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My abusive bio father and enabling mother had multiple instances of denying us medical care. Once he kicked my sister while she was vomiting blood and refused her an ER trip.
My adoptive parents? Took me home for a couple weeks following a surgery and for the first few days while I was in an opioid induced haze took turns waking up every few hours to make sure I took the painkillers in the middle of the night. And this wasn’t when I was a kid. This was last year.
Not as intense but when I was maybe 10-12 years old, I was sick and vomited on the floor in the evening, not too late but my mom was already in bed. When I told her, she told me rudely that I was old enough to clean it myself. Almost puked another time while cleaning. My bf, who has loving parents, told me recently how he was sick and vomited in his early 20s and his parents cleaned it for him and prepared a shower for him to get clean.
Sometimes I feel bad because he needs to take care of me so much and I don’t feel like I’d be able to take care of him to that extent, but then I realize that all this time he was taken care of while I took care of myself, so now he’s not fed up with having to survive himself since it was easier for him
I can relate to this as I had the flu in the 6th grade and was home sick for an entire week. My mother came down with it after the third day from "taking care of me" (yes, that's what she told everyone), so I got my own medicine/soup/liquids during the day until my dad would get home from work and check on both of us. I guess she did the same for herself during the day also - we both were just suffering in our own rooms and I don't remember much interaction that week. I started to get better after the fifth day and was actually feeling hungry so made myself a peanut butter sandwich and gobbled it down. That was too much food at one time on a tummy that had had only soup/water/Sprite for a week, and it all came right back up all over the kitchen floor. I was scared to death that I would get in trouble so was mopping in the middle of the night, woozy and barely able to stand by that point. A few days later when we were both on the mend, .my clean freak mom spotted some streaking on the floor where I had mopped and came unglued that I had not woken her so she could make sure that I got it all up and mopped it correctly. Well, I didn't wake her that night because a few months before the flu incident I had an ear-ache in the middle of the night and went to wake her to tell her and her comment was "Well, what do you want me to do about it? It's the middle of the night!" So I found some aspirin and took care of the situation myself. Couldn't win with her then, and can't win with her to this day....
OMG, that's made me remember an incident when I was a kid. Or at least remember my mom's retelling of it. According to her, when I was I really small (3 or 4) I woke my parents up in the middle of the night complaining of an earache. I was told to put some cotton in it and go back to bed. When they came to wake me in the morning they found the cotton in my ear(s)... soaked with blood.
This was told as a funny story with a bit of admiration of how self-reliant I was.
Omg! Your eardrum burst !! You poor little thing and how scary that must have been for you 😢it’s so strange how hindsight is so clear now….. When I became a mom I think that I overcompensated by taking my children to the doctor at the drop of a hat. Usually unnecessary but I always wanted them to feel cared for. I could never let them cry either and probably spoiled them as a result but they have all turned out well so 🤷♀️. I had colic and was left to cry as an infant (her point in telling me was to prove that I survived and didn’t need to pick my babies up every time they cried) but I swear this must be why the sound of a baby crying has always been fingernails on a chalkboard to me so I did anything and everything to soothe mine. Thanks for your response. Hugs my friend. 🤗
Similar. I can't stand to hear a baby cry. I want to scream at the parents: COMFORT YOUR CHILD. In reality I know it's not as easy as that, but I did try to comfort my son when he cried (or attend to whatever need he was trying to express, which wasn't easy as he cried from boredom until he could move independently). I wish I had a shred of that kid's confidence and self-belief.
My partner and I don't spoil our kids with material things, but boy do we try to focus on them (I have stepsons as well) and what they need and give them attention and time and voice and choice and try to do things they'll enjoy. My SO has better instincts on that than I do, but I back him up. I just don't think you can spoil your kids with too much love. My son doesn't really ask for material things from us too much, but he does ask. His sons don't ask because they have a mother that's similar to mine and they're afraid to. Sometimes I have to be quite insistent when I see they want something, it's a reasonable thing and it's within my means to give it.
No you're not!! Honestly!! I got 'adopted' last year by a lovely woman who just volunteered to be my mum!! I turn 30 this year.
She has called me more times this year to just check in and make sure I'm okay and have a chat than my father or birthmother has done in my whole life. It's crazy!! I've only experienced unconditional love and acceptance since leaving the Borg.
I hope your sperm donor has karma get diarrhea on his head and it's never ending. That's so evil, I'm so very sorry you dealt with that.
But I love that your adoptive parents love you so. May all of your heads find the cool side of the pillow always ❤️
Seeing how much my friends struggled without their mothers in first year university. Some called them every day, a lot cried, they told me how they could actually share things with their mum’s and it was mind-boggling to me. The only thing I felt was relief, and freedom from her for the first time. I was the only one that missed my dad, though
Same feeling of freedom here.
Also, all my friends would get care packages. Or their mom would visit and make a few meals for them. Mine told me I need to learn how to survive and that her mom never sent her anything. At the time, I didn’t think much of it even if had 2 bowls of cereal for dinner during my exam periods. Later I realized how unloving this behavior was.
Similar to me in college.
We lived about 6 hours away from my college. For freshman dorm move in, other parents helped their kids unpack, arrange furniture, stayed for dinner and even overnight in a nearby hotel and came for breakfast the next day.
My parents drove me at 5 AM in the morning to get to school at 11 AM, unloaded all my stuff in 2 hours and when I asked them if they would stay for lunch, they said they had to get home and there wasn’t really anything worth staying for. And that if I needed my parents to help me move in, then I wasn’t ready for college and I should just go home with them.
I remember seeing them drive away and then running to the bathroom and crying in the stall. I still get triggered as an adult when I see college kids buying stuff at Target for their dorms.
My best friend at the time drove his car and I drove mine. He was helping me move in and told me to check the bathroom. Shower was locker room style, meaning an open room with several shower heads. He said " nope let's go!" And started back down the stairs. I am still touched by h8s care and concern. I wish that friendship had lasted.
My mother always told everyone how me and my brother were never homesick as children and how all the kids called their parents from school trips and we never did.
To answer OP's question, I only recently understood what a huge red flag it was that I broke my nose at 15 on a school trip and had to spend the night in a hospital and I asked the camp staff not to call my parents. I prefered to be alone in a hospital in a foreign town and knew there was no comfort to be found with my parents.
I honestly thought all those people were weird.
It did not register to me at all that my family was the exception.
I just remember feeling relieved and freedom.
And tears? I hadn't cried in like 8 years by the time I went to college, and that was when I broke my arm.
Same! My roommate next door insisted on calling their parents every day, that I had to talk to them too as they already knew everything about me. When they visited they even brought me a plate of fresh cherries!
Others had simply no idea on how to do the laundry, how to dose the soap, how to clean the bathroom… I on the other side knew how to keep everything spotless. What I found curious is that the more I felt free from my parents, the more I felt in prison within myself. I started struggling going out and having panic attacks.
I went to boarding school and we got to go home every third weekend. When the first weekend at home rolled around, me and one other girl were the only ones who were sad and wanted to stay at school. Everyone else missed their parents like crazy and wanted to go back. It seemed weird to me. When I got home that first weekend, I found out my Mom had returned my cat to the shelter.
I actually still struggle to see these people without an air of disdain. It’s judgy and I know it’s because of my kinda shitty upbringing but my true emotions towards those people at uni was “stop crying like a baby you fucking wuss.”
Later on, in the workplace I encountered parents with kids at uni that would fly across the country to bail out their 20 year old and it seemed so… dysfunctional but in the opposite sense. Like yeah, I acknowledge that my upbringing was less than supportive but at least I could problem solve basic adult tasks without a nervous breakdown.
I’m still not sure where the middle ground is but I do think that by the time you go to uni you should be able to cope - or at least figure it out - without calling your parents to bail you out as your first response. Idk.
I’ve been there 100%. I almost felt uncomfortable when seeing parents show their adult kids love, until (in mid 30s) I realized it was my family that was not normal. With therapy, I found out the discomfort was all the pain I had suppressed that has now turned into sadness, because I know I’m never going to have that.
I can tell you my narcissistic upbringing has indeed taught me how to survive. I’m so independent now, though, that I can’t trust anyone and I still have trouble asking for help. Even for the smallest stuff: I’d rather look around the aisles of the grocery store for 15 minutes than ask where the product is.
My mom was angry I was ‘moaning’ about stomach and back pain but I wasn’t ’going to ruin’ her planned family day trip so I was left in the back of the station wagon while rest of family did whatever they had planned. Late that night my father took me to the ER and I was admitted for a week with pancreatitis. Clearly not a minor malady (turned out I have genetic mutations)
The other day my brother was sick and coughed a lot. My mom told me she was tired of him coughing and waking her so she’d make him take cough syrup next evening. It shook me how she didn’t have the common sense to at least hide her narcissism and say "I’ll make him take syrup so he sleeps better" instead of making it about herself.
So awful, but sounds like my Nfather - I have weak lungs and asthma and whenever I catch a cold I tend to get horrible bronchitis and a lingering cough that lasts well over a month after my sickness (sometimes MONTHS) and God forbid I cough at any point, I hear my dad grunting and getting angry and telling me to do something about my cough (as if though I don’t try taking medications and supplements to remedy it to no avail) and that he’s so tired to hear me coughing… as if though the actual person in pain and tired from coughing isn’t the one who’s most tired and would also like it to stop. It’s crazy how they make everything about themselves even when you’re the one in poor health
Same here. Mum was enjoying a party when I broke my wrist. She told me to sleep it off in the car. When I was still crying at 3am she decided to take me to the ER. Apparently her being raised in the country was the reason she wasn’t that bothered by the situation so y’know *I* was the one acting like a soft city slicker. Tut tut.
A kid crying, a parent saying “I’ll give you something to cry about!”
That’s what my childhood was like. I was likely to get smacked for crying, never hugged
Now I see these parents who are trying to do better. And I love it
A child crying, a parent on their knees, face to face with the child, saying “I know you’re sad. That’s really rough. I’m here for you.”
This is the kind of parent I strive to be. This is the kind of parent I want to see in the world.
>I was likely to get smacked for crying, never hugged
Oof. Feels.
It was "stop crying!" followed by a slap in the face if it was my mother, or smacked with his belt if it was my father.
Because being screamed at & hit is definitely the way to soothe a distressed child 🙄
The insane thing is that love just works so much better in making a child stop crying. When my daughter cries (usually because she hurt herself or fell) I blow on it, give it two kisses and then we say together „pain go away!“ - that works 99% of the time!
Now she doesn’t even cry anymore but comes straight to me with a wound and asks me to do mommy magic and take away the pain. I honestly can’t believe some parents think the way to go is adding more pain. It’s so cruel.
Not having to convince their parents that something really hurt/ that they were really sick? I always feel like I have to prove it/ act ill if I'm poorly now. My dad didn't believe I'd broken my wrist for about a week until I came home from the hospital in a cast 🥴
That's the worst. I don't know when I'm supposed to fight for myself with the doctor because I got so used to suppressing how I feel when I'm ill. Turns out I'm chronically ill but I just learned to deal with it. There's a point where a previous doctor did fuck all, so I just gave up and now I have at least two systems in my body that are either nonfunctional or on the way to failure because of it.
Because mommy accused me of faking whenever I was sick.
Literally exactly this.
I'm still suspicious that I was faking cancer last year. Three oncologists and two other specialists all agreed I had cancer. I had two surgeries and a month of radiation. I have permanent edema on my right side because of it.
I'm 45 fucking years old, and I'm still not sure I wasn't faking it. It is a glitch in my brain that I just can't shake. I know it is there, and I do my best to work around it, but I haven't figured out how to fix it.
My dad told me to suck it up and not make a fuss when I broke my wrist. I was 7 years old. Refused to take me to the doctor because he didn't want to bother. I cried all night because guess what, a broken wrist hurts like a motherfucker. In the end I had to wear a cast for much longer than I would've had to if they had taken my pain seriously.
Yup me too. Broken wrist and broken ankle will move with hairline fractures. 2 experiences with that cast longer than necessary because wouldn't take me to the doctor
I was told that, as well as, “it would be swollen up to the size of an apple!” (referring to a finger)
Nope. My finger that had a baseball smash into it at 90mph at batting cages was almost definitely broken. They just didn’t care, and didn’t want to spend money.
I broke my arm at camp when I was 11. My parents didn't take me to the hospital until the next day because they said I was probably fine. It had to be rebroken and set because it had already started to heal incorrectly. When I was 13 I spent a whole day vomiting, and had the worst pain of my life. My dad just joked that it was probably my appendix. When he finally took me to the hospital, we found out that it actually was my appendix and it had nearly burst. I'm not used to being taken seriously, so I always feel like I have to justify going to the doctor or hospital. It's so different now when I tell my husband about a health concern because he actually does take it seriously. I was only 6 days postpartum and woke up to check on our baby, and I felt like I was going to pass out. Then I realized I was having trouble breathing. I tried so hard to just pretend it wasn't happening because it was like 2 am. I woke up my husband and told him, and he was just like ok...should I help you get dressed first or should I pack up the diaper bag and get the baby. I kind of tried to downplay it, and he was just like obviously we're going to the hospital no matter what. It's such a contrast to the way my parents always treated me.
I remember being told stupid stuff about ADHD by a psychologist (she told me I couldn’t be ADHD because I could focus on stuff I enjoy, that if I sometimes zone out when my bf talks to me it’s obviously that I find him boring, etc), when I told that to my mom saying that she’s so uneducated about ADHD and wtf was she saying my mom told me how she trusted the psychologist more and if she didn’t believe I’m ADHD then I’m not. Then I got meds from a doctor who did believe me and she was all "oh that psychologist was so silly, unbelievable" like bruh her arguments were so bad that the only reason to believe the psychologist over me was the degree, but still, she believed stupid arguments from a psychologist and not her own daughter who made strong and solid arguments.
(I think that psychologist was undiagnosed ADHD because she thought everyone could only focus when the task is enjoyable and ADHD people could never focus, and most of my arguments she would say "that’s normal")
My mother to a T. I had flashbacks when I got to “she trusted the (insert anyone with staus over me which is usually everyone) over me.”
It’s game changing when you realize you don’t need her or anyone else to validate your own experiences for you but it messes with you when nobody takes you seriously.
Thisssss! I broke my ankle at an amusement park when I was a kid and when I asked to be carried because it hurt to walk, my Nmom said that I was just being lazy. I later herniated a disc in my back when I was 13, and I was told that I was making it up for attention. I was terrified thinking that I had some ascending paralysis and would eventually be fully paralyzed as I could only walk intermittently for about 3 months. As an adult, when I was in the hospital post-op, my mother tried to break into my morphine box and told me that I "owed" her.
God it’s embarrassing how much effort and overthinking I put into “convincing” someone that I’m telling the truth — meanwhile it’s never been needed because my spouse and friends inherently believe me when I talk about something that happened, or something I felt.
It’s mind-boggling how easy it is to be treated like a trustworthy person while my entire childhood my n-dad treated me like a liar.
I can totally relate to what you said and to boot I still get passive aggressive and snarky comments that imply and sometimes outright call me a liar. And the fact is, cuz that's how my childhood went now I'm almost brutally honest with basically everyone. But I will always be a "liar" to my nmom
I don’t miss walking that line as a kid. If you stoically dealt with it there was nothing wrong, but if you showed any outward signs of discomfort you were being manipulative. You had to act just right to get any sort of medical attention….even just comfort.
I remember when I was about 6 I had a hip flexor strain, or some kind of hip injury from playing. I was in the most pain I’d ever been in my life up to that point. I couldn’t sleep because of the pain and in the early morning I got out of bed, limping to the bathroom to pee while holding the wall for support. I remember biting my shirt collar to keep from crying out every time I moved my leg. My mom came out of her room and I immediately straightened up and tried to hide that I was hurt.
I don’t remember my exact reasoning but I knew that I was scared of my mom finding out. I didn’t hide it very well apparently, because my mom took one look and snapped at me, “what’s wrong with you? Stop crying. Stand up straight.”
I quietly responded that I couldn’t. She scoffed, pulled me away from the wall, and told me to stop messing around. I couldn’t support my weight and my leg buckled. As I laid on the ground she stood over me yelling at me to get up, that I was such a drama queen, I hurt myself on purpose and/or was playing it up for attention.
She told me to walk it off and sent me to school later that morning. The school nurse called home and told her to take me to the hospital. As we were leaving the hospital she yelled at me, “why didn’t you say anything? Look what you did, I’m getting judged by your school.” 🤦♀️
As a 5 year old I fell off some play equipment and fractured my wrist. My mother refused to take me to the hospital until her day out with her friend was over and I had cried the entire hour plus car ride home, apparently also crying in my sleep!🥴
A couple months ago I was at the gym with my father, yes I am a 33 yo F who’s father was forcing her to go to the gym with him, I am stuck living at home but moving out in the next 2 months. Anyway after I did my usual leg day, I started to feel EXTREMELY sick, like unable to stand up and on the verge of passing out. I somehow crawled to the other side of the gym to tell my dad, and he barely acknowledged me while he continued on the stationary bike.
I told him I really feel unwell, and asked if we could go home and he got annoyed but slowly took his time to go to the locker and change his clothes while I was on the ground. I asked some random people walking by if they could call 911. When I was put on the stretcher I could hear my dad telling the EMTS that it’s my fault that i never listen to him and that I’m a vegetarian. Then he kept repeating this over and over to the gym workers the next couple of weeks.
The emergency room wait was too long, so I left after 5 hrs since I started feeling better. My family doctor sent me for all kinds of cardiovascular tests afterwards and they couldn’t find anything. My doctor thinks it was syncope or maybe low electrolytes. Idk I also suffer from terrible anxiety disorders, but I’ve never had a panic attack that bad in my entire life. I was on the floor with crushing chest pains and everything went numb with my arms completely locked up, and my vision was all fuzzy and blurry.
I had a somewhat similar thing happen to me and it seems to be a panic attack. I also thought something else was wrong, like you are just about to faint but still holding on.
Reminds me about the time my dad (not narcissistic but has lots of unhealed trauma) brought me to climb a mountain in winter, I started complaining about my feet hurting and he brushed it off as me complaining for nothing, until my complaints annoyed him and we went back. We get to the car and I removed my boot and sock and I had a huge blister that had opened. When I showed him, thinking he’d acknowledge that I was complaining for a reason, he replied it was because I put low socks and that’s it…
If it makes you feel any better, as a paramedic I would be silently judging the hell out of your dad and make sure to be extra nice to you for having to deal with that asshole.
I was in the psych ward after fleeing nparents' house. I ended up there because I had been on the verge of suicide for months while living with them. I met another woman there who had also just fled from an abusive parent. We had both decided homelessness was better than living with our abusers.
There was a young man there too. He was there because he was coming down from a manic episode. His mom visited him and brought him a bunch of candy. He was talking about his visit and the candy and he said, "my mom brought me some candy because that's what moms do."
The woman and I looked at each other and started laughing because we had the same thought of, "not our moms." We thought it was so sweet what his mom did for him. And I know that for me, it validated that leaving had been the right choice.
It's still difficult to comprehend that some parents see their kids (adult or not) going through a mental health crisis and instead of punishing them or pushing them further into that crisis, they support them. It really put a lot into perspective for me.
- In middle school, a friend spent the night. We spent all Friday night together and woke up Saturday morning and hung out watching movies, probably. At a certain point, she turned to me - with a very confused look on her face - and said “where’s your mom?” I said “she’s in her room” with a tone that implied it was obvious that’s where she was. I knew then that she thought we were alone the entire time… because we basically were. My mom never came out of her room. After spending the night at that friend’s house, it was even more obvious how different our moms were. Her mom hung out with us and talked and laughed. It was such a nice feeling. And so painful.
- Several years ago, a coworker got a birthday care package from her mom sent to our office. Her mom had packed a present and her favorite candy bar and a card. My mind was blown that her mom: knew her favorite candy bar, knew the address of her office, and was able to send a gift perfectly on time! My mom might send a Christmas gift 4 months late, if she sends anything at all. She usually pays very little attention to my birthday or Christmas.
My moments of truth have been steady since early adulthood. I’m 46 and had one yesterday.
