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reading this thread is eerie because i keep hearing my parents in this. i’d always thought that the problem was me because they kept pounding in that they did everything they could for me and took me to all these fancy places and trips (apparently we used to go to disneyland every month except it’s a 6 hour drive from where we live and one time my sister and i had a meltdown during these drives because we were both toddlers that my dad decided we were never going to disneyland ever again) and i was a terrible, ungrateful daughter for not appreciating it. they’re not full out horrible like some of these parents, but they definitely are close. my dad always loves to go off about how much he’s invested in me and how he’s failed to receive any result, also if i was a employee under him he would have fired me. unfortunately i don’t think i can completely sever because i still need financial help sometimes and they know it. when i graduated college while working part time and living paycheck to paycheck, my parents decided that to celebrate they’d take me on a cruise along south east asia (i said i was fine going going somewhere more local and fun, like disneyland or universal studios but my dad apparently hates those places). it was very nice of them but i honestly would had preferred them giving me money the money they spent on me during the trip. also my dad would call my cabin room at 5AM or 6AM demanding that i meet him on deck with my sister so we could take family vacation photos. i’d refuse and go back to sleep because that’s not my idea of enjoying a vacation, but my sister would go and then come back mad at me because my dad was pissy i ignored him and took it out on my sister and mom that i was ruining the vacation. anyways after this i was super struggling because i been working for several weeks because they decided on a cruise, and when i asked if they could help me with paying rent they were super upset that i would dare to ask for more. all i did according to them was take their money and enjoy making them miserable because i would refuse to spend time with them during the trip and wanted to do things on my own instead of following my parents around (i was 24 years old). it was a cool trip and i did appreciate seeing places i’d never be able to afford on my own, but i always feel miserable being with my parents because they’d remind me who was paying for the trip. also when i decided to buy a souvenir my mom was upset because i didn’t try to barter and she said it was so embarrassing for her that i didn’t try to get the merchant to lower the price. it would probably come as no surprise to reveal that i have anxiety when talking to strangers and also at the idea of making people upset, thanks to various factors in my childhood (one of them being my dad lost his temper at me and threw my sister’s backpack at my head because i wasn’t getting out of the car fast enough, and it was heavy enough that it left a gash above my eye. i was seven.) this turned out to be longer and more personal than i intended, i’m sorry. 
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Sep 25, 2019 23:06
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 09:42 |
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my mom likes to go shopping and she enjoys getting a good deal, so she has no problems bartering. she also is pretty social and has no problems chatting up strangers anytime, anywhere when she's bored. the fact that i have anxiety over talking to strangers and conflict is something that she doesn't get, unsurprisingly. as to my parents, it's taken a lot of time to realize that what they've done to me was abusive and hosed me up. the only reason why i don't think they're complete narcissists is that they're aware that they've hosed up but not sure how and what to do to fix it (both a combination of them refusing to consider seeking help and the fact that if i/my sister try to talk about it to them, we're both crippled by severe anxiety about confronting them, our parents deflect all blame from themselves, or both!). there's also the fact that i can also see how they got to be where they are due to their own past - both of them grew up in communist china, came to the US in the 80s knowing little english, then became super successful, and believe that anyone else who isn't simply didn't try hard enough cause they did it. i know they didn't want my sister and i to go through what they did growing up and wanted to also treat us to things they never were able to have as kids, and there's the fact that i'm not actually my dad's biological daughter (their marriage is older than i am) but he's never treated me as anything else but his own, so i didn't really question that i was mixed race while everyone else was completely chinese until i was much older. he loves to boast about how well behaved and quiet my sister and i were when we were younger, but that's a mixture of him ignoring the times that we did act up, and the fact that they'd lock me in a closet/garage in the dark when i misbehaved and wouldn't let me out until i stopped crying (i was afraid of the dark as a toddler) or threaten to abandon me if i didn't live up to expectations (my mom actually pulled over into a parking lot late at night and tried to pull me out of the car while i hung on to the seat screaming a few times), which made me afraid to do anything that upset them. i didn't even realize that normal families don't do that until i brought it up with friends when i was in college when we were sharing about funny/crazy things our parents did when we were kids and i accidentally killed the conversation. i don't even think my parents realize how traumatized it left me. as for savings, my parents are actually much better off than my sister (who moved back home after college) or me (I refused to move back home after college). even if we can't take care of them when they're older, they'll probably be fine. in fact, my dad constantly likes reminding my sister and i that he makes our monthly salary in a day. i would be lying if i said i never thought about going NC, but i don't think i could do it or even afford to. i am seeing a therapist who's helping me deal with this along with my other issues so it's part of a ongoing process.
