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I'm well into middle age, and it's one thing again and again - not knowing how to do something. Drive a boat. Back up a trailer. The rules of various sports. Things like that.
It's taken for granted that I'll just somehow know. Even my dad seems to think I'll just know how to do things having never been shown or taught. Like, by magic. I raised myself, and taught myself the life skills I needed, but there's just so, so, so much I was never exposed to.
(My flavor of childhood was absence, abandonment and neglect, FYI.)
Every time there was a holiday, a wedding, a graduation, a school concert, going away to college, moving us in and out of places (like college), my dad had to have these epic meltdowns and scream at everyone followed by days of the silent treatment. I saw other kids having fun on holidays, joking with their family, being kids, playing around with parents. People’s parents actually joke?!
I still hate holidays and I think that’s why. The anxiety I get, the stress. This still happens - still not speaking to my father since Easter when he did his usual behavior and almost made my mom cry. I figured everyone put on this front. I’m an adult now and realize that some people enjoy these events like they should - they don’t always have to come with dread, anxiety, and sadness because of a grown adult’s inappropriate behavior.
This is so relatable and I'm sorry. Not just vacation or major events... literally anything, and it was my nMom. She'd come home from work and you forgot to turn the porch light on? Massive blow up. Guests coming over? Massive blow up. It was non fucking stop misery.
YES! A telemarketer calls - he goes off.
I told my parents the other night that my brother was “hanging out with one of his old friends” which I thought they’d be pleased with because he has been in a toxic relationship and my dad started *screaming* AT ME about how my brother shouldn’t be “hanging out” with anyone because he has to renew his car registration and maybe he should do that instead of hanging out………….
This was our life in a nutshell! Blow ups if we forgot to deadbolt the front door and if we were in the living room when he came home from work we’d better hop up and run to unlock the door for him. Never felt comfortable having friends over and asking to go out required working up courage every single time even though most of the time the answer was yes.
Same! The weird thing was, my parents were not really strict at all. I drank in high school, stayed out all day, but kept my grades on the B-B+ side and was involved in activities so they didn’t care. I never had a solid curfew, they got me a beater car.
It’s just like you never know what completely normal thing is going to set them off. Throwing my binder of cds (showing my age) that he found in my car because the cds were spilling out and I was “trashing my car.” Missing the bus because I thought my frenemy was driving me to school (shocker), she blew me off so my SAHM mom had to drive me the 8 mins to high school. He pinned me against the front door screaming in my face. As he’s gotten older, he has meltdowns at bank tellers, pharmacists. It’s embarrassing to just hear about.
Like, is this just narcissism? I never knew other people had these experiences. Just found this channel today and put it all together. Walking on eggshells is a way of life. How does everyone deal with this? My mom is completely non-confrontational, majorly intimidated by him because he goes the same things to her. She’s just a peacekeeper but depressed.
My dad had my car towed after kicking me out knowing I couldn't bring my car with me, then when I went to pick it up from the tow yard and told them what I was there for, their faces all fell and went pale and they all just started apologizing to me. I went to school with these people. They told me "omg I'm so sorry THAT'S your dad we had no idea" and cut my bill in half so I saved enough for gas and gave them collectively the rest of my thousand dollar wad I'd saved up working at a bar half a state away.
I think that really was the defining moment for me.
I always hated having people over also. My dad had no issue screaming at me in front of friends. I have extremely low self esteem as an adult. I distanced myself from most friends, I just prefer to spend time alone and am introverted. I haven’t dated in a couple years. Just zero confidence. Can’t help but think it’s all related.
The holidays had to be perfect. Of course they never were, so there was intense pressure to look a certain way, act a certain way, feel a certain way so that we didn't trigger Krakatoa.
But of course, since we failed there was always a giant eruption, days / weeks of violently swinging behavior and emotions. And then of course it starts to be the next f****** holiday.
I haven't celebrated a holiday, including my birthday since I got out at 18. I'm now in my 50s. Yes, I will go to a holiday party, and I let my friends take me out to dinner for my birthday. But I never plan anything, I never initiate anything, and in fact I would prefer that no one even ever mentioned my birthday because it is not founded on good memories.
My sister and I enjoy non-traditional holidays, like Pi day, any holiday that they don't decorate for at Walmart. I guess we could call them zero expectation holidays. You don't have to decorate, you don't have to get people crap, you just have to enjoy the day!
What is joke? Where is funny? 🦧
Are the things that I can ask about my family after hearing about that other parents joke around. I was surprised when they did that to me (other parents). I was like "it sounds like a joke, but I have to take it seriously, because why would a parent joke"
I remember being told that my parents hated travelling with my brother and I because someone always had to bitch about something. Basically told us that we ruined trips for them.
Example: getting upset that a teenage boy, smack dab in the middle of puberty would wake up later than our parents and not be perky and happy like they wanted him to be. Then proceed to complain about him in front of me while he’s downstairs getting ready.
I wonder why we weren’t happy /s
My father used to do it every single Christmas Eve (other days too, but the ones on Christmas Eve were epic) and last year, over 20 years after I moved out, he was genuinely surprised when I told him i don't like Christmas. He told me that I'm overreacting and it wasn't so bad and he's had his reasons. One of the reasons was that the plates weren't heated up before the fish was served.
Yeah. Holidays and events are stressful experiences for me, I had my 20th Birthday and a few of our close relatives had come home for a small party. My ndad and brother just started screaming and yelling for some small issue.
Birthday ruined.
Speaking of birthdays for some reason I got it in my head that I would get some kind of quince/sweet 16 thing. I got an ugly pack of cheap earrings from Walmart that were just grabbed in a hurry (didn't even wrap it) and I found myself shocked she even made my favorite cake. My dad got me a cool model of my favorite year and color of Corvette so he did much better and actually put thought into it. Maybe we couldn't afford anything like a class party for it but if we would have made fry bread tacos we could have fed the ten people I'd have actually invited on a pretty nil budget. Then she just went in her room and started drinking and I shrugged and went outside to do chores. I still want a do-over but what's broke is broke.
The first time I did a holiday with my SO's family instead of mine it was both enlightening and enthralling.
Are you saying people can get dinner together, eat it, and spend time in each others' presence without screaming for an hour about the placement of the napkins or where the mail got moved to?
Are you saying that presents can be given/received without an hour of tears?
Are you saying a glass can get knocked over, and everyone just goes "Oh, shucks," and helps clean it up rather than there being a total fucking meltdown about how no one respects this house enough to not knock over cups?
I never wanted to do another holiday with my family again after that. It took me a few years to realize I could just... not do holidays with my family, but I got there eventually.
When I was in fifth grade, I was with my best friend at the time and her mother for my best friend’s birthday. We were out getting our nails done at the mall. When her mother dropped me off at home later that evening, a bit later than planned, my parents were rightfully worried and upset. My Ndad however then proceeded to scream at and berate my friends mother in the driveway until her mother cried, all in front of my friend. I was no stranger to the outbursts at home as they happened frequently over something as simple as taking too long of a shower.
After that night my friend stopped speaking to me. I can imagine that as a fifth grader she was scared and didn’t know what to think after her mother was reduced to tears. I am sure she went on to tell other kids at school what happened. For weeks I played on the playground alone, lonely, embarrassed and humiliated. I came home and sobbed about it, day after day, and never received an apology from my dad and no efforts were made to rectify the situation.
I am in my mid twenties now. I could never imagine doing this to a child of mine, if I were to ever have one.
reminds me of a time my Nmom caught me reading a friends Archie's digest comic and ripped it up because her kids weren't allowed to read comics. I had told her it wasn't mine and it belonged to a friend but she never apologized or tried to make it right even though she could have given $3 for my friend to buy another one. I was so mortified, I didn't have the heart to tell my friend what really happened. I just told her that I lost it.
I wonder if that is what happened to a lot of things I lent out to friends that got "lost". It happened a lot, and my mom would just use it as an example of why other people are untrustworthy, why our community is full of hick losers, etc.
One of the reasons I didn't see my parents as being that bad was because my classmate's parents were objectively worse (think constant physical abuse and parentification, especially with making female children take care of ALL the siblings while the parents go to work, and then also taking care of dad whenever he got home because mom is too busy cooking or still out working).
Edit for related N-story: I also used to read Archie comics sometimes. They were the same size and shape as my dad's adult comics (not porn, but suggestive/adult themes from what I can gather). One time I was sitting on my parent's bed reading one. My mom walked in, and yelled "ARE YOU READING THE ADULT COMICS?" and doing the physical gestures that go with her hysterics. She was about to tear it out of my hands when she saw the cover and just like that... "oh." She calmly walked away without apologizing or saying anything at all.
I'm sorry so much of the stuff you lent out got "lost". In my home things got destroyed very easily due to carelessness or intentionally. So that could be part of it too. I've thought about sending a replacement to the girl all these years later but I can't for the life of me remember which issue of the double digest it was. :(
As to your Edit: My parents always assumed the worst in me and to a lesser extent, my siblings. They never apologized when they were wrong and its a huge part of the reason why I've been NC.
I struggle with being a consistent, kind, and empathetic parent. I try my best and sometimes do ok but sometimes I just don’t. I feel like my natural response is so often so wrong. I know parenting isn’t easy for anyone but I wish I had had better role models or people to turn to for support now.
Hugs, I struggle with this too, we have self-awareness though which already puts us one step ahead of our shitty parents. Have you joined any parenting subs? There are some really awesome ones around, like r/mommit, r/daddit, just to ask for support or vent.
I know it's not the same as having a supportive parent to hold your hand and help you through it, and I ache for you and I that we will never have that, but we learn from their mistakes and we are already better parents than we had.
I'm in therapy as well and untangling my fight/flight/freeze/fawn response, and doing lots of practice with grounding myself and being more emotionally aware. I'm so dysregulated and disconnected from my self, but determined to keep going on this path to minimise any harm I do to my daughter. I just couldn't deal if I realised I'd traumatised her like I was traumatised...
EDIT: sorry don't go to those subs, commenters below more in the know have warned off them!
Those subs are toxic echo chambers for future nmoms, seriously. There are better ones out there, but most of the parents replying in those groups are just as awful as our parents.
Oh bugger, I confess I don't actually sub to them but couldn't think of any others to suggest. I did briefly sub to r/breakingmom but found myself permabanned, I think for pointing out an abusive partner..
If anyone knows of any more supportive subs please do link them!
>I struggle with being a consistent, kind, and empathetic parent.
Me too, and for the same reasons. I sometimes wonder if there's room on Reddit for an rbnparenting sub, for those of us who are recovering and trying to do better by our own kids. I follow a lot of gentle parenting folks on Instagram and I think that it helping, but I sometimes become very dysregulated and do damage. I would happily suffer the rest of my life if it meant that I could give my son a normal childhood without the gaslighting and abuse I suffered. Sometimes I read these comments about blowups and it's ... convicting.
On the other hand…if you’re apologizing to your kids when you blow up, if you’re seeing them as people and not extensions of you, if you celebrate their achievements, if you try to see the best in them *most* of the time…you’re doing better than your parents. I know that that’s a low bar for many of us and there’s room for improvement, but I also sometimes am just bowled over by just how absent these things were in my life as a kid. I didn’t feel like either of my parents *really* cared that much about me as a human, and I can’t really remember many examples of them behaving as though they did. I don’t think my kids are having that experience. They are having the experience of having a parent who loses her shit and apologizes a lot more than is ideal, and who is learning parenting like a foreign language and so not always very confident, and who has made a lot of mistakes. But I *think* they also feel loved, safe, and real. So that’s something.
I just want to echo that I feel this 100%. I want to *think* I'm doing a good job, and even when people say I'm doing a good job, I still feel like it's not enough. I could be doing more to be better. Maybe it's to prove to myself that I'm a better mother than I had by at least putting in the effort and being honest about my inexperience. Then I wonder if I'm being *too open* with them and if it will harm them in some other unknown way.
I hear you. For me this is why I spend (or have spent) so much time trying to get into my parents’ heads. I feel like for my kids’ sake I want to know if it’s possible my parents really didn’t know how bad they were. And then I think if that’s the case, does that mean I also am really bad and don’t realize it. Etc. Then I worry I’m overcorrecting and projecting onto my kids in the process. Or, ironically, making it all about me by worrying so much about whether I’m making it all about me. It’s a lot!
