1. Hello? I’m Here
My mom didn’t even bother coming to my college graduation because my younger sister had a softball game. It wasn’t an important game or anything, but she’s a narcissist who lived through my sister’s sports achievements, so she valued that more than my achievement that she couldn’t use to boost her own self-esteem.
I graduated with a 4.0, but never got so much as a pat on the back from either parent for it.
My parents never even mentioned it to me. I hung my award on the fridge myself.
It felt bad.
Edit to add another story: I also got the top score (5) on all my AP tests for two years in a row in high school, so I got a special award from NY State.
It was so sad.
PauseAndReflect
2. Edge of a Cliff
Years ago, I was in the hospital after getting into a serious accident. Went under and the EMS had to bring me back, woke up in the hospital full of stitches, but still alive.
I had a really great group of friends that came throughout the weeks of my being there. To the point that I got my own room because it was disturbing fellow patients I shared a room with and the staff were super nice about it.
The only family member to visit was my younger sister. My mom, dad, other four siblings.... None of them came, and my mom only phoned and communicated to me through the nurses, never speaking directly to me until I was back at home.
And this was during a time when we actually had a decent (compared to other times in life) relationship.
Wage_slave
3. Emotional Support
Something I've noticed with mine is that they just don't have the skills or vocabulary to really deal with my personal issues. I've always struggled with depression on a chemical level, and my mom spent a lot of time yelling at me and getting frustrated with me about it.
A lot of "everyone else manages, why can't you?" or calling me lazy.
As I've gotten older and educated myself, I've learned how to understand my depression and how to manage it better. I think she just couldn't understand how someone's brain can just randomly fudge up, and that made her mad and frustrated and she thought I was lying.
We've talked about it as adults and tried to give her another chance now that I can articulate myself better, but it'll always be something she doesn't understand and doesn't really seem to want to understand.
I told her once that I've thought about antidepressants but I was scared because I don't want to get them, they help, but something happens to my already crappy insurance, and then I lose them for whatever reason.
I just got a blank look back and she told me to pray on it haha
My family is like that about a lot of things. Problems that they don't directly experience aren't real and those people just need to stop whining and buck up.
I made the decision from a young age to never be like that and to always try to understand others' experiences.
I never want to be like them or make anyone else feel like that.
peepeemint3
4. All on me
My first memory is of my parents fighting when I was 3. I remember my mom looking at my dad.
Mom: [yelling] This is why we’re getting a divorce
They separated when I was two, but took some time to figure out custody, as well as the actual finalization of their divorce.
My mom was always so angry and would scream, throw things, and tell me consistently she didn’t want me around. I finally had a breaking point with my mom the day before I turned 17.
We got into a huge fight and I finally realized that she was just taking out the aggression of her past on me.
I realized she had been blocking out the abuse she put me through, and finally brought it to her attention. I know her mother was an abusive alcoholic, and she kept perpetuating this cycle of abuse.
What triggered the whole realization, was when I dated someone for the first time when I was 16, and my bf’s mom treated me like her own.
It was the first time I felt welcome in a home, she made sure I ate because she knew I wasn’t eating properly at home, she always had a bed made for me in case I ever needed a place to stay, and would always check in with my bf to make sure I was okay when I went home.
I moved out the month I graduated high school, and I have not gone back to her house.
Rocksanne76
5. Like a Dog
Bill Burr told a joke
No one thinks they have an anger problem until they punch out the clown at their kid's birthday party
For whatever reason it really made me step back and ask why the heck am I so angry all the god damn time? Because my parents never wanted a kid so they raised me like a dog.
Parents: You've got treats! You've got toys! Food and shelter! Why do you keep bothering me?
When I dropped out of high school I was practically god damn feral. No social skills, no discipline, not even a personality.
The end result of neglect and emotional abuse.
It is been a real trip to experience a supportive, emotional, and loving relationship for the first time as an adult though. I've really got the most wonderful wife on the planet.
edit: People are still reading this so I kind of want to pull this back a bit. My parents aren't bad people they are victims of far worse abuse.
My grandfather was straight off the set of Mad Men. Insert anchorman gif here. Bill Burr talks a lot about generational improvement and that's the way I really view this.
It excites me to think that if I work hard enough on my own problems my kids will be the "chosen ones" who get to be the right mix of freaked-up and normal.
SpaceMarineSpiff
6. Hit Hard
My wife helped me come to the realization. Out of myself and my two brothers, I was the only one to have never been arrested, yet I was the only one my parents did not buy a car for.
I had to be moved out of the house, two freaking states away and teach myself how to drive illegally to get my driver's license, but my brothers were sure taken care of and driving to school on their own.
I had my wife (girlfriend at the time) over to my parents for Christmas dinner. My mom offers me a glass of champagne, about 2 months before my 21st birthday. No big deal, right?
My stepdad proceeds to throw a temper tantrum about how I’m underage and not in his house and all this crap. Well a couple of months later found out he bought my little brother ( his biological child) a bottle of high-end bourbon for his 18th birthday.
When I was in the service they had a whole bunch of deep sea fishing trips and pro sports games they would go to without even so much as asking if I could come. They didn't come to my boot camp graduation that I offered to pay for.
They didn't see me off when I was deployed and wasn't there when I came back. Great times.
Much more crap I can't think of right now.
[deleted]
7. Unsolicited Comments
I was at my grandmother's house and there was a guy outside working in the yard. I'd say roughly mid to late '30s, kinda disheveled appearance. And he had talked to my parents about payment for work and what else had to be done and all that jazz.
He goes back to working and my mom comments on his appearance and how he may have "not gone to school." I called her out on it, especially since my parents go to church and keep Christian paraphernalia around the house.
She stumbled for an excuse but couldn't find one to justify her behavior.
My dad in particular tends to talk crap about anyone who either he feels is beneath him or that he feels is "dumb."
betterplanwithchan
8. Mother of Gaslighting
When my mom yelled at me for being depressed. She was saying how rude and inconvenient it was for everyone around me that I was depressed. She was screaming so hard that her face was all red.
She screamed at me frequently. She would always wait until I was in the car with her because I would be unable to leave. I stopped talking to her after that and she played the victim.
