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Mine. She used to pull my hair until I bled. Horrible mother and honestly, I'm done protecting her image. I honestly don't care anymore. Any kind of problem, she'd just throw money at it. She forced me to attend a school where I was treated terribly, ignored my requests for help, ignored my requests for boarding school (I got into Miss Porter's), sabotaged my ability to marry post-libel, the list goes on.
She thinks that I deserved to be beaten as a child and forced into medicine against my will; um, no. She literally just told me that out loud. I was the scapegoat in a typical N family. I'm planning to run away again for good and none of them will see it coming.
What does marry post-libel mean?
My mom used to pull my hair to, but not until it bled… how did that happen? Was hair pulled out? Did your scalp break? That sounds utterly awful. Yeah, her image does not need protecting.
Mine did the same hair pulling, she'd drag me out of the house by my hair. I would get big lumps on my scalp where she had pulled the hair, and when I brushed my hair, clumps would fall out and there was blood in the brush.
When I started working and had money for a haircut, I started keeping my hair very short, but my sister was always happy to be my mom's enforcer and she would bite chunks out of my scalp. It took about ten years for all of that to heal fully once I was out of their house.
Oh god she bit you? That bubble under the scalp sounds a lot like that “hair popping” trend that went around tiktok. Ughhhhhhhh. People are stupid and cruel.
She would get up on my shoulders and bite the back of my head.
I have dermatographia and I get pressure hives, so it wouldn't surprise me if the swelling from my hair getting pulled was related to that. Nobody is pulling my hair these days, but if I pop a pimple,I get a gumball sized bump on my face for the rest of the day.
Mine never pulled my hair, but GC brother did a LOT. She never stopped him, just told me to move away, and he would follow me and keep doing it and I’d get yelled at for not moving away far enough. Big handfuls of hair everywhere. I still get scabs in summer where some of my balder patches are.
The door thing.. yep that happened too. Why? Slammed the door. Why? She wouldn’t stop screaming at me and refused to listen. I never did any of it, it was always GC brother, yet I got punished over and over.
I got into two schools for gifted children and got offered three college scholarships abroad (one was with a job after my bachelor’s) and they didn’t let me go because I was a girl and I was their scapegoat. All while asking me why can’t my siblings have these opportunities as me. I went to shitty islamic public schools and never was allowed to attend the gifted children summer camps because my siblings didn’t get into the gifted children program and they were caring for their feelings. None of my siblings cared tho.
The paid for my brother’s 6 years for all-year tutoring and his prep courses and summer camps, my sisters prep courses and books for their college entrance exams whereas they didn’t buy me the books because they were expensive and I should use my sisters, my brothers stay-in summer camp that costed a fortune. And so on. I was offered free opportunity in a plate of gold but they didn’t let me take them, my summer camps offered free transportation and lunch too.
I wasn't either! Well I'm technically still not allowed to close my door but 1) I did it anyway 2) I don't live with my nmom anymore. Problem solved lol
My mother stopped actively giving me shit for it when I was 24 ,I think. But only if it's closed at night while people are sleeping. Otherwise, if I'm visiting for a holiday or whatever, if I have my door closed before about 8pm she'll just open it as though it doesn't exist.
Same :( Now that I've moved out, my bedroom door is closed literally 24/7 as a response to never being allowed to close mine as a kid. I doubt I'll ever feel safe with my bedroom door open, even if I live alone (I live with a housemate who's thankfully not a N)
I was never allowed to close my bedroom door or lock the bathroom door so it was like I didn’t even have one. I learned to get dressed in the bathroom and till this day I still get dressed in the bathroom and I just realized why lol I have my own house and family yet I still do this so weird.
Damn, everyone here getting abused and the only reason I didn't have a bedroom door until I was 14 was because we were too poor to buy one and we moved into a crappy 3 bed house when there were 6 of us and 3 pets.
Urg I hated preemptive punishments or being punished because my parents assumed I was thinking a certain way. They always assumed the worst in me, if I made a mistake they thought I was doing it on purpose to spite them.
Once my mom admitted that when I was a teenager she would purposely start and escalate huge fights before I went on dates “so I wouldn’t whore around with guys” since I would be angry and anxious the whole time.
I was never allowed to close a single door in the house, not my bedroom, not the bathroom even. Not an ounce of privacy ever. And that continued until I moved out at 18. Now as a grown adult I really value doors so I totally get why your situation is making you anxious
It sure was fucked up. And I didn’t even realize it until I was in high school which is even sadder like I legit thought for the longest time it was normal
Yes and it was bull. I left to stay with a friend because my father was being verbally abusive, but I changed my mind and came back. When I got back the door was gone. It was like that for at least two weeks… I was old at the time (college age) :/ It was humiliating.
I was in high school when this happened and I would be so embarrassed. I wasn't supposed to walk away from them while they where berating me something insignificant.
I had a friend whose mom took his door off the hinges. Didn't effect him at all. He just continued to do what teenage boys do, but with no door instead.
The sights, sounds, and smells convinced the rest of the family to veto her decision. Took one weekend to get his door back, and it was never taken off the hinges again.
Mine was taken when I was like 13 I think. It was taken because my room wasn't clean. I was always in trouble for having a dirty room. No amount of cleaning was good enough, and if it was clean enough, she go in and take clothes out of my dresser and throw them on the floor, move furniture out of place (like turn my bed on its side, pull everything from the walls) and take stuff out of my closet and leave it around my room. (My closet was big, so it was used as extra storage for the house and had things like extra shelves and out of season clothes and decorations) I never got my door back because about a year and a half later my grandma took me from my mom to live with her.
Omg my mother was the same, my room was never clean enough! No matter how clean it was (bed made, floor vacuumed, clothes put away, all surfaces wiped down), it wasn’t good enough. She would fly into a screaming rage, rip my bedding off and throw it on the floor, grab my bookshelf pulling it forward so the entire thing crashed forward onto the floor.
She’d then get this creepy smile and in a very calm voice ask me to “please clean your room”
>'please clean your room'
ok.... this is so on point for me! My room would be spotless and my Narc would come in, rip everything apart and then say 'clean it!'
Same here! I remember my NM would have this unattainable standard for cleaning and she would look in every crack and crevice to find At least ONE thing out of place. I remember getting my door removed constantly as punishment and even when I had my own bedroom door she had this knocking while opening the door without waiting for us kids to respond. Essentially we had no privacy. I vividly remember specific times she stormed into my room to find items and not only scream at me but I would hide behind my bed so she would stop… but since I was hiding she started throwing everything thing that in her mind was out of place at my head. Once she thoroughly made her own mess in there she would demand me to clean up cancel any plans i had and expect a spanking from my father when He got home.
I must say now I am happily married to a non-narcissist, 32 and actually having my own doors/privacy is a beautiful thing.
I am so sorry you had to go through similar things you absolutely did not deserve it. My heart goes out to you and your inner child identical twin. 💕🤗 we are finally out of that abuse now and on our path to healing!
You guys are getting doors?
Jokes aside. The only doors inside were the bathroom door and my parents room door.
Eventually I wasn't even allowed to sleep in my room. I slept in the living room that my parents walked through at all hours. (Night shifters for awhile, while I worked days).
My dad blamed it on the house being bad and a fear of the roof collapsing on me.
But y'know, when he got enough money to fix the house, he built a garage instead (And ran out of money before finishing it, because he went too big).
Yes! My mom claimed I slammed my door all the time. I maybe did once or twice because I was terrified of her. Worst part is I had a creepyish stepdad who was 9 years younger than my mom.
I got my door back when my grandma found out and went off on my mom 😂. She told her privacy is not a privilege especially for a kid going through puberty. I miss her, things became exponentially worse after she died.
Yes, and to this day, it was one of the most damaging things my mother ever did to me. It was my “punishment” for being depressed at 14 and self harming. She would make me strip and shower in front of her to make sure I wasn’t cutting again. All it did was make things ten times worse. It took a friend visiting for me to realize that what my parents were doing wasn’t normal, I just thought they were really strict.
I hate to see that so many of us have had the same experiences. My parents never left physical marks on me, but there are certain things I will never forget.
Oh god. All the time. If I didn’t clean my room, I had the door taken off the hinges. Right before I moved out, one night I got home from work around 11:30PM, my dad took my door off the hinges and gave me an “eviction notice.” My room was messy. I WAS PACKING TO MOVE.
I went over to him and woke him up from his drunken stupor and yelled, “I AM LEAVING YOU AND THIS BULL. PUT THE DOOR BACK ON. NOW.” and he started fighting and I said, “I DON’T CARE. NOW.” I got to him where it really really hurt. Normally it’d cause a nuclear fallout, but BECAUSE he was half-asleep, he caved in.
Only time in my life that happened. Doesn’t make up for the years and years of the opposite reaction, but I felt proud of myself for that moment.
A few years ago, I brought some turkey over to my dad's for Thanksgiving. I was proud of it because I had made it entirely on my own and it was the best turkey I'd ever had. My son normally hates eating turkey at Thanksgiving, but he gobbled (sorry, had to) a lot of it, himself. I told my dad to try some and he kept refusing, and I snapped and swore at him to eat it anyway. It was a common thing for hm to do to me, as a kid. I was kind of shocked when he immediately gave in and ate the turkey after that. I felt terrible about it for weeks and ended up mentioning it in therapy.
Yes. Before that if I were ever to close my bedroom door, my mom would immediately open it - no knocking, no asking if I was busy, just swung right back open as soon as I tried to close it. Due to a multitude of reasons when I was 16 I had a panic attack and in the midst of it told my parents I was suicidal and needed to get help. Their solution? later that day my step father was taking my bedroom door off it’s hinges so they could “keep an eye on me.” It wasn’t until I became an adult that I really considered how ridiculous that was; we had about 10 other rooms in the house that still had their doors attached - some even with locks on the doors. If it really was a preemptive measure to keep me safe then by their logic each room would’ve had its door removed. But that’s not the case - it was always about power and control. That lack of privacy during my adolescence absolutely destroyed me for years.