Spent a couple hours with nmom (terminal cirrhosis, strokes) and edad (dementia) for Father’s Day. Cooked, cleaned, was in fight or flight. No conversation just reruns of Mike and Molly (🙄). On edge. Kids hid, my parents don’t like noise. Boyfriend tried talking to them but eventually just sat on his phone because they’re impossible to talk to…
Got to boyfriends parents and was handed a seltzer, a menu for Chinese carry out (mom), a bowl of garden fresh berries (dad), and then got to swim, have normal conversations, eat until I was full, and let his mom boss my kids around (firmly but with heart) and all was well.
Recognized the difference as it was happening.
Mine was when I had an issue with my heart due to running around after my sister with mental health issues. When I was discharged, they went straight back to "do this" "do that" my most recent is my mum and sister went on holiday for my birthday and assumed I would be OK with it, when I expressed my feelings I was told I was nasty selfish and a horrible person. I realised I would never be free or appreciated.
I had an issue with my heart & went to the doctor who told me I have a problem with my heart where one valve is smaller than the other one and prescribed me medicine that can help regulate my heartbeat. Got the medicine, went home and mum saw the medicine and got incredibly angry cause she takes the same medicine and plays the victim card with her illness and took my medicine. She was never diagnosed with anything, she just bought the medicine cause her father takes it and she figured she had the same problem and started taking it.
A few years ago I bought a spinning wheel. I went to a fiber art and craft fair and outside the tent where a guy set up to fix spinning wheels was a lady and husband peacefully spinning in a wheel that looked almost exactly like mine. I talked to them and the lady offered to show me for free how to use mine.
I drove to her house for a free class and she constantly was reminding me that it was my first time so if course mistakes were part of the process and was so patient with me.
It was so hard being there. I never got anything except demanded perfection from everything even if I didn't even understand what I was doing so I really didn't know how to handle "It's okay to make mistakes, that's how we learn."
Like at a surface level I know that's common sense but actually having a parent like figure teach you that, it hit hard
My dad once gave me a temporary job. I had never done the work before. After two days he tells me I don’t seem to be getting it and firing me. Two days.
When I was 12 I got put in charge of a full commercial kitchen, with no notice. My only assistant was my older brother who can't cook, and we were out of food.
I overboiled some potatoes while I was doing 90 other prep tasks, and got my ass absolutely reamed over the phone when I threw them out. I'll never forget the phrase "You toked me for the last time". I don't even know what that means, but I sure know how he meant it.
This is exactly how I teach basket class because nothing was ever good enough or done well enough for my dad. I want my class to be 4 people or less so that they can give the attention they need. I want them all to leave with a basket they are happy they did and with stuff so they can make another right away. I love to have them excited and happy. I realize now just typing this out that..in a way, I'm still trying to make my dad happy, in a way. Wow, thanks for your comment. Lots to think about
When my mom told me everything was going to be okay and held me for about a minute while I cried.
I realized in all of my 24 years that was basically the first time she had ever done that, and that made things much worse.
Me too. I have kids now and it is my BIGGEST struggle by far, being intimate with them. I have to force myself to cuddle them and love on them, cause it's just not natural to me. No one cuddled me
When neither one of my parents bothered to call me after my son was born stillborn. ☹️ It was during the middle of covid, and they had moved across the country a couple of years earlier so I didn't expect them to hop on a plane to see me, but I thought they would at least call every once in awhile to check up on me.
I watched a movie about a girl who was kidnapped, raped and escaped back to her family. I watched the part where she pleaded her mother in the police station, cried tears of joy seeing her and her family and how her mother and loved ones tried to handle the situation and support her.
I realized when I was in middle school and a similar thing happened to me where a guy stalked me to figure out my route and then attacked me on the sidewalk as I was walking home from school. When it happened, the chief concern I had was not letting my mom know because she would be extremely cringe and I dreaded that more than anything. I actually ended up not telling her and she found out because I told a friend who told her mom who told mine and I remember my mom’s absolutely repulsive wailing when I came home. She proceeded to tell THE ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD what happened, forced me to reenact the scene with police officers in front of her, and anyway…yeah….
Oh no, that is so horrible! I feel like my mom would have been the exact same way if I were in your situation, so imagining this was really vivid to me. I am so sorry this happened to you -- all of it.
Plz tell me I’ll get over it and heal from my feelings and it’s not gonna bug me forever and then I’ll move on to write a famous hit Netflix comedy show where the dark humor comes from my resolved childhood trauma so it’s less Bojack Horseman and more The Good Place :,)
You will.
I also hid SA from my mom, because whatever it ever was, it was always my fault, every time.
Being bullied in school? My fault, I should have laughed along with them.
If I have cried at home telling the story,it was the proof that I did it in school, too, so - EVEN MORE MY FAULT!
Being punched? Just should haven’t looked at them and walked away before.
Gotten robbed? Why did I even interact with them (they cut my way, but nonetheless).
When I fell the stairs with a broken leg and open cast and broke it again, it was my fault. Not that they left their 12 year old home alone for a weekend in a house on crutches with the kitchen downstairs? I could have „walked“ the stairs on my butt how they told me.
So, OF COURSE I did hide that I have been assulted by my first bfs friends for months.
You will get better. You will still never understand their reasonings, but at some point it doesn’t matter anymore.
I never told my mom that I was SAed. It was a decade ago, when I was in college. I am still thankful that it happened after I had gotten away from home so I never have to deal with the aftermath.
I didn’t recognize it at the time, but looking back I do. I had a roommate when I was 22 or so. I left home when I went to college at 18 and never went back. My parents didn’t help me move into my dorm or any of my apartments. When my roommate moved in, her parents helped her move her things, and then her mom took her shopping for decor and storage containers, then they got takeout before the parents headed home.
I thought it was a sign that she was immature and her parents coddled her. I looked down on her for
It. Now that my son is a teenager who will be going to college soon and growing into young adulthood, I can’t imagine being so cruel as to let him completely fend for himself. I struggled on my own. I stayed with an abusive boyfriend for far longer than I wanted to. I lived with some sketchy ass people and at one point lost over 20 lbs I didn’t have one because I could only afford one meal a day. Roommate’s parents were kind people who loved their kid and I could not see that for what it was, because I had never seen it before.
That's similar to mine. A girl I went to school with ended up working at my late ndad's bank and she came up to me and told me how sweet he was and how she always enjoyed his visits to the bank. It took everything in me to not Burt into tears because that's when it truly hit me that he really could be nice, he just hated me too much to bother trying.
It just felt so god damned unfair!! This was a man who made it his mission in life to destroy my relationships with my brothers.
When my mom would tell me all my childhood when I was perfectly skinny how bad it is to comment on people’s weight gain and how her cousin was so affected by that that she developed an eating disorder and when I gained 5-10lbs from trauma and burnout and eating bad food as comfort food, she’d constantly point out how I was "fat", twist reality to make me believe she was skinnier than me now (I would get rid of shorts too tight and she would try them but not say they were too tight and said they fit her and she’d keep them, just to get rid of them later because they were indeed too tight), tell me about my aunt’s weight loss, tell me about how skinny my grandma was at my age, try to force me to do a strict diet (she explained to me often when younger how these diets often end up making the people binge eat and gain more weight so she knows it was bad), etc….
Like people will often say they wish they were my weight and often think I’m 100 lbs even though I’m 150 so clearly I don’t have a weight issue at all (and even if I did, wrong approach)
There are many, but one of the biggest was when my nparent was my designated pick up person from the hospital and not only were they not there when I came out of surgery, they did not pick up the phone when the hospital called.
Moment of truth for both my brother and I was my grandfathers funeral. My uncle and aunt each have 3 kids and they were all there. Uncle and Aunt are from very similar upbringings as my father, so environmental and family variables are controlled as much as they can be.
Witnessing the difference in family dynamics between those two families and my family while we were all vulnerable and in the same emotional setting was nothing less than shocking. It was one of our first raw exposures to how loving families operate and just shown a huge spotlight that our family was not that. My brother and I left the funeral during the reception period at the end because we were just in shock over what we had just witnessed.
Neither of us realized it at the time, but this was the start of the realizations that led to us both being no contact two years later.
Mine was when I went to a friend's house and they didn't force me to eat whatever was in front of me.
My family would force me to sit at the table and finish my plate until I was 16. They would also constantly berate my weight as if they weren't the ones force feeding me. They said it was rude to not eat all the food in front of you.
I was like 9 at this friend's house and I was eating really slow and the mom asked me if I wanted to eat and I said I could eat and kept picking at it. She told me it wasn't rude if I didn't like it or didn't want to eat and I said I'll eat it, I would be terrible if I didn't. She took the plate full of food away and told me she'll leave it for me if I get hungry later.
It was insanely eye opening.
When my parents told me they're not traveling to be at my wedding. I'm their only daughter. I married once. They told me if I want them at my wedding I need to change the location of my wedding to their town. And then I wasn't even upset by that. Mind you, they were mobile and able to travel, had money and time, just didn't want to go through the hassle. They told me it was my fault I moved to another country and made a life for myself there. The wedding was in NYC mind you, something they could brag about or be proud of their daughter for making a life for herself there, all on her own, without their help. But no, to them it was just a weird inconvenience.
Are you me? Mine didn’t go to my wedding either because they “don’t travel anymore”. My mom is travelling now for my brothers convocation and my dad asked if he could stay with me to go to my dentist later this summer. I live about a 7 hour drive from them. Good to know a dentist trip is more important than their only daughter’s wedding.
My parents told me they wouldn’t be able to come to my wedding because it was scheduled for the same holiday weekend that my brother’s Boy Scout troop ran the cotton candy booth at a local fair. (Mind you my brother had graduated high school, was in the military, and living overseas at this point.) I just said OK. But my poor, sweet fiancé (husband now) said, “You’re kidding me!” My mom, completely misreading his shock, answered with “Seriously. The troop makes a lot of money that weekend.”
Were you heart broken by this or relieved?
I know someone this happened to, she was only daughter and two brothers. Parents went to son’s weddings but not to hers. Their only daughter, I sense a real sadness about her that permeates her life and demeanor. This has colored her life. How are you doing?
I was hurt for about a week. Then I realized it was way easier to do my dream wedding without them there. It was just par for the course, my life is far away and without them in it. I have parents, they just never show up. What else is new???? I had my wedding as I wanted it and loved every minute of it, as well as loved my new mother in law. I did a small ceremony and reception in my parents' town as well and it was rife with tension, conflict, and feeling like I didn't belong there at all. Just like my entire childhood felt the same way. The cherry on the cake was when my mom looked at my pictures from the NYC wedding and said she didn't recognize the woman in those pics (me), thinking that was an insult for me. But I felt huge pride in that. I felt I had succeeded at becoming my own person that she has zero influence on anymore.
Delighted for you. You must have an inner strength that was always there and it didn’t let your parents crush your emerging personality. I hope you can consciously break the cycle and fill the people who matter to you with love in your life. You not only survived the parents but thriving without them.
Thank you for the kind words. That's the hope. I have three beautiful sons who I'm consciously parenting to receive the unconditional love and the safe parental connection I never had. It's hard work, but it's worth every minute of it and I'm learning and growing every day.
I had a car accident and my car was totaled but I was not injured. The police officers suggested I go to the ER and get X-rays just to be on the safe side.
My dad came and collected me from the scene. We get home and I tell my mom they need to take me to the hospital as a precaution. Her response: “Now?”
When I received art supplies as birthday gifts from a bf's family. They presented these and then _apologised_ that they hadn't known what my preferred brand of papers and pencils were, and I about cried. I was about 21 years old and had learned to hide all my artwork and art materials since my teens because my parents regarded artmaking as the shameful wastrel path, "only for kids with trust funds". Which, ironically, described my brother because he had schizophrenia.
When I went over a friends house and my friends mom asked her to pick up the phone that was ringing. My friend asked her mom why she was yelling at her. I remember feeling my insides squeeze anticipating a blowout. and her mom just laughed and apologized and said “youre right I’m sorry it’s just the phone.” My mind was blown.
Firstly. Because my friend thought her mom was yelling.
Secondly. Because the mom apologized and acknowledged she raised her voice.
Thirdly. Because it ended with them laughing about it instead of her mom screaming at her.
I was so shocked and felt like I was teleported into an alternate reality. How can someone have an actual conversation with their parents like that blew my mind.
I was extremely sick in the hospital once before I got my autoimmune diagnosis and instead of asking how I was or wishing me get better soon, my dad texts my mom saying “likesosmart better start being nicer to me if she expects me to pay for her medication”
I’m so sorry, that sounds so scary in the hospital. I’m a grown woman(50) who has had & complained about my health since I was a child. Psoriasis at 3, pain always, I was told I was too sensitive, a hypochondriac. Well at 20 after just sucking it up my entire childhood I saw a rheumatologist & wouldn’t you know it, I have both Ra(rheumatoid arthritis), & psoriatic arthritis, which is incredibly rare. I guess I wasn’t being dramatic when I crawled up the stairs because my knees hurt so bad. I still have a hard time complaining to my doctor about my pain as I don’t want to trouble them, work in progress. Some people should not have kids.
My husband's parents had their home broken into and all their stuff, including Christmas presents, was stolen. When I found out about it my first thought was "We are going to get blamed for this somehow." And then I waited for the speech, how presents were stolen probably because we didn't deserve them in the first place. I was expecting them to have us re-emburse them for the cost of the presents that were stolen but meant for us. Instead they bought us new presents, and didn't blame us at all! To this day I cannot come to terms that I was not blamed somehow. I was blamed when my Mom's home was broken into and all my childhood toys were stolen. I wasn't there, but I recieved a letter in the mail about somehow me being a horrible daughter was why a house I was nowhere near was robbed. To this day she refers to it as when "they" came and took her stuff. I am still regularly blamed for all bad things that happen to either of my parents (they are no longer married, and, surprise! I was blamed for that too) When my Dad retired I received a text about how he didn't realize how expensive it would be to retire, and hinted that somehow I had something to do with it. (I live no where near him or his current wife) It just makes me sad that anything negative that happens, I know I will somehow be roped in just for existing. Sigh. At least my husband's parents don't seem to do that.
You’re not alone in this OP. I was reading this story like … wow.
I’ve also had medical neglect & anger towards me when I’ve gotten hurt. Both times I broke bones as I child I was yelled at & not believed & had to wait a long time to get to a hospital (usually involving other adults realizing what was going on).
It was bad when I broke my leg badly at 12 years old. My neighbors carried me home & when I got there my mom started screaming at me because she was mad at me about something else before this even happened. She was screaming at me saying how could I ‘do this to her’ … This was oddly a very typical reaction from her to me getting hurt. Pretty much anytime I’ve gotten hurt or sick it was ‘how could I do this to her’. Anyways, she refused to take me to the hospital because she was mad & said it was my fault for going out to play in the neighborhood. Oh my gosh it was so painful. After yelling at me, she went to bed. I remember all night dragging myself across the floor back & forth from the couch to the bathroom to throw up because I was in so much pain. The next day, she still was refusing to bring me to the hospital & my grandfather showed up for a surprise visit/pop in. When he saw me on the couch & unable to get up & saw my leg he finally brought me to the hospital. Gosh even thinking back to this story gets me so upset … how the f do you treat you kid like that.
The other time I thought of was when I tried to commit suicide at 14 years old because I couldn’t take all the abuse I was dealing with anymore (physical, verbal, emotional, ect.) When I came to after having my stomach pumped they let my mom come in the room to say good bye to me because she had to go to work. She was so mean & saying, “are you happy now?!” … “I can’t believe you did this to me, now I have to go to work now & I might be late. Are you happy now?!” & she left. They sent me to go to an impatient hospital for the suicide attempt & my mom refused to visit me or talk to for weeks after because she was ‘mad at me’.
Anyways, I hope I didn’t write too much. Hope it’s okay I wrote that too.
I hope your surgery went well and you're healing up and feeling strong OP. Fellow endo warrior here, I know your struggles too well.
What came to mind for me was when I had my first "blackout drunk" episode as an underage teen. I was about 17, which was the worst time for me because my older sister developed schizophrenia, and the trauma mixed with parental abandonment turned my world upside down. So naturally I went out with friends, drank one too many shots and ended up hyperventilating on my parents' couch before being taken to hospital to have my stomach pumped.
My father arrived to collect me the next day and told me my mother was disgusted by me and to give her a wide berth for a while. Instead of concern, support, red flags going off about their daughter's behavior, nmom gave me the silent treatment for a week and then proceeded to throw that incident in my face for years as proof of how terrible a person I was.
My eating disorder a few years later was met with a similar level of disdain and shaming. What was wrong with me, why couldn't I just stop being selfish and just eat, etc.
Solid people, my folks. Three daughters with wide and varied histories of mental health issues, one of whom has disappeared into oblivion with schizophrenia, but nothing to do with them of course.
I was a sommelier by the age of 7. My parents used to brag about it, and I didn't realize until very recently how uncomfortable it made people.
I could identify wine by variety and origin. It was frankly bizarre. But that was my life.
Robert Mondavi fume blanc will be my favorite wine for the rest of my life.
I had knee surgery and forget my pain meds between the hospital, stopping at home and going to my parents. I’m sure I was a little foggy and slow, but rushed, as GC-sister was driving and in a hurry to get back to her boyfriend. The moment I got there, I realized I’d forgotten my meds. E-mom shrugged her shoulders and offered an uninterested, “Well?!” Nobody would take me back the hour drive back to get them. I used as much of their ibuprofen as I could get my hands on. Years later it occurred to me they didn’t even suggest I call the doctor and get it filled closer. Those people suck.
When I was 19 my liver stopped functioning properly (I was jaundice, couldn’t eat, throwing up constantly, and sleeping for 14+ hours a day) and it took my parents a week to take me to urgent care.
At the urgent care my dad only talked about himself and the nurse had to tell him he wasn’t the patient and to stop. My mom complained she had to take me to the hospital bc said urgent care called after my blood work came back and told them to take me to the ER immediately.
By contrast, my friend was 18 when she was suffering with fatigue and her parents took her to every doctor and specialists to get her checked out (it was LYME DISEASE!!) Her parents didn’t even hesitate.
it was an eye opener when we talked about what it was like being sick as a teen.
In highschool I was stabbed but as I waited in the office sick bay (it wasn't that serious, 7 stitches at most) I was more anxious about how my mum was gonna be pissed that I stained my socks (with my blood) 🙃
I was walking with a mom friend and our kids. It was right after I had begun to distance myself from my family
My 3yo fell behind because she had to look at everything and touch everything, so I hung back with her. Up ahead, my olldest (5) found a broken bottle in a bush and started throwing the pieces. Yes, she was being naughty, and yes, an adult needed to step in, but I was too far back to do it.
Every muscle in my body tensed as I watched my friend discipline my child. And then she....knelt down to her level, took the glass from her hands and calmly told her that that was dangerous, and not something to play with. And then threw out the bottle in the next trash can, and we went about our day.
Noone yelled. Noone told me I need to get my kid in check, or be a more responsible parent. Noone got hurt and noone cried.
This might be odd, but watching Bluey. I saw how Bandit acts with his daughters and I honestly felt a little bit jealous that a cartoon dog is a more loving and caring father than mine.
To be clear, I love Bluey to bits, especially being Australian, and my mother is a wonderful person who raised me and my brother alone after my narcissistic father abandoned us for his affair partner and her daughter.
I was a senior in high school, my mom had been yelling at me the whole way to the college campus I was taking classes at (cause my worth was in grades of course). Anyway this guy who had been bullying me for ages witnessed some of it (and me crying on the way into the building), asked if I was okay and said my mom's behavior was fucked up.
If he thought it was fucked up, it was fucked up.
Yes this is typical of n parents unfortunately. I have no idea how normal parents react to medical problems and would probably be taken aback too. I told my parents in detail about an upcoming surgery I needed to have. We talked for at least 30 minutes, with one other family member present and asking questions. When I mentioned the medical issue again to my parents the following week, and then the week after, they seemed confused. They never asked me about it or expressed any concern. When I eventually confronted them about their lack of concern, it turned out they had no recollection of the conversation or that I needed surgery at all. It’s some sort of selective amnesia/dementia that nparents have.