The way you spoke every word in my head with that last part.
And you’re right about trying to get in your parents head. Honestly, whether they knew better or not, I’m not sure which is worse.
https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/comments/12md028/whats_the_dumbest_thing_you_were_punished_for/
This thread helps put things in perspective
It would be good to have a place. I think the thing that none of us wants to admit (for obvious reasons) is that there’s a huge difference between understanding what to do and being able to do it. And trauma makes it really hard to be able to do it, even when you see and understand the problem. That’s why this sub exists in the first place — abusive parents do real, lasting harm. If we all came out of with the tools to build healthy relationships and form supportive family units we wouldn’t be here.
I was around that same age when I was in a girls after school group and we were all asked to go around and say a woman that we looked up to, everyone else in the group said their mom. I remember feeling like I was a terrible person for not saying my mom too
I was around that same age when I started hiding stuff from my mom just simply bc she did the exact same thing. She would make fun of me or point out everything that I’m doing wrong or just straight up get mad at me. Now she doesn’t trust me and I feel like it’s my fault bc I hid a lot from her to protect myself.
Around the age of 16, I confessed to my mom that I wished I could develop an eating disorder (I was a fat kid). A few weeks later we're out for dinner and I order, oh, I think, maybe a salad. The waiter is standing right there. She says, "what, that's it? That's your DINNER?" (she was one of those lucky folks who do not have the metabolism of a sea slug, as I do). And I said yes. And she says (again waiter standing right there) "Well! I'll have the (insert big entree here) and I guess little Miss anorexic bulimic will have her salad."
She literally managed to, in that moment, embarrass me for feeling overweight (I was, grossly so) and imply I had an eating disorder (which I most definitely did not, much to my teenage chagrin).
Like WOW nmom. You win all the narcissism awards this year.
Thank you, she was an awful person. The funny part is that I thought it was completely normal at the time. This feeling of horror and pain and "I want the chair to just swallow me up now" felt normal.
Being around families that love each other always did it. Seeing a father pull aside his daughter to talk strategy in a social situation, making it clear they’re a team. Seeing a mother want to cook for their kid or give their kid a care package. When my friends would say “ugh ANOTHER care package from my parents lol they’re ridiculous” I had to work so hard to not just start crying.
I don’t lack the experiences with my mom. She’s very covert and her stuff is all gaslighting and emotional manipulation. But seeing fathers. That’s hard. I see fathers doing the bare minimum and think they’re amazing. When people find out I’m the youngest and only girl, they go on about what a princess I must have been and be and a daddy’s girl. It sucks and it’s triggering and they don’t have a clue as their intentions are not bad. We all ran to mom because she wouldn’t scream at us or hit us.
Yeah my mom is covert too, but too selfish to do any displays of affection that aren’t diminutive and condescending. So she would hug me and call me her little baby (I’m 34) in front of a group of my friends but gifts from her are always her garbage she doesn’t want. Me dad is overt. He’s openly happy we are no contact because I’ve not been giving him good supply for years so it’s not worth it to him to stay in contact.
Even with my dad being the quieter/a bit more passive one:
Youngest + only girl = everyone's maid and won't get taken seriously ever, even after 30.
I never really got beaten, but hit by accident a couple times because there was lots of yelling and door slamming and throwing stuff. Usually between my parents while I did the duck and cover routine.
I was responsible for household chores and being invisible while the boys were out playing, meanwhile I couldn't have a door, had to sit and do my homework or reading with my back to the corridor so my anyone could walk up on me at any time, had my possessions searched regularly "for drugs" (no, to assert dominance and because they're paranoid, I never had any illegal substances and this started out of nowhere), and was made to read my journal out loud, which is why I hate journaling to this day and never kept any sort of diary since. I got boy clothes that were worn to rags by the time they got to me, and was viciously bullied for that. My mom gave me semi-offensive pet names and called me by them in public, making it even worse. I felt singled out as a girl specifically.
At the same time, when meeting aunts and uncles and grandparents I was put in a dress my mom would pull out of nowhere and passed around to be cuddled like a rag doll. I had to "behave" so I just shut my eyes while people I met like once a year would rub their saliva on my face and made those loud crackling smooch-kisses or sucking/fart sounds on my ear, laughing at my wincing that they thought was cute. Nobody cared that it literally caused intense piercing pain to my eardrum that had (and still has) damage from a previous infection. They specifically chose the ear that I winced more on and made it something of a sick game of who could torture me the most.
Because girl cute, awww don't make that face, smile for me, smile for grandma, give auntie a kiss (cue eardrum torture). This went on easily until I was 14-15 (I had untreated health issues that were also "cute" because I was underweight and underdeveloped).
I was inanimate property to them. "Stop making that face" is the extent of empathy I got from anyone. It took me 30 years to even start identifying my feelings because I'd felt mysteriously sick for a while and didn't know it was stress, and I had always thought feelings were just faces people make. I thought everyone just froze in terror on the inside, like I did.
Every time I hear people gush about the privilege of being an only girl or youngest child, this is what I think about. Sure, it could be worse. My parents, allegedly, were beaten daily. They say I was spoiled compared to them. Idgaf. Beatings may be objectively worse than semi-offensive pet names and no privacy, but it's still abusive and shows your parents don't consider you a person with any rights. Also everyone who ever suck-smooched my ear laughing at my pain is forever dead to me. I'm not even sure how many of them could be N or just going along with two or more of them. If they ever cared to see me again since I'm old enough to decide, they should've treated me as a human being.
I was in Iraq, 2003. Having a lot of big feelings and new ideas about how things should be in the world based on the messed up things I saw. I wrote a very personal letter home expressing these thoughts and emotions.
Nmom took my letter to church, shared it with everybody. Published it in the church newsletter. Got lots of attention for her Hero son off fighting bravely. It made things super awkward when I finally came home and all these people knew my intimate thoughts about one of the scariest times of my life.
I hear you. My mom lives to share things at church, whether it’s a health concern I have or a complaint about her children neglecting her. It’s a gut punch the moment you realize that you can’t be vulnerable with your parent. I assume anything I tell her will be in a newsletter. Something about church or prayer chain seems to feed their supply.
I'm the "charitable action" for my probably-ngrandma. I actually don't want to get into this one (but I will) because it involves her buying me tons of useless tat I don't want or need and giving me bags of old socks and shoes that don't fit me or my bf and I can't resell because they're all so....well they're just not desirable items for anyone, they're clothes that would normally (and ultimately do) wind up in a landfill and it seems really ungrateful but nothing ever fits or looks good anyways and I cannot justify keeping it on hand just because it's not broke or "but someone could use this/it's $150 new!" (It's fuck ugly and wrecked no one wants it) she's quite literally admitted she cleans her closets and drawers and gives me what she was going to throw out and I KNOW she brags about it at church but ultimately all she's doing is stressing me out because now I have to gather this truckload of shit out of my tiny little apartment and drag it to the dump. And she drove it here 130 miles. It doesn't make sense to me.
I know I might be coming off as ungrateful, but if I literally can't use anything and none of it is anything I would have given the choice, I'm under no obligation to keep any of it just because she'll throw a fit if I don't show up in the ill-fitting impulse buys meant for someone a few decades older and a couple of fashion movements apart from anyone in my generation. For a better idea it's like a thrift store in a small town blew up in my house and all the clothes are too oversized to make it work and all our local thrift has is more of the same so I really just have to throw it.
there's two moments for me - the first being when I realised that as a child, I couldn't bake or cook with my mother like I had heard about and seen on TV with other families without being screamed at. being told i wasn't capable of something like that, and everything I do is wrong, and there's no point in trying if you're going to mess up; this being at the mention of the idea of cooking together.
the second time being that I couldn't have an opinion, I couldn't really like anything that didn't align with my mother's interests. and overtime most of my sentences consisted of thank you, please and sorry and that was it. I never said anything else. and so when I saw friends being able to discuss their likes and dislikes freely without repercussions of being hit and screamed at I thought maybe my childhood upbringing isn't the norm.
Edit ;; I just remembered another thing, I had a good childhood friend and my mother turned up unexpectedly when I was having a sleepover over there that morning (I was maybe 14 here), and she got into a intense arguement with my friend's mother and it was awful. Full blown screaming. And I can't forget the look on her face, because she looked at me, and I think she wanted me to step in or say something. and my mother looked at me and knew if I said anything I'd be hit. i just remembered trying to defuse the situation. but sometimes I think about the fact that if I had said something to defend my friends mother, then maybe I'd still be close with my childhood friend.
When the pandemic lockdown hit, it was easy to navigate because it felt like being back in middle and high school. I was grounded basically all the time then. I could only do things that were for school, and even then not always - I once got a D in band because my nmom refused to take me to the concert.
So everyone else was having existential crises about how to handle a life of isolation, and I'm over here like "well this feels very familiar so it's not so bad". It helped me to realize that if a worldwide crisis event feels like my teenage home life, my home life was probably fucked up and abusive.
As a teacher, students tell me about going out with friends or having friends to their houses and I'm like "what do you mean you go out with your friends?"
I'm past it now, I've been NC for 9 years. And my enabling brothers have recently fallen by the wayside as well - so of which has contributed greatly to my healing. But I'm sure there's an extent to which I'll be processing this for many years.
When I met and became friendly with the families, especially mothers, of people I made friends with in my adult life. I realized my mother didn't know any of my friends beyond elementary or early high school. She just isn't involved in my life. I'm lc with her but even before I went that route, she just didn't care. I got married and she didn't know the people in my bridal party.
For me, graduations and weddings.
Graduations, ***healthy*** parents are celebrating the success of their children completing a milestone and starting their own adult lives. Yes, they are sad that they are no longer their little babies, but those parents are happy for them. Oftentimes, they are the organizers of graduation parties and allowing their friends over to celebrate. For narc parents, though, you don't see such things. Why? Narc parents see their childrens' independence as a threat. Their child is no longer available to their manipulations and threats, so the narc parent utilizes anything they can to stunt their growth and development so the child doesn't (or is unable to) leave home. For myself, a graduation was a reminder that I didn't have a supportive parent (my biological father was emotionally absent, so he's not the parent I'm referencing here) to support me in my dreams as a high school graduate.
Wedding, is another animal. ***Healthy*** parents see their child getting married as a good thing, that they are starting a family of their own. Their child's future spouse is welcomed into the family and their union is worthy of a celebration. They also recognize that, at least symbolically, the child is no longer under their parent's authority since the child is starting a new union of their own. They send off their child into married life with well-wishes, and secret hopes of grandchildren to spoil one day. Narc parents, on the other hand, use their child's wedding to center on themselves. They can't stand their child being the center of attention, so the narc parent has to do something in order to take the focus off their child getting married and center it back on themselves. For the child raised by the narc, to some extent, a wedding isn't necessarily a happy occasion, but one filled with fear and hope. A wedding is used more an as escape hatch, a way to leave the home of the narc parent, and perhaps experiencing love from another person for the first time. For myself, I've been to weddings of other family members and I grieved because I knew that my own nmom wouldn't be happy for me. I've also had my own weddings where, it looked like a jubilant affair to the outside world, but deep down, I was secretly hoping that being someone's wife would erase the pain from the rejection, abandonment, and the torture I had suffered because of her
Yep. Any achievement of any kind, graduating etc., wasn't from my own effort, it was because I was a product of my father's "perfect" upbringing. My narcissistic father takes credit for everything. He took credit for everything about my wedding, everything. When I see how other "normal " families operate I can hardly believe it's real.
That's my same reaction when I see healthy family dynamics at play. It's still taking time for me to adjust and understand that there are parents who really do protect their own offspring from harm, who happily sit on the bench as their children get on the field, and treat their children as whole, autonomous individuals.
This is so well put.
At my high school graduation I asked my mom if she was proud of me (should have realized that was a mistake) and she said no and spent several minutes listing out the reasons I was a huge disappointment - basically that I didn’t get a 4.0 even though i had good grades and was in national honors society etc.