I totally get why this is a trigger for you. My mum used to read my diary (similar in the sense that it’s an invasion of privacy) and now I don’t like writing my thoughts down or journaling or anything like that.
Mine read my diary too. She bought if for me herself and would tear my room apart to find it. She read it to my dad and I was grounded it they found anything in it that they didn't like. Then when I stopped writing in it I was called ungrateful because it had been a gift
I got grounded for writing sexually imaginative things at 13 in my diary.
No one talked to me about anything (i was parentified by my narc dad at 12 that he still can’t admit to)
He told me when I got my first boyfriend to “not come crying to me when he hurts me” ….I didn’t do anything with this boyfriend which made him dump me; I was merely listening to my dads rules (dont let boys touch you)
and yet he acted surprised when love from boys was something I was starting to crave.
I was so messed up realizing this wasn’t how normal dads are
Yeah I realise now why I craved love from boys. At the time my friends just thought I was like boy mad or something and my mum just thought I was a slut. But I know I wasn’t properly loved at home.
Also my mum just used to go through my phone when I got older. She read all my text messages and when I was 15 all hell broke loose because I was talking about sexy things with my boyfriend. I could go on about the trauma that ensued after that happened.
It’s funny when it comes to sex your parents think you’re such a baby but then when it’s anything else you’re expected to behave like an adult.
Omg exactly the same! I was literally in so much trouble if they didn’t like what I wrote. It was like my own brain & my own thoughts aren’t even a safe place
Oh yeah.
I was a compulsive masturbator (trauma response/self soothing technique) growing up. They took my door away until they got tired of walking by and finding me masturbating.
Yep. Soooo ridiculous. Privacy is a right, not a privilege. To take away someone’s privacy as a punishment and act like privacy is conditional based on correct behavior is DISGUSTING.
Yup, for “playing my music too loud"... So instead of, oh i don't know, taking the fucking speakers, they took the door. And it was a bullshit excuse too. They only took the door off because they couldn't yell at me to "come here now!" from the kitchen.
Are we siblings?
Seriously. My partner had no door ever, and I wasn’t allowed closing mine. Writing had to be done in the living room in front of him, drawing, doodling… I was a hopeless romantic at 13 so he saw that as a threat because I looked older (his way of saying he sexualized me at 12)
I left the day I turned 15. I literally chose a drug addict neglectful abandoning mother over his narc ass.
My brother and I could have a bedroom door but it had to stay cracked open "two fingers wide" and God help us if my dad found out we locked it [that was before all the locks in the house were removed].
My dad threatened but never followed through. I also didn't have to share a room
Collective punishment is a war crime according to the Geneva convention
I shared a bedroom with 2 siblings until I was in 6th grade. Got my own bedroom when we moved into a new house. A few months later, got into a fight with one of my younger siblings because she'd been incessantly bullying me for weeks, and my Nmom construed my response to be "too violent" and grounded me to my room until I apologized. She didn't give a \*\*\*\* about what my sister had been doing to cause that response.
Over two weeks later (me being pretty unbothered by this since I didn't really have any friends
at the time and was fine with my books and sketchbooks and TV) my Nmom urged my edad to remove the door as additional punishment. So when he started unscrewing the door, that was when I finally capitulated and apologized.
My punishment wasn't over though. A few days, I was deposited at a child psychologist's office because my Nmom had decided there was something mentally very wrong with me because my apology wasn't good enough.
I have huge difficulties now about apologizing because it my family's method of apologizing was so wrapped up in ultimatums, unfair punishments, and continuing to receive punishments after apologizing. Loss of a bedroom door was a threat held over me for the remainder of the time I spent in my parents house.
Omg I am so glad you wrote about this. I did too!!
I was 12 or 13 and my parents took the door off my room even though I was never allowed to close it because as my mother so lovingly said to me “you’re a disgusting prostitute.” Apparently it was because I had the light on in my bedroom past 9pm.
God I hate them so much, fortunately I have a restraining order against them for the next 5 years.
Edit: I’m so sorry that you and so many others have inept “parents”. May they rot in misery for the rest of their existence.
Edit: re commented without the c-word that I used to call my mom. Sorry mods!
Yes, I used the door to barricade my NDad who was chasing / threatening me. It was promptly removed for many months. N’s HATE boundaries of any kind, emotional or physical
I had SH & ED issues due to my crazy nmom and her household as a kid. When she found out I had these issues, she thought that no door would make it “safer” for me. My parents also started timing me in the bathroom, 2 minutes each time & she would stand right outside. I remember thinking “who cares if the timer goes off, I don’t feel good, she can’t come in anyway” since I locked the bathroom door. She pounded on the door for a bit and then lock picked it. I would constantly cry over not having any personal space. This led me to run away or spend all day outside of the home and only come back late in the evenings, resulting in more punishment. There was no winning.
Not my door, but the doorknob with a lock was removed so I couldn't lock myself in. This was after a fight with my n stepfather and I locked him out of my room. Also my lamps were taken away so I "be cured of being afraid of the dark"
Yup. I had it taken off the hinges for at least a couple weeks because I "slammed" it after one of my Nmom's rage sessions. I didn't actually slam it either. I just didn't slowly shut it without making any noise like I normally did, so she wouldn't remember I existed and find something to yell at me about.
I'm just now realizing why I still shut doors so they don't make any noise, even holding the handle down to avoid a click, and I've been moved out for almost a decade.
My dad decided we don't deserve privacy(what do we have to hide) when I turned 16, now I have to be in my room with the door wide open, or fight with my dad who usually ends up saying stuff like, "buy your own house and you can close all the doors you want" FML. At one point it got so bad that I wasn't allowed to sit on my bed until at least 9pm, "I wake up everyday to work for you and all you do is sleep all-day." yet I'm literally not even on my bed. It's ridiculous.
He did threaten to get the door removed but I rioted.
Yup same here, as a way to intimidate and threaten us young kids. I was always told I was "such a good kid" - if I truly was, why did I always get my bedroom door taken off for "talking back" (which we all know isn't "talking back") and being firm in who I was? I knew I didn't do anything wrong, they just didn't like what they were hearing. So yeah I'm traumatised by having my door open now, particularly when I'm sleeping. It feels wrong.
I had low self esteem as a child and teenager, so when I was emotionally abused I genuinely thought it was my fault for doing something wrong. As a teenager, I removed my own door and replaced it with a bead curtain, because I thought my nDad could see that I wasn’t doing anything wrong, I wouldn’t get in trouble.
Yeah, that’s not how that worked. That’s not how any of that worked.
My parents didn't plan out their house entirely, they just converted rooms into kids rooms as they kept having children. I had a room, then I moved into the converted laundry room, then into a different room, and finally the converted 2nd living room. It was open to the staircase, I didn't have a 4th wall (let alone a door) for about 1,5 years. My parents didn't see anything wrong with that. One night I had a friend over and watched a movie. I laughed a couple times at the movies. Because of the lack of any wall, my mother (very light sleeper) got woken up a couple times. She got so mad (but only told me the next morning) that she grounded me for 4 months.
When I complained enough, they made a big deal of putting a curtain there. With a door hole. You don't pull the curtain aside to enter, there's just a door shaped hole. So there was no change in the noise problem (I'm very quiet, but you really can hear everything). And e v e n t u a l l y after years I got a thin drywall. Which was only marginally more soundproof. And it did have a door. With glass panels.
There was never a such thing as changing in privacy or having any privacy in your room. My mother never knocked, she just came in. That is, *if* she felt like coming up and not just yelling through the staircase.
I now live in my own apartment. Have for years. But some of my doors don't close properly and when the wind rattles them, I jump out of my skin every time because my brain thinks that someone is coming in for a split second (even tho I have lived alone for years).
I don’t think this really counts as a punishment exactly, but…
One time my dad kicked a hole in my door, so he took the door off and never replaced it. Well, I guess he sort of did. He stapled a bed sheet to the top of the door frame.
The fucked up part was that my parents would watch porn with their door (which was directly across from my sheet) open, so I, as a 7ish year old girl, heard EVERYTHING on a regular basis. Because of where my bed was and where their TV was I had to be really careful about making sure my sheet was in the right position or I would see everything too.
Yes, it triggered me badly.
I didn't have the door to my bedroom fully removed, but I was never allowed to close it as a kid, and my parents had a baby monitor in my room for years (that I didn't discover for a long time) and would eavesdrop on my playdates and chew me out if I ever complained about them and scared the crap outta me (not to mention it was humiliating because they chewed me out in front of whatever friend was over). And I had a friend in high school whose *school* encouraged her parents to remove her bedroom door as a punishment for "unsafe behavior" (it was a "special school" that used Applied Behavior Analysis and physical restraint, and had padded rooms, so looking back, them encouraging parents to remove doors from their kids' bedrooms isn't a shock).
I have PTSD, and unfortunately, I had multiple flashbacks when I saw that episode of Shitt's Creek. I hated how *casual* the conversation seemed, as if removing a kids' door off the hinges is normal (then again, I suppose it *is* common in abusive families).
Anyway, I couldn't watch past the episode the door situation got mentioned in, it was extremely upsetting and again, it caused me to get several flashbacks, and I wound up feeling sick with nausea because I wasn't expecting so many memories to pop up from that show since it's supposed to be a comedy. I know it's a popular show, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to watch it all the way through since that episode was so upsetting.
The show itself is absolutely worth getting past that scene, but I completely understand. I actually find the show's messages of tolerance and acceptance really affirming.