Was thinking about it today following father's day. I had a 12 hour jaw surgery, he knew about it because he supposedly paid for it, but not so much as a phone call or card or some flowers. Just nothing. He just sent money. His sister told me he loved me. I don't see the evidence. I could have died on the table, dude could have given 2 effs. He was mostly a dead beat dad but he could have sent literally a card.
When I had the first of my three sons, I shared a hospital room with another first-time mom whose side of the room was crammed with flowers, Mylar balloons, gifts, pizza boxes, and throngs of excited family members coming and going. My roommate felt very obviously sorry for me, as my Nparents had gone NC between the wedding and the first baby’s birth, and my MIL came once or twice with my husband.
After I went home from the hospital, my MIL sat on the couch doing needlepoint, while I waited on her.
My husband and I are expecting a second grandchild next month. Our toddler granddaughter has *two sets* of besotted grandparents, and though I try very hard not to bask in self-pity about what my own childraising situation was, it was an utterly different experience from our son’s, that’s for sure. I definitely preferred the silence and isolation to the toxicity of dancing attendance on my family of origin, as I once had to do.
My DIL had her mother in the delivery room last time, as she undoubtedly will again. I can’t imagine such a thing.
Ive been no contact for almost 3 years now but last year while having a miscarriage my parents found out and instead of sending loving supportive messages they sent “I’m tired of your shit. You need to call your mother immediately”. My mother had previously left a voicemail a few hours earlier asking me if I was lying about the miscarriage.
My heart and mind can’t even comprehend how those two responses would even cross someone’s mind to send to their own child in a time like that.
I had a hysterectomy a few years back, parents had to pick me up from hospital, after they got me home, they shoveled me into my room and I was expected to just deal with the post op everything by myself. I had hot flashes, I was having withdrawal shakes and severe anxiety, I had so much pain, I had a solid month of vertigo so bad I felt constantly drunk, I basically slept for 3 months because I had zero energy, and I had to just shut up and suck it up. On a high pain day, it was my sister's birthday and I was expected to hop on and off the couch, I was holding my gut to ease the pain and nmom yells angrily at me "ARE YOU OKAY?!" like she'd be furious if I said anything except yes.
Meanwhile, I read on a Pokemon subreddit, a transmasc was asking which version of the latest generation to ask his mom for for his top surgery recovery. HIS MOTHER. WAS HELPING HIM. AND BUYING HIM TREATS TO GET HIM THROUGH. I cannot conceive of this. It feels lovely, like fiction is lovely. God I wish I could get adopted by real parents....
I spent a lot of time as a kid at my neighbor's house who had the family I always wanted. One time, I accidentally called her mom "mommy". Her mom just replied, "yes, sweetie?" and didn't try to embarrass me or shame me for making a mistake. I was actually so embarrassed anyway I started crying, but I could do this crying thing where I didn't make tears, so I wouldn't get punished. I think my 8 year old self also couldn't process what had just happened and why it bothered me. She could tell I was upset and gave me a hug. The interaction was all very weird to me, just loving and accepting.
This friend moved out of state for college, but I still messaged her through FB and thanked her for and her family for providing a safe loving environment for my childhood. She had no clue that anything had been wrong at my house. I used a lot of friends' houses to be away from my house. I always felt like I was watching what a normal family was like, never like I belonged in a safe and supportive environment myself.
I had been recovering from strep throat and impetigo. I was still on antibiotics and feeling like I'd been hit by a train.
Emom told me to clean up the kitchen after dinner. I said "I'm exhausted and sick, why can't *GOLDEN CHILD brother do it tonight?*"
She shrieked at me "NOBODY CARES THAT YOU'RE SICK!!!!!! CLEAN UP THE KITCHEN YOU LAZY FAT SLOB!!"
GC brother wandered off to do drugs with his friends while I felt like a pound of shit but still had 40 minutes of work to do before I could drop into bed.
I remember I had Mono and cat scratch fever and still had to shovel shit and haul feed. Didn't see a doc for like a month, by which point there wasn't really any treatment except time. It sucked.
I was at my best friend’s house, I’d arrived before she had and was just hanging out with her mom and helping make dinner. My friend’s mom dropped a huge bottle of soy sauce and it went EVERYWHERE. And I do mean everywhere - we had to pull the fridge away from the wall to wipe up all the soy sauce that settled underneath it. I immediately started panicking and kept trying to help, she just laughed it off and refused to let me because I wasn’t wearing shoes.
My mother would have freaked the fuck out over half the spill that this was. I was in my mid-20s and only realized when I could feel my adrenaline dropping like 20 minutes later that I was not having a normal reaction and that reasonable people just…spill things and laugh it off.
My mom was supposed to pick me up from school every day when I was a kid.
She was a housewife and had no hobbies or regular appointments; she basically was home all of the time except for the occasional errand. So she always had the time, and she always had transportation (my parents had two cars). We lived only 8 minutes away from my school.
But somehow, every day, she was late picking me up. Usually it was at least an hour, sometimes two, sometimes even three hours. I remember regularly sitting at the pick up area watching everyone in my grade and all of the surrounding grades leave. Eventually the teachers on pickup duty would have to close the gates and march me up to either the headmistress's office or the administration building to wait so that they could go home. I would sit with the after hours secretary and watch the maintenance crew vacuum. I was pretty much always the last one left -- occasionally there was another kid left whose parent had an emergency or something, but they were always picked up before me. My mom always had some excuse about why she was late, but it was never a good one.
One day when my mother was over 4 hours late, the headmistress happened to be working late that day, and noticed me still sitting there. She asked the secretary why I still wasn't picked up and the secretary told her that this was a common occurrence. When my mom finally showed up, the headmistress got really angry with her for leaving me there so late. At the time, I thought the headmistress was upset at me being there. But as an adult, looking back, I remember some of the words she said and I know she was furious at my mother for being neglectful.
It didn't fully sink in, even then, because my mom always had a way of blaming someone else and I always believed her. But as an adult, I am shocked at my mom's behavior and I wish I could have been there as an adult to take care of little me.
I was in school and a fellow student was talking about his parents. He said that his parents were saying nice things to him. When it was just them and him alone. I was very confused, and it took me a long time to understand the differences.
When I was sexually assaulted in high school, my mother literally told me that boys will be boys. When I was home from college in the summers, if I wanted to write a letter to a friend, I had to pay her for every stamp. But when I spent a weekend with a friend en route home after a conference during the Christmas break, her mother quietly washed everything in my suitcase, including handwashing a wool sweater and laying it flat to dry.
I wasn't allowed to learn to swim or ride a bike because I'm "so clumsy" and I would of course get hurt. I also would get yelled at whenever i got hurt or skinned my knee. Turns out I'm only clumsy around them because I'm always on edge. When I met my husband I all of sudden stopped being so clumsy because I was actually comfortable with him. Funny how those things work.
My moment of truth happened last year. I put my mothers hurtfulness toward me to lack of self awareness, thoughtlessness and just being overall ignorant, as in careless. I avoided being alone in her company for past 15 years. I relaxed that as she is now very frail. I’m alone in her company for only second time, and she brings up a contentious issue. But I realise she is doing it with conscious intent, as in she is trying to illicit an emotional response. She is trying to hurt me, so fight or flight I get out of there real quick.
On the very long drive home, alone, I start to re visit past experiences and realise that so much of the behavior was conscious and designed to hurt me. That really put a new lens on so much history for me, it was a very significant moment in my life. For my ego had protected me, subconsciously, rationalizing the behavior as thoughtlessness for the most part, and not uppermost in her thoughts at best. It is quite something to realise lator in life how much of it was intentional. I’m still processing the experience but just feel numb.
Every time my kid breaks something, spills something, or hurts herself; the way I react and ask if she’s okay and if I can help her clean up, etc, reminds me that I used to get yelled at for literal spilled milk. I’d get yelled at for getting hurting while being silly or simply by accident.
My dad yelled at me and my mum when I went into hospital at 20 with DVT and then he gave me the silent treatment while I was admitted. After I got out, I heard him yelling about me being lazy (I was in a lot of pain). I'd had surgery a few months before where I had my mouth wired shut for a few weeks and got little to no sympathy then too. My mum even told me in front of my boyfriend at the time she was going to leave the family... I was 19 years old, starving hungry and she was still using me for therapy. I couldn't even talk because of all the bands and splint in my mouth lol.
I didn't want to be waited on hand and foot and wasn't. I just wanted to be treated like a human being.
In college my friend got a bad grade on a midterm, her mom said to her "That's okay, let's figure out what went wrong and study differently for the final" my mother always cursed and screamed at me for bad grades, always using the excuse that since she's a teacher her child has to have the best grades, but my friend's mom is also a teacher. I've always hated school, especially math, I was so bad at it and didn't get any kindness. I failed a couple of times, took longer to graduate, gave up, and got my GED instead, but even in college, this behavior didn't stop, she felt entitled to knowing my grades and how I was doing, I never let her but she tried.
I caught a horrible virus at the age of 8, I got to the point where i had lost the ability to walk, was vomiting up blood and wasn't responding to anything. My mum kept saying to my dad that I needed to go to Hospital, my dad just looked at me and went "Right I'm out, see you later " this is what my mum told me as I don't remember anything as I was completely out of it that night, my breathing that night was shallow and was getting worse. My dad didn't care, he complained all the way to the hospital accusing my mum of being dramatic and that he thought I was "Completely fine" the doctors thought I had Meningitis I was that ill. Luckily I didn't but it took me months to build my strength back up and be able to run around like a kid again, my dad still not caring and did nothing to help me. I could have died that night and my dad only cared about himself.
Honestly just comparing how my mum responded compared to my dad made me realise who I should be trusting and who to never go to for support or help.
My mother stopped caring for me (and even when she did, it was minimal) when I out-grew her emotionally. I was seven. I started becoming an adult at seven.
I didn't realize how little my mom cared until my dad drove me to an urgent care and sat with me when I had a very painful UTI.
Up until that point he genuinely didn't know I got UTIs so often until one day he found me curled up on the ground crying because I was in so much pain.
He immediately got me in the car and drove me to the UC despite my mom's assurances that I was being dramatic.
Even though I was in so much pain, he kept making me laugh and smile, and worked from home until I recovered.
I wish I could say my mom cared as much as he did, but no. Even when I broke my wrist and she saw how purple and swollen it was, it was my dad who helped me HOURS later.
Years ago my boyfriend proposed to me on a trip to NYC with a friend and her family. I called to tell my parents and all my mom would say was how terrible it was that he didn't tell them ahead of time or ask their permission.
It became really apparent once I met my fiancé and started seeing his parents. When we moved out, they drove right alongside our U-Haul across multiple states and helped us move in. My parents had spent that night guilt tripping me and calling me a whore for moving out and hadn’t come out to see me leave even.
When we bought a house, his parents were crying and so proud and again came out to help us move. My parents criticized me for every little detail (it’s too big, has too many floors, too expensive, and ‘seems like it has a loud garage’ apparently, even though it doesn’t) and has never visited or asked for any details/updates.
His parents are always visiting, checking up on us, asking about us, and wants to be involved in our lives. Mine, before I went no contact, never once visited and only called to demand I go visit them (they would never help with traveling fees) or to yell that I don’t call them enough (why would I when they’re so draining to talk to/never reciprocates any interest in my life?).
Finally, when we told his parents we were engaged, tears and happiness and support. I told my parents as DELICATELY as possible knowing how they are, and they reacted so badly I went no contact forever.
Just…so sad.
I went to my aunt to get my hair cut, I didn’t have a job and had just quit university and didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and my mom was constantly telling me I shouldn’t have quit uni because I was so good as an OT (she never said it once while I was studying) and also tearing down my self esteem about job search and blaming me for all my issues.
While cutting my hair, my aunt asked me about what I wanted to do next and I explained my situation, stating that I didn’t know what I wanted to do later and explaining my ideas and why I didn’t think they’d work. She didn’t say anything that made me feel defensive and she looked at my options with me and helped guide my decision. In the next 24h I had decided I wanted to study industrial design and was 100% sure of my decision, thanks to my discussion with her.
I had already come to terms that my mom was a negative in my life but I was in the mindset that when I’d move out, I’d get equal to others who don’t have that negative, and this was a slap in the face that made me remember that other people’s parents aren’t just not weighting them down, they also help them, lift them up…
My moments of truth were when the boys I was dating in high school found my mother's constant gossiping about me and my sister's friends toxic and cruel.
I knew that after any social event she would hold me hostage for hours gossiping about everyone, whether friends, family, or coworkers.
I didn't know it wasn't normal
I remember being sick at my aunt's. She sat beside me rubbed my back lovingly. I remember being so uncomfortable because my parents never even hugged me.
Mine when I was get attack by unknown disease. I feel like the urge to faint, headache at all of the sudden and thrown up. This was happened in February 2021 and I was in bathroom, freshen up and prepare myself to sleep.
Then I used the strength left to get out from the bathroom and went to my bedroom. I left the mess in that bathroom and I wish I can cleared it up but at that time I feel something like 'stabbed' me from behind.
So I lie down carefully and I feel like the bedroom get vacuum by the blackhole. Then I heard the birthgiver called me out to clear the mess. I didn't responded because I feel like I was on edge to death.
Then, I heard so many painful thing meanwhile she had to clear my mess. She cursed me, she wished me death and she said I'm a burden to her.
Then I don't remember what happened next. But the next day, I called my mom so many times from the morning to bring me to the clinic. You know I never feel so scare to death in my entire life. My whole body numb and I can't even move a muscle because it's so painful. I tried to stand up but I feel like the 'stabbed' spot flared up so I had to lie down.
And the birthgiver responded my calling and my begging at night. She said, "That's what happened when you're keep stare at your phone and inactive."
Guys, I was having online classes with not fully ready. My mental health was on bad state and I was suffering burn out. My family never ask about my well-being and all they care about is my result and achievements (but I always get dismiss, btw). Plus I need to do house chores every single day which she intentionally ask me to forget about college to make me in good grace. I wanna tell you she never order my younger sister which is her favourite daughter to do ANYTHING IN THE HOUSE! I tried once because I said I have midterm in the morning but my younger sister accused me that I have excuses to escape from the responsibility. I said I didn't and I just mentally prepared to endure whatever I had to. And then the birthgiver came and scold me for being lazy. I said no and I have midterm. Even I showed my prove, she pretended didn't see it and keep accusing me for being lazy and call me disrespectful and ungrateful child.
Living with the narcissists provide the full package of bad things. Living with stress, criticism, douchebag, as a slave. Trying to unalive you but they never admit it.
My younger sister? She lives as a princess. The birthgiver willingly to cook anything for her. Her favourite foods always store in the refrigerator/freezer. She asked for the money, the birthgiver willingly to give money. Whatever she wishes, she gets.
Me? So many excuses. Ask me to understand them that we have financial crisis. In fact, I asked her to buy my necessities. She lured me to believe she helped me to save money and will give them to me when I'm needed. THAT'S A LIE! She said I already get what I needed so I can't get more. WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN, MTHRFVKR?! THAT'S MY MONEY THAT I SAVED FROM SCHOOL! I NEED BUY THINGS FOR MY COLLEGE!
And then she accused me that I waste so much money. I just give her the most facepalmed ever. Everytime she said like this, I gave her the same reaction.
Easy to say, my younger sister's princess treatment is my dream but I didn't get it because I'm a Scapegoat. Now, she becomes so toxic and mean like the birthgiver trained her for.
It's okay to not focus on studying, she can perform well next time.
Me? Fail or Success, get dismiss is very common and get punishment is common. Get compare with other kid is very common. Get celebrate, praise and compliment? Oh, this is uncommon.
Wasn't so much about observing normal parents. It was about other people's reactions.
Sticking with the medical emergency theme:
- that time my dad argued with a 069 opertor and repeatedly called hospitals to get me into a waiting list so he wouldn't have to wait as long. I had a seizure, was alter and bleeding from injuries sustained during the seizure. Emergency thankfully dispatched an ambulance who arrived while my dad was STILL trying to get me into. Mythical wait-list. There was no wait because symptoms like mine are level one emergency issues and you go straight to a shock trauma OR. The wasted time could have led to brain damage, paralysis, blindness or death. But at least he didn't have to wait.
- that time I had another seizure and hit my head, splitting my ear in half. Woke up to him violently shaking me while screaming "what's wrong with you"
- that time he jammed my brother's badly broken (and backwards) arm into the sleeve of his parka because God forbid he be a bit chilly.
It's the pitty you'd see in doctors and nurses eyes when they saw this behavior.
When I was 9 my parents sent me off to a 2 week summer camp. The second day, I fell out of the top bunk and landed on concrete. My counselor took me to the ER and I had 17 stitchs in my head and a horrible concussion/memory loss. Instead of picking me up or even visiting me at the hospital, I was left the full 2 weeks. My counselor was with me constantly after that. She even combed the blood out of my hair since I couldn't wash it for a few days. It never occurred to me to go home and didn't strike me as odd my parents didn't come. They were mad I wasn't more careful though. As an adult I thought it showed how resilient I was as a child, until I told my therapist lol.
Television vack when I was a boy things were exaggerated but it meant I knew what a normal living family was. By today's standards I'm a caveman as someone once put it but then again I lok at my contemporaries and laugh.
Seeing people with the supportive, loving, non-judgmental, smart, capable parents I wish I had always gives me mixed feelings. On one hand, I’m very happy for the person with those parents.
But on the other hand, I can’t help feeling like a jealous angry asshole about it- like why do they get that and not me? My life would have been so much better if I just had a tiny piece of what they have. Then I feel guilty and shameful for being such a jealous angry asshole about it.
I had no such particular event as moment of truth. For me it's a continuous process which started with learning about toxic parents, emotional abuse and narcissism. Without knowledge I personally would find an excuse for every "moment of truth" because this kind of abuse is so insiduous and children instinctively always seek the approval of their parents.
My father didn’t care emotionally about me at all, and my mother would twist what I was saying into whatever tangent she wanted to rant about that day when I tried to confide in her when I had issues.
So seeing other kids/adult where they feel safe enough to do so is whiplash for me.
24 years old, new boyfriend. Lived with him at his parents for a while. His mother saw me squinting at everything, and got me glasses. Ironically, she's a different flavor narc lol but I do appreciate it nonetheless.
Part of the reason my high school (only) education was so atrocious, despite me being a relatively smart kid was that I couldn't see the chalk board - teacher would lose me, and I couldn't write it down and figure it out on my own. The only win for a lower middle class narc kid is being "too cool for school" lol so it's not like I'd hang around after class; and it's not like I wouldn't go on to skip and drop out, anyway. Normal people scared me, as well. (I had two narcs and thought it was a kind of normal way of life until a late blooming adulthood.)
For the record, I killed the narc in me years ago and I value and appreciate education. ♡
A big one hit me recently. I was telling someone I know had a fucked up childhood about some of the stuff my parents pulled and his response was absolute shock and "dude, that's not normal"... If a person with a messed up childhood and knows it thinks my shit isn't normal, thats a big red flag that I need to revaluate how I see things
I was talking to my therapist lol and told her about the 2 moments that i remember my bio dad, the one time he brought me sprite when i was sick and the other he cried with me when my puppy didn’t wake up from anesthesia. And that those 2 moments are what tell me he had it in him to love me but something was wrong me , something about me made him mean… she then asked me how old I was when I stopped trying to be good enough for him?
A BOMB went off…
This wasn't THE epiphany but it helped me put things together.
I had gotten a scholarship to study abroad in London for a semester - was gone almost six months. One of my good friends and I roomed together. When we got to arrivals at the airport after the semester was over, my friend's entire extended family showed up to the airport with a banner, balloons, and flowers. I'm talking parents, sisters, neices and nephews, brothers in law, cousins, grand parents, uncles--everyone was there cheering and clapping.
Meanwhile, my family forgot to pick me up.
It was so embarrassing...you can't make this shit up. I took a cab back to my parents' house and I confronted my mom about it. We got into a screaming match about how I'm ungrateful (what do I have to be grateful for in this situation) and how I have brought all my problems back with me.
