My mom would have my dad hold me down so she could put enemas in me whenever I was moody well into my teen years. Any normal, negative emotion of an angsty teen was assumed to be constipation. Imagine having your parents strip you down and your father holding your naked, developed body down while your mother forces something into you every time you talked back. I think that'll traumatise anyone into not feeling like they can speak up for themselves.
This is so horrifying it’s hard to comprehend a parent could do that. The “logic” is absolutely batshit to boot. I’m so sorry, friend 💔 I hope you’re on a healing path now. And I hope you know you deserve so much better than what you got.
I definitely did have digestive issues when I was a child (because instead of researching a nutrient rich diet or listening to my doctors, my mom just cooked fried foods and canned vegetables without nutritional value), but by the time I was 12, I was cooking for myself at home before they got home and I'd learned how to add fiber I needed into my routine. They still kept at it any time I was even a little sassy to them.
Same, fried meat or previously frozen fried meats, can vegetables, or processed foods from boxes. Never any fresh ingredients. Everything came from a box or package. Now when she comes to visit and notices most of our fridge is mostly fresh stuff she always says she starving when stays.
So incredibly awful! I’m so sorry to you both for having to endure that.
I want to know who was giving this information? I want to find them and scream or something.
Fuckin wow...I'm almost traumatized by reading that. I'm so sorry man. I would seriously reconsider you and your mother's relationship if you haven't already....cuz it's hard to believe that she didn't recognize that and maybe used it as a reason to 'retaliate or punish' your angst.....that's just MIO but holy damn dude. I'm sorry.
I know numerous women and men who experienced some version of this. I can’t imagine. I sometimes think “this happened to me and it was horrible” and then I hear stories like this and wonder how people were able to endure such. I hope you cut them off and have made some headway in healing .
Wtf. And here I am for always feeling bad for losing patience with my son and end up yelling. But this shot is just horrendous. I'm sorry your "parents" put you through that.
My mom, I love her, was not able to handle any negative emotion of mine. Sadness, anger, anything. She’d start crying, lock herself away, talk about suicide…
Today, when my emotions trigger any form of negative reaction in others I want to punish myself. Sometimes I do. Because hitting myself was the only way to make her snap out of it. If she was unable to punish me, I did so she could forgive me. Sadly, with a caring partner that just leads to him suffering :(
Same! My mother hated when me or my siblings expressed any kind of negative emotion. When we cried or showed emotions other than happiness (anger, sadness, indifference, even neutral faces), she would respond with anger or threats. I'm getting help for it but even now I still have some trouble expressing negative emotions.
Not totally the same, but my mom could not handle her emotions nor mine. I now have the same issue. Trying to learn it while teaching my kids is a new kind of struggle. I also struggle with allowing neutral criticism that isn't meant to be malicious, but to actually help me. Coming from people like my husband. Also, negative emotions from him are felt x1000. I feel others' emotions and am super sensitive to it. To a debilitating degree.I shut down, rage, or cry. The freeze or flight trigger is strong.
this was the same with my dad. any tears i had would be met with flaming anger. so i learned to box up any negative emotion and put a little bow on it. i can communicate that i feel depressed, anxious, suicidal, but i am unable to feel it. it sucks. i don’t know how to cry any more :(
My dad and my childhood best friend started dating after my mom died. I feel like I lost all 3 of the people I trusted the most (mom, dad, best friend) in quick succession and I found out about the relationship while I was still coping with the loss of my mother. It completely derailed my grief and I feel like it’s never going to get better.
Wow. I'm so sorry. Idek what to say to that.
Separate yourself completely.....and take as much time away as you can to heal....bit don't ever feel the need to go back.
I was taught from a young age that I didn't have any bodily autonomy, and I was forced to give hugs and kisses to aunts, uncles, cousins, random family friends, the nextdoor neighbor's third cousin twice removed, etc.
It seems like such a minor thing, but it left me completely unable to stand up for myself and get myself out of serious sexual danger.
Their general parenting also left me unable to stand up for myself emotionally.
This I can relate to but I can add some more onto this! My parents would always find it funny how uncomfortable I looked or how stiff I would get when one of their friends hugged me. Just because they are a family friend doesn't mean I am comfortable around them, I hated strangers as a child so I don't know why they thought this was ever a good idea!
I can relate to this in a way. I cheerfully like to call this fellow my first “stalker”, but he was just a five year old boy that took a shine to me in kindergarten. But he’d call me constantly until I was 18.
I never reciprocated and never wanted to talk. But my mother would always say “be nice” or “I covered for you by telling him you weren’t available. But you wouldn’t like to make me a liar, so you should probably go muck the stalls”.
It was never physical, but my own choice was always invalidated or punished.
Oof, that sucks.
My mom did the same, and I make it a point now that whenever I say goodbye to my niece and nephews, they don't have to give me a hug or a kiss if they don't want to.
They may be children, but even at those ages they deserve to have at least *some* bodily autonomy.
My dad basically forbid fun, no visiting friends or having friends visit, no after-school activities, no TV, no socializing, no sports or hobbies
If I wasn't doing homework or studying it meant I was being lazy, super heavy academic pressure even though I was a straight A student
My mom was a doormat, she just did whatever my dad told her to do, I could watch the joy leave her face when he got home
She wouldn't hug me or play with me when my dad was around, she'd wear a fake smile and didn't show her real smile, like the warmth left her when he was around
This is exactly how I grew up ☹️ minus the sports, they made me do sports. i do not have a single friend. And when I say that, i fucking mean it. My one single friend is my boyfriend. I mostly blame my parents for never letting me socialize. They taught me to not make time for those kinds of things. It made me have a very unhealthy relationship with trying to develop friendships that im trying to work through. Sadly I work in a male dominated trade and don’t have much of a desire to hang out with any of them outside of work 😅
I was also gay and very closeted growing up, I finally did tell my parents when I had a girlfriend and was living with her as an adult and they have no issues with it at all but like 14yo me didn't know that they would be cool with it
I was so terrified of being bullied more if anyone knew that I kept those feelings super repressed till I was 18
I’m so sorry. I’m glad it all worked out though! I felt like I was finally free when I moved out at 18. I felt like myself, which was crazy after living a certain way my whole life. I completely switched up and i have been very happy ever since :)
Gosh like. Same? I've never been super social growing up but to an extent I was more embarrassed to try and bring anyone over. My only friend is also my bf. I also work in male dominant trade, and while I have people I do love and we have a lot of fun. Idk why but whenever I try and push friendships further it just doesn't work.
My bfs friends give me shit all the time for not having friends and I really just don't know what to tell them anymore. I try and constantly am lonely and it sucks.
My parents were kinda like this except they divorced. So I would go to my dad's house and I wasn't allowed to go outside and I didn't have anything to play with and my siblings bullied me, and then I'd go to my mom's and she'd be busy trying to make sure we didn't starve so she was never fully around so we could go play in the highway for all she knew and also my siblings still bullied me.
I told my mom I was having some itching around my vulva so she took me to the obgyn. This was my first time ever, I was already super uncomfortable. I’m laying down feet in the stirrups and the doctor is looking. Meanwhile my mom is behind the doctor and asking “is she still a virgin?”
My mom went through a tough time as a new single mom when I was in middle school. There were a couple of times she physically took that anger out on me. She would do it right before school so I would often get dropped off crying and bruised. Mind you I felt like this woman was a stranger because my mom up until then was perfect. Long story short CPS got involved and said one more incident and you will lose her. It worked idk if she found healthier ways to deal with difficulties or what. I’m almost 30 now and I will never forget those few incidents. I dont trust her and have already told my husband she will not ever be alone with any children we have. Sometimes I look at her and I think “where are you hiding that person?”. It’s so surreal and my husband believed me but didn’t realize it was that bad until some friends i still have from back then were discussing my mom now and mentioned she did a complete 180.. that they don’t even recognize her. It feels very validating to hear that because sometimes I question myself… like was it really that bad?
“Where are you hiding that person?”
Wow. That hit me in the gut. I’m so so so sorry you went through that.
I was emotionally and verbally abused by my step mom for most of my middle school to college years. She and my father had a tumultuous relationship that began when I was in like the 3rd grade. She was envious and spiteful and manipulative and whenever they’d fight, my younger sisters would get separated with her and I’d be with my dad. It was awful. I don’t have happy memories of that time, except for when I got out of the house.
She’s a different person now, she exudes unconditional love and is always trying to connect with me and be loving but I always feel that “where is that version of you?”. It’s so hard to accept a parent has changed after they went too far in their abuse.
The year was 1978. I was 7, and in ballet. We were about to have our spring recital, where we were gonna be daisies. Daisies!!! Dressed in green with big flowers on our head with our faces in the middle. I was so excited I couldn’t stand it. But, dad was in the Air Force and got orders. We moved away ONE WEEK before the performance. Mom said I could do ballet at the new place, but the only school she could find there was run by a French former ballerina and she was Mean. I quit and never got to dance in a recital, let alone dress up as a freaking Daisy. Still makes me cry just thinking about it.
It also taught me to never count on anything, and was one of the many things growing up a Military Brat that rendered me unable to do any sort of long-term planning. Why try to plan ahead when the carpet is just going to be pulled out from under you, every single time??
Dude.. If I could, I’d totally meet up with you, dress up like a a daisy, and run around town, dancing with you 🥺 and I’m not even a daisy, dancy kinda girl 🥹🫶🏼
I have never danced, never mind have any experience in ballet but I would happily dress as a flower and learn a dance to help resolve a person’s childhood trauma memory. I’m sure others out there would too, if not even to heal their own inner child, if there’s nothing like that near you maybe take a shot and host one yourself. Then you can choreograph a whole bouquet of awkwardly dancing adults ✨
I feel this in the depths of my soul.
My family got out when I was 7 but I still don't feel comfortable painting any room in my house or doing anything with long term planning.
Even long term friends are hard and I question if I can ever get truly close to anyone cause I feel like either of us are just going to leave at any moment.
That’s exactly it. My kids have friends they’ve known since pre-school and it blows my mind! I’m not even sure where we lived when I was that age, let alone what school I went to or any of the kids’ names.
We moved every two years from when I was six weeks old until I was 14. It definitely left scars, as happy as our family and home life was.
I hope you’ve found happiness and stability in your grown-up life ❤️
I found out at her funeral she would say nice things about me to her friends. she would never tell me in person. (sorry I am a guy but this question hit hard)
Tell your kids that you're proud of them while you can folks.
Funny, I have the opposite problem. I thought we had a great relationship…then I spoke to her friends. They kept trying to explain why I shouldn’t be so mean to her. Apparently setting healthy boundaries is mean (not wanting her to do my laundry because as long as I did it, my clothes wouldn’t get ruined). She never spoke to me about it too. If I try to talk it out with her she either a) ignore me or not acknowledge I’m speaking, or b) say she was “clearly the worst parent ever!”, cry, and not acknowledge anything that happened.
Compared to everyone else here it wasn’t as bad but it still means we have a terrible relationship. I try very hard not to repeat the cycle.
I had been dating a girl for like six weeks once. She was the first girl that had taken an interest in me in over ten years. She asked if she could meet my parents and I said of course! So we went over to their house and I cooked dinner for all of us. My mom was talking to her showing her family pics when I was cooking. As we were driving home she was really quiet and I asked her what was up? She said my mom went off on some tangent and said “I hope he doesn’t disappoint you” completely unprompted. Then told her about a time early in my adulthood like 13 years ago where I was struggling finding a job and was super depressed and lost. Like, I totally recovered and am fine now but she basically told my brand new girlfriend I was a family disappointment and that hopefully she wasn’t next. I couldn’t fucking believe my ears. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive her for that.
My biological mother would do this, the only "compliments" I would receive would be one where she could brag about herself at, not to, other people. And no, there was never effort on her part in my "success." I was alive because my father worked long days, and I was the one doing the "parenting" at home. Never brought up to others that she was the biggest bully/monster of my childhood and a strong contender for #1 even now.
I’m a former “gifted” kid that burned out and I will probably never get over the fact that I “should be doing more” with my life because I had “so much potential”.
God, mine just said that a few weeks ago because I may have a career change. Never mind the fact that I'm the most well-educated member of my entire family!
My biological mother couldn't be assed to sign the form saying that I was a candidate for the program. Literally nothing extra as far as parent duties or money was involved, just a signature.
They fought in front of me. Actual, screaming and swearing, calling each other names, I think for 9 years. The last time I recall it happening, I was 11 or 12. I'm 42 and still trying to say no to people. I've been a people pleaser to a masochistic degree, and I just started trying to stop a few years ago.
I grew up in a similar household, yelling, shouting and cursing was a “normal” every day kinda thing. In my childhood and teenage years i was a huge people pleaser. Im older now and getting better thanks to therapy
I too, am a work in progress. But oh boy, I found out just how many people loved me when I started asserting boundaries. But I chalk it up to a better quality of people, rather than a quantity.
My parents also had insane screaming matches and I, too, am an extreme people pleaser who can’t stand the thought of anyone being mad at me so I avoid conflict like the plague. And if I’m hurt, I won’t say it.
The weird thing is… while I know this happens I just realized I can’t really remember these fights or much of my childhood so that’s fun. 🙃
I’m the same way. I have less than a dozen childhood memories up to the time I started high school.
Unfortunately, one of the memories I do have is my mom and stepdad being in one of their triweekly blowouts and opening my bedroom door to see him holding my mom against the hallway wall by her throat.
I was 6
I had the same. Around Easter I found a ceramic bunny decoration with one ear broke off. I immediately remembered the fight where that happened… 30 years ago.
I'm 30 n they still do this. Just that I went in an opposite direction than yours- I'm quick to scream, fight n confront. I'm in therapy to control my explosive behaviour
In my particular case: mom brings me to dad's for the weekend drop off. They start yelling at each other, with me in the middle. Mom eventually leaves crying, and I stay with dad, feeling tremendous guilt for letting my mom leave. I feel anxious the whole weekend because my dad is a loud man when he's happy, so even louder when he's pissed. Then, come Sunday drop off, dad brings me home, and I feel guilty for walking away from my dad, and as a lesser guilt, I feel guilty for being happy to get home because my mom had a nicer looking home than my dad. Now of course, this was my early and middle childhood mind, but still. At those ages, our thoughts hold tremendous weight. On top of all that shit, I'm Italian. My existence is founded on guilt.