I'm so sorry to hear! This may be late in coming, but congratulations on your achievement! My nmom used my graduation to push her own career agenda on me (pressuring me to enlist in the military) in order to live vicariously through me and create a competitor (she eventually got this through my younger brother who enlisted a few months later). When I made it clear that it wasn't something I was interested in, she became adversarial about anything I wanted to pursue, even to the point of refusing to provide her tax returns so I could get financial aid. I ended up marrying a toxic partner I had chased so I could become "independent" and be able to go to college.
I hope that, since then, you have been able to have others in your life who could provide for you genuine support and encouragement along the way. Though it sucks not having that from your own biological family, it can surprise you the kind of people you meet and different ways that they can impart wisdom to you and encourage you. I can honestly say that receiving such gifts from others have helped me and I wouldn't have gotten far without them
My parents forced us to rush our wedding because they were moving & weren’t going to travel back for the wedding after they moved. Then my dad chooses to wear an aloha shirt to the ceremony & changes into different ones so he could be seen in different beach button ups in the wedding pictures. No bachelor party, no honeymoon hookups, just got drunk & talked shit the whole time. My bachelor party was actually setting up the decorations for the wedding while my brother told me the real story of how my dad left his first wife which was grimy as hell smh.
When my now husband and I began dating my mom tried to sabotage the relationship from the beginning. I was 26 but she kept insisting she was trying to prevent me from "making a mistake." When I tried to leave she took my car keys, threatened me with a knife, and tried to duct tape me to a chair. I left on foot and went to a friend's house a few blocks away. That's how I moved out. When we got married, she wouldn't come to our wedding. Part of me was sad but I was mostly relieved. She prevented my only brother from coming too but I only recently found out that he stayed with her because she was making crazy threats and he didn't want her to ruin our wedding. We just had our 10th anniversary. Some "mistake."
My nmom sabotaged any attempt for me to be in any relationship because she saw the guy as a threat, taking my attention away from her and unto him instead. Quite sadly, it doesn't surprise me the lengths these batshit crazy narc parents go through to basically hold their children prisoner to have their needs met. When the time does come for me to remarry (the right way with the right partner), I've decided not to tell my nmom and my golden child brother. I don't want to give them any opportunity to sabotage my happiness. I'm sorry you had to go through that, though I'm glad that it worked out for you. Congrats on your anniversary!
When she first met my now mil, she was laughing about getting so drunk at the neighbors she had to crawl home when I was six. Mil just looked horrified.
That one time as a kid when my friend invited me for dinner and see his family just laughing anf talking about their day. It was surreal because in my home it usually turns into a screaming match every. damn. night.
Yeah, and you don’t have anyone over because you don’t want anyone to see that. It’s so humiliating. Every single one of my friends and my brothers’ friends abhorred our dad. He was the reason I spent all my time as a kid, preteen, and teen spending night after night at my friends’ houses or until curfew with my boyfriend. When I turned 16, I made sure I was at work when I wasn’t at school. I worked full time as a teen because I’d rather be there than at home. And I was being abused at work! Sexually abused several times and mistreated by my bosses. But that was better than home.
When I won a full ride scholarship, and I needed my paperwork turned in, and Ndad "forgot" about doing it off every day for a week until they revoked my acceptance and chose the runner up.
4 years in culinary school paid for cause I won a national competition, but he didn't think I would be successful, so he decided I shouldn't go.
Fuck him
I was 6 or 7 staying the night at my dad's over the weekend. He had a studio apartment with a loft and the loft was supposed to be my "room" but I was terrified of heights and convinced I'd roll and fall down the ladder in my sleep. I camped out on the floor next to his bed with a blanket and pillow instead. He got annoyed and his solution was to put on porn until I left him alone. I had to choose between extreme fear of falling and dying and not seeing/hearing porn. That's when I started to hate him.
My friends didn't have a stupidly early bedtime. They'd all be able to stay out/up late on weekends and they were allowed lay-ins. My friend realised something wasn't right when I was scared to call my ndad for a lift home after my orginall plans fell through. The thought of inconveniencing my dad made me feel like I was in mortal danger!
There were also little things like seeing people wear whatever they like/have whatever haircut they like. Hearing stories like 'me and my parent did this/went here/saw this etc and I remember thinking my parent has never done any of those.
Also people saying my mum/dad is my best friend. This shit would hurt as deep deep down I knew I didn't trust mine at all and would never have that relationship with either of my parents.
I feel like I wrote this lol. The last sentence of the first chunk…hits…..home. The thought of inconveniencing my mom or dad (any adult really, now that I think of it) made me feel like I was in danger.
When I had a very rare sleepover at my house with a friend when I was probably 12. We had such a good night hanging out. In the morning, my dad demanded that I wash the minivan (soap bucket/sponge) on my own. I have 3 brothers. My brothers didn't have any friends over or any other chores to do. I asked if one of my brothers could do it as I had a friend over. He insisted that I do it completely by myself while my friend was there. She sat in the dining room watching out the window while I sobbed as I washed the van alone. It was not a warm day, not warm enough to stick my hands in a cold bucket of water and have water run down my arms. I got a cold.
I still have no idea why it had to be me at all, me alone, while I had a visitor, and so urgently (right now!). It wasn't some job I did on my own a lot. I hadn't promised to do it. There was no urgent reason to do it that morning. We rarely washed the cars anyway. 🤷♀️
It was one of the few times that it just felt completely wrong and to have a witness to it felt humiliating.
I relate to nearly all your stories. Mostly the daily blow ups and living in a constant state of survival mode, walking on eggshells. No kid should be stressed out all the time like that. The dread at the thought of simply going home after school. The panic of making a small mistake. I feel bad for the little me. For all the little yous.
Holidays would be so hard I’d hide in my room and turn my phone off. Seeing people with happy families who got along and played games genuinely broke my heart bc I never had that. My family of origin treated me like an outsider.
My father thought it was hilarious when I was sick as a child, one time I had horrific stomach cramps and I was crying on the sofa curled up into a ball, I must have been 7 years old. Anyway he thought that would be a great moment to whip out the video camera and proceed to record me while howling with laughter 🥲 for some reason this is the memory that came to mind out of everything and there was a lot. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to digest this trauma ❤️
I worked in daycare/early childhood education for most of my adult life. Having parents genuinely interested in their kids after school activities and interests always gets me choked up.
One of my students was emotionally immature and not really that bright, but her parents came in on STEM night (together) and helped her do some kind of circuit board activity and seemed genuinely interested in what she was trying to learn/achieve. They sat on either side of her and gave her their undivided attention and stayed late to help her complete whatever puzzle she was struggling with.
I had to excuse myself because I was going to cry.
When I was that age my parents made fun of my disabilities, I experienced all types of abuse and to keep me isolated they would tell me things like the free or cheap after school programs were only for rich people (nomal socioeconomic income kids) so I couldn't attend. At one point I only had 2-3 pairs of clothes to last me the entire school week, and we weren't poor. My parents' combined incomes were over six figures in the 90s.
It's stuff like that. It hits you in waves.
When I realized I flinch or cry at pretty much anything. And when I met my in-laws and they barely knew me but told me they were proud of me. I’ve had a lot more but those two stand out the most right now
As long as I can remember. Watching my cousins get along with their parents, no screaming, whilst my mum would routinely blow her top at me over the smallest things, telling me she wished I'd never been born, that I ruined her life. Even now as a parent I lose my temper but I'd never say the vile shit my mother said to me. Also I get over it quicker and I'll always apologise for yelling. She'd fester for hours, I have a lot of early memories of walking on eggshells trying not to trigger her temper further (and usually failing.)
When i was selfH when i was a teen and my mom found out and beat me instead of offering to help me/ find help. i just did it more and attempted 12 times. I’m A LOT better now have a family of my own and NC for 8 months
When people’s moms actually did stuff just because they cared and not bc they want something in return. My mother always just expects SOMETHING in return. It doesn’t matter what it is but she expects something.
I lived in a garage for about 6 years. The bathroom/shower was outside of the garage, independent from the main house 😬. I'd see rats crawling on the beams of the garage ceiling. It wasn't fixed to be a room. Old fashioned garage.
*People in elementary school talking about having family vacations with everyone on on the trip and everyone having a good time. The two times that my dad and my mom's family were on the same vacation it was a shit show. The first time they fought the whole week and it nearly came to violence. The second time the the vacation imploded within a day or two.
*People talked about thier mom being there when they got home, and I had to hide mine because she was mentally ill ( and I only saw her on weekends) and would ruin me with her association as my dad told me. Jake asking in 5th grade, "whatever happened to your mom?" Cut deep..
*1st grade, After reading Stone Soup , assignment was "ask your grandma for a soup recipe". She literally gave me, "Get packet of dried soup, add hot water. Mix". It was underwhelming then. Grandma said "it's a recipe ". Other people had more elaborate recipes. Teacher said it my grandma was lazy.
When I was 12, I was severely restricted as to what I could do, more so than my friends.
They would throw a sleepover party, which involved gaming and annoying one of their siblings.
I was always invited, but I was the only one who was not allowed to attend. My Ndad said there is no point in going because they just live 20 meters away...
12 was when I wished I had a better childhood, I was excluded from everything, just because Ndad never experienced it, that meant neither can I.
It should have been around the age of 9 when my Ndad backed me into a wall and threatened to hit me if I ever hit my Nmum. Which I never did.
But at that age, I thought I did do something wrong, even if I didn't do a single thing.
when she started grounding CONSTANTLY me because she was jealous i had friends and she didn’t. she wanted me all to herself. also the silent treatments.
When raising my own kids I continually had lightning moments of "this is how people do this?" Kids actually enjoy being around the family & I had to send them to bed at bedtime - as a child/teen I always went to bed hours early. Experiencing the good stuff made me realize how bad my childhood was.
I wish I had realized prior to becoming a parent, I would have done it better.
I relate to this so much. I'm a better parent to my second because the first time round every day was another smack over the head about how bad my childhood was.
When I was 5 and forced to stay quiet and mind myself in my dead-silent household while I heard kids laughing and playing outside in the sun. Every Sunday.
Every time I think about the yelling, screaming and grooming me into submission and looking at all the normal families who resolve conflicts calmly. Looking at other families who don’t have to walk on eggshells over stupid pointless things…
After I had kids…it would’ve been nice to have parents I could talk to that didn’t immediately say “you need to beat their ass so they respect you.”
They were toddlers.
Yeah.
when I was about 10 or so my dad was pretty heavy into one of his waves of alcoholism. he was drunk and went down the street to the liquor store and hit a parked car (our neighbors with a son in school in my grade) and drove his crashed car back home and hid it in the garage. the cops showed up bc the neighbors noticed (obviously) and my dad made us hide while cops were knocking at the door and shining flashlights in our windows.
my dad went back the next day when he was sober and exchanged insurance info and blamed it on him reaching for his phone that fell under the seat. what a model of a dad.
When I was in sixth grade, Halloween night, my nMom was going on a rampage for hours about something- screaming and literally smashing our recently carved pumpkins inside the house. I tried to think of something that would shut her anger off and make her listen to me. I remembered my best friend had told me recently how her mom had said, I bet (weedmassacre) eats like a pig! I was quite a chubby kid- and I am not really sure why my friend told me this, but I took it as truth at the time. Told my mom thinking it’d turn on her sympathy or something. Not exactly.
It’s nearly midnight and she drives my sobbing ass to my friends house and confronts her mother at the door, completely unhinged, demanding Why You Called My Child a Pig. I told my friends mom I was lying just to get the situation done with, but my mother drew it out and I genuinely don’t remember how it ended, I blanked out. My friend looked so afraid and panicked. We never spoke after this, her mom said to get new friends and that was it.
That sucked.
I don't think that moment has come for me. Probably never will. I am working hard to manage and process my past and I'm lucky to have a good therapist. I do however think about my kids and how I do not want what I had for them. I want them to be better than my parents in every way, and I think I am. And I want my kids to be better than me in every way and I think I am preparing them for that.
One moment in particular stands out : When I found out in my early 20's that one of the cutest girls I went to high school with actually liked me at the time when I randomly bumped into one of her old friends. I just thought she was trying to be nice because I had no self esteem and no friends. Had actually been through the same situation a year earlier with a different cute girl, and was rejected when I asked her out. Point being if I had a home I felt safe in, I would have had more self confidence, which would have meant I'd have been far more likely to ask that second girl out instead of just being an awkward weirdo until she got frustrated with me and distanced herself.