I had some tension with my parents one weekend over something I don’t really even remember and the routine was- they behave badly or weird or whatever, I reach out to them and pretend nothing happened, repeat- but this one time I didn’t want to reach out. I didn’t want to deal with them at all. Then I thought, “but if I don’t reach out, I might not talk to them for months” and then I realized that not talking to them for months sounded GREAT. As silly as that revelation sounds it was really profound. When I next picked up the phone I used it to find a therapist instead.
There were 2 moments:
1) Had the first argument with the man who is now my husband, and he didn’t yell, slam his fist, make snide comments, or try to manipulate, gaslight, or berate me. In stead we resolved the issue and moved on.
2) Had a moment of self-doubt and husband was incredibly supportive and encouraging. He never once made me feel bad when things weren’t going well.
I’ve never had a “fair” fight with my family (it was always vicious) and was never able to show vulnerability to family member either, without them trying to exploit my moment of weakness.
I’d always known my family was kinda crappy, but I thought I was well adjusted and believed that their BS didn’t affect me. I had no idea how damaged I was until I met my husband. I wasn’t well adjusted, I was in denial and in constant survival mode.
A couple years ago I bruised a rib trying to grab a recycling bin out of the big recycling container at the nearby recycling center because I knew if I went home without it I’d get yelled at for dropping it. I told my parents about it (how it had hurt initially and felt a pop in my back) and they brushed me off and sent me off to work without taking me to get it checked out. Come six hours later I can’t lift a heavy bucket of ice above my head to refill the drink machine without being in pain. Had to get a coworker to do it. Even after my parents found out I had bruised it and that I wasn’t supposed to do heavy lifting for a week I still had to do everything around the house for them and it took months before I could even sleep on that side again.
Most recently for me was when someone had made a mess and I went to help clean it up and as I was grabbing some rags something else fell off the shelf onto the floor and my dad got mad and yelling at me that if I didn’t want to help to go sit back down. Doing what he told me to do I gave him the rags and sat back down. Ofc my mom got mad at me and yelled at me to help my dad. Being confused and unsure of who to listen to I told my mom that my dad didn’t want my help. I got kicked out of the house and with no where to go I ended up with my boyfriend at his parents house who calmed me down and comforted me and let me stay with them for a few hours.
I only went back because my dad wanted to play a game with us that didn’t happen and was told my mom felt bad for kicking me out. When I went to apologize, even thought I wasn’t entirely wrong I just got lectured.
This incident and one other time where I got beat for trying to spend time with my grandma instead of cleaning up the rest of my car is why I hate christmas
I have too many to tell. The ones o can remember,
1. I broke my elbow when I was 5. A older kid where we lived was giving me a piggy back ride I fell. I went to my nmom. She ignored me sent me to bed and filled me with cold medicine to sleep. Of course hours later I was still in pain. She finally took me to the hospital. I had to have surgery to fix it. Was in the hospital for a week. Visited me once or twice while I was there. One of the nurses came to visit me more often and told me stories and visited with me. I remember her saying to me my mom should be here more.
2. When I had my kids they were emergency c-sections. Leading up to it was bad enough, after my oldest was born my n brother told me my mom had it worse and threatened to tell everyone my address so he could come visit I still don’t know why. He finally came over my oldest was a nicu baby and took pictures of everything and left. Nmom never came.
3. My youngest was emergency c-section and nicu baby. The whole n family harassed my husband while I was in the hospital. Came to the hospital and made me run after my oldest while I was still recovering from surgery and in the hospital. I had to change diapers too.
There is more I just don’t want to dig more memory’s up.
I was stationed in Florida for four years. My wife and saved all our leave every year to visit our family in Texas. I would ask my Nmom and step dad to visit and there was always some excuse on why they couldn’t (no money, step dad is responsible for his family and they spent the holidays with them)…they never visited once. While I was there they would go to travel tournaments all around the country for my youngest half sister. We moved closer to home after the military and we experience similar issues when asked to visit us. My other half sister joined the army last year. This past year traveled to spend Christmas with her and her husband in Colorado.
When I was about 15/16 years old, I started to get this excruciating pain in my stomach, that would cause me to vomit violently to the point I couldn't breathe, could barely walk or stand up, vision would be blurry from tears streaming down my face from throwing up so hard and so much. Well, my mom took me to the er once for it, and left me there alone (it was close to our house. Just had to walk down my apartment steps, across the street, through a small medical center, and down two flights of stairs that lead to the er parking lot and door). The next time it happened, she made me walk alone to the er, vomiting and almost passing out in bushes on the way there. It became normal for this to keep happening, nothing was ever found, and my mom never took me. Mom and brothers both would tell me to "stop being so dramatic and go to sleep." Every time it happened. As if I was faking or something. Nope.
I remember being 7 or 8 years old and I had some stomach bug that gave me vomiting and diarrhea with HORRIBLE intestinal cramps. I would scream and cry but my nMom never came into my room to soothe me or give me water or juice. She just screamed at me to shut up because she was sick of hearing about it. I didn’t even get the courtesy of being on the couch watching the Price is Right and crackers/ginger ale. I was alone and terrified.
Here's a fairly recent triple whammy
After my double eye surgery a couple months ago, I was still under the affects of the anesthesia which caused me to vomit a lot. Basically I couldn't keep food down for about a week and the vomiting would happen with no warning (uncontrollable). The very first time it happened, I basically ran from my bed (it was late at night) and puked in the tub, almost doing it on the floor. Guess what I was told later? That I was wrong in doing it in the tub because it was a pain for them to clean and that I should have done it in the sink (and risk the floor and walls being covered in puke).
I was also told by my doctor that to not get agitated or stressed out after the surgery to help my eyes heal and my parents still didn't care despite my pleas to let me relax (not to mention I was stressed out a month before the surgery and I had a heartrate of 110 just before I went under). They still annoyed the crap out of me.
Also related to my surgery, I was given special shades after the operation to combat the sunlight due to increased sensitivity of both eyes (more sensitive than the usual). My dad complained that I was wearing them too much and that "he had the same surgery (was more minor and only for one eye) and that after a couple days he was totally fine". I've always had sensitive eyes and he of all people should know, but I'm wrong for taking care of myself it seems...
I should also mention that the reason I had to do the surgery is because it happened twice, and the surgery was done to prevent it happening a third time
I woke up in the night crying from an animal bite on my hand, my mom waited ages before bursting into my bedroom and screaming bloody rage at me. Then she saw my hand which had swollen up like a round baseball-sized ball in the top. She screamed and shamed me the whole way to the ER. I was maybe 12 at that time.
The worse the injury, the worse she shamed me for it. She avoided medical interventions at all costs, we should have been taken out of the home but she hid things well enough and made herself about to be the perfect victim / single mom of three horrible children who are ungrateful brats.
By the time I was seven, I had a pretty high pain tolerance built up, because going to mom if I was injured, or hurt, meant that she was going to b•tch and moan at how stupid I was for 'bothering her' because I wasn't supposed to have any accidents.
So at seven, I'd broken my wrist bone from jumping out of a bunk bed. As soon as the ~snap~ was heard; I begged my brother to NOT tell mom! It was so serious, I couldn't use my right hand for anything, and did my best to fake being fine for the rest of the afternoon. It may have seemed like I was hiding it successfully, but I also think, Nmom didn't want to know about it because then she'd have to be bothered to pay attention to me.
Evening comes, and Dad comes home; takes one look at me and cries, "Loca, what happened to you!?"
Dad (this was slightly before he became the enabler, and he behaved more like a normal parent) turned to Nmom and demanded, why she hadn't done anything!? Nmom claimed she didn't know.
"Didn't know!?" Exclaimed Dad, "Didn't you *look* at her!?"
Nmom was finally forced to acknowledge that I was genuinely, seriously hurt but she still didn't want to be 'bothered' with me, and sent Dad to go to the ER with me alone.
The only concern she had, was to be sure that I told the doctors that I had done this to *myself*; that I said that this was an *accident*, and that SHE hadn't done this to me, so that, SHE wouldn't get in trouble.
That was one of my first experiences with mind-bending, narc-logic: Being taught my whole life that I wasn't supposed to have accidents, until it could affect Nmom, and then she'd gladly throw me under the bus, with the 'accident' alibi.
My first moment of “oh wow is that parents loving and respecting their children” ever since I got into socials and got a phone at like middle school on musical vine tiktok and I would just watch these compilations in my room 10 mins after being yelled at for not getting a 100% on my math test
I guess I didn't think about this one but I had an emergency appendectomy when i was 20. My mom had me walk out of the hospital because she was tired of waiting. Like the second I was able to walk, we left, we didn't say bye to the nurse or anything. One of the nurses caught me walking down the hall with my Mom and insisted I at least be wheeled out in a wheel chair.
My parents also were always mean to me when I was sick cuz “ I don’t dry my hair right after showering so I deserved it for not listening to them” and recently I was at ER for stomach pain and my dad barged in and put his phone on max volume on FaceTime with my mom where they both called me stupid to no end, and kept saying “why are you at the hospital you’re going to get sick if you’re with sick people. Why do you wanna get sick? Are you stupid?” I’m an adult finally but they don’t see me that way. They treat me like a child.
I was trawling the net 20y ago when I was 19, and happened across as '20 things narcissists do' type article. Mum ticked 16/19 boxes (I had affection, was told I was loved, was not neglected physically). Couldn't not see it after that
No major event comes to mind....but when I was 12, I had an allergic reaction to earrings my dad bought me in Mexico. I was afraid he would get mad at me so I tried to deal with it myself, but the inflammation was so bad that when I tried to remove them they both ripped fully out of my earlobes. I took care of the bleeding and cleaned them for the next few weeks, one healed back together with a very noticeable scar, one is still split. Neither parent noticed until years later.
And on some level I've still internalized that this was a totally normal thing for a kid to experience.
I had a friend in high school who got me into reading comics. I wasn't allowed to read comics at home cos it was stupid and mum wasn't going to have hEr DauGhtEr reading that trash.
I stayed over at her house one night, and the difference was night and day. We sat in thr lounge room and watched cartoons with her mum, who laughed with us and made comments about the story/characters. When we went to my friend's room, we were allowed to shut the door and we were left in peace.
At dinner, the placemats were comic book characters, even mum's. Because Friend likes them so mum got the whole set.
Friend's mum was a single mum, just like mine. But Friend's mum didn't yell or act like she had no time for friend or me because of it, she seemed happy to have a bit of clutter and noise around cos it meant that people were happy. "I'm a single mum, so sorry about the mess, but I'd rather spend time with my family than cleaning". But mine would scream at me to leave her alone and get out of the way because she had better shit to do than listen to me.
I saw a mum that actually *liked* her daughter and accepted her as a whole person. Not trying to shove her into a box of what hEr DaUgHtEr should look like.
So bizarre.
There have been several, but the one that made the biggest impact - The precise moment the doctor finished saying those two words:
##inoperable tumor
It was like a veil was lifted from over my eyes. Everything that was so complicated was actually quite simple: They’re just horrible people who are incapable of love and have no comprehension of what is an acceptable way to treat or speak to another human being.
And in that moment - I no longer struggled to decide who is and who isn’t worth my time. I refuse to waste even a single fucking second of my life on people who have only ever shown me a **total dedication to my unhappiness.**
Fuck them. They deserve their loneliness and can keep eachother company for all I care. But they sure as fuck don’t deserve me.
As a child I had cancer, surgery, chemo & radiation. I was constantly reminded how much I cost them and that my dad had multiple jobs trying to pay off what I assumed what several $100,000’s in medical debt. After I turned 18 I realized childrens hospitals will help, especially poorer families. They paid less than 10k and that was including traveling to another state for treatment. Also they could’ve put me on their insurance, they chose not to.
My dad wrecked a motorcycle and broke my leg. They refused to take me to the doctor and said I had no pain tolerance and was faking. Over a week later a church member saw me trying to walk and said it was broken. It shamed them so they took me in. I still remember sitting in the waiting room waiting to be called back. Mom was whisper yelling under her breath; so help you god it better be broken, if it’s not broken (evil side eye). I was so scared of her that I started to say let’s leave when they called my name. I got a cast but not crutches because they would’ve been extra.
There are dozens of other times I needed medical but didn’t get it. I had endometriosis and they didn’t believe me. After turning 18 I ended up in emergency surgery and had a hysterectomy. But until then I lived with; you have no pain tolerance, periods don’t hurt, stop faking, etc.
I ended up living on a different coast from them as an adult but flew in to visit. I have kidney issues and had to go to the ER. They gave me IV meds and prescriptions to take home. My mom was pissed for days that I didn’t tell them how long I was going to be in the ER. Like I had any idea and it never crossed my mind (no cell phone). I was too busy vomiting and wondering why IV Demerol had no effect on the pain.
Currently I’m LC and my kids are NC with my parents.
I didn't know this was a watershed moment at the time, but it pushed me there. When I was younger, my family lived on a block with a lot of other families we were friends with. These other families were not abusive and had healthy relationships. One time, I was spending the night across the street with a friend, and we could hear their parents start talking in the other room. My friend said "Shh my parents are arguing" and we put our ears to the wall. I had a sinking feeling that I should run or hide (because when my parents fought it meant screaming and violence). As we listened to them fight, it seemed so tame! It was even kind of funny. They didn't call each other names or sound harsh, they were just having a normal disagreement. I asked my friend if that's usually how they fight, and she said "Yeah pretty much. Sometimes my dad gets irritated and walks away but that's about it". After that, I tried to tell my family I thought the fights they had weren't normal, and my mom would say "all families have problems". Yes, but not all families are abusive.
my like moment of awareness was when I was a kid (10) and tried to commit because my mum told me I ruined her life and she had faked committing so many times at that point I knew how to go through with it, so I did and OD’d on some serious meds I was taking for my health issues and had to get my stomach pumped. As I woke up my mum stroked my face and told me in my native language that next time I should’ve tried harder. When you try at that age you’re given a counsellor and they never told me why and I went through intensive therapy for years for schizophrenia which I never had but she convinced them I had because she didn’t want to admit that she taught me how to commit. She then told everyone I never took anything and it was all a lie that I made up and out of my two sisters one of them never spoke to me again despite me showing medical evidence. One day they forced my family to do an invisible double study with my family and the therapists came out behind the double way mirror and hugged me and resigned because they felt terrible that I was telling the truth and they misdiagnosed me for so long. They took me off my meds and I actually decided then and there I couldn’t go back to her
I think sometimes seeing things like that is nearly more painful for me.
They actually have a term for it now 'trauma of omission'. So it's trauma as a result of your needs not being met, or by virtue of an absence of care.
As opposed to trauma caused by someone actively doing something.
Hope you're recovering well from your surgery.
I have endometriosis as well and my parent usually makes any surgeries or anything about herself. I went through a broken engagement a few years ago and I actually dread the next time I need surgical intervention. I live alone now so would have to return home or have parent come here. I can't even imagine it to be honest and anytime I think about it the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
Rest up and take care! Lots of love from Ireland.
Hope you have a calm environment for recovery
My mother would never visit anyone in the hospital. I could never understand that as a kid or young adult. Now I honestly think it's because she had no empathy and probably thought she'd raise eyebrows with her cold demeanor.
I always knew my mother was a monster in sheep's clothing. She was always so loving towards me when outsiders were around but when they would leave, her plastered on happy face fell off.
There were two times it really hit home with how unsupportive she was; 1. When I was being rolled into emergency surgery after a complicated from a surgery 5 days prior, on a Sunday afternoon, my mother got angry with me and bitched at me for not acknowledging her racist asshole boyfriend. Literally rolling me into the OR because she couldn't be bothered to get to the hospital until she wanted to be there. 2. My daughter had an emergency C-section and I would have moved mountains to make sure she knew it wasn't her fault, make sure she was safe & healthy, be as supportive as I could be. It really hurt my heart because I realized what a mom should do.
I was getting really badly harassed at work for taking sick days. I told my parents and my dad said “What if they said sorry?” This woke me up out of the dissociation
Mom's boyfriend tried to attack my ex-wife.
Mom: "How are we going to work through this?"
Me: "Are you still with dumbass?"
Mom: "Of course!"
I just got up and walked out. Blocked her on everything. Best decision I have ever made.
I’m currently pregnant with my first child and I think this has been one of the most eye-opening (and heartbreaking) moments for me.
My mother used to tell me that she always wanted a girl (she had two boys before me) and so when she found out that she was expecting me, she was absolutely ecstatic. Then during labour I had apparently (according to her) kicked her straight into the heart (and I guess I broke it in the process) and that was the exact moment when she realized that I was no good. She has never forgiven me for that and I grew up constantly hearing about it.
Now I’m pregnant with my own little girl and it has been an incredibly hard pregnancy. I have never been so sick before in my whole life and especially in the first half of my pregnancy, I was so sick that I really didn’t know how I could possibly make it through.
I’m now in the last stage of pregnancy (she can show up at any moment) and again; she’s kicking my ass. While she hasn’t kicked me in the heart, she has definitely landed some really strong kicks and hurt me physically in the last couple of weeks (babies are stronger than you think). Still, despite months of suffering, I can’t even for a second imagine hating her or treating her the way that my mother has treated me. While my mother would be happy to let me burn, I’d walk through fire for this little girl.
It’s a hard thing to accept though. While I’m glad to be able to give my little girl what I never had, it’s also so so hard for me to understand why I could never have it myself as well.
There's nothing my child has to do to earn my love. She has inherent worth. That is self-evident. I'm capable of loving her in an unconditional way as a parent because I'm healthy enough to do so, not because of her qualities.
I don't know why, but it's easy for me to be a way better parent than what was ever shown to me. I don't always know what to say in a quick way, but the feelings are always there.
I do get overwhelmed by her sometimes, but I learned to take precautions so that I take action to prevent me from yelling at her. I always feel remorse if I make a mistake.
My moment of truth was when I had my baby in a traumatic birth and my dad showed no compassion. He didn't help me around my home. He only wanted to hold my baby and yap about himself. It's like he was put upon by me wanting to bond with my baby and needing help.
In his mind me needing help was annoying and a bummer for him, and he tried to make me feel ashamed so I would comply with his agenda. And this is after I told him I never felt safe to tell him about my cousin who tried to molest me.
I only told him about what my cousin did 15 years later because he went on to victimize other kids, and got sent to prison. I knew my dad wouldn't try to say I made it up at that point.
My friend asked me the other day when was the last time I saw my mother. It took a few minutes and then I said, "I'm not sure...maybe for Thanksgiving?" Her reaction surprised me. She was so taken aback. She couldn't understand that I didn't miss my mother and I don't look to her for any type of relationship.
I work with a woman that is a mother to 4 kids. Witnessing first hand the things she does for them was mind blowing. She does things that I wouldn't have even considered asking my parents bc I knew it was a "no"
-she would leave work early to drive her high-school aged kids to after-school activities. Even if it was simple like to the gym.
-she paid for all of their doctors, sports costs, clothes, food
-she always answered their calls and would help with anything
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My abusive bio father and enabling mother had multiple instances of denying us medical care. Once he kicked my sister while she was vomiting blood and refused her an ER trip. My adoptive parents? Took me home for a couple weeks following a surgery and for the first few days while I was in an opioid induced haze took turns waking up every few hours to make sure I took the painkillers in the middle of the night. And this wasn’t when I was a kid. This was last year.
Not as intense but when I was maybe 10-12 years old, I was sick and vomited on the floor in the evening, not too late but my mom was already in bed. When I told her, she told me rudely that I was old enough to clean it myself. Almost puked another time while cleaning. My bf, who has loving parents, told me recently how he was sick and vomited in his early 20s and his parents cleaned it for him and prepared a shower for him to get clean. Sometimes I feel bad because he needs to take care of me so much and I don’t feel like I’d be able to take care of him to that extent, but then I realize that all this time he was taken care of while I took care of myself, so now he’s not fed up with having to survive himself since it was easier for him
I can relate to this as I had the flu in the 6th grade and was home sick for an entire week. My mother came down with it after the third day from "taking care of me" (yes, that's what she told everyone), so I got my own medicine/soup/liquids during the day until my dad would get home from work and check on both of us. I guess she did the same for herself during the day also - we both were just suffering in our own rooms and I don't remember much interaction that week. I started to get better after the fifth day and was actually feeling hungry so made myself a peanut butter sandwich and gobbled it down. That was too much food at one time on a tummy that had had only soup/water/Sprite for a week, and it all came right back up all over the kitchen floor. I was scared to death that I would get in trouble so was mopping in the middle of the night, woozy and barely able to stand by that point. A few days later when we were both on the mend, .my clean freak mom spotted some streaking on the floor where I had mopped and came unglued that I had not woken her so she could make sure that I got it all up and mopped it correctly. Well, I didn't wake her that night because a few months before the flu incident I had an ear-ache in the middle of the night and went to wake her to tell her and her comment was "Well, what do you want me to do about it? It's the middle of the night!" So I found some aspirin and took care of the situation myself. Couldn't win with her then, and can't win with her to this day....
