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This thread made me log on again after like.... four years? something like that? Yeah. Big content warning on this whole post for sexual abuse amongst other things. Being unemployed due to covid has left me a lot of time to think about my lovely family dynamics and how they affect my behavior/ways of thinking/etc. I'm a very anxious person and have a terrible time with emotional regulation and executive functioning. Both of my parents would say that i was "anxious from birth", which is probably true! But it was always treated as a personal quirk that I just never grew out of. The reality of the situation is my father was a straight-up narcissist. Not one that thinks that he's awesome and the world revolves around him positively-- instead, he was extremely mopey, used his depression to manipulate others, and was convinced that the entire world was against him for Reasons. He was also a very volatile person and everyone felt as tho they had to walk on eggshells around him, especially if we knew he was already in a bad mood (except for my younger brother maybe? he's the closest to a 'golden child' in my family). He would yell, scream, throw things. Basically throw a temper tantrum. The role of the scapegoat wasn't really static in my family; it alternated between my mother and my older sister, who is my mom's biological kid but not my dad's. He held that against both of them and often said that they were in cahoots against him/trying to ruin him. My dad was physically abusive and also sexually abusive towards my older sister-- he'd try to spy on her while she was getting dressed, he'd take pictures of her underwear, really weird creepy poo poo like that. My mom divorced him over that, which was truly good, except I still was expected to see him every weekend? Eventually when I was a teenager, he began being creepy towards me. Not nearly to the level he was to my sister, but he would give me shoulder massages, spank me, etc. It was awful and whenever I went over his house I would put my backpack up against my bedroom door so if he DID come in, I might hear it and wake up. He, like many narcissists described here, didn't know how to actually love anyone, including his own kids. He'd shower us with gifts and money and thought that giving us things was "love". He'd also do this to get back at my mom, who was always way poorer than him (he'd manipulate us this way too). Thankfully, I was able to estrange myself from him permanently when I was ~20 (and he tried to win me back by sending me a card with like 300 bucks in it. LMAO). My mother on the other hand isn't a fullblown narc like my dad, but was raised by EXTREMELY abusive parents and step-parents (like writing about my mom's life story would be a whole 'nother post) and then wound up in a religious cult as a teenager. She didn't leave of her own volition by discovering that it was in fact a cult; she only left because the cult was dissolving around her. She is still a devout right-wing Catholic; it's basically her coping mechanism for the abuse she went thru. Having religion be your coping mechanism would be okay except for the fact that she still can't accept that her children aren't going to be Catholic just because she wants them to be. She is very good at guilt-tripping and for the longest time was able to guilt-trip me and my younger brother into going to church with her, going to lovely anti-abortion poo poo with her, etc. She even thought I would be okay with going to a "Defense of Marriage" dinner when I was a teenager, which is when I put my foot down and said absolutely not. She was LIVID, even though she knew that I was bisexual at that point and obviously wouldn't want to hang out with a bunch of people who hated me and didn't want me to be happy. Basically, I was expected to go along with everything she liked because she liked it and thus it must be a universal good. I was also expected to agree with every opinion she had, and when I didn't she would treat me very condescendingly as if I was stupid and just needed to be better informed or whatever (even when she was talking about various right-wing conspiracy theories). I'm not fully estranged from her and don't feel as though I have to be, but I am partially so and am comfortable with that. I expect once I start to fully transition I'll probably be fully estranged from her anyway, which is part of why I avoided it for so long. I also knew my dad was a creep way before my brother did: I was 12 when my mom told me; my brother got an EXTREMELY watered down/white-washed version when he was like 19 and thus still visits our dad. Despite this, I was still expected to visit my dad every weekend and sleep over his house every weekend. My mom was terrified that he would do something to get back at her if she kept us from him, which like. I get it? But there was probably a better solution besides "hope your ex-husband doesn't creep on your other afab kid". My sister was obviously very hosed up my our dad's abuse and we've been able to commiserate on this in recent years, but when I was a teenager this affected me negatively too. I basically had no privacy from either my mom or my sister. They were paranoid that me wanting privacy = me wanting to do bad things or "weird" or "creepy" things. This