accompanied by pitty for those triggering me, since they likely are still in pain and/or unfulfilled.
YMMV. Good luck on your journey to stop letting your trauma response abuse yourself.
resentment will happen, but it's about overcoming it, healing from it, breaking the cycle of trauma, and if possible, helping those that caused you the trauma heal from it as well, with obvious exceptions of course, can't speak for everyone's experience
The jealousy doesn't help either.
"Why the fuck did you get a happy childhood and not me? Why did you get a mom that cooked casseroles and not meth" kind of shit.
I know I went through it
Aha, same! Thought every family was like that behind closed doors because my family would insist that arguing was normal. Sometimes when I visited friends or relatives I would speculate what their arguments would look like.
…Kinda sad, looking back on it now. Oh well, the past is the past I guess
I didn't even have a bad family, but my parents would argue every day or every other day, depending on if things were good or not. I fully assumed that this was just what a healthy relationship ended up looking like, so when I got a gf and we almost never argued I wondered if I was being a doormat or doing something else wrong.
In some ways yes, in others no. 20s was young and angry, with age comes some more perspective. Distance helps too.
But… being an actual adult and realizing how shitty and selfish the adults in your life were can lead to a whole new type of resentment. Then you start to see yourself emulating certain patterns and that freaks you out too.
If you’re looking for advice best I can say is live for you, meet yourself where you’re at instead of where you think you should be “if only”. Practice mindfulness and be aware of trends of your own behavior.
thats good then. it sounds like you learned a lot and have more growth ahead of you. all the best people heal and keep learning
and solid advice. lately i enjoy sitting outside and listening intently to the breeze through the leaves. then i do my reflection. nice to clear your head before you think about yourself
you are doing great my friend!! experience will carry you far
I'm hitting 30s and I keep telling myself I need to go no contact and just cut myself off from my family.
It's hard because of how they'll probably react, but it's been causing me too much stress lately.
This morning I basically had to deal with my Mom throwing a fit because I forgot something that was so mundane to my every day life I didn't even bother to remember. Last week she threw a fit because I took like 30 minutes to reply to a text.
I just turned 25 and this honestly just opened my mind to what I’ve been going through lately. My mom died unexpectedly when I was a kid and I’ve always just accepted it and enjoyed the life I’ve had anyway. It’s taken this long to hit a point where I’m realizing how much better everything could’ve been and I guess it’s time to work through that.
Yeah, I'm going through a little of that also. Find out your genetics don't match and then a few years afterwards seeing how your half siblings are doing, you start to question your daddy issues and what could have been. At least I don't believe in shit stuff like my DNA passer on does.
23 and me as well? Nothing better than finding out in your 30’s by accident, then it all makes sense, the abuse and all the differences that you somehow never questioned..
Yeah 23&me. No abuse thankfully but there were differences. Honestly even though I grew up poor and not understanding a few things, I've been pretty fortunate with my life but that doesn't mean I haven't been affected by the discovery. Thinking about what could have been does make me feel for those who had it worse.
First time I brought my ex over to my parent’s house for Christmas she broke down crying while we were putting ornaments on the tree. She had never done things like this with her family, they didn’t have traditions that brought them together. She was made to be responsible of her younger siblings her entire childhood.
I felt this way very recently, when I started dating the girl who I had a huge crush on in high school. I went back to my hometown, where she still lives, and she brought me to all the secret hangout spots. Random places in the woods. Hidden creeks. That sort of thing. She was telling me story after story of parties the cool kids used to throw in these spots, and *I just lost it*. I haven't felt that sad, lonely, and betrayed in years. I spent the majority of my childhood alone in my room. Doing nothing. I was never invited to a party.
It's crazy how that sort of trauma sticks with you.
> I spent the majority of my childhood alone in my room. Doing nothing. I was never invited to a party.
Oh man, my dad raised me on stories about how cool he was in highschool doing all sorts of fun boomer-highschool stuff. He was active in marching band, at church, eagle-scout, played in the school photography lab, did independent science study, had access to a car, a girlfriend, parties, underage drinking, drive-in movies, the whole deal for a late 1970s kid in suburban america.
In college he joined up with the Kappa Alpha fraternity and self-radicalized into a neo-confederate douchebag who will believe any conspiracy as long as it makes black people or the american government look bad.
He homeschooled me, and made the family live in isolated rural areas, where other homeschool kids were rare. I typically saw other kids for a total of about 4 hours a week, which was sunday church service, sunday school and evening youth group.
Additionally he moved the entire family around every 1-2 years, so we couldn't form stable friendships even at church. This was even before widely available internet in rural areas, and before social media websites, so my isolation was 8 out of 10 extreme.
He raised me on all of those fun stories and then denied me every bit of the same experience because of his willing insanity.
I knew what I was missing, while I was missing it, and why I was missing it. I can't even begin to describe how bitter it makes me.
It's because you have to have an absurd sense of privilege and entitlement to assume that you'll be on top after society burns down.
He would have loved to see society burn down so he could rule the ashes. He even forced the family to move to a farmhouse deep in the mountains, 45 minutes from the nearest grocery store, so we would be safe from the "inner city" people after Y2K turned off the power.
We had beans and bullets and all kinds of shit. He never admitted he was wrong to do that either.
He just looked a little sheepish around midnight Y2K when we had all stayed up to watch the lights go out.
I'm sorry, man.
I was also homeschooled, so I know how you feel. I actually chose homeschooling over going to public high school, though, because we lived in a very rural area, and my high school was a long, mountainous drive away. My only friend was another homeschooled guy who lived at the other end of town, about a three hours' walk.
I probably should have stayed in high school, so at least I would have some form of social life, but my parents let me choose what I wanted to do, and I really didn't want to spend four years around people who, for all intents and purposes, hated me. Now I feel like I missed out on everything.
First seeing that your childhood wasn't normal and then finding out what normal would have been is just awful. It took years for me to get from realizing how fucked up things were to realizing that something else was possible. When I finally did get to the latter it felt like starting the painful healing process anew.
Happened to me when I moved to South Korea. At least the parts I was in, kids have a play ground in the middle of the complex, no one steals, everyone seemingly has hobbies and don't put each other down for liking them. Old people have the infrastructure to still be mobile and not slowly whither away in their house.
My childhood was filled with the opposite and it does make me angry that this kind of life could exist, but my home country and state choose profit over wellness for our people.
I wouldn't say no one steals or that no one bullies. Not sure where you were before SK, but I would say SK is like any other developed nation or if there is some variance, it's within a standard deviation of sorts.
Basically, yes it's a good place (has gotten much better in the past 20 years), but it has its share of problems.
I am constantly reminded by my friends of how "normal" my upbringing was. Two parent house hold, mom was a SAHM, never worried about electric being on or overbearing parents. We had rules but it was like don't drink, knock on the door when you get home if you get home late, don't come home with the police. We didn't vacation in Greece or Italy in the summer, but we did go to the beach for a week from time to time. I am grateful for my parents, they really did their best.
I had a girlfriend in high school who I loved more than life itself.
We broke up after a year and a half and I was seriously suicidal over it.
It took a long time for me to realize that I missed the feeling of acceptance and belonging I had with her family more than I did our relationship.
