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I think they sound like aliens because they don't have personalities, they have coping mechanisms. Thats why they all write in the same voice - there's nothing behind it.
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Aug 12, 2021 03:53
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I'm kinda beyond feeling sorry for these people. You don't get to be just the worst person imaginable, and still get my sympathy. It's like being polite to chuds (and there's a lot of overlap between those two groups): why?
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Aug 12, 2021 11:18
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StrangersInTheNight posted:if you've got depression, part of what's going on is a pronounced inability to retain positive memories/experiences and a heightened emotional memory for negative experiences. we literally store and remember more of our bad memories and build our library of emotions around these memories. it becomes self-reinforcing and gets worse over time. it's why therapy (and potentially medication) is so important and why it can eventually eat people alive if left untreated. This is pretty much my childhood experience. I mean, my parents had a pretty bad divorce when I was 12 that hosed me up and was probably the catalyst for depression that basically never got addressed until I was 35. My parents made attempts to address it but were too busy listening to the therapist they hired for me, and not to me. Later on my dad wondered why my grades sucked, I didn’t do my homework, and constantly did things he explicitly told me not to do—but he wondered it in a “scream-lecture my son until my son shuts down emotionally and tells me what I want to hear” kind of way. He would just emotionally beat me down until I submitted because I was so exhausted I didn’t have any fight left. To this day I go certain places or do certain things or talk to certain people and I have negative memories come back up as they remind me of parts of my childhood where I was at my lowest. All I remember when I see a school bus is me getting bullied on it. There’s a table that belonged to my late grandmother, my dad’s mother, where I used to sit late at night while my dad screamed at and lectured me for getting a C or D in school or hiding my progress reports just so I could escape the beatdown. One time it was over dinner and I’d lost my appetite at some point due to the situation, and he forced me to eat. I have a negative memory in almost every part of that house where I grew up. It’s the same house he lives in now with my stepmom, and the same house where my mom left him. She was packing away dishes and stuff in the kitchen, while my dad tried to understand why she was leaving. She ignored him and I sat in the living room in the dark with the TV on with no one talking to me or explaining anything to me. I don’t remember where I slept that night, I know she left but I’m pretty sure she didn’t take me because she didn’t have anywhere to go but a hotel and she wasn’t gonna have me sleeping in a hotel on a school night. Yeah, I went to school the next day, I know that much. gently caress. I’ve told my therapist all of this and I still get pretty emotional, sorry for the tl;dr. life is killing me fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Aug 12, 2021 |
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Aug 12, 2021 14:20
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I know it's  but it totally makes sense why we'd evolve to hang on to and more vividly recall traumatic experiences than positive ones (always remembering poo poo that almost killed you so you avoid it next time is a survival trait!) but drat it sucks now when the traumatic experience isn't 'a lion almost ate me' but rather 'my parents were colossal assholes'.
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Aug 12, 2021 14:40
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Biplane posted:I'm kinda beyond feeling sorry for these people. You don't get to be just the worst person imaginable, and still get my sympathy. It's like being polite to chuds (and there's a lot of overlap between those two groups): why? My view is you do it for your own mental health and the health of your personal relationships. (And thus, more broadly, the good of your society.) The more you allow yourself to feel contempt the easier that feeling becomes to trigger. It becomes more familiar and comfortable to you. And then, unless you live a very charmed existence, it can seep into other parts of your life where it's less appropriate. You should certainly keep these people away from you, as other posters said, but you shouldn't hate them because that makes you suck too. Which grants them a partial victory, they left their mark on you. There's also a moral argument but for me the above is enough.
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Aug 12, 2021 14:44
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I always say: Strive not to fall into eugenics thinking, if for anything because in someone else's mind we're all parasites deserving death, so perhaps let's not make ourselves comfortable as arbiters of such things. I'm the disabled socialist trans queer child of a libertarian conservative, who was in turn raised by a white supremacist Reaganite. My entire existence is an anathema to my forefathers, by their values I should be exterminated, and so one of the things I never want to do is be so callous as to declare anyone, especially whole swaths of the population, as 'deserving' death. Down that way, darkness lies, and an egotistical sureness that you're inherently 'better' than others is sure to follow. StrangersInTheNight fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Aug 12, 2021 |
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Aug 12, 2021 15:24
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indiscriminately posted:My view is you do it for your own mental health and the health of your personal relationships. (And thus, more broadly, the good of your society.) The more you allow yourself to feel contempt the easier that feeling becomes to trigger. It becomes more familiar and comfortable to you. And then, unless you live a very charmed existence, it can seep into other parts of your life where it's less appropriate. Not giving a poo poo about them and not making the effort to be polite or courteous isn't the same as actively hating someone. I don't hate chuds or my family, I just don't give a poo poo if they live or die, do whatever you want. Your existence or lack thereof doesn't register for me at all.