only got worse when I naively came out to them as bisexual (and then trans-- I went back in the closet for YEARS, even to myself, because of how I was treated by my mom after that). The first time I had a bedroom of my own with a door was when i was ~23 years old (was finally able to move out of my mom's house when I was 25; I'm 28 now). This basically meant that I learned how to hide things very well but was very hypervigilant. The only time I feel completely calm is when I know for a fact that I'm alone. My sister's apologized to me in the past and has been seeing a trauma specialist. I can tell she's really trying to do well and I trust her a lot more now, but I still know I need help for what she was like when I was a teen. General things I've had to come to grips with are that neither of my parents were good at teaching us any lifeskills, were extremely bad at teaching us healthy sexuality for different reasons, didn't know how to teach us how to set healthy personal boundaries, couldn't be good models for emotional regulation (because they didn't know how to regulate their emotions either!!), and that a lot of my "panic attacks" are really more accurately described as emotional flashbacks to being stuck at my dad's house, being yelled at for something tiny, being rejected, etc. For the longest time I felt so much guilt for having trauma responses because compared to my sister I "didn't have it as bad". Thankfully I'm better w/that now. I have an amazing partner who has been very helpful with dealing w/this, but I feel really bad for only having him to talk to about it right now. I don't want it to be just his burden; I want to be able to find a good therapist for all this. Especially because I'm tired of feeling like a broken, helpless person. I want to learn actual coping skills so I can truly live my life and do so with confidence. This was a very long rambly post, sorry. But this seems like a very good place to vent for this sort of thing and I'm glad it's here. Classic Comrade fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Jan 8, 2021 |
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Jan 8, 2021 22:50
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ghost emoji posted:I had more than one afternoon where I'd come home from school and see my mom reading my diary. I can still feel that same sinking feeling of dread in my stomach when I knew exactly which entries she was gonna yell at me about. I didn't have this exact thing happen to me but my older sister would actively try to spy on my internet usage and would tell my mom when she found something ~concerning~. Mostly this entailed me trying to find community and support from other lgbtq people, though they were both convinced I was also being a pervert (ofc they probably assumed trying to find lgbtq support + being a pervert were one and the same). I STILL have a very hard time with people looking over my shoulder or hovering around me when I'm using the internet. I HATE it. I'll like, automatically switch tabs when I see someone doing it just on instinct. Its so frustrating and lovely when parents believe that children don't need privacy. So many of us are still dealing with the ramifications of that belief. 
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Jan 11, 2021 20:36
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Sisal Two-Step posted:We seem to have ourselves a future estranged parent poster...  Both parents seem completely immature, and if the mom is even a relatively reliable narrator she still paints her boyfriend in a horrible light. He seems very controlling and the mom seems to enable it! Especially wrt, like you said, the fact that she is super vague about what her daughter is upset about (and seems to have never sat down to have a one-on-one w/her daughter about these issues, or if she has, that seems to be of little importance to her)Also lol at "no assholes" policy. If he really followed his code he'd walk out the door himself
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Jan 17, 2021 22:38
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Ughhhhh my mom's apparently gone down the youtube rabbithole during quarantine (well, you know, the US's weird version of "quarantine") and has picked up even more "fun" awful politics and views. Part of me feels guilty that I haven't been talking to her much but on the other hand I know she wouldn't have listened to me if I tried to talk her out of anything. She still kind of sees me as a kid for one thing, and I think she's also just so used to living under authoritarian parenting styles/relationship styles that she gets really easily sucked up into reactionary bullshit. There's probably nothing I can do but it still hurts to see this happen
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Jan 23, 2021 16:29
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Our parents' generations got married and had kids solely because they were taught all their lives it was the thing you had to do. that and also if either of your parents comes from an abusive family they're more likely to get into abusive relationships themselves, especially if they haven't worked on recovering from their trauma. then the trauma just gets passed down to their kids too! wholesome fun for the whole family.