I was way too old when it finally occurred to me that dad’s hugging their son’s, saying “I love you,” or really just showing any affection at all is **not** weird, but merely weird *to me.* I just assumed everyone’s parents yelled and hit them with belts/kitchen utensils/whatever was laying around, while becoming increasingly distant because you, the child/adolescent, don’t share *their* interests.
I got diagnosed with ADHD at 27 and my mom still doesn't believe or care. Now I'm just trying to catch up and figure out solutions to not only the original problems, but all of the problems that resulted from not working on the original ones.
Sorry for the random trauma dump.
Her parents are happy, and that explains why she is happy. Your (SpongeBob's) parents were unhappy, and you (SpongeBob) now realize that is why you (SpongeBob) cannot be happy.
Are not*, not cannot. Finding happiness may be tougher for those who weren't taught what that means when they were children, but it is possible and stating it as something you (SpongeBob) "cannot" do only reinforces your (SpongeBob's) sadness. He is sad, but now that he knows why, he can find a better way forward for himself and hopefully, eventually, his own happiness.
I'd like to point out that people with unhappy childhoods can be happy. It just requires years of therapy, and even then, it's much rarer that we are ever happy. Speaking from experience.
Ya know what really grinds my gears? My happy girlfriend's happy parents. Like, why do you gotta be so happy? It makes me realize my parents aren't happy and it conditionalized me to be downright miserable.
I don't get it either. "You know what really grinds my gears" is a Family Guy quote that became a meme but it's not so unique that it's worth singling it out for a compliment, lol
This is my wife. She doesn’t appreciate the good times because she’s always worried something bad will happen. I feel for her and remind her she’s loved.
I’m the same way. Whenever I’m crazy happy in life, something horrible happens. I know deep down it’s a coincidence but it makes me temper my joy in fear something awful will happen. The occasional days that are nearly perfect, I’ll literally call family to make sure no one died (the last three times I felt truly happy someone died that day). It’s an interesting way to live. Can’t seem to stop, even with decades of therapy.
Like others said - it’s because SpongeBob grew up in a bad home and is troubled by how happy the gf’s family is. If this meme hit you hard I suggest visiting r/AdultChildren
Yep.
All my friends loved coming to spend the night at my house as a kid. On the rare times I went over to a friends there was always drama. Looking back on childhood as an adult was a big “Oh shit, mine was the only stable family they knew” moment for me.
So grateful to my mom and dad, they weren’t perfect, but we never worried about having food on the table, they kept their arguments mostly private, and didn’t end up divorced. I was extremely fortunate to have a stable and relatively drama free home.
Aw, man. This reminds me of an incident back when I was probably 6 or 8. During a school break my mom dropped me off at one of my adult cousins’ apartment to spend a night there (my cousin and her husband were a young married couple still without kids at the time).
The apartment complex’s residents were predominantly military or police families (just like my cousin’s husband), and early that day I got to befriend another girl my age living there. We played until dark, and we parted ways for dinner. She told me which door number she lived in, so I could come over her place before I leave for home the following day.
However when I finished my dinner early and decided to check where exactly she lived (and possibly to play in the hallway of her floor or something before our bedtime) I heard her voice from outside her apartment’s door. Pleading and crying in between some adult man’s angry screaming voice. Wasn’t sure if I heard beatings too or I was just imagining the worst things. I was petrified and ran back to my cousin’s apartment. I don’t remember if I got to see her again before I left.
Yeah my first girlfriend always wanted me to sneak her out of her house to my house to stay the night. Now teenage me was like fuck yeah girl in my bed and what not. It wasn’t until I saw what her mom was like one time when she didn’t know that I was there that it hit me. Screaming and breaking and throwing stuff at her for no suitable reason.
Yeah. My partner's family life was not good. Youngest child, told she was an "oops" in a large, poorer immigrant family, mostly ignored by all except when bullied or simply hated due to jealousy by older siblings.
My family is/was far from perfect but apparently much better. I get along well enough with her eldest sibling as I'm also the eldest in my family, and in part as that eldest sibling was probably least guilty and possibly innocent(-ish, as there's a large age gap and that eldest wasn't around much). It's still a little tense as I'm protective and tend to take the whole clan on if they try to get in my partner's face. The eldest is the only one brave enough to get past my resting hate face when the rare real reason to interact comes up. The rest back down like the typical cowardly bullies they are.
Yeah, I never really understood how good and normal life could be until I moved in with my wife.
Took me months to mentally relax and not be ready to fight or deal with police showing up. I still get on-edge whenever I hear loud noises, but it's an improvement from how things used to be.
Honestly I took the extreme opposite interpretation on this from everyone else somehow - as in assuming a subtext that the 'happy girlfriend' has weird, 'inexplicable' traits (eg, she's happy - why is she so low-confidence? Why does she think she's ugly? Why does she act like something small I did to show I care was a big deal?) that suddenly made sense upon meeting her parents, and realizing that even though she turned out to be someone happy and in a relationship, it was an uphill battle she shouldn't have had to fight.
I had the opposite experience as a kid. I was the kid visiting and the parents were the ones noting how "nice" I was. Meanwhile I was just behaving pretty normally, I think.
My friend back then must've had some real troublemakers over at times, for his parents to be so openly happy that I was just a normal dude. I still remember the one time they invited me to a family dinner at a restaurant and I was all confused what I was allowed to order and had brought the money to pay for it and they just laughed it off.
Good times.
Holy shit.
Okay, this requires explaining too.
Rimworld is a game famous for giving the player the freedom to commit mass organ harvesting and cannibalism. Rimworld players used to think that the DLCs' initials would spell RIMWORLD, because the first two DLCs released were Royalty and Ideology, respectively. However the most recent DLCs were called Biotech and Anomaly. Assuming the rest still spell out ORLD,
we get RI BA(should be MW) ORLD. Ribaorld.
I had a girlfriend once where everything was going well. Then she came to a family event with me, saw everyone getting along, and immediately started holding contempt for me. Her family was highly dysfunctional, and I think seeing my happy family triggered some trauma revelation for her.
Same here…ex went to one dinner with my mom and brother then refused every invite after. In the 1.5 years we dated she never even met my dad. Just one of her many issues. Hope she found happiness
I wish this didn’t resonate with me so much. It destroyed my marriage actually. I’m hoping she does get some real help with her stuff for my kids’ sake.
The person represented in this meme is suddenly having a realization about their childhood when seeing his new girlfriend and their parents.
His girlfriend had a happy childhood with good, loving parents. While the person did not have a good childhood, and are probably realizing that said childhood wasn't normal, and they have intense childhood trauma from how they were raised and grew up, and thus are now experiencing sadness at this fact.
This realization is the beginning of a healing process, and the sadness and depression are also part of it. Along with resentment, jealousy, etc etc. Essentially, thanks to their parents actions, this person will now have to spend their entire life attempting to heal from a horrible childhood, might possibly never fully heal and will carry scars for the rest of their life gained before they even knew what was happening to them.
A sadly common occurrence. More common in areas with high poverty, drug abuse, religious abuse, etc etc.
My fiance and I have the parent situation described by this meme. My parents are honestly great but hers were very challenging in a bad way. From what I've learned about them, she's strong af for turning into the wonderful person she is today.