She apparently was suffering because she was “abandoned by her daughter”. No one in my family wanted to hear my side of things, no one reached out to check in on me.
I was made out to be the bad selfish daughter. Now, I don’t have a relationship with anyone in my family. I cut both my parents off after I realized they both would not change or get help or see if they ever did anything wrong.
It’s been tough to deal with the emotions of it all, especially the emotions I felt when I was younger and in their care. I’ve been working on it with therapy for a few years now. But it’s been a necessary decision for me to cut those ties.
So I can focus on myself and my growth and healing the parts of me that have been broken from my past.
Keep-keep
9. Not Normal at All
When my mom and dad finally separated because they finally admitted that all that fighting wasn't normal. I'd talked to them in my young teens about how I hated how they fought so much, and my mom said all married couples fight like that and that it was normal.
Now I'm 18 and they separated this year, and they realized it is not normal or healthy to have "discussions" that involve screaming, tears, clenched fists, and everything short of physically harming each other nearly every day.
Neither of them is abusive, they are both good parents but they were just in a bad relationship and thought that staying together would make me and my sisters happier, when in reality I wish they would've separated years ago.
They brought out the worst in each other.
And my mom came out as lesbian so part of the reason she was angry all the time was from repressing her sexuality.
slekrons
10. Unwelcomed Peanuts
The family from my dad
My DEAR (note the sarcasm) cousin Stephannie made a peanut cake (the flour had peanuts, it had peanut butter, peanut chocolate, and peanut chunks) on her twin's 17th birthday and obviously hers, I'm very allergic to peanuts and she knew it.
I refused to eat it for obvious reasons, Stephannie shed some crocodile tears as she said that she had lovingly made the cake so we could all eat it.
Between my Aunt Karen, her husband, and my paternal grandparents they forced me to eat a HUGE piece of that cake while Sophie (Stephannie's twin and birthday girl that day) called out for emergencies outside the house.
I almost died, but everyone who forced me to eat that piece of cake spent only 3 years in jail because "they did not know about my allergy and I was a rebellious teenager who was very picky about food."
Some of my father's brothers and sisters (who were at the birthday and did nothing) say it was too immature of me to sue them after they nearly killed me.
I was 14 years old, Stephannie and Sophie that day they turned 17.
Brooke_Myers
11. Grandma is my Hater
I will mention one episode only that particularly hit me, as toxicity in my family is basically the norm.
I was around 7-8 years old and my grandfather (my mother's father) had given me as a present a plush of Mufasa and baby Simba from The Lion King. After visiting him, my parents and I went to my grandmother (my father's mother). I had my plush with me.
We stayed at her place for 3-4 days. When it was time to leave, I was collecting my stuff but I couldn't find the baby Simba anywhere. My mother asked my grandmother if she had seen the plush anywhere and she said no.
Also, she commented "She (referring to me) is spoiled" because, in her opinion, I wasn't good enough at taking care of my things. I left with Mufasa only and without baby Simba.
One year after we visited my grandmother again. I went to the living room and, in one corner, my grandmother had put all the toys of my cousins, so that they could find them easily when they were going to visit her.
And... well, together with a giant doll, kitchen utensils and children books, there was my baby Simba plush. My grandmother had taken it away from me to give it to my cousins. Same for a music cassette of mine.
I will just stop here because this is only the tip of the iceberg. I have spent my whole life watching my parents fight, giving silent treatment to each other or anyone else, even me.
I feel threatened by my father in general who once called me "bastard" because I had a face while we were moving in the new house (I was very tired and probably had a cold)
I could make an infinite list here for you guys but I would rather not uncover my Pandora's vase unless for the therapeutic reason (I am on CBT atm).
Thank you for reading.
[deleted]
12. Wrong Family
I married into a toxic family.
My husband realized it when his sister attacked me (verbally out of the blue) to him for an hour...and then blamed him for making her husband hate the entire family... Everyone else in the family who was within earshot all claimed to have not noticed or heard anything. It was loud and long.
They knew. He was pretty shell-shocked by the whole thing. It was ignored and NEVER resolved or discussed.
It's a very large family.
I have been the black sheep ever since even though I wasn't even in the 'fight'.I would actually take responsibility for anything if I knew what made her so mad at the time.
I apologized to her and she has never even admitted anything happened. She was having a really tough time in her marriage and is now divorced.
We didn't live in town so each visit was a nice and pleasant and we all got along fine prior to this.
macarowknee
13. Mad Sister
When my sister consistently beat me every day my entire life until I was 23 and finally had enough. Every time I asked my mom to intervene I was told "it's just sibling rivalry" and to "just not react".
Eventually, she beat me severely when I was 23, broke my phone, and kicked me out of her house (which I was only at because she made my mom force me to go babysit her kid so she could go squeeze out another one) in the middle of the night on the edge of a dangerous area with my belongings.
I was picked up (still hysterical) by police reservists an hour later and they went out of their way to get me to safety and get my friends to fetch me from a well-lit gas station. They suggested I go to the police and lay charges.
I did. My family disowned me for laying charges against blood, even though I never pursued the case. My mother and her sister came to visit, sat in my home a year later, and told me the beating never happened.
They said I imagined it all and anyway she was excused for beating me because she was hormonal due to being pregnant.
My mother knew, of course, that I had just been forced through an abortion a month before and was also hormonal, but conveniently forgot. Crap like this was my every day until I married my best friend.
Now it's just emotional manipulation I have to deal with. My sister threatened me once after that night. I told her to go ahead but if she did I would pursue the case and they would take her babies away after sending her to jail.
She never touched me again.
CelticAngelica
14. Uneasy to Fix
When I was sexually assaulted and my family thought I could be “fixed”. It made me nervous to tell them it was just one tme and it wasn’t just one person.
The only reason I had to tell them was being I got low grades for two consecutive semesters because one of them was on campus, leading to me being kicked out.
When I told my mom, she got upset and left - which I can understand now because it’s a lot to take in, but it hurt that her reaction was being upset and leaving.
After a year and a half of therapy, I ended up going joining a program for an ED. The program was exhausting because we had a lot of “check-ins” and had to open up about a lot of things.
My mom would threaten me saying she’d take me off her insurance which meant I would have to leave the program prematurely.
