Anyone realize they had emotionally/psychologically abusive parents?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So I realize fully well this board hates these kind of emotionally bare topics, and I’ll probably get a pit thread…but anyway.

So my mom called and I wasn’t home, and she talked to my wife. She tried to get my wife to take down some phone number of some quack she had heard about from some guy, that said in two visits this “doctor” cured his son of autism.:rolleyes:(our son doesn’t talk much at 4)

My wife shared how stupid that sounded to her, and then my mom er severely denigrated our “irresponsible” parenting, which my wife then countered with a lot of very personal trauma I’ve shared with her. Like when my parents were breaking up when I was 7 and tried to get me put in a residential child psych hospital for ADHD.

My mom straight denied it happened(par for her delusional course) and cursed my wife out and said you don’t know what it was like raising a child in your 50s.

Which brought to mind how my entire childhood and teenage years my mom would tell me how I was a total shocker of a pregnancy at age 40, and how her doctor in 1982 advised her she was too old to have a baby and she should abort. Which she wanted to do, but my dad FORCED her to carry me to term because he always wanted a child of his own and especially a boy. She always told me this in the tone that she should have aborted me, but she was a poor victim of my father. He helped ruin her life by insisting she have me.

He left her for six months after the abandoning me in the hospital thing, she told me to go and play with the Star Wars action figures they had and then she was gone and I was locked in. I cried myself to sleep every night until my father picked me up and we went to live in a trailer by ourselves until he went back to her.
People always said you’ll appreciate your own parents once you are one, instead it has helped clarify for me just how shitty my mom was at being a parent.

2

It wasn’t a matter of realizing, really. My parents were incredibly abusive on every level. Within moments of my mom passing, I thought “She can’t ever hurt me again.”

I am glad to see you have your wife in your corner. She sounds like a good ally. :slight_smile:

3

Believe me I know it, it was incredibly empowering to tell someone about it and have them offer their opinion that they agreed with me.

She once told me that early on in our relationship she thought I was exaggerating when I talked about my mom, but with interaction with her she later realized I was actually minimizing it if anything.

4

Oh yeah. I don’t talk about it all so much anymore, now that she’s gone. But I do remember when my sister and I read Mommie Dearest - we couldn’t figure out what Christina was bitching about. :smiley:

5

Emotionally/psychogically abusive parents? Oh, I’ve got some stories.

Let me think a bit, and I’ll get back to you.

6

Meh. Everybody had abusive parents at some level. You know that old cliche about wives and mother-in-laws not getting along? Did you know it exists in every culture in the world?

7

I thought I did, until I grew up a bit and realised I was just being a bit of a self-absorbed brat and they were just clumsily doing the best they knew how. They certainly weren’t perfect, but they tried their best.

8

First of all, I’ll say that my Dad was a great guy, always. So was my Mom, when I was a kid. Problem was, I got older, and Mom couldn’t handle that. I eventually realized that my mother wanted me to be age 12, forever and always.

In high school, Mom made fun of me for having a girlfriend. “Isn’t that cute? Little Spoons has a girlfriend. Do you know that he still has a teddy bear?” I soon learned not to bring my girlfriends home to meet my folks.

It got worse when I was at university. Our home was within a few subway stops of the University of Toronto; and as that institution has no “must stay in dorms” requirements, I stayed at home to save money. Big mistake. “I don’t care if your final exam occurs on Month/Day, you will attend your cousin’s wedding, and your so-called girlfriend (pffft) will not attend with you.”

"But Mom, the invitation was addressed to ‘Spoons and Guest.’ I want XYZ to be my guest. If I have to go in the middle of exams (and it’s the middle of exams, I’d rather not go at all, as I need to study), I want XYZ to be my guest.

“XYZ is not someone I approve of. You will attend the wedding, exams or not, without her.” My reaction was, “Dahell?” I was over the age of majority, and this woman was treating me like a kid?

So, one night, I snapped. I was about 22, had been out with the boys, drinking beer, and we all came home on the subway. I got in the house at about 0330, and there was my mother.

“Do you know how late you are? You (hit–yes, she hit me–a backhand, as I recall) are (hit) one (hit) ungrateful (hit) son!”

And after that beating, I just looked at her and said, “Fuck you, lady. I’m too old for this shit.” I walked off and spent the night on a park bench.

Mom died less than a year later. I shed no tears. Hell, I was happy to hear of my mother’s passing.

Yeah, well, 'nuff said for now.

9

I really don’t think that is true. My parents weren’t perfect by any means, but I can’t recall a single time that my parents ever did anything that could be considered psychologically or emotionally abusive. I mean they took my door of my hinges - which I thought was a total violation of my privacy - and still pisses me off til this day, but really doesn’t compare to some of the shit my friends and exes have had happen.