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Aug 12, 2021 17:25
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ElHuevoGrande posted:I think they sound like aliens because they don't have personalities, they have coping mechanisms. Thats why they all write in the same voice - there's nothing behind it. It's been what, like a month since that Rejected Parents message board went private? The woman who runs the website is still posting occasional updates but the responses have dropped from over a hundred per article to single digits. I wonder if she just wanted to have to do less work moderating. quote:A relationship should be a two-way affair, not just one person giving and the other person taking. Even though someone is your “child,” they are an adult and should behave like one.
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Aug 12, 2021 18:42
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indiscriminately posted:You can find their behavior unacceptable and still feel sorry for them. Nah. You don't have to feel anything for them. Most of us have grown up putting their feelings first/walking on eggshells around them. Posting stuff like this isn't helpful in this thread.
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Aug 12, 2021 20:38
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If you don't like what I have to say you're welcome to put me on your ignore list. I get it, and no hard feelings on my end. e: I mean this sincerely! I completely understand why someone could dislike and disagree with my perspective about navigating lovely parents. My insight is hard won, it's been helpful to me in my life, it may not be helpful to you, I get it. My posts are not intended to upset you, I'm sorry they did. I stand by them. e2: ohnobugs posted:You don't seem like someone who's been through estrangement or had abusive parents. Many of us posting in and reading this thread are. If I'm wrong, sorry, but your posts in this thread all come off as freshman-in-high-school level armchair psychology, and your last couple posts have had strong "You guys just need to get over it" energy. That's not helpful in this thread. Feel free to keep posting your thoughts, but be a little more self-aware. I think we're going to have to disagree about the freshman-in-high-school level armchair psychology thing. And the "you guys just need to get over it" thing. I feel that is something you're bringing with you in reading my posts. I don't believe "contempt is bad for you, sympathy is better for you" is a particularly contentious idea in our context here; I understand that it was not helpful for you to read, but for other people it is. And it was offered in response to a question posed in the thread. I assure you I've reflected on your input. indiscriminately fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Aug 12, 2021 |
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Aug 12, 2021 21:28
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indiscriminately posted:If you don't like what I have to say you're welcome to put me on your ignore list. I get it, and no hard feelings on my end. Lol stop that poo poo
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Aug 12, 2021 21:36
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indiscriminately posted:If you don't like what I have to say you're welcome to put me on your ignore list. I get it, and no hard feelings on my end. LMAO you can't take criticism, at all, but "no hard feelings" edit: This is not what someone says when they're willing to participate in a discussion. indiscriminately posted:e: I mean this sincerely! I completely understand why someone could dislike and disagree with my perspective about navigating lovely parents. My insight is hard won, it's been helpful to me in my life, it may not be helpful to you, I get it. My posts are not intended to upset you, I'm sorry they did. I stand by them. You don't seem like someone who's been through estrangement or had abusive parents. Many of us posting in and reading this thread are. If I'm wrong, sorry, but your posts in this thread all come off as freshman-in-high-school level armchair psychology, and your last couple posts have had strong "You guys just need to get over it" energy. That's not helpful in this thread. Feel free to keep posting your thoughts, but be a little more self-aware. ohnobugs fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Aug 12, 2021 |
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Aug 12, 2021 21:40
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if you feel sympathy/feel sorry for abusive parents, that's you. not everyone is in the position where they can do that, and no one should *have* to do that or feel like they have to. it's also a touchy subject because in the US at least it's very mainstream for ppl to assume you have to "forgive" your abuser in order to "move on". you don't have to do that! sometimes ppl do unforgivable things! you can acknowledge that and still heal.