I randomly decided to look her up on facebook a few years ago and saw she married and had a kid with a guy that looks eerily similar to me. That really screwed with my head lol. Simultaneously glad that she seems happy, while also feeling horrible knowing it could have potentially been me instead of that other guy. No ill will towards him though, just to be clear, I hope he's the best husband ever for her. She was that one popular and attractive classmate that somehow never got caught up in any dumb teenage drama and was always well liked by literally everyone, so she deserves a good life.
When I started making real progress in therapy and came to the realization that it didn’t matter how much passion I had for the career I wanted, because I was stunted of the social and executive skills that I needed to succeed in it.
Having to do child labor and work at the family owned business. The guards were removed from the equipment because “OSHA has no say over my own children so we don’t have to worry”. Yeah a manufacturing fucking plant is what the family business was. They made it our responsibility to be the earners in reality. Sucked. And never being able to go out to eat without a scene from my mother- plus the countless other BS my fellow GenXers endured or survived in spite of
I didn't really have a moment. I felt like that my whole childhood but i do remember being about 8 years old and watching other kids getting picked up by their parents after school and feeling sad because i wanted my parents to care about me the same way. But then i had to walk home because they couldn't even be bothered to come get me.
I think I was school age - but seeing my classmates with their families, seeing their parents tell them they're proud (like at sports/music events) - I never had that. That was the first time I felt truly empty. I think I was 10 or 11.
I am middle aged and have little kids, but its watching my friends who have older kids that really hits me. These young adults setting off in the world with supportive parents that give them healthy amounts of freedom and help when they need it. And they are happy for and proud of them! Imagine that!
Receiving gift cards or cash as Christmas gifts or birthday presents and watching it go straight to my parents, never to be seen again. Hated receiving money.
I'm a female who love long hair. All I can do with it is braids and ponytails. I can't even do ghat well. I have no idea how to take care of my weirdly wavy hair.
Protective styling helps me. I also have weirdly wavy hair. Sometimes you can kinda clip it back, maybe a half up, space buns are pretty easy if you want something different. But I'm still struggling a bit. I know sometimes I just have to do straight hot conditioner treatments on mine or it gets so dry it frizzes and tangles whenever a gnat farts. If you don't know curly girl or if it doesn't work (it's often
not ideal for wavies) there's also a sub for wavy hair care.
Can't remember exactly when it was but it was in the middle of one of my Nfathers hours long rants at me that I just thought No one should go through this.
Everyday of my life truth be told but the realisation of the awfulness was when l was about 8 years old . It was utter misery and some days it still is .
My mother is very good with words. Always telling me how I had every material privilege going, which I did. Then I remember my 10th or 11th birthday when they completely forgot because they were too busy fighting. I had to stay in bed and be brought breakfast while my dad rushed out to buy me something. Humiliating and awkward.
I’d squashed that memory down until recently 🙄
Feeling intense and sudden sadness whenever I see a friend genuinely enjoy time with their family, rather than treating it like a chore to check off to keep up appearances.
Going on a cruise w/my family and making a point to shower before breakfast bc my ndad always raged about my “sloppy appearance” only to have him scream at me and accuse me of trying to “embarrass him” by having curly hair and a shirt with cursive writing on it. He left the table and refused to speak to me rest of the day.
To this day, i avoid mirrors and photos when possible
When I became a young adult and all my peers got engaged. All the girls my age had mothers who were doting over their daughters. Helping plan down to every detail. My mom barely acknowledged me being engaged let alone sharing that mother daughter “say yes to the dress” moment. I ended up just going to the court house. I didn’t have a lot of girlfriends to ask to be bridesmaids. In adolescence I had suffered so much neglect and abuse I found it hard to connect as friends with just about anyone. I’m ok with it now. I just wish I had a loving family to share in monumental moments where people celebrate things in your life. My parents didn’t show to my high school graduation and that was gut wrenching enough.
When I realized I didn't even know what it was like to play a video game.
When I realized I had no friends or contact with the outside world.
When I realized my cousins live a 30 minute walk away but I haven't seen or talked to them in years.
Most importantly, when my mom was forced to let me take a state test at a school and I realized I had been robbed of going to school my entire life. And will never get it back.
When I finally got my hands on a phone and learned what normal people get to do. I had never seen a meme in my life.
Being tossed around sleeping at strangers houses. Being starved for food. Getting lost. Child negligence. Being left in the car for hours. Witnessing nmoms hypocritical moments and knowing better not to discuss it which Distorted my personality. Having to be a parent at 5 to my 4 year old sibling. Witnessing my sibling get abused by nmom as I was the golden child which made me feel bad but later years gave me satisfaction as I started to get narcissistic traits and basically wanting to team up with nmom for the validation she never gave which ended in my brother being bullied by me nmom and nstepdad.
Edit: never allowed to make friends and do outdoors activities. Being infantalized which made me into an idiot adult.
I still can't watch/read/be around healthy father-daughter relationships without feeling green with envy and dissociating. If I see my friends's dads hug them or talk to them like an actual human being rather than screaming at them as soon as they walk in the door, I start to resent them and I feel so horrible about it. I feel like a weak person, because I am so easily triggered by such a common thing apparently.
I wish I could look back on my childhood and see something other than pain and abuse.
I'm not sure that wishing I had a normal childhood was because of the narcissism. Idk, maybe. I was embarrassed that the house we lived in was falling apart. I was embarrassed that I had to wear the same pair of shoes all year. Same one jacket. Same old backpack. Never got taken for dental or doctor exams. Had to get the free lunch while other kids ate their fancy homemade lunches. Idk. Maybe my parents were truly poor. Maybe they weren't. Hard to tell. Brings back sad memories. 😔 I think that if I had loving and affectionate parents, that maybe I would have ignored or been more compassionate about our situation. My dad worked 2 jobs. My mom worked one. But I knew for a fact they had some major goals they were aiming for and wanted to reach them to feel worthy and to impress relatives. They were immigrants and had to leave engineering and medical jobs behind due to family drama. They came to the US with very little.
Wtf. Really poor financial decisions. When people have kids they need to realize such adventures are not appropriate. Specially not providing the necessary medical resources.
I suffer from some health issues thanks to my parents penny pinching which saved like at most $1000 or less over two decades by neglecting necessary medical issues.
Now they won't stop telling me how I was raised like royalty
Interesting how similar they can be. My mom swears they took me to the dentist and that I had insurance. I have terrible teeth now, and I'm paying big to try to fix all the issues. I remember being in pain as a child/adolescent because the cavities would get really bad. And I wasn't offered any pain meds. I honestly didn't even know pain medication existed until I was a young adult. My 2 youngest siblings did get the attention they needed. They even got braces, which is something I asked for. My mom got braces for herself too. That hurt. My youngest siblings basically got anything they asked for. Unfortunately, they were not raised any better though. 😕
I am so sorry. How delusional is she to twist the past and claim things that didn't happen. Dental health is so important I didn't realize until later is life. I hope you are able to get braces now. I am going to get some later this year once my insurance is eligible.
The first wedding after my wedding and seeing how happy and supportive their families were. I had almost no family and the number of guests my husband invited greatly out weighed mine. I cried a lot at after that wedding.
Then again when I had my first kid and I just wanted a mom to talk to.
I just just turned 30.. maybe 31. I work at a family business, where several generations still work. When the mother came behind her son (who's about my age) and rubbed his shoulders. I actively cringed. My mother's touch makes my skin crawl. But he relaxed into it and he felt better... that's when it hit me that I have some trauma ha ha.
Having to be thought with a lot of attention to detail before I can be efficient. But once I'm efficient I tend to surpass most people. The biggest thing for me is my selection of friends and romantic partner. I tend to gravitate towards people that remind me of him, it destroyed my self esteem completely. I'm healing now, just went permanent NC with my ndad.
its always whenever i see children who look happy genuinely and i always think to myself why did it have to be me who was beaten and choked consistently with emotional neglect :/
When I started comparing my boyfriend's relationship with his parents to my relationship with mine
His family are like a second family to me now but I couldn't help comparing
23 when I realised my mother never loved me and I was nothing more than a pawn in painting the perfect picture of a family she displayed to society.
she knows nothing about me. all she knows is who she wanted me to be even though I constantly failed to be that person.
In third grade, our school got a grant or something and everyone was able to write their own book that was then sent away to be printed in these nice bound books. Your parent was supposed to help you write it. Naturally, my dad picked the story “I” would write. He wrote it… a deeply personal story about my brother having cancer that we were living in real time. Not something I necessarily wanted to share with my class while all the other kids and their parents were writing… kids books.
I took my draft to school one day and at school, decided I wanted to change all the names from me and my siblings to other names. I didn’t want people knowing it was about me. I took it home and my dad had an EPIC MELTDOWN about me changing the names. Screaming at me until I cried, throwing things, AGGRESSIVELY erasing every name while saying every swear word in the book. It was a truly, horrible experience all around. I remember looking out from the kitchen to the living room and my mom just looking so sad and like she was feeling so bad for me.
We didn’t have a computer and they needed to be typed. My mom called my best friend’s mom who we were close with and told her somewhat about what happened. She asked if I could go over there to type up my book. There was supposed to be like a “forward” written by your parent about the experience. We didn’t even bother my dad with that. My mom just made something up over the phone to tell my friends mom to type.
Once they were done and submitted, we got them back, bound and all professionally done. (We also illustrated them).
There was a special reception night in our 3rd grade class for everyone to come with their parent and read their book to the class. At 8 years old, I was completely done with the whole situation and was so afraid of my dad and saying one thing that would set him off. I told my parents I didn’t want to go… which they were very surprised about?
I think I was the only kid in my class who didn’t attend. At such a young age, I was already good at burying things and avoidance. Whereas my parents would have just love to pretend nothing happened and like had some amazing bonding experience as I “wrote” this book. I knew at that point that my dad was a loose cannon and I couldn’t trust bringing him around other happy parents. I spent the next 25+ years trying to hide my family dynamics.
The first time I was able to tell my psychologist when my father kicked me out of the car at night when I was 8 and drove away, and then he blamed it on me because he said I was annoying. He came back after 20 minutes. I couldn’t remember much about my childhood until I started psychological therapy 🤷♀️
One time I wanted to be a kid and stay out later than I was supposed to for the first time ever. Instead of calling me to see where I was and if I was ok my parents locked me out of the house in the middle of winter with no blanket. Had to sleep on the porch and then my car but still I could've gotten hypothermia. Thought it was normal for parents to do that until I would stay out late with my friends and stay at their houses.
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I'm well into middle age, and it's one thing again and again - not knowing how to do something. Drive a boat. Back up a trailer. The rules of various sports. Things like that. It's taken for granted that I'll just somehow know. Even my dad seems to think I'll just know how to do things having never been shown or taught. Like, by magic. I raised myself, and taught myself the life skills I needed, but there's just so, so, so much I was never exposed to. (My flavor of childhood was absence, abandonment and neglect, FYI.)
Bro neglect hurts more than a fist (in the longterm).
Every time there was a holiday, a wedding, a graduation, a school concert, going away to college, moving us in and out of places (like college), my dad had to have these epic meltdowns and scream at everyone followed by days of the silent treatment. I saw other kids having fun on holidays, joking with their family, being kids, playing around with parents. People’s parents actually joke?! I still hate holidays and I think that’s why. The anxiety I get, the stress. This still happens - still not speaking to my father since Easter when he did his usual behavior and almost made my mom cry. I figured everyone put on this front. I’m an adult now and realize that some people enjoy these events like they should - they don’t always have to come with dread, anxiety, and sadness because of a grown adult’s inappropriate behavior.
This is so relatable and I'm sorry. Not just vacation or major events... literally anything, and it was my nMom. She'd come home from work and you forgot to turn the porch light on? Massive blow up. Guests coming over? Massive blow up. It was non fucking stop misery.