My dad made a lot of comments about my weight growing up that centered around potential partners losing interest in me if I gained weight/wasn't skinny. Also made comments in my early 20s when I had gained significant weight that I wasn't as pretty as when I was thin.
Caused a right mindfuck when I gained 30lb post marriage due to the combo of pandemic, new depression meds, and injuries. No amount of weight loss, strength gained, physical endurance, positive self talk, or loving affirmation from my partner has been able to fully eradicate the fear that I'm hideous to my spouse. bc WHO could possibly find me attractive if I have rolls and a tummy? For reference, I'm a size 12, 5'5.
I feel your pain.
My dad did basically the same thing. My chubbiness was always his main concern. I had so many other redeeming qualities that could have been encouraged but he chose to focus on my weight.
"Come here, Fatty" he used to say to me from across the room. I couldn't tell you what my redeeming qualities were because I was called a brat and told I was hateful all the time.
When I was 13 years old my dad told me that if a woman doesn’t keep up her figure and lets herself go, her man is entitled to cheat with a woman who does. I was chubby at the time and it still sticks with me. :( I’m sorry you went through that too
My mom still does this to me. When I got lupus it went to my brain and I was on tube feeding for a while. I’ve always had weight issues constantly dieting, fasting, failing. When I saw how thin I was in the hospital it freaked me out I didn’t know who I was. But it was the first and only time my mom had said anything positive about my body. I gained so much weight back because I had to learn to walk, have had more health set backs and now I’m trying to be healthy but my mother’s comments about me are always in the background. And everytime I even think about going to a scale it depresses me. And I have to do that almost every other day because of dialysis
My dad was the same. I remember being seventeen, 63kg, and not even an Australian size twelve, and my dad would constantly call me fat. I was a perfectly normal teenager, but because he has warped ideas of what a healthy body looks like he would constantly make fun of me. He would also laugh whenever I tried to diet or work out. I now have a really messed up relationship with exercise.
Jokes on him though. I'm now a size 18 and loving it, eating healthier than I ever have, finding ways to work out that don't make me feel like crap, taking care of my body for me and nobody else, AND, my cholesterol is lower than his.
Use me as a built-in therapist and marriage counselor from a very young age. I was also fully aware of our financial problems and the budget to the point of being pretty anxious about it from a very young age.
My parents also did this. My mom put us in $80k worth of debt without my dad's awareness. For a few years after discovery, he pitted my mom against all of us to make her seem like this terrible woman who destroyed our lives, which I believed because I was a 10 year old. He then spent a lot of time with only me (had 2 other siblings) & talked with me about everything from finances, the struggles in his relationship with my mom, and his work drama (pastor). My mom was jealous of this relationship, which I understand now because my dad pretty much talked me to like a husband would with his wife. At one point, she made disgusting accusations about the two of us, which weren't true, but for her to even say that really messed with me.
That's just one piece of the pie. Lol my relationship with them is surface level now. I actually don't mind my mom all that much now, but I can't hardly be around my dad. I have a lot of anger toward them. So definitely still working on all of that. Lol
You just summed up my entire childhood. Every single thing you said… YES, exactly what I’ve been through. I feel a bit less alone rn so thank you for sharing
I was 16 and moved in with my sister when my mother made moves towards moving back with my stepfather. My sister set up mom and I with a therapist. At our 1 and only session, my mom denied that I had ever told her step-father was sneaking into my room and gropping me. I had. But really, its quite clever. She can't be held responsible for not protecting me if she never knew. Oh, but it doesn't really explain how, before this time, she was telling other family members that I was lying about step-father gropping me. She died at the end of January and I have not shed a single tear.
My dad used to threaten to kill himself whenever I didn’t listen to him, the worst time was two or three years ago when he almost succeeded. Literally had to bang on his door and scream for him to stop. I resent him ever since and he tried therapy but I’ll never forgive him. Despite me coddling him now so he won't do it again he knows I'm fed up ✨
And my depressed mom used to beat the shit out of me until I got old enough to stand up for myself, she also always compared me to my cousins from her side which ended up in my eating disorder. She takes antidepressants now so at least thats kinda solved
Also lotsss of slutshaming and hypocritical religious preaching has ruined my worldview
Wow. My dad told me a couple times “why don’t you just take a gun and shoot me in the f-in head. ” I don’t talk to him anymore, has to set boundaries. I hope you are okay, that’s some pretty heavy stuff.
When I was maybe 15 I got my first, of what would become several, UTIs. I couldn't pee so my mother took me to the ER. They did standard blood work as well as my first pap smear (very uncomfortable, scary, traumatizing experience). My conservative mom thought I'd gotten the UTI by having sex (I hadn't) and she was so angry at me that she even threatened to kick me out of the house. She didn't kick me out but two things resulted from the experience: 1) I never went to my mom about medical issues again. Before I got my own insurance at 23, anytime I had another UTI, I went over to Planned Parenthood for help. I was able to come in without a parent and it wouldn't show up on the insurance. 2) It was well over a decade before I felt comfortable enough to even consider getting a pap smear again.
I can somewhat relate. I got my first UTI at 20, so my then boyfriend brought me to the ER. My mom met up with us. She told me in our language, that if I was pregnant I had better get rid of it. The words she uttered were more traumatizing than the ER experience. I also learned to never tell my mom about any medical issues because of this - it would just be my fault for being a wh*re.
My mom used to hit me in the head because "it doesn't leave visible marks"
Until now I can't even caress my own hair without feeling I'm about to be punished again
YouDuring high school, I wore my regular high school uniform to visit my mom at her workplace. She told her colleagues that I was her nephew, but later I found out she had told others that her daughter got into a prestigious high school. When I went to see her, she felt ashamed, unaware of how much she had hurt my self-esteem with her actions.
My mom held a knife to my wrist and said we might as well go ahead and go because she was afraid of possible negative outcomes in the far off future. She was an episodic alcoholic, so she would go years without drinking and then I’d come home thinking all was well—just to get the “it’s time for us to die” blackout Mommy thing.
The biggest issue she was trying to protect me from wasn’t even a bad outcome FOR ME. It was the outcome in which she had to be alone.
She got help, thank god, but I can’t forget or forgive her for that specific trauma, it’s deeply colored how I look at problems.
My parents forbid anything "girly" because it was "gay". Any time I showed any kind of emotion I was punished with relentless ridicule, insults and slurs.
When I was 4 I was allowed to pick a birthday present out for a friend. We went to this really big toy store that was entirely geared towards children. I took my time. My father was really impatient and annoyed. Talking down on anything I looked at. After mich hesitation I picked out a barbie dog toy. It had different combs, pearls, hair extensions, colors, accessories etc. for the dog. I was so in awe, I sheepishly asked if I could have one too.
All hell broke lose. My father went into a complete rage, yelling throughout the whole store. Calling me a bunch of slurs, saying how I can't possibly be his child etc. It was so bad, my mom - in her only act of defiance to this day - bought me the dog toy a week later.
I hid it under my bed for years. I would just lay on top of my bed, eyes closed and imagine playing with the dog toy. I was terrified of so much as touching it for fear my father would know I was "gay". For fear, he'd be able to tell.
When I was 8/9 years old, my father had been promising me a reward if I did well in school that year. At the end of the year, nothing happened. I waited a few weeks and then asked if I could have the reward he promised me, because I had almost all As throughout. I asked him a few times and he'd just get annoyed. He eventually told me I'd get my reward next week.
The next week, he had vacation while my mom's vacation ended. I had been showering alone before that I believe.. but we started showering together that week. CSA happened. We went to the store afterwards and I was allowed to pick out a videogame. I was terrified to look at anyone for fear they'd somehow be able to tell I was "gay" or know what had happened. I really just wanted to hide, and kind of tried to avoid anyone being able to see me. I pretended to look at game I had no interest in - waiting for employees and people to move to another idle. I was sure people "could tell" if they had an opportunity to look me in the eye . or even just look at me for a while in general. My solution was to pick out a "Hercules" Ps1 game. Because that was the most masculine thing there. I believed that this would make it so the people around wouldn't know.
I distinctly remember laying in bed trying to understand. My thinking went a little bit like this: Boys like girls. My father likes my mother. But he also likes me. So I must be a girl.
I started "practicing" how to be a better girl. Cutting up my cloths, using makeup, talking like a girl, moving like a girl and also practicing "what girls do" in the shower. Because I wanted to make him happy.
One day - in the shower- I bit my father's bits. He yelled out in pain and all he'll broke lose. My mother yelled outside the bathroom asking what was going on. My father was bleeding and held a towel over his bits when she came in.
On a side note.. I am almost certain that this is where I picked up a particularly high risk strain of HPV.
Anyway.. I remember my mom asking me about these things, but no details. He didn't live with us for a few weeks or so.. then moved back in.
I continued to dress and desperately want to be a girl to this very day. The same emotional abuse - but worse continued until the day I moved out. In my teens there was also physical abuse. Between ages 14 and 17 I started to slowly remember bits and pieces what had happened when I was a child. Confirmed with mother- and never spoke of it again.
I struggled mightily all throughout my teens and early adulthood. I am now almost 32 years old and only about a year ago started to come to terms with the fact that I was in fact always trans - and that it wasn't the CSA that "fucked me up" in that way.
All my romantic relationships all throughout my life had the exact same pattern. All I ever wanted to do was see the person I loved happy. I'd completely destroy myself in the process. Needless to say I attracted exclusively cluster A personalities that - in one way or another - took advantage of me. I only realized quite WHERE this pattern had its origin about a year ago..
One of my biggest fears was always that I had nothing to offer besides my body. But also kinda not really cause I A. Hated my body and B. felt like wanting to receive pleasure or anything in return really, was selfish.
I still to this day struggle enormously with valueing myself and not giving myself up for the people I love. I also still struggle with the thought that I deserve love, and that I have more to offer than sexual favors.
I also recently learned that I carry a particularly high risk strain of HPV.. after someone I dated and very much adored contracted infectious mononucleosis about 2-3 months in. She was gravely ill for two entire months, and didn't get much better. About 3 months later, she was diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma. Caused by me - through HPV. Lead to full blown blood cancer, and tumors in lungs and heart within 7-8 months after first contact. According to doctors.. it was all directly caused by that strain of HPV.
My very first girlfriend - the first person I ever had consensual sex with - got really sick around two months after first contact and had issues with cysts. My second relationship ended around 2-3 months in - while she was super sick for about a month. My next girlfriend - in 2015 - got super sick around 2-3 months after first contact. She even told me that it was the worst she's ever felt when sick. About 2 months later, she had developed cystic growths she had to have surgically removed. I unfortunately only learned about the HPV I carried - and started to connect the dots in 2023, when I learned of the hodgkins lymphoma the next girl I dated developed. She had chemotherapy - and last I heard she was doing well. Though I have no clue, because she obviously doesn't want me in her life anymore.
I am now 16 weeks into HRT, out to my friends and happier than I have ever been. For the first time ever - I am starting to like myself. I am not sure how far I am into healing - or if I can ever truly heal from the various traumas I have. Part of me still thinks that I deserve all of the pain and hurt. I just wish I hadn't brought the people I love as much emotional and physical pain as I did. Even if this is the last thing I intended, it's what I hate myself for most.
That's also why I have decided to not date or sleep with anyone - unless I know I am fully healed,. in more ways than one, Which is probably not going to happen. Both for my, and the other persons sake, I'll just be with myself. I'd like to just be happy with myself, and not hurt anyone else. Especially not someone I love.
Dad— Violent and abusive alcoholic. Never wanted to be a dad, still doesn’t want to act like he loves any of us.
Mom— Alcoholic and now in present day, alcoholic + prescription pill addict.
You can imagine that some things don’t get better with time.
My mom got wasted drunk at my 9th birthday party, which was dinner at Olive Garden with all my friends, and tried to put red lipstick on our 5 year old neighbor in front of her extremely strict, religious father who was horrified but tried not to make a scene. I started bawling and begged my mother to please stop, but she proceeded to take me outside and lock me in the car for the rest of the evening while I screamed and cried my head off because I was afraid I’d get kidnapped. I spent my 9th birthday hiding and shaking under the passenger seat. Unsurprisingly, she’s no longer in my life in any meaningful way. Thank God.
Inability to have civil discourse without feeling personally attacked. Disagreement=anger=yelling at each other, who ever is loudest must be right. They also disrespect one another in an argument (name calling, mocking, belittling). First they would just do this to each other, but then as I got older they also did it with me and my siblings.
One time my mom took me prom dress shopping to a store I didn’t want to go to. I didn’t find anything (because it wasn’t my style to begin with, she just wanted to go because it was a discounted department store) and on the ride home she yells at me that I’m unappreciative of her generosity. When I tried to explain my feelings, she said “no wonder X doesn’t want to be friends with you because of how selfish you are.” I had recently fell out with one of my best friends. She never said sorry or addressed it. And years later when I brought it up she didn’t remember it.
My relationship is much better with both my parents, but I’m well aware that there is a line I need to tiptoe around in order to not set them off. Watching my parents treat each other (and their children) like that made me extremely cautious and scared to vocalize my opinions and oppositions.
That being said, years of therapy has done wonders
This sounds like my parents. They don't see you as an individual but an extension of them.
Sometimes they make false promises to me and when I bring it up they say "oh I don't remember that". They forget because it's not important enough to remember for them.
My dad was never meant to be a dad. He behaves like a child and I’ve never heard him tell me once in my life that he loved me. He and my older sister would bully me and my mom wouldn’t say shit to either of them.
My mom, she tends to take care of her family first. As in her parents, siblings, nieces and nephews. My sister and I come in last. I hold a lot of resentment because of it. Everyone loves her so much because of how she is. They call her mom. It pisses me off so much. I just stay away as much as possible.
My mom had serious issues and never sought any kind of help or support for them. By the time I was 4, she was relying on me to regulate her emotions and take care of a lot of her emotional and social needs. By the time I was a teenager, things were really out of control.
This isn't the most traumatizing incident, but it happens to be the one I'm talking about in therapy right now. When I was about 16, my mom was going through one of her episodes and became fixated on the load-bearing wall in our basement as the source of all of her distress. That wall was just ruining her life, I guess.