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Aug 12, 2021 23:35
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That whole "forgiveness" thing has pissed me off since I was a kid. I never understood it. It always felt like acceptance of the behavior to me, like "It's okay you hurt me. I understand." No. I don't. I don't want to feel like the people who harmed me and others got away with it. I'm extremely angry that they did get away with it. It's not okay, it's not something that should just be treated like an innocent mistake like accidentally forgetting an important date or making a food you don't like. What these people did is heinous to the maximum degree and completely unforgivable. I'm never going to give them that kind of respect or dignity. They do not deserve it. If that attitude is deemed harmful to my mental health, it's a drop in the bucket compared to what their actions did. My anger is justified and not my fault. gently caress anyone who thinks the things they did could ever be forgivable. It's that kind of attitude that let's the cycle keep repeating, if we don't hold these abusers accountable, why would any of them bother stopping? Why would anyone else avoid becoming an abuser if they don't ever face consequences and their victims just say "It's okay, I forgive you." I refuse to accept this poo poo. Be angry, stand up for yourselves, demand justice.
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Aug 13, 2021 06:54
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https://twitter.com/the_author_/status/788110734970462208?s=20
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Aug 13, 2021 07:00
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Picnic Princess posted:That whole "forgiveness" thing has pissed me off since I was a kid. I never understood it. It always felt like acceptance of the behavior to me, like "It's okay you hurt me. I understand." No. I don't. I don't want to feel like the people who harmed me and others got away with it. I'm extremely angry that they did get away with it. It's not okay, it's not something that should just be treated like an innocent mistake like accidentally forgetting an important date or making a food you don't like. What these people did is heinous to the maximum degree and completely unforgivable. I'm never going to give them that kind of respect or dignity. They do not deserve it. If that attitude is deemed harmful to my mental health, it's a drop in the bucket compared to what their actions did. My anger is justified and not my fault. gently caress anyone who thinks the things they did could ever be forgivable. It's that kind of attitude that let's the cycle keep repeating, if we don't hold these abusers accountable, why would any of them bother stopping? Why would anyone else avoid becoming an abuser if they don't ever face consequences and their victims just say "It's okay, I forgive you." I refuse to accept this poo poo. Be angry, stand up for yourselves, demand justice. That's all true and it is valid to feel that way. At the same time it is similar to being mad at the forest fire that burned down your house. Your anger is valid, but it's not hurting the fire because fire is incapable of feeling bad. Not all abusers obviously, but some sociopaths mental deficits show up on a brain scan. They literally don't have a normal human brain, and don't get the normal social good and bad feelings that guide human behavior and make society work. If a creature is incapable of empathy it can't feel bad for making you feel bad. It's not a matter of forgiveness. You don't forgive an animal for biting you, the concept of forgiveness is meaningless in that context. You protect yourself going forward and live your life. If anger gives you strength then it is cool. It's all about what is best for you. Your abuser is meaningless.
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Aug 13, 2021 07:34
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Never mind.
ohnobugs fucked around with this message at 09:53 on Aug 13, 2021 |
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Aug 13, 2021 08:01
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I think "forgiveness" is a poor word to use. Do other languages use similar words? Forgiveness usually gives the insinuation of reconciliation. It's also more about the abuser getting relief when what I think most people think of "forgiveness" in this situation don't involve the abuser at all. I wouldn't say I've forgiven my mom. I would say I no longer let her take up my headspace and thinking about her no longer emotionally drains me to the point of getting physically ill over thinking about her and what she's doing. I think this idea of forgiveness is rooted in Christianity. When I was a kid and went to church it felt like a huge talking point that we needed to forgive. Alterian fucked around with this message at 11:01 on Aug 13, 2021 |
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Aug 13, 2021 10:54
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'Forgiveness' in most contexts is nowadays basically taught exclusively as 'obey and accept authority' rather than say, ending the cycle of revenge or accepting apologies for honest mistakes.
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Aug 13, 2021 11:03
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I think "I no longer have a vendetta against you and will not try to actively harm you." is a better description.
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Aug 13, 2021 11:06
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOmvV7MWXlM
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Aug 13, 2021 12:10
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I turned the other cheek and he slapped that one too.
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Aug 13, 2021 12:11
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Dad I will give you 1 dollar if you can pretend to have an interest in my interests for more than a minute. Please. You can't talk about your stuff for ten minutes then go "oh it's been all about me for the phone call, what's going on in your life" and then a minute later go "I gotta go bye" Like it's an actual improvement that he tried, but I have had actual crises over how he doesn't care about my interests. Mom at least will listen and sometimes try to follow along when I'm excited over something like a game or music that she doesn't understand.