Now, 24, she holds things over my head and expects me to ask permission to go somewhere....talk about controlling....
laurenlfraz
15. Mixed Emotions
I (14yo F) finally had my wake-up call sometime in late 2019, as we had been preparing to move (For the 5th time) across the country. I was quite happy where we were before the move, and was sad to have to leave another place behind.
Once we had left our house, and finally got to our new house, things started to go downhill. We all fought way more, like, many times a day, yelling, and tears.
But the thing is, I thought everything was normal because my mom or dad (or both) would start yelling at me over things that didn't need to be fought over. (For example, forgetting my dinner plate on the table, my puppy having an accident on the floor, even though we had only had him for a week or so at this point, and he was still being trained, etc)
But then, sometime around 15-20 minutes after the fight, they would act like all was normal, and act all nice again to me, then repeat the process again a few more times that day.
In the past few months, I've started accepting the fact that I don't really want them in my life once I move out, but I'm not sure how financially ready I'll be, because (as I mentioned earlier)
I have my dog to look after, (fully grown, house trained, and over a year old now) and I'm not sure how I'll take him with me, as I plan on going to college for my bachelor's degree, (not sure for what yet) and can't think of life without him, as he's the shoulder I cry on most of the time.
I'm writing this now, as today I got in a very large fight with my mom and dad. For some backstory, my dad's work involves working with the coastguard, and governor of our state to help with the pandemic, so he hasn't had a day off work since the beginning of July.
Since I don't get much time to spend with him anymore, I've asked him everyday after work to do something small with me (whether that's play chess, go on a walk, etc)
Today he finally said sure, and said we could walk up to our pond.
But the thing is, he had yelled at me earlier for asking every day, so I was suspicious as to why he was doing something with me now.
So on our way up, I mentioned (among other things) that I had about 30 minutes before I had to go in, as that's when the mosquitos came out, and that they come for me pretty bad, and I didn't want to get eaten alive. He brushed it off and kept talking.
While we were there, I tried being honest with him (my family doesn't really communicate well, so I was seeing if I could) and told him I was upset we don't do anything anymore, and he yelled at me about how I'm so "self-centered" and "whined whenever I didn't get what I wanted".
After he yelled at me, I tried leaving, but he made me sit there with him for upwards of 10 minutes as some sort of punishment for being honest. When I finally got back to the house, I came to my mom about him, and at that point I started crying, as I just wanted him to act more like my dad, and was telling her how I felt, and my dad overheard, came outside, and started yelling at me about how I'm an "arrogant brat who does nothing but talk back".
My mom started to side with him, so I started to go from sad to angry, so I started yelling back (not proud of this), while still trying to convey that I just wanted my own dad to just do something with me, as all he does when he's home is sit and watch TV.
Yes, I know my dad is probably stressed from work, and I know he can't do much physical stuff, as he has lupus (and autoimmune disorder), but I don't believe that he should be taking that out on his children.
I also make sure I try not to ask too much of him for those reasons, and because we don't have that much money to spare, as we had to live in a hotel for a few months (something with the real estate people) because we couldn't move into our house right away, and have racked up some pretty heavy credit card debt from that.
Thanks for reading if you got this far, I really just needed to get this out.
My_Dog_Ketchup1
16. Inhumane Decisions
My sister (call her H) called me one day saying she was going to end things with her life. I tried to talk her out of it (I'm about 2 hours away from where she lives), but maybe wasn't too successful as I don't really know what kind of person she is and she kept asking me what good qualities she had that were valuable..
I called my mom to go and check on her and she immediately let out the most frustrated sigh and said "What the fudge. AGAIN?!" (This is the first I had ever heard of it, but always suspected she wasn't the happiest person deep down. Are any of us really?)
Anyway, I tried to call a family meeting with my mother and 2 other sisters (E and F). We got together and the whole family basically just said to let her deal with it herself and E pointed out that she always thought H was autistic. The rest of the family all proceeded to agree with her (I believe this is true also).
The conversation shifted to examples of how she is autistic etc etc. I got angry and asked them what they suggested we do about this, but again, let her deal with it herself.
Very toxic family. None of us speak to each other regularly and when we do it's all superficial awkwardness.
I try to keep in touch with H because I know she has almost no support, but I can't bear the load myself.
Oblongjapanda
17. Clash of In-Laws
Currently living with my in-laws to save some money. Their interactions frequently go something like this:
Mom: bla bla bla makes side comment about unfinished house project to no one specifically bla bla bla
Dad: well you know I've got x y and z projects going right now, I just don't have time.
M: oh yeah, right, like you've had x y, and z going on for the last 20 years so you won't ever get to that project.
D: you know I do the best I can for this house, there's just too much to do.
M: well it would help if you ever finished any of them
D: it would help if you were supportive and helped me finish any of them
M: with what time? I get home from work at 8 and never find any food being done so I have to make dinner after I've worked all day and bla bla bla
D: I work all day too! I get home at 5 and start working on the house so that maybe when you get home I won't have to get yelled at for not doing anything.
You get the idea. They go back and forth like this quite a bit. At first, I thought it was sort of a one-time argument but then it continued fairly consistently and after some time living here I realized no one in this family knows how to properly communicate at all.
Not just the parents, but all of their children just don’t communicate, and when they do it is abrupt and aggressive for no reason. The only seemingly sane ones are myself and my husband who is the oldest of the many siblings.
Haiku_lass
18. Importance of Presence
When none of them showed up to our youngest (3) bday party. Oh, and it gets worse we had this planned for about a month and a half you have to when you have three kids and crazy lives.
Less than three weeks out my mom decided to go on a mini vacation to Florida for three days and asked us to move the whole party. Her husband my stepdad and I used the dad part very loosely and decided that since she wasn’t going to the party.
He didn’t have to even After me and my wife asked him to still come he went up to Wisconsin to work on a camp hunting site.
I am the oldest of three boys one of my brothers decided to go on a kayaking trip because he felt no obligation because my mom and stepdad weren’t going he’s 27 by the way and our youngest brother is the only one with a legit excuse because he had drill that weekend (Army national guard we were both in)
So last Sunday day of the party everyone’s asking where is your family this is both friends and my wife’s family who I love dearly for the first time I didn’t hold back I said because they’re toxic and Too self-absorbed.