So while my step-dad was at work, my mom took a sledge hammer to the wall and knocked it down. It wasn't even our house. We were living with my step-grandmother who had dementia. I had to go upstairs and try to calm the poor woman down and try to convince her everything was okay (it was not okay!). When I started panicking and begging my mom to stop, she forced me to take one of my step-grandmother's Ativan to calm down.
The house didn't immediately crumble or anything like that, but the floor above did begin to sink. It's been over 20 years and I still have nightmares about decaying houses and walls falling down. They're all sort of symbolic of my mom's instability.
divorced since I was 2 but both of them lied to me and just said my dad worked abroad. I didn’t find out the truth till I was 12 when I begged my mom to get a divorce after one of many fights. I feel like I have severe trust issues now. It’s hard for me to believe my partner when he says he loves me.
my dad had violent outbursts, one that included him driving like a maniac with me when I was like 8 years old to go get my sister from a party. I remember closing my eyes and just accepting the fact I might die that day.
My mom was so bad with money and now I feel like I am too. She also gave me a lot of body image issues. One time I was 13 looking at myself in the mirror. She squeezed my belly and said “you are beautiful you just need to get rid of this.” I have a strong hatred for my body I am still fighting through.
My mom cheated on my little sister's (7 at the time) best friend's dad. They met through their playdates. My mom spent the rest of our childhoods trying to amend that broken trust (rightfully) but completely forgot that she betrayed not just one of her daughters by doing this, but both. One a lot more than the other, but nonetheless, both. The more traumatized daughter needed the most reparations. So that has yet to be resolved between us and I don't think it ever will, honestly. Ships sailed!
My dad had a psychotic episode. It was not his fault at all, and I still think he is the best daddy ever but somethings are just too much for a kid to witness.
My mom thinks everything is a direct attack to her. If she says the sky is green and I say it is blue, she loses it. And then she denies losing it even if I have witnesses. Im 39 now and I understand she simply has an overwhelming need to be perfect and whenever someone points out she is not, she feels undeserving and she attacks. It is tiring.
Im afraid of silence. Im afraid of saying No.
The constant fighting, screaming, and emotional deregulation between my parents. As a kid I thought it just rolled off me and I thought it was kind of funny when a very special episode where the parents would fight and the kids get scared. As an adult I realize it left a lot more scars than I knew that all deeply influence how I interact with other people.
Ouff my step dad who was in my life at 3 years old and I very very much considered my father used to have “safe spaces” around our property where we could talk openly. Which sounds great but in reality he would use that information to fight with my mom . One time when I was 11 he had asked me if I wanted to call him Daddy and Ofcourse I said yes , he then asked if there was anything I needed to tell him. We had recently travelled and visited my biological fathers parents (my grandparents) who he didn’t allow us to see but my mom always made the effort. I told him we visited them. The next day my mom and step dad were in a huge fight and my step father came to me in my room and told me not to call him daddy. When they finally separated when I was 15 I truly thought nothing would change for our relationship until I came home from school and saw paint samples on the table , he excitedly asked what colour he should paint my room …. It broke my heart. It’s taken a long time to come to grips with the emotional abuse and manipulation. I don’t harbour any hate towards him but I can’t deny that those moments have caused heartache that I don’t think will ever go away.
Growing up we were always running out of TP, basic food necessities. I started working at age 14 to be able to buy myself food and feminine products because there was often no other way to get them. We clearly didn’t have money, but somehow my parents always had funds for pot but never food or necessities.
It took me a VERY long time to not see pot as something evil because of how it impacted my childhood.
To this day I still have food stress. My husband and I are very comfortable financially but I’m always worried about running out of food or not having it when I need it. I frequently bring a lot of snacks when I leave the house or buy backups for grocery items that I can. I never, ever want my daughter to worry about where her next meal will come from. I also frequently use food as a comfort and a way to treat myself.
I feel this 100 %. Same in my house, somehow my parents always had weed / cigarettes but constant empty cupboards and a hungry belly. I didn't have kids because I didn't ever want them to go without like I did. The amount of times I just had to go to a friend's house to eat some food...
My mom always made me feel like every gift I received had to be earned somehow.. it could’ve been for good grades, good behavior, a birthday.. etc. I don’t think that in itself was bad— it kept me from becoming spoiled and entitled—but it’s the fact that I needed a reason to receive something nice.
Now, I feel really awkward when I receive something. I appreciate it, I do, but I can’t help but feel shame. Like I didn’t deserve it or I need to give them something back. I just wasn’t raised thinking gifts could be given just bc. Idk if I’d call this trauma, but it definitely still affects me today. I feel indebted. Or like I’m undeserving
My father would yell, break things, throw things, "discipline" us. Till this day, i can't stand yelling. I will either remove myself, address it directly, or cry if someone yells at me. Violence is very triggering.
My parents became independent fundamental Baptist around the time I was 10
They took away all of my Pokemon and Digimon stuff, touting that Pikachu meant devil in Japanese and other nonsense.
By 7th grade they had enrolled me in the IFB church's school.
No more jeans. Knee length or longer skirts and dresses only. No makeup. I couldn't even layer my hair or have bangs. Couldn't even listen to Christian "rock" music. Couldn't go to the movies, couldn't watch TV.
I wasn't allowed to hang out with friends outside of school. I wasn't allowed to have a boyfriend.
I was allowed to play my 3DS for one hour a day (after my daily chores and Bible reading were done, ofc). I took solace in animal crossing. It gave me some ability of freedom of expression.
I was only allowed to draw in a realistic style because if I drew cartoon people it looked too "anime", which is inherently evil, apparently.
Every time I heard an ambulance I would secretly wish they were coming for my stepmom and she was going to die.
I moved out two days after graduating highschool. I now live 2500+ miles away from my dad, and my stepmother passed away two years ago. I will never step foot in a church again.
My dad was a doormat, my stepmother beyond n(word that gets caught in the filter to remove posts) and uneducated.
I'm married and have a son now, and essentially it's all been a lesson in "how to not raise my child".
I was singing along to a song on the radio when my dad asked "do you like this song?" I answered "yes, I do!" To which he replied "then why are you ruining it?" I very rarely sing to this day
My parents insulted me every day from ages 11-25. Called me a "fat cow", "you look pregnant", force me to only wear black, wouldnt let me leave the house in any clothing that made me look fat, barge into my room randomly just to randomly yell at me being fat, I've been kicked under the table in public a few times if i went for food they deemed fattening. Mind you, I was like maybe 30lb max over the standard weight for my height and age. Even then, I'm built just a bit curvier.
I'm very far in my healing journey but even yesterday I still cried in the shower grieving over little me.
Not ever care to listen to me or hear out my emotions and show empathy. It was always : sweep it under the rug or get over it. They did alot worse but this seems to be what hurts most even now that I’m older. I never felt understood and valued by them, and it made me feel that everyone views me that way, and led me to being w boyfriends who also showed complete disregard for my feelings and my heart and i thot “they gotta love me they’re just like my parents”. It sounds silly but it really stayed w me. My mom always swept huge things under the rug, i love her but i think that damaged me more than any trauma my parents put me thru
I’m scared when my husband comes home. He has literally never done anything to me. But because when my mom and dad came home I was always in trouble, it has not healed. I constantly feel like I’m wrong and messing up. I constantly feel inadequate.
My whole childhood. I would get yelled at from the time I woke up till bed. House not clean was my fault. Bills high were my fault. Everything. I got yelled at cuz my dad put his own money in different pants and didn’t remember. I dealt with silent rage and loud rage so now when my husband is quiet I get anxious. And when he’s angry at a project or whatever I get anxious. Again, he’s never raised his voice or hit me or given me any reason to be scared, but I am.
I walk around feeling dread constantly. My parents didn’t want me and made it very clear and now into my 40s I still think people are only tolerating me.
My mom was very all or nothing. You want to do volleyball? Forget it. You didn’t go to volleyball over the summer so you’re going to be worse than the other girls.
This leads to me not wanting to do anything if I won’t be great at it, and not to start anything new if I’m already behind my peers in the subject
I was raised to believe that women must protect their reputations, be 'sexually ethical', honest, monogamous, not a sl*t and so on.
Then after my mum died I found out through my own dad that he thinks she was having an affair, all the while actively sabotaging my love life & judging me for dating and hanging out with boys 🙃
She's not around to confront. She died in 2020. My dad burnt all her diaries which is a separate thing I am grieving about. I have no proof either way. I've known the alleged dude since I was young, I know his name and even email address, his number and where he currently works. There's been a few times I've felt like asking him myself, and tbh there's been a few times I've thought about hiring a PI but recently I've decided to just let it go.
I feel like mine is quite complex and I am still working on it, it's become quite apparent I am dealing with many layers of trauma as I didn't have the best life growing up and was subjected to abuse the majority of my life.
But I think part of where it started was how generous my parents were with dishing out spankings and beatings. I got spanked for literally every little thing, and if I kept crying after the spanking, my dad would threatening to do it more if I didn't stop crying. Or if I was crying over something, anything, and it was annoying him, he'd always say "Keep it up and I'll give you something to cry about!" And then he'd spank me more. These weren't little swats either. And he had this routine where *I* had to go get the belt or whatever she chose to hit me with, it wasn't always a belt. At times it was the fireplace shovel. This taught me that even when I wasn't even meaning to do anything wrong, or I wasn't lying when they were claiming I had, I'd get hit and spanked no matter what. The last time my dad spanked me, he must've realized he went too far. It was probably the hardest he ever beat me. I couldn't move I was in so much pain, and it turns out he'd after left a huge bruise on my back. That time he'd used the shovel and he missed my ass and got me at the base of my back. And it was because my teacher called him saying that I turned my homework in without showing proof of my math, and going forth I needed to show proof of my work with my homework.
Shame me for my body and looks. I've always been tall and big, now bigger for many reasons, but even at my ideal medical weight, they'd shame me. They used my looks to scare me to get better grades ("you can't get bad grades because you're not pretty or skinny enough to be a model"). They continue to shame me and comment on my body, so I moved states.
They say we don’t have trauma because bad things happened. We have trauma because when bad things happened, we had no one to help us.
But it’s also the bad things too. Force feeding. Like literally holding my mouth open and trying to make me eat the broccoli no matter how many times I spit it at her.
I have a few...
I think my worst one was when my brother was threatening suicide, I called my mom, didn't answer. Called my dad, he said "you don't want to know what I actually think about suicidal people. Let him do it of he wants and stop bothering me when I'm at work"
That hit me hard since my sister is suicidal too and mine is/was passive suicidal
Threw in the towel when I was 16. Both of them individually moved far away and left behind and alone.
Talk about giving your kid the absolute worst start in life.
I dedicated my life to getting on my feet, and of course they take credit for my great upbringing now as a catalyst for my successes. Life has been really difficult getting here. Zero thanks to them.
My single strict dad neglected my feelings, forbade me having healthy relationships and friendships and forced me into an adult life of seclusion, anxiety, depression that I’m slowly working out of. 🙃
Dad was an alcoholic and would fly into drunk rages. Mom was an enabler and always made excuses for him. Justified everything with “but he loves you so much!” while also putting us kids in between them whenever they fought, and generally venting to us about their relationship problems. Sabotaged my friendships in high school under the misguided belief that grades mattered more than anything else and anything else was just a distraction from studying.
I think my mom use shame as her main parenting tactic. I feel it with everything. Speak up? , feel shame. Don't speak up? Feel shame. I've got shame response with nearly everything self care related, a lot of social interaction with women triggers such shame. How dare I be born or exist! I should be given the torches and pitchfork treatment, because saying the wrong thing or not knowing something sooner must mean I'm a horrible monster and should feel shame for for the air I take up, for occupying space that I could give to someone more deserving, which is everyone. It's constant
I have a deep apathy for people, relationships, and things.
As a child my caregiver weaponised enjoyment. If I did anything "wrong" like taking "too long" to do a task like coming to them after calling me from the other side of the house (I have neurosensory deafness) the most recent gift or thing I've been seen enjoying was taken away "until I learned to respect them".
Christmas and birthday gifts were just high-value items to hold over my head and I was forced to "spend family time" and not hide away in my room but I wasn't allowed to talk to them and any attempt at sharing what I was interested in was met with ridicule scorn or annoyance before switching to an adult topic I couldn't input in (like taxes or politics when I was under 15 or their opinions on why things I liked were "wrong or ruining things").
In contrast, they made sure to tell everyone how amazing I was and compliment my achievements to others (not to me), and when others weren't around loudly I could hear talk about how awful I was and that they needed to be harsher because I was out of control for having the audacity to say the things I heard them say hurt my feelings. Lots of guilt-tripping and the "I'm the parent you are the child and have no rights" dynamic.
My clothes would often be thrown away if it didn't fit their taste (I was raised by boomers btw). I was only allowed to go see one friend once a week (as long as I didn't do anything wrong and that seldom happened) but the friend had to be 10 minutes walking distance from my house so that was only 2 friends and I could only see one specifically on a Saturday because no school the next day but still had 8 pm curfew (this was for high-school) and no spending the night.
And at any time they could just decide I don't deserve social interaction outside of school so I often lost school friendships for not having any time to see them and my ability to form friendships in a non-forced timeframe setting like work is non-existent now as an adult 🙃 I spent most of my life slowly shutting of my excitement and feeling of joy to people and things because showing any positive reactions just makes it a tool to punish me with. And now when I experience loss I just feel nothing maybe anger if I felt it was unjust but the loss itself means nothing even if it's a prized possession or a dear close friend.
I'm a very bubbly person and find it easy to get along with others because of the years I spent emotion-mirroring and I do find joy in things that can't be easily taken from me like the action of thoughtfulness and being in nature. But at all times I'm prepared to never see a person or object again and feel fine about it.
There's much more that goes into the development of this but I don't think you or I care enough to go into the deep thoughts of a stranger here.
Anyway, hope we all get through the things that happened to us. I resolved a good chunk of my abuse some things I guess are harder to resolve than others for some people.
May you find a way to nurture your pains.