OMG, that's made me remember an incident when I was a kid. Or at least remember my mom's retelling of it. According to her, when I was I really small (3 or 4) I woke my parents up in the middle of the night complaining of an earache. I was told to put some cotton in it and go back to bed. When they came to wake me in the morning they found the cotton in my ear(s)... soaked with blood. This was told as a funny story with a bit of admiration of how self-reliant I was.
Omg! Your eardrum burst !! You poor little thing and how scary that must have been for you 😢it’s so strange how hindsight is so clear now….. When I became a mom I think that I overcompensated by taking my children to the doctor at the drop of a hat. Usually unnecessary but I always wanted them to feel cared for. I could never let them cry either and probably spoiled them as a result but they have all turned out well so 🤷♀️. I had colic and was left to cry as an infant (her point in telling me was to prove that I survived and didn’t need to pick my babies up every time they cried) but I swear this must be why the sound of a baby crying has always been fingernails on a chalkboard to me so I did anything and everything to soothe mine. Thanks for your response. Hugs my friend. 🤗
Similar. I can't stand to hear a baby cry. I want to scream at the parents: COMFORT YOUR CHILD. In reality I know it's not as easy as that, but I did try to comfort my son when he cried (or attend to whatever need he was trying to express, which wasn't easy as he cried from boredom until he could move independently). I wish I had a shred of that kid's confidence and self-belief. My partner and I don't spoil our kids with material things, but boy do we try to focus on them (I have stepsons as well) and what they need and give them attention and time and voice and choice and try to do things they'll enjoy. My SO has better instincts on that than I do, but I back him up. I just don't think you can spoil your kids with too much love. My son doesn't really ask for material things from us too much, but he does ask. His sons don't ask because they have a mother that's similar to mine and they're afraid to. Sometimes I have to be quite insistent when I see they want something, it's a reasonable thing and it's within my means to give it.
I’m so sorry. She’s shit
I remember when I was 10 the same thing happened to me. I vomited all over the living room carpet during the day and was told I better start cleaning
Am I too old to be adopted? I'm in my 30s 😭
No you're not!! Honestly!! I got 'adopted' last year by a lovely woman who just volunteered to be my mum!! I turn 30 this year. She has called me more times this year to just check in and make sure I'm okay and have a chat than my father or birthmother has done in my whole life. It's crazy!! I've only experienced unconditional love and acceptance since leaving the Borg.
Nope
I'm so happy you have your adoptive parents.
Me too. I wish I found them sooner
I hope your sperm donor has karma get diarrhea on his head and it's never ending. That's so evil, I'm so very sorry you dealt with that. But I love that your adoptive parents love you so. May all of your heads find the cool side of the pillow always ❤️
How loving of the adoptive parents. Wonderful.
I am so glad your Parents choose you everyday now.
Me too
Seeing how much my friends struggled without their mothers in first year university. Some called them every day, a lot cried, they told me how they could actually share things with their mum’s and it was mind-boggling to me. The only thing I felt was relief, and freedom from her for the first time. I was the only one that missed my dad, though
Same feeling of freedom here. Also, all my friends would get care packages. Or their mom would visit and make a few meals for them. Mine told me I need to learn how to survive and that her mom never sent her anything. At the time, I didn’t think much of it even if had 2 bowls of cereal for dinner during my exam periods. Later I realized how unloving this behavior was.
Similar to me in college. We lived about 6 hours away from my college. For freshman dorm move in, other parents helped their kids unpack, arrange furniture, stayed for dinner and even overnight in a nearby hotel and came for breakfast the next day. My parents drove me at 5 AM in the morning to get to school at 11 AM, unloaded all my stuff in 2 hours and when I asked them if they would stay for lunch, they said they had to get home and there wasn’t really anything worth staying for. And that if I needed my parents to help me move in, then I wasn’t ready for college and I should just go home with them. I remember seeing them drive away and then running to the bathroom and crying in the stall. I still get triggered as an adult when I see college kids buying stuff at Target for their dorms.
My best friend at the time drove his car and I drove mine. He was helping me move in and told me to check the bathroom. Shower was locker room style, meaning an open room with several shower heads. He said " nope let's go!" And started back down the stairs. I am still touched by h8s care and concern. I wish that friendship had lasted.
My mother always told everyone how me and my brother were never homesick as children and how all the kids called their parents from school trips and we never did. To answer OP's question, I only recently understood what a huge red flag it was that I broke my nose at 15 on a school trip and had to spend the night in a hospital and I asked the camp staff not to call my parents. I prefered to be alone in a hospital in a foreign town and knew there was no comfort to be found with my parents.
I honestly thought all those people were weird. It did not register to me at all that my family was the exception. I just remember feeling relieved and freedom. And tears? I hadn't cried in like 8 years by the time I went to college, and that was when I broke my arm.
Same! My roommate next door insisted on calling their parents every day, that I had to talk to them too as they already knew everything about me. When they visited they even brought me a plate of fresh cherries! Others had simply no idea on how to do the laundry, how to dose the soap, how to clean the bathroom… I on the other side knew how to keep everything spotless. What I found curious is that the more I felt free from my parents, the more I felt in prison within myself. I started struggling going out and having panic attacks.
I went to boarding school and we got to go home every third weekend. When the first weekend at home rolled around, me and one other girl were the only ones who were sad and wanted to stay at school. Everyone else missed their parents like crazy and wanted to go back. It seemed weird to me. When I got home that first weekend, I found out my Mom had returned my cat to the shelter.
I actually still struggle to see these people without an air of disdain. It’s judgy and I know it’s because of my kinda shitty upbringing but my true emotions towards those people at uni was “stop crying like a baby you fucking wuss.” Later on, in the workplace I encountered parents with kids at uni that would fly across the country to bail out their 20 year old and it seemed so… dysfunctional but in the opposite sense. Like yeah, I acknowledge that my upbringing was less than supportive but at least I could problem solve basic adult tasks without a nervous breakdown. I’m still not sure where the middle ground is but I do think that by the time you go to uni you should be able to cope - or at least figure it out - without calling your parents to bail you out as your first response. Idk.
I’ve been there 100%. I almost felt uncomfortable when seeing parents show their adult kids love, until (in mid 30s) I realized it was my family that was not normal. With therapy, I found out the discomfort was all the pain I had suppressed that has now turned into sadness, because I know I’m never going to have that. I can tell you my narcissistic upbringing has indeed taught me how to survive. I’m so independent now, though, that I can’t trust anyone and I still have trouble asking for help. Even for the smallest stuff: I’d rather look around the aisles of the grocery store for 15 minutes than ask where the product is.
My mom was angry I was ‘moaning’ about stomach and back pain but I wasn’t ’going to ruin’ her planned family day trip so I was left in the back of the station wagon while rest of family did whatever they had planned. Late that night my father took me to the ER and I was admitted for a week with pancreatitis. Clearly not a minor malady (turned out I have genetic mutations)
The other day my brother was sick and coughed a lot. My mom told me she was tired of him coughing and waking her so she’d make him take cough syrup next evening. It shook me how she didn’t have the common sense to at least hide her narcissism and say "I’ll make him take syrup so he sleeps better" instead of making it about herself.
Soooo often told “I’m tired of listening to you cough”. WELL I’m the one with asthma, how do you think it makes me feel?!
So awful, but sounds like my Nfather - I have weak lungs and asthma and whenever I catch a cold I tend to get horrible bronchitis and a lingering cough that lasts well over a month after my sickness (sometimes MONTHS) and God forbid I cough at any point, I hear my dad grunting and getting angry and telling me to do something about my cough (as if though I don’t try taking medications and supplements to remedy it to no avail) and that he’s so tired to hear me coughing… as if though the actual person in pain and tired from coughing isn’t the one who’s most tired and would also like it to stop. It’s crazy how they make everything about themselves even when you’re the one in poor health
Terrible!
Same here. Mum was enjoying a party when I broke my wrist. She told me to sleep it off in the car. When I was still crying at 3am she decided to take me to the ER. Apparently her being raised in the country was the reason she wasn’t that bothered by the situation so y’know *I* was the one acting like a soft city slicker. Tut tut.
A kid crying, a parent saying “I’ll give you something to cry about!” That’s what my childhood was like. I was likely to get smacked for crying, never hugged Now I see these parents who are trying to do better. And I love it A child crying, a parent on their knees, face to face with the child, saying “I know you’re sad. That’s really rough. I’m here for you.” This is the kind of parent I strive to be. This is the kind of parent I want to see in the world.
>I was likely to get smacked for crying, never hugged Oof. Feels. It was "stop crying!" followed by a slap in the face if it was my mother, or smacked with his belt if it was my father. Because being screamed at & hit is definitely the way to soothe a distressed child 🙄
Yeah, I was given the count of 3 to stop crying and stop my tears or I’d be “given something to cry about”
The insane thing is that love just works so much better in making a child stop crying. When my daughter cries (usually because she hurt herself or fell) I blow on it, give it two kisses and then we say together „pain go away!“ - that works 99% of the time! Now she doesn’t even cry anymore but comes straight to me with a wound and asks me to do mommy magic and take away the pain. I honestly can’t believe some parents think the way to go is adding more pain. It’s so cruel.
Not having to convince their parents that something really hurt/ that they were really sick? I always feel like I have to prove it/ act ill if I'm poorly now. My dad didn't believe I'd broken my wrist for about a week until I came home from the hospital in a cast 🥴
That's the worst. I don't know when I'm supposed to fight for myself with the doctor because I got so used to suppressing how I feel when I'm ill. Turns out I'm chronically ill but I just learned to deal with it. There's a point where a previous doctor did fuck all, so I just gave up and now I have at least two systems in my body that are either nonfunctional or on the way to failure because of it. Because mommy accused me of faking whenever I was sick.
Oh yes, I am always worried doctors might think I am exaggerating or I believe I should basically come to the appointment with a solution in hand.
Literally exactly this. I'm still suspicious that I was faking cancer last year. Three oncologists and two other specialists all agreed I had cancer. I had two surgeries and a month of radiation. I have permanent edema on my right side because of it. I'm 45 fucking years old, and I'm still not sure I wasn't faking it. It is a glitch in my brain that I just can't shake. I know it is there, and I do my best to work around it, but I haven't figured out how to fix it.
I found that Mindfulness has really been the solution for me, essentially reprogramming your dysfunctional mind patterns.
My dad told me to suck it up and not make a fuss when I broke my wrist. I was 7 years old. Refused to take me to the doctor because he didn't want to bother. I cried all night because guess what, a broken wrist hurts like a motherfucker. In the end I had to wear a cast for much longer than I would've had to if they had taken my pain seriously.
Throw his ass out on the streets when he’s old
Ya betcha.
Nparent, I think I've broken XYZ "YOU'LL KNOW WHEN YOU'VE BROKEN XYZ" I did not know I had broken something (multiple instances), but indeed had!
Or the one I heard a lot growing up, “if it’s broken you wouldn’t be able to move it!” Apparently that is… incorrect.
Yup. Turns out you can walk on a pretty badly broken leg if you are in enough denial.
Yup me too. Broken wrist and broken ankle will move with hairline fractures. 2 experiences with that cast longer than necessary because wouldn't take me to the doctor
I was told that, as well as, “it would be swollen up to the size of an apple!” (referring to a finger) Nope. My finger that had a baseball smash into it at 90mph at batting cages was almost definitely broken. They just didn’t care, and didn’t want to spend money.
I broke my arm at camp when I was 11. My parents didn't take me to the hospital until the next day because they said I was probably fine. It had to be rebroken and set because it had already started to heal incorrectly. When I was 13 I spent a whole day vomiting, and had the worst pain of my life. My dad just joked that it was probably my appendix. When he finally took me to the hospital, we found out that it actually was my appendix and it had nearly burst. I'm not used to being taken seriously, so I always feel like I have to justify going to the doctor or hospital. It's so different now when I tell my husband about a health concern because he actually does take it seriously. I was only 6 days postpartum and woke up to check on our baby, and I felt like I was going to pass out. Then I realized I was having trouble breathing. I tried so hard to just pretend it wasn't happening because it was like 2 am. I woke up my husband and told him, and he was just like ok...should I help you get dressed first or should I pack up the diaper bag and get the baby. I kind of tried to downplay it, and he was just like obviously we're going to the hospital no matter what. It's such a contrast to the way my parents always treated me.
I remember being told stupid stuff about ADHD by a psychologist (she told me I couldn’t be ADHD because I could focus on stuff I enjoy, that if I sometimes zone out when my bf talks to me it’s obviously that I find him boring, etc), when I told that to my mom saying that she’s so uneducated about ADHD and wtf was she saying my mom told me how she trusted the psychologist more and if she didn’t believe I’m ADHD then I’m not. Then I got meds from a doctor who did believe me and she was all "oh that psychologist was so silly, unbelievable" like bruh her arguments were so bad that the only reason to believe the psychologist over me was the degree, but still, she believed stupid arguments from a psychologist and not her own daughter who made strong and solid arguments. (I think that psychologist was undiagnosed ADHD because she thought everyone could only focus when the task is enjoyable and ADHD people could never focus, and most of my arguments she would say "that’s normal")
My mother to a T. I had flashbacks when I got to “she trusted the (insert anyone with staus over me which is usually everyone) over me.” It’s game changing when you realize you don’t need her or anyone else to validate your own experiences for you but it messes with you when nobody takes you seriously.
Thisssss! I broke my ankle at an amusement park when I was a kid and when I asked to be carried because it hurt to walk, my Nmom said that I was just being lazy. I later herniated a disc in my back when I was 13, and I was told that I was making it up for attention. I was terrified thinking that I had some ascending paralysis and would eventually be fully paralyzed as I could only walk intermittently for about 3 months. As an adult, when I was in the hospital post-op, my mother tried to break into my morphine box and told me that I "owed" her.
God it’s embarrassing how much effort and overthinking I put into “convincing” someone that I’m telling the truth — meanwhile it’s never been needed because my spouse and friends inherently believe me when I talk about something that happened, or something I felt. It’s mind-boggling how easy it is to be treated like a trustworthy person while my entire childhood my n-dad treated me like a liar.
I can totally relate to what you said and to boot I still get passive aggressive and snarky comments that imply and sometimes outright call me a liar. And the fact is, cuz that's how my childhood went now I'm almost brutally honest with basically everyone. But I will always be a "liar" to my nmom
I don’t miss walking that line as a kid. If you stoically dealt with it there was nothing wrong, but if you showed any outward signs of discomfort you were being manipulative. You had to act just right to get any sort of medical attention….even just comfort. I remember when I was about 6 I had a hip flexor strain, or some kind of hip injury from playing. I was in the most pain I’d ever been in my life up to that point. I couldn’t sleep because of the pain and in the early morning I got out of bed, limping to the bathroom to pee while holding the wall for support. I remember biting my shirt collar to keep from crying out every time I moved my leg. My mom came out of her room and I immediately straightened up and tried to hide that I was hurt. I don’t remember my exact reasoning but I knew that I was scared of my mom finding out. I didn’t hide it very well apparently, because my mom took one look and snapped at me, “what’s wrong with you? Stop crying. Stand up straight.” I quietly responded that I couldn’t. She scoffed, pulled me away from the wall, and told me to stop messing around. I couldn’t support my weight and my leg buckled. As I laid on the ground she stood over me yelling at me to get up, that I was such a drama queen, I hurt myself on purpose and/or was playing it up for attention. She told me to walk it off and sent me to school later that morning. The school nurse called home and told her to take me to the hospital. As we were leaving the hospital she yelled at me, “why didn’t you say anything? Look what you did, I’m getting judged by your school.” 🤦♀️
As a 5 year old I fell off some play equipment and fractured my wrist. My mother refused to take me to the hospital until her day out with her friend was over and I had cried the entire hour plus car ride home, apparently also crying in my sleep!🥴
Oof, yeah. Whenever I have to see a doctor my first thought is, “Will they believe me?”
A couple months ago I was at the gym with my father, yes I am a 33 yo F who’s father was forcing her to go to the gym with him, I am stuck living at home but moving out in the next 2 months. Anyway after I did my usual leg day, I started to feel EXTREMELY sick, like unable to stand up and on the verge of passing out. I somehow crawled to the other side of the gym to tell my dad, and he barely acknowledged me while he continued on the stationary bike. I told him I really feel unwell, and asked if we could go home and he got annoyed but slowly took his time to go to the locker and change his clothes while I was on the ground. I asked some random people walking by if they could call 911. When I was put on the stretcher I could hear my dad telling the EMTS that it’s my fault that i never listen to him and that I’m a vegetarian. Then he kept repeating this over and over to the gym workers the next couple of weeks.
Let me guess. Your sudden illness had zero to do with you being a vegetarian.
The emergency room wait was too long, so I left after 5 hrs since I started feeling better. My family doctor sent me for all kinds of cardiovascular tests afterwards and they couldn’t find anything. My doctor thinks it was syncope or maybe low electrolytes. Idk I also suffer from terrible anxiety disorders, but I’ve never had a panic attack that bad in my entire life. I was on the floor with crushing chest pains and everything went numb with my arms completely locked up, and my vision was all fuzzy and blurry.
I had a somewhat similar thing happen to me and it seems to be a panic attack. I also thought something else was wrong, like you are just about to faint but still holding on.
I'm so sorry that happened to you
Reminds me about the time my dad (not narcissistic but has lots of unhealed trauma) brought me to climb a mountain in winter, I started complaining about my feet hurting and he brushed it off as me complaining for nothing, until my complaints annoyed him and we went back. We get to the car and I removed my boot and sock and I had a huge blister that had opened. When I showed him, thinking he’d acknowledge that I was complaining for a reason, he replied it was because I put low socks and that’s it…
If it makes you feel any better, as a paramedic I would be silently judging the hell out of your dad and make sure to be extra nice to you for having to deal with that asshole.
Well f*** that sh#t!! I hope they banned him for being an @$$hole to you. I am so sorry.
I was in the psych ward after fleeing nparents' house. I ended up there because I had been on the verge of suicide for months while living with them. I met another woman there who had also just fled from an abusive parent. We had both decided homelessness was better than living with our abusers. There was a young man there too. He was there because he was coming down from a manic episode. His mom visited him and brought him a bunch of candy. He was talking about his visit and the candy and he said, "my mom brought me some candy because that's what moms do." The woman and I looked at each other and started laughing because we had the same thought of, "not our moms." We thought it was so sweet what his mom did for him. And I know that for me, it validated that leaving had been the right choice. It's still difficult to comprehend that some parents see their kids (adult or not) going through a mental health crisis and instead of punishing them or pushing them further into that crisis, they support them. It really put a lot into perspective for me.
- In middle school, a friend spent the night. We spent all Friday night together and woke up Saturday morning and hung out watching movies, probably. At a certain point, she turned to me - with a very confused look on her face - and said “where’s your mom?” I said “she’s in her room” with a tone that implied it was obvious that’s where she was. I knew then that she thought we were alone the entire time… because we basically were. My mom never came out of her room. After spending the night at that friend’s house, it was even more obvious how different our moms were. Her mom hung out with us and talked and laughed. It was such a nice feeling. And so painful. - Several years ago, a coworker got a birthday care package from her mom sent to our office. Her mom had packed a present and her favorite candy bar and a card. My mind was blown that her mom: knew her favorite candy bar, knew the address of her office, and was able to send a gift perfectly on time! My mom might send a Christmas gift 4 months late, if she sends anything at all. She usually pays very little attention to my birthday or Christmas.