For example - from three different people I am close to:

  • My father never took me into a shed and threatened and acted like he was going to blind me because I was curious about his collection of cow sperm (used for breeding - not some fetish) and had taken a thermos like tube out of a container ruining it.

  • My mother never beat me so hard with a cane that I peed myself when I was seven - and after getting accepted to Medical School (having been told my whole life I was stupid and wouldn’t amount to anything) - said she was praying to Jesus that my plane would crash and I would die.

  • My father never sold me for crack and then in order to keep me from telling anyone showed me scenes from Nightmare on Elm Street and said Freddy Krueger would know if I told anyone and come and kill me, my sister, and mother. So traumatizing (never mind the being sold for crack part) that when she was in a haunted house over a decade after this happened - and someone dressed as Freddy Krueger was there - she had a seizure.

The first two still love their parents very much - and the third tried for years to reconnect with her dad - until he finally reached out to her - she was so happy to finally be seeing him again - and when she went into the bathroom - he stole about $1,000 worth of stuff and cash and left. She finally gave up after that.

So while I am still pissed about my parents taking the door off the hinges - I’d find it real hard to tell the three of them that my parents were abusive. Even if you remove the sexual and physical component from those examples - they are still pretty bad. My parents yelled, but it was never to be mean - and I even got hit a couple times - but it wasn’t out of anger.

I can’t believe the amount of shit people put up with from their parents (after they are on their own). Maybe it is cause of the abuse - I don’t know - cause I wasn’t particularly close to my parents as an adult - and I can’t imagine I would ever speak to them if they had done to me what some of my friends had done to them.

I just can’t say with a straight face that I was abused without totally ruining any meaning of the word. And while I have friends with awful parents - I know some with great parents too - and am close enough to at least a few of them to know my parents weren’t alone in the non abuse type department.

10

Mom was a very nice lady; Dad used to be a physical parent but, like the experiences of DataX, not really that abusive. He’s the threatening type: “stop that crying or I’ll give you something to cry about” and “hit him to get his attention”.

It’s not like I’ve been in therapy for 30 years due to being beaten, burned, having my hand forced up Mom, etc.

11

Sure. Abusive alcoholics and their enablers have no business being parents, but that didn’t stop mine from squirting out a couple kids.

12

My parents were not emotionally abusive to me. But they were very abusive towards each other which has caused me and my sister a lot of issues over the years. The ironic thing is they “stayed together for the kids.” We all would have been so much happier if they got divorced 30 years ago. But they are still together and miserable, for the most part.

13

Don’t know what you did to deserve it, but I had to do that to my daughter after about 25 times of door slamming and 25 times of me saying “do not slam your bedroom door.” She smiles about it now, and knows that I was right.

14

My parents seem to be of the belief that whatever goes wrong in their world, well, it CERTAINLY doesn’t have anything to do with either of THEM causing it. Extremely self-absorbed people, my parents. I wouldn’t say that they were all that physically abusive (at least not any more than any other people who were brought up with the belief that it’s not right to “spare the rod”) but emotionally I think they were very abusive. Not that either of them would ever admit to any wrongdoing. The good thing is that I’ve finally gotten to a point in my life where I feel I don’t really need them. I haven’t seen or heard from either of them in well over two years, now, and I don’t see the need to interact with them again any time soon. Frankly, I feel my life is healthier without either of them in it.

15

I had a friend I hadn’t spoken to since seventh grade recently tell me she had no idea why the hell I was still speaking to my mom as she’d always thought my mom was physically and emotionally abusive. Hearing an outsider confirm that she was an asshole was incredibly cathartic.

Forgive the bitch for your own sanity. I did until her death and it was incredibly freeing. Just keep her at arm’s length and limit contact as much as possible.

16

I know you didn’t ask for advice, but I’ll share some good advice I got when my son was born - If someone gives you some whacked-out parenting advice, often the best course of action is to simply agree that you’ll do/try/look into whatever it is that they’ve suggested. Then ignore it. Your wife could have just written down the number and thrown it in the garbage can. If your mother followed up, you/she could just say that you looked into it and didn’t feel that it was the right thing for your son.

I don’t think you understand what “abuse” is. Everybody’s parents had their moments, and some had more moments than others, but that does not necessarily rise to the level of abuse.

17

Yes, I realized it.

Yes, + 1 for me.

18

Man, reading some of this stuff really drives home how lucky I’ve been. My parents didn’t invite me to their (remarriage) weddings. They thought I was too young to care. That is the sum total of the bad things they’ve done to me.

19

Word.

20

This, only it was my Dad.

But I will think it when Mom goes as well.