Anyone realize they had emotionally/psychologically abusive parents?

In My Humble Opinion
41

I’m not sure if my parents were abusive or not. My parents, or more specifically my mother, weren’t always nice to me, but they did do nice things for me too.

Certainly I haven’t had the easiest relationship with my mother. The first time I remember having a headache was when she hit me really hard on the head. I also remember when I was 2 or 3 years old, an unusual day - the only day I remember when I didn’t get a spanking. Though maybe I was just an unusually unruly, fucked-up kid.

When I was a kid, my mother would also destroy my artwork and crafts that I’d made when she was mad at me. When I brought this up with her more recently, she “justified” it by bringing up really bad things that I’d done in the past.

I wonder if it’s my genes or my upbringing that made me so fucked up in the head (mental illness runs rampant in my mother’s family.) Maybe my mother did me a disservice by deciding to have children at all.

42

Yes. Yes they were. Well, your mother at least.

43

Well, I could focus on the nice things she did for me. I think she was trying to be caring towards me most of the time. She was/is just screwed up.

44

In my case it was mostly a case of realizing that the side of my family which is officially more unusual is actually quite normal, whereas the officially normal side is about as normal as a flying platypus.

I’ll take weird over abusive any day.

45

The interesting thing is that this is what I would have told you when I was a kid, especially since everyone around me kept saying “He means well, he’s doing what he can” etc.

When I cut off contact with him when I was 19, everyone came pleading his case. But you know what? Over the last 20 years, every single one of those people has come back to me to apologize. It took them a while, but what they’re saying now is “You were right to take that stand to protect yourself. We just didn’t see what he was really like until later.” Hell, my great-aunt eventually said that, and she’s one of those people who always sees the best in everyone and is practically a professional peace-maker among family members.

Even abusers think they’re well-intentioned. They think “Spare the rod, spoil the child. It may be unpleasant now, but you’ll appreciate it when you’re older. This hurts me more than it hurts you.” So you’re right - everyone thinks that. You can’t conclude abuse just because a parent screwed up. But there is a line that can be crossed from merely fallible to actually abusive. Sometimes that line is a little hard to see, especially when you’re still in the relationship.

46

What I grew up with was so bad that I am now, in middle age, being treated for PTSD with dissociative features. The first time I remember dissociating was the summer before kindergarten.

In high school I had three different friends’ parents (unsolicited by me and independent of each other) tell me I could come live with them so I could get away from my mother.

One time, after years of suffering violence at her hand, my older sister choked me until I passed out and I genuinely believed in that moment I was going to die. When I came to and ran to my mother, screaming, “Now she’s to the point where she’s chocking me! I thought she was going to kill me!! When are you going to DO something about her!!!” My mother told me I deserved it.

Growing up, my dad took a job that took him out of the house for decades. None of my friends had ever even seen the guy. Except that one night where, after a violent altercation with him, I called two friends to come and pick me up. I’ll never forget the shock on their faces as they sat in their car and watched my dad come after me out the door, grab me by the hair, pull me backwards by the hair up the porch and into the house.

When I was in first grade and the teacher showed us The Red Balloon, I had to keep myself from bursting out in tears. I saw it as a story of a little boy who was expected to do much more than a little kid should be expected to handle. Who was all alone in the world. Who is bullied by adults and kids alike. Who is dealt with with cruelty by the other children who revel in destroying the only thing that means anything to him, his only friend. With a six-year-old’s logic, I thought my teacher was trying to sending me a message of compassion and understanding by showing us that movie, because it matched so well what I was dealing with at home. And that she knew that but couldn’t tell me so out loud.

And those are some of the examples that are easiest for people to understand as abuse. But there are many trauma specialists who will tell you that the emotional neglect I suffered can be even more devastating because it is a pernicious refusal to care for, bond with, and protect your child. And I got that, too.

47

I was molested when I was 11, and when I was 26 I was trying to tell my dad I forgave him. He said “Well, Bob (mom wanted a boy) - it’s not like it did any lasting damage.”

I really don’t remember anything after that.

48

I think sometimes I don’t know what I’ll say at my dad’s funeral. He being a Church elder and community leader and all. A good man.

He would just snap when I was little. Scream. Throw me into walls. Pick me up and shake me. My arm used to pop in and out of joint it had been dislocated so often.

No one ever stepped in.

It finally stopped when I got big enough to defend myself, although the screaming didn’t.

My mom just drank quietly and stayed out of the way. When I left for college I advised my younger sister to leave as well, and she did.

The Dope is kinda depressing today.

49

The older I get the sadder my childhood makes me. When I was living through it I didn’t realize how bad it was, now I do. I don’t blame my parents; my dad worked odd hours and I do believe my mom had a mental illness starting when my brother was born but I can’t help mourning the childhood I could have had with different parents.

50

It doesn’t happen often, but my sister and I do sometimes wonder who we could have been in another household. Or even just if my mother at least had been diagnosed and treated.

51

I’ll be 52 in 2 weeks.

I’ve never had my father’s approval. Never. That warps your whole life. Took a lot of time to realize how much I was trying to compensate for that in other ways, and I still have to catch myself on it. The inner fight between saying “fuck you” to every authority over me and trying to gain their approval and respect. How many jobs I’ve moved on from and how many relationships I’ve lost when the other party moves into disrespecting and disapproving of me and I don’t feel like putting up with it again.