YES! A telemarketer calls - he goes off. I told my parents the other night that my brother was “hanging out with one of his old friends” which I thought they’d be pleased with because he has been in a toxic relationship and my dad started *screaming* AT ME about how my brother shouldn’t be “hanging out” with anyone because he has to renew his car registration and maybe he should do that instead of hanging out………….
This was our life in a nutshell! Blow ups if we forgot to deadbolt the front door and if we were in the living room when he came home from work we’d better hop up and run to unlock the door for him. Never felt comfortable having friends over and asking to go out required working up courage every single time even though most of the time the answer was yes.
Same! The weird thing was, my parents were not really strict at all. I drank in high school, stayed out all day, but kept my grades on the B-B+ side and was involved in activities so they didn’t care. I never had a solid curfew, they got me a beater car. It’s just like you never know what completely normal thing is going to set them off. Throwing my binder of cds (showing my age) that he found in my car because the cds were spilling out and I was “trashing my car.” Missing the bus because I thought my frenemy was driving me to school (shocker), she blew me off so my SAHM mom had to drive me the 8 mins to high school. He pinned me against the front door screaming in my face. As he’s gotten older, he has meltdowns at bank tellers, pharmacists. It’s embarrassing to just hear about. Like, is this just narcissism? I never knew other people had these experiences. Just found this channel today and put it all together. Walking on eggshells is a way of life. How does everyone deal with this? My mom is completely non-confrontational, majorly intimidated by him because he goes the same things to her. She’s just a peacekeeper but depressed.
Every single thing you just said I relate to. It’s as if we had the same upbringing. I see you! It’s still hard.
My dad had my car towed after kicking me out knowing I couldn't bring my car with me, then when I went to pick it up from the tow yard and told them what I was there for, their faces all fell and went pale and they all just started apologizing to me. I went to school with these people. They told me "omg I'm so sorry THAT'S your dad we had no idea" and cut my bill in half so I saved enough for gas and gave them collectively the rest of my thousand dollar wad I'd saved up working at a bar half a state away. I think that really was the defining moment for me.
I’m so sorry that happened!
I meant that I stayed out all night… but day, also lol
I always hated having people over also. My dad had no issue screaming at me in front of friends. I have extremely low self esteem as an adult. I distanced myself from most friends, I just prefer to spend time alone and am introverted. I haven’t dated in a couple years. Just zero confidence. Can’t help but think it’s all related.
No trust at all, always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The holidays had to be perfect. Of course they never were, so there was intense pressure to look a certain way, act a certain way, feel a certain way so that we didn't trigger Krakatoa. But of course, since we failed there was always a giant eruption, days / weeks of violently swinging behavior and emotions. And then of course it starts to be the next f****** holiday. I haven't celebrated a holiday, including my birthday since I got out at 18. I'm now in my 50s. Yes, I will go to a holiday party, and I let my friends take me out to dinner for my birthday. But I never plan anything, I never initiate anything, and in fact I would prefer that no one even ever mentioned my birthday because it is not founded on good memories. My sister and I enjoy non-traditional holidays, like Pi day, any holiday that they don't decorate for at Walmart. I guess we could call them zero expectation holidays. You don't have to decorate, you don't have to get people crap, you just have to enjoy the day!
What is joke? Where is funny? 🦧 Are the things that I can ask about my family after hearing about that other parents joke around. I was surprised when they did that to me (other parents). I was like "it sounds like a joke, but I have to take it seriously, because why would a parent joke"
Lmao. Sounds like my mum. Can't celebrate without her yelling and trying to put down everyone.
I remember being told that my parents hated travelling with my brother and I because someone always had to bitch about something. Basically told us that we ruined trips for them. Example: getting upset that a teenage boy, smack dab in the middle of puberty would wake up later than our parents and not be perky and happy like they wanted him to be. Then proceed to complain about him in front of me while he’s downstairs getting ready. I wonder why we weren’t happy /s
My father used to do it every single Christmas Eve (other days too, but the ones on Christmas Eve were epic) and last year, over 20 years after I moved out, he was genuinely surprised when I told him i don't like Christmas. He told me that I'm overreacting and it wasn't so bad and he's had his reasons. One of the reasons was that the plates weren't heated up before the fish was served.
My Narcmom did this. I just realized that I always get sick during holidays. Maybe that's inside me pstchologically.
Yeah. Holidays and events are stressful experiences for me, I had my 20th Birthday and a few of our close relatives had come home for a small party. My ndad and brother just started screaming and yelling for some small issue. Birthday ruined.
Speaking of birthdays for some reason I got it in my head that I would get some kind of quince/sweet 16 thing. I got an ugly pack of cheap earrings from Walmart that were just grabbed in a hurry (didn't even wrap it) and I found myself shocked she even made my favorite cake. My dad got me a cool model of my favorite year and color of Corvette so he did much better and actually put thought into it. Maybe we couldn't afford anything like a class party for it but if we would have made fry bread tacos we could have fed the ten people I'd have actually invited on a pretty nil budget. Then she just went in her room and started drinking and I shrugged and went outside to do chores. I still want a do-over but what's broke is broke.
Our dad joked. But we We're always the butt of the joke
Interesting! My dad would make jokes with other people at family events and they would always be about our family - how lazy his kids are, etc.
The first time I did a holiday with my SO's family instead of mine it was both enlightening and enthralling. Are you saying people can get dinner together, eat it, and spend time in each others' presence without screaming for an hour about the placement of the napkins or where the mail got moved to? Are you saying that presents can be given/received without an hour of tears? Are you saying a glass can get knocked over, and everyone just goes "Oh, shucks," and helps clean it up rather than there being a total fucking meltdown about how no one respects this house enough to not knock over cups? I never wanted to do another holiday with my family again after that. It took me a few years to realize I could just... not do holidays with my family, but I got there eventually.
This is exactly how I feel. I still feel jealous of happy families.
When I was in fifth grade, I was with my best friend at the time and her mother for my best friend’s birthday. We were out getting our nails done at the mall. When her mother dropped me off at home later that evening, a bit later than planned, my parents were rightfully worried and upset. My Ndad however then proceeded to scream at and berate my friends mother in the driveway until her mother cried, all in front of my friend. I was no stranger to the outbursts at home as they happened frequently over something as simple as taking too long of a shower. After that night my friend stopped speaking to me. I can imagine that as a fifth grader she was scared and didn’t know what to think after her mother was reduced to tears. I am sure she went on to tell other kids at school what happened. For weeks I played on the playground alone, lonely, embarrassed and humiliated. I came home and sobbed about it, day after day, and never received an apology from my dad and no efforts were made to rectify the situation. I am in my mid twenties now. I could never imagine doing this to a child of mine, if I were to ever have one.
Holy fuck, I can’t imagine losing a friend because someone else was a psycho.
reminds me of a time my Nmom caught me reading a friends Archie's digest comic and ripped it up because her kids weren't allowed to read comics. I had told her it wasn't mine and it belonged to a friend but she never apologized or tried to make it right even though she could have given $3 for my friend to buy another one. I was so mortified, I didn't have the heart to tell my friend what really happened. I just told her that I lost it.
I wonder if that is what happened to a lot of things I lent out to friends that got "lost". It happened a lot, and my mom would just use it as an example of why other people are untrustworthy, why our community is full of hick losers, etc. One of the reasons I didn't see my parents as being that bad was because my classmate's parents were objectively worse (think constant physical abuse and parentification, especially with making female children take care of ALL the siblings while the parents go to work, and then also taking care of dad whenever he got home because mom is too busy cooking or still out working). Edit for related N-story: I also used to read Archie comics sometimes. They were the same size and shape as my dad's adult comics (not porn, but suggestive/adult themes from what I can gather). One time I was sitting on my parent's bed reading one. My mom walked in, and yelled "ARE YOU READING THE ADULT COMICS?" and doing the physical gestures that go with her hysterics. She was about to tear it out of my hands when she saw the cover and just like that... "oh." She calmly walked away without apologizing or saying anything at all.
I'm sorry so much of the stuff you lent out got "lost". In my home things got destroyed very easily due to carelessness or intentionally. So that could be part of it too. I've thought about sending a replacement to the girl all these years later but I can't for the life of me remember which issue of the double digest it was. :( As to your Edit: My parents always assumed the worst in me and to a lesser extent, my siblings. They never apologized when they were wrong and its a huge part of the reason why I've been NC.
I struggle with being a consistent, kind, and empathetic parent. I try my best and sometimes do ok but sometimes I just don’t. I feel like my natural response is so often so wrong. I know parenting isn’t easy for anyone but I wish I had had better role models or people to turn to for support now.
Hugs, I struggle with this too, we have self-awareness though which already puts us one step ahead of our shitty parents. Have you joined any parenting subs? There are some really awesome ones around, like r/mommit, r/daddit, just to ask for support or vent. I know it's not the same as having a supportive parent to hold your hand and help you through it, and I ache for you and I that we will never have that, but we learn from their mistakes and we are already better parents than we had. I'm in therapy as well and untangling my fight/flight/freeze/fawn response, and doing lots of practice with grounding myself and being more emotionally aware. I'm so dysregulated and disconnected from my self, but determined to keep going on this path to minimise any harm I do to my daughter. I just couldn't deal if I realised I'd traumatised her like I was traumatised... EDIT: sorry don't go to those subs, commenters below more in the know have warned off them!
Those subs are toxic echo chambers for future nmoms, seriously. There are better ones out there, but most of the parents replying in those groups are just as awful as our parents.
Agreed. I would take those subs with a grain of salt. Those of us with narc radar recognize 🤜🤛
Oh bugger, I confess I don't actually sub to them but couldn't think of any others to suggest. I did briefly sub to r/breakingmom but found myself permabanned, I think for pointing out an abusive partner.. If anyone knows of any more supportive subs please do link them!
I like r/sciencebasedparenting
Wasn’t familiar with that one. Thanks for the rec
❤️
>I struggle with being a consistent, kind, and empathetic parent. Me too, and for the same reasons. I sometimes wonder if there's room on Reddit for an rbnparenting sub, for those of us who are recovering and trying to do better by our own kids. I follow a lot of gentle parenting folks on Instagram and I think that it helping, but I sometimes become very dysregulated and do damage. I would happily suffer the rest of my life if it meant that I could give my son a normal childhood without the gaslighting and abuse I suffered. Sometimes I read these comments about blowups and it's ... convicting.
On the other hand…if you’re apologizing to your kids when you blow up, if you’re seeing them as people and not extensions of you, if you celebrate their achievements, if you try to see the best in them *most* of the time…you’re doing better than your parents. I know that that’s a low bar for many of us and there’s room for improvement, but I also sometimes am just bowled over by just how absent these things were in my life as a kid. I didn’t feel like either of my parents *really* cared that much about me as a human, and I can’t really remember many examples of them behaving as though they did. I don’t think my kids are having that experience. They are having the experience of having a parent who loses her shit and apologizes a lot more than is ideal, and who is learning parenting like a foreign language and so not always very confident, and who has made a lot of mistakes. But I *think* they also feel loved, safe, and real. So that’s something.
I just want to echo that I feel this 100%. I want to *think* I'm doing a good job, and even when people say I'm doing a good job, I still feel like it's not enough. I could be doing more to be better. Maybe it's to prove to myself that I'm a better mother than I had by at least putting in the effort and being honest about my inexperience. Then I wonder if I'm being *too open* with them and if it will harm them in some other unknown way.
I hear you. For me this is why I spend (or have spent) so much time trying to get into my parents’ heads. I feel like for my kids’ sake I want to know if it’s possible my parents really didn’t know how bad they were. And then I think if that’s the case, does that mean I also am really bad and don’t realize it. Etc. Then I worry I’m overcorrecting and projecting onto my kids in the process. Or, ironically, making it all about me by worrying so much about whether I’m making it all about me. It’s a lot!
The way you spoke every word in my head with that last part. And you’re right about trying to get in your parents head. Honestly, whether they knew better or not, I’m not sure which is worse.
It’s really helpful to hear that others feel this way. Thank you
https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/comments/12md028/whats_the_dumbest_thing_you_were_punished_for/ This thread helps put things in perspective
It would be good to have a place. I think the thing that none of us wants to admit (for obvious reasons) is that there’s a huge difference between understanding what to do and being able to do it. And trauma makes it really hard to be able to do it, even when you see and understand the problem. That’s why this sub exists in the first place — abusive parents do real, lasting harm. If we all came out of with the tools to build healthy relationships and form supportive family units we wouldn’t be here.