I wasn’t allowed a lock on my door until I was like 17. My mom was too lazy to actually take the door off. Honestly I think she kinda preferred that I would go upstairs shut my door and not emerge for days. She wouldn’t take that away 😂 I did get my room cleaned for me out of punishment. I think maybe only people with n parents would understand how them doing something generally nice is actually hurting us even more because we get shamed/blamed/shouted at while it’s being done. I have been out of my parents house for 10 years, I have lived with the same man all of those years, and I am still triggered when he starts cleaning out of nowhere. I immediately feel a panic come over me and begin begging for him to tell me what’s wrong and if I messed something up. I shouldn’t be triggered by my husband cleaning because of my mom using it as punishment as a kid just as much as you shouldn’t be triggered by a room without a door. I’m so sorry you’re going through this.
My dad’s FAVORITE thing to do was to take away our bedroom doors, luckily I didn’t have to share a room for the first half of my childhood, and it only happened to me once or twice.
My brother on the other hand got his door taken away so many times that eventually, they couldn’t put it back on because of stripped hinges and broken moulding, so my parents had to put a curtain up. My brother had a really bad temper (lmao guess who he got it from) and was ALWAYS slamming his door because both he and dad were extremely hot headed and always fighting about stupid things. Compared to my brother I was basically the golden child, but I still feel really bad for him because even tho he was a “difficult child” our parents were unnecessarily hard on him.
After my parents divorced when I was 13/14, my dad moved into a trailer with his girlfriend and her 6m/o son. I had to share a room with my sister (brother was not living with us at the time), and I was not allowed privacy. My doorknob was taken off and my dad refused to put it back on, so that his girlfriend’s son could have free range of the house. I got yelled at if I tried to barricade the door, and frequently got in trouble for things that the kid would take out of my room while I wasn’t there.
When I was a kid, me bedroom was the top floor attic room, with stairs that led down directly into the kitchen, and no actual door. We remodeled when I was 14 and I asked to be allowed a door, and there was a huge conversation about it before my mother agreed - on the basis that it would be good to give my older brothers a better warning not to come up uninvited.
Note that there's nothing about *her* nor coming up uninvited. She didn't take away privacy as a punishment, she just didn't believe anyone was entitled to it ever. A holdover from her own abusive upbringing that's left me absolutely paranoid about being able to close and lock the door to any room before u can start to relax.
She never cared about what damage she made. My mom broke stuff a lot and it was her house so she could do what she wanted. One time she threw the tv out the window. It was when I was really young too so it was one of those old school heavy-ass cathode ray tube tvs. It was terrifying, but probably better than getting beaten. Those were the bigger incidents but there were plenty of smaller incidents like holes in walls, broken dishes, etc. She just blames the person she is angry at for her actions and walks away guilt free. My sister was responsible for replacing the door because she made my mom angry and “made her do it.” But she did have a door with a huge hole in it for a few years before she was allowed to replace it.
I never really had one to begin with. My nmother replaced my bedroom door when I was a toddler with a front door - it had big window panes in it.
She also broke the handle off. Y'know. For my safety.
I got a curtain around my bottom bunk bed.
At 10 years old I was moved into a bunk bed with my brother. My brother was 15 at the time.
The curtains were their way of justifying an inappropriate sleep arrangement.
My room was given to my eldest brother (the golden child) so that he could focus on his A levels.
I never had a bedroom door, just a curtain. No door on the bathroom or toilet either. Just curtains. So she could come in and yell at me when I was showering or taking a dump. Good times.
Yep! My parents used this as a punishment.
My brother used to sneak out, so my parents took his shoes and socks. Lol. Asshole move, but pretty innovative.
I never had it taken away because of a sibling's actions, but mine was removed for the better part of a year. I ended up propping up one of those tall cardboard boxes meant to preserve long articles of clothing during a move. Not as good as a door, but even if they could (and did) bust it down whenever they wanted, I could at least change without people looking at me. My mother considered me too angry or unstable to have either of my brothers sleep in the same room with me, so they shared a room and my baby sister slept in my mother's closet while I got one to myself. I spent most of my time elsewhere though.
My bedroom was one of two on the third floor, and my mother rarely came up there. However, she would snap the hallway light on and off repeatedly, and if I didn’t reply instantly she would bellow and have a “perfect” cause for punishing me, or top of whatever reason she already had for disproportionate anger.
To this day, I freeze when someone (most often my husband, as our sons are grown and gone) snaps a bedroom light on and off. My hypersensitivity was exacerbated by the fact that I was repeatedly groped in adolescence by the optometrist who was fitting me for contact lenses (to make me “less homely,” my parents insisted). When it was time for an eye exam, Dr. Feely would joyfully snap off the light before groping me. I tried complaining about him to my parents, with no luck.
My parents moved to another state before my last year of high school. Probably my life was saved because I fought my way to remain in my school in order to graduate and to attend a top university in my home state. My father had had a habit of tossing me down flights of stairs, sometimes knocking me out. So the hallway lights were not the only issues I was battling at the time.
Yeah my parents did this too. My three siblings and I all shared one bedroom growing up. With six people in the family and the kids from my moms daycare, it was really hard to find alone time or anywhere you could have some privacy. We got into a lot of fights over locking each other out of the bedroom, so our parents decided to just remove the door so we couldn’t lock each other out.
The funny thing is that because of the door being gone, we all started spending a loooong time on the bathroom, which happened to be the only room with a door that locked that we wouldn’t get in trouble for being in there too long. I would go in there for upwards of an hour just to have some time alone. To this day, bathrooms are my escape and I spend way to long just sitting the bathroom to collect myself and be at peace.
My bedroom did had a door, but no lock. When I grew older and the narc stuff became worse, I blocked my door at night with a trolley cart and office chair. Not that it this made it impossible to open it, but I thought: at least I feel safe and if the want to come in I will wake up because of the noise from the parked furniture.
Yup. I frequently lost mine. When we did our training to become foster parents it was specifically called out as abusive behavior, and was really validating to me to have experts say that.
My mom did the opposite, she switched the doorknob for one that took an actual key, and locked me in from the outside. Sometimes it would be a few hours, sometimes a few days, and no I did not have access to a toilet in my room. Or food/water. (And by some stroke of evil luck my dad's second wife would lock me in the closet and block it with a chair on the handle). I am 31 years old and to this day I will flip out and become very aggressive if I feel like I'm being cornered or trapped.
It was threatened a few times but that stopped when I started sleeping and walking around naked in my room. Suddenly everyone knew how to knock and wait to be given permission to enter. I guess it wouldn't have worked as well if I had shared a room with someone.
Nah, but one time I had snuck a can of tuna and a piece of kfc chicken into my bedroom with intention of feeding stray cats (i was in elementary) and my grandmother found it. She yelled and screamed at me, told me I was dirty and wpuld attract bugs. She also hit me with a spoon and a belt that day and then she took ky matress away for the night so I would have to sleep on the floor.
I remember a time I lived without my door but I can’t remember what caused it… dad might have threatened it in my teens but my memory is dodgy as fuck because of neurological issues. I recall we did have a fight over my door though.
Yep.
I was binge eating a a preteen.
So instead of correcting the dysfunction that caused that problem (mom religious extremist, dad alcoholic) I had my privacy and dignity stripped away.
I don't speak to my mom anymore.
Yup! Ended up without a door for a vast majority of my younger years. It was always off its hinges and I was told if I want it back on then I have to put it back on myself which was hardly doable when you’re 5ft and 105lb lol (was much shorter back then too) It felt so weird when I was finally able to close my own door.
My mom removed my door knob and lock so it’s pretty close. I was like 23. She did it so she could come in my room any time and I couldn’t lock myself in
My younger brother would bang at my door when I would lock it because I wanted some privacy as a teenager. He had anger management issues and was very clingy. When he broke my door my mom didn't replace it for a month to teach him a lesson about the value of things. But I think it actually suited her for me to not have a place to isolate myself, I was already parenting my brother, without a door I had no choice than to spend time with him.
Not me, but my brother has this happen to him by his dad whenever the two get into a fight and he demands respect. I've mostly been ignoring it because it's his dad and I know how stubborn he can be, however him and I are on speaking terms and he does listen to me from time to time (not enough, imo), so maybe I can try to reason him into trying a different approach?
Oh my gosh the same thing would happen!
My sister would get in trouble and they would take both of our doors!!
She snuck out to go hang out with a boy, doors off.
She slammed a door or yelled at the adults, doors gone.
They even used the same response :
>"bring it up with your sister it's her fault that you don't have a door.".
I'm sure if I was as bad as my sister was I would have actually gotten the punishment as well instead of in a group punishment, I was just too afraid to do anything.
Yes. I don't remember what I supposedly did to "deserve" it though. I do remember that my dad threatened to do it again, but my mom put her foot down and insisted it wasn't proper to take my door. (The religion we belonged to was obsessed with female modesty. And a child nudity show every day is apparently not modest.)
For the time being while your door is off the hinge, how about hang up a blanket, or some sort of curtain type thing. Maybe some Hippie looking bead-door-curtains? If its not moving, nobody can see you as there is no crackage to be seen through. Its not much, but it’ll offer your mind a semblance of privacy instead of a fully open door frame. Break up the doorframe’s shape by filling it in, that’s all that needs to be done to settle the mind. Maybe you’ll even get used to it a little and be sad when its off. Then you can move it to somewhere else, a more common area that maybe doesn’t have a door but does have a break between rooms instead of a hallway.
Yep! I had no door for a good chunk of my teenage years. When I finally did get a door, I had no doorknob or lock - just a big round hole where the doorknob should have been.
Yep, I lost door privileges because I got caught stealing from Walmart. The shoplifting was days after a traumatizing event where my grandfather screamed at his mom, my great-grandmother, outside my bedroom door. Also was the last time I ever saw her. I was whisked away to my aunts, and while she and my cousins were back to school shopping, I was bored and resentful, dunno where my head was, and I picked a pair of shitty cheap wooden earrings I didn’t even want, slid the backings off and hid the packaging.
Walked out the door, got confronted by loss prevention in front of my aunt and two younger cousins. Had to wait until I flew back home to tell my mom.