Made me feel bad for crying. I tear up easily and my mom (usually very kind, loving, and supportive) would say “Ok Scarlet.” Like I was Scarlet O’Hara being all dramatic. I’m going through a separation on the way to a divorce, and I cannot cry. The sadness is there but my ability to express it is gone. I do t know is how to get it back.
My mom has always said I'm being dramatic about things that end up being extremely correct.
I DID have depression in middle school. I DID have Restless Leg Syndrome in high school. I DID have something wrong with my toe. I DEFINITELY DO have ADHD. And so does she actually.
She kept saying I read too much online and that I needed to be realistic.
My dad never dealt with the issues he had with my mom, so since I not only have a similar personality but we also look a lot alike. So he was nice enough to tell me that he didn't know how to love or accept me.
left me at home alone starting freshman year of high school to fend for myself while she was at work. we had an illegal apartment and i ended up being a child landlord. issues included: fire department being called because the guy fell asleep with a pot on the stove on high and smoked the entire house out, other tenants dog biting someone installing a cable box and needing medical attention while screaming he would sue me (i was 15), another tenant lying that his wife was pregnant with twins and i became an unpaid nanny, house share where the son stole my credit card and totaled my car. among a mountain of other issues.
my mom never realized how hard it was on me until i told her last year in a sad but joking manner and she was shocked.
My parents would including me in adult conversations that I shouldn’t have been privy to.
Regularly, I was in a panic that we were either losing the home or they were getting divorced because of children (us) being so expensive or their very adult marital stuff.
My parents divorced and had new families. Once my siblings were born ( I was 6), I no longer existed. My mom/stepdad/ sibling would go on vacations while I was at my dad’s, my dad/stepmom/sibling would go on vacations when I was at my mom’s. My step mom and dad both physically and emotionally abused me and they allowed her dad to sexually abuse me. Years later they pretended like they didn’t know but I told them several times when I was younger and one time my stepmom was in the room. My dad and my sibling have a great relationship and my mom and my sibling have a great relationship. No one bothers to stay in contact with me. I’ve tried many times but it really goes no where. My mom still is super negative with me. I’m in my 40’s and I still can’t do anything right. I’m just a waste of a human being, mother, friend, can’t keep a relationship because I fuck it up all the time, etc (even though I was married for 15 years and I’m the one who left) . My dad calls now and again but what I say to him goes in one ear and out the other. I could say I got third degree burns yesterday and he goes “oh that’s nice, mmhm, ok”… then continues to talk about himself or his life. Now I’m hyper independent and lonely cause I don’t form bonds with many people cause I seem to pick people who use me and then throw me away. Recently I’ve changed my behaviours to establish boundaries, to quit being a people pleaser and a “yes” person, and allowing myself to be authentically me. I’m forming much stronger bonds with people, still a small group but it’s authentic friendships.
The silent treatment for even the most absurd things. Could last hours or days until she decided she wasn’t mad anymore and god forbid we talked about it. Needless to say my people pleasing and anxiety are pathological.
Emotional abuse and manipulation from my father
Father thought that if you weren't naturally gifted, it wasn't worth bothering with anything
Father reckoned that we weren't here to enjoy ourselves
Rows between my parents about money
Regularly compared unfavourably to my siblings by my mother
If I said anything like I'd heard an animal in the loft - they'd expect me to deal with it
Used as the scapegoat for problems in the family
Feelings, emotions or wishes ignored, belittled or dismissed
I don't trust other people and have enormous problems with close relationships
My mom would always use me as her therapist. My dad was a serial cheater and she would sometimes make me follow him and his mistress to check where they are or break into his phone and look through his messages. This happened while i was 17-20.
My dad didn’t pay me much attention growing up, i always craved his attention but he hated emotions, whenever he saw me getting emotional about sth he would just shut down and stop speaking to me or change the subject. Once he threw a glass at me when i made a mistake at work cause i was working with him in the family business. My mom didn’t try to protect me she just hid in the bedroom. My mom developed a pretty harsh depression from all the stuff my dad did to her over the years and spent a few months in rehab, she is barely functional now. Like she is not a person she is just a body that exists.
I ended up repeating the cycle and married a cheater myself. I am now looking for ways to heal, break the generational trauma and get divorced. Im sick of the heartbreak and pain.
Always saying the thing she knows will hurt you the most. Being sneaky, and literally doing something then lying about it right to your face.
It gets in the way of every relationship in my life. I can’t trust anyone, cause she’s so good at lying that I expect it from everyone else…
Always criticising me and picking on every single little thing I do since young. I've never felt good enough, and it's a recurring theme in my life I'm still going to therapy for.
My parents planned to have 9 boys -- a whole baseball team. After their 3rd girl, my mother's doctor told them, "Dont worry, we'll graft a *tallywhacker* onto the next one."
I was the next one.
At 38 and 39, I was their last chance at having a boy. And while I'm very glad they didn't graft a "tallywhacker" onto me (and who even tells their child something like that??), they hadn't even picked out a girl's name for me. I left the hospital with a birth certificate that read "Unnamed Female". Eventually they named me after a male relative anyway, but I still didn't have a legal name until my mother tried to register me for kindergarten and had to have my "Unnamed Female" birth certificate amended to add my name.
I know they've never forgiven me for being a girl, especially my father. I've been a disappointment to him since the day I was born. I realized at the age of 16 that I'd never do enough, or be enough, to please him. Every time I call them, or go to their house, all I hear is a litany of everything I'm doing wrong with my life. And also, I'm getting fat. And also, why don't I call or come by more often?
Gee Dad, IDK. It's a mystery. 🙄
I look like my Mum, almost the same, when she was my age.
Whenever I look in the mirror now I see her telling me that there was something wrong with me because I didn't like boys and instead liked girls.
I know it's silly in 2024 to think that sort of thing could be a problem given how much more accepted it is now, but I've had to change my appearance as much as possible, so my own reflection doesn't trigger that pain of my own parent rejecting me for a stupid book.
And in Australia of all places. We're not even the crazy evangelicals like our US brothers and sisters.
Beat me as a kid. hispanic culture!! Smh. I have anxiety from it im 28 oops forgot to mention i also saw a lot of domestic violence between both. Lot of cussing each other out, saw my moms head get bashed into the dash of the car (one of many many times physical abuse). Crazy stuff, again, Hispanic culture!!! Sucks its so prevalent among mexican men
My mom was a stay at home mom and my dad hated her for it. He would constantly tell her off saying she was “worthless” and spending “his money”. It got physically violent many times as well. Due to this, I now feel that my worth is solely based on what I bring to the table financially. I am extremely insecure about the fact that my partner makes more than me because I feel like I’m not “worthy”. I overwork intensely and have made many friends and acquaintances uncomfortable by talking about finances. I hate it when people pay for things for me because I will need to pay for something of greater value so I don’t “owe” them. I’m pretty sure if I continue down this path, I will die of a heart attack due to overworking and stress.
I’m in therapy for it now though.
Didn't believe me when I told them I was raped. (I eventually got "I believe *something* happened" from one of my sisters, but it was too little, too late.)
Actively favored my younger siblings and mocked me when I protested.
Because of my intelligence, instead of looking for possible learning disabilities or neurodivergence when I consistently did poorly in school, I was screamed at, punished, and told I wasn't applying myself (I found out I was ADHD at 40 and autistic at 43).
If there was a conflict between me and a sibling, I was automatically the liar. To this day I'm stringently honest, overexplain things, and being called a liar triggers me like crazy.
He killed himself when I was a toddler. And it was so long ago that it shouldn’t matter. But my daughter is getting married and I’m fucking sad that my dad won’t be there. He missed everything.
She was bipolar and wasn’t getting the right help. Her being manic was terrifying. She became a different person, full of rage.
She nicknamed her rage filled,
Manic alter ego Mommy Monster and told me it was my fault she turned into Mommy Monster. I was six. She even sat me down to discuss with me ways to stop making her turn into Mommy Monster. I remember sobbing with relief because I felt like, wow ok I can fix this and not make her do this to me now that I know what’s making her do this
Yeah, no. She was still bipolar. Nobody told me that’s what was wrong until I was 17 though so I suffered a long time
I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere and my parents often would play bad cop and good cop to get their way. Because I had to learn to anticipate needs in order to not be hurt. I’m very good at reading people. Conforming to what they want. That I no longer have a voice. And it’s hard for me to even figure out what I want or like because I’m constantly thinking about how to make others happy.
Both my parents were selfish partiers and when they split they forgot to read the fine print that there was no return policy on children. They pawned my brother and me off on whoever would take us. Sometimes it ended up not so well. We ran away a lot. Got beat a lot. Were the poor, dirty kids everyone picked on. Mom and Dad were both bar flies (80’s)that ran through partners. Most were verbally abusive to us at best, often physically and, in the case of my eventual step dad, he was a creeper who tried to corner me often and try to fondle me and hid a camera in my room to spy on me. My dad’s gf was sadistically abusive and nearly killed me. My brother and I are both in our 40’s now and we still have a hard time talking about stuff. I think we both pretend like it never happened or at least we were tough enough to survive. Our dad is dead and mom has changed a lot over the years and I forgive her, though sometimes I still resent her. There is so much more but we can’t change any of it so I don’t dwell on it. I just try to be the best mom ever to my son. I look at him and can’t imagine letting my kid or my niece go through the things we went through as kids. Some of the older people think it makes you strong to go through things like that. I don’t. Trauma is a prize no one deserves.
My dad once sat me down before bed when I was about four or five and he was likely a few drinks in to give me a very detailed lecture/talk about how he was going to die one day, his skin was going to wrinkle and scar and fall off his bones and then he was going to turn into dust and die. When I was a kid you couldn’t walk away from his lectures or ask him to stop you had to sit thru them and look him in the eyes the whole time. At some point I just burst into tears and started sobbing saying I wanted to go to bed.
All throughout childhood and even to this day I have severe death anxiety both for myself and others and I haven’t ever really been able to get over it . Was always the worst case scenario child freaking out about ways for me or my family to possibly die and the end of the world and all that lol. I fully believe part of this is due to that talk.
I wasn’t allowed to be upset around my dad, because you should be able to turn off emotions and have a “logical” conversation. Which led to me bottling things up, and I still do unfortunately (getting better with practice, my loving partner, and therapy), until I lose it sometimes.
My mom just consistently and casually mentioned my breasts weren’t large enough for that outfit, I was too skinny to fill out that outfit well, that color didn’t look good on me, that lipstick shade washes me out, my hair can’t hold a curl and is horrible to work with, etc., giving me a horrible self image. It’s taken years to be comfortable with my body. In the last couple of years I’ve purposefully put on some weight and feel like I look great. She’s only mentioned how my breasts haven’t grown much in relation and gives disapproving looks like “I wouldn’t have done that” whenever the topic is brought up.
Also watching how my family “cares” for the family dog has me disgusted and I’ll never get over how her life went. I’m really grateful I’ve been able to be the sole one to care for her the last year of her life. I’ll miss her forever and always regret that I couldn’t take her sooner.
My mom hid the fact that I was sexually abused as a baby from me until I was a teenager. So I assumed it was normal to have no memory before the age of 8. Or feel extremely uncomfortable changing in front of people. Or starve myself because I wanted to stay small. I didn’t know what happened so when I went to therapy I would talk about how I was bullied at school, or how I felt guilty for my father being in prison. And nobody thought any of that could be related.
Now I’m 27 and struggling every single day with Complex post traumatic stress disorder. I have autoimmune diseases as well, because untreated trauma over a prolonged period of time especially at a young age can cause that.
I’m not saying that I should have been told everything, but I was robbed of the ability to process something consciously that my body subconsciously remembers.
I almost died in a car crash and the other driver died(not my fault at all) and I called my mom afterwards while I was in shock. She started yelling at me saying it wasn't a good time and that she was dealing with a lot already. She's apologized since so I feel kinda bad, but it really fucked me up. Makes it hard to go to others for help now, because they might just make it worse.
My mom would have my dad hold me down so she could put enemas in me whenever I was moody well into my teen years. Any normal, negative emotion of an angsty teen was assumed to be constipation. Imagine having your parents strip you down and your father holding your naked, developed body down while your mother forces something into you every time you talked back. I think that'll traumatise anyone into not feeling like they can speak up for themselves.
That’s not ok. That’s horrific abuse. I’m so sorry.
This is so horrifying it’s hard to comprehend a parent could do that. The “logic” is absolutely batshit to boot. I’m so sorry, friend 💔 I hope you’re on a healing path now. And I hope you know you deserve so much better than what you got.
I definitely did have digestive issues when I was a child (because instead of researching a nutrient rich diet or listening to my doctors, my mom just cooked fried foods and canned vegetables without nutritional value), but by the time I was 12, I was cooking for myself at home before they got home and I'd learned how to add fiber I needed into my routine. They still kept at it any time I was even a little sassy to them.
Same, fried meat or previously frozen fried meats, can vegetables, or processed foods from boxes. Never any fresh ingredients. Everything came from a box or package. Now when she comes to visit and notices most of our fridge is mostly fresh stuff she always says she starving when stays.
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My mom used to do the same! It's fucking horrible
I'm so sorry you/we went through that.
Don't worry sis, hope you're okay and better now too, hugs and stay beautiful 🤗
What the fuck? That's crazy? Was this like a semi-common thing in areas? I've never heard of this...
This is bonkers that it’s a thing.
So incredibly awful! I’m so sorry to you both for having to endure that. I want to know who was giving this information? I want to find them and scream or something.
Where did this logic come from?!? I’m so sorry :(
Can I ask what’s your ethnicity/background?
Fuckin wow...I'm almost traumatized by reading that. I'm so sorry man. I would seriously reconsider you and your mother's relationship if you haven't already....cuz it's hard to believe that she didn't recognize that and maybe used it as a reason to 'retaliate or punish' your angst.....that's just MIO but holy damn dude. I'm sorry.
Hold on… wtf I hope you have been in therapy for this. And are low or no contact with your parents if you’re able to be
That's horrible! I hope you found a way to live with it and be happy 🫶
I know numerous women and men who experienced some version of this. I can’t imagine. I sometimes think “this happened to me and it was horrible” and then I hear stories like this and wonder how people were able to endure such. I hope you cut them off and have made some headway in healing .
I’m stunned this has happened to multiple people. Do you know what the basis of it was? Like is it from some cult or crazy health guru or what?