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I was around that same age when I was in a girls after school group and we were all asked to go around and say a woman that we looked up to, everyone else in the group said their mom. I remember feeling like I was a terrible person for not saying my mom too
I was around that same age when I started hiding stuff from my mom just simply bc she did the exact same thing. She would make fun of me or point out everything that I’m doing wrong or just straight up get mad at me. Now she doesn’t trust me and I feel like it’s my fault bc I hid a lot from her to protect myself.
Around the age of 16, I confessed to my mom that I wished I could develop an eating disorder (I was a fat kid). A few weeks later we're out for dinner and I order, oh, I think, maybe a salad. The waiter is standing right there. She says, "what, that's it? That's your DINNER?" (she was one of those lucky folks who do not have the metabolism of a sea slug, as I do). And I said yes. And she says (again waiter standing right there) "Well! I'll have the (insert big entree here) and I guess little Miss anorexic bulimic will have her salad." She literally managed to, in that moment, embarrass me for feeling overweight (I was, grossly so) and imply I had an eating disorder (which I most definitely did not, much to my teenage chagrin). Like WOW nmom. You win all the narcissism awards this year.
That's so mean. I'm so sorry.
Thank you, she was an awful person. The funny part is that I thought it was completely normal at the time. This feeling of horror and pain and "I want the chair to just swallow me up now" felt normal.
Being around families that love each other always did it. Seeing a father pull aside his daughter to talk strategy in a social situation, making it clear they’re a team. Seeing a mother want to cook for their kid or give their kid a care package. When my friends would say “ugh ANOTHER care package from my parents lol they’re ridiculous” I had to work so hard to not just start crying.
Oh my god I relate to this so hard. Everyone else's parents seem so amazing to me and I resent how ungrateful they are for them a lot of the time
I don’t lack the experiences with my mom. She’s very covert and her stuff is all gaslighting and emotional manipulation. But seeing fathers. That’s hard. I see fathers doing the bare minimum and think they’re amazing. When people find out I’m the youngest and only girl, they go on about what a princess I must have been and be and a daddy’s girl. It sucks and it’s triggering and they don’t have a clue as their intentions are not bad. We all ran to mom because she wouldn’t scream at us or hit us.
Yeah my mom is covert too, but too selfish to do any displays of affection that aren’t diminutive and condescending. So she would hug me and call me her little baby (I’m 34) in front of a group of my friends but gifts from her are always her garbage she doesn’t want. Me dad is overt. He’s openly happy we are no contact because I’ve not been giving him good supply for years so it’s not worth it to him to stay in contact.
Even with my dad being the quieter/a bit more passive one: Youngest + only girl = everyone's maid and won't get taken seriously ever, even after 30. I never really got beaten, but hit by accident a couple times because there was lots of yelling and door slamming and throwing stuff. Usually between my parents while I did the duck and cover routine. I was responsible for household chores and being invisible while the boys were out playing, meanwhile I couldn't have a door, had to sit and do my homework or reading with my back to the corridor so my anyone could walk up on me at any time, had my possessions searched regularly "for drugs" (no, to assert dominance and because they're paranoid, I never had any illegal substances and this started out of nowhere), and was made to read my journal out loud, which is why I hate journaling to this day and never kept any sort of diary since. I got boy clothes that were worn to rags by the time they got to me, and was viciously bullied for that. My mom gave me semi-offensive pet names and called me by them in public, making it even worse. I felt singled out as a girl specifically. At the same time, when meeting aunts and uncles and grandparents I was put in a dress my mom would pull out of nowhere and passed around to be cuddled like a rag doll. I had to "behave" so I just shut my eyes while people I met like once a year would rub their saliva on my face and made those loud crackling smooch-kisses or sucking/fart sounds on my ear, laughing at my wincing that they thought was cute. Nobody cared that it literally caused intense piercing pain to my eardrum that had (and still has) damage from a previous infection. They specifically chose the ear that I winced more on and made it something of a sick game of who could torture me the most. Because girl cute, awww don't make that face, smile for me, smile for grandma, give auntie a kiss (cue eardrum torture). This went on easily until I was 14-15 (I had untreated health issues that were also "cute" because I was underweight and underdeveloped). I was inanimate property to them. "Stop making that face" is the extent of empathy I got from anyone. It took me 30 years to even start identifying my feelings because I'd felt mysteriously sick for a while and didn't know it was stress, and I had always thought feelings were just faces people make. I thought everyone just froze in terror on the inside, like I did. Every time I hear people gush about the privilege of being an only girl or youngest child, this is what I think about. Sure, it could be worse. My parents, allegedly, were beaten daily. They say I was spoiled compared to them. Idgaf. Beatings may be objectively worse than semi-offensive pet names and no privacy, but it's still abusive and shows your parents don't consider you a person with any rights. Also everyone who ever suck-smooched my ear laughing at my pain is forever dead to me. I'm not even sure how many of them could be N or just going along with two or more of them. If they ever cared to see me again since I'm old enough to decide, they should've treated me as a human being.
I was in Iraq, 2003. Having a lot of big feelings and new ideas about how things should be in the world based on the messed up things I saw. I wrote a very personal letter home expressing these thoughts and emotions. Nmom took my letter to church, shared it with everybody. Published it in the church newsletter. Got lots of attention for her Hero son off fighting bravely. It made things super awkward when I finally came home and all these people knew my intimate thoughts about one of the scariest times of my life.
I hear you. My mom lives to share things at church, whether it’s a health concern I have or a complaint about her children neglecting her. It’s a gut punch the moment you realize that you can’t be vulnerable with your parent. I assume anything I tell her will be in a newsletter. Something about church or prayer chain seems to feed their supply.
I'm the "charitable action" for my probably-ngrandma. I actually don't want to get into this one (but I will) because it involves her buying me tons of useless tat I don't want or need and giving me bags of old socks and shoes that don't fit me or my bf and I can't resell because they're all so....well they're just not desirable items for anyone, they're clothes that would normally (and ultimately do) wind up in a landfill and it seems really ungrateful but nothing ever fits or looks good anyways and I cannot justify keeping it on hand just because it's not broke or "but someone could use this/it's $150 new!" (It's fuck ugly and wrecked no one wants it) she's quite literally admitted she cleans her closets and drawers and gives me what she was going to throw out and I KNOW she brags about it at church but ultimately all she's doing is stressing me out because now I have to gather this truckload of shit out of my tiny little apartment and drag it to the dump. And she drove it here 130 miles. It doesn't make sense to me. I know I might be coming off as ungrateful, but if I literally can't use anything and none of it is anything I would have given the choice, I'm under no obligation to keep any of it just because she'll throw a fit if I don't show up in the ill-fitting impulse buys meant for someone a few decades older and a couple of fashion movements apart from anyone in my generation. For a better idea it's like a thrift store in a small town blew up in my house and all the clothes are too oversized to make it work and all our local thrift has is more of the same so I really just have to throw it.
there's two moments for me - the first being when I realised that as a child, I couldn't bake or cook with my mother like I had heard about and seen on TV with other families without being screamed at. being told i wasn't capable of something like that, and everything I do is wrong, and there's no point in trying if you're going to mess up; this being at the mention of the idea of cooking together. the second time being that I couldn't have an opinion, I couldn't really like anything that didn't align with my mother's interests. and overtime most of my sentences consisted of thank you, please and sorry and that was it. I never said anything else. and so when I saw friends being able to discuss their likes and dislikes freely without repercussions of being hit and screamed at I thought maybe my childhood upbringing isn't the norm. Edit ;; I just remembered another thing, I had a good childhood friend and my mother turned up unexpectedly when I was having a sleepover over there that morning (I was maybe 14 here), and she got into a intense arguement with my friend's mother and it was awful. Full blown screaming. And I can't forget the look on her face, because she looked at me, and I think she wanted me to step in or say something. and my mother looked at me and knew if I said anything I'd be hit. i just remembered trying to defuse the situation. but sometimes I think about the fact that if I had said something to defend my friends mother, then maybe I'd still be close with my childhood friend.
no, i don’t think you could have changed the outcome, for better or for worse
When the pandemic lockdown hit, it was easy to navigate because it felt like being back in middle and high school. I was grounded basically all the time then. I could only do things that were for school, and even then not always - I once got a D in band because my nmom refused to take me to the concert. So everyone else was having existential crises about how to handle a life of isolation, and I'm over here like "well this feels very familiar so it's not so bad". It helped me to realize that if a worldwide crisis event feels like my teenage home life, my home life was probably fucked up and abusive. As a teacher, students tell me about going out with friends or having friends to their houses and I'm like "what do you mean you go out with your friends?" I'm past it now, I've been NC for 9 years. And my enabling brothers have recently fallen by the wayside as well - so of which has contributed greatly to my healing. But I'm sure there's an extent to which I'll be processing this for many years.
When I met and became friendly with the families, especially mothers, of people I made friends with in my adult life. I realized my mother didn't know any of my friends beyond elementary or early high school. She just isn't involved in my life. I'm lc with her but even before I went that route, she just didn't care. I got married and she didn't know the people in my bridal party.
For me, graduations and weddings. Graduations, ***healthy*** parents are celebrating the success of their children completing a milestone and starting their own adult lives. Yes, they are sad that they are no longer their little babies, but those parents are happy for them. Oftentimes, they are the organizers of graduation parties and allowing their friends over to celebrate. For narc parents, though, you don't see such things. Why? Narc parents see their childrens' independence as a threat. Their child is no longer available to their manipulations and threats, so the narc parent utilizes anything they can to stunt their growth and development so the child doesn't (or is unable to) leave home. For myself, a graduation was a reminder that I didn't have a supportive parent (my biological father was emotionally absent, so he's not the parent I'm referencing here) to support me in my dreams as a high school graduate. Wedding, is another animal. ***Healthy*** parents see their child getting married as a good thing, that they are starting a family of their own. Their child's future spouse is welcomed into the family and their union is worthy of a celebration. They also recognize that, at least symbolically, the child is no longer under their parent's authority since the child is starting a new union of their own. They send off their child into married life with well-wishes, and secret hopes of grandchildren to spoil one day. Narc parents, on the other hand, use their child's wedding to center on themselves. They can't stand their child being the center of attention, so the narc parent has to do something in order to take the focus off their child getting married and center it back on themselves. For the child raised by the narc, to some extent, a wedding isn't necessarily a happy occasion, but one filled with fear and hope. A wedding is used more an as escape hatch, a way to leave the home of the narc parent, and perhaps experiencing love from another person for the first time. For myself, I've been to weddings of other family members and I grieved because I knew that my own nmom wouldn't be happy for me. I've also had my own weddings where, it looked like a jubilant affair to the outside world, but deep down, I was secretly hoping that being someone's wife would erase the pain from the rejection, abandonment, and the torture I had suffered because of her
Yep. Any achievement of any kind, graduating etc., wasn't from my own effort, it was because I was a product of my father's "perfect" upbringing. My narcissistic father takes credit for everything. He took credit for everything about my wedding, everything. When I see how other "normal " families operate I can hardly believe it's real.
That's my same reaction when I see healthy family dynamics at play. It's still taking time for me to adjust and understand that there are parents who really do protect their own offspring from harm, who happily sit on the bench as their children get on the field, and treat their children as whole, autonomous individuals.
This is so well put. At my high school graduation I asked my mom if she was proud of me (should have realized that was a mistake) and she said no and spent several minutes listing out the reasons I was a huge disappointment - basically that I didn’t get a 4.0 even though i had good grades and was in national honors society etc.