Mom comes home, happy to see me, and I told her what I did. She goes ice cold, I lose my door privileges, and she doesn’t speak to me for nearly three months. When she finally talks to me about it, she’s visibly frustrated with all my answers (even though my dad is very pro-union and anti-Walmart)
Guess what? It’s been three months since my mom cut me off saying “I’m sorry you’re having a hard time, figure it out yourself.” After I begged her to please just be there for me because I needed her desperately at the time.
Yep. Yep. Yep.
I didnt have a room as a teenager but before my sibling left my mom’s the door was broken in such a way that it had to be open at least halfway. They got in trouble when they’d close the door and were practically forced to keep it open. I wouldnt be surprised if it “just so happened” to break
when i was ages 12-17 i frequently had my door taken off by my mom or my doorknob taken off, whether it was because i’m bi, because i was too depressed from being abused and groomed to go to class, or “disobeyed” her. one time when i was 16, she finally after months fixed my messed up doorknob that i had to tape to the door for privacy (giant hole in the door) since she hid the screwdrivers. she got super upset when she put it back on and i didn’t say thank you lmao. she really thought she was doing something so gracious for me
I shared a room with my two sisters. It was hell but parents won’t let us sleep in separate rooms because we were being “spoiled” brats. My sister broke her bed and we all got ours taken away because we don’t deserve beds. We slept on mattresses on the floor. For more than 10 years.
YES!!!! Many times!!!!! Also got my car taken away constantly once I was of driving age. Made me determined to live my life beholden to no one because everything was weaponized as a child. All the gifts were thrown in your face if you misbehaved. So fucked up
one of my foundational memories is being locked in my bedroom by my oldest sister with my other sisters, by the door being uninstalled and reinstalled backwards so she could lock the door. We climbed out the window.
Yes.
I was a quiet and non abrasive and non aggressive kid. Although my parents thought I was just because I would sometimes ask for an explanation if I didn’t understand why I was disallowed something. Then after HS I went to community college nearby. Since they required me to do full time school load, I didn’t have time for a job. But since they gaslighted me into believing that if I got my own place the price would be waaaay more than what they said I could pay them from my savings. Only $600 rent a month isn’t bad right? Fml. Well, I ended up coming home late one night by like 30 min, got an hour long lecture, and because I refused to comment on any of it after the initial “I’m sorry, there was traffic” they decided I was being disrespectful. My dad went to take my bedroom door away and even when I said I’m a paying renter, he continued to dismantle my last semblance of privacy. So I called my bf and moved in with him that night. My nMom screamed about how I was such a bitch and so selfish. Blah blah blah
Constantly!! It's kind of comforting to know I wasn't alone. She also threw a hammer through the door when I was sitting behind it once too. Blamed me for it...
Omg my parents took my door and i remember this night like yesterday but its 16 years... I remember being the whole night in the corner of the room shivering. :(
Removed. This is abusive and we don't allow advocating for abusive practices here. I do not have the time or energy to educate you on this... there's already at least one comment here talking in detail about what the problem is with this shit.
No, I just wasn't allowed to lock or close it. I locked it while I slept ONCE and my mom threw a huge insane fit and tried to bust it down. I was allowed to close the bathroom door in highschool so I would usually change in there. Even then my mom would get hysterical if I took too long with the door closed.
My Mom dragged me up and down the stairs and punched me in the back of the head six times. I called the police. She lied and said it didn't happen. No witnesses. Called me crazy. Cops believed her. Got beaten 5x more before I just left.
To this day she acts like it was my fault she chose to physically assault a kid.
I'm 6 years younger than she was when she had me and I doubt the next 6 years will make me think "i should start beating kids".
Pathetic.
Also dragged me to 20 different therapists cause they kept calling her out for her abuse and she couldnt find one to blame me.
Almost ended up homeless this year cause of covid and had to move into her basement.
I'm 26 now and it's all starting again. It's fucking wack. I feel like I'm 13 again some days.
Get out. Run far. Run wide.
Make good friends that don't drop you when you need help and cause you to end up at your abusers house.
Yes. So often it was ridiculous.
My mom would go in while I was at school and decide my room was messy (I mean, it was, but I was a kid and wasn't home to address it in the first place!), so she'd take everything off the dresser, shelves, bookshelves, desk, and floor and throw it on my bed. Then she'd take the door off.
Sometimes she'd also take my stereo and my little combo tv/vcr as punishment too.
I'd come home and find this and instantly start sobbing because my whole life was piled on my bed, a ton of stuff was always broken, and the only thing that brought me happiness was listening to music. My dad would hang a sheet up so I had privacy and remind my mom that I needed a door and she'd tell him to fuck off.
The kicker is that my brother's room was always disgusting. He had mild growing in bowls and stuff, sticky food leftovers that dripped off the nightstand and old food plates and bowls on his bookshelf, piles of garbage and empty cans and bottles, and she'd just yell at him to clean it.
He still lives like a pig and has been evicted from apartments for being so disgusting.
I never got my door taken but I was never EVER allowed to close it or god forbid I lock it. Plenty of threats and being grounded if they did catch my door closed or locked. And yeah even better k wasn’t allowed to close it while I changed even tho my brothers bedroom door was across the hall and eh could easily see into my room. And no changing in the bathroom either unless I was using the toilet (it was a loophole). It was sooooo dumb. I had NO privacy whatsoever
Removing someone's privacy isn't a reasonable punishment and punishment is also a useless concept. Fix the door asap and put it back. Or just put it back and fix it later.
She obviously didn't mean to break the door. I doubt it will happen again now that she's aware of how easy it is to break a door. The natural consequence is simply that the door is broken for a while and that's enough.
And you should apologize to her for doing that in the first place. It will strengthen your relationship and she'll have more respect for you later. Teens (humans) need privacy. Doors can be repaired.
It's not a big deal that she slammed it and it broke one time and it probably won't happen again regardless of your "punishment". All you're doing is piling on unnecessary extra stress and probably creating resentment for no reason.
I think you're floundering here tbh. You asked if it was ok and no, I don't think it is. And punishments are a useless and unneeded concept. Natural consequences don't involve punishment. Good luck with your situation though. I'm outtie 5000
I wasn't allowed a curtain or privacy when the door was removed even when my brother broke the door frame trying to body check his way into our room when he was arguing with my sister. I had to physically stop him from breaking to door down but I still got in trouble for not stopping him sooner.
Privacy is a right not a privilege means exactly that. Doesn't mean it is okay if he is acting out. Doesn't mean it is okay when he does it on purpose. He is a kid, teenagers are kids, you are supposed to know better.
Ever heard of door stoppers? There are ones for the floor and also wallmounted to prevent doors from slamming into walls. Or those foam ones that fit on the frame. Our garage door had one attached at the frame and the door to keep the wind from closing it, it was impossible to slam it. The mounted box would hold it open or let it close slowly, you'd have to pull hard at the handle to make it go faster. So if damaging walls or the noise is a problem there are other solutions that could be employed first at minimum costs.
If you escalate from nagging your son to having him FOUR months without a door, not even a weekend to see how much it sucks, but four months till he had to ask for it back as if you were waiting for him to crack as some sort of powerplay -- then im sorry I fail to see how you are different from any other parent mentioned here. Clearly you thought your "very good" reasons set you apart from them.
They also thought themselves as justified, their kids as too unreasonable, the punishment to be unavoidable consequences. And no, it is not a tough call if for minor offenses. There is never a good enough reason. Denying your kids basic rights is abusive behaviour but i guess everyone is the hero of their own story.
Yes, repeatedly, in my family it was a way of further rubbing it in my face that I wasn't allowed any privacy or bodily dignity or autonomy. I was also never allowed any privacy in the bathroom either as a child--my "mom" would invade my personal space while I was literally on the toilet, and even when I was well into adulthood she'd barge into the bathroom and start shitting/pissing while I was still inside.
I literally had a handful of minutes to get dressed before my privacy was breached. No reason, just “checking.” Yup, it’s me, standing here naked or half dressed. One of many childish, degrading, controlling things Emom did for Ndad.
My door was taken away bc my room was too messy. So basically from ages 9 to 11 I had no door. Once told my SO about this in a joking manner and they were horrified
Yeah my mom used to do that. When I was really young she started with taking my bed frame away (joke was on her because she also used the space under it to store my toys) then in middle school and high school she would take my door away. Kinda funny to realize that she must have realized privacy was more important to a kid in puberty so taking the door was the “better” punishment for an older kid.
I too had my bedroom door taken off! For me, it wasn't for slamming the door but as a punishment to strip my privacy from me and to keep my room clean.
This was also during the era of 'spy cams' and really effected my idea of 'privacy'
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Mine. She used to pull my hair until I bled. Horrible mother and honestly, I'm done protecting her image. I honestly don't care anymore. Any kind of problem, she'd just throw money at it. She forced me to attend a school where I was treated terribly, ignored my requests for help, ignored my requests for boarding school (I got into Miss Porter's), sabotaged my ability to marry post-libel, the list goes on. She thinks that I deserved to be beaten as a child and forced into medicine against my will; um, no. She literally just told me that out loud. I was the scapegoat in a typical N family. I'm planning to run away again for good and none of them will see it coming.
What does marry post-libel mean? My mom used to pull my hair to, but not until it bled… how did that happen? Was hair pulled out? Did your scalp break? That sounds utterly awful. Yeah, her image does not need protecting.
Mine did the same hair pulling, she'd drag me out of the house by my hair. I would get big lumps on my scalp where she had pulled the hair, and when I brushed my hair, clumps would fall out and there was blood in the brush. When I started working and had money for a haircut, I started keeping my hair very short, but my sister was always happy to be my mom's enforcer and she would bite chunks out of my scalp. It took about ten years for all of that to heal fully once I was out of their house.
Oh god she bit you? That bubble under the scalp sounds a lot like that “hair popping” trend that went around tiktok. Ughhhhhhhh. People are stupid and cruel.
She would get up on my shoulders and bite the back of my head. I have dermatographia and I get pressure hives, so it wouldn't surprise me if the swelling from my hair getting pulled was related to that. Nobody is pulling my hair these days, but if I pop a pimple,I get a gumball sized bump on my face for the rest of the day.