This was definitely one of those last draw situations though over the last 32 years of my life my mom my dad and my stepdad are just the freaking worst.
I mean my wife and I married young at 19 and to be honest my in-laws have been my parents ever since then there a huge blessing in our lives.
TheRealDentedJedi
19. Real Pain
Kind of a lot of moments; but some re-occurring moments were whenever I was seriously sick or hurt, my mom wouldn't believe me or she would ignore me.
9 years old. I told her the vitamins she gave me made me feel sick. She told me to hurry up to the car, so I wouldn't be late for school. I said that I really didn't feel good. She yelled to hurry up. I go outside and suddenly I'm puking on the lawn. She rolled her eyes at me.
12 years old. I told her that I fell on my elbow at school today and it hurt a lot. She just hummed at me. I tell her the next day that my arms really hurt. She said I was fine. The day after that, I was being driven to school and she asked me why I was wearing a sweater even though it was hot outside and also, "Why are you holding your arm like that?" I roll up my sleeve and show her my elbow which is purple and swollen like heck. Her response: "Oh."
17 years old. I was sick, sick sick sick, and she kept telling me that it was just allergies. I asked her if I could just lie down for an hour. At exactly an hour, she called for me to do the dishes. I didn't get up because I was just starting to doze and I really felt like I could move. She kept yelling at me to get up, stop being lazy and to come to do the dishes.
I pulled myself out of bed, having to use the wall to support me - I saw her in the main room and told her that I genuinely didn't feel well. She scoffed at me and said I needed to stop acting.
My brother had stepped into the main room then and immediately took a step back seeing me. "Oh my god, you're literally gray. You look terrible, Mom are you seeing her?" My mom didn't say a thing, but my grandmother came out of her room, hearing my brother, and also gasped in horror, expressing how terrible I looked. It was only then that my mother said, "Okay, let's get you to a hospital." I had a particularly bad case of strep throat.
Anyway, I'm 20 now. She still doesn't believe me if I'm sick or hurt - Always claiming that I'm being dramatic, even though I'm not the type to up-play my ails. (In fact, I even tend to downplay them.)
lillipeetle
20. Strange Old Man
Not my family, but my father-in-law. My wife always said she wasn't close with her dad but we would see him for Christmas every year (I would go on leave from the military around Christmas).
We lived in southern California and our family lives in Michigan. Father in law once took a trip to southern California and never told my wife until the day he was flying home and told my wife that she "was ungrateful" for not driving down to see him. She had just had a spinal tap for a meningitis scare and couldn't drive by herself and I was at work.
When my son was born my fil dropped off his mom (wifes grandma) and said he needed to go to Menards and didn't come back for a few hours. When he did he just said he had to leave. Didn't even talk to me or my wife. For my son's second birthday, he said he and his wife would be out of town for a wedding.
Turns out the wedding was the next day and out of town meant 20 miles from our house. Third birthday he just didn't show up. When my mil (not married to Fil) got diagnosed with cancer, my wife called him and all he had to say was "Huh crazy) and hung up. When my mil died this last January he never even checked in on his daughter.
My wife calls him out on his bullcrap now and his mom and sister just say "This isn't the place" or "his dad abandoned him so he doesn't know how to be a dad". He had a stepdad his whole life who treated him like a son. I've told him off a few times and "ruined Christmas" after he tried to say my wife wasn't a good daughter since she never visits.
[deleted]
21. Sneaky Grandma
After my dad died, we were cleaning out his apartment. My mom, paternal aunt, paternal grandmother, and myself were there. I was 11, my parents were divorced, and while my mom tried telling me that my grandma was not a trustworthy person, she detached her own biases enough to still allow me to be close to my dad's family and make my own decisions.
My dad had a motorcycle, which he adored. At his apartment, because he had no will, every major possession was supposed to be recorded to the estate lawyers to be sorted out later. Nothing (minus little sentimental items--like, I took my Dad's hat) was to be taken home.
On his motorcycle keys, he had a keychain of a bike. I was in the kitchen alone with my grandma, and spotted them on his key rack. Nonchalantly, I said, "Oh, it's dad's motorcycle keys!" My grandma said, "Oh yeah, it is." Then she grabbed them and slipped the keys into her pocket.
Weeks later, I overheard my mom talking to the lawyer about not being able to find the bike keys. I told her what happened. My mom asked me if I was 100% sure I saw what I saw, and I was positive.
Lawyers spoke to lawyers, and my grandma denied that ever happened. It came to the point where I had to give sworn testimony at a deposition, all while my grandma looked me straight in the eye and calmly told everyone present that I "was a grief-stricken delusional child that was prone to lying".
She then tried telling everyone that my word could not be trusted due to the intense trauma of my dad's death, and questioned the courts if it were wise to believe an 11-year-old over an adult.
She chose possessions over family. Every member of my dad's side supported her, even when she then lied on my dad's gravestone (making him two ranks higher in the military than he was, and then also stating he served in a war that he never did).
I don't even visit my dad's grave anymore because it's just lies. I tried to sporadically interact with them for a few years after that but officially cut contact in 2013.
jayemadd
22. All About That Dress
last straw moment more than when it occurred to me family isn't just about strongly similar genes:
My sibling hasn't spoken to me since her wedding. It's been years; I haven't even asked if we're okay in the pandemic life, unlike, say, co-workers, I see like once a year for an hour or two if that (I travel for work, it's less weird than it may sound). Her complaint to our mother: the dress I wore looked too much like hers.
You know. My dress a black and gold and a totally different shape jobby and here's the kicker, I'd never seen her dress. I didn't even know she was doing the bridal party thing until my partner and I had flown across the country at a really bad time for us; she was my sister, I thought I had to be there, no matter what. Nope.
My dress was somehow too similar. She avoided me, my parents, and anyone I was standing near all night. It was honestly kind of impressive. She avoided all photos but one that a friend of MINE insisted on taking (he's blissfully unaware of this kind of thing, for which I am grateful).