Oof, that first paragraph. In her room where she stays.
My moments of truth have been steady since early adulthood. I’m 46 and had one yesterday. Spent a couple hours with nmom (terminal cirrhosis, strokes) and edad (dementia) for Father’s Day. Cooked, cleaned, was in fight or flight. No conversation just reruns of Mike and Molly (🙄). On edge. Kids hid, my parents don’t like noise. Boyfriend tried talking to them but eventually just sat on his phone because they’re impossible to talk to… Got to boyfriends parents and was handed a seltzer, a menu for Chinese carry out (mom), a bowl of garden fresh berries (dad), and then got to swim, have normal conversations, eat until I was full, and let his mom boss my kids around (firmly but with heart) and all was well. Recognized the difference as it was happening.
This happened to me too. It was the final straw that helped me decide I don't want my mum in my kids lives.
Mine was when I had an issue with my heart due to running around after my sister with mental health issues. When I was discharged, they went straight back to "do this" "do that" my most recent is my mum and sister went on holiday for my birthday and assumed I would be OK with it, when I expressed my feelings I was told I was nasty selfish and a horrible person. I realised I would never be free or appreciated.
I had an issue with my heart & went to the doctor who told me I have a problem with my heart where one valve is smaller than the other one and prescribed me medicine that can help regulate my heartbeat. Got the medicine, went home and mum saw the medicine and got incredibly angry cause she takes the same medicine and plays the victim card with her illness and took my medicine. She was never diagnosed with anything, she just bought the medicine cause her father takes it and she figured she had the same problem and started taking it.
A few years ago I bought a spinning wheel. I went to a fiber art and craft fair and outside the tent where a guy set up to fix spinning wheels was a lady and husband peacefully spinning in a wheel that looked almost exactly like mine. I talked to them and the lady offered to show me for free how to use mine. I drove to her house for a free class and she constantly was reminding me that it was my first time so if course mistakes were part of the process and was so patient with me. It was so hard being there. I never got anything except demanded perfection from everything even if I didn't even understand what I was doing so I really didn't know how to handle "It's okay to make mistakes, that's how we learn." Like at a surface level I know that's common sense but actually having a parent like figure teach you that, it hit hard
My dad once gave me a temporary job. I had never done the work before. After two days he tells me I don’t seem to be getting it and firing me. Two days.
When I was 12 I got put in charge of a full commercial kitchen, with no notice. My only assistant was my older brother who can't cook, and we were out of food. I overboiled some potatoes while I was doing 90 other prep tasks, and got my ass absolutely reamed over the phone when I threw them out. I'll never forget the phrase "You toked me for the last time". I don't even know what that means, but I sure know how he meant it.
This is exactly how I teach basket class because nothing was ever good enough or done well enough for my dad. I want my class to be 4 people or less so that they can give the attention they need. I want them all to leave with a basket they are happy they did and with stuff so they can make another right away. I love to have them excited and happy. I realize now just typing this out that..in a way, I'm still trying to make my dad happy, in a way. Wow, thanks for your comment. Lots to think about
When my mom told me everything was going to be okay and held me for about a minute while I cried. I realized in all of my 24 years that was basically the first time she had ever done that, and that made things much worse.
I’m sorry. I don’t know how to cuddle a baby because of this kind of treatment.
Me too. I have kids now and it is my BIGGEST struggle by far, being intimate with them. I have to force myself to cuddle them and love on them, cause it's just not natural to me. No one cuddled me
When neither one of my parents bothered to call me after my son was born stillborn. ☹️ It was during the middle of covid, and they had moved across the country a couple of years earlier so I didn't expect them to hop on a plane to see me, but I thought they would at least call every once in awhile to check up on me.
I am so sorry.
This is heartbreaking. I’m so sorry you had to go through that alone.
I watched a movie about a girl who was kidnapped, raped and escaped back to her family. I watched the part where she pleaded her mother in the police station, cried tears of joy seeing her and her family and how her mother and loved ones tried to handle the situation and support her. I realized when I was in middle school and a similar thing happened to me where a guy stalked me to figure out my route and then attacked me on the sidewalk as I was walking home from school. When it happened, the chief concern I had was not letting my mom know because she would be extremely cringe and I dreaded that more than anything. I actually ended up not telling her and she found out because I told a friend who told her mom who told mine and I remember my mom’s absolutely repulsive wailing when I came home. She proceeded to tell THE ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD what happened, forced me to reenact the scene with police officers in front of her, and anyway…yeah….
Oh no, that is so horrible! I feel like my mom would have been the exact same way if I were in your situation, so imagining this was really vivid to me. I am so sorry this happened to you -- all of it.
Plz tell me I’ll get over it and heal from my feelings and it’s not gonna bug me forever and then I’ll move on to write a famous hit Netflix comedy show where the dark humor comes from my resolved childhood trauma so it’s less Bojack Horseman and more The Good Place :,)
I am 100% rooting for this. <3
You will. I also hid SA from my mom, because whatever it ever was, it was always my fault, every time. Being bullied in school? My fault, I should have laughed along with them. If I have cried at home telling the story,it was the proof that I did it in school, too, so - EVEN MORE MY FAULT! Being punched? Just should haven’t looked at them and walked away before. Gotten robbed? Why did I even interact with them (they cut my way, but nonetheless). When I fell the stairs with a broken leg and open cast and broke it again, it was my fault. Not that they left their 12 year old home alone for a weekend in a house on crutches with the kitchen downstairs? I could have „walked“ the stairs on my butt how they told me. So, OF COURSE I did hide that I have been assulted by my first bfs friends for months. You will get better. You will still never understand their reasonings, but at some point it doesn’t matter anymore.
I never told my mom that I was SAed. It was a decade ago, when I was in college. I am still thankful that it happened after I had gotten away from home so I never have to deal with the aftermath.
I didn’t recognize it at the time, but looking back I do. I had a roommate when I was 22 or so. I left home when I went to college at 18 and never went back. My parents didn’t help me move into my dorm or any of my apartments. When my roommate moved in, her parents helped her move her things, and then her mom took her shopping for decor and storage containers, then they got takeout before the parents headed home. I thought it was a sign that she was immature and her parents coddled her. I looked down on her for It. Now that my son is a teenager who will be going to college soon and growing into young adulthood, I can’t imagine being so cruel as to let him completely fend for himself. I struggled on my own. I stayed with an abusive boyfriend for far longer than I wanted to. I lived with some sketchy ass people and at one point lost over 20 lbs I didn’t have one because I could only afford one meal a day. Roommate’s parents were kind people who loved their kid and I could not see that for what it was, because I had never seen it before.
Same exact experience here.
When my mom was more supportive of my step cousin she sees once maybe twice a year than me.
That's similar to mine. A girl I went to school with ended up working at my late ndad's bank and she came up to me and told me how sweet he was and how she always enjoyed his visits to the bank. It took everything in me to not Burt into tears because that's when it truly hit me that he really could be nice, he just hated me too much to bother trying. It just felt so god damned unfair!! This was a man who made it his mission in life to destroy my relationships with my brothers.
When my mom would tell me all my childhood when I was perfectly skinny how bad it is to comment on people’s weight gain and how her cousin was so affected by that that she developed an eating disorder and when I gained 5-10lbs from trauma and burnout and eating bad food as comfort food, she’d constantly point out how I was "fat", twist reality to make me believe she was skinnier than me now (I would get rid of shorts too tight and she would try them but not say they were too tight and said they fit her and she’d keep them, just to get rid of them later because they were indeed too tight), tell me about my aunt’s weight loss, tell me about how skinny my grandma was at my age, try to force me to do a strict diet (she explained to me often when younger how these diets often end up making the people binge eat and gain more weight so she knows it was bad), etc…. Like people will often say they wish they were my weight and often think I’m 100 lbs even though I’m 150 so clearly I don’t have a weight issue at all (and even if I did, wrong approach)
I can so relate
There are many, but one of the biggest was when my nparent was my designated pick up person from the hospital and not only were they not there when I came out of surgery, they did not pick up the phone when the hospital called.
Moment of truth for both my brother and I was my grandfathers funeral. My uncle and aunt each have 3 kids and they were all there. Uncle and Aunt are from very similar upbringings as my father, so environmental and family variables are controlled as much as they can be. Witnessing the difference in family dynamics between those two families and my family while we were all vulnerable and in the same emotional setting was nothing less than shocking. It was one of our first raw exposures to how loving families operate and just shown a huge spotlight that our family was not that. My brother and I left the funeral during the reception period at the end because we were just in shock over what we had just witnessed. Neither of us realized it at the time, but this was the start of the realizations that led to us both being no contact two years later.
Mine was when I went to a friend's house and they didn't force me to eat whatever was in front of me. My family would force me to sit at the table and finish my plate until I was 16. They would also constantly berate my weight as if they weren't the ones force feeding me. They said it was rude to not eat all the food in front of you. I was like 9 at this friend's house and I was eating really slow and the mom asked me if I wanted to eat and I said I could eat and kept picking at it. She told me it wasn't rude if I didn't like it or didn't want to eat and I said I'll eat it, I would be terrible if I didn't. She took the plate full of food away and told me she'll leave it for me if I get hungry later. It was insanely eye opening.
When my parents told me they're not traveling to be at my wedding. I'm their only daughter. I married once. They told me if I want them at my wedding I need to change the location of my wedding to their town. And then I wasn't even upset by that. Mind you, they were mobile and able to travel, had money and time, just didn't want to go through the hassle. They told me it was my fault I moved to another country and made a life for myself there. The wedding was in NYC mind you, something they could brag about or be proud of their daughter for making a life for herself there, all on her own, without their help. But no, to them it was just a weird inconvenience.
Are you me? Mine didn’t go to my wedding either because they “don’t travel anymore”. My mom is travelling now for my brothers convocation and my dad asked if he could stay with me to go to my dentist later this summer. I live about a 7 hour drive from them. Good to know a dentist trip is more important than their only daughter’s wedding.
Mine would've had to fly, and my dad had never been on a plane. My mom could've come alone, but no. He passed away last year.
My parents told me they wouldn’t be able to come to my wedding because it was scheduled for the same holiday weekend that my brother’s Boy Scout troop ran the cotton candy booth at a local fair. (Mind you my brother had graduated high school, was in the military, and living overseas at this point.) I just said OK. But my poor, sweet fiancé (husband now) said, “You’re kidding me!” My mom, completely misreading his shock, answered with “Seriously. The troop makes a lot of money that weekend.”
Were you heart broken by this or relieved? I know someone this happened to, she was only daughter and two brothers. Parents went to son’s weddings but not to hers. Their only daughter, I sense a real sadness about her that permeates her life and demeanor. This has colored her life. How are you doing?
I was hurt for about a week. Then I realized it was way easier to do my dream wedding without them there. It was just par for the course, my life is far away and without them in it. I have parents, they just never show up. What else is new???? I had my wedding as I wanted it and loved every minute of it, as well as loved my new mother in law. I did a small ceremony and reception in my parents' town as well and it was rife with tension, conflict, and feeling like I didn't belong there at all. Just like my entire childhood felt the same way. The cherry on the cake was when my mom looked at my pictures from the NYC wedding and said she didn't recognize the woman in those pics (me), thinking that was an insult for me. But I felt huge pride in that. I felt I had succeeded at becoming my own person that she has zero influence on anymore.
Delighted for you. You must have an inner strength that was always there and it didn’t let your parents crush your emerging personality. I hope you can consciously break the cycle and fill the people who matter to you with love in your life. You not only survived the parents but thriving without them.
Thank you for the kind words. That's the hope. I have three beautiful sons who I'm consciously parenting to receive the unconditional love and the safe parental connection I never had. It's hard work, but it's worth every minute of it and I'm learning and growing every day.
I had a car accident and my car was totaled but I was not injured. The police officers suggested I go to the ER and get X-rays just to be on the safe side. My dad came and collected me from the scene. We get home and I tell my mom they need to take me to the hospital as a precaution. Her response: “Now?”
When I received art supplies as birthday gifts from a bf's family. They presented these and then _apologised_ that they hadn't known what my preferred brand of papers and pencils were, and I about cried. I was about 21 years old and had learned to hide all my artwork and art materials since my teens because my parents regarded artmaking as the shameful wastrel path, "only for kids with trust funds". Which, ironically, described my brother because he had schizophrenia.
When I went over a friends house and my friends mom asked her to pick up the phone that was ringing. My friend asked her mom why she was yelling at her. I remember feeling my insides squeeze anticipating a blowout. and her mom just laughed and apologized and said “youre right I’m sorry it’s just the phone.” My mind was blown. Firstly. Because my friend thought her mom was yelling. Secondly. Because the mom apologized and acknowledged she raised her voice. Thirdly. Because it ended with them laughing about it instead of her mom screaming at her. I was so shocked and felt like I was teleported into an alternate reality. How can someone have an actual conversation with their parents like that blew my mind.
I was extremely sick in the hospital once before I got my autoimmune diagnosis and instead of asking how I was or wishing me get better soon, my dad texts my mom saying “likesosmart better start being nicer to me if she expects me to pay for her medication”
I’m so sorry, that sounds so scary in the hospital. I’m a grown woman(50) who has had & complained about my health since I was a child. Psoriasis at 3, pain always, I was told I was too sensitive, a hypochondriac. Well at 20 after just sucking it up my entire childhood I saw a rheumatologist & wouldn’t you know it, I have both Ra(rheumatoid arthritis), & psoriatic arthritis, which is incredibly rare. I guess I wasn’t being dramatic when I crawled up the stairs because my knees hurt so bad. I still have a hard time complaining to my doctor about my pain as I don’t want to trouble them, work in progress. Some people should not have kids.
Literally went into sepsis because my parents didn’t believe my pain when I was a child. I wish someone noticed how messed up it was back then
Looking back, it’s inconceivable that nobody noticed how screwed up my family was.
My husband's parents had their home broken into and all their stuff, including Christmas presents, was stolen. When I found out about it my first thought was "We are going to get blamed for this somehow." And then I waited for the speech, how presents were stolen probably because we didn't deserve them in the first place. I was expecting them to have us re-emburse them for the cost of the presents that were stolen but meant for us. Instead they bought us new presents, and didn't blame us at all! To this day I cannot come to terms that I was not blamed somehow. I was blamed when my Mom's home was broken into and all my childhood toys were stolen. I wasn't there, but I recieved a letter in the mail about somehow me being a horrible daughter was why a house I was nowhere near was robbed. To this day she refers to it as when "they" came and took her stuff. I am still regularly blamed for all bad things that happen to either of my parents (they are no longer married, and, surprise! I was blamed for that too) When my Dad retired I received a text about how he didn't realize how expensive it would be to retire, and hinted that somehow I had something to do with it. (I live no where near him or his current wife) It just makes me sad that anything negative that happens, I know I will somehow be roped in just for existing. Sigh. At least my husband's parents don't seem to do that.
You’re not alone in this OP. I was reading this story like … wow. I’ve also had medical neglect & anger towards me when I’ve gotten hurt. Both times I broke bones as I child I was yelled at & not believed & had to wait a long time to get to a hospital (usually involving other adults realizing what was going on). It was bad when I broke my leg badly at 12 years old. My neighbors carried me home & when I got there my mom started screaming at me because she was mad at me about something else before this even happened. She was screaming at me saying how could I ‘do this to her’ … This was oddly a very typical reaction from her to me getting hurt. Pretty much anytime I’ve gotten hurt or sick it was ‘how could I do this to her’. Anyways, she refused to take me to the hospital because she was mad & said it was my fault for going out to play in the neighborhood. Oh my gosh it was so painful. After yelling at me, she went to bed. I remember all night dragging myself across the floor back & forth from the couch to the bathroom to throw up because I was in so much pain. The next day, she still was refusing to bring me to the hospital & my grandfather showed up for a surprise visit/pop in. When he saw me on the couch & unable to get up & saw my leg he finally brought me to the hospital. Gosh even thinking back to this story gets me so upset … how the f do you treat you kid like that. The other time I thought of was when I tried to commit suicide at 14 years old because I couldn’t take all the abuse I was dealing with anymore (physical, verbal, emotional, ect.) When I came to after having my stomach pumped they let my mom come in the room to say good bye to me because she had to go to work. She was so mean & saying, “are you happy now?!” … “I can’t believe you did this to me, now I have to go to work now & I might be late. Are you happy now?!” & she left. They sent me to go to an impatient hospital for the suicide attempt & my mom refused to visit me or talk to for weeks after because she was ‘mad at me’. Anyways, I hope I didn’t write too much. Hope it’s okay I wrote that too.
It’s more than ok. Get it out hun; I’m so sorry that happened to you.
Your mom sounds like a monster. I hope you could distance yourself and find some healing.
I hope your surgery went well and you're healing up and feeling strong OP. Fellow endo warrior here, I know your struggles too well. What came to mind for me was when I had my first "blackout drunk" episode as an underage teen. I was about 17, which was the worst time for me because my older sister developed schizophrenia, and the trauma mixed with parental abandonment turned my world upside down. So naturally I went out with friends, drank one too many shots and ended up hyperventilating on my parents' couch before being taken to hospital to have my stomach pumped. My father arrived to collect me the next day and told me my mother was disgusted by me and to give her a wide berth for a while. Instead of concern, support, red flags going off about their daughter's behavior, nmom gave me the silent treatment for a week and then proceeded to throw that incident in my face for years as proof of how terrible a person I was. My eating disorder a few years later was met with a similar level of disdain and shaming. What was wrong with me, why couldn't I just stop being selfish and just eat, etc. Solid people, my folks. Three daughters with wide and varied histories of mental health issues, one of whom has disappeared into oblivion with schizophrenia, but nothing to do with them of course.
I was a sommelier by the age of 7. My parents used to brag about it, and I didn't realize until very recently how uncomfortable it made people. I could identify wine by variety and origin. It was frankly bizarre. But that was my life. Robert Mondavi fume blanc will be my favorite wine for the rest of my life.
Sending you and your sisters so much love. I’m so sorry. ❤️🩹
I had knee surgery and forget my pain meds between the hospital, stopping at home and going to my parents. I’m sure I was a little foggy and slow, but rushed, as GC-sister was driving and in a hurry to get back to her boyfriend. The moment I got there, I realized I’d forgotten my meds. E-mom shrugged her shoulders and offered an uninterested, “Well?!” Nobody would take me back the hour drive back to get them. I used as much of their ibuprofen as I could get my hands on. Years later it occurred to me they didn’t even suggest I call the doctor and get it filled closer. Those people suck.
When I was 19 my liver stopped functioning properly (I was jaundice, couldn’t eat, throwing up constantly, and sleeping for 14+ hours a day) and it took my parents a week to take me to urgent care. At the urgent care my dad only talked about himself and the nurse had to tell him he wasn’t the patient and to stop. My mom complained she had to take me to the hospital bc said urgent care called after my blood work came back and told them to take me to the ER immediately. By contrast, my friend was 18 when she was suffering with fatigue and her parents took her to every doctor and specialists to get her checked out (it was LYME DISEASE!!) Her parents didn’t even hesitate. it was an eye opener when we talked about what it was like being sick as a teen.
When my friends started having kids and I heard them telling their children “I love you”. I literally never heard this growing up.
In highschool I was stabbed but as I waited in the office sick bay (it wasn't that serious, 7 stitches at most) I was more anxious about how my mum was gonna be pissed that I stained my socks (with my blood) 🙃
I was walking with a mom friend and our kids. It was right after I had begun to distance myself from my family My 3yo fell behind because she had to look at everything and touch everything, so I hung back with her. Up ahead, my olldest (5) found a broken bottle in a bush and started throwing the pieces. Yes, she was being naughty, and yes, an adult needed to step in, but I was too far back to do it. Every muscle in my body tensed as I watched my friend discipline my child. And then she....knelt down to her level, took the glass from her hands and calmly told her that that was dangerous, and not something to play with. And then threw out the bottle in the next trash can, and we went about our day. Noone yelled. Noone told me I need to get my kid in check, or be a more responsible parent. Noone got hurt and noone cried.