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Jan 25, 2021 18:09
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indiscriminately posted:What a villain! Shameless lying propagandist for a sociopath wannabe autocrat, oh and also a child abuser. I don't know whether Kellyanne Conway being a public figure is an advantage or disadvantage to her daughter freeing herself. On one hand it's easier to expose her abuse as there's media interest in Conway but on the other hand she's a powerful, connected person. think it's a disadvantage; iirc she's tried to become an emancipated minor before and her mom's connections hosed with that edit: https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1354061403104145409?s=20 hoooooly gently caress Classic Comrade fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Jan 26, 2021 |
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Jan 26, 2021 18:24
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Mexican Deathgasm posted:Does anyone else here have a constant dread during work? I have the best job of my life right now. It's not perfect but I can do it from home and my boss and co-workers are all fantastic. I've received a lot of great feedback, more than I've ever gotten before due to the fact I'm not constantly on edge because of being in an office environment. But I still have this frequent, sometimes constant, feeling of dread that I'm going to "get in trouble" for not doing enough or doing the wrong things. I'm hypersensitive to criticism because I spent the first 15 or so years of my life being poo poo on. Not sure how to deal with that. i definitely had a LOT of problems at work, but i also had a customer-facing job so my hypervigilance was focused on both customers AND my lovely, micromanaging manager and trying to please both of them at once. which is a fool's errand of course, and i rationally knew that, but my people-pleasing instincts got in the way of that. honestly, that particular retail job (i wasn't a front-end person before and never will be again god willing) was what made me realize how bad my past trauma was loving with my current, day-to-day living. i had one really awesome shift lead type who knew i had issues before i could even articulate them, and always tried to help me out and was never judgmental. having that kind of support, and the support from other co-workers, made me last longer than i would have otherwise. so i guess one helpful thing is having a support network at work.
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Feb 3, 2021 17:15
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godddd that reminds me of how both my mom and my sister don't understand that me getting really upset and leaving an argument and slamming the door to my room as a teenager is a pretty understandable response to getting told repeatedly that there's something wrong with you just because you're queer (which was the crux of those arguments). like "wow can't have a rational debate much  ??" was something used against me so goddamn much and it was ALWAYS over poo poo i had no control over that was literally just part of who i was and am. it's really stressful and depressing trying to debate the validity of your loving existence to people who are supposed to love you for who you are! axqu you're really brave for doing what you're doing. but if you realize there's no helping your dad and you have to cut off contact (if that's possible in your situation), that will also be just as brave.
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Feb 12, 2021 16:40
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Something that's been really difficult for me especially lately now that it's finally attainable for me is the fact that when i start transitioning, i will become completely estranged from my mother (who i have limited contact with atm), likely also my older sister, and potentially also my younger brother (though he has the biggest chance of coming around eventually, especially since his gf seems very cool). i've already been estranged from my dad for years, but it wasn't something that was an emotional decision at all. he was an rear end in a top hat and i never loved him, i was just afraid of him. so cutting him off wasn't really that hard. but i do love my mom a lot, even though she has a ton of issues and has never accepted my queerness. she's someone i don't want to completely cut off unless i absolutely have to. really, i guess i don't know whether i should jump right into hrt or if i should like, have a therapist along with it so i have extra support in dealing with my mom. taking a step that would largely improve my quality of life but also cut off basically the rest of my family is still mildly terrifying for me because of the lack of support i have at the moment (i DO have a very supportive partner and his family isn't the most aware of trans stuff but aren't zealously right-wing catholics so that'll probably be a lot easier to deal with. but yeah).
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Mar 21, 2021 16:54
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Dirt Road Junglist posted:I know I'm not saying anything that's gone unsaid, but I do hope you can get somewhere that isn't a constant source of stress. (Yes, you said it's not every night etc, but I've also lived in places far past the point where I should have left because, geez, I dunno, it's not that bad...but I have a feeling, once you've been elsewhere, and your stress levels can ratchet down, you'll look back and wonder how you tolerated so much. I do.) Seconding this part; I didn't know how stressful living with my mom was making me until I moved out and gained five pounds in two weeks (i was quite underweight). I didn't realize how much issues my mom had until I was out of her house and could reflect on my life with her without any distractions. When you're stuck in a situation and you feel as though there's no end in sight you try to rationalize it to yourself so you're not *completely* miserable every day. You definitely have various steps you need to tackle before you're in a place where you can actually move out but starting on those will make you make you trust yourself and your abilities more and more.