Anyhow, that's the day I gave up forever on hurting myself trying to be her friend. Mum didn't really believe how abusive she'd been most of my life until a year or two later when she broke into the house we grew up in to steal from my parents. She's got a cushy white-collar job, married to a lawyer, none of us can think of a good reason to have done that.
My mum has spent the last few years living an apology to me (and frankly my partner who was irate about the wedding thing in a way I was too dead inside already to be; I appreciate the sympathetic rage rather a lot, I know I'm supposed to be angry, I'm just too tired, on top of his own very justified fury for how she treated him). That part has been nice.
I appreciate the effort and I'm really sad it took being bit for her to believe me. Mum's been working her way out of a pretty gnarly depression since The Incident. I guess take home point from that bit is that sometimes bullcrap can be corrected and you can move forward. Sometimes, not so much. My... Dress look too much like hers? The heck?
jestingvixen
23. Normalizing Toxicity
When I was around 12 I saw a 6 y/o freak out in the store because a toy he wanted wasn't available. His parents tried to calm him down. Not by ridiculing him, not by beating him, not by ignoring him, but by telling him that he will still get it someday and getting him a toy that's available to make up for it.
This completely baffled me. Up until then, I thought that all fathers were abusive and all mothers were doormats for the father. It's how my parents were like, It's how the other parents in the area were like, and it's how parents were depicted on TV. I looked into it online, thinking that it was rare but then saw that what I thought was normal was actually unnatural.
Dad must've found out since after looking into it, everything went up to 11. He started beating my brother, threatened violence, started making rules just to enforce control, and went out of his way to say stupid crap when I bring up my mental illnesses ("Stop being sad you idiot" when I was suicidally depressed, "stop being scared or I will beat you" when I feel any anxiety ever, etc).
This was after he retired from the military so I think that he acted even more like a man-child than usual because there is no more Drill Sargent to keep his ego in check.
The worst part is that this started happening when I was homeschooled due to the school district's corruption at the time. He also started working at home so I have to deal with him 24/7.
I still miss when he did nothing but play World of Warcraft for the first half of my childhood. Currently, he's not much of a problem since I've gotten good at avoiding interaction with him and he now leaves my brother alone since he can defend himself now.
TheLavaFall
24. What a Stereotype
My family is very very left-leaning. I am too but they are nazi levels of left-leaning. When I was in my early 20s one of them found out I smoke weed. Boom all of a sudden they all know and start treating me like a wall. Even worse apparently they started assuming a lot of crazy crap about me.
“The moment” I realized was when my sister called me asking if I could help get into her house. She was locked out and helpless. I was willing and agreed. She then continued “You know cause you’d know how to break into a house, because of you and your friends”.
I was like wait stop “Do you genuinely believe I’ve broken into people's homes?” She explained she knew what kind of person I was and really needed help. I said no I wouldn’t break into her house and hung up.
Then about a year or two later my sister and cousin showed up at my parents' house with their kids. They didn’t come in and rang the doorbell which was SUPER odd to me. My mom answers the door, then comes to me to explain that because I smoke weed my cousin and sister don’t want me around their kids anymore.
Mind you I never smoke before being with family but they know I do and resent me for it. My mom asked me to leave so she could see her grandkids. I left and never returned. I don’t call, talk to, or interact with any of them. I’m better off without the guilt.
Edit: For those who are confused about me saying “nazi” kind of left-leaning people. What I mean is they are the kind of people who want to make all guns illegal, they want to make cigarettes and alcohol illegal. Crazy crap like that. Just live and let live for god sake!
UnfriendlyToast
25. Family Favoritism
When I realized the intense favoritism for my sibling and disgust/anger for me. Did I mention how I was almost disowned multiple times for not wearing dresses and being feminine?
I'm the first-born child of the first-born son, so it was expected for me to carry out our family(immediate, sibling&parents) reputation (being narcissistic assholes that carry the title of one of the best sports families everyone looks up to)
When I didn't immediately want to demolish the competition my parents kind of just ignored me. My teachers, peers, and their parents were confused and ignored me too, well that was before I had gotten into a fistfight when some kid dissed my grandpa. So now just to rub it in their faces I'm the best academic descendant my bloodline has ever seen, I even got into one of the best private schools in my state for hs on a scholarship.
Yeah curse you Dad I'm an academic badass that can still beat the crap out of people but I prefer not to because I'm not you.
[deleted]
26. Too Much Invalidation
Long answer: last September I went almost the entire month feeling down with very little energy. Thoughts of suicide and self-harm were constantly on my mind and I couldn’t focus in school. Usually, when this happens it lasts for around three days and then I climb out of it, but this time was different and I still don’t know why that was.
I find it very difficult to eat during these times so eat very little, but over 4 weeks it's incredibly unhealthy (obviously) and I lost almost a stone. After around three weeks, I was getting ready for school and told my mum I didn’t want any breakfast like I hadn’t since I started again, and she suddenly started berating me about how disgusting I was and how I ruined her mood with my sulking, finally ending her rant by yelling that I was an anorexic freak before leaving for work.
She only “apologized” when I told her that my mate thought that what she had done was horrible.
Reading this back it sounds like I’m whining tbh so I’ll leave it up to u guys
cantrelate69
27. Failed to Prove
I moved away from my parents as soon as I could, and married an amazing woman from a home that was more obviously broken than mine, my parents, in their rare visits, convinced my wife that they were normal. She convinced me to move back home, but we were both promptly ignored for nearly every family event, the same as when I was growing up.
Then my brother moved 5 hours away to get away from our parents because while I was being ignored at every opportunity, I was also being held up as the shining example of the perfect son. Then my parents also moved 5 hours away, and into a house right down the street from my brother, who wanted nothing more than to be away from them.
Between my parents weaponizing my existence against my brother, and their constant 'forgetting' to invite me and my wife to anything family-related, they have destroyed just about any chance of having a healthy relationship with either of their kids, and grandkids.
I really wish that my parents had worn their crazy on their sleeves, as my wife's family did. At least she would have been able to see it coming.
[deleted]
28. Not Your Body
So this story is mainly about my dad's side of the family mainly my dad his wife and her family my dads' wife was nice when I was a child but for some reason, things changed when I turned 10.