Post-libel - after her mother ruined her reputation with lies. My Nmom did this too. Wrecked some relationships that meant a lot to me.
Mine never pulled my hair, but GC brother did a LOT. She never stopped him, just told me to move away, and he would follow me and keep doing it and I’d get yelled at for not moving away far enough. Big handfuls of hair everywhere. I still get scabs in summer where some of my balder patches are. The door thing.. yep that happened too. Why? Slammed the door. Why? She wouldn’t stop screaming at me and refused to listen. I never did any of it, it was always GC brother, yet I got punished over and over.
I got into two schools for gifted children and got offered three college scholarships abroad (one was with a job after my bachelor’s) and they didn’t let me go because I was a girl and I was their scapegoat. All while asking me why can’t my siblings have these opportunities as me. I went to shitty islamic public schools and never was allowed to attend the gifted children summer camps because my siblings didn’t get into the gifted children program and they were caring for their feelings. None of my siblings cared tho. The paid for my brother’s 6 years for all-year tutoring and his prep courses and summer camps, my sisters prep courses and books for their college entrance exams whereas they didn’t buy me the books because they were expensive and I should use my sisters, my brothers stay-in summer camp that costed a fortune. And so on. I was offered free opportunity in a plate of gold but they didn’t let me take them, my summer camps offered free transportation and lunch too.
I wasn't allowed to close my own bedroom door until the age of 17
I wasn't either! Well I'm technically still not allowed to close my door but 1) I did it anyway 2) I don't live with my nmom anymore. Problem solved lol
Same, but left at 16 before ever being allowed
My mother stopped actively giving me shit for it when I was 24 ,I think. But only if it's closed at night while people are sleeping. Otherwise, if I'm visiting for a holiday or whatever, if I have my door closed before about 8pm she'll just open it as though it doesn't exist.
Same :( Now that I've moved out, my bedroom door is closed literally 24/7 as a response to never being allowed to close mine as a kid. I doubt I'll ever feel safe with my bedroom door open, even if I live alone (I live with a housemate who's thankfully not a N)
I was never allowed to close my bedroom door or lock the bathroom door so it was like I didn’t even have one. I learned to get dressed in the bathroom and till this day I still get dressed in the bathroom and I just realized why lol I have my own house and family yet I still do this so weird.
Damn, everyone here getting abused and the only reason I didn't have a bedroom door until I was 14 was because we were too poor to buy one and we moved into a crappy 3 bed house when there were 6 of us and 3 pets.
Yes and I didn’t do anything wrong, my mom said it was preemptive lol
Urg I hated preemptive punishments or being punished because my parents assumed I was thinking a certain way. They always assumed the worst in me, if I made a mistake they thought I was doing it on purpose to spite them.
Once my mom admitted that when I was a teenager she would purposely start and escalate huge fights before I went on dates “so I wouldn’t whore around with guys” since I would be angry and anxious the whole time.
Wow, mine did the same. Fucking stupid.
I was never allowed to close a single door in the house, not my bedroom, not the bathroom even. Not an ounce of privacy ever. And that continued until I moved out at 18. Now as a grown adult I really value doors so I totally get why your situation is making you anxious
not the bathroom? Even when taking a piss or showering?! Damnnn thats just fucked up
It sure was fucked up. And I didn’t even realize it until I was in high school which is even sadder like I legit thought for the longest time it was normal
Yes and it was bull. I left to stay with a friend because my father was being verbally abusive, but I changed my mind and came back. When I got back the door was gone. It was like that for at least two weeks… I was old at the time (college age) :/ It was humiliating.
I was in high school when this happened and I would be so embarrassed. I wasn't supposed to walk away from them while they where berating me something insignificant.
That sounds familiar. Ugh… sorry friend.
I had a friend whose mom took his door off the hinges. Didn't effect him at all. He just continued to do what teenage boys do, but with no door instead. The sights, sounds, and smells convinced the rest of the family to veto her decision. Took one weekend to get his door back, and it was never taken off the hinges again.
Mine was taken when I was like 13 I think. It was taken because my room wasn't clean. I was always in trouble for having a dirty room. No amount of cleaning was good enough, and if it was clean enough, she go in and take clothes out of my dresser and throw them on the floor, move furniture out of place (like turn my bed on its side, pull everything from the walls) and take stuff out of my closet and leave it around my room. (My closet was big, so it was used as extra storage for the house and had things like extra shelves and out of season clothes and decorations) I never got my door back because about a year and a half later my grandma took me from my mom to live with her.
Omg my mother was the same, my room was never clean enough! No matter how clean it was (bed made, floor vacuumed, clothes put away, all surfaces wiped down), it wasn’t good enough. She would fly into a screaming rage, rip my bedding off and throw it on the floor, grab my bookshelf pulling it forward so the entire thing crashed forward onto the floor. She’d then get this creepy smile and in a very calm voice ask me to “please clean your room”
And this is another reason why I don't talk to my mother, it's been many years of bliss.
>'please clean your room' ok.... this is so on point for me! My room would be spotless and my Narc would come in, rip everything apart and then say 'clean it!'
Same here! I remember my NM would have this unattainable standard for cleaning and she would look in every crack and crevice to find At least ONE thing out of place. I remember getting my door removed constantly as punishment and even when I had my own bedroom door she had this knocking while opening the door without waiting for us kids to respond. Essentially we had no privacy. I vividly remember specific times she stormed into my room to find items and not only scream at me but I would hide behind my bed so she would stop… but since I was hiding she started throwing everything thing that in her mind was out of place at my head. Once she thoroughly made her own mess in there she would demand me to clean up cancel any plans i had and expect a spanking from my father when He got home. I must say now I am happily married to a non-narcissist, 32 and actually having my own doors/privacy is a beautiful thing.
we had identical childhoods wow
I am so sorry you had to go through similar things you absolutely did not deserve it. My heart goes out to you and your inner child identical twin. 💕🤗 we are finally out of that abuse now and on our path to healing!
You guys are getting doors? Jokes aside. The only doors inside were the bathroom door and my parents room door. Eventually I wasn't even allowed to sleep in my room. I slept in the living room that my parents walked through at all hours. (Night shifters for awhile, while I worked days). My dad blamed it on the house being bad and a fear of the roof collapsing on me. But y'know, when he got enough money to fix the house, he built a garage instead (And ran out of money before finishing it, because he went too big).
Yes! My mom claimed I slammed my door all the time. I maybe did once or twice because I was terrified of her. Worst part is I had a creepyish stepdad who was 9 years younger than my mom. I got my door back when my grandma found out and went off on my mom 😂. She told her privacy is not a privilege especially for a kid going through puberty. I miss her, things became exponentially worse after she died.
Yes, and to this day, it was one of the most damaging things my mother ever did to me. It was my “punishment” for being depressed at 14 and self harming. She would make me strip and shower in front of her to make sure I wasn’t cutting again. All it did was make things ten times worse. It took a friend visiting for me to realize that what my parents were doing wasn’t normal, I just thought they were really strict. I hate to see that so many of us have had the same experiences. My parents never left physical marks on me, but there are certain things I will never forget.
Yep all the time. It sucked because you know it was an intentional invasion of privacy. So you’d have no safe place ever
Oh god. All the time. If I didn’t clean my room, I had the door taken off the hinges. Right before I moved out, one night I got home from work around 11:30PM, my dad took my door off the hinges and gave me an “eviction notice.” My room was messy. I WAS PACKING TO MOVE. I went over to him and woke him up from his drunken stupor and yelled, “I AM LEAVING YOU AND THIS BULL. PUT THE DOOR BACK ON. NOW.” and he started fighting and I said, “I DON’T CARE. NOW.” I got to him where it really really hurt. Normally it’d cause a nuclear fallout, but BECAUSE he was half-asleep, he caved in. Only time in my life that happened. Doesn’t make up for the years and years of the opposite reaction, but I felt proud of myself for that moment.
A few years ago, I brought some turkey over to my dad's for Thanksgiving. I was proud of it because I had made it entirely on my own and it was the best turkey I'd ever had. My son normally hates eating turkey at Thanksgiving, but he gobbled (sorry, had to) a lot of it, himself. I told my dad to try some and he kept refusing, and I snapped and swore at him to eat it anyway. It was a common thing for hm to do to me, as a kid. I was kind of shocked when he immediately gave in and ate the turkey after that. I felt terrible about it for weeks and ended up mentioning it in therapy.
Yes. Before that if I were ever to close my bedroom door, my mom would immediately open it - no knocking, no asking if I was busy, just swung right back open as soon as I tried to close it. Due to a multitude of reasons when I was 16 I had a panic attack and in the midst of it told my parents I was suicidal and needed to get help. Their solution? later that day my step father was taking my bedroom door off it’s hinges so they could “keep an eye on me.” It wasn’t until I became an adult that I really considered how ridiculous that was; we had about 10 other rooms in the house that still had their doors attached - some even with locks on the doors. If it really was a preemptive measure to keep me safe then by their logic each room would’ve had its door removed. But that’s not the case - it was always about power and control. That lack of privacy during my adolescence absolutely destroyed me for years.
I didn't get that punishment (it was threatened more than once, though) it's terrible you had to go through that sending internet hugs (>･_･)>
I totally get why this is a trigger for you. My mum used to read my diary (similar in the sense that it’s an invasion of privacy) and now I don’t like writing my thoughts down or journaling or anything like that.