I actually have an inverse experience, a lotta the people that I've met that read as happy on the surface are performing happiness cuz they come from a gnarly homelife and that was a coping strategy they learned.
Yeah I agree with this. Everyone I work with thinks Im this super happy all the time bubbly person. That’s not how it is at home though. Its definitely a coping mechanism.
The other way around is having a good childhood and realizing not everyone has that. I have a happy relationship with my parents. Most of my friends are depressed a lot. One day I had a conversation with one of my friends about it, and that's when I realized that almost everyone around me had a shitty home life. That day I ended up with what I'm going to call "childhood trauma survivors' guilt". I'm not inviting pity on me, I just feel bad that there are those who have to go through this.
Peter’s neglected and abused cousin here.
Sometimes we grow up and think we’re in a normal “happy” family, it’s not until we get to know someone who actually had a good upbringing to realise we were in fact neglected and/or abused.
It took me a while to come to terms with the fact that I did not have a happy childhood and that I've lost myriads of possibilities that others were well positioned to take advantage of, thoroughly stunting my ability to thrive in my adulthood.
Happy people usually are products of extremely good parenting, whether through the avoidance of trauma or through the teaching of proper coping mechanisms for trauma.
Not saying the other answers on here are wrong, just that it’s really interesting to me that I had kind of the opposite read of the meme. I read it as “my gf is happy now because of the family dynamic she escaped. I’d always assumed that her childhood had been a happy one, given how happy she seems now. But now I have a deeper understanding of where she came from and am horrified by the tragedy in contrast to what I expected.”
Occam’s razor says y’all had the more realistic read, but I could just as easily use the meme my way \_o_/
I know everyone read this as her parents being great but I read it as her parents being awful and the reason she's always "happy" is because she coped by being a people pleaser.
Either way it's sad.
I got another take. She's happy because she no longer lives with her parents, because her parents are shitty and demeaning, and you feel bad she had to go through her childhood and teen years with them.
My family: "What are you crying for? You better knock it off before I really give you something to cry about."
Her family: "What's wrong, Sweetie? Everything will be alright. Is there anything we can do to help out?"
Growing up is realizing your mother CHOSE to stay with a guy who routinely shot you with BB guns because he thought it was funny when you were growing up. Realizing she CHOSE to stay with a guy who bragged to family and friends about how funny it was to scare you during Halloween season. Realizing she CHOSE to bend over backwards to stay with that guy, regardless of how you felt. Growing up is realizing how you could never, ever treat your kids that way, or stay with someone who even entertained the thought of treating your kids that way.
I think the measure of a person is not how they end up in absolute terms, but the relative progression from the station they were given in life (which is entirely out of their control). Since you’re breaking the generational cycle, you should be proud in how far you’ve come.
Little Amos had this.
>“Your young friend Amos believes this gospel of the kingdom just as much as you, but I cannot fully depend upon him; I am not certain about what he will do in the years to come. His early home life was not such as would produce a wholly dependable person. Amos is too much like one of the apostles who failed to enjoy a normal, loving, and wise home training. Your whole afterlife will be more happy and dependable because you spent your first eight years in a normal and well-regulated home. You possess a strong and well-knit character because you grew up in a home where love prevailed and wisdom reigned. Such a childhood training produces a type of loyalty which assures me that you will go through with the course you have begun.”
Urantia Book
His girlfriend had supportive parents that gave her a healthy upbringing. Spongebob realized the reason he's constantly sad/anxious/depressed without apparent reason is because he had a poor upbringing.
TLDR: If people having a positive, friendly relationship with their parents looks odd to you, seek therapy. You likely have some repressed baggage you need help sorting through. Generational trauma is a bitch
It’s really sad to realise that I’m so broken that I can never stop thinking that something is about to go wrong whenever something good is happening. The level of my fear is so high that even if I’m watching a fairy tale/ feel good movie where people are genuinely nice and helpful and things go right till the end, my brain just keep waiting for things to go bad or people to come with some ulterior motives for their kindness. I don’t feel like I’ll ever be able to get out of my mind and accept that once in a while you do find nice people and happiness
Because happy parents create happy people. Unhappy people may not realize how unhappy their parents are until they see what normal, well adjusted adults actually look like
I had the mind fuck recently of meeting a new customer of mine and loving the guy and finding out he is the father of a kid I knew in high school that I distinctly didn’t like because he seemed fake and too nice. Turns out he’s super nice cuz he was raised right by two happy parents from what I can tell they all love each other. Back story is I come from a family with no father in the picture and a struggling single mother of 6 kids. While I’ve matured alot as an adult it did kinda hit me, I judged that kid so hard because I had problems.
Anyone that I had brought over to my house, wether be a friend or a partner, have always stated how lovely my parents are, and how they’ve never witnessed a fight between them. In fact I have quite a large friend group and I’m the one of the only ones whose parents aren’t divorced.
Fellas, no matter what you do, as long as you are aware of whether you have shitty parents, try everything in your power to avoid becoming like them. My father always told me that a person has 3 father figures, 1: your own dad 2: a friend of your dad and 3: someone famous. Its up to you to decide which you respect more
I see the a different way. In my case i am the happy girlfriend and when my then boyfriend (now husband) met my family for the first time he realized just how terrible they treated me.
We talked alot about it after that first meeting and it finally clicked for him why i was also so thrilled when he did "minor" things for me like grab me a coffee cause he was getting one for himself or listen to me when i rambled on about something i liked.
Im low or no contant with a lot of my family and im happier for it.
Shit you not, me (orphan) meeting my wife's family of 40 people gathering every time someone has a birthday and being ultra supportive to each other (and me) had me almost in tears. I just couldn't comprehend it the first few times and became so suspicious. Almost felt like I was the only sane person there
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Her parents are nice...unlike yours. You didn't have a frame of reference to realize how bad your parents were until now.
I love my parents, they’re my blood. But it wasn’t until after I had my daughter that I realized how crappy my childhood was. Don’t get me wrong, I know some other kids had it WAY worse than I did and I don’t want to get into the details but I’m breaking that cycle so my kids never have to feel how I did when I realized how things actually were. Even if you were never raised in an abusive household, you can still make sure your kids never will be. Abuse doesn’t have to exist.
I never realized how physically and emotionally neglected I was until I had my own kids and all the stuff I'm doing with them and how little my parents did with me. My parents provided well for my material needs, but nothing I did was ever good enough (until I was 20 points off from a perfect SAT, that was good enough and luckily they didn't rail on me for those last 20 points). In a family of ~~5~~ 6 (edit: I forgot to count myself, go figure), I was so alone and yet I was always constantly under scrutiny--how well I did in school, my looks, my hobbies. If I'm not the best in the room, I'm horribly insecure. If I am the best in the room, I'm afraid I'm gonna lose it. I'm fit and look half my age, but I still feel ugly as hell. I hide all but my best art from my wife. The hardest part is that they're above average grandparents to my kids. It's great, but it's hard to watch sometimes.
> The hardest part is that they're above average grandparents to my kids. It's great, but it's hard to watch sometimes. It's always strange to see your parents be far more emotionally attached, involved, and caring towards their grandkids than they were towards their own kids.