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Sep 26, 2019 23:40
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I'm reminded of how it's important if your kids are friends with a kid who has a clearly dysfunctional home life to invite them over when you can and show them a different family to teach them what a healthy (or at least less dysfunctional) relationship can look like, that their own experience at home is not their only option. A lot of people just haven't seen what a healthy and equitable relationship looks like, and care more about ticking the right boxes than actually talking to people. i honestly didn't realize that my family life was actually not normal at all until i got older. i remember a few years back i was getting a ride from my dad's cousin for a family gathering because i live closer to her than my family now, and when i got there she and her husband were snapping at each other because their kid wasn't ready to leave yet (she was still a toddler) so we ended up running a little late. i remember feeling this huge feeling of anxiety and dread because when that happens with my parents, my dad fumes during the entire car trip and starts laying into everyone around him about every single perceived slight we did to him or fault we had, so i was preparing for that to be the awkward bystander for this to play out. imagine my surprise when before they got into the car, they made up, kissed, and then just a very pleasant conversation on the way there. it honestly was a huge shock for me because i'd never thought that there was any other way to handle it beforehand. Mushika posted:I'm conflicted as to whether to post this or not but over the course of this thread, I think it has been asked of people with positive parental experiences how it went down or what was different about it or how to be a good parent. I don't know the answer to any of this. I have a great relationship with my parents. I'm taking a break from packing right now to post this because I'm driving them halfway across the country to be a part of my brother's wife's retirement ceremony. It's going to be a good trip. I don't get to spend nearly as much time with them as I would like, though that may change now that I'm unemployed. We're bringing guitars for my father, my brother and I to play when we have a spare moment and art materials (weaving, sewing, some metalworking) for my mother, sister-in-law and I to share over coffee and while we cook. My sister-in-law, from the little she has told us, had a terrible family upbringing and has no contact with her parents. I'm not sure about the details because I never wanted to push her to talk about it and she didn't seem terribly forthcoming about it. What I do know is that she has adopted my parents as her own with a fervor that is sometimes startling. Her love for my parents over the years has made me appreciate the relationship I have with them so much more. no, don't be. i have a friend who has a very good relationship with his father and brother, and every sunday he'd go spend time with them, drinking and having a good time because of how close knit they are. he confessed to me that he honestly feels bad talking about it because he knows so many people in our social circle don't have good relationships with parents, including me, but i told him hearing about how he has a good time just knocking back beers with his dad honestly does make me happy. it makes me a little sad that i can't do the same with my own parents, but at least i know that a healthy family dynamic is possible and not something that you just find in fiction.
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Oct 10, 2019 18:19
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Sleeveless posted:Telling your kid their feelings aren't valid and then going out of your way to roast them in front of complete strangers online for your own amusement, I can't imagine why you would have such an investment in immersing yourself in parental misery porn online so you can feel better about yourself by comparison. why are you still here
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Dec 29, 2019 04:30
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it's either that or she thinks her son thinks he's too good to wait inside starbucks and that's why he's standing outside of it, instead of assuming he wanted to give his daughter and her friends some privacy instead of looming in the background.
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Feb 3, 2020 23:35
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Iron Crowned posted:Yeah, that was the weird thing, because he did have a father, one of those DNA tests just revealed that he wasn't the biological one. Apparently it's pretty common to find that poo poo out with these tests, usually it's siblings discovering it and finding out they're half-brothers/sisters i found out when i grew up distinctly very white compared to my both very asian parents
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Feb 5, 2020 00:07
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PooInAnAlleyway posted:You know when your therapist gives you the i didn’t realize that being locked in the closet/garage and not being let out until i stopped sobbing wasn’t a normal everyday family thing until i brought it up while my friends were sharing funny family stories. everyone just gave me that  look. my therapist that i’ve been seeing for over a year, told me bluntly that my parents have been and are abusive a few weeks ago. it was both a relief and incredibly sad to get that validation.