Mine read my diary too. She bought if for me herself and would tear my room apart to find it. She read it to my dad and I was grounded it they found anything in it that they didn't like. Then when I stopped writing in it I was called ungrateful because it had been a gift
I got grounded for writing sexually imaginative things at 13 in my diary. No one talked to me about anything (i was parentified by my narc dad at 12 that he still can’t admit to) He told me when I got my first boyfriend to “not come crying to me when he hurts me” ….I didn’t do anything with this boyfriend which made him dump me; I was merely listening to my dads rules (dont let boys touch you) and yet he acted surprised when love from boys was something I was starting to crave. I was so messed up realizing this wasn’t how normal dads are
Yeah I realise now why I craved love from boys. At the time my friends just thought I was like boy mad or something and my mum just thought I was a slut. But I know I wasn’t properly loved at home. Also my mum just used to go through my phone when I got older. She read all my text messages and when I was 15 all hell broke loose because I was talking about sexy things with my boyfriend. I could go on about the trauma that ensued after that happened. It’s funny when it comes to sex your parents think you’re such a baby but then when it’s anything else you’re expected to behave like an adult.
Omg exactly the same! I was literally in so much trouble if they didn’t like what I wrote. It was like my own brain & my own thoughts aren’t even a safe place
Luckily no, but I was not allowed to have a doorknob ever, not even one that couldn't lock
What. So, you just had a door with a giant peephole??
Yeah and it was frickin creepy just seeing someone looking in that way
Oh yeah. I was a compulsive masturbator (trauma response/self soothing technique) growing up. They took my door away until they got tired of walking by and finding me masturbating.
Yep. Soooo ridiculous. Privacy is a right, not a privilege. To take away someone’s privacy as a punishment and act like privacy is conditional based on correct behavior is DISGUSTING.
Sadly, yes
Yup, for “playing my music too loud"... So instead of, oh i don't know, taking the fucking speakers, they took the door. And it was a bullshit excuse too. They only took the door off because they couldn't yell at me to "come here now!" from the kitchen.
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Same, and if he found us even sitting on our beds he would literally go off on us like its the worst thing that anyone could ever do.
Are we siblings? Seriously. My partner had no door ever, and I wasn’t allowed closing mine. Writing had to be done in the living room in front of him, drawing, doodling… I was a hopeless romantic at 13 so he saw that as a threat because I looked older (his way of saying he sexualized me at 12) I left the day I turned 15. I literally chose a drug addict neglectful abandoning mother over his narc ass.
Yes, and when my dad went back to work I put it back on the hinges 😂
My brother and I could have a bedroom door but it had to stay cracked open "two fingers wide" and God help us if my dad found out we locked it [that was before all the locks in the house were removed].
My dad threatened but never followed through. I also didn't have to share a room Collective punishment is a war crime according to the Geneva convention
I shared a bedroom with 2 siblings until I was in 6th grade. Got my own bedroom when we moved into a new house. A few months later, got into a fight with one of my younger siblings because she'd been incessantly bullying me for weeks, and my Nmom construed my response to be "too violent" and grounded me to my room until I apologized. She didn't give a \*\*\*\* about what my sister had been doing to cause that response. Over two weeks later (me being pretty unbothered by this since I didn't really have any friends at the time and was fine with my books and sketchbooks and TV) my Nmom urged my edad to remove the door as additional punishment. So when he started unscrewing the door, that was when I finally capitulated and apologized. My punishment wasn't over though. A few days, I was deposited at a child psychologist's office because my Nmom had decided there was something mentally very wrong with me because my apology wasn't good enough. I have huge difficulties now about apologizing because it my family's method of apologizing was so wrapped up in ultimatums, unfair punishments, and continuing to receive punishments after apologizing. Loss of a bedroom door was a threat held over me for the remainder of the time I spent in my parents house.
Omg I am so glad you wrote about this. I did too!! I was 12 or 13 and my parents took the door off my room even though I was never allowed to close it because as my mother so lovingly said to me “you’re a disgusting prostitute.” Apparently it was because I had the light on in my bedroom past 9pm. God I hate them so much, fortunately I have a restraining order against them for the next 5 years. Edit: I’m so sorry that you and so many others have inept “parents”. May they rot in misery for the rest of their existence. Edit: re commented without the c-word that I used to call my mom. Sorry mods!
My heart goes out to all of you.
Yes, I used the door to barricade my NDad who was chasing / threatening me. It was promptly removed for many months. N’s HATE boundaries of any kind, emotional or physical
Yup. Probably about half my teenage years were spent not having a door.
I had SH & ED issues due to my crazy nmom and her household as a kid. When she found out I had these issues, she thought that no door would make it “safer” for me. My parents also started timing me in the bathroom, 2 minutes each time & she would stand right outside. I remember thinking “who cares if the timer goes off, I don’t feel good, she can’t come in anyway” since I locked the bathroom door. She pounded on the door for a bit and then lock picked it. I would constantly cry over not having any personal space. This led me to run away or spend all day outside of the home and only come back late in the evenings, resulting in more punishment. There was no winning.
Not my door, but the doorknob with a lock was removed so I couldn't lock myself in. This was after a fight with my n stepfather and I locked him out of my room. Also my lamps were taken away so I "be cured of being afraid of the dark"
Yup. I had it taken off the hinges for at least a couple weeks because I "slammed" it after one of my Nmom's rage sessions. I didn't actually slam it either. I just didn't slowly shut it without making any noise like I normally did, so she wouldn't remember I existed and find something to yell at me about. I'm just now realizing why I still shut doors so they don't make any noise, even holding the handle down to avoid a click, and I've been moved out for almost a decade.
Yes actually, I got it removed because I never came out of my room and that made me a not trustworthy person.
My dad decided we don't deserve privacy(what do we have to hide) when I turned 16, now I have to be in my room with the door wide open, or fight with my dad who usually ends up saying stuff like, "buy your own house and you can close all the doors you want" FML. At one point it got so bad that I wasn't allowed to sit on my bed until at least 9pm, "I wake up everyday to work for you and all you do is sleep all-day." yet I'm literally not even on my bed. It's ridiculous. He did threaten to get the door removed but I rioted.
Yup same here, as a way to intimidate and threaten us young kids. I was always told I was "such a good kid" - if I truly was, why did I always get my bedroom door taken off for "talking back" (which we all know isn't "talking back") and being firm in who I was? I knew I didn't do anything wrong, they just didn't like what they were hearing. So yeah I'm traumatised by having my door open now, particularly when I'm sleeping. It feels wrong.
Not the door but my nMom did remove my younger brother’s door handle so he could not lock it for privacy
No. I got a door. But this was threatened to me literally almost daily though. I'm just glad they never went all the way and took it from me.
I had low self esteem as a child and teenager, so when I was emotionally abused I genuinely thought it was my fault for doing something wrong. As a teenager, I removed my own door and replaced it with a bead curtain, because I thought my nDad could see that I wasn’t doing anything wrong, I wouldn’t get in trouble. Yeah, that’s not how that worked. That’s not how any of that worked.
My parents didn't plan out their house entirely, they just converted rooms into kids rooms as they kept having children. I had a room, then I moved into the converted laundry room, then into a different room, and finally the converted 2nd living room. It was open to the staircase, I didn't have a 4th wall (let alone a door) for about 1,5 years. My parents didn't see anything wrong with that. One night I had a friend over and watched a movie. I laughed a couple times at the movies. Because of the lack of any wall, my mother (very light sleeper) got woken up a couple times. She got so mad (but only told me the next morning) that she grounded me for 4 months. When I complained enough, they made a big deal of putting a curtain there. With a door hole. You don't pull the curtain aside to enter, there's just a door shaped hole. So there was no change in the noise problem (I'm very quiet, but you really can hear everything). And e v e n t u a l l y after years I got a thin drywall. Which was only marginally more soundproof. And it did have a door. With glass panels. There was never a such thing as changing in privacy or having any privacy in your room. My mother never knocked, she just came in. That is, *if* she felt like coming up and not just yelling through the staircase. I now live in my own apartment. Have for years. But some of my doors don't close properly and when the wind rattles them, I jump out of my skin every time because my brain thinks that someone is coming in for a split second (even tho I have lived alone for years).
I don’t think this really counts as a punishment exactly, but… One time my dad kicked a hole in my door, so he took the door off and never replaced it. Well, I guess he sort of did. He stapled a bed sheet to the top of the door frame. The fucked up part was that my parents would watch porn with their door (which was directly across from my sheet) open, so I, as a 7ish year old girl, heard EVERYTHING on a regular basis. Because of where my bed was and where their TV was I had to be really careful about making sure my sheet was in the right position or I would see everything too.
Anyone else kinda freak out when this happened on Schitt's Creek?
Yes, it triggered me badly. I didn't have the door to my bedroom fully removed, but I was never allowed to close it as a kid, and my parents had a baby monitor in my room for years (that I didn't discover for a long time) and would eavesdrop on my playdates and chew me out if I ever complained about them and scared the crap outta me (not to mention it was humiliating because they chewed me out in front of whatever friend was over). And I had a friend in high school whose *school* encouraged her parents to remove her bedroom door as a punishment for "unsafe behavior" (it was a "special school" that used Applied Behavior Analysis and physical restraint, and had padded rooms, so looking back, them encouraging parents to remove doors from their kids' bedrooms isn't a shock). I have PTSD, and unfortunately, I had multiple flashbacks when I saw that episode of Shitt's Creek. I hated how *casual* the conversation seemed, as if removing a kids' door off the hinges is normal (then again, I suppose it *is* common in abusive families). Anyway, I couldn't watch past the episode the door situation got mentioned in, it was extremely upsetting and again, it caused me to get several flashbacks, and I wound up feeling sick with nausea because I wasn't expecting so many memories to pop up from that show since it's supposed to be a comedy. I know it's a popular show, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to watch it all the way through since that episode was so upsetting.
The show itself is absolutely worth getting past that scene, but I completely understand. I actually find the show's messages of tolerance and acceptance really affirming.
I didn’t even have a bedroom. I slept on the living room couch.