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Mar 30, 2021 15:33
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ugh my mom and older sister (who was made to be like another parent basically, she's 8 yrs older than me) would pull that poo poo all the time. "i dont know why youre so upset that we refuse to accept that you're queer. :/ please read this humongous tome by pope john paul II about the dumb poo poo he thinks about bodily autonomy to prepare for a good debate before you get upset next time"
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Apr 8, 2021 21:55
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lmao at them talking about "children's rights" when they certainly allowed as little autonomy for their own children as they could
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Apr 20, 2021 18:30
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the mom: "i want my daughter to move out" the daughter: *moves out* the mom: 
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Apr 23, 2021 20:18
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ElHuevoGrande posted:"You're way too smart to be behaving in such a stupid manner!" vs "You have no common sense you'll never make it in the real world." When I decided against reenlisting in the Navy, it turned into "You'll never survive on your own without an institution to take care of you." the fun thing about this too is that it often also comes along with the parent(s) not actually teaching you life skills and keeping you sheltered, depriving you of the "common sense" you need to make it in the "real world" and thus creating and perpetuating the reason to continue controlling you.
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May 4, 2021 19:00
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i still have no idea how im going to come out to my mom and siblings as trans (well, coming out again; i tried the first time at age 16 and it was horrible) i don't like the idea of doing it over the phone or zoom but on the other hand i live more than an hour away from my mom (and quite a few hours away from one of my siblings) so the only way we'd meet up in real life would be for something like mother's day or my mom's birthday and then i'd feel like i was ruining a chill event this isn't stopping me from transitioning or anything; i have my first appointment for setting hrt up in a few weeks. i just know coming out is going to be extremely bad and i don't know how to make it any easier for myself. this thread (and a book on c-ptsd, and moving out of my mom's house) has really helped me realize how toxic things with my mom have been for years (i used to mainly focus on my dad because he was more obviously abusive) and also helped me work thru a lot of that trauma so there's that at least 
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May 5, 2021 17:17
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Dongsturm posted:Why tell them? Will it help you? i still have limited contact with my mom and sister and i hadn't been interested in completely severing. things between us are chill enough that talking on the phone once a month and getting together for holidays and stuff has never felt weird or bad. now that i think of it, i might just bring it up on one of those monthly phone calls. i dunno why i felt like doing it irl would be better honestly. i've been a huge ball of anxiety over it so i probably haven't been thinking about it clearly. i'm sort of... anticipating the grief of losing the rest of my family i guess. but i'm trying to get closer to my boyfriend's family (something i had a hard time doing for a long time bc of issues with my own family) and hopefully with vaccines and stuff gradually getting a bit safer i can continue to get more support and a stronger safety net.
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May 5, 2021 23:25
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Light Gun Man posted:In fact, he did. Somehow the entire hotel to airport to plane etc went without any real issues. And once he got to his new place, he was able to get some of his medicine he had shipped ahead. ahhh thats awesome!!
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May 10, 2021 20:48
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my mom takes that patronizing stuff into her views on me being trans, as well. oh i can't be trans, i was so girly when i was little! i loved princess dresses! i could only think i was trans because my dad was abusive and creepy, it's gotta be a trauma thing. --and then never listening when i try to tell her otherwise, of course. reading about transphobic believers [well there's no other type of believers in this lol but yknow] of "Rapid onset gender dysphoria" always throws me a bit because they all sound like my mom. they think they know better than their own kids about how their (sometimes college-age or older!!!) kids feel and identify, while all the while making it impossible for their kids to trust them or confide in them.