So from age 10, my step-mum would always make comments on my weight (I was a healthy kid) coming up to their wedding my step-mum starved me because I was "too chubby" and needed to fit into the dress. She bought a dress that was too small so that I had no choice but to lose weight my mum never knew about this as I was afraid to tell her as my dad has the habit of up and leaving us ( this happened a lot)
So the moment I knew I was in a toxic family was when I was 19 home from university on Christmas break. My stepmum and dad gave me a present early as they were excited. It was a detox kit basically a kit where I drank nothing but a small 5ml bottle of Jell to help me lose weight I was happy with my weight and doing things to get myself in shape.
But no this broke me they said it was because I had put weight on at uni as everyone does. This broke me I couldn't take their weight shaming anymore. Just so you know they are bigger than me.
I have more stories about my stepmother and dad there are endless things they did to me throughout my life. They were so toxic.
adultlifesuck
29. Wasted Plans
Plans and promises fall through all the time.
Growing up if we made plans as a family to go apple picking in the Fall, 9/10 times it would not happen because some big fight would happen that Summer and no one would be on good terms.
If you wanted to buy a new couch, that couch would not be purchased without a 5-year delay, a lot of nagging, and multiple fights. If you planned a vacation, the vacation would end in some type of fight when one narc doesn't get exactly what they want.
Planning nice things seemed very hopeless and tedious in general. I needed a lot of slow effort to get any small nice thing done. Then I realized that this is NOT how life worked for everyone else. It's just how joint plans with narcissists work. They purposefully sabotage and delay a lot of nice things in life because they seek chaos + power instead of happiness.
It was actually a relief when I realized that life isn't meant to be that hard all the time. For my own part, I have to work on being proactive and timely about keeping my own promises and plans, instead of procrastinating them. I got so used to the slow dragging pace of narc life that I have trouble staying motivated and active about big projects.
greenappletw
30. Constant Checkpoints
When I was in grade school, if I left my backpack downstairs or anywhere in the open my mother would rifle through it, pull out every sheet of paper, test, etc., and lay it out on the kitchen table.
She would then berate and admonish me for things I seemingly “didn’t tell her about.” then, she’d launch into a diatribe about how horrible of a kid I was and how my older sister was so honest and smart.
It usually ended with her comparing our report cards and reiterating that everything going on in my life was unimportant and some slight to embarrass her or the family.
Your mentioning waking up to your parent going through your computer reminded me of this. my mother would also say nothing until I walked downstairs. she’d never do it, call me down, and ask me about it.
If I stayed in my room for 3 hours before coming down, she sat brooding for 3 hours until I walked into her unmitigated rage. I always found that to be so, so strange. like, why wouldn’t you call me down to go over it? why sit there and think of every insult you can that’s applicable to that particular instance?
Garbouliak
31. Essence of Apology
This sort of fits, but backwardly, it’s something I thought nobody did because it never happened in my family: parents apologizing to their kids.
In elementary school a teacher read us “Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing” by Judy Blume, there’s a scene where the main character’s mom says “I’m sorry” to him. I thought- I better not let my parents catch me reading that book!
When I was 28, a co-worker I was eating lunch with, talking about whatever was going on in our lives, said she had told her 11 y.o. daughter that she couldn’t go to a movie with/ her friends because it was a school night, “but then I realized I was being too hard on her so I apologized and let her go.”
I was shocked because I had never heard of such a thing happening in real life, (maybe on sitcoms but those are so fake, right?) and I blurted out loudly, incredulously, “You apologized to your daughter???” And everyone in the lunch room turned around and stared at me like I had grown an extra head.
And at that moment, I realized that I was the oddball for thinking that was a horrible thing! Kinda made me rethink some things.
My immediate thought was shock, because she’d always seemed like smart woman and a good mom, but that was terrible parenting! How are you going to maintain absolute power over your kids if you do that? I even thought it was unChristian because there’s a story in the Bible that my dad liked to remind us of, that says that once you swear an oath you can never go back on it.
Once a parent makes a decision, it’s a huge mistake for them to change their mind. Big show of weakness.
Even though I HATED the way I was raised, I was still stuck in thinking it was how things were supposed to be. It took me 2 more years to be brave enough to get into a support group, but it was an eye-opener!
(I’ve never had kids btw, in case anyone’s wondering if I’d never apologized to mine either.)
EmilyAnne1170
32. Weird Traits
I was never allowed to have any privacy. My door could never be locked. My mom and sister would read my diary behind my back and then ridicule me for the things I wrote.
Triangulation. I rarely spoke directly to my dad even though he always lived with us. My mom was the messenger between us, which was a convenient way for her to control the messaging. I was in my 30s when I first started to have direct conversations with my dad and finally started to really get to know him, which made my mom really uncomfortable and eventually led me to uncover some distortions of the messaging in earlier years.
As a teen, my mom would get high with me and my friends. She was the “cool” mom who was more like one of the girls than a parent. I knew that wasn’t “normal” but never realized how messed up it was until I became a parent myself. My mom constantly berated my dad in front of anyone and everyone. Everything about him was a complaint. She still does this.
RedF77
33. Cruel World
Mum never had accountability. Ever. I watched her playing a game with her church buddies (had thyroid cancer and my energy levels were poop) and I watched her get the answer wrong and completely deny it.
Every time I asked to go out with friends, she'd ask for names and numbers and if they were "good people". My group of friends were the Magic the Gathering and Pokémon nerds! We never even touched weed or alcohol underage. Happened even at university and I said "There were hundreds of people, did you wanna background check everyone???"
Telling me that her cruelty was because the world is cruel. Lmao. Jokes on her as a queer person because I know the world is crap. Doesn't hurt less that my mum isn't encouraging me but part of the problem. Vacations. Everything had to cater to her. Food, drink, sleep schedules (she can't fall asleep without a computer blaring)....it's tiring being with her because you never get a say.
Eating junk food all the time but then judging your food choices.
Gossiping about everyone! This is the most annoying one but she's toned it down because I parroted it back to her and she found it annoying that I called everyone a dumbass. (Lmao.)
astrangeone88
34. Backstabbing at its finest
It basically means you're "bonding" by banding together against someone else instead of actually bonding by getting to truly know each other. This was a survival strategy for my siblings and me as kids and we just kept doing it after we were out of our abusive household.