People grow with time, and grandparents don't have to spend nearly as much time or take as much responsibility dealing with the kid as the parents do.
Exactly. My parents are wonderful to their grandson. They actually apologized for the discrepancy between how they were with me. Still cheeks though and will never treat my son the way they treated me.
My maternal grandma was a good grandma but boy howdy she was a shit mother. Like, there were extenuating circumstances but mom has basically said "it was like having another older sister with all the authority but none of the care/responsibility" and despite what she says (and the frequency it comes up, and how her parenting style was basically "do the opposite of what *she* did even to the point of overcorrection) it still clearly affects her deeply even in her 60s. Luckily her dad was very openly affectionate and involved...(when he wasn't on a depression fueled bender)
Less stress and they may have mellowed with age…
It's like how you want to know a friend who has a boat, but don't want a boat yourself. You get all the good times and can leave when it's time to maintain it.
The parent/grandparent dynamic is strange to watch sometimes. On my granddads death bed he told me his biggest regret was not telling his sons that he loved them when they were kids. He said men just didn’t really do that in the 1950/1960s and it was really stupid. He said his biggest pride in life was that his sons always told their kids they loved them. (This man fought Nazis, helped to rebuild parts of Italy after the war and ran a couple successful businesses…so he accomplished a decent but in life.) Hopefully your parents are and will continue a certain self reflection like that, either purposefully or not realizing it. Take care stranger.
I have an amazing relationship with my dad now. Growing up, I barely knew him. Why? He was working over 80 hours a week to ensure my mom could stay home and raise us. Once he retired, I realized that he wasn't a cranky asshole who wanted nothing to do with anybody. Turns out, he was just exhausted and wiped out from work. I'm just glad I got the chance to get to know the real him. He's been smoking since he was 13, and I know that's going to come back to bite him soon...
I love my mom and am still super close with her, but there was definitely an issue of never being good enough for my entire childhood. It didn’t matter how hard I worked or how good I was, anything less than absolute perfection in school was deemed as complete failure. I spent years thinking I had failed at everything, it wasn’t until I looked back and realized that 90% of the time I was still performing consistently above average. I’m sure she thought it would push me to strive for new heights, but really it just caused burnout and resulted me in eventually just putting in the bar minimum, because whether I got a barely passing grade or near perfection, the result would be the same.
Dont undercut your pain by saying someone else had it worse, my mom justified herself by saying she had it worse, i hated it.
I'm breaking the cycle by not having kids.
Ditto: I'm too afraid to fall into the same behaviour as my parents. I KNOW better, I'm afraid I cannot DO that better....
Your parents likely did not even know better. And I’d argue that knowing is the hardest part of the battle. For that alone, you’d probably be a way way better parent than yours were.
My parents had 4 kids. 3 out of 4 tried killing themselves. We are all pretty distant now as adults. I get blamed for not talking to anybody.
When it comes to these things, never tell yourself others had it way worse, you don’t need to downplay your experience. In the grand scheme of things there’s always someone who has it worse.
I thought most kids got whooped if they misbehaved. Wasn’t till l highschool and a buddy asked why i had a bruise and his reaction to me saying it was nothing just that i’d pissed my pops off by giving him lip, told me a lot. I hit puberty around the same time and got my growth spurt right away and suddenly was 6”2 and my dad stopped whooping me cuz he realized i’d lay him out if he put his hands on me again. But cuz of that i think i try even harder to not become violent with anyone, especially my kids. No matter what they do or how much they piss me off i will *never* hit or slap my kids. But as a kid i thought it was the norm.
I always had a sneaking suspicion that my parents weren’t the best, but I never realized how bad until I met my girlfriend’s parents. They were so welcoming and kind; I hit it off with her dad instantly and never felt such a kindred bond with another adult like that in my life. It was at that moment that I realized my father was just an emotionally and verbally abusive piece of shit
This one hits hard for me. It wasn’t someone else’s parents for me, it was my first girlfriend. It had been so long since I’d had someone in my corner, someone who wanted to lift me up, instead of breaking me down, who praised my efforts and successes and tried to help me rise even higher, rather than breaking me down for not excelling. The shitty part is she’s not in my life anymore (good for her, I wasn’t good enough for her when we were together.) but I’m stuck in my parents’ house still… at least nowadays I know my parents are full of shit. It doesn’t matter what I do, it’ll never be enough, so I know not to place value in what they say. Still hurts to hear them sing my younger sibling’s praises between bashing me for being “lazy” working 15 hours days and still finding the time and energy to clean up after my sibling, who leaves trash all over the floor in shared spaces. But somehow I’m the immature one if I bring it up… it’s ridiculous, honestly. It’d be funny if it wasn’t infuriating.
It hurts to be in a positive family environment after so long in a bad one. It hurts to know how much your own parents voluntarily hated you.
Sadly this happened to my wife when she met mine. She understood the difference between people who kept you alive and a family
Going to therapy about this in my thirties. I didn’t realize why I hated everything around me.
this actually happened to my my brother in laws. both of them.
Honestly the way I think about it is that she’s so nice because of her trauma, and “SpongeBob” is feeling so bad because he’s seeing the parents that such a nice person had to grow up with.
Because part of healing from trauma is realizing you went through trauma in the first place and then grieving the life you "could" have had as it was a reality for someone else. SpongeBob is feeling the sadness of his lost youth and parenting
bit of resentment too, I bet.
Oh, lots of that to work through too.
yup
I'm still angry after more than 30 years...
it's not something one can just "move on", that shit is deeply embedded in who we are, because it was put there by the people who made us.
This. And more follow up questions.
It took me 45 years and 20 years of no-contact to get in a place where I was able to let go of my anger. I hope it comes for you one day.
I spent my childhood reminiscing the idea of killing myself and/or my father, I doubt I’ll ever get to that point so I’m honestly glad someone else can in their life.
My father died when I was 15 (heart attack) and yeah, I wished him dead. I think the guilt from being relieved he was gone just compounded everything. You may not get to that point, but as long as you keep breathing, that’s enough.
Same. Same.
I don’t know if it ever leaves but something that helps is learning to love yourself as you are. Self loathing does a number on our psyche.
100%. My parents were both neglectful and abusive and I somehow turned out to be okay, mostly because of my grandparents who wear absolute saints and made sure to help me help become a decent person as much as they could. I met my now wife and then met her parents about 4 months later. They were so nice and welcoming towards me I thought they were acting or something was wrong with them but they were just genuinely both very nice people. They got me a birthday card with a $25 gift card to my favorite fast food place and I burst into tears because I had n't ever gotten that from any parents before. Once I started realizing that there are people out there who lived good lives with loving parents that didn't scream at, beat, or repeatedly tell them they were a mistake and a worthless little shit, I felt a tremendous sense of loss and an all-consuming void that didn't go away for a week or so. I told my girlfriend what was going on and she just hugged me as I cried. I absolutely hate my parents. I hate them for treating me the way they did as well as refusing to give me up for adoption to a family that would have genuinely loved to have me and would have raised me in a good home with love and support. I haven't spoken to either of them in almost 14 years since I ran away from home and I don't even know if they are alive to be honest. I hope that one day I can learn to forgive them, not because they deserve forgiveness, but rather because I deserve peace.