The last couple of times I’ve seen him he’s been hypercritical of me. So much so that I’m dreading Sunday, because we’re walking perilously close to 'Goodbye, have a nice life, I’ll never speak to you again as long as I live" territory, and I’d hate to do that on Father’s Day in front of the whole family.

Was seriously physically abused as a child. Have problems with both shoulders because each of them was dislocated multiple times when I was young by being led by my hand and jerked along so hard. Was beaten, threatened, and finally stopped that at age 15 or 16 by pointing a rifle in my father’s face after he broke down my bedroom door to get at me and hurt me again. And yes, I would have pulled the trigger and he knew it.

Lots more, that’s enough for now.

52

Growing up, my father would always make a point of saying that he was proud of me. Whatever I was into, he was supportive of it. Even now, with me at 34 and him at 63, he is endlessly supportive, caring and conscious of my well-being. This was because his parents, both WWII veterans, were passive-aggressive lunatics; and his (now deceased) older sister a sociopathic alcoholic. He also looked out for his niece and nephew when the aforementioned sister started to lose it. What I didn’t realise then (but do now) is that by being the-best-Dad-and-uncle-ever, he has tried to undo the mistakes of his own parents.

It’s reassuring to know that the cycle of shitty-parenting can be broken.

There! Thought this thread could do with some uplifting :slight_smile:

53

Thank you. :slight_smile: My sister and I both broke the chain - our other two sisters notsomuch. Of course, those two thought my parents’ behaviors were in the realm of normal.

54

I think it’s really interesting that you suffered a lot of abuse, but the first thing you mention is never having your father’s approval and how that created so many problems for you on an emotional level and how it affected your relationships as an adult.

55

I think it can be hard; I think I will be fine in breaking it, but I’m not so sure about my sister - even though she is much more successful by outside appearances.

56

I’ve posted so much about my family that I’ll pass on the specifics.

One thing which I found interesting was the family patterns.

My mother was the second of six children and oldest daughter. The oldest, a male, could do no wrong. He became a professor of engineering at a decent state school.

The five sisters all married abusive husbands, cheaters, and sexual predators with only one who wasn’t that bad, but not all that bright.

As “good” Mormons, most of their families were large. Counting the five kids in my family, there were 34 grandchildren.

Golden Boy had five: two girls and three boys. All the kids went through college in four years, the boys got post grad degrees (two PhDs and one masters) and the girls married guys with PhDs (being good Mormons. . .) None of the children have gotten divorced.

Of the remaining 29 grandchildren from the sisters, not one went through school in four years. Less than half attended any university, and those of us who did graduate were on the five to 10 year plan.

One of the families did produce two people with masters, both of which were done by cousins in their 30s.

Depression, divorce, morbid obesity, psychosis, other mental issues, PTSD, you name it, are common, and occur at alarming rates.

The good news is that many have been able to break the cycle. I’m working really hard with my children. My sister is doing well. A brother didn’t so as well.

I don’t really know what happened in my mother’s family, but the patterns are too obvious to ignore and the contrast too strong.

57

I see you had a Golden Boy.We had the Princess - she died May 29th from complications due to chronic alcoholism. We don’t know how it happened; she assured us repeatedly she didn’t have a problem. In fact one time she said it while she was doing a year for that last DUI/child endangerment. For some reason, whenever she drove drunk, she liked to take along her youngest son.

She was 44.

58

I wasn’t aware you became a mod :wink:

Anyway I wasn’t able to get online for a few days but this thread isn’t about validation, I just wanted a general discussion about looking back at your childhood with adult perspective and realizing just how fucked up it was.
I think I really didn’t have a reference for it as a kid, it just was. Only seeing that others didn’t deal with it opened my eyes.

I’m aware there is horrendous physical and sexual abuse done by parents, and I never claimed my own parents did that.

I mean we have threads here about all kinds of personal issues and struggles, I don’t know why certain kinds of threads devolve into get over it!

59

I don’t remember or mourn not being bought toys, being scolded, being spanked, being denied pizza or any of that other meaningless crap(to me).

What sticks out to me and what stays with me were the times it became clear my mother didn’t really want me, or love me. And I’m not sure she is capable of loving anyone.

The last time I let her hurt me was 2012, my father was dieing in the hospital thousands of miles away and she showed not one speck of emotion. She told me she heard you can sell a body for science experiments and make money even, she had a lift in her voice and asked me to check that out for her. It was clear funeral costs was all that was on her mind. She also asked me why the hospital sent a grief counselor to talk to her, did they think she was crazy?(dad was in a coma so he could no longer guide her).

I stayed on the line, got cut off and when I called back she screamed at me in anger that “well your father is dead, thats what you get!” I just started crying and my wife said it was the most fucked up family dynamic she had ever seen.

(there is the whole other issue that she let my father lay in a house with a black leg for 5 days.)

I was only talking to her to hear about my father, I vowed that was the last time I was going to let her hurt me. I didn’t expect her to love my father, I did expect some respect for a fellow human being she spent 40+ years with. She just had nothing, and she never really has. I don’t think she feels love so much as possession or something.

My father was the parent I loved, but he was a spineless co-dependent that let her do anything to me or him all the while complaining and acting outraged, but not doing any fucking thing about it.

60

I was unemployed for almost a year and I thought about it alot. I decided I was abused as a kid. Not physical but emotional. They just never had my back. I was bullied pretty hard but nobody ever stepped in to try to stop it or to tell me that I had value. It was obvious the treatment I was getting but parents, older siblings, teachers etc never attempted to help. A previous poster talked about how much worse his childhood feels as he gets older, that prettymuch hits it on the head.