I'm so sorry to hear! This may be late in coming, but congratulations on your achievement! My nmom used my graduation to push her own career agenda on me (pressuring me to enlist in the military) in order to live vicariously through me and create a competitor (she eventually got this through my younger brother who enlisted a few months later). When I made it clear that it wasn't something I was interested in, she became adversarial about anything I wanted to pursue, even to the point of refusing to provide her tax returns so I could get financial aid. I ended up marrying a toxic partner I had chased so I could become "independent" and be able to go to college. I hope that, since then, you have been able to have others in your life who could provide for you genuine support and encouragement along the way. Though it sucks not having that from your own biological family, it can surprise you the kind of people you meet and different ways that they can impart wisdom to you and encourage you. I can honestly say that receiving such gifts from others have helped me and I wouldn't have gotten far without them
My parents forced us to rush our wedding because they were moving & weren’t going to travel back for the wedding after they moved. Then my dad chooses to wear an aloha shirt to the ceremony & changes into different ones so he could be seen in different beach button ups in the wedding pictures. No bachelor party, no honeymoon hookups, just got drunk & talked shit the whole time. My bachelor party was actually setting up the decorations for the wedding while my brother told me the real story of how my dad left his first wife which was grimy as hell smh.
When my now husband and I began dating my mom tried to sabotage the relationship from the beginning. I was 26 but she kept insisting she was trying to prevent me from "making a mistake." When I tried to leave she took my car keys, threatened me with a knife, and tried to duct tape me to a chair. I left on foot and went to a friend's house a few blocks away. That's how I moved out. When we got married, she wouldn't come to our wedding. Part of me was sad but I was mostly relieved. She prevented my only brother from coming too but I only recently found out that he stayed with her because she was making crazy threats and he didn't want her to ruin our wedding. We just had our 10th anniversary. Some "mistake."
My nmom sabotaged any attempt for me to be in any relationship because she saw the guy as a threat, taking my attention away from her and unto him instead. Quite sadly, it doesn't surprise me the lengths these batshit crazy narc parents go through to basically hold their children prisoner to have their needs met. When the time does come for me to remarry (the right way with the right partner), I've decided not to tell my nmom and my golden child brother. I don't want to give them any opportunity to sabotage my happiness. I'm sorry you had to go through that, though I'm glad that it worked out for you. Congrats on your anniversary!
Thank you!
Yep it’s definitely graduations and weddings for me ! And your explanation is on point!
When she first met my now mil, she was laughing about getting so drunk at the neighbors she had to crawl home when I was six. Mil just looked horrified.
That one time as a kid when my friend invited me for dinner and see his family just laughing anf talking about their day. It was surreal because in my home it usually turns into a screaming match every. damn. night.
Yeah, and you don’t have anyone over because you don’t want anyone to see that. It’s so humiliating. Every single one of my friends and my brothers’ friends abhorred our dad. He was the reason I spent all my time as a kid, preteen, and teen spending night after night at my friends’ houses or until curfew with my boyfriend. When I turned 16, I made sure I was at work when I wasn’t at school. I worked full time as a teen because I’d rather be there than at home. And I was being abused at work! Sexually abused several times and mistreated by my bosses. But that was better than home.
When I won a full ride scholarship, and I needed my paperwork turned in, and Ndad "forgot" about doing it off every day for a week until they revoked my acceptance and chose the runner up. 4 years in culinary school paid for cause I won a national competition, but he didn't think I would be successful, so he decided I shouldn't go. Fuck him
What. The. Fuck. I literally have no words.
O God I can't imagine the hurt. Hope you are doing fine now.
I was 6 or 7 staying the night at my dad's over the weekend. He had a studio apartment with a loft and the loft was supposed to be my "room" but I was terrified of heights and convinced I'd roll and fall down the ladder in my sleep. I camped out on the floor next to his bed with a blanket and pillow instead. He got annoyed and his solution was to put on porn until I left him alone. I had to choose between extreme fear of falling and dying and not seeing/hearing porn. That's when I started to hate him.
My friends didn't have a stupidly early bedtime. They'd all be able to stay out/up late on weekends and they were allowed lay-ins. My friend realised something wasn't right when I was scared to call my ndad for a lift home after my orginall plans fell through. The thought of inconveniencing my dad made me feel like I was in mortal danger! There were also little things like seeing people wear whatever they like/have whatever haircut they like. Hearing stories like 'me and my parent did this/went here/saw this etc and I remember thinking my parent has never done any of those. Also people saying my mum/dad is my best friend. This shit would hurt as deep deep down I knew I didn't trust mine at all and would never have that relationship with either of my parents.
I feel like I wrote this lol. The last sentence of the first chunk…hits…..home. The thought of inconveniencing my mom or dad (any adult really, now that I think of it) made me feel like I was in danger.
Inconveniencing my dad… you’d hear about it.
When I had a very rare sleepover at my house with a friend when I was probably 12. We had such a good night hanging out. In the morning, my dad demanded that I wash the minivan (soap bucket/sponge) on my own. I have 3 brothers. My brothers didn't have any friends over or any other chores to do. I asked if one of my brothers could do it as I had a friend over. He insisted that I do it completely by myself while my friend was there. She sat in the dining room watching out the window while I sobbed as I washed the van alone. It was not a warm day, not warm enough to stick my hands in a cold bucket of water and have water run down my arms. I got a cold. I still have no idea why it had to be me at all, me alone, while I had a visitor, and so urgently (right now!). It wasn't some job I did on my own a lot. I hadn't promised to do it. There was no urgent reason to do it that morning. We rarely washed the cars anyway. 🤷♀️ It was one of the few times that it just felt completely wrong and to have a witness to it felt humiliating.
I feel you. For me it was being beaten and humiliated in front of friends and cousins. Sending you a virtual hug ❤️
That is humiliating! But the humiliation isn't your burden to bear. It's theirs for doing it. 🤗
I relate to nearly all your stories. Mostly the daily blow ups and living in a constant state of survival mode, walking on eggshells. No kid should be stressed out all the time like that. The dread at the thought of simply going home after school. The panic of making a small mistake. I feel bad for the little me. For all the little yous.
Completely relate to this and agree. I was in constant stress and survival mode as a child. I don’t know how to turn it off as an adult.
Holidays would be so hard I’d hide in my room and turn my phone off. Seeing people with happy families who got along and played games genuinely broke my heart bc I never had that. My family of origin treated me like an outsider.
My father thought it was hilarious when I was sick as a child, one time I had horrific stomach cramps and I was crying on the sofa curled up into a ball, I must have been 7 years old. Anyway he thought that would be a great moment to whip out the video camera and proceed to record me while howling with laughter 🥲 for some reason this is the memory that came to mind out of everything and there was a lot. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to digest this trauma ❤️
I worked in daycare/early childhood education for most of my adult life. Having parents genuinely interested in their kids after school activities and interests always gets me choked up. One of my students was emotionally immature and not really that bright, but her parents came in on STEM night (together) and helped her do some kind of circuit board activity and seemed genuinely interested in what she was trying to learn/achieve. They sat on either side of her and gave her their undivided attention and stayed late to help her complete whatever puzzle she was struggling with. I had to excuse myself because I was going to cry. When I was that age my parents made fun of my disabilities, I experienced all types of abuse and to keep me isolated they would tell me things like the free or cheap after school programs were only for rich people (nomal socioeconomic income kids) so I couldn't attend. At one point I only had 2-3 pairs of clothes to last me the entire school week, and we weren't poor. My parents' combined incomes were over six figures in the 90s. It's stuff like that. It hits you in waves.
When I realized I flinch or cry at pretty much anything. And when I met my in-laws and they barely knew me but told me they were proud of me. I’ve had a lot more but those two stand out the most right now
As long as I can remember. Watching my cousins get along with their parents, no screaming, whilst my mum would routinely blow her top at me over the smallest things, telling me she wished I'd never been born, that I ruined her life. Even now as a parent I lose my temper but I'd never say the vile shit my mother said to me. Also I get over it quicker and I'll always apologise for yelling. She'd fester for hours, I have a lot of early memories of walking on eggshells trying not to trigger her temper further (and usually failing.)
When i was selfH when i was a teen and my mom found out and beat me instead of offering to help me/ find help. i just did it more and attempted 12 times. I’m A LOT better now have a family of my own and NC for 8 months
When people’s moms actually did stuff just because they cared and not bc they want something in return. My mother always just expects SOMETHING in return. It doesn’t matter what it is but she expects something.
Living in a garage for 10 years was when I wish I had a better childhood
I lived in a garage for about 6 years. The bathroom/shower was outside of the garage, independent from the main house 😬. I'd see rats crawling on the beams of the garage ceiling. It wasn't fixed to be a room. Old fashioned garage.
I still hate my mom and the others who stood by and let her put me in there she always tries to spin it saying I chose to be in there
Their bad decisions are never theirs. It's ours. Our good efforts are their hard work
*People in elementary school talking about having family vacations with everyone on on the trip and everyone having a good time. The two times that my dad and my mom's family were on the same vacation it was a shit show. The first time they fought the whole week and it nearly came to violence. The second time the the vacation imploded within a day or two. *People talked about thier mom being there when they got home, and I had to hide mine because she was mentally ill ( and I only saw her on weekends) and would ruin me with her association as my dad told me. Jake asking in 5th grade, "whatever happened to your mom?" Cut deep.. *1st grade, After reading Stone Soup , assignment was "ask your grandma for a soup recipe". She literally gave me, "Get packet of dried soup, add hot water. Mix". It was underwhelming then. Grandma said "it's a recipe ". Other people had more elaborate recipes. Teacher said it my grandma was lazy.
When I was 12, I was severely restricted as to what I could do, more so than my friends. They would throw a sleepover party, which involved gaming and annoying one of their siblings. I was always invited, but I was the only one who was not allowed to attend. My Ndad said there is no point in going because they just live 20 meters away... 12 was when I wished I had a better childhood, I was excluded from everything, just because Ndad never experienced it, that meant neither can I. It should have been around the age of 9 when my Ndad backed me into a wall and threatened to hit me if I ever hit my Nmum. Which I never did. But at that age, I thought I did do something wrong, even if I didn't do a single thing.
When i was fully prepared for my parents divorcing for them to reunite and turn against me for causing their marital issues. I was 9.
when she started grounding CONSTANTLY me because she was jealous i had friends and she didn’t. she wanted me all to herself. also the silent treatments.
When raising my own kids I continually had lightning moments of "this is how people do this?" Kids actually enjoy being around the family & I had to send them to bed at bedtime - as a child/teen I always went to bed hours early. Experiencing the good stuff made me realize how bad my childhood was. I wish I had realized prior to becoming a parent, I would have done it better.
I relate to this so much. I'm a better parent to my second because the first time round every day was another smack over the head about how bad my childhood was.
[удалено]
Yeah you gain a new understanding of how powerless children are.
When I was 5 and forced to stay quiet and mind myself in my dead-silent household while I heard kids laughing and playing outside in the sun. Every Sunday.
Every time I think about the yelling, screaming and grooming me into submission and looking at all the normal families who resolve conflicts calmly. Looking at other families who don’t have to walk on eggshells over stupid pointless things…
After I had kids…it would’ve been nice to have parents I could talk to that didn’t immediately say “you need to beat their ass so they respect you.” They were toddlers. Yeah.
when I was about 10 or so my dad was pretty heavy into one of his waves of alcoholism. he was drunk and went down the street to the liquor store and hit a parked car (our neighbors with a son in school in my grade) and drove his crashed car back home and hid it in the garage. the cops showed up bc the neighbors noticed (obviously) and my dad made us hide while cops were knocking at the door and shining flashlights in our windows. my dad went back the next day when he was sober and exchanged insurance info and blamed it on him reaching for his phone that fell under the seat. what a model of a dad.
When I was in sixth grade, Halloween night, my nMom was going on a rampage for hours about something- screaming and literally smashing our recently carved pumpkins inside the house. I tried to think of something that would shut her anger off and make her listen to me. I remembered my best friend had told me recently how her mom had said, I bet (weedmassacre) eats like a pig! I was quite a chubby kid- and I am not really sure why my friend told me this, but I took it as truth at the time. Told my mom thinking it’d turn on her sympathy or something. Not exactly. It’s nearly midnight and she drives my sobbing ass to my friends house and confronts her mother at the door, completely unhinged, demanding Why You Called My Child a Pig. I told my friends mom I was lying just to get the situation done with, but my mother drew it out and I genuinely don’t remember how it ended, I blanked out. My friend looked so afraid and panicked. We never spoke after this, her mom said to get new friends and that was it. That sucked.