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May 19, 2021 14:54
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BaronVonVaderham posted:To this day he still believes I had an idyllic and flawless childhood and he never did anything wrong. He inevitably brings up how much money he spent on xmas presents and vacations we didn't ask for, because money = affection. my dad was 100% like this as well and when i stopped talking to him he sent me a card with 300 bucks in it. my mom has her own issues that make her belong to this thread as well but to her credit on that day she just was like "hey ur dad sent a card, do u want to read it" and I was like "lol no" and then she gave me the money from it and i bought myself a cheap laptop for school  also my older sister used to spy on my internet usage and report it to my mom but that was when i was a teenager and thus easier to control. pulling that kind of poo poo once your kid is already an adult is also really creepy and yes, there's less of a longterm endgame attached to it. just harassment for the sake of it
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May 27, 2021 18:53
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speaking of ptsd, i visited my mom for the first time covid started. i came out to her as trans too! which i wasn't planning to do, but we got into an argument over her horrible right-wing politics (she said she hopes ron desantis runs for president) and i decided to just rip off the bandaid about a lot of things, including how her politics weren't just bad on a debate level or anything, but that they impact me and have impacted me for most of my life. i also fully realized for the first time how emotionally immature she still is (and how immature her concept of morality is). she's 62 and any sort of conflict is some crisis-level thing always that sends her into emotional flashback mode almost immediately. it was like i was talking to a 5 year old in a 62-year-old's body at times; she made herself as small and cornered on the couch as possible; just curled up and crying. over me disagreeing with her politics and me being trans. it was frustrating but also really sad. by the end of the day it was as fine as it would get; she'll use my chosen name and stuff. but the lovely parts of the conversation just keep replaying in my head and it just blows my mind, makes me really sad, and also just.... yeah. made me feel a lot more compassionate with myself still learning better emotional regulation skills at 28 (which testosterone+being out to myself/others is actually helping with a lot, which is cool). she's 62 and she doesn't have those skills! which is why i didn't have them either!
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Jun 23, 2021 15:57
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Rutibex posted:yeah, it was a big moment for me when i realized i'm more of an adult than both of my parents. i think many boomers were just coddled by their circumstances so they never had to develop methods for dealing with adversity my mom had terrifyingly abusive parents, its just that she was never able to truly heal from the trauma of that to a degree that it didn't negatively impact her life and the lives of her kids. which she understands and regrets, but.... its still there and its still very much impacting her life and the lives of her kids.
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Jun 23, 2021 16:14
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"being nice is just too hard" god wtf 
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Jul 16, 2021 00:34
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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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i got spanked [+yelled at at the same time] as a kid, mostly for "very serious" things (as defined by my mom). one of which was playing in the street. which... there's definitely ways to successfully explain the danger of getting hit by a car besides hitting your kid with your hand instead. and like, it's understandable to be freaked out if your kid was in danger, but taking out your anxiety on your kid also isn't the right move. i def know i was spanked more than once but that was the only time i actually *remember*. so i dunno how much it actually impacted me mentally/emotionally, i just know that it wasn't right and i wouldn't do it myself. i feel bad for ppl who got spanked more often and still believe that it "made them the way they are today" in a positive way, and i also feel nervous for those ppl's kids
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Sep 8, 2021 21:21
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all of the gift stuff being talked about now is why i just don't do surprise gifts if i can (which i didn't know was an option for a long time lol). i just ask my boyfriend if he wants anything for christmas/birthday/whatever, he asks me if i want anything, and that's what we get. any surprise i do is usually limited to stocking stuffer type stuff, like different flavors of chocolate or whatever. its so much less stressful
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Oct 6, 2021 02:58
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Neito posted:Dream you should've taken the six grand, THEN told her to gently caress off. my dad once sent me a card with 300 bucks in it after i went no contact with him and i didn't read the card and kept the 300 bucks, and that was that 
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Nov 4, 2021 00:41
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my mom's expecting me for thanksgiving AND she conveniently forgot that i literally told her i was transitioning. she just kept asking whether i had a cold or not (over the phone) and I KNEW if i actually explained like "well remember mom i'm on hormones now!" she would've just had a meltdown over information i literally already told her and she already had a meltdown about. she does this with my sexuality too, like, she'll just completely 'forget' i'm bisexual until i remind her and then she's all upset about it again. i'm also not out to the rest of my family, and i guess i can use this to see if i can call my younger brother and tell him. but beyond that ugh the upside is that my boyfriend's family were all really awesome when i came out to them 
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Nov 22, 2021 02:57
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Barudak posted:I hope your spending thanksgiving with boyfriend and their family? thats def priority #1
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Nov 22, 2021 03:09
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i have adhd but didn't get treatment until literally the final semester of undergrad i DID graduate, but it took seven years and my GPA was extremely mediocre. i guess i should view it as a good thing that i got a degree but it hasn't helped me any. i just have a mountain of debt with nothing real to show for it. at least i know im not alone in that regard and a ton of ppl are in a similar boat, but yeah.