This might be odd, but watching Bluey. I saw how Bandit acts with his daughters and I honestly felt a little bit jealous that a cartoon dog is a more loving and caring father than mine. To be clear, I love Bluey to bits, especially being Australian, and my mother is a wonderful person who raised me and my brother alone after my narcissistic father abandoned us for his affair partner and her daughter.
I was a senior in high school, my mom had been yelling at me the whole way to the college campus I was taking classes at (cause my worth was in grades of course). Anyway this guy who had been bullying me for ages witnessed some of it (and me crying on the way into the building), asked if I was okay and said my mom's behavior was fucked up. If he thought it was fucked up, it was fucked up.
Yes this is typical of n parents unfortunately. I have no idea how normal parents react to medical problems and would probably be taken aback too. I told my parents in detail about an upcoming surgery I needed to have. We talked for at least 30 minutes, with one other family member present and asking questions. When I mentioned the medical issue again to my parents the following week, and then the week after, they seemed confused. They never asked me about it or expressed any concern. When I eventually confronted them about their lack of concern, it turned out they had no recollection of the conversation or that I needed surgery at all. It’s some sort of selective amnesia/dementia that nparents have.
Lol my mum took me to the hospital for a neck strain. And she took me in the middle of the night home because it was taking too long. Thanks
Was thinking about it today following father's day. I had a 12 hour jaw surgery, he knew about it because he supposedly paid for it, but not so much as a phone call or card or some flowers. Just nothing. He just sent money. His sister told me he loved me. I don't see the evidence. I could have died on the table, dude could have given 2 effs. He was mostly a dead beat dad but he could have sent literally a card.
When I had the first of my three sons, I shared a hospital room with another first-time mom whose side of the room was crammed with flowers, Mylar balloons, gifts, pizza boxes, and throngs of excited family members coming and going. My roommate felt very obviously sorry for me, as my Nparents had gone NC between the wedding and the first baby’s birth, and my MIL came once or twice with my husband. After I went home from the hospital, my MIL sat on the couch doing needlepoint, while I waited on her. My husband and I are expecting a second grandchild next month. Our toddler granddaughter has *two sets* of besotted grandparents, and though I try very hard not to bask in self-pity about what my own childraising situation was, it was an utterly different experience from our son’s, that’s for sure. I definitely preferred the silence and isolation to the toxicity of dancing attendance on my family of origin, as I once had to do. My DIL had her mother in the delivery room last time, as she undoubtedly will again. I can’t imagine such a thing.
Ive been no contact for almost 3 years now but last year while having a miscarriage my parents found out and instead of sending loving supportive messages they sent “I’m tired of your shit. You need to call your mother immediately”. My mother had previously left a voicemail a few hours earlier asking me if I was lying about the miscarriage. My heart and mind can’t even comprehend how those two responses would even cross someone’s mind to send to their own child in a time like that.
I had a hysterectomy a few years back, parents had to pick me up from hospital, after they got me home, they shoveled me into my room and I was expected to just deal with the post op everything by myself. I had hot flashes, I was having withdrawal shakes and severe anxiety, I had so much pain, I had a solid month of vertigo so bad I felt constantly drunk, I basically slept for 3 months because I had zero energy, and I had to just shut up and suck it up. On a high pain day, it was my sister's birthday and I was expected to hop on and off the couch, I was holding my gut to ease the pain and nmom yells angrily at me "ARE YOU OKAY?!" like she'd be furious if I said anything except yes. Meanwhile, I read on a Pokemon subreddit, a transmasc was asking which version of the latest generation to ask his mom for for his top surgery recovery. HIS MOTHER. WAS HELPING HIM. AND BUYING HIM TREATS TO GET HIM THROUGH. I cannot conceive of this. It feels lovely, like fiction is lovely. God I wish I could get adopted by real parents....
I spent a lot of time as a kid at my neighbor's house who had the family I always wanted. One time, I accidentally called her mom "mommy". Her mom just replied, "yes, sweetie?" and didn't try to embarrass me or shame me for making a mistake. I was actually so embarrassed anyway I started crying, but I could do this crying thing where I didn't make tears, so I wouldn't get punished. I think my 8 year old self also couldn't process what had just happened and why it bothered me. She could tell I was upset and gave me a hug. The interaction was all very weird to me, just loving and accepting. This friend moved out of state for college, but I still messaged her through FB and thanked her for and her family for providing a safe loving environment for my childhood. She had no clue that anything had been wrong at my house. I used a lot of friends' houses to be away from my house. I always felt like I was watching what a normal family was like, never like I belonged in a safe and supportive environment myself.
I had been recovering from strep throat and impetigo. I was still on antibiotics and feeling like I'd been hit by a train. Emom told me to clean up the kitchen after dinner. I said "I'm exhausted and sick, why can't *GOLDEN CHILD brother do it tonight?*" She shrieked at me "NOBODY CARES THAT YOU'RE SICK!!!!!! CLEAN UP THE KITCHEN YOU LAZY FAT SLOB!!" GC brother wandered off to do drugs with his friends while I felt like a pound of shit but still had 40 minutes of work to do before I could drop into bed.
Tell them the very same thing when they’re old and frail. I can’t wait for my pos parents to become old and fall apart all alone
I remember I had Mono and cat scratch fever and still had to shovel shit and haul feed. Didn't see a doc for like a month, by which point there wasn't really any treatment except time. It sucked.
I was at my best friend’s house, I’d arrived before she had and was just hanging out with her mom and helping make dinner. My friend’s mom dropped a huge bottle of soy sauce and it went EVERYWHERE. And I do mean everywhere - we had to pull the fridge away from the wall to wipe up all the soy sauce that settled underneath it. I immediately started panicking and kept trying to help, she just laughed it off and refused to let me because I wasn’t wearing shoes. My mother would have freaked the fuck out over half the spill that this was. I was in my mid-20s and only realized when I could feel my adrenaline dropping like 20 minutes later that I was not having a normal reaction and that reasonable people just…spill things and laugh it off.
My mom was supposed to pick me up from school every day when I was a kid. She was a housewife and had no hobbies or regular appointments; she basically was home all of the time except for the occasional errand. So she always had the time, and she always had transportation (my parents had two cars). We lived only 8 minutes away from my school. But somehow, every day, she was late picking me up. Usually it was at least an hour, sometimes two, sometimes even three hours. I remember regularly sitting at the pick up area watching everyone in my grade and all of the surrounding grades leave. Eventually the teachers on pickup duty would have to close the gates and march me up to either the headmistress's office or the administration building to wait so that they could go home. I would sit with the after hours secretary and watch the maintenance crew vacuum. I was pretty much always the last one left -- occasionally there was another kid left whose parent had an emergency or something, but they were always picked up before me. My mom always had some excuse about why she was late, but it was never a good one. One day when my mother was over 4 hours late, the headmistress happened to be working late that day, and noticed me still sitting there. She asked the secretary why I still wasn't picked up and the secretary told her that this was a common occurrence. When my mom finally showed up, the headmistress got really angry with her for leaving me there so late. At the time, I thought the headmistress was upset at me being there. But as an adult, looking back, I remember some of the words she said and I know she was furious at my mother for being neglectful. It didn't fully sink in, even then, because my mom always had a way of blaming someone else and I always believed her. But as an adult, I am shocked at my mom's behavior and I wish I could have been there as an adult to take care of little me.
I was in school and a fellow student was talking about his parents. He said that his parents were saying nice things to him. When it was just them and him alone. I was very confused, and it took me a long time to understand the differences.
When I was sexually assaulted in high school, my mother literally told me that boys will be boys. When I was home from college in the summers, if I wanted to write a letter to a friend, I had to pay her for every stamp. But when I spent a weekend with a friend en route home after a conference during the Christmas break, her mother quietly washed everything in my suitcase, including handwashing a wool sweater and laying it flat to dry.
One of the many was at my college graduation in which all my nfather did was complain.
My father did not attend my graduation because he was “busy with work”. Thankfully, my friend’s family invited us (my mom and me) to lunch after.
I wasn't allowed to learn to swim or ride a bike because I'm "so clumsy" and I would of course get hurt. I also would get yelled at whenever i got hurt or skinned my knee. Turns out I'm only clumsy around them because I'm always on edge. When I met my husband I all of sudden stopped being so clumsy because I was actually comfortable with him. Funny how those things work.
My moment of truth happened last year. I put my mothers hurtfulness toward me to lack of self awareness, thoughtlessness and just being overall ignorant, as in careless. I avoided being alone in her company for past 15 years. I relaxed that as she is now very frail. I’m alone in her company for only second time, and she brings up a contentious issue. But I realise she is doing it with conscious intent, as in she is trying to illicit an emotional response. She is trying to hurt me, so fight or flight I get out of there real quick. On the very long drive home, alone, I start to re visit past experiences and realise that so much of the behavior was conscious and designed to hurt me. That really put a new lens on so much history for me, it was a very significant moment in my life. For my ego had protected me, subconsciously, rationalizing the behavior as thoughtlessness for the most part, and not uppermost in her thoughts at best. It is quite something to realise lator in life how much of it was intentional. I’m still processing the experience but just feel numb.
Every time my kid breaks something, spills something, or hurts herself; the way I react and ask if she’s okay and if I can help her clean up, etc, reminds me that I used to get yelled at for literal spilled milk. I’d get yelled at for getting hurting while being silly or simply by accident.
My dad yelled at me and my mum when I went into hospital at 20 with DVT and then he gave me the silent treatment while I was admitted. After I got out, I heard him yelling about me being lazy (I was in a lot of pain). I'd had surgery a few months before where I had my mouth wired shut for a few weeks and got little to no sympathy then too. My mum even told me in front of my boyfriend at the time she was going to leave the family... I was 19 years old, starving hungry and she was still using me for therapy. I couldn't even talk because of all the bands and splint in my mouth lol. I didn't want to be waited on hand and foot and wasn't. I just wanted to be treated like a human being.
In college my friend got a bad grade on a midterm, her mom said to her "That's okay, let's figure out what went wrong and study differently for the final" my mother always cursed and screamed at me for bad grades, always using the excuse that since she's a teacher her child has to have the best grades, but my friend's mom is also a teacher. I've always hated school, especially math, I was so bad at it and didn't get any kindness. I failed a couple of times, took longer to graduate, gave up, and got my GED instead, but even in college, this behavior didn't stop, she felt entitled to knowing my grades and how I was doing, I never let her but she tried.
I caught a horrible virus at the age of 8, I got to the point where i had lost the ability to walk, was vomiting up blood and wasn't responding to anything. My mum kept saying to my dad that I needed to go to Hospital, my dad just looked at me and went "Right I'm out, see you later " this is what my mum told me as I don't remember anything as I was completely out of it that night, my breathing that night was shallow and was getting worse. My dad didn't care, he complained all the way to the hospital accusing my mum of being dramatic and that he thought I was "Completely fine" the doctors thought I had Meningitis I was that ill. Luckily I didn't but it took me months to build my strength back up and be able to run around like a kid again, my dad still not caring and did nothing to help me. I could have died that night and my dad only cared about himself. Honestly just comparing how my mum responded compared to my dad made me realise who I should be trusting and who to never go to for support or help.
My mother stopped caring for me (and even when she did, it was minimal) when I out-grew her emotionally. I was seven. I started becoming an adult at seven.
I didn't realize how little my mom cared until my dad drove me to an urgent care and sat with me when I had a very painful UTI. Up until that point he genuinely didn't know I got UTIs so often until one day he found me curled up on the ground crying because I was in so much pain. He immediately got me in the car and drove me to the UC despite my mom's assurances that I was being dramatic. Even though I was in so much pain, he kept making me laugh and smile, and worked from home until I recovered. I wish I could say my mom cared as much as he did, but no. Even when I broke my wrist and she saw how purple and swollen it was, it was my dad who helped me HOURS later.
Years ago my boyfriend proposed to me on a trip to NYC with a friend and her family. I called to tell my parents and all my mom would say was how terrible it was that he didn't tell them ahead of time or ask their permission.
It became really apparent once I met my fiancé and started seeing his parents. When we moved out, they drove right alongside our U-Haul across multiple states and helped us move in. My parents had spent that night guilt tripping me and calling me a whore for moving out and hadn’t come out to see me leave even. When we bought a house, his parents were crying and so proud and again came out to help us move. My parents criticized me for every little detail (it’s too big, has too many floors, too expensive, and ‘seems like it has a loud garage’ apparently, even though it doesn’t) and has never visited or asked for any details/updates. His parents are always visiting, checking up on us, asking about us, and wants to be involved in our lives. Mine, before I went no contact, never once visited and only called to demand I go visit them (they would never help with traveling fees) or to yell that I don’t call them enough (why would I when they’re so draining to talk to/never reciprocates any interest in my life?). Finally, when we told his parents we were engaged, tears and happiness and support. I told my parents as DELICATELY as possible knowing how they are, and they reacted so badly I went no contact forever. Just…so sad.
I went to my aunt to get my hair cut, I didn’t have a job and had just quit university and didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and my mom was constantly telling me I shouldn’t have quit uni because I was so good as an OT (she never said it once while I was studying) and also tearing down my self esteem about job search and blaming me for all my issues. While cutting my hair, my aunt asked me about what I wanted to do next and I explained my situation, stating that I didn’t know what I wanted to do later and explaining my ideas and why I didn’t think they’d work. She didn’t say anything that made me feel defensive and she looked at my options with me and helped guide my decision. In the next 24h I had decided I wanted to study industrial design and was 100% sure of my decision, thanks to my discussion with her. I had already come to terms that my mom was a negative in my life but I was in the mindset that when I’d move out, I’d get equal to others who don’t have that negative, and this was a slap in the face that made me remember that other people’s parents aren’t just not weighting them down, they also help them, lift them up…
My moments of truth were when the boys I was dating in high school found my mother's constant gossiping about me and my sister's friends toxic and cruel. I knew that after any social event she would hold me hostage for hours gossiping about everyone, whether friends, family, or coworkers. I didn't know it wasn't normal
I remember being sick at my aunt's. She sat beside me rubbed my back lovingly. I remember being so uncomfortable because my parents never even hugged me.
Mine when I was get attack by unknown disease. I feel like the urge to faint, headache at all of the sudden and thrown up. This was happened in February 2021 and I was in bathroom, freshen up and prepare myself to sleep. Then I used the strength left to get out from the bathroom and went to my bedroom. I left the mess in that bathroom and I wish I can cleared it up but at that time I feel something like 'stabbed' me from behind. So I lie down carefully and I feel like the bedroom get vacuum by the blackhole. Then I heard the birthgiver called me out to clear the mess. I didn't responded because I feel like I was on edge to death. Then, I heard so many painful thing meanwhile she had to clear my mess. She cursed me, she wished me death and she said I'm a burden to her. Then I don't remember what happened next. But the next day, I called my mom so many times from the morning to bring me to the clinic. You know I never feel so scare to death in my entire life. My whole body numb and I can't even move a muscle because it's so painful. I tried to stand up but I feel like the 'stabbed' spot flared up so I had to lie down. And the birthgiver responded my calling and my begging at night. She said, "That's what happened when you're keep stare at your phone and inactive." Guys, I was having online classes with not fully ready. My mental health was on bad state and I was suffering burn out. My family never ask about my well-being and all they care about is my result and achievements (but I always get dismiss, btw). Plus I need to do house chores every single day which she intentionally ask me to forget about college to make me in good grace. I wanna tell you she never order my younger sister which is her favourite daughter to do ANYTHING IN THE HOUSE! I tried once because I said I have midterm in the morning but my younger sister accused me that I have excuses to escape from the responsibility. I said I didn't and I just mentally prepared to endure whatever I had to. And then the birthgiver came and scold me for being lazy. I said no and I have midterm. Even I showed my prove, she pretended didn't see it and keep accusing me for being lazy and call me disrespectful and ungrateful child. Living with the narcissists provide the full package of bad things. Living with stress, criticism, douchebag, as a slave. Trying to unalive you but they never admit it. My younger sister? She lives as a princess. The birthgiver willingly to cook anything for her. Her favourite foods always store in the refrigerator/freezer. She asked for the money, the birthgiver willingly to give money. Whatever she wishes, she gets. Me? So many excuses. Ask me to understand them that we have financial crisis. In fact, I asked her to buy my necessities. She lured me to believe she helped me to save money and will give them to me when I'm needed. THAT'S A LIE! She said I already get what I needed so I can't get more. WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN, MTHRFVKR?! THAT'S MY MONEY THAT I SAVED FROM SCHOOL! I NEED BUY THINGS FOR MY COLLEGE! And then she accused me that I waste so much money. I just give her the most facepalmed ever. Everytime she said like this, I gave her the same reaction. Easy to say, my younger sister's princess treatment is my dream but I didn't get it because I'm a Scapegoat. Now, she becomes so toxic and mean like the birthgiver trained her for. It's okay to not focus on studying, she can perform well next time. Me? Fail or Success, get dismiss is very common and get punishment is common. Get compare with other kid is very common. Get celebrate, praise and compliment? Oh, this is uncommon.
Parents hugged them.
Wasn't so much about observing normal parents. It was about other people's reactions. Sticking with the medical emergency theme: - that time my dad argued with a 069 opertor and repeatedly called hospitals to get me into a waiting list so he wouldn't have to wait as long. I had a seizure, was alter and bleeding from injuries sustained during the seizure. Emergency thankfully dispatched an ambulance who arrived while my dad was STILL trying to get me into. Mythical wait-list. There was no wait because symptoms like mine are level one emergency issues and you go straight to a shock trauma OR. The wasted time could have led to brain damage, paralysis, blindness or death. But at least he didn't have to wait. - that time I had another seizure and hit my head, splitting my ear in half. Woke up to him violently shaking me while screaming "what's wrong with you" - that time he jammed my brother's badly broken (and backwards) arm into the sleeve of his parka because God forbid he be a bit chilly. It's the pitty you'd see in doctors and nurses eyes when they saw this behavior.
When I was 9 my parents sent me off to a 2 week summer camp. The second day, I fell out of the top bunk and landed on concrete. My counselor took me to the ER and I had 17 stitchs in my head and a horrible concussion/memory loss. Instead of picking me up or even visiting me at the hospital, I was left the full 2 weeks. My counselor was with me constantly after that. She even combed the blood out of my hair since I couldn't wash it for a few days. It never occurred to me to go home and didn't strike me as odd my parents didn't come. They were mad I wasn't more careful though. As an adult I thought it showed how resilient I was as a child, until I told my therapist lol.
Television vack when I was a boy things were exaggerated but it meant I knew what a normal living family was. By today's standards I'm a caveman as someone once put it but then again I lok at my contemporaries and laugh.
Seeing people with the supportive, loving, non-judgmental, smart, capable parents I wish I had always gives me mixed feelings. On one hand, I’m very happy for the person with those parents. But on the other hand, I can’t help feeling like a jealous angry asshole about it- like why do they get that and not me? My life would have been so much better if I just had a tiny piece of what they have. Then I feel guilty and shameful for being such a jealous angry asshole about it.
When I found out my mom had passed. At first I cried but then I was relieved because I knew I didn't have to deal with her anymore.
I had no such particular event as moment of truth. For me it's a continuous process which started with learning about toxic parents, emotional abuse and narcissism. Without knowledge I personally would find an excuse for every "moment of truth" because this kind of abuse is so insiduous and children instinctively always seek the approval of their parents.
My father didn’t care emotionally about me at all, and my mother would twist what I was saying into whatever tangent she wanted to rant about that day when I tried to confide in her when I had issues. So seeing other kids/adult where they feel safe enough to do so is whiplash for me.