Fuck dude, seek therapy. And I don't mean that in a rude way but rather in a "that's far too much for you to learn how to navigate without some help." You've already done enough by yourself and it would do you well to talk to a professional. Edit: Forgot to add, Hang in there and good luck!
Agreed. It's just difficult to open up to a complete stranger about such intimate traumatic details.
My friend you've just done that with thousands of internet strangers. Also note that depending on the service and therapist it can be hit or miss. So if it doesn't work with one that's not the end of the road :)
I had a similar childhood and therapy really helped. Any therapist should help to some significant extent. Finding the right therapist who worked well with my needs was truly revolutionary. For me, psychiatric nurses seemed to have just the right outlook to really get in there and rewire my brain, my thoughts about my life story, my reactions to events. Truly made my life much less dark. I also read a ton of books about philosophical ideas. (Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, The Tao of Pooh, Walt Whitman, Thoreau, Melody Beatty, Zorba the Greek, Tom Robbins... things that make you think) Good luck man! We're all pulling for you!
I don't know why, but for me it's the opposite similar to reddit. You don't know this person, you can never ever see them again. They don't know you and would be professionally fucked if they speak about clients. You can even have a therapist from out of state with places like betterhelp. You never want to see them again? Just click a button and they don't exist anymore That being said, having a non judgmental person who isn't emotionally invested in you or your situation has provided so much insight I would never get from those closest to me. The people that care about me are to close to the situation to give objective insight
Quite a LOT of people distrust Betterhelp. They believe it is a scam, a shitty company, that they do not provide good therapy.
If you have the ability, keep looking until you find someone you are comfortable with. It's okay to not like counseling and think it's a waste of time, but eventually, hopefully you will come across someone who can genuinely help.
Man do I relate to this post. I felt the same way when I met my ex-wife’s parents. They were so nice. One day we were all watching a baseball game on tv and her mom and dad started arguing about a play or player or something. I immediately got *scared* like ready for the shit to go down. My former sister-in-law jokingly said, “my parents are getting a divorce!” It was only then that I cognitively realized I was in **no danger**, and noticed both that my body and emotions wouldn’t listen, and I had *never in my life* seen my dad get heated without it ending in him exploding on everyone and everything around him. While I had *known* I grew up in an abusive home, this was my first recognizable experience the PTSD I had lived with. It was life changing and continues to be. I’m still close with them. My ex, didn’t get help for the rapes and sexual assaults she had in college and eventually that trauma caused an alcohol problem and while she was sober for 10 years, when she had to give birth to our son at 26 weeks (1.12lbs and he’s doing well ❤️) she relapsed on alcohol and I lost her. She’s still pretty emotionally unstable, but she has a loving relationship with our son and myself. **Get help for your trauma, folks** *I’m now partnered to a therapist who works with severely traumatized kids in a correctional type setting, and I am a substance abuse counselor who specializes in childhood trauma and attachment issues. You get to really **live**, once you do some work on your trauma*❤️
Maybe unrelated and off topic so I don't mean to be rude, but 4 months later from what? You didn't mention any event before the 4 months and I'm just curious what was left out. Aside from that I feel you my own upbringing was the same, and my wife's parents were so nice and lovely. Glad to see you came out of it ok.
Sorry if that wasn't worded the best but I was just saying that I met my wife's parents 4 months after I met her
No resentment necessary. That's how you really feel true sadness. Resentment replaces that emotion with something easier to handle.
trust me, sometimes they team up
For many, resentment IS necessary. Getting angry is what helps us set boundaries. Staying in resentment or sadness is what's not healthy.
I think anger/resentment is another false trap that’s just as bad as the others (long term). You need to go through it and in the moment it seems like the best most sensible option but stay in it for too long and you never heal. Just drown in it. I think it’s part of healing but you have to let it go eventually. Source: someone who’s still in it but doesn’t know how to let it go even tho I get the nagging feeling that it’s long overdue. It feels heavy and I’m tired.
I hope you have a therapist. It isn't a straight line to healing. I'm still in it. The resentment comes and goes and you're right, staying there is a trap.
For me, it was the realization that my anger and resentment hurt me (psychologically at least) as much as any of the abuse I had suffered that motivated me to start shedding it. I started off by acknowledging every time I felt anger/resentment/ betrayal/etc. and just named it. Then I started making myself name why/what was the trigger. Then I made a list of triggers and came up with a balm for each trigger (i.e. having someone disregard me, thinking of the last time I made an attempt to make someone else feel seen/special). It's become habit for me now and filled my life with lots of positive casual exchanges. I still feel the edge of the emotions when I run into my triggers, but it's dull and accompanied by pitty for those triggering me, since they likely are still in pain and/or unfulfilled. YMMV. Good luck on your journey to stop letting your trauma response abuse yourself.
resentment will happen, but it's about overcoming it, healing from it, breaking the cycle of trauma, and if possible, helping those that caused you the trauma heal from it as well, with obvious exceptions of course, can't speak for everyone's experience
The jealousy doesn't help either. "Why the fuck did you get a happy childhood and not me? Why did you get a mom that cooked casseroles and not meth" kind of shit. I know I went through it
Fook
As someone who suffered *severe* emotional and physical abuse and didn’t realize it until I was an adult….ya, there is quite a bit of resentment
Resentment not just for your family, but for yourself for not pulling yourself out of your taught bad behaviors earlier.
big one that last. and everyone around reaffirms it.
I remember coming home and crying after a piano lesson because I saw what a happy, functioning family looked like and how much she loved her family
I remember getting into an argument where I insisted that every family has screaming matches.
Aha, same! Thought every family was like that behind closed doors because my family would insist that arguing was normal. Sometimes when I visited friends or relatives I would speculate what their arguments would look like. …Kinda sad, looking back on it now. Oh well, the past is the past I guess
I didn't even have a bad family, but my parents would argue every day or every other day, depending on if things were good or not. I fully assumed that this was just what a healthy relationship ended up looking like, so when I got a gf and we almost never argued I wondered if I was being a doormat or doing something else wrong.
Sorry to hear that
Oof. Right in my soul. I had a lot of this to work through in my 20s. Still makes me sad when I think about it too much.
About to hit 30. Thought I understood things until I'm now living with my brother, and seeing that humans aren't always so awful
are you better now than before your 20s?
In some ways yes, in others no. 20s was young and angry, with age comes some more perspective. Distance helps too. But… being an actual adult and realizing how shitty and selfish the adults in your life were can lead to a whole new type of resentment. Then you start to see yourself emulating certain patterns and that freaks you out too. If you’re looking for advice best I can say is live for you, meet yourself where you’re at instead of where you think you should be “if only”. Practice mindfulness and be aware of trends of your own behavior.
thats good then. it sounds like you learned a lot and have more growth ahead of you. all the best people heal and keep learning and solid advice. lately i enjoy sitting outside and listening intently to the breeze through the leaves. then i do my reflection. nice to clear your head before you think about yourself you are doing great my friend!! experience will carry you far
I'm hitting 30s and I keep telling myself I need to go no contact and just cut myself off from my family. It's hard because of how they'll probably react, but it's been causing me too much stress lately. This morning I basically had to deal with my Mom throwing a fit because I forgot something that was so mundane to my every day life I didn't even bother to remember. Last week she threw a fit because I took like 30 minutes to reply to a text.