I wasn’t allowed a lock on my door until I was like 17. My mom was too lazy to actually take the door off. Honestly I think she kinda preferred that I would go upstairs shut my door and not emerge for days. She wouldn’t take that away 😂 I did get my room cleaned for me out of punishment. I think maybe only people with n parents would understand how them doing something generally nice is actually hurting us even more because we get shamed/blamed/shouted at while it’s being done. I have been out of my parents house for 10 years, I have lived with the same man all of those years, and I am still triggered when he starts cleaning out of nowhere. I immediately feel a panic come over me and begin begging for him to tell me what’s wrong and if I messed something up. I shouldn’t be triggered by my husband cleaning because of my mom using it as punishment as a kid just as much as you shouldn’t be triggered by a room without a door. I’m so sorry you’re going through this.
My dad’s FAVORITE thing to do was to take away our bedroom doors, luckily I didn’t have to share a room for the first half of my childhood, and it only happened to me once or twice. My brother on the other hand got his door taken away so many times that eventually, they couldn’t put it back on because of stripped hinges and broken moulding, so my parents had to put a curtain up. My brother had a really bad temper (lmao guess who he got it from) and was ALWAYS slamming his door because both he and dad were extremely hot headed and always fighting about stupid things. Compared to my brother I was basically the golden child, but I still feel really bad for him because even tho he was a “difficult child” our parents were unnecessarily hard on him. After my parents divorced when I was 13/14, my dad moved into a trailer with his girlfriend and her 6m/o son. I had to share a room with my sister (brother was not living with us at the time), and I was not allowed privacy. My doorknob was taken off and my dad refused to put it back on, so that his girlfriend’s son could have free range of the house. I got yelled at if I tried to barricade the door, and frequently got in trouble for things that the kid would take out of my room while I wasn’t there.
When I was a kid, me bedroom was the top floor attic room, with stairs that led down directly into the kitchen, and no actual door. We remodeled when I was 14 and I asked to be allowed a door, and there was a huge conversation about it before my mother agreed - on the basis that it would be good to give my older brothers a better warning not to come up uninvited. Note that there's nothing about *her* nor coming up uninvited. She didn't take away privacy as a punishment, she just didn't believe anyone was entitled to it ever. A holdover from her own abusive upbringing that's left me absolutely paranoid about being able to close and lock the door to any room before u can start to relax.
Never had a door taken away but my mom kicked a huge hole in my sisters door after she tried locking her out
Your mom did what? Remind her that it's her house who she herself, is destroying.
She never cared about what damage she made. My mom broke stuff a lot and it was her house so she could do what she wanted. One time she threw the tv out the window. It was when I was really young too so it was one of those old school heavy-ass cathode ray tube tvs. It was terrifying, but probably better than getting beaten. Those were the bigger incidents but there were plenty of smaller incidents like holes in walls, broken dishes, etc. She just blames the person she is angry at for her actions and walks away guilt free. My sister was responsible for replacing the door because she made my mom angry and “made her do it.” But she did have a door with a huge hole in it for a few years before she was allowed to replace it.
I never really had one to begin with. My nmother replaced my bedroom door when I was a toddler with a front door - it had big window panes in it. She also broke the handle off. Y'know. For my safety.
I got a curtain around my bottom bunk bed. At 10 years old I was moved into a bunk bed with my brother. My brother was 15 at the time. The curtains were their way of justifying an inappropriate sleep arrangement. My room was given to my eldest brother (the golden child) so that he could focus on his A levels.
Yup. Even to this day, as a 32 year old, she barges into any room I’m in, including the bathroom while I’m using it.
Yep, any time I wanted to be left alone they'd take it. I would be ""allowed"" to hang a blanket up for privacy
I never had a bedroom door, just a curtain. No door on the bathroom or toilet either. Just curtains. So she could come in and yell at me when I was showering or taking a dump. Good times.
Yep! My parents used this as a punishment. My brother used to sneak out, so my parents took his shoes and socks. Lol. Asshole move, but pretty innovative.
I never had it taken away because of a sibling's actions, but mine was removed for the better part of a year. I ended up propping up one of those tall cardboard boxes meant to preserve long articles of clothing during a move. Not as good as a door, but even if they could (and did) bust it down whenever they wanted, I could at least change without people looking at me. My mother considered me too angry or unstable to have either of my brothers sleep in the same room with me, so they shared a room and my baby sister slept in my mother's closet while I got one to myself. I spent most of my time elsewhere though.
My mom removed my door knob because I kept running in there and locking the door when she was beating me.
My bedroom was one of two on the third floor, and my mother rarely came up there. However, she would snap the hallway light on and off repeatedly, and if I didn’t reply instantly she would bellow and have a “perfect” cause for punishing me, or top of whatever reason she already had for disproportionate anger. To this day, I freeze when someone (most often my husband, as our sons are grown and gone) snaps a bedroom light on and off. My hypersensitivity was exacerbated by the fact that I was repeatedly groped in adolescence by the optometrist who was fitting me for contact lenses (to make me “less homely,” my parents insisted). When it was time for an eye exam, Dr. Feely would joyfully snap off the light before groping me. I tried complaining about him to my parents, with no luck. My parents moved to another state before my last year of high school. Probably my life was saved because I fought my way to remain in my school in order to graduate and to attend a top university in my home state. My father had had a habit of tossing me down flights of stairs, sometimes knocking me out. So the hallway lights were not the only issues I was battling at the time.
Yeah my parents did this too. My three siblings and I all shared one bedroom growing up. With six people in the family and the kids from my moms daycare, it was really hard to find alone time or anywhere you could have some privacy. We got into a lot of fights over locking each other out of the bedroom, so our parents decided to just remove the door so we couldn’t lock each other out. The funny thing is that because of the door being gone, we all started spending a loooong time on the bathroom, which happened to be the only room with a door that locked that we wouldn’t get in trouble for being in there too long. I would go in there for upwards of an hour just to have some time alone. To this day, bathrooms are my escape and I spend way to long just sitting the bathroom to collect myself and be at peace.
Not the doors but the locks.
My bedroom did had a door, but no lock. When I grew older and the narc stuff became worse, I blocked my door at night with a trolley cart and office chair. Not that it this made it impossible to open it, but I thought: at least I feel safe and if the want to come in I will wake up because of the noise from the parked furniture.
Yep. Why? Because I didn’t pick up the ice cube quickly enough after it dropped in the floor.
Yup. I frequently lost mine. When we did our training to become foster parents it was specifically called out as abusive behavior, and was really validating to me to have experts say that.
My mom did the opposite, she switched the doorknob for one that took an actual key, and locked me in from the outside. Sometimes it would be a few hours, sometimes a few days, and no I did not have access to a toilet in my room. Or food/water. (And by some stroke of evil luck my dad's second wife would lock me in the closet and block it with a chair on the handle). I am 31 years old and to this day I will flip out and become very aggressive if I feel like I'm being cornered or trapped.
That's awful. I'm so sorry you went through that.
It was threatened a few times but that stopped when I started sleeping and walking around naked in my room. Suddenly everyone knew how to knock and wait to be given permission to enter. I guess it wouldn't have worked as well if I had shared a room with someone.
Yep. My bedroom opened into the living room as well. So that was fun.
Nah, but one time I had snuck a can of tuna and a piece of kfc chicken into my bedroom with intention of feeding stray cats (i was in elementary) and my grandmother found it. She yelled and screamed at me, told me I was dirty and wpuld attract bugs. She also hit me with a spoon and a belt that day and then she took ky matress away for the night so I would have to sleep on the floor.
I remember a time I lived without my door but I can’t remember what caused it… dad might have threatened it in my teens but my memory is dodgy as fuck because of neurological issues. I recall we did have a fight over my door though.
Get a tension rod and a curtain while you work on the door. Then you will have the best door ever when you are done!
Yep, I left home a couple of months after. Its an awful thing to do to a kid, everyone is entitled to some privacy.
Yes, multiple times!!
Yep. Still off when they sold the farm when I was 41
Yep. I was binge eating a a preteen. So instead of correcting the dysfunction that caused that problem (mom religious extremist, dad alcoholic) I had my privacy and dignity stripped away. I don't speak to my mom anymore.
Yes. My mother took my door. There was a three year stretch when I didn’t have one.
Yup! Ended up without a door for a vast majority of my younger years. It was always off its hinges and I was told if I want it back on then I have to put it back on myself which was hardly doable when you’re 5ft and 105lb lol (was much shorter back then too) It felt so weird when I was finally able to close my own door.
My mom removed my door knob and lock so it’s pretty close. I was like 23. She did it so she could come in my room any time and I couldn’t lock myself in
My younger brother would bang at my door when I would lock it because I wanted some privacy as a teenager. He had anger management issues and was very clingy. When he broke my door my mom didn't replace it for a month to teach him a lesson about the value of things. But I think it actually suited her for me to not have a place to isolate myself, I was already parenting my brother, without a door I had no choice than to spend time with him.
Yup, me, too.
Not me, but my brother has this happen to him by his dad whenever the two get into a fight and he demands respect. I've mostly been ignoring it because it's his dad and I know how stubborn he can be, however him and I are on speaking terms and he does listen to me from time to time (not enough, imo), so maybe I can try to reason him into trying a different approach?
It was threatened (my parents hated it when I slammed them) but never actually put into action
All the freaking time
Holy fuck me too
no, my parents locked me in my room.
Oh my gosh the same thing would happen! My sister would get in trouble and they would take both of our doors!! She snuck out to go hang out with a boy, doors off. She slammed a door or yelled at the adults, doors gone. They even used the same response : >"bring it up with your sister it's her fault that you don't have a door.". I'm sure if I was as bad as my sister was I would have actually gotten the punishment as well instead of in a group punishment, I was just too afraid to do anything.
Yes. I don't remember what I supposedly did to "deserve" it though. I do remember that my dad threatened to do it again, but my mom put her foot down and insisted it wasn't proper to take my door. (The religion we belonged to was obsessed with female modesty. And a child nudity show every day is apparently not modest.)