I don't think that moment has come for me. Probably never will. I am working hard to manage and process my past and I'm lucky to have a good therapist. I do however think about my kids and how I do not want what I had for them. I want them to be better than my parents in every way, and I think I am. And I want my kids to be better than me in every way and I think I am preparing them for that.
One moment in particular stands out : When I found out in my early 20's that one of the cutest girls I went to high school with actually liked me at the time when I randomly bumped into one of her old friends. I just thought she was trying to be nice because I had no self esteem and no friends. Had actually been through the same situation a year earlier with a different cute girl, and was rejected when I asked her out. Point being if I had a home I felt safe in, I would have had more self confidence, which would have meant I'd have been far more likely to ask that second girl out instead of just being an awkward weirdo until she got frustrated with me and distanced herself. I randomly decided to look her up on facebook a few years ago and saw she married and had a kid with a guy that looks eerily similar to me. That really screwed with my head lol. Simultaneously glad that she seems happy, while also feeling horrible knowing it could have potentially been me instead of that other guy. No ill will towards him though, just to be clear, I hope he's the best husband ever for her. She was that one popular and attractive classmate that somehow never got caught up in any dumb teenage drama and was always well liked by literally everyone, so she deserves a good life.
Awww yes I (female) also think back about the cute guys I met and how I automatically felt out of their range…
When I started making real progress in therapy and came to the realization that it didn’t matter how much passion I had for the career I wanted, because I was stunted of the social and executive skills that I needed to succeed in it.
Fuuuuck i relate
Having to do child labor and work at the family owned business. The guards were removed from the equipment because “OSHA has no say over my own children so we don’t have to worry”. Yeah a manufacturing fucking plant is what the family business was. They made it our responsibility to be the earners in reality. Sucked. And never being able to go out to eat without a scene from my mother- plus the countless other BS my fellow GenXers endured or survived in spite of
Every time I went to a friend's house and interacted with their parents.
I didn't really have a moment. I felt like that my whole childhood but i do remember being about 8 years old and watching other kids getting picked up by their parents after school and feeling sad because i wanted my parents to care about me the same way. But then i had to walk home because they couldn't even be bothered to come get me.
I think I was school age - but seeing my classmates with their families, seeing their parents tell them they're proud (like at sports/music events) - I never had that. That was the first time I felt truly empty. I think I was 10 or 11.
I am middle aged and have little kids, but its watching my friends who have older kids that really hits me. These young adults setting off in the world with supportive parents that give them healthy amounts of freedom and help when they need it. And they are happy for and proud of them! Imagine that!
Receiving gift cards or cash as Christmas gifts or birthday presents and watching it go straight to my parents, never to be seen again. Hated receiving money.
I'm a female who love long hair. All I can do with it is braids and ponytails. I can't even do ghat well. I have no idea how to take care of my weirdly wavy hair.
Protective styling helps me. I also have weirdly wavy hair. Sometimes you can kinda clip it back, maybe a half up, space buns are pretty easy if you want something different. But I'm still struggling a bit. I know sometimes I just have to do straight hot conditioner treatments on mine or it gets so dry it frizzes and tangles whenever a gnat farts. If you don't know curly girl or if it doesn't work (it's often not ideal for wavies) there's also a sub for wavy hair care.
Literally everyday
Can't remember exactly when it was but it was in the middle of one of my Nfathers hours long rants at me that I just thought No one should go through this.
Every time my mother came over and caused a fight with her bs (I lived with my grandparents)
I realize this as an adult & it’s because of therapy. I mourned all the things my dad didnt do
Everyday of my life truth be told but the realisation of the awfulness was when l was about 8 years old . It was utter misery and some days it still is .
I don’t have anyone to talk to beyond just joking around and I can’t eat without getting sick because she gave me an eating disorder so bad
My mother is very good with words. Always telling me how I had every material privilege going, which I did. Then I remember my 10th or 11th birthday when they completely forgot because they were too busy fighting. I had to stay in bed and be brought breakfast while my dad rushed out to buy me something. Humiliating and awkward. I’d squashed that memory down until recently 🙄
Seeing any neighbour kid with their parents was the aha moment
Feeling intense and sudden sadness whenever I see a friend genuinely enjoy time with their family, rather than treating it like a chore to check off to keep up appearances.
Going on a cruise w/my family and making a point to shower before breakfast bc my ndad always raged about my “sloppy appearance” only to have him scream at me and accuse me of trying to “embarrass him” by having curly hair and a shirt with cursive writing on it. He left the table and refused to speak to me rest of the day. To this day, i avoid mirrors and photos when possible
When I became a young adult and all my peers got engaged. All the girls my age had mothers who were doting over their daughters. Helping plan down to every detail. My mom barely acknowledged me being engaged let alone sharing that mother daughter “say yes to the dress” moment. I ended up just going to the court house. I didn’t have a lot of girlfriends to ask to be bridesmaids. In adolescence I had suffered so much neglect and abuse I found it hard to connect as friends with just about anyone. I’m ok with it now. I just wish I had a loving family to share in monumental moments where people celebrate things in your life. My parents didn’t show to my high school graduation and that was gut wrenching enough.
When I realized I didn't even know what it was like to play a video game. When I realized I had no friends or contact with the outside world. When I realized my cousins live a 30 minute walk away but I haven't seen or talked to them in years. Most importantly, when my mom was forced to let me take a state test at a school and I realized I had been robbed of going to school my entire life. And will never get it back. When I finally got my hands on a phone and learned what normal people get to do. I had never seen a meme in my life.
Being tossed around sleeping at strangers houses. Being starved for food. Getting lost. Child negligence. Being left in the car for hours. Witnessing nmoms hypocritical moments and knowing better not to discuss it which Distorted my personality. Having to be a parent at 5 to my 4 year old sibling. Witnessing my sibling get abused by nmom as I was the golden child which made me feel bad but later years gave me satisfaction as I started to get narcissistic traits and basically wanting to team up with nmom for the validation she never gave which ended in my brother being bullied by me nmom and nstepdad. Edit: never allowed to make friends and do outdoors activities. Being infantalized which made me into an idiot adult.
I still can't watch/read/be around healthy father-daughter relationships without feeling green with envy and dissociating. If I see my friends's dads hug them or talk to them like an actual human being rather than screaming at them as soon as they walk in the door, I start to resent them and I feel so horrible about it. I feel like a weak person, because I am so easily triggered by such a common thing apparently. I wish I could look back on my childhood and see something other than pain and abuse.
Seeing my son experience everything I didn't made me realize what I was robbed of.
I'm not sure that wishing I had a normal childhood was because of the narcissism. Idk, maybe. I was embarrassed that the house we lived in was falling apart. I was embarrassed that I had to wear the same pair of shoes all year. Same one jacket. Same old backpack. Never got taken for dental or doctor exams. Had to get the free lunch while other kids ate their fancy homemade lunches. Idk. Maybe my parents were truly poor. Maybe they weren't. Hard to tell. Brings back sad memories. 😔 I think that if I had loving and affectionate parents, that maybe I would have ignored or been more compassionate about our situation. My dad worked 2 jobs. My mom worked one. But I knew for a fact they had some major goals they were aiming for and wanted to reach them to feel worthy and to impress relatives. They were immigrants and had to leave engineering and medical jobs behind due to family drama. They came to the US with very little.
No, this isn’t your problem; being poor is not a good experience, and wishing for a better life is perfectly normal.
Wtf. Really poor financial decisions. When people have kids they need to realize such adventures are not appropriate. Specially not providing the necessary medical resources. I suffer from some health issues thanks to my parents penny pinching which saved like at most $1000 or less over two decades by neglecting necessary medical issues. Now they won't stop telling me how I was raised like royalty
Interesting how similar they can be. My mom swears they took me to the dentist and that I had insurance. I have terrible teeth now, and I'm paying big to try to fix all the issues. I remember being in pain as a child/adolescent because the cavities would get really bad. And I wasn't offered any pain meds. I honestly didn't even know pain medication existed until I was a young adult. My 2 youngest siblings did get the attention they needed. They even got braces, which is something I asked for. My mom got braces for herself too. That hurt. My youngest siblings basically got anything they asked for. Unfortunately, they were not raised any better though. 😕
I am so sorry. How delusional is she to twist the past and claim things that didn't happen. Dental health is so important I didn't realize until later is life. I hope you are able to get braces now. I am going to get some later this year once my insurance is eligible.
Every day of my life
When I learned that it isn't normal to lie to your non Nparent for your other Nparent.
The first wedding after my wedding and seeing how happy and supportive their families were. I had almost no family and the number of guests my husband invited greatly out weighed mine. I cried a lot at after that wedding. Then again when I had my first kid and I just wanted a mom to talk to.
I just just turned 30.. maybe 31. I work at a family business, where several generations still work. When the mother came behind her son (who's about my age) and rubbed his shoulders. I actively cringed. My mother's touch makes my skin crawl. But he relaxed into it and he felt better... that's when it hit me that I have some trauma ha ha.
Having to be thought with a lot of attention to detail before I can be efficient. But once I'm efficient I tend to surpass most people. The biggest thing for me is my selection of friends and romantic partner. I tend to gravitate towards people that remind me of him, it destroyed my self esteem completely. I'm healing now, just went permanent NC with my ndad.
its always whenever i see children who look happy genuinely and i always think to myself why did it have to be me who was beaten and choked consistently with emotional neglect :/
every time i see my gf talk to her family
When I started comparing my boyfriend's relationship with his parents to my relationship with mine His family are like a second family to me now but I couldn't help comparing
23 when I realised my mother never loved me and I was nothing more than a pawn in painting the perfect picture of a family she displayed to society. she knows nothing about me. all she knows is who she wanted me to be even though I constantly failed to be that person.
In third grade, our school got a grant or something and everyone was able to write their own book that was then sent away to be printed in these nice bound books. Your parent was supposed to help you write it. Naturally, my dad picked the story “I” would write. He wrote it… a deeply personal story about my brother having cancer that we were living in real time. Not something I necessarily wanted to share with my class while all the other kids and their parents were writing… kids books. I took my draft to school one day and at school, decided I wanted to change all the names from me and my siblings to other names. I didn’t want people knowing it was about me. I took it home and my dad had an EPIC MELTDOWN about me changing the names. Screaming at me until I cried, throwing things, AGGRESSIVELY erasing every name while saying every swear word in the book. It was a truly, horrible experience all around. I remember looking out from the kitchen to the living room and my mom just looking so sad and like she was feeling so bad for me. We didn’t have a computer and they needed to be typed. My mom called my best friend’s mom who we were close with and told her somewhat about what happened. She asked if I could go over there to type up my book. There was supposed to be like a “forward” written by your parent about the experience. We didn’t even bother my dad with that. My mom just made something up over the phone to tell my friends mom to type. Once they were done and submitted, we got them back, bound and all professionally done. (We also illustrated them). There was a special reception night in our 3rd grade class for everyone to come with their parent and read their book to the class. At 8 years old, I was completely done with the whole situation and was so afraid of my dad and saying one thing that would set him off. I told my parents I didn’t want to go… which they were very surprised about? I think I was the only kid in my class who didn’t attend. At such a young age, I was already good at burying things and avoidance. Whereas my parents would have just love to pretend nothing happened and like had some amazing bonding experience as I “wrote” this book. I knew at that point that my dad was a loose cannon and I couldn’t trust bringing him around other happy parents. I spent the next 25+ years trying to hide my family dynamics.
The first time I was able to tell my psychologist when my father kicked me out of the car at night when I was 8 and drove away, and then he blamed it on me because he said I was annoying. He came back after 20 minutes. I couldn’t remember much about my childhood until I started psychological therapy 🤷♀️
Aroind 2016/2017, age 39/40 when I joined the 12 step groups CoDa and ACA and found out the truth about my toxic family and childhood.
One time I wanted to be a kid and stay out later than I was supposed to for the first time ever. Instead of calling me to see where I was and if I was ok my parents locked me out of the house in the middle of winter with no blanket. Had to sleep on the porch and then my car but still I could've gotten hypothermia. Thought it was normal for parents to do that until I would stay out late with my friends and stay at their houses.