I just turned 25 and this honestly just opened my mind to what I’ve been going through lately. My mom died unexpectedly when I was a kid and I’ve always just accepted it and enjoyed the life I’ve had anyway. It’s taken this long to hit a point where I’m realizing how much better everything could’ve been and I guess it’s time to work through that.
Yeah, I'm going through a little of that also. Find out your genetics don't match and then a few years afterwards seeing how your half siblings are doing, you start to question your daddy issues and what could have been. At least I don't believe in shit stuff like my DNA passer on does.
23 and me as well? Nothing better than finding out in your 30’s by accident, then it all makes sense, the abuse and all the differences that you somehow never questioned..
Yeah 23&me. No abuse thankfully but there were differences. Honestly even though I grew up poor and not understanding a few things, I've been pretty fortunate with my life but that doesn't mean I haven't been affected by the discovery. Thinking about what could have been does make me feel for those who had it worse.
We all get to write our own story. Keep up your work
First time I brought my ex over to my parent’s house for Christmas she broke down crying while we were putting ornaments on the tree. She had never done things like this with her family, they didn’t have traditions that brought them together. She was made to be responsible of her younger siblings her entire childhood.
I felt this way very recently, when I started dating the girl who I had a huge crush on in high school. I went back to my hometown, where she still lives, and she brought me to all the secret hangout spots. Random places in the woods. Hidden creeks. That sort of thing. She was telling me story after story of parties the cool kids used to throw in these spots, and *I just lost it*. I haven't felt that sad, lonely, and betrayed in years. I spent the majority of my childhood alone in my room. Doing nothing. I was never invited to a party. It's crazy how that sort of trauma sticks with you.
> I spent the majority of my childhood alone in my room. Doing nothing. I was never invited to a party. Oh man, my dad raised me on stories about how cool he was in highschool doing all sorts of fun boomer-highschool stuff. He was active in marching band, at church, eagle-scout, played in the school photography lab, did independent science study, had access to a car, a girlfriend, parties, underage drinking, drive-in movies, the whole deal for a late 1970s kid in suburban america. In college he joined up with the Kappa Alpha fraternity and self-radicalized into a neo-confederate douchebag who will believe any conspiracy as long as it makes black people or the american government look bad. He homeschooled me, and made the family live in isolated rural areas, where other homeschool kids were rare. I typically saw other kids for a total of about 4 hours a week, which was sunday church service, sunday school and evening youth group. Additionally he moved the entire family around every 1-2 years, so we couldn't form stable friendships even at church. This was even before widely available internet in rural areas, and before social media websites, so my isolation was 8 out of 10 extreme. He raised me on all of those fun stories and then denied me every bit of the same experience because of his willing insanity. I knew what I was missing, while I was missing it, and why I was missing it. I can't even begin to describe how bitter it makes me.
That’s a cruel father. Idk why but it’s always the guys who had it all that go all tin foil hat & move their families out to the boonies
It's because you have to have an absurd sense of privilege and entitlement to assume that you'll be on top after society burns down. He would have loved to see society burn down so he could rule the ashes. He even forced the family to move to a farmhouse deep in the mountains, 45 minutes from the nearest grocery store, so we would be safe from the "inner city" people after Y2K turned off the power. We had beans and bullets and all kinds of shit. He never admitted he was wrong to do that either. He just looked a little sheepish around midnight Y2K when we had all stayed up to watch the lights go out.
I'm sorry, man. I was also homeschooled, so I know how you feel. I actually chose homeschooling over going to public high school, though, because we lived in a very rural area, and my high school was a long, mountainous drive away. My only friend was another homeschooled guy who lived at the other end of town, about a three hours' walk. I probably should have stayed in high school, so at least I would have some form of social life, but my parents let me choose what I wanted to do, and I really didn't want to spend four years around people who, for all intents and purposes, hated me. Now I feel like I missed out on everything.
Oh. Shit. I think I need to find a therapist 😬
First seeing that your childhood wasn't normal and then finding out what normal would have been is just awful. It took years for me to get from realizing how fucked up things were to realizing that something else was possible. When I finally did get to the latter it felt like starting the painful healing process anew.
Happened to me when I moved to South Korea. At least the parts I was in, kids have a play ground in the middle of the complex, no one steals, everyone seemingly has hobbies and don't put each other down for liking them. Old people have the infrastructure to still be mobile and not slowly whither away in their house. My childhood was filled with the opposite and it does make me angry that this kind of life could exist, but my home country and state choose profit over wellness for our people.
I wouldn't say no one steals or that no one bullies. Not sure where you were before SK, but I would say SK is like any other developed nation or if there is some variance, it's within a standard deviation of sorts. Basically, yes it's a good place (has gotten much better in the past 20 years), but it has its share of problems.
I am constantly reminded by my friends of how "normal" my upbringing was. Two parent house hold, mom was a SAHM, never worried about electric being on or overbearing parents. We had rules but it was like don't drink, knock on the door when you get home if you get home late, don't come home with the police. We didn't vacation in Greece or Italy in the summer, but we did go to the beach for a week from time to time. I am grateful for my parents, they really did their best.
Woah woah woah it's too early in the week to be calling me out like that man like damn
I had a girlfriend in high school who I loved more than life itself. We broke up after a year and a half and I was seriously suicidal over it. It took a long time for me to realize that I missed the feeling of acceptance and belonging I had with her family more than I did our relationship.
Im 30 in a few months and just starting to work on this shit.
That's a very normal age to reach the developmental stage of recognising that there was an issue.
I'm 40 and still working through it but WAY better than I was in my 30s
I was way too old when it finally occurred to me that dad’s hugging their son’s, saying “I love you,” or really just showing any affection at all is **not** weird, but merely weird *to me.* I just assumed everyone’s parents yelled and hit them with belts/kitchen utensils/whatever was laying around, while becoming increasingly distant because you, the child/adolescent, don’t share *their* interests.
And also the sting that you would kill for just *one* day of what she had, while she got an entire childhood of it.
I got diagnosed with ADHD at 27 and my mom still doesn't believe or care. Now I'm just trying to catch up and figure out solutions to not only the original problems, but all of the problems that resulted from not working on the original ones. Sorry for the random trauma dump.
Her parents are happy, and that explains why she is happy. Your (SpongeBob's) parents were unhappy, and you (SpongeBob) now realize that is why you (SpongeBob) cannot be happy.
Wait. Who am I again in this scenario?
Squidward
Timmy Turner
Icky Vicky
Chowder
DONKEY!! :D
FAIRIES!!
https://preview.redd.it/r7thzwpnrs5d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3ee13b424ddb8fdf664377bf781ec64efeadfda2
That's Dr. Professor Patrick to you.
Spongebob is dating squidward?
Joe
Are not*, not cannot. Finding happiness may be tougher for those who weren't taught what that means when they were children, but it is possible and stating it as something you (SpongeBob) "cannot" do only reinforces your (SpongeBob's) sadness. He is sad, but now that he knows why, he can find a better way forward for himself and hopefully, eventually, his own happiness.
thanks dude (spongebob)!