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Feb 15, 2020 04:39
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pram posted:Sorry but did they ever explain the circumstances of this to you? Or is it just an unstated thing? my mom actually did when i was 21. my sister and i kind of guessed at it when we were in the late teens since whenever i picked her up from high school her friends would ask if i was a family friend. but my mom just one weekend took me out to a expensive handbag store and bought one for me, then in the car she told me that my dad wasn't my real dad and explained that when she was in college, my dad was jealous of her friendship with other guys and accused her of cheating constantly and acting like a victim. my mom just got so tired of defending herself that when one of them did start hitting on her, she was like "yeah sure he already thinks i'm cheating what's the worst that can happen" and then she found out you can get pregnant from having sex once. in defense of my mom, i'm not angry her for cheating (just that she took that long to tell me the truth) because my dad is always convinced that he's right, like how he still believes that i sold the expensive wristwatch he got me when i was 14 and that's why he's justified in not giving me personal gifts since i'd just sell them, instead of me just losing it because i was 14, or that my biological father was breaking into their house to pee in the toilets and not that the plumbing was hosed up, and the most recent conspiracy theory he had was that my mom was poisoning him for insurance, which according to my sister he handled by moping all over the house and sighing sadly. also the past 30 years my mom has bent over backwards to try to make my dad happy, which is what she admitted to me that she's been trying to make up for her mistake since then. my dad knows because after i was born, he took me in for a blood test without my mom knowing. but even though he knows, he's super defensive and if anyone jokes (including me, before i realized) about how different i look, he starts in on this spiel about how it comes from my mother's side because her great-great-great grandpa was white or mixed (which is true, but even if some families of her side still don't look 100% chinese, they don't look like me). it's kind of a open secret but no one is willing to talk about it openly and i have no idea which of my extended family knows and is keeping quiet about it or which ones just didn't really think further about it and just accepted it.
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Apr 14, 2020 21:28
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Batterypowered7 posted:"THAT RAT BASTARD IS BREAKING IN HERE AND PEEING IN MY TOILETS. I JUST KNOW IT!" to be honest i couldn't stop laughing when i heard that's what he was convinced what was happening. i do care about him and my mom a lot (they both went through some rough poo poo growing up) and they have tried to make a effort to help and understand me, but the keyword is 'try'. A lot of my dad's efforts are "I don't understand why you won't do things my way/behave the way I want you to, which is clearly the superior way, and it's clear to me that your way of living is a failure because you're not doing well financially despite living in a area where people making six digits still struggle, so logically the reason why you're a unsuccessful gently caress up is because you never listen to me" my grandma is currently dying (cancer, not coronavirus) and this past week has been a mess. i ended up having to take the day off today because we're pretty sure she's near the end now and the stress of everything meant that i kind of had a breakdown near midnight along with not being able to sleep . i called my dad because i was worried about him and i let it slip that i'd taken the day off and he just started berating me, saying that my grandma would want me to be successful at work and she would never want to be the cause for being fired, and besides they weren't asking me to come in to visit her so i could just deal with it during my off hours. i ended up being more stressed and second guessing my decision that i called my boss, who gave me more sympathy and emotional support than my dad did, and said that i could take as much time off as i need to take care of myself and that he completely understood. i should mention by the way that my grandma is his own mother, but he's the type of person who hates it when people cry because he sees it as emotional manipulation. in 30 years, i've only seen him cry once and it was at his father's funeral over ten years ago. so right now he's trying to be all stoic and tough because he can't be weak or manipulative i guess???? tbh i really should have known better because a close friend of mine has told me that it's ok to care for my dad but i should stop going to him for emotional support because it's clear that i'm never going to get it from him, and she is absolutely right. i let my guard down because my mom told me over the weekend that my dad is sad because we (my sister and i) rarely talk to him and he doesn't know what to say to us. i should have known better. i am a fool. 
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Apr 17, 2020 00:03
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it's been a while since i posted in here. last time i mentioned that my grandma was declining, right when the pandemic hit; she did pass away in a few weeks. her funeral is one of the rare times i have seen my dad cry, as he's someone who prides himself on being "rational" and "logical." anyways my story is that despite all the issues and warning signs of my parents, i've moved back in with them in 2021, when i found out i had cancer. it has... not been as bad as i thought it would be while being unbearable at times, if because my parents are actually not in the home anymore - my dad has a second house that he plans to retire in, and he's been working remotely from there so i don't have to deal with him often. he is demanding that my mom drive up from the bay areal to norcal to cook him food because he's too important and busy to do it himself and thanks to all the asian hate crimes, he's been keeping a pistol on him or nearby. (i was looking for the tv remote when he was home once and i found the gun. lol.) it's kind of ironic because he's a very dark-skinned asian man who would never pass the paper bag test. one factor that he's spending less time in the house is because of my mom, who is usually more bearable but... she is definitely a hoarder. and since the pandemic, the lockdown has gotten worse. we're trying to clean out the house now, because the plan is that my sister and i will rent it from them since they have another property to live in, and i'm finding stuff like "compound w that expired in 1999" or my mom's balance book from 1984 because no one has gone