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Nov 30, 2021 19:55
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ohnobugs posted:It's not real therapy, and your parents would have had to actively search for someone offering it. I am so sorry you went through that. i dunno how common it is for "normal" therapists to also do conversion therapy stuff on the side but i went to a "normal" therapist that was recommended by my mom's therapist when i was in my late teens who was a transphobe and was 100% doing conversion therapy poo poo to me. (this was in the 2010s) PeterPanda i'm so sorry that your parents did that to you. parents that make their love so clearly conditional on their kids hiding themselves and pretending to be something they're not are so fuckin garbage. Classic Comrade fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Jan 3, 2022 |
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Jan 3, 2022 21:37
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A Bakers Cousin posted:Was doing some reading and was directed to this article well uh at least i'm not alone in relating to this itt?  a lot of those defense mechanisms and behaviors and stuff came back really bad with covid, too, and im still trying to figure out how to get a handle on them again (pre-covid i'd been starting to actually figure out how to live my life? ugh). tho in my case i also wasn't given any good emotional regulation modeling so i ended up also being really emotional and sensitive instead and was bad at "masking" that for most of my life Classic Comrade fucked around with this message at 14:56 on Feb 2, 2022 |
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Feb 2, 2022 14:53
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i had to switch my phone carrier and also had to change numbers so that has made a lot of things really chill lately
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May 24, 2022 22:37
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my mom knows i'm trans and superficially tolerates that but also still wants ron desantis to be president and so i haven't been talking to her for quite some time. it still really hurts though. like, she either wants me to end up the way he wants me to end up or she's totally fine with every other trans person ending up like that and thinks that this would somehow be fine with me. either way, just cementing the fact that she hasn't respected me as a person since I was a teenager. i feel a lot of grief and a lot of emptiness.
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Jun 10, 2022 21:58
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olives black posted:That sucks and I'm really sorry to hear it. Sounds like she's a real loving rear end in a top hat and you should thanks. we haven't spoken since last year, which is a big part of why i'm able to start feeling a lot of grief now. looking on the outside after living with her til i was 27 (29 now) is a lot of alternating sad-angry.
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Jun 11, 2022 02:07
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i had a pretty intense somatic flashback thing happen yesterday (not something i have much experience with) and then remembered it was fathers day this weekend and i don't think that was an accident :/ it's obviously lovely and was very frightening at the time but it also made me able to finally feel compassion for my younger self, which i had a big block around before (i acted out in a lot of weird ways as a preteen/young teen and i could never move beyond feeling shame/anger at myself for those things, and now i have context for like. all of it). and i'm a lot more certain about the kind of help i need. it's a really really weird collection of every feeling at once and also a weird distance from those feelings as well, but i'm mostly holding together. was able to have lunch with my boyfriend's dad today without it loving with me. the parent holidays are obviously lovely times for this thread; lots of love to everybody and i hope you're able to find time to unwind/process/soothe/whatever you need!