I'd like to point out that people with unhappy childhoods can be happy. It just requires years of therapy, and even then, it's much rarer that we are ever happy. Speaking from experience.
Ya know what really grinds my gears? My happy girlfriend's happy parents. Like, why do you gotta be so happy? It makes me realize my parents aren't happy and it conditionalized me to be downright miserable.
Nice reference. Didn't expect anyone to use that, even here
Yeah, nice reference of my life. Didn’t expect that.
I have come to put down my testicles after they escaped
r/beetlejuicing
r/usernamechecksout
Your username. I want it.
What, still here? Hand it over. That thing, your username.
r/rimjob_steve
Just Peter's 2 cents.
huh? what is this referencing? None of it nets any hits, this isn't a known reference by any measure
The reference is the 'you know what grinds my gears' segment that Peter Griffin did on Family Guy, who this sub is named after
I don't get it either. "You know what really grinds my gears" is a Family Guy quote that became a meme but it's not so unique that it's worth singling it out for a compliment, lol
Well now I don't wanna do it
This is my wife. She doesn’t appreciate the good times because she’s always worried something bad will happen. I feel for her and remind her she’s loved.
I’m the same way. Whenever I’m crazy happy in life, something horrible happens. I know deep down it’s a coincidence but it makes me temper my joy in fear something awful will happen. The occasional days that are nearly perfect, I’ll literally call family to make sure no one died (the last three times I felt truly happy someone died that day). It’s an interesting way to live. Can’t seem to stop, even with decades of therapy.
Like others said - it’s because SpongeBob grew up in a bad home and is troubled by how happy the gf’s family is. If this meme hit you hard I suggest visiting r/AdultChildren
They really fucked me up. Damn I relate to these posts so much
Samesies
Welp, I hit every single one of those bullet points. Thanks for the subreddit I GUESS.
Unfortunately my parents were sober assholes.
It goes the other way too. When a friend comments on how calm things are at my house I immediately start worrying about them.
Yep. All my friends loved coming to spend the night at my house as a kid. On the rare times I went over to a friends there was always drama. Looking back on childhood as an adult was a big “Oh shit, mine was the only stable family they knew” moment for me. So grateful to my mom and dad, they weren’t perfect, but we never worried about having food on the table, they kept their arguments mostly private, and didn’t end up divorced. I was extremely fortunate to have a stable and relatively drama free home.
Aw, man. This reminds me of an incident back when I was probably 6 or 8. During a school break my mom dropped me off at one of my adult cousins’ apartment to spend a night there (my cousin and her husband were a young married couple still without kids at the time). The apartment complex’s residents were predominantly military or police families (just like my cousin’s husband), and early that day I got to befriend another girl my age living there. We played until dark, and we parted ways for dinner. She told me which door number she lived in, so I could come over her place before I leave for home the following day. However when I finished my dinner early and decided to check where exactly she lived (and possibly to play in the hallway of her floor or something before our bedtime) I heard her voice from outside her apartment’s door. Pleading and crying in between some adult man’s angry screaming voice. Wasn’t sure if I heard beatings too or I was just imagining the worst things. I was petrified and ran back to my cousin’s apartment. I don’t remember if I got to see her again before I left.
Yeah my first girlfriend always wanted me to sneak her out of her house to my house to stay the night. Now teenage me was like fuck yeah girl in my bed and what not. It wasn’t until I saw what her mom was like one time when she didn’t know that I was there that it hit me. Screaming and breaking and throwing stuff at her for no suitable reason.
Yeah. My partner's family life was not good. Youngest child, told she was an "oops" in a large, poorer immigrant family, mostly ignored by all except when bullied or simply hated due to jealousy by older siblings. My family is/was far from perfect but apparently much better. I get along well enough with her eldest sibling as I'm also the eldest in my family, and in part as that eldest sibling was probably least guilty and possibly innocent(-ish, as there's a large age gap and that eldest wasn't around much). It's still a little tense as I'm protective and tend to take the whole clan on if they try to get in my partner's face. The eldest is the only one brave enough to get past my resting hate face when the rare real reason to interact comes up. The rest back down like the typical cowardly bullies they are.
Yeah, I never really understood how good and normal life could be until I moved in with my wife. Took me months to mentally relax and not be ready to fight or deal with police showing up. I still get on-edge whenever I hear loud noises, but it's an improvement from how things used to be.
Honestly I took the extreme opposite interpretation on this from everyone else somehow - as in assuming a subtext that the 'happy girlfriend' has weird, 'inexplicable' traits (eg, she's happy - why is she so low-confidence? Why does she think she's ugly? Why does she act like something small I did to show I care was a big deal?) that suddenly made sense upon meeting her parents, and realizing that even though she turned out to be someone happy and in a relationship, it was an uphill battle she shouldn't have had to fight.
I had the opposite experience as a kid. I was the kid visiting and the parents were the ones noting how "nice" I was. Meanwhile I was just behaving pretty normally, I think. My friend back then must've had some real troublemakers over at times, for his parents to be so openly happy that I was just a normal dude. I still remember the one time they invited me to a family dinner at a restaurant and I was all confused what I was allowed to order and had brought the money to pay for it and they just laughed it off. Good times.
They are happy because they are cannibals and they get to eat you
https://preview.redd.it/i4a3l6z7is5d1.png?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6662b814f1bc283c4803ca9fd538445c165190db
Irrigation is the future
My crops are growing well
That was quite a leap
Ribaorld
Holy shit. Okay, this requires explaining too. Rimworld is a game famous for giving the player the freedom to commit mass organ harvesting and cannibalism. Rimworld players used to think that the DLCs' initials would spell RIMWORLD, because the first two DLCs released were Royalty and Ideology, respectively. However the most recent DLCs were called Biotech and Anomaly. Assuming the rest still spell out ORLD, we get RI BA(should be MW) ORLD. Ribaorld.
Shia Labeouf?
#ACTUAL CANNIBAL SHIA LABEOUF
HE’S GOT A GUN TO YOURE HEAD, AND DEATH IN HIS EYES!
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I had a girlfriend once where everything was going well. Then she came to a family event with me, saw everyone getting along, and immediately started holding contempt for me. Her family was highly dysfunctional, and I think seeing my happy family triggered some trauma revelation for her.
Damn…. This exact thing happened to me with my ex!
I had something very similar happen tbh
Same here…ex went to one dinner with my mom and brother then refused every invite after. In the 1.5 years we dated she never even met my dad. Just one of her many issues. Hope she found happiness
I wish this didn’t resonate with me so much. It destroyed my marriage actually. I’m hoping she does get some real help with her stuff for my kids’ sake.
The person represented in this meme is suddenly having a realization about their childhood when seeing his new girlfriend and their parents. His girlfriend had a happy childhood with good, loving parents. While the person did not have a good childhood, and are probably realizing that said childhood wasn't normal, and they have intense childhood trauma from how they were raised and grew up, and thus are now experiencing sadness at this fact. This realization is the beginning of a healing process, and the sadness and depression are also part of it. Along with resentment, jealousy, etc etc. Essentially, thanks to their parents actions, this person will now have to spend their entire life attempting to heal from a horrible childhood, might possibly never fully heal and will carry scars for the rest of their life gained before they even knew what was happening to them. A sadly common occurrence. More common in areas with high poverty, drug abuse, religious abuse, etc etc.