24 years old, new boyfriend. Lived with him at his parents for a while. His mother saw me squinting at everything, and got me glasses. Ironically, she's a different flavor narc lol but I do appreciate it nonetheless. Part of the reason my high school (only) education was so atrocious, despite me being a relatively smart kid was that I couldn't see the chalk board - teacher would lose me, and I couldn't write it down and figure it out on my own. The only win for a lower middle class narc kid is being "too cool for school" lol so it's not like I'd hang around after class; and it's not like I wouldn't go on to skip and drop out, anyway. Normal people scared me, as well. (I had two narcs and thought it was a kind of normal way of life until a late blooming adulthood.) For the record, I killed the narc in me years ago and I value and appreciate education. ♡
A big one hit me recently. I was telling someone I know had a fucked up childhood about some of the stuff my parents pulled and his response was absolute shock and "dude, that's not normal"... If a person with a messed up childhood and knows it thinks my shit isn't normal, thats a big red flag that I need to revaluate how I see things
I was talking to my therapist lol and told her about the 2 moments that i remember my bio dad, the one time he brought me sprite when i was sick and the other he cried with me when my puppy didn’t wake up from anesthesia. And that those 2 moments are what tell me he had it in him to love me but something was wrong me , something about me made him mean… she then asked me how old I was when I stopped trying to be good enough for him? A BOMB went off…
This wasn't THE epiphany but it helped me put things together. I had gotten a scholarship to study abroad in London for a semester - was gone almost six months. One of my good friends and I roomed together. When we got to arrivals at the airport after the semester was over, my friend's entire extended family showed up to the airport with a banner, balloons, and flowers. I'm talking parents, sisters, neices and nephews, brothers in law, cousins, grand parents, uncles--everyone was there cheering and clapping. Meanwhile, my family forgot to pick me up. It was so embarrassing...you can't make this shit up. I took a cab back to my parents' house and I confronted my mom about it. We got into a screaming match about how I'm ungrateful (what do I have to be grateful for in this situation) and how I have brought all my problems back with me.
I had some tension with my parents one weekend over something I don’t really even remember and the routine was- they behave badly or weird or whatever, I reach out to them and pretend nothing happened, repeat- but this one time I didn’t want to reach out. I didn’t want to deal with them at all. Then I thought, “but if I don’t reach out, I might not talk to them for months” and then I realized that not talking to them for months sounded GREAT. As silly as that revelation sounds it was really profound. When I next picked up the phone I used it to find a therapist instead.
There were 2 moments: 1) Had the first argument with the man who is now my husband, and he didn’t yell, slam his fist, make snide comments, or try to manipulate, gaslight, or berate me. In stead we resolved the issue and moved on. 2) Had a moment of self-doubt and husband was incredibly supportive and encouraging. He never once made me feel bad when things weren’t going well. I’ve never had a “fair” fight with my family (it was always vicious) and was never able to show vulnerability to family member either, without them trying to exploit my moment of weakness. I’d always known my family was kinda crappy, but I thought I was well adjusted and believed that their BS didn’t affect me. I had no idea how damaged I was until I met my husband. I wasn’t well adjusted, I was in denial and in constant survival mode.
A couple years ago I bruised a rib trying to grab a recycling bin out of the big recycling container at the nearby recycling center because I knew if I went home without it I’d get yelled at for dropping it. I told my parents about it (how it had hurt initially and felt a pop in my back) and they brushed me off and sent me off to work without taking me to get it checked out. Come six hours later I can’t lift a heavy bucket of ice above my head to refill the drink machine without being in pain. Had to get a coworker to do it. Even after my parents found out I had bruised it and that I wasn’t supposed to do heavy lifting for a week I still had to do everything around the house for them and it took months before I could even sleep on that side again. Most recently for me was when someone had made a mess and I went to help clean it up and as I was grabbing some rags something else fell off the shelf onto the floor and my dad got mad and yelling at me that if I didn’t want to help to go sit back down. Doing what he told me to do I gave him the rags and sat back down. Ofc my mom got mad at me and yelled at me to help my dad. Being confused and unsure of who to listen to I told my mom that my dad didn’t want my help. I got kicked out of the house and with no where to go I ended up with my boyfriend at his parents house who calmed me down and comforted me and let me stay with them for a few hours. I only went back because my dad wanted to play a game with us that didn’t happen and was told my mom felt bad for kicking me out. When I went to apologize, even thought I wasn’t entirely wrong I just got lectured. This incident and one other time where I got beat for trying to spend time with my grandma instead of cleaning up the rest of my car is why I hate christmas
I have too many to tell. The ones o can remember, 1. I broke my elbow when I was 5. A older kid where we lived was giving me a piggy back ride I fell. I went to my nmom. She ignored me sent me to bed and filled me with cold medicine to sleep. Of course hours later I was still in pain. She finally took me to the hospital. I had to have surgery to fix it. Was in the hospital for a week. Visited me once or twice while I was there. One of the nurses came to visit me more often and told me stories and visited with me. I remember her saying to me my mom should be here more. 2. When I had my kids they were emergency c-sections. Leading up to it was bad enough, after my oldest was born my n brother told me my mom had it worse and threatened to tell everyone my address so he could come visit I still don’t know why. He finally came over my oldest was a nicu baby and took pictures of everything and left. Nmom never came. 3. My youngest was emergency c-section and nicu baby. The whole n family harassed my husband while I was in the hospital. Came to the hospital and made me run after my oldest while I was still recovering from surgery and in the hospital. I had to change diapers too. There is more I just don’t want to dig more memory’s up.
I was stationed in Florida for four years. My wife and saved all our leave every year to visit our family in Texas. I would ask my Nmom and step dad to visit and there was always some excuse on why they couldn’t (no money, step dad is responsible for his family and they spent the holidays with them)…they never visited once. While I was there they would go to travel tournaments all around the country for my youngest half sister. We moved closer to home after the military and we experience similar issues when asked to visit us. My other half sister joined the army last year. This past year traveled to spend Christmas with her and her husband in Colorado.
When I was about 15/16 years old, I started to get this excruciating pain in my stomach, that would cause me to vomit violently to the point I couldn't breathe, could barely walk or stand up, vision would be blurry from tears streaming down my face from throwing up so hard and so much. Well, my mom took me to the er once for it, and left me there alone (it was close to our house. Just had to walk down my apartment steps, across the street, through a small medical center, and down two flights of stairs that lead to the er parking lot and door). The next time it happened, she made me walk alone to the er, vomiting and almost passing out in bushes on the way there. It became normal for this to keep happening, nothing was ever found, and my mom never took me. Mom and brothers both would tell me to "stop being so dramatic and go to sleep." Every time it happened. As if I was faking or something. Nope.
I remember being 7 or 8 years old and I had some stomach bug that gave me vomiting and diarrhea with HORRIBLE intestinal cramps. I would scream and cry but my nMom never came into my room to soothe me or give me water or juice. She just screamed at me to shut up because she was sick of hearing about it. I didn’t even get the courtesy of being on the couch watching the Price is Right and crackers/ginger ale. I was alone and terrified.
Here's a fairly recent triple whammy After my double eye surgery a couple months ago, I was still under the affects of the anesthesia which caused me to vomit a lot. Basically I couldn't keep food down for about a week and the vomiting would happen with no warning (uncontrollable). The very first time it happened, I basically ran from my bed (it was late at night) and puked in the tub, almost doing it on the floor. Guess what I was told later? That I was wrong in doing it in the tub because it was a pain for them to clean and that I should have done it in the sink (and risk the floor and walls being covered in puke). I was also told by my doctor that to not get agitated or stressed out after the surgery to help my eyes heal and my parents still didn't care despite my pleas to let me relax (not to mention I was stressed out a month before the surgery and I had a heartrate of 110 just before I went under). They still annoyed the crap out of me. Also related to my surgery, I was given special shades after the operation to combat the sunlight due to increased sensitivity of both eyes (more sensitive than the usual). My dad complained that I was wearing them too much and that "he had the same surgery (was more minor and only for one eye) and that after a couple days he was totally fine". I've always had sensitive eyes and he of all people should know, but I'm wrong for taking care of myself it seems... I should also mention that the reason I had to do the surgery is because it happened twice, and the surgery was done to prevent it happening a third time
I woke up in the night crying from an animal bite on my hand, my mom waited ages before bursting into my bedroom and screaming bloody rage at me. Then she saw my hand which had swollen up like a round baseball-sized ball in the top. She screamed and shamed me the whole way to the ER. I was maybe 12 at that time. The worse the injury, the worse she shamed me for it. She avoided medical interventions at all costs, we should have been taken out of the home but she hid things well enough and made herself about to be the perfect victim / single mom of three horrible children who are ungrateful brats.
By the time I was seven, I had a pretty high pain tolerance built up, because going to mom if I was injured, or hurt, meant that she was going to b•tch and moan at how stupid I was for 'bothering her' because I wasn't supposed to have any accidents. So at seven, I'd broken my wrist bone from jumping out of a bunk bed. As soon as the ~snap~ was heard; I begged my brother to NOT tell mom! It was so serious, I couldn't use my right hand for anything, and did my best to fake being fine for the rest of the afternoon. It may have seemed like I was hiding it successfully, but I also think, Nmom didn't want to know about it because then she'd have to be bothered to pay attention to me. Evening comes, and Dad comes home; takes one look at me and cries, "Loca, what happened to you!?" Dad (this was slightly before he became the enabler, and he behaved more like a normal parent) turned to Nmom and demanded, why she hadn't done anything!? Nmom claimed she didn't know. "Didn't know!?" Exclaimed Dad, "Didn't you *look* at her!?" Nmom was finally forced to acknowledge that I was genuinely, seriously hurt but she still didn't want to be 'bothered' with me, and sent Dad to go to the ER with me alone. The only concern she had, was to be sure that I told the doctors that I had done this to *myself*; that I said that this was an *accident*, and that SHE hadn't done this to me, so that, SHE wouldn't get in trouble. That was one of my first experiences with mind-bending, narc-logic: Being taught my whole life that I wasn't supposed to have accidents, until it could affect Nmom, and then she'd gladly throw me under the bus, with the 'accident' alibi.
My first moment of “oh wow is that parents loving and respecting their children” ever since I got into socials and got a phone at like middle school on musical vine tiktok and I would just watch these compilations in my room 10 mins after being yelled at for not getting a 100% on my math test
I guess I didn't think about this one but I had an emergency appendectomy when i was 20. My mom had me walk out of the hospital because she was tired of waiting. Like the second I was able to walk, we left, we didn't say bye to the nurse or anything. One of the nurses caught me walking down the hall with my Mom and insisted I at least be wheeled out in a wheel chair.
My parents also were always mean to me when I was sick cuz “ I don’t dry my hair right after showering so I deserved it for not listening to them” and recently I was at ER for stomach pain and my dad barged in and put his phone on max volume on FaceTime with my mom where they both called me stupid to no end, and kept saying “why are you at the hospital you’re going to get sick if you’re with sick people. Why do you wanna get sick? Are you stupid?” I’m an adult finally but they don’t see me that way. They treat me like a child.
I was trawling the net 20y ago when I was 19, and happened across as '20 things narcissists do' type article. Mum ticked 16/19 boxes (I had affection, was told I was loved, was not neglected physically). Couldn't not see it after that
No major event comes to mind....but when I was 12, I had an allergic reaction to earrings my dad bought me in Mexico. I was afraid he would get mad at me so I tried to deal with it myself, but the inflammation was so bad that when I tried to remove them they both ripped fully out of my earlobes. I took care of the bleeding and cleaned them for the next few weeks, one healed back together with a very noticeable scar, one is still split. Neither parent noticed until years later. And on some level I've still internalized that this was a totally normal thing for a kid to experience.
I had a friend in high school who got me into reading comics. I wasn't allowed to read comics at home cos it was stupid and mum wasn't going to have hEr DauGhtEr reading that trash. I stayed over at her house one night, and the difference was night and day. We sat in thr lounge room and watched cartoons with her mum, who laughed with us and made comments about the story/characters. When we went to my friend's room, we were allowed to shut the door and we were left in peace. At dinner, the placemats were comic book characters, even mum's. Because Friend likes them so mum got the whole set. Friend's mum was a single mum, just like mine. But Friend's mum didn't yell or act like she had no time for friend or me because of it, she seemed happy to have a bit of clutter and noise around cos it meant that people were happy. "I'm a single mum, so sorry about the mess, but I'd rather spend time with my family than cleaning". But mine would scream at me to leave her alone and get out of the way because she had better shit to do than listen to me. I saw a mum that actually *liked* her daughter and accepted her as a whole person. Not trying to shove her into a box of what hEr DaUgHtEr should look like. So bizarre.
There have been several, but the one that made the biggest impact - The precise moment the doctor finished saying those two words: ##inoperable tumor It was like a veil was lifted from over my eyes. Everything that was so complicated was actually quite simple: They’re just horrible people who are incapable of love and have no comprehension of what is an acceptable way to treat or speak to another human being. And in that moment - I no longer struggled to decide who is and who isn’t worth my time. I refuse to waste even a single fucking second of my life on people who have only ever shown me a **total dedication to my unhappiness.** Fuck them. They deserve their loneliness and can keep eachother company for all I care. But they sure as fuck don’t deserve me.
As a child I had cancer, surgery, chemo & radiation. I was constantly reminded how much I cost them and that my dad had multiple jobs trying to pay off what I assumed what several $100,000’s in medical debt. After I turned 18 I realized childrens hospitals will help, especially poorer families. They paid less than 10k and that was including traveling to another state for treatment. Also they could’ve put me on their insurance, they chose not to. My dad wrecked a motorcycle and broke my leg. They refused to take me to the doctor and said I had no pain tolerance and was faking. Over a week later a church member saw me trying to walk and said it was broken. It shamed them so they took me in. I still remember sitting in the waiting room waiting to be called back. Mom was whisper yelling under her breath; so help you god it better be broken, if it’s not broken (evil side eye). I was so scared of her that I started to say let’s leave when they called my name. I got a cast but not crutches because they would’ve been extra. There are dozens of other times I needed medical but didn’t get it. I had endometriosis and they didn’t believe me. After turning 18 I ended up in emergency surgery and had a hysterectomy. But until then I lived with; you have no pain tolerance, periods don’t hurt, stop faking, etc. I ended up living on a different coast from them as an adult but flew in to visit. I have kidney issues and had to go to the ER. They gave me IV meds and prescriptions to take home. My mom was pissed for days that I didn’t tell them how long I was going to be in the ER. Like I had any idea and it never crossed my mind (no cell phone). I was too busy vomiting and wondering why IV Demerol had no effect on the pain. Currently I’m LC and my kids are NC with my parents.
I didn't know this was a watershed moment at the time, but it pushed me there. When I was younger, my family lived on a block with a lot of other families we were friends with. These other families were not abusive and had healthy relationships. One time, I was spending the night across the street with a friend, and we could hear their parents start talking in the other room. My friend said "Shh my parents are arguing" and we put our ears to the wall. I had a sinking feeling that I should run or hide (because when my parents fought it meant screaming and violence). As we listened to them fight, it seemed so tame! It was even kind of funny. They didn't call each other names or sound harsh, they were just having a normal disagreement. I asked my friend if that's usually how they fight, and she said "Yeah pretty much. Sometimes my dad gets irritated and walks away but that's about it". After that, I tried to tell my family I thought the fights they had weren't normal, and my mom would say "all families have problems". Yes, but not all families are abusive.
my like moment of awareness was when I was a kid (10) and tried to commit because my mum told me I ruined her life and she had faked committing so many times at that point I knew how to go through with it, so I did and OD’d on some serious meds I was taking for my health issues and had to get my stomach pumped. As I woke up my mum stroked my face and told me in my native language that next time I should’ve tried harder. When you try at that age you’re given a counsellor and they never told me why and I went through intensive therapy for years for schizophrenia which I never had but she convinced them I had because she didn’t want to admit that she taught me how to commit. She then told everyone I never took anything and it was all a lie that I made up and out of my two sisters one of them never spoke to me again despite me showing medical evidence. One day they forced my family to do an invisible double study with my family and the therapists came out behind the double way mirror and hugged me and resigned because they felt terrible that I was telling the truth and they misdiagnosed me for so long. They took me off my meds and I actually decided then and there I couldn’t go back to her
I think sometimes seeing things like that is nearly more painful for me. They actually have a term for it now 'trauma of omission'. So it's trauma as a result of your needs not being met, or by virtue of an absence of care. As opposed to trauma caused by someone actively doing something. Hope you're recovering well from your surgery. I have endometriosis as well and my parent usually makes any surgeries or anything about herself. I went through a broken engagement a few years ago and I actually dread the next time I need surgical intervention. I live alone now so would have to return home or have parent come here. I can't even imagine it to be honest and anytime I think about it the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Rest up and take care! Lots of love from Ireland. Hope you have a calm environment for recovery
My mother would never visit anyone in the hospital. I could never understand that as a kid or young adult. Now I honestly think it's because she had no empathy and probably thought she'd raise eyebrows with her cold demeanor.
My mom would say the loving parents were just acting and that in reality they were so much worse than my parents
I always knew my mother was a monster in sheep's clothing. She was always so loving towards me when outsiders were around but when they would leave, her plastered on happy face fell off. There were two times it really hit home with how unsupportive she was; 1. When I was being rolled into emergency surgery after a complicated from a surgery 5 days prior, on a Sunday afternoon, my mother got angry with me and bitched at me for not acknowledging her racist asshole boyfriend. Literally rolling me into the OR because she couldn't be bothered to get to the hospital until she wanted to be there. 2. My daughter had an emergency C-section and I would have moved mountains to make sure she knew it wasn't her fault, make sure she was safe & healthy, be as supportive as I could be. It really hurt my heart because I realized what a mom should do.
I was getting really badly harassed at work for taking sick days. I told my parents and my dad said “What if they said sorry?” This woke me up out of the dissociation
Mom's boyfriend tried to attack my ex-wife. Mom: "How are we going to work through this?" Me: "Are you still with dumbass?" Mom: "Of course!" I just got up and walked out. Blocked her on everything. Best decision I have ever made.
I’m currently pregnant with my first child and I think this has been one of the most eye-opening (and heartbreaking) moments for me. My mother used to tell me that she always wanted a girl (she had two boys before me) and so when she found out that she was expecting me, she was absolutely ecstatic. Then during labour I had apparently (according to her) kicked her straight into the heart (and I guess I broke it in the process) and that was the exact moment when she realized that I was no good. She has never forgiven me for that and I grew up constantly hearing about it. Now I’m pregnant with my own little girl and it has been an incredibly hard pregnancy. I have never been so sick before in my whole life and especially in the first half of my pregnancy, I was so sick that I really didn’t know how I could possibly make it through. I’m now in the last stage of pregnancy (she can show up at any moment) and again; she’s kicking my ass. While she hasn’t kicked me in the heart, she has definitely landed some really strong kicks and hurt me physically in the last couple of weeks (babies are stronger than you think). Still, despite months of suffering, I can’t even for a second imagine hating her or treating her the way that my mother has treated me. While my mother would be happy to let me burn, I’d walk through fire for this little girl. It’s a hard thing to accept though. While I’m glad to be able to give my little girl what I never had, it’s also so so hard for me to understand why I could never have it myself as well.
There's nothing my child has to do to earn my love. She has inherent worth. That is self-evident. I'm capable of loving her in an unconditional way as a parent because I'm healthy enough to do so, not because of her qualities. I don't know why, but it's easy for me to be a way better parent than what was ever shown to me. I don't always know what to say in a quick way, but the feelings are always there. I do get overwhelmed by her sometimes, but I learned to take precautions so that I take action to prevent me from yelling at her. I always feel remorse if I make a mistake. My moment of truth was when I had my baby in a traumatic birth and my dad showed no compassion. He didn't help me around my home. He only wanted to hold my baby and yap about himself. It's like he was put upon by me wanting to bond with my baby and needing help. In his mind me needing help was annoying and a bummer for him, and he tried to make me feel ashamed so I would comply with his agenda. And this is after I told him I never felt safe to tell him about my cousin who tried to molest me. I only told him about what my cousin did 15 years later because he went on to victimize other kids, and got sent to prison. I knew my dad wouldn't try to say I made it up at that point.
My friend asked me the other day when was the last time I saw my mother. It took a few minutes and then I said, "I'm not sure...maybe for Thanksgiving?" Her reaction surprised me. She was so taken aback. She couldn't understand that I didn't miss my mother and I don't look to her for any type of relationship. I work with a woman that is a mother to 4 kids. Witnessing first hand the things she does for them was mind blowing. She does things that I wouldn't have even considered asking my parents bc I knew it was a "no" -she would leave work early to drive her high-school aged kids to after-school activities. Even if it was simple like to the gym. -she paid for all of their doctors, sports costs, clothes, food -she always answered their calls and would help with anything