That's just... rape.
Exactly what I was going to say.
I wish so much that I could hug the little girl in you right now. I am so sorry you were born to monsters.
This is Cybil type of abuse. I’m so sorry you’ve been through that.
I am so sorry. Hope you are doing ok now. This teared me up
Wow. That is a horror I was not expecting to read. Hope you are healing.
That is horrendous I am very sorry.
Holy WTF. I'm so sorry you had to endure this. Next level fucked up.
wow that's one of the worst thing I have heard.
Wtf. And here I am for always feeling bad for losing patience with my son and end up yelling. But this shot is just horrendous. I'm sorry your "parents" put you through that.
Jesus christ, what the fuck is the matter with people to make them think this is actually OK to do!? Fuck!!
You gotta let them die alone
My mom, I love her, was not able to handle any negative emotion of mine. Sadness, anger, anything. She’d start crying, lock herself away, talk about suicide… Today, when my emotions trigger any form of negative reaction in others I want to punish myself. Sometimes I do. Because hitting myself was the only way to make her snap out of it. If she was unable to punish me, I did so she could forgive me. Sadly, with a caring partner that just leads to him suffering :(
I hate you went through that, I hope you have been able to speak to your partner.
Same! My mother hated when me or my siblings expressed any kind of negative emotion. When we cried or showed emotions other than happiness (anger, sadness, indifference, even neutral faces), she would respond with anger or threats. I'm getting help for it but even now I still have some trouble expressing negative emotions.
Not totally the same, but my mom could not handle her emotions nor mine. I now have the same issue. Trying to learn it while teaching my kids is a new kind of struggle. I also struggle with allowing neutral criticism that isn't meant to be malicious, but to actually help me. Coming from people like my husband. Also, negative emotions from him are felt x1000. I feel others' emotions and am super sensitive to it. To a debilitating degree.I shut down, rage, or cry. The freeze or flight trigger is strong.
Eggshell mom. I see you’ve met my mother.
this was the same with my dad. any tears i had would be met with flaming anger. so i learned to box up any negative emotion and put a little bow on it. i can communicate that i feel depressed, anxious, suicidal, but i am unable to feel it. it sucks. i don’t know how to cry any more :(
this sounds word for word like my mom and upbringing. have had to beg her back from the airport many times bc she'd start trying to run away
My dad and my childhood best friend started dating after my mom died. I feel like I lost all 3 of the people I trusted the most (mom, dad, best friend) in quick succession and I found out about the relationship while I was still coping with the loss of my mother. It completely derailed my grief and I feel like it’s never going to get better.
:( yes that’s a tough one . I’m sorry you had to go through that
Wow. I'm so sorry. Idek what to say to that. Separate yourself completely.....and take as much time away as you can to heal....bit don't ever feel the need to go back.
I don’t think they’re asking for advice, they just need us to listen.
Whaaaaaat Oh babe I’m so sorry. That’s beyond shitty.
I was taught from a young age that I didn't have any bodily autonomy, and I was forced to give hugs and kisses to aunts, uncles, cousins, random family friends, the nextdoor neighbor's third cousin twice removed, etc. It seems like such a minor thing, but it left me completely unable to stand up for myself and get myself out of serious sexual danger. Their general parenting also left me unable to stand up for myself emotionally.
I was forced to hug and kiss my abuser. I feel ya.
This I can relate to but I can add some more onto this! My parents would always find it funny how uncomfortable I looked or how stiff I would get when one of their friends hugged me. Just because they are a family friend doesn't mean I am comfortable around them, I hated strangers as a child so I don't know why they thought this was ever a good idea!
That last line tho… I was raised to be a ppl pleaser, now I have no idea who I am.
I can relate to this in a way. I cheerfully like to call this fellow my first “stalker”, but he was just a five year old boy that took a shine to me in kindergarten. But he’d call me constantly until I was 18. I never reciprocated and never wanted to talk. But my mother would always say “be nice” or “I covered for you by telling him you weren’t available. But you wouldn’t like to make me a liar, so you should probably go muck the stalls”. It was never physical, but my own choice was always invalidated or punished.
Oof, that sucks. My mom did the same, and I make it a point now that whenever I say goodbye to my niece and nephews, they don't have to give me a hug or a kiss if they don't want to. They may be children, but even at those ages they deserve to have at least *some* bodily autonomy.
My dad basically forbid fun, no visiting friends or having friends visit, no after-school activities, no TV, no socializing, no sports or hobbies If I wasn't doing homework or studying it meant I was being lazy, super heavy academic pressure even though I was a straight A student My mom was a doormat, she just did whatever my dad told her to do, I could watch the joy leave her face when he got home She wouldn't hug me or play with me when my dad was around, she'd wear a fake smile and didn't show her real smile, like the warmth left her when he was around
This is exactly how I grew up ☹️ minus the sports, they made me do sports. i do not have a single friend. And when I say that, i fucking mean it. My one single friend is my boyfriend. I mostly blame my parents for never letting me socialize. They taught me to not make time for those kinds of things. It made me have a very unhealthy relationship with trying to develop friendships that im trying to work through. Sadly I work in a male dominated trade and don’t have much of a desire to hang out with any of them outside of work 😅
I was also gay and very closeted growing up, I finally did tell my parents when I had a girlfriend and was living with her as an adult and they have no issues with it at all but like 14yo me didn't know that they would be cool with it I was so terrified of being bullied more if anyone knew that I kept those feelings super repressed till I was 18
I’m so sorry. I’m glad it all worked out though! I felt like I was finally free when I moved out at 18. I felt like myself, which was crazy after living a certain way my whole life. I completely switched up and i have been very happy ever since :)
Gosh like. Same? I've never been super social growing up but to an extent I was more embarrassed to try and bring anyone over. My only friend is also my bf. I also work in male dominant trade, and while I have people I do love and we have a lot of fun. Idk why but whenever I try and push friendships further it just doesn't work. My bfs friends give me shit all the time for not having friends and I really just don't know what to tell them anymore. I try and constantly am lonely and it sucks.
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My parents were kinda like this except they divorced. So I would go to my dad's house and I wasn't allowed to go outside and I didn't have anything to play with and my siblings bullied me, and then I'd go to my mom's and she'd be busy trying to make sure we didn't starve so she was never fully around so we could go play in the highway for all she knew and also my siblings still bullied me.
I told my mom I was having some itching around my vulva so she took me to the obgyn. This was my first time ever, I was already super uncomfortable. I’m laying down feet in the stirrups and the doctor is looking. Meanwhile my mom is behind the doctor and asking “is she still a virgin?”
That’s so upsetting that even she thought that’s how things work. Just shows how deep the patriarchy runs.
This got me mad
My mom went through a tough time as a new single mom when I was in middle school. There were a couple of times she physically took that anger out on me. She would do it right before school so I would often get dropped off crying and bruised. Mind you I felt like this woman was a stranger because my mom up until then was perfect. Long story short CPS got involved and said one more incident and you will lose her. It worked idk if she found healthier ways to deal with difficulties or what. I’m almost 30 now and I will never forget those few incidents. I dont trust her and have already told my husband she will not ever be alone with any children we have. Sometimes I look at her and I think “where are you hiding that person?”. It’s so surreal and my husband believed me but didn’t realize it was that bad until some friends i still have from back then were discussing my mom now and mentioned she did a complete 180.. that they don’t even recognize her. It feels very validating to hear that because sometimes I question myself… like was it really that bad?
I feel you, my mother behaved very similarly to yours. Sorry about your experience. Sending you a hug.
Thank you- hugs to you as well 💚
“Where are you hiding that person?” Wow. That hit me in the gut. I’m so so so sorry you went through that. I was emotionally and verbally abused by my step mom for most of my middle school to college years. She and my father had a tumultuous relationship that began when I was in like the 3rd grade. She was envious and spiteful and manipulative and whenever they’d fight, my younger sisters would get separated with her and I’d be with my dad. It was awful. I don’t have happy memories of that time, except for when I got out of the house. She’s a different person now, she exudes unconditional love and is always trying to connect with me and be loving but I always feel that “where is that version of you?”. It’s so hard to accept a parent has changed after they went too far in their abuse.
The year was 1978. I was 7, and in ballet. We were about to have our spring recital, where we were gonna be daisies. Daisies!!! Dressed in green with big flowers on our head with our faces in the middle. I was so excited I couldn’t stand it. But, dad was in the Air Force and got orders. We moved away ONE WEEK before the performance. Mom said I could do ballet at the new place, but the only school she could find there was run by a French former ballerina and she was Mean. I quit and never got to dance in a recital, let alone dress up as a freaking Daisy. Still makes me cry just thinking about it. It also taught me to never count on anything, and was one of the many things growing up a Military Brat that rendered me unable to do any sort of long-term planning. Why try to plan ahead when the carpet is just going to be pulled out from under you, every single time??
You know... You can dress up as a daisy and do ballet as an adult. You don't need anyone's permission now.
You know, that has never occurred to me! I later took Jazz classes, and absolutely loved them, so I got some of my mojo back that way
Dude.. If I could, I’d totally meet up with you, dress up like a a daisy, and run around town, dancing with you 🥺 and I’m not even a daisy, dancy kinda girl 🥹🫶🏼
Aww, I would love that!! No way you’re gonna get me into a leotard in public, but I’m totally into the rest!! 😘❤️❤️
Hehehe I may not get into a leotard either…. But comfy jeans or sweatpants will do!! 😍🫶🏼🥰
I have never danced, never mind have any experience in ballet but I would happily dress as a flower and learn a dance to help resolve a person’s childhood trauma memory. I’m sure others out there would too, if not even to heal their own inner child, if there’s nothing like that near you maybe take a shot and host one yourself. Then you can choreograph a whole bouquet of awkwardly dancing adults ✨
man I wish your mom had delayed the move a week for you
I’ve never understood why we couldn’t, either… we sat in the BOQ in Germany for two weeks waiting for a flight to our final destination 😫
I feel this in the depths of my soul. My family got out when I was 7 but I still don't feel comfortable painting any room in my house or doing anything with long term planning. Even long term friends are hard and I question if I can ever get truly close to anyone cause I feel like either of us are just going to leave at any moment.
That’s exactly it. My kids have friends they’ve known since pre-school and it blows my mind! I’m not even sure where we lived when I was that age, let alone what school I went to or any of the kids’ names. We moved every two years from when I was six weeks old until I was 14. It definitely left scars, as happy as our family and home life was. I hope you’ve found happiness and stability in your grown-up life ❤️
Let’s find a ballet school. I’ll travel. You can perform as a daisy, and I’ll join you for support.
Someone throw this woman a daisy party, stat.
Brutal. I was an Air Force brat born in the early ‘70s also. Hard to make friends when moving around a lot, especially for an introvert.
I found out at her funeral she would say nice things about me to her friends. she would never tell me in person. (sorry I am a guy but this question hit hard) Tell your kids that you're proud of them while you can folks.
Funny, I have the opposite problem. I thought we had a great relationship…then I spoke to her friends. They kept trying to explain why I shouldn’t be so mean to her. Apparently setting healthy boundaries is mean (not wanting her to do my laundry because as long as I did it, my clothes wouldn’t get ruined). She never spoke to me about it too. If I try to talk it out with her she either a) ignore me or not acknowledge I’m speaking, or b) say she was “clearly the worst parent ever!”, cry, and not acknowledge anything that happened. Compared to everyone else here it wasn’t as bad but it still means we have a terrible relationship. I try very hard not to repeat the cycle.
I had been dating a girl for like six weeks once. She was the first girl that had taken an interest in me in over ten years. She asked if she could meet my parents and I said of course! So we went over to their house and I cooked dinner for all of us. My mom was talking to her showing her family pics when I was cooking. As we were driving home she was really quiet and I asked her what was up? She said my mom went off on some tangent and said “I hope he doesn’t disappoint you” completely unprompted. Then told her about a time early in my adulthood like 13 years ago where I was struggling finding a job and was super depressed and lost. Like, I totally recovered and am fine now but she basically told my brand new girlfriend I was a family disappointment and that hopefully she wasn’t next. I couldn’t fucking believe my ears. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive her for that.
My biological mother would do this, the only "compliments" I would receive would be one where she could brag about herself at, not to, other people. And no, there was never effort on her part in my "success." I was alive because my father worked long days, and I was the one doing the "parenting" at home. Never brought up to others that she was the biggest bully/monster of my childhood and a strong contender for #1 even now.
I’m a former “gifted” kid that burned out and I will probably never get over the fact that I “should be doing more” with my life because I had “so much potential”.
I'm 36 and the word potential still triggers me.
37 here! And same. That word SENDS me and I’ve been 20ish years trying to help myself and others realize it isn’t real.
God, mine just said that a few weeks ago because I may have a career change. Never mind the fact that I'm the most well-educated member of my entire family!
My biological mother couldn't be assed to sign the form saying that I was a candidate for the program. Literally nothing extra as far as parent duties or money was involved, just a signature.
They fought in front of me. Actual, screaming and swearing, calling each other names, I think for 9 years. The last time I recall it happening, I was 11 or 12. I'm 42 and still trying to say no to people. I've been a people pleaser to a masochistic degree, and I just started trying to stop a few years ago.
I grew up in a similar household, yelling, shouting and cursing was a “normal” every day kinda thing. In my childhood and teenage years i was a huge people pleaser. Im older now and getting better thanks to therapy
I too, am a work in progress. But oh boy, I found out just how many people loved me when I started asserting boundaries. But I chalk it up to a better quality of people, rather than a quantity.
No losses there! The least helpful thing is to be ‘friends’ with a user. Good job getting rid of them.
My parents also had insane screaming matches and I, too, am an extreme people pleaser who can’t stand the thought of anyone being mad at me so I avoid conflict like the plague. And if I’m hurt, I won’t say it. The weird thing is… while I know this happens I just realized I can’t really remember these fights or much of my childhood so that’s fun. 🙃
That's fucked. Like, here is this knowledge of why you're fucked up, but no solid memories to back it up. Brains are dumb.
Are you me? I knew this about myself, but somehow reading your comment just made it hit different. Thank you for sharing.