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Aug 13, 2021 13:35
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My father used to ask me about my day and then turn on the TV as soon as I started talking.
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Aug 13, 2021 13:57
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My dad doesn’t really ask about my day. He never really has.
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Aug 13, 2021 14:00
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It was performative, he didn't actually care. He knew he was supposed to ask the question but then he'd just tell me to shut up until there was a commercial. And then the commercial would be the Budweiser frogs and I'd just walk away while he laughed his rear end off.
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Aug 13, 2021 14:05
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I've had the same job for years and my mom still acts surprised when I bring it up / "forgets" I have a job... despite her bugging me to give her free labor specifically related to my job, then flipping a bitch when I tried to charge her my normal rate
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Aug 13, 2021 15:56
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I worked four years at the same company with the same job as a hazmat tech/safety supervisor and my father could never be bothered to remember at least two of those words and would complain that I never tell him what I do for a living so he has no idea what to tell people about me.
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Aug 13, 2021 16:44
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Pope Corky the IX posted:I worked four years at the same company with the same job as a hazmat tech/safety supervisor and my father could never be bothered to remember at least two of those words and would complain that I never tell him what I do for a living so he has no idea what to tell people about me. Mine did this, but very deliberately. It's a performative thing I notice that boomers do: they can't just say, "Oh my kid does this, I don't really know what it is but they enjoy it." They have to make it clear to everyone listening that not only do they not know anything about this topic, but they are proud of that and would never in a million years have themselves associated with such things. Where most parents might be proud that I was studious and ambitious, my father had to bring up in conversations the fact that I was listening to physics lectures while chopping wood instead of music like a "normal kid" and mock me for that. That somehow only got worse once I actually went off to college to study same. It's something I saw a lot working in a violin shop. Fathers (sometimes mothers, but it was definitely more prevalent with men) would come in with their kid's instrument that had a broken string and demand I replace it. I'd offer to show them how it's done, so they wouldn't need to make a trip down to the shop to do something very simple; they could just keep a spare set of strings at home! They would always cut me off and make it very clear that they thought they were contaminating themselves with something feminine or intellectual by even being in the store, they don't want to know anything about it just fix it so they can go back to maintaining a safe distance from this topic until it breaks again. My father would do it with anything that wasn't sports. He could somehow remember every play in every little league game I was ever forced to play in, but remembering the word "physics" or the title of the violin piece I performed in solo competition that year is impossible. Same goes for any time you'd correct a name or pronunciation of same (that had its own racist overtones of deliberately disrespecting someone or something by refusing to learn something so simple).
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Aug 13, 2021 18:47
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It is kind of interesting how now that I have stated I don't want to speak to my mom she has now called me once a week for the last 3 months, which is more than she has ever called my entire life Time to get a new phone number!
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Aug 13, 2021 18:52
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My (non estranged but at a distance) dad claims to be real proud of my job but 'jokes' that at family parties I am not allowed to explain what I do because everyone else pales in comparison Thanks dad! Also jokes (I think?) that I am not in my job for pure enough reasons bc I only write software in high level languages, unlike his firmware work. Maybe he's jealous
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Aug 13, 2021 19:14
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BaronVonVaderham posted:It's something I saw a lot working in a violin shop. Fathers (sometimes mothers, but it was definitely more prevalent with men) would come in with their kid's instrument that had a broken string and demand I replace it. I'd offer to show them how it's done, so they wouldn't need to make a trip down to the shop to do something very simple; they could just keep a spare set of strings at home! Very slightly off topic, though I’m sure this will eventually be in my future too- I work in hearing. Because so many of our patients are high risk, at the start of Covid we shut down nation wide and I did phone support during the shutdown. I got SO MANY calls from the desperate children of Boomers where mom or dad couldn’t hear with their aids and refused to learn how to clean their them. (as a former clinician I cannot express just how gross this is) I even had a few shouting in the background that they didn’t care. This is super basic stuff but they don’t give a poo poo how hearing aids clogged with so much earwax they’ve become earplugs harms their relationships or ability to communicate with those around them. It’s part vanity, but also part total broke brain. They claim no one ever taught them how, or that they always break, and somehow 99% of the time it’s always just hideous amounts of caked on earwax that couldn’t possibly have been the problem but the removal of which immediately fixes it. My mom has a toxic friend with super toxic parents she’s too codependent with to sever from and her mother legitimately uses removing her hearing aids as a way to cut the daughter out of conversation. I have my own poo poo with my parents, but anytime I got a call from someone desperate to just have basic communication with a relative who was refusing to be responsible for their own positive health outcome it would make me SICK.