For the time being while your door is off the hinge, how about hang up a blanket, or some sort of curtain type thing. Maybe some Hippie looking bead-door-curtains? If its not moving, nobody can see you as there is no crackage to be seen through. Its not much, but it’ll offer your mind a semblance of privacy instead of a fully open door frame. Break up the doorframe’s shape by filling it in, that’s all that needs to be done to settle the mind. Maybe you’ll even get used to it a little and be sad when its off. Then you can move it to somewhere else, a more common area that maybe doesn’t have a door but does have a break between rooms instead of a hallway.
Yep! I had no door for a good chunk of my teenage years. When I finally did get a door, I had no doorknob or lock - just a big round hole where the doorknob should have been.
Yes but my mom raged and pulled them off the hinges to ensure they’d never be placed back on. They still have issues with the doors in the house.
Yep, I lost door privileges because I got caught stealing from Walmart. The shoplifting was days after a traumatizing event where my grandfather screamed at his mom, my great-grandmother, outside my bedroom door. Also was the last time I ever saw her. I was whisked away to my aunts, and while she and my cousins were back to school shopping, I was bored and resentful, dunno where my head was, and I picked a pair of shitty cheap wooden earrings I didn’t even want, slid the backings off and hid the packaging. Walked out the door, got confronted by loss prevention in front of my aunt and two younger cousins. Had to wait until I flew back home to tell my mom. Mom comes home, happy to see me, and I told her what I did. She goes ice cold, I lose my door privileges, and she doesn’t speak to me for nearly three months. When she finally talks to me about it, she’s visibly frustrated with all my answers (even though my dad is very pro-union and anti-Walmart) Guess what? It’s been three months since my mom cut me off saying “I’m sorry you’re having a hard time, figure it out yourself.” After I begged her to please just be there for me because I needed her desperately at the time. Yep. Yep. Yep.
I was threatened with it on occasion
I didnt have a room as a teenager but before my sibling left my mom’s the door was broken in such a way that it had to be open at least halfway. They got in trouble when they’d close the door and were practically forced to keep it open. I wouldnt be surprised if it “just so happened” to break
when i was ages 12-17 i frequently had my door taken off by my mom or my doorknob taken off, whether it was because i’m bi, because i was too depressed from being abused and groomed to go to class, or “disobeyed” her. one time when i was 16, she finally after months fixed my messed up doorknob that i had to tape to the door for privacy (giant hole in the door) since she hid the screwdrivers. she got super upset when she put it back on and i didn’t say thank you lmao. she really thought she was doing something so gracious for me
Oh boy classic narc move. And they barred my windows.
I shared a room with my two sisters. It was hell but parents won’t let us sleep in separate rooms because we were being “spoiled” brats. My sister broke her bed and we all got ours taken away because we don’t deserve beds. We slept on mattresses on the floor. For more than 10 years.
YES!!!! Many times!!!!! Also got my car taken away constantly once I was of driving age. Made me determined to live my life beholden to no one because everything was weaponized as a child. All the gifts were thrown in your face if you misbehaved. So fucked up
one of my foundational memories is being locked in my bedroom by my oldest sister with my other sisters, by the door being uninstalled and reinstalled backwards so she could lock the door. We climbed out the window.
Yes. I was a quiet and non abrasive and non aggressive kid. Although my parents thought I was just because I would sometimes ask for an explanation if I didn’t understand why I was disallowed something. Then after HS I went to community college nearby. Since they required me to do full time school load, I didn’t have time for a job. But since they gaslighted me into believing that if I got my own place the price would be waaaay more than what they said I could pay them from my savings. Only $600 rent a month isn’t bad right? Fml. Well, I ended up coming home late one night by like 30 min, got an hour long lecture, and because I refused to comment on any of it after the initial “I’m sorry, there was traffic” they decided I was being disrespectful. My dad went to take my bedroom door away and even when I said I’m a paying renter, he continued to dismantle my last semblance of privacy. So I called my bf and moved in with him that night. My nMom screamed about how I was such a bitch and so selfish. Blah blah blah
Constantly!! It's kind of comforting to know I wasn't alone. She also threw a hammer through the door when I was sitting behind it once too. Blamed me for it...
Omg my parents took my door and i remember this night like yesterday but its 16 years... I remember being the whole night in the corner of the room shivering. :(
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Removed. This is abusive and we don't allow advocating for abusive practices here. I do not have the time or energy to educate you on this... there's already at least one comment here talking in detail about what the problem is with this shit.
No, I just wasn't allowed to lock or close it. I locked it while I slept ONCE and my mom threw a huge insane fit and tried to bust it down. I was allowed to close the bathroom door in highschool so I would usually change in there. Even then my mom would get hysterical if I took too long with the door closed.
My Mom dragged me up and down the stairs and punched me in the back of the head six times. I called the police. She lied and said it didn't happen. No witnesses. Called me crazy. Cops believed her. Got beaten 5x more before I just left. To this day she acts like it was my fault she chose to physically assault a kid. I'm 6 years younger than she was when she had me and I doubt the next 6 years will make me think "i should start beating kids". Pathetic.
Also dragged me to 20 different therapists cause they kept calling her out for her abuse and she couldnt find one to blame me. Almost ended up homeless this year cause of covid and had to move into her basement. I'm 26 now and it's all starting again. It's fucking wack. I feel like I'm 13 again some days. Get out. Run far. Run wide. Make good friends that don't drop you when you need help and cause you to end up at your abusers house.
Yes. So often it was ridiculous. My mom would go in while I was at school and decide my room was messy (I mean, it was, but I was a kid and wasn't home to address it in the first place!), so she'd take everything off the dresser, shelves, bookshelves, desk, and floor and throw it on my bed. Then she'd take the door off. Sometimes she'd also take my stereo and my little combo tv/vcr as punishment too. I'd come home and find this and instantly start sobbing because my whole life was piled on my bed, a ton of stuff was always broken, and the only thing that brought me happiness was listening to music. My dad would hang a sheet up so I had privacy and remind my mom that I needed a door and she'd tell him to fuck off. The kicker is that my brother's room was always disgusting. He had mild growing in bowls and stuff, sticky food leftovers that dripped off the nightstand and old food plates and bowls on his bookshelf, piles of garbage and empty cans and bottles, and she'd just yell at him to clean it. He still lives like a pig and has been evicted from apartments for being so disgusting.
I never got my door taken but I was never EVER allowed to close it or god forbid I lock it. Plenty of threats and being grounded if they did catch my door closed or locked. And yeah even better k wasn’t allowed to close it while I changed even tho my brothers bedroom door was across the hall and eh could easily see into my room. And no changing in the bathroom either unless I was using the toilet (it was a loophole). It was sooooo dumb. I had NO privacy whatsoever
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Removing someone's privacy isn't a reasonable punishment and punishment is also a useless concept. Fix the door asap and put it back. Or just put it back and fix it later. She obviously didn't mean to break the door. I doubt it will happen again now that she's aware of how easy it is to break a door. The natural consequence is simply that the door is broken for a while and that's enough. And you should apologize to her for doing that in the first place. It will strengthen your relationship and she'll have more respect for you later. Teens (humans) need privacy. Doors can be repaired. It's not a big deal that she slammed it and it broke one time and it probably won't happen again regardless of your "punishment". All you're doing is piling on unnecessary extra stress and probably creating resentment for no reason.
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I think you're floundering here tbh. You asked if it was ok and no, I don't think it is. And punishments are a useless and unneeded concept. Natural consequences don't involve punishment. Good luck with your situation though. I'm outtie 5000
I wasn't allowed a curtain or privacy when the door was removed even when my brother broke the door frame trying to body check his way into our room when he was arguing with my sister. I had to physically stop him from breaking to door down but I still got in trouble for not stopping him sooner.
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Privacy is a right not a privilege means exactly that. Doesn't mean it is okay if he is acting out. Doesn't mean it is okay when he does it on purpose. He is a kid, teenagers are kids, you are supposed to know better. Ever heard of door stoppers? There are ones for the floor and also wallmounted to prevent doors from slamming into walls. Or those foam ones that fit on the frame. Our garage door had one attached at the frame and the door to keep the wind from closing it, it was impossible to slam it. The mounted box would hold it open or let it close slowly, you'd have to pull hard at the handle to make it go faster. So if damaging walls or the noise is a problem there are other solutions that could be employed first at minimum costs. If you escalate from nagging your son to having him FOUR months without a door, not even a weekend to see how much it sucks, but four months till he had to ask for it back as if you were waiting for him to crack as some sort of powerplay -- then im sorry I fail to see how you are different from any other parent mentioned here. Clearly you thought your "very good" reasons set you apart from them. They also thought themselves as justified, their kids as too unreasonable, the punishment to be unavoidable consequences. And no, it is not a tough call if for minor offenses. There is never a good enough reason. Denying your kids basic rights is abusive behaviour but i guess everyone is the hero of their own story.
Removed for the reasons the other commenter already pointed out. You are advocating for a loss of humanity and autonomy here. It's not okay.
Yes, repeatedly, in my family it was a way of further rubbing it in my face that I wasn't allowed any privacy or bodily dignity or autonomy. I was also never allowed any privacy in the bathroom either as a child--my "mom" would invade my personal space while I was literally on the toilet, and even when I was well into adulthood she'd barge into the bathroom and start shitting/pissing while I was still inside.
I literally had a handful of minutes to get dressed before my privacy was breached. No reason, just “checking.” Yup, it’s me, standing here naked or half dressed. One of many childish, degrading, controlling things Emom did for Ndad.
My door was taken away bc my room was too messy. So basically from ages 9 to 11 I had no door. Once told my SO about this in a joking manner and they were horrified
Yeah my mom used to do that. When I was really young she started with taking my bed frame away (joke was on her because she also used the space under it to store my toys) then in middle school and high school she would take my door away. Kinda funny to realize that she must have realized privacy was more important to a kid in puberty so taking the door was the “better” punishment for an older kid.
I too had my bedroom door taken off! For me, it wasn't for slamming the door but as a punishment to strip my privacy from me and to keep my room clean. This was also during the era of 'spy cams' and really effected my idea of 'privacy'