I'm trying to not do that anymore.
Closely related to this, and to answer your question, everyone in my family was triangulating at all times. Anyone who had a problem with anyone would never, ever communicate with that person directly. Instead they'd complain about them to everyone else and eventually, someone would tell that other person that the first person had a problem with something they said or did.
I'm also trying really hard to not get dragged into this anymore.
CardinalPeeves
35. Too Much Saving
Despite a middle-class income with a nice house in a good neighborhood, we are living in poverty by choice and keeping total control over money. Never being able to go on field trips or buy pizza at lunch with the rest of the class, because it cost money. We had to wear our clothes for a full school year.
We couldn't get a new shirt if they were all worn or stained. Confiscating my money "for my own sake." Never, ever pay for anything of quality for us. Not caring how our appearance and mindset of poverty would affect us socially.
My mother controlled all money, even her own. She wore her clothes till they were threadbare. She gave us home haircuts.
Some parents actually give kids money; just give it to them. Really? Mind blown.
I was told that anything I asked for was unreasonable and inconsiderate. For example; I could attend a hiking club for free, so I did. When it came time to buy me actual hiking boots for the free day trips, mom bought an ill-fitting, unlined pair of stiff workboots from the Sears catalog.
The leader of the club told her they were wrong for the task. Instead of getting me appropriate hiking boots, she got offended that she was told they weren't good enough.
Never take us to the doctor because it costs money. Never being believed about illness. My mom sent me to school with meningitis, but that was lucky for me because they called a squad when I passed out.
Mom would have told me to sleep it off. Never being comforted when upset or sick. Always being told my concerns were melodramatic or insignificant compared to the rest of the family and world.
Character_Bomb_312
36. Huge Mockery
My dad made fun of every single aspect of my being growing up, my mom enabled him to verbally bully me my whole childhood and adolescence. I was a military-homeschooled fundie Christian and had no outlet besides church, so I had no idea that what he was doing was hurtful and mean.
He made fun of my clothes, my voice, my body, my intelligence, my cooking, my sense of humor, and any of my interests. Having no friends, staying in my room, etc…
He made fun of how dumb I was for not understanding certain educational concepts even though my parents were the ones “educating” me. I was behind all my peers.
He would harp on purity culture and how I needed to dress modestly and wait for marriage, and then when I dressed modestly he told me “My huge ugly glasses and grandma sweaters were my own form of birth control,” and he said would never get laid.
Pretty huge when your whole childhood is preparing you for marriage.
My mom let it all happen and never stood up for me, and I remember my younger siblings joining my dad in the mockery. I was a snowflake when I finally told him it wasn’t funny and that it was hurtful. He tried to kick me out at 19 for not politically agreeing with everything he said.
As soon as I got the chance I moved out, and I’m in low contact with them now. I cannot imagine doing what they did to me to ANYONE let alone my own freaking kid.
It ruined my self-esteem and I doubted every single thing about myself.
InitiativeSpecific18
37. Tied Mouth
I was told “Don’t embarrass me” by my mom every time we went anywhere. What does that even mean? I have seen normal parents ask their kids to be on their best behavior at certain times, but never in a disparaging way. What the fudge. I hope I embarrassed the crap out of her.
I now know that all kids speak their minds, act weird, and do whatever; my mom is the only one trying to break a child’s spirit and say that normal behavior is embarrassing.
Mom would also lightly touch my arm if she felt I was talking someone’s ear off. Finally, I looked her in the eye and asked her if she needed anything because she touched my arm.
Never did it again. This was after my older sister shared a memory from before I was born, where my parents took her to a group dinner and then screamed at her for asking another person at the table “too many questions” about her new baby.
My parents said that my sister had humiliated them by taking too much. She was probably 6 at the time. Something tells me that my parents embarrassed themselves that night by abusing my sister in front of other adults.
I know they were salivating at the delayed satisfaction of whipping somebody’s ass once they got home.
My stepdad is an enabler and doesn’t pay attention so my mom convinced him that I’m a problem child. She was just really sneaky with her insults and punishments. Now she makes psycho texts and Facebook posts that I screenshot and send to him when he asks why I’m upset with Mom and can’t just let it go.
GeckGeckGeckGeck
38. Not Even Funny
There have been so many things in my childhood that stand out now that I look back, but the moment, the one moment that actually made me open my eyes...
I have never been able to understand when people say things they don't literally mean. I stim. I need a schedule. I have special interests... I guess I can stop listing symptoms… Anyway, my nephew was going to get tested for autism, and my mom asked if I wanted to get tested as well. I looked it up, it seemed like everything fell into place. I agonized about it, then finally went up and told her yes, I wanted to get tested.
She laughed in my face. Told me she was only kidding, that a diagnosis wouldn't change my life so she wouldn't waste money seeing it.
Maur2
39. All About Her
My mom told me I had nothing to offer at a family dinner in front of everyone. Everyone just laughed and I went into the bathroom to cry. Then they treat my older sister like she’s perfect when she’s the most irresponsible, selfish, spoiled brat I know.
They also pay for credit card debt (for a card she maxed with no money or intention to pay it back) but cut me off back in 2017 and have been struggling to get by ever since.
My sister hates me, when I see her it’s fake awkward conversations that she clearly doesn’t wanna be having, and has told me multiple times I’m a psychopath who ruined her life.
Meanwhile, I lived with her for 4 years while she was suicidal to take care of her. (My parents paid for her to have her own apartment bc they couldn’t “deal” with her issues). Anytime I needed help with her absolutely terrifying episodes I would call my parents and they would yell at me to “just do something about it bc she’s your sister”.
I’m still trying to deal with the repercussions of all the trauma I have from this and I can’t even afford the help. But they pay for my sister's therapy.
SeniorStomachGirl
40. Unjustifiable Behavior
Mom threw away my vinyl collection because "it made her sad". A little background story here: she lives by herself in a huge flat so there's room to have a lot of things there (and there are), let alone a set of about 50 vinyls that I'd bought over the years using my savings and pocket money as a kid.
I was 30 when that happened and she didn't show any remorse.