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Aug 13, 2021 19:25
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Pope Corky the IX posted:It was performative, he didn't actually care. He knew he was supposed to ask the question but then he'd just tell me to shut up until there was a commercial. And then the commercial would be the Budweiser frogs and I'd just walk away while he laughed his rear end off. My dad would do that, minus the Budweiser frogs. And then complain that his children never talk to him. The only time he talks about me is either to do some sort of weird roundabout bragging on himself, or he'll talk about me, but it's who I was 20 years ago. He had a job that sent our family to the UK for a few years. He's very proud of that. I don't like talking about that period of my life, because of what he put me through while we lived there. Years later, when I was still trying to have a relationship with him, we'd be out shopping or having lunch, and someone would ask him about what he did for a living. He'd just launch into, "Well, ohnobugs got to spend part of her high school years in the UK." It was always awkward. I'm an adult. No one cares where I went to high school. I'd tell him to stop doing it, and he would wait a while and try it again.
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Aug 13, 2021 20:57
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https://twitter.com/marquisele/status/1426259190344003586?s=21
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Aug 13, 2021 22:42
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This thread legitimately helped me this week; I'm unlearning a lot of learned coping behaviors that my parents--who, to their credit, are seeming to work on themselves (I'm still enforcing distance)--foisted onto me as a kid. Having a abusive or neglectful (or both) parents can really reinforce horrific toxic traits that you learn to use to adapt to am increasingly toxic environment. Thanks, y'all. I mean it, genuinely.
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Aug 13, 2021 22:55
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Facebook Aunt posted:That's all true and it is valid to feel that way. At the same time it is similar to being mad at the forest fire that burned down your house. Your anger is valid, but it's not hurting the fire because fire is incapable of feeling bad. But it can feel good for making me feel bad. This point of view doesn't work for me, because it condemns the abusers either way. If they are human then they are guilty for breaking all kinds of legal and moral laws, (and then trying to hide from the consequences) and deserve contempt. If they are incapable of self control or moral reasoning, like a fire, then we should stamp them out, like a fire* My mental picture is an unexploded WW2 bomb (ed: instead of a fire) , sitting in the corner of the room until one day it is a bit more unstable than usual and it explodes with zero warning. * I'm not advocating violence, but if we dropped them all onto an island, I'd watch the TV show of what happens next. Dongsturm fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Aug 14, 2021 |
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Aug 14, 2021 01:09
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Dongsturm posted:But it can feel good for making me feel bad. Yeah it doesn't provide a course of action on a systemic level for dealing with the ones who already exist. We don't have an easy way to detect this kind of brain damage, we don't have a reliable way to treat it if we find it, and I wouldn't trust any government anywhere to round people up based on an invisible disability. On a systemic level the only call to action is to prevent brain damage from happening to small children as much as possible. Prevent head injuries, prevent heavy metal poisoning, ensure all children get adequate nutrition -- all things we should be doing anyway. On a personal level it's just another assurance that what happened wasn't your fault. There was nothing you could have done to make the situation better. There's nothing you can do to fix them now. They are hopelessly broken, and have been since long before you were born.
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Aug 14, 2021 05:01
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Facebook Aunt posted:Yeah it doesn't provide a course of action on a systemic level for dealing with the ones who already exist. We don't have an easy way to detect this kind of brain damage, we don't have a reliable way to treat it if we find it, and I wouldn't trust any government anywhere to round people up based on an invisible disability. That's a nice way to look at it, and I find it much more appealing than the idea of forgiving people who haven't even asked for it.
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Aug 14, 2021 06:08
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Edit: Decided I'd rather not have this up someplace publicly readable.
ArchRanger fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Aug 15, 2021 |
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Aug 14, 2021 06:50
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 11:05 |
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My mom hasn't returned my calls since I started my dream job weeks ago. I don't know what I expected since I always had a feeling this would happen and now I'm questioning why I ever started talking to her again years ago in the first place. I guess I just keep hoping she'll somehow turn into a normal mom. 
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Aug 14, 2021 17:37
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