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Jun 19, 2022 20:44
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quasi-related to things being posted here currently-- for so much of my life i struggled to get along with my mother and always felt like the blame ultimately fell on me, that my mother was a good generous kind person who had just been hurt too much to have good judgement or whatever. i felt sorry for her more than anything. i remember posting itt like a year ago being way more easy on my mother than my father and everybody here having a similar response to the one Life Is Killing Me is getting. i was very apprehensive about going total  over things and didn't feel as tho things were as bad as all that-- plus i was so afraid of hurting her-- but i kept it in the back of my mind just in case.now that i've been no contact with her for about six months or so and have had some therapy, i can finally admit to myself that my mother was also abusive. i can call what she has done abuse. which sounds obvious writing it now but i think a lot of ppl itt know how it is. i don't feel nearly as 'guilty' about it and i'm finally able to feel a compassion for my younger self that had been completely blocked before. i've also been able to help my younger brother a little and provide him with a safe/chill place to visit or stay for awhile if he needs it. all this is to say it really is almost impossible to see just how hosed up your parents are 'till you cut them out completely for awhile. i really underestimated that (and was skeptical at first) and i think it's also part of why these types of parents think even limiting contact is the end of the world! because it is for THEM in a way, it's the end of the hosed up little world they created to keep you trapped in (whether consciously or not)! because they don't know how to relate to ppl in non-authoritarian ways. another thing that was helpful for me and might be for others, if like me the whole "oh my parent went thru hosed up poo poo, if i get angry at them i'm being selfish/misunderstanding/etc" fucks with you: it was and is your parent's responsibility to get their poo poo un-hosed-up. it was your parent's responsibility to ensure their pain doesn't become YOUR pain. and you can feel bad about someone while still understanding that they have done harm to you and that this in and of itself is enough reason to not want to talk to them again. it is not selfish. it is self-preservation!! oh yeah: there's a lot of grieving involved with severing, even if you're more aware of your parent's crap than i was. i definitely grieved (and am still grieving) my lack of a healthy safe childhood, my lack of truly supportive and loving family, etc. that can be rough, so i'd make sure you have some good support ppl/systems in place just in case if you're thinking of going no contact. Classic Comrade fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Aug 4, 2022 |
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Aug 4, 2022 17:48
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ohnobugs posted:What the hell is wrong with these people? narcissism, as ppl said, and i would say that a big part of that narcissism (or perhaps the narcissism is a symptom of the following) is being very emotionally stunted and just.... stunted in general. when i was around thirteen i felt as tho i had to be the "adult in the room" when my brother and i went over my dad's house. the last time i got into a disagreement with my mom (last year, when i was twenty eight and she sixty two), she pretty much devolved into a crying child before my eyes. the way they perceive "adulthood" and "parenthood" is control, even if they rationalize that to you or even to themselves in other ways. they are highly insecure, very authoritarian people that believe in sticking to strict family roles/hierarchy and were often trained by their own parents to be this way. any sign of "breaking rank" so to speak is seen as a threat. in fact, many things are seen as threats to them but true individuality and autonomy is a huge one. in my case it's been helpful to understand why my parents are the way they are, especially because I'm YEARS beyond the point of letting my sympathy overrule my safety. Understanding /=/ forgiving or justifying.
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Aug 9, 2022 14:54
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CherryCola posted:Of course my mom said she stayed with him because she wanted us to “have a father” UGH i hate that loving poo poo. my mom would say similar, but instead it was about how boys ~NEEDED~ to have fathers (i have a younger brother), and this was more important to her in the end than how that father treated the girls and those-thought-to-be-girls in the family (she did end up divorcing him but i was pressured to keep visiting him on weekends along with my brother till i wasn't a minor anymore)
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Oct 3, 2022 15:28
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Rutibex posted:I need glasses my entire life and I never got them until my 30s because I was constantly gas lit that "your eyes are fine you can read right?" oh wow, a lot of us had eyesight stuff neglected! in my case, my parents knew i had weaker sight in one eye from a very young age, but did nothing to correct it until i was far too old for it to be successful. i'm now ridiculously far-sighted in that eye, and everything is really fuzzy to the point that glasses can't fully correct it-- like i wouldn't be able to read this thread with that eye even with my glasses on (my other eye's relatively fine in that glasses fix its problems but i also didn't get the correct glasses til i was 18)
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Oct 21, 2022 21:50
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 10:59 |
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When I have family stress dreams they're usually my mother and I having an argument over something lovely she believes, I try to tell her how hosed up she's being and my voice is super quiet. The louder I try to be, the more strangled my voice is, until I'm like screaming but only the most laryngitic wheezes come out. At that point I usually wake up. In this case tho I know what they're about; arguments with my mother were always futile no matter how actually-right I was so I might as well have been making no sound at all. Still not pleasant at all to deal with tho!
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Dec 8, 2022 15:00
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