through the cabinets. and even then, trying to throw away things is another fight - while some poo poo has been cleaned out, the rest of it is sitting around the house thanks to my mom. there is an entire box of old floppies that she wouldn't let me throw away because she wants to get the data from them before we do that, since it was proof of work she had done, but i'd pointed out if she hadn't touched them since the 90s then they'd probably be of no use to anyone. but this is her house so she doesn't have to listen to me, even if that means she's shredding 30 years of paperwork by hand because she doesn't trust anyone to do the job properly. my sister and i begged her to let us hire someone to declutter/clean the house, because she just has so much piled up, but all that lead to was a huge fight between my mom and i. my sister hasn't really been helping, since she moved back in after college and has been living there for the past ten years, and her reaction to me asking for help dealing with our mom's hoarding was "well i've been dealing with this for years, you just have to accept that this is the way things are  " i don't think staying home has really helped her, since my mom definitely does the "complain about how we can't do anything on our own and then does it for us without asking" whole thing. like... it took my sister finally aging out of my parents' insurance to start finally making her own appointments for doctors and stuff, because my mom would do it for her. and when i lived on my own, she would show up at my apartment unannounced with groceries i didn't ask for; i appreciate the free food, but she never gave me any warning in advance and would just show up with what she thought i would need or like, which was frustrating. this has meant that my sister is super indecisive (as am i)anyways one of things we're doing while trying to defeat my mother's hoard demon (the walk in closet was completely filled up to the ceiling with her clothes) is remodel the house, another source of fighting between me and her. i wanted to have a interior designer because i didn't want to deal with trying to figure this out while recovering from cancer while my mom just wanted to do everything herself except she has no time to handle it because my dad is demanding that she spends time with him up north because he's lonely and oh also, my grandfather is dying, and she's also going over to his place and spending time to help take care of him too! (after he died my grandma had a stroke, so 2021 was just utterly relentless.) in the end, the compromise is that i'm hiring someone to help me with my room and bathroom, they can do whatever else they want to the house because despite them saying they want my input because my sister and i will be taking over it, they clearly already have their own ideas on what to do. whenever i bring up what i like or think looks nice, they immediately judge or criticize it - something i did call my mom out on, when she was bitching about how i was wasting my money (she told me that if i was just throwing money away to just give it to her instead) on hiring a interior designer when i just have to know what i want, and i shot back that every time i showed her a color or style she would go "are you sure that's what you really want?" her excuse was that she wanted to make sure that i wasn't making a choice i would regret lol
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Jan 18, 2022 03:46
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trust me it is something i've been resisting to do for years, but i am just so tired. the bay area is brutally expensive. also when i have to return to office, i'd rather deal with a 1-2 hour commute versus the 4 hours i was dealing with before. edit: i should also add that when i mean that i am tired, i mean that i had been absolutely exhausted/fatigued/dealing with brain fog for years, and when i finally talked to the doctor about it (because i had just chalked it up to not getting enough sleep and the commute), it turns out that my thyroid had stopped working in addition to the cancer. moving back in isn't ideal and honestly one of my worries is that i will absolutely regret this, but i also need to fix my health and i don't know if i can continue doing it as i was before. this isn't just "ugh i guess i'll just move back because it's cheaper/closer to work" situation, i'm just completely exhausted and i want to just catch my breath. Splash Attack fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Jan 18, 2022 |
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Jan 18, 2022 04:18
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 09:42 |
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believe me, i went into this with misgivings but it has been surprisingly okay. the one who i had a difficult time living with growing up was with my dad and he's basically living in his other property several hundred miles away; he does come back once a month or so but usually stays for a day or two and then leaves because he feels like no one is paying attention to him. the thing is, despite everything i don't hate him; i pity him. he is a very lonely old man, and he is upset that he doesn't feel that close to my sister and i which makes me feel bad until i have to interact with him and then it's like "ah yes this is why we don't talk." i've mentioned it before but i'm not his biological daughter and he knows, but he's never made me feel like i wasn't his family. in fact, i was his favorite growing up and to be honest, i miss my dad from that that time - he would read me stories every night and went out of his way to spend time doing things i enjoy to make me happy. now everyone has to do what he wants or he'll make everyone miserable, but i think that has always been there, it's just when i was younger it felt like he made a effort but as he got older he stopped. i think he has a better relationship with the people he works with/mentors. the part of the thread where people were talking about how when a family member passes away and finds out that they were warm and fatherly to everyone but their own family hits a little too close to home. i feel like i could go on about my family but i don't want to just ramble on because it's a lot. i appreciate and understand people's apprehension at me moving back into the house but it turns out that years of therapy and growing a sense of my own identity does change the balance a bit. i would definitely never suggest for anyone else to do it just because i'm able to put up with it; it is very much a complex situation. and tbh, i do appreciate my parents because they aren't the monsters that people have shared in the thread. they just refuse to fix their own issues due to their own past traumas and experiences.
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Jan 18, 2022 19:16
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