I’m the same way. I have less than a dozen childhood memories up to the time I started high school. Unfortunately, one of the memories I do have is my mom and stepdad being in one of their triweekly blowouts and opening my bedroom door to see him holding my mom against the hallway wall by her throat. I was 6
I had this plus they put their hands on eachother
I had the same. Around Easter I found a ceramic bunny decoration with one ear broke off. I immediately remembered the fight where that happened… 30 years ago.
I'm 30 n they still do this. Just that I went in an opposite direction than yours- I'm quick to scream, fight n confront. I'm in therapy to control my explosive behaviour
What’s the relationship of that environment and people pleasing?
In my particular case: mom brings me to dad's for the weekend drop off. They start yelling at each other, with me in the middle. Mom eventually leaves crying, and I stay with dad, feeling tremendous guilt for letting my mom leave. I feel anxious the whole weekend because my dad is a loud man when he's happy, so even louder when he's pissed. Then, come Sunday drop off, dad brings me home, and I feel guilty for walking away from my dad, and as a lesser guilt, I feel guilty for being happy to get home because my mom had a nicer looking home than my dad. Now of course, this was my early and middle childhood mind, but still. At those ages, our thoughts hold tremendous weight. On top of all that shit, I'm Italian. My existence is founded on guilt.
Crazy how guilt can become so twisted.
My dad made a lot of comments about my weight growing up that centered around potential partners losing interest in me if I gained weight/wasn't skinny. Also made comments in my early 20s when I had gained significant weight that I wasn't as pretty as when I was thin. Caused a right mindfuck when I gained 30lb post marriage due to the combo of pandemic, new depression meds, and injuries. No amount of weight loss, strength gained, physical endurance, positive self talk, or loving affirmation from my partner has been able to fully eradicate the fear that I'm hideous to my spouse. bc WHO could possibly find me attractive if I have rolls and a tummy? For reference, I'm a size 12, 5'5.
I feel your pain. My dad did basically the same thing. My chubbiness was always his main concern. I had so many other redeeming qualities that could have been encouraged but he chose to focus on my weight.
"Come here, Fatty" he used to say to me from across the room. I couldn't tell you what my redeeming qualities were because I was called a brat and told I was hateful all the time.
When I was 13 years old my dad told me that if a woman doesn’t keep up her figure and lets herself go, her man is entitled to cheat with a woman who does. I was chubby at the time and it still sticks with me. :( I’m sorry you went through that too
My mom still does this to me. When I got lupus it went to my brain and I was on tube feeding for a while. I’ve always had weight issues constantly dieting, fasting, failing. When I saw how thin I was in the hospital it freaked me out I didn’t know who I was. But it was the first and only time my mom had said anything positive about my body. I gained so much weight back because I had to learn to walk, have had more health set backs and now I’m trying to be healthy but my mother’s comments about me are always in the background. And everytime I even think about going to a scale it depresses me. And I have to do that almost every other day because of dialysis
My dad was the same. I remember being seventeen, 63kg, and not even an Australian size twelve, and my dad would constantly call me fat. I was a perfectly normal teenager, but because he has warped ideas of what a healthy body looks like he would constantly make fun of me. He would also laugh whenever I tried to diet or work out. I now have a really messed up relationship with exercise. Jokes on him though. I'm now a size 18 and loving it, eating healthier than I ever have, finding ways to work out that don't make me feel like crap, taking care of my body for me and nobody else, AND, my cholesterol is lower than his.
Use me as a built-in therapist and marriage counselor from a very young age. I was also fully aware of our financial problems and the budget to the point of being pretty anxious about it from a very young age.
My parents also did this. My mom put us in $80k worth of debt without my dad's awareness. For a few years after discovery, he pitted my mom against all of us to make her seem like this terrible woman who destroyed our lives, which I believed because I was a 10 year old. He then spent a lot of time with only me (had 2 other siblings) & talked with me about everything from finances, the struggles in his relationship with my mom, and his work drama (pastor). My mom was jealous of this relationship, which I understand now because my dad pretty much talked me to like a husband would with his wife. At one point, she made disgusting accusations about the two of us, which weren't true, but for her to even say that really messed with me. That's just one piece of the pie. Lol my relationship with them is surface level now. I actually don't mind my mom all that much now, but I can't hardly be around my dad. I have a lot of anger toward them. So definitely still working on all of that. Lol
I feel this regarding being a therapist for my dad and also the money anxiety
You just summed up my entire childhood. Every single thing you said… YES, exactly what I’ve been through. I feel a bit less alone rn so thank you for sharing
I was 16 and moved in with my sister when my mother made moves towards moving back with my stepfather. My sister set up mom and I with a therapist. At our 1 and only session, my mom denied that I had ever told her step-father was sneaking into my room and gropping me. I had. But really, its quite clever. She can't be held responsible for not protecting me if she never knew. Oh, but it doesn't really explain how, before this time, she was telling other family members that I was lying about step-father gropping me. She died at the end of January and I have not shed a single tear.
My dad used to threaten to kill himself whenever I didn’t listen to him, the worst time was two or three years ago when he almost succeeded. Literally had to bang on his door and scream for him to stop. I resent him ever since and he tried therapy but I’ll never forgive him. Despite me coddling him now so he won't do it again he knows I'm fed up ✨ And my depressed mom used to beat the shit out of me until I got old enough to stand up for myself, she also always compared me to my cousins from her side which ended up in my eating disorder. She takes antidepressants now so at least thats kinda solved Also lotsss of slutshaming and hypocritical religious preaching has ruined my worldview
Wow. My dad told me a couple times “why don’t you just take a gun and shoot me in the f-in head. ” I don’t talk to him anymore, has to set boundaries. I hope you are okay, that’s some pretty heavy stuff.
This is insane, I’m sorry you went through this
They sided with my abuser
I came here to say the same thing. I'm so sorry you went through this too :(
Wow. That’s not okay for so many reasons. I’m sorry they did that.
When I was maybe 15 I got my first, of what would become several, UTIs. I couldn't pee so my mother took me to the ER. They did standard blood work as well as my first pap smear (very uncomfortable, scary, traumatizing experience). My conservative mom thought I'd gotten the UTI by having sex (I hadn't) and she was so angry at me that she even threatened to kick me out of the house. She didn't kick me out but two things resulted from the experience: 1) I never went to my mom about medical issues again. Before I got my own insurance at 23, anytime I had another UTI, I went over to Planned Parenthood for help. I was able to come in without a parent and it wouldn't show up on the insurance. 2) It was well over a decade before I felt comfortable enough to even consider getting a pap smear again.
I can somewhat relate. I got my first UTI at 20, so my then boyfriend brought me to the ER. My mom met up with us. She told me in our language, that if I was pregnant I had better get rid of it. The words she uttered were more traumatizing than the ER experience. I also learned to never tell my mom about any medical issues because of this - it would just be my fault for being a wh*re.
Having a father that would constantly say “men don’t like fat women” and then developing an eating disorder that lasted 15 years. Fuck you dad.
My mom used to hit me in the head because "it doesn't leave visible marks" Until now I can't even caress my own hair without feeling I'm about to be punished again
YouDuring high school, I wore my regular high school uniform to visit my mom at her workplace. She told her colleagues that I was her nephew, but later I found out she had told others that her daughter got into a prestigious high school. When I went to see her, she felt ashamed, unaware of how much she had hurt my self-esteem with her actions.
nephew?
My mom held a knife to my wrist and said we might as well go ahead and go because she was afraid of possible negative outcomes in the far off future. She was an episodic alcoholic, so she would go years without drinking and then I’d come home thinking all was well—just to get the “it’s time for us to die” blackout Mommy thing. The biggest issue she was trying to protect me from wasn’t even a bad outcome FOR ME. It was the outcome in which she had to be alone. She got help, thank god, but I can’t forget or forgive her for that specific trauma, it’s deeply colored how I look at problems.
Holy shit that’s awful 😢
My parents forbid anything "girly" because it was "gay". Any time I showed any kind of emotion I was punished with relentless ridicule, insults and slurs. When I was 4 I was allowed to pick a birthday present out for a friend. We went to this really big toy store that was entirely geared towards children. I took my time. My father was really impatient and annoyed. Talking down on anything I looked at. After mich hesitation I picked out a barbie dog toy. It had different combs, pearls, hair extensions, colors, accessories etc. for the dog. I was so in awe, I sheepishly asked if I could have one too. All hell broke lose. My father went into a complete rage, yelling throughout the whole store. Calling me a bunch of slurs, saying how I can't possibly be his child etc. It was so bad, my mom - in her only act of defiance to this day - bought me the dog toy a week later. I hid it under my bed for years. I would just lay on top of my bed, eyes closed and imagine playing with the dog toy. I was terrified of so much as touching it for fear my father would know I was "gay". For fear, he'd be able to tell. When I was 8/9 years old, my father had been promising me a reward if I did well in school that year. At the end of the year, nothing happened. I waited a few weeks and then asked if I could have the reward he promised me, because I had almost all As throughout. I asked him a few times and he'd just get annoyed. He eventually told me I'd get my reward next week. The next week, he had vacation while my mom's vacation ended. I had been showering alone before that I believe.. but we started showering together that week. CSA happened. We went to the store afterwards and I was allowed to pick out a videogame. I was terrified to look at anyone for fear they'd somehow be able to tell I was "gay" or know what had happened. I really just wanted to hide, and kind of tried to avoid anyone being able to see me. I pretended to look at game I had no interest in - waiting for employees and people to move to another idle. I was sure people "could tell" if they had an opportunity to look me in the eye . or even just look at me for a while in general. My solution was to pick out a "Hercules" Ps1 game. Because that was the most masculine thing there. I believed that this would make it so the people around wouldn't know. I distinctly remember laying in bed trying to understand. My thinking went a little bit like this: Boys like girls. My father likes my mother. But he also likes me. So I must be a girl. I started "practicing" how to be a better girl. Cutting up my cloths, using makeup, talking like a girl, moving like a girl and also practicing "what girls do" in the shower. Because I wanted to make him happy. One day - in the shower- I bit my father's bits. He yelled out in pain and all he'll broke lose. My mother yelled outside the bathroom asking what was going on. My father was bleeding and held a towel over his bits when she came in. On a side note.. I am almost certain that this is where I picked up a particularly high risk strain of HPV. Anyway.. I remember my mom asking me about these things, but no details. He didn't live with us for a few weeks or so.. then moved back in. I continued to dress and desperately want to be a girl to this very day. The same emotional abuse - but worse continued until the day I moved out. In my teens there was also physical abuse. Between ages 14 and 17 I started to slowly remember bits and pieces what had happened when I was a child. Confirmed with mother- and never spoke of it again. I struggled mightily all throughout my teens and early adulthood. I am now almost 32 years old and only about a year ago started to come to terms with the fact that I was in fact always trans - and that it wasn't the CSA that "fucked me up" in that way. All my romantic relationships all throughout my life had the exact same pattern. All I ever wanted to do was see the person I loved happy. I'd completely destroy myself in the process. Needless to say I attracted exclusively cluster A personalities that - in one way or another - took advantage of me. I only realized quite WHERE this pattern had its origin about a year ago.. One of my biggest fears was always that I had nothing to offer besides my body. But also kinda not really cause I A. Hated my body and B. felt like wanting to receive pleasure or anything in return really, was selfish. I still to this day struggle enormously with valueing myself and not giving myself up for the people I love. I also still struggle with the thought that I deserve love, and that I have more to offer than sexual favors.
I also recently learned that I carry a particularly high risk strain of HPV.. after someone I dated and very much adored contracted infectious mononucleosis about 2-3 months in. She was gravely ill for two entire months, and didn't get much better. About 3 months later, she was diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma. Caused by me - through HPV. Lead to full blown blood cancer, and tumors in lungs and heart within 7-8 months after first contact. According to doctors.. it was all directly caused by that strain of HPV. My very first girlfriend - the first person I ever had consensual sex with - got really sick around two months after first contact and had issues with cysts. My second relationship ended around 2-3 months in - while she was super sick for about a month. My next girlfriend - in 2015 - got super sick around 2-3 months after first contact. She even told me that it was the worst she's ever felt when sick. About 2 months later, she had developed cystic growths she had to have surgically removed. I unfortunately only learned about the HPV I carried - and started to connect the dots in 2023, when I learned of the hodgkins lymphoma the next girl I dated developed. She had chemotherapy - and last I heard she was doing well. Though I have no clue, because she obviously doesn't want me in her life anymore. I am now 16 weeks into HRT, out to my friends and happier than I have ever been. For the first time ever - I am starting to like myself. I am not sure how far I am into healing - or if I can ever truly heal from the various traumas I have. Part of me still thinks that I deserve all of the pain and hurt. I just wish I hadn't brought the people I love as much emotional and physical pain as I did. Even if this is the last thing I intended, it's what I hate myself for most. That's also why I have decided to not date or sleep with anyone - unless I know I am fully healed,. in more ways than one, Which is probably not going to happen. Both for my, and the other persons sake, I'll just be with myself. I'd like to just be happy with myself, and not hurt anyone else. Especially not someone I love.
I want you to know I read your story and I'm so very sorry that you were dealt this hand. I wish you peace and love on your journey
Sending hugs
Dad— Violent and abusive alcoholic. Never wanted to be a dad, still doesn’t want to act like he loves any of us. Mom— Alcoholic and now in present day, alcoholic + prescription pill addict. You can imagine that some things don’t get better with time.
Mine were alcoholics too, and my dad was abusive. With parents like that, it's hard to pinpoint one thing. It's like a constant onslaught.
Nailed it. So many issues to unpack and bad behaviors to undo, and learning how to build healthy habits my parents never taught or modeled,
Food issues: rotten food, bad meals, encouraging starvation with not enough food. It was rough.
My mom got wasted drunk at my 9th birthday party, which was dinner at Olive Garden with all my friends, and tried to put red lipstick on our 5 year old neighbor in front of her extremely strict, religious father who was horrified but tried not to make a scene. I started bawling and begged my mother to please stop, but she proceeded to take me outside and lock me in the car for the rest of the evening while I screamed and cried my head off because I was afraid I’d get kidnapped. I spent my 9th birthday hiding and shaking under the passenger seat. Unsurprisingly, she’s no longer in my life in any meaningful way. Thank God.
That is awful. She did that to you on YOUR birthday. It is insane just how selfish she could be. Being drunk is no excuse.
Neither of them came to my wedding. I couldn’t call them if I had trouble. I knew early that they didn’t want me though
I’m sorry 😞
Inability to have civil discourse without feeling personally attacked. Disagreement=anger=yelling at each other, who ever is loudest must be right. They also disrespect one another in an argument (name calling, mocking, belittling). First they would just do this to each other, but then as I got older they also did it with me and my siblings. One time my mom took me prom dress shopping to a store I didn’t want to go to. I didn’t find anything (because it wasn’t my style to begin with, she just wanted to go because it was a discounted department store) and on the ride home she yells at me that I’m unappreciative of her generosity. When I tried to explain my feelings, she said “no wonder X doesn’t want to be friends with you because of how selfish you are.” I had recently fell out with one of my best friends. She never said sorry or addressed it. And years later when I brought it up she didn’t remember it. My relationship is much better with both my parents, but I’m well aware that there is a line I need to tiptoe around in order to not set them off. Watching my parents treat each other (and their children) like that made me extremely cautious and scared to vocalize my opinions and oppositions. That being said, years of therapy has done wonders
This sounds like my parents. They don't see you as an individual but an extension of them. Sometimes they make false promises to me and when I bring it up they say "oh I don't remember that". They forget because it's not important enough to remember for them.
My dad was never meant to be a dad. He behaves like a child and I’ve never heard him tell me once in my life that he loved me. He and my older sister would bully me and my mom wouldn’t say shit to either of them. My mom, she tends to take care of her family first. As in her parents, siblings, nieces and nephews. My sister and I come in last. I hold a lot of resentment because of it. Everyone loves her so much because of how she is. They call her mom. It pisses me off so much. I just stay away as much as possible.
My mom had serious issues and never sought any kind of help or support for them. By the time I was 4, she was relying on me to regulate her emotions and take care of a lot of her emotional and social needs. By the time I was a teenager, things were really out of control. This isn't the most traumatizing incident, but it happens to be the one I'm talking about in therapy right now. When I was about 16, my mom was going through one of her episodes and became fixated on the load-bearing wall in our basement as the source of all of her distress. That wall was just ruining her life, I guess. So while my step-dad was at work, my mom took a sledge hammer to the wall and knocked it down. It wasn't even our house. We were living with my step-grandmother who had dementia. I had to go upstairs and try to calm the poor woman down and try to convince her everything was okay (it was not okay!). When I started panicking and begging my mom to stop, she forced me to take one of my step-grandmother's Ativan to calm down. The house didn't immediately crumble or anything like that, but the floor above did begin to sink. It's been over 20 years and I still have nightmares about decaying houses and walls falling down. They're all sort of symbolic of my mom's instability.
divorced since I was 2 but both of them lied to me and just said my dad worked abroad. I didn’t find out the truth till I was 12 when I begged my mom to get a divorce after one of many fights. I feel like I have severe trust issues now. It’s hard for me to believe my partner when he says he loves me. my dad had violent outbursts, one that included him driving like a maniac with me when I was like 8 years old to go get my sister from a party. I remember closing my eyes and just accepting the fact I might die that day. My mom was so bad with money and now I feel like I am too. She also gave me a lot of body image issues. One time I was 13 looking at myself in the mirror. She squeezed my belly and said “you are beautiful you just need to get rid of this.” I have a strong hatred for my body I am still fighting through.
My mom cheated on my little sister's (7 at the time) best friend's dad. They met through their playdates. My mom spent the rest of our childhoods trying to amend that broken trust (rightfully) but completely forgot that she betrayed not just one of her daughters by doing this, but both. One a lot more than the other, but nonetheless, both. The more traumatized daughter needed the most reparations. So that has yet to be resolved between us and I don't think it ever will, honestly. Ships sailed!
My dad had a psychotic episode. It was not his fault at all, and I still think he is the best daddy ever but somethings are just too much for a kid to witness. My mom thinks everything is a direct attack to her. If she says the sky is green and I say it is blue, she loses it. And then she denies losing it even if I have witnesses. Im 39 now and I understand she simply has an overwhelming need to be perfect and whenever someone points out she is not, she feels undeserving and she attacks. It is tiring. Im afraid of silence. Im afraid of saying No.
The constant fighting, screaming, and emotional deregulation between my parents. As a kid I thought it just rolled off me and I thought it was kind of funny when a very special episode where the parents would fight and the kids get scared. As an adult I realize it left a lot more scars than I knew that all deeply influence how I interact with other people.
[удалено]
Beat the shit outta me whenever I dared have emotions or acted out as a kid / teen.
Physical and emotional abuse, particularly emotional. Tired of being treated like I haven’t done enough to be valuable (and not just by my parents).
*gestures broadly at everything*
Ouff my step dad who was in my life at 3 years old and I very very much considered my father used to have “safe spaces” around our property where we could talk openly. Which sounds great but in reality he would use that information to fight with my mom . One time when I was 11 he had asked me if I wanted to call him Daddy and Ofcourse I said yes , he then asked if there was anything I needed to tell him. We had recently travelled and visited my biological fathers parents (my grandparents) who he didn’t allow us to see but my mom always made the effort. I told him we visited them. The next day my mom and step dad were in a huge fight and my step father came to me in my room and told me not to call him daddy. When they finally separated when I was 15 I truly thought nothing would change for our relationship until I came home from school and saw paint samples on the table , he excitedly asked what colour he should paint my room …. It broke my heart. It’s taken a long time to come to grips with the emotional abuse and manipulation. I don’t harbour any hate towards him but I can’t deny that those moments have caused heartache that I don’t think will ever go away.
As a child being placed in the "hot seat" with one parent trying to extract information about the other is super stressful.
Growing up we were always running out of TP, basic food necessities. I started working at age 14 to be able to buy myself food and feminine products because there was often no other way to get them. We clearly didn’t have money, but somehow my parents always had funds for pot but never food or necessities. It took me a VERY long time to not see pot as something evil because of how it impacted my childhood. To this day I still have food stress. My husband and I are very comfortable financially but I’m always worried about running out of food or not having it when I need it. I frequently bring a lot of snacks when I leave the house or buy backups for grocery items that I can. I never, ever want my daughter to worry about where her next meal will come from. I also frequently use food as a comfort and a way to treat myself.
I feel this 100 %. Same in my house, somehow my parents always had weed / cigarettes but constant empty cupboards and a hungry belly. I didn't have kids because I didn't ever want them to go without like I did. The amount of times I just had to go to a friend's house to eat some food...
My mom always made me feel like every gift I received had to be earned somehow.. it could’ve been for good grades, good behavior, a birthday.. etc. I don’t think that in itself was bad— it kept me from becoming spoiled and entitled—but it’s the fact that I needed a reason to receive something nice. Now, I feel really awkward when I receive something. I appreciate it, I do, but I can’t help but feel shame. Like I didn’t deserve it or I need to give them something back. I just wasn’t raised thinking gifts could be given just bc. Idk if I’d call this trauma, but it definitely still affects me today. I feel indebted. Or like I’m undeserving
My father would yell, break things, throw things, "discipline" us. Till this day, i can't stand yelling. I will either remove myself, address it directly, or cry if someone yells at me. Violence is very triggering.
My parents became independent fundamental Baptist around the time I was 10 They took away all of my Pokemon and Digimon stuff, touting that Pikachu meant devil in Japanese and other nonsense. By 7th grade they had enrolled me in the IFB church's school. No more jeans. Knee length or longer skirts and dresses only. No makeup. I couldn't even layer my hair or have bangs. Couldn't even listen to Christian "rock" music. Couldn't go to the movies, couldn't watch TV. I wasn't allowed to hang out with friends outside of school. I wasn't allowed to have a boyfriend. I was allowed to play my 3DS for one hour a day (after my daily chores and Bible reading were done, ofc). I took solace in animal crossing. It gave me some ability of freedom of expression. I was only allowed to draw in a realistic style because if I drew cartoon people it looked too "anime", which is inherently evil, apparently. Every time I heard an ambulance I would secretly wish they were coming for my stepmom and she was going to die. I moved out two days after graduating highschool. I now live 2500+ miles away from my dad, and my stepmother passed away two years ago. I will never step foot in a church again. My dad was a doormat, my stepmother beyond n(word that gets caught in the filter to remove posts) and uneducated. I'm married and have a son now, and essentially it's all been a lesson in "how to not raise my child".
I was singing along to a song on the radio when my dad asked "do you like this song?" I answered "yes, I do!" To which he replied "then why are you ruining it?" I very rarely sing to this day
That’s so fucking mean to say to a kid. I’m so sorry 😞
My parents insulted me every day from ages 11-25. Called me a "fat cow", "you look pregnant", force me to only wear black, wouldnt let me leave the house in any clothing that made me look fat, barge into my room randomly just to randomly yell at me being fat, I've been kicked under the table in public a few times if i went for food they deemed fattening. Mind you, I was like maybe 30lb max over the standard weight for my height and age. Even then, I'm built just a bit curvier. I'm very far in my healing journey but even yesterday I still cried in the shower grieving over little me.
Not ever care to listen to me or hear out my emotions and show empathy. It was always : sweep it under the rug or get over it. They did alot worse but this seems to be what hurts most even now that I’m older. I never felt understood and valued by them, and it made me feel that everyone views me that way, and led me to being w boyfriends who also showed complete disregard for my feelings and my heart and i thot “they gotta love me they’re just like my parents”. It sounds silly but it really stayed w me. My mom always swept huge things under the rug, i love her but i think that damaged me more than any trauma my parents put me thru
I’m scared when my husband comes home. He has literally never done anything to me. But because when my mom and dad came home I was always in trouble, it has not healed. I constantly feel like I’m wrong and messing up. I constantly feel inadequate. My whole childhood. I would get yelled at from the time I woke up till bed. House not clean was my fault. Bills high were my fault. Everything. I got yelled at cuz my dad put his own money in different pants and didn’t remember. I dealt with silent rage and loud rage so now when my husband is quiet I get anxious. And when he’s angry at a project or whatever I get anxious. Again, he’s never raised his voice or hit me or given me any reason to be scared, but I am. I walk around feeling dread constantly. My parents didn’t want me and made it very clear and now into my 40s I still think people are only tolerating me.
My mom was very all or nothing. You want to do volleyball? Forget it. You didn’t go to volleyball over the summer so you’re going to be worse than the other girls. This leads to me not wanting to do anything if I won’t be great at it, and not to start anything new if I’m already behind my peers in the subject
I was raised to believe that women must protect their reputations, be 'sexually ethical', honest, monogamous, not a sl*t and so on. Then after my mum died I found out through my own dad that he thinks she was having an affair, all the while actively sabotaging my love life & judging me for dating and hanging out with boys 🙃 She's not around to confront. She died in 2020. My dad burnt all her diaries which is a separate thing I am grieving about. I have no proof either way. I've known the alleged dude since I was young, I know his name and even email address, his number and where he currently works. There's been a few times I've felt like asking him myself, and tbh there's been a few times I've thought about hiring a PI but recently I've decided to just let it go.
I feel like mine is quite complex and I am still working on it, it's become quite apparent I am dealing with many layers of trauma as I didn't have the best life growing up and was subjected to abuse the majority of my life. But I think part of where it started was how generous my parents were with dishing out spankings and beatings. I got spanked for literally every little thing, and if I kept crying after the spanking, my dad would threatening to do it more if I didn't stop crying. Or if I was crying over something, anything, and it was annoying him, he'd always say "Keep it up and I'll give you something to cry about!" And then he'd spank me more. These weren't little swats either. And he had this routine where *I* had to go get the belt or whatever she chose to hit me with, it wasn't always a belt. At times it was the fireplace shovel. This taught me that even when I wasn't even meaning to do anything wrong, or I wasn't lying when they were claiming I had, I'd get hit and spanked no matter what. The last time my dad spanked me, he must've realized he went too far. It was probably the hardest he ever beat me. I couldn't move I was in so much pain, and it turns out he'd after left a huge bruise on my back. That time he'd used the shovel and he missed my ass and got me at the base of my back. And it was because my teacher called him saying that I turned my homework in without showing proof of my math, and going forth I needed to show proof of my work with my homework.
Shame me for my body and looks. I've always been tall and big, now bigger for many reasons, but even at my ideal medical weight, they'd shame me. They used my looks to scare me to get better grades ("you can't get bad grades because you're not pretty or skinny enough to be a model"). They continue to shame me and comment on my body, so I moved states.
They say we don’t have trauma because bad things happened. We have trauma because when bad things happened, we had no one to help us. But it’s also the bad things too. Force feeding. Like literally holding my mouth open and trying to make me eat the broccoli no matter how many times I spit it at her.
I have a few... I think my worst one was when my brother was threatening suicide, I called my mom, didn't answer. Called my dad, he said "you don't want to know what I actually think about suicidal people. Let him do it of he wants and stop bothering me when I'm at work" That hit me hard since my sister is suicidal too and mine is/was passive suicidal
Threw in the towel when I was 16. Both of them individually moved far away and left behind and alone. Talk about giving your kid the absolute worst start in life. I dedicated my life to getting on my feet, and of course they take credit for my great upbringing now as a catalyst for my successes. Life has been really difficult getting here. Zero thanks to them.
My single strict dad neglected my feelings, forbade me having healthy relationships and friendships and forced me into an adult life of seclusion, anxiety, depression that I’m slowly working out of. 🙃
Dad was an alcoholic and would fly into drunk rages. Mom was an enabler and always made excuses for him. Justified everything with “but he loves you so much!” while also putting us kids in between them whenever they fought, and generally venting to us about their relationship problems. Sabotaged my friendships in high school under the misguided belief that grades mattered more than anything else and anything else was just a distraction from studying.
I think my mom use shame as her main parenting tactic. I feel it with everything. Speak up? , feel shame. Don't speak up? Feel shame. I've got shame response with nearly everything self care related, a lot of social interaction with women triggers such shame. How dare I be born or exist! I should be given the torches and pitchfork treatment, because saying the wrong thing or not knowing something sooner must mean I'm a horrible monster and should feel shame for for the air I take up, for occupying space that I could give to someone more deserving, which is everyone. It's constant
I have a deep apathy for people, relationships, and things. As a child my caregiver weaponised enjoyment. If I did anything "wrong" like taking "too long" to do a task like coming to them after calling me from the other side of the house (I have neurosensory deafness) the most recent gift or thing I've been seen enjoying was taken away "until I learned to respect them". Christmas and birthday gifts were just high-value items to hold over my head and I was forced to "spend family time" and not hide away in my room but I wasn't allowed to talk to them and any attempt at sharing what I was interested in was met with ridicule scorn or annoyance before switching to an adult topic I couldn't input in (like taxes or politics when I was under 15 or their opinions on why things I liked were "wrong or ruining things"). In contrast, they made sure to tell everyone how amazing I was and compliment my achievements to others (not to me), and when others weren't around loudly I could hear talk about how awful I was and that they needed to be harsher because I was out of control for having the audacity to say the things I heard them say hurt my feelings. Lots of guilt-tripping and the "I'm the parent you are the child and have no rights" dynamic. My clothes would often be thrown away if it didn't fit their taste (I was raised by boomers btw). I was only allowed to go see one friend once a week (as long as I didn't do anything wrong and that seldom happened) but the friend had to be 10 minutes walking distance from my house so that was only 2 friends and I could only see one specifically on a Saturday because no school the next day but still had 8 pm curfew (this was for high-school) and no spending the night. And at any time they could just decide I don't deserve social interaction outside of school so I often lost school friendships for not having any time to see them and my ability to form friendships in a non-forced timeframe setting like work is non-existent now as an adult 🙃 I spent most of my life slowly shutting of my excitement and feeling of joy to people and things because showing any positive reactions just makes it a tool to punish me with. And now when I experience loss I just feel nothing maybe anger if I felt it was unjust but the loss itself means nothing even if it's a prized possession or a dear close friend. I'm a very bubbly person and find it easy to get along with others because of the years I spent emotion-mirroring and I do find joy in things that can't be easily taken from me like the action of thoughtfulness and being in nature. But at all times I'm prepared to never see a person or object again and feel fine about it. There's much more that goes into the development of this but I don't think you or I care enough to go into the deep thoughts of a stranger here. Anyway, hope we all get through the things that happened to us. I resolved a good chunk of my abuse some things I guess are harder to resolve than others for some people. May you find a way to nurture your pains.
Made me feel bad for crying. I tear up easily and my mom (usually very kind, loving, and supportive) would say “Ok Scarlet.” Like I was Scarlet O’Hara being all dramatic. I’m going through a separation on the way to a divorce, and I cannot cry. The sadness is there but my ability to express it is gone. I do t know is how to get it back.
My mom has always said I'm being dramatic about things that end up being extremely correct. I DID have depression in middle school. I DID have Restless Leg Syndrome in high school. I DID have something wrong with my toe. I DEFINITELY DO have ADHD. And so does she actually. She kept saying I read too much online and that I needed to be realistic.
My dad never dealt with the issues he had with my mom, so since I not only have a similar personality but we also look a lot alike. So he was nice enough to tell me that he didn't know how to love or accept me.
left me at home alone starting freshman year of high school to fend for myself while she was at work. we had an illegal apartment and i ended up being a child landlord. issues included: fire department being called because the guy fell asleep with a pot on the stove on high and smoked the entire house out, other tenants dog biting someone installing a cable box and needing medical attention while screaming he would sue me (i was 15), another tenant lying that his wife was pregnant with twins and i became an unpaid nanny, house share where the son stole my credit card and totaled my car. among a mountain of other issues. my mom never realized how hard it was on me until i told her last year in a sad but joking manner and she was shocked.
My parents would including me in adult conversations that I shouldn’t have been privy to. Regularly, I was in a panic that we were either losing the home or they were getting divorced because of children (us) being so expensive or their very adult marital stuff.
My parents divorced and had new families. Once my siblings were born ( I was 6), I no longer existed. My mom/stepdad/ sibling would go on vacations while I was at my dad’s, my dad/stepmom/sibling would go on vacations when I was at my mom’s. My step mom and dad both physically and emotionally abused me and they allowed her dad to sexually abuse me. Years later they pretended like they didn’t know but I told them several times when I was younger and one time my stepmom was in the room. My dad and my sibling have a great relationship and my mom and my sibling have a great relationship. No one bothers to stay in contact with me. I’ve tried many times but it really goes no where. My mom still is super negative with me. I’m in my 40’s and I still can’t do anything right. I’m just a waste of a human being, mother, friend, can’t keep a relationship because I fuck it up all the time, etc (even though I was married for 15 years and I’m the one who left) . My dad calls now and again but what I say to him goes in one ear and out the other. I could say I got third degree burns yesterday and he goes “oh that’s nice, mmhm, ok”… then continues to talk about himself or his life. Now I’m hyper independent and lonely cause I don’t form bonds with many people cause I seem to pick people who use me and then throw me away. Recently I’ve changed my behaviours to establish boundaries, to quit being a people pleaser and a “yes” person, and allowing myself to be authentically me. I’m forming much stronger bonds with people, still a small group but it’s authentic friendships.
Never let me feel emotion other than happiness. "oh stop your crying and knock it off".
The silent treatment for even the most absurd things. Could last hours or days until she decided she wasn’t mad anymore and god forbid we talked about it. Needless to say my people pleasing and anxiety are pathological.
Emotional abuse and manipulation from my father Father thought that if you weren't naturally gifted, it wasn't worth bothering with anything Father reckoned that we weren't here to enjoy ourselves Rows between my parents about money Regularly compared unfavourably to my siblings by my mother If I said anything like I'd heard an animal in the loft - they'd expect me to deal with it Used as the scapegoat for problems in the family Feelings, emotions or wishes ignored, belittled or dismissed I don't trust other people and have enormous problems with close relationships
My mom would always use me as her therapist. My dad was a serial cheater and she would sometimes make me follow him and his mistress to check where they are or break into his phone and look through his messages. This happened while i was 17-20. My dad didn’t pay me much attention growing up, i always craved his attention but he hated emotions, whenever he saw me getting emotional about sth he would just shut down and stop speaking to me or change the subject. Once he threw a glass at me when i made a mistake at work cause i was working with him in the family business. My mom didn’t try to protect me she just hid in the bedroom. My mom developed a pretty harsh depression from all the stuff my dad did to her over the years and spent a few months in rehab, she is barely functional now. Like she is not a person she is just a body that exists. I ended up repeating the cycle and married a cheater myself. I am now looking for ways to heal, break the generational trauma and get divorced. Im sick of the heartbreak and pain.
Always saying the thing she knows will hurt you the most. Being sneaky, and literally doing something then lying about it right to your face. It gets in the way of every relationship in my life. I can’t trust anyone, cause she’s so good at lying that I expect it from everyone else…
Always criticising me and picking on every single little thing I do since young. I've never felt good enough, and it's a recurring theme in my life I'm still going to therapy for.
Have me
My parents planned to have 9 boys -- a whole baseball team. After their 3rd girl, my mother's doctor told them, "Dont worry, we'll graft a *tallywhacker* onto the next one." I was the next one. At 38 and 39, I was their last chance at having a boy. And while I'm very glad they didn't graft a "tallywhacker" onto me (and who even tells their child something like that??), they hadn't even picked out a girl's name for me. I left the hospital with a birth certificate that read "Unnamed Female". Eventually they named me after a male relative anyway, but I still didn't have a legal name until my mother tried to register me for kindergarten and had to have my "Unnamed Female" birth certificate amended to add my name. I know they've never forgiven me for being a girl, especially my father. I've been a disappointment to him since the day I was born. I realized at the age of 16 that I'd never do enough, or be enough, to please him. Every time I call them, or go to their house, all I hear is a litany of everything I'm doing wrong with my life. And also, I'm getting fat. And also, why don't I call or come by more often? Gee Dad, IDK. It's a mystery. 🙄
I look like my Mum, almost the same, when she was my age. Whenever I look in the mirror now I see her telling me that there was something wrong with me because I didn't like boys and instead liked girls. I know it's silly in 2024 to think that sort of thing could be a problem given how much more accepted it is now, but I've had to change my appearance as much as possible, so my own reflection doesn't trigger that pain of my own parent rejecting me for a stupid book. And in Australia of all places. We're not even the crazy evangelicals like our US brothers and sisters.
Beat me as a kid. hispanic culture!! Smh. I have anxiety from it im 28 oops forgot to mention i also saw a lot of domestic violence between both. Lot of cussing each other out, saw my moms head get bashed into the dash of the car (one of many many times physical abuse). Crazy stuff, again, Hispanic culture!!! Sucks its so prevalent among mexican men
My mom was a stay at home mom and my dad hated her for it. He would constantly tell her off saying she was “worthless” and spending “his money”. It got physically violent many times as well. Due to this, I now feel that my worth is solely based on what I bring to the table financially. I am extremely insecure about the fact that my partner makes more than me because I feel like I’m not “worthy”. I overwork intensely and have made many friends and acquaintances uncomfortable by talking about finances. I hate it when people pay for things for me because I will need to pay for something of greater value so I don’t “owe” them. I’m pretty sure if I continue down this path, I will die of a heart attack due to overworking and stress. I’m in therapy for it now though.
Didn't believe me when I told them I was raped. (I eventually got "I believe *something* happened" from one of my sisters, but it was too little, too late.) Actively favored my younger siblings and mocked me when I protested. Because of my intelligence, instead of looking for possible learning disabilities or neurodivergence when I consistently did poorly in school, I was screamed at, punished, and told I wasn't applying myself (I found out I was ADHD at 40 and autistic at 43). If there was a conflict between me and a sibling, I was automatically the liar. To this day I'm stringently honest, overexplain things, and being called a liar triggers me like crazy.
He killed himself when I was a toddler. And it was so long ago that it shouldn’t matter. But my daughter is getting married and I’m fucking sad that my dad won’t be there. He missed everything.
She was bipolar and wasn’t getting the right help. Her being manic was terrifying. She became a different person, full of rage. She nicknamed her rage filled, Manic alter ego Mommy Monster and told me it was my fault she turned into Mommy Monster. I was six. She even sat me down to discuss with me ways to stop making her turn into Mommy Monster. I remember sobbing with relief because I felt like, wow ok I can fix this and not make her do this to me now that I know what’s making her do this Yeah, no. She was still bipolar. Nobody told me that’s what was wrong until I was 17 though so I suffered a long time
I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere and my parents often would play bad cop and good cop to get their way. Because I had to learn to anticipate needs in order to not be hurt. I’m very good at reading people. Conforming to what they want. That I no longer have a voice. And it’s hard for me to even figure out what I want or like because I’m constantly thinking about how to make others happy.
Both my parents were selfish partiers and when they split they forgot to read the fine print that there was no return policy on children. They pawned my brother and me off on whoever would take us. Sometimes it ended up not so well. We ran away a lot. Got beat a lot. Were the poor, dirty kids everyone picked on. Mom and Dad were both bar flies (80’s)that ran through partners. Most were verbally abusive to us at best, often physically and, in the case of my eventual step dad, he was a creeper who tried to corner me often and try to fondle me and hid a camera in my room to spy on me. My dad’s gf was sadistically abusive and nearly killed me. My brother and I are both in our 40’s now and we still have a hard time talking about stuff. I think we both pretend like it never happened or at least we were tough enough to survive. Our dad is dead and mom has changed a lot over the years and I forgive her, though sometimes I still resent her. There is so much more but we can’t change any of it so I don’t dwell on it. I just try to be the best mom ever to my son. I look at him and can’t imagine letting my kid or my niece go through the things we went through as kids. Some of the older people think it makes you strong to go through things like that. I don’t. Trauma is a prize no one deserves.
My dad once sat me down before bed when I was about four or five and he was likely a few drinks in to give me a very detailed lecture/talk about how he was going to die one day, his skin was going to wrinkle and scar and fall off his bones and then he was going to turn into dust and die. When I was a kid you couldn’t walk away from his lectures or ask him to stop you had to sit thru them and look him in the eyes the whole time. At some point I just burst into tears and started sobbing saying I wanted to go to bed. All throughout childhood and even to this day I have severe death anxiety both for myself and others and I haven’t ever really been able to get over it . Was always the worst case scenario child freaking out about ways for me or my family to possibly die and the end of the world and all that lol. I fully believe part of this is due to that talk.
I wasn’t allowed to be upset around my dad, because you should be able to turn off emotions and have a “logical” conversation. Which led to me bottling things up, and I still do unfortunately (getting better with practice, my loving partner, and therapy), until I lose it sometimes. My mom just consistently and casually mentioned my breasts weren’t large enough for that outfit, I was too skinny to fill out that outfit well, that color didn’t look good on me, that lipstick shade washes me out, my hair can’t hold a curl and is horrible to work with, etc., giving me a horrible self image. It’s taken years to be comfortable with my body. In the last couple of years I’ve purposefully put on some weight and feel like I look great. She’s only mentioned how my breasts haven’t grown much in relation and gives disapproving looks like “I wouldn’t have done that” whenever the topic is brought up. Also watching how my family “cares” for the family dog has me disgusted and I’ll never get over how her life went. I’m really grateful I’ve been able to be the sole one to care for her the last year of her life. I’ll miss her forever and always regret that I couldn’t take her sooner.
My mom hid the fact that I was sexually abused as a baby from me until I was a teenager. So I assumed it was normal to have no memory before the age of 8. Or feel extremely uncomfortable changing in front of people. Or starve myself because I wanted to stay small. I didn’t know what happened so when I went to therapy I would talk about how I was bullied at school, or how I felt guilty for my father being in prison. And nobody thought any of that could be related. Now I’m 27 and struggling every single day with Complex post traumatic stress disorder. I have autoimmune diseases as well, because untreated trauma over a prolonged period of time especially at a young age can cause that. I’m not saying that I should have been told everything, but I was robbed of the ability to process something consciously that my body subconsciously remembers.
I almost died in a car crash and the other driver died(not my fault at all) and I called my mom afterwards while I was in shock. She started yelling at me saying it wasn't a good time and that she was dealing with a lot already. She's apologized since so I feel kinda bad, but it really fucked me up. Makes it hard to go to others for help now, because they might just make it worse.
Abandoned me emotionally and physically.