She never called me to come over and get them and it was not the first sign she had no respect for me or my memories or my belongings but this one really got to me. (I lived in a tiny place at the time and was waiting to move house so I kept things to a minimum in my house, nevertheless I would have taken them with me, had I known what she was about to do) Couldn't talk to her for a few months.
I know that people have really painful stories and so do I, but I chose to speak about this one because it was (what I thought at the time to be) the last straw. Well, it was not the first or the last sign of a toxic relationship, but I had to deal with it.
Ladyhawke-777
41. Dirty Dishes
My mom was abused as a kid (side note: she actually said "PTSD" to me for the first time, everyone is proud of my mom!) and very consciously was trying to break the cycle with her own kids (insert "you tried" star here).
As I got older we talked about this a lot. I've always been her confidant/tiny therapist, I knew A LOT about the family dynamic that super fcked her up. In my teens, our relationship became... let's say strained.
One day I was shirking my chores (in hindsight, that's probably because standing makes my blood pool in my feet) and my mom stormed up to me. "When I was a kid we all had to do things to help the family, when you don't do the dishes it's like you're telling me you don't love me, etc" And, being a teenager, I said what I thought would hurt her most.
"You're always telling us how bad it was growing up but you want us to do the exact same thing!" *
Silence. My mom excused herself to her room. She's gone long enough I start to wonder if I should check on her, but she comes out and sits me down and gives me a sincere apology.
So not my "I'm in a toxic family" moment, but one that I caused.
In defense of my teenage self, the fight wasn't really about doing dishes. Chores may have started the fight, but really we were fighting about her feeling entitled to all my time/energy/me because I'm her kid, and she felt hurt that I didn't want to be a symbiote.
She had this radical idea that I was a separate person from my mother. I wasn't equating having to do dishes with physical and emotional abuse, it was way more complicated than that.
Numerous-Salamander
42. A Letter For Him
When I was 8 years old, I wrote my grandpa a letter telling him how I felt that he wasn’t always very nice to me and that “why could he say cuss words like damn while I got in trouble.” Basically 8 year old me called him out for being a dick with anger management issues.
So instead of talking to me about it, he proceeded to start yelling at me and completely went off on me until I was crying. Then my grandma came in and told me I was wrong and should go apologize to him.
Since then, I’ve noticed that my cousins, aunts, uncles, and sisters have shown the same kind of behavior. Not only does it go unchecked, but they immediately get defensive over anything that challenges their fragile ego.
They are narcissistic and emotionally manipulative, they never consider themselves in “the wrong” and anybody who challenges them (including me) is the bad guy and they are the victim. They always tell others how to react, but nobody tells them how to act.
And they wonder why I choose not to be around them very much, if at all.
bttrflyr
43. Don’t Know What’s Normal
When I yelled at my mom after her husband(my stepdad) strangled the dog I just got(he killed my puppy because he didn't want pets in the house) and mid sentence while I was yelling at her she said, "You get it all out of your system?"
Then when I tried to move out she came crying to me begging for me to take her because "I don't know what to do!"
Almost went no contact, but eventually, I did when my mom said she was disappointed I was "tainting the bloodline marrying a non-white".
Went fully with no contact, it's been years.
The thing that I don't understand is how parents can be nice to their kids. I see it in my SO, she has constant contact with her parents and siblings. They always seem so happy.
I legit cannot comprehend that that is possible.
FirstAccountSorry
44. Blamed for Nonsense
Being blamed for my mum's natural aging process.
My brother and I were always blamed for how breastfeeding changed her breasts. We "sucked the life out of them" I'm also the reason for grey hairs, wrinkles, sun spots, cellulite, stretch marks, etc.
It only got worse as I aged, she would complain regularly about how I made her feel old and had a manipulative way of demanding compliments about how young she still looked.
Even now, she is threatened by my appearance. I've recently lost a noticeable amount of weight, and she will regularly find ways to try and convince me that I am a bigger dress size than I actually am.
Clearly hating the idea that my body could possibly be slimmer than hers, or acting as if that is my goal
Sprinksi
45. Importance of Attendance
There is something my parents didn't do that I thought was normal but turned out to be neglectful. Do you know how parents watch their kids play [insert activity] and cheer on the sidelines? I was in all kinds of sports and extracurricular activities throughout junior and senior high. My parents never showed up to any of them. They told me they were so busy working that they couldn't make it, even when events were on weekends and they were free.
I didn't feel I had a right to complain because they put food on the table and a roof over our heads and were living paycheck to paycheck.
Those other parents who came to their children's games were simply rich and had the time to come out to support them. When I started my career in my mid-twenties and worked full-time I did loads of things on my days off.
That's when I realized, my parents used work as an excuse to never attend a single game--and trust me there were hundreds of games, hundreds of opportunities to show me emotional support.
But nope the physical basics of food and shelter were enough, they didn't go beyond that. I am grateful I never starved and never was homeless but my self-esteem suffered a lot from their disinterest.
I felt ignored, invisible, irrelevant. I won't do that to my future kids.
fortheloveofminions
46. Breaking The Silence
My parents never said I love you. My husband and I say I love you to each other all the time and we say it to our kids multiple times a day. Also, we say that we are proud of them because I never heard that growing up and I thought it was normal until I realized how much it had screwed with me
My mum only said she loved us or hugged us when she was in this weird euphoric mood, usually happened a few days after a big fight when she would come out of her depressed mood. It was not genuine and it was so freaking weird that I felt anxious when she tried to hug me
Aggressive-Trust-545
47. Navigating The Impact Of Unreliable Parents
When my girlfriend and I want to do something nice, we make the plan, then do it that same day or whenever we can. But when I go to my family, nice plans are ruined by arguments like you said where now nobody wants to go, or the plans just never come to fruition.
Also being told that a family member will do this later or another day, never gets done. So at a young age, I just sort of learned to stop asking people to do things for me and began refusing any help because I assumed everyone was unreliable, just like my parents.
Memestar20
48. Tickle Triggers
Tickling is a huge trigger for me. Now I know. I have pretty bad fibromyalgia flare-ups, but growing up all I knew was that getting tickled hurt a lot. No one ever believed me or stopped my entire life because how can you be in pain and still laughing? My husband tickles me sometimes, but he does it gently and