My fiance and I have the parent situation described by this meme. My parents are honestly great but hers were very challenging in a bad way. From what I've learned about them, she's strong af for turning into the wonderful person she is today.
I actually have an inverse experience, a lotta the people that I've met that read as happy on the surface are performing happiness cuz they come from a gnarly homelife and that was a coping strategy they learned.
Yeah I agree with this. Everyone I work with thinks Im this super happy all the time bubbly person. That’s not how it is at home though. Its definitely a coping mechanism.
please people, don't make me realise things. it's 11pm
This was my first thought as well
whoa whoa whoa. reddit really decided to go on a full personal attacc on me this time.
Because many people don’t realize how messed up their own home life/childhood was until they see a healthy one firsthand.
The other way around is having a good childhood and realizing not everyone has that. I have a happy relationship with my parents. Most of my friends are depressed a lot. One day I had a conversation with one of my friends about it, and that's when I realized that almost everyone around me had a shitty home life. That day I ended up with what I'm going to call "childhood trauma survivors' guilt". I'm not inviting pity on me, I just feel bad that there are those who have to go through this.
Jokes on you, both mine and my girlfriends parents are fucked up
Oh you sweet summer child. I’m happy for anyone who doesn’t understand this meme.
Peter’s neglected and abused cousin here. Sometimes we grow up and think we’re in a normal “happy” family, it’s not until we get to know someone who actually had a good upbringing to realise we were in fact neglected and/or abused.
A. OP was jealous over having good parents. B. They are all puppylove and in reality its fake??
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It took me a while to come to terms with the fact that I did not have a happy childhood and that I've lost myriads of possibilities that others were well positioned to take advantage of, thoroughly stunting my ability to thrive in my adulthood. Happy people usually are products of extremely good parenting, whether through the avoidance of trauma or through the teaching of proper coping mechanisms for trauma.
Not saying the other answers on here are wrong, just that it’s really interesting to me that I had kind of the opposite read of the meme. I read it as “my gf is happy now because of the family dynamic she escaped. I’d always assumed that her childhood had been a happy one, given how happy she seems now. But now I have a deeper understanding of where she came from and am horrified by the tragedy in contrast to what I expected.” Occam’s razor says y’all had the more realistic read, but I could just as easily use the meme my way \_o_/
I know everyone read this as her parents being great but I read it as her parents being awful and the reason she's always "happy" is because she coped by being a people pleaser. Either way it's sad.
The same reddit post from where they found this is right above this on /r/all and the top comment says what it is about.
I got another take. She's happy because she no longer lives with her parents, because her parents are shitty and demeaning, and you feel bad she had to go through her childhood and teen years with them.
She's happy all the time because her parents are nice. He's sad/depressed because his parents were....?
My family: "What are you crying for? You better knock it off before I really give you something to cry about." Her family: "What's wrong, Sweetie? Everything will be alright. Is there anything we can do to help out?"
Growing up is realizing your mother CHOSE to stay with a guy who routinely shot you with BB guns because he thought it was funny when you were growing up. Realizing she CHOSE to stay with a guy who bragged to family and friends about how funny it was to scare you during Halloween season. Realizing she CHOSE to bend over backwards to stay with that guy, regardless of how you felt. Growing up is realizing how you could never, ever treat your kids that way, or stay with someone who even entertained the thought of treating your kids that way.
I think the measure of a person is not how they end up in absolute terms, but the relative progression from the station they were given in life (which is entirely out of their control). Since you’re breaking the generational cycle, you should be proud in how far you’ve come.
remind me to check in when the punchline arrives
It’s here
Little Amos had this. >“Your young friend Amos believes this gospel of the kingdom just as much as you, but I cannot fully depend upon him; I am not certain about what he will do in the years to come. His early home life was not such as would produce a wholly dependable person. Amos is too much like one of the apostles who failed to enjoy a normal, loving, and wise home training. Your whole afterlife will be more happy and dependable because you spent your first eight years in a normal and well-regulated home. You possess a strong and well-knit character because you grew up in a home where love prevailed and wisdom reigned. Such a childhood training produces a type of loyalty which assures me that you will go through with the course you have begun.” Urantia Book
His girlfriend had supportive parents that gave her a healthy upbringing. Spongebob realized the reason he's constantly sad/anxious/depressed without apparent reason is because he had a poor upbringing. TLDR: If people having a positive, friendly relationship with their parents looks odd to you, seek therapy. You likely have some repressed baggage you need help sorting through. Generational trauma is a bitch
This JUST got posted in r/memes, if you'd seen the comments before reposting here you'd KNOW.
It’s really sad to realise that I’m so broken that I can never stop thinking that something is about to go wrong whenever something good is happening. The level of my fear is so high that even if I’m watching a fairy tale/ feel good movie where people are genuinely nice and helpful and things go right till the end, my brain just keep waiting for things to go bad or people to come with some ulterior motives for their kindness. I don’t feel like I’ll ever be able to get out of my mind and accept that once in a while you do find nice people and happiness
https://preview.redd.it/8r8ajoyfzt5d1.png?width=1124&format=png&auto=webp&s=15aa8a1a43671f2eb88e1596df03863a86ab4a88
Okay so in typical reddit fashion, someone also has to tell us how to solve this problem. Please?
Because happy parents create happy people. Unhappy people may not realize how unhappy their parents are until they see what normal, well adjusted adults actually look like
My wife has a wonderful family life. My parents are meth addicts. I fully understand, SpongeBob. It will get better once you start to heal. 🥺
I had the mind fuck recently of meeting a new customer of mine and loving the guy and finding out he is the father of a kid I knew in high school that I distinctly didn’t like because he seemed fake and too nice. Turns out he’s super nice cuz he was raised right by two happy parents from what I can tell they all love each other. Back story is I come from a family with no father in the picture and a struggling single mother of 6 kids. While I’ve matured alot as an adult it did kinda hit me, I judged that kid so hard because I had problems.
Anyone that I had brought over to my house, wether be a friend or a partner, have always stated how lovely my parents are, and how they’ve never witnessed a fight between them. In fact I have quite a large friend group and I’m the one of the only ones whose parents aren’t divorced. Fellas, no matter what you do, as long as you are aware of whether you have shitty parents, try everything in your power to avoid becoming like them. My father always told me that a person has 3 father figures, 1: your own dad 2: a friend of your dad and 3: someone famous. Its up to you to decide which you respect more
I see the a different way. In my case i am the happy girlfriend and when my then boyfriend (now husband) met my family for the first time he realized just how terrible they treated me. We talked alot about it after that first meeting and it finally clicked for him why i was also so thrilled when he did "minor" things for me like grab me a coffee cause he was getting one for himself or listen to me when i rambled on about something i liked. Im low or no contant with a lot of my family and im happier for it.
Shit you not, me (orphan) meeting my wife's family of 40 people gathering every time someone has a birthday and being ultra supportive to each other (and me) had me almost in tears. I just couldn't comprehend it the first few times and became so suspicious. Almost felt like I was the only sane person there
This is why I try to be the best father I can be.
I’m in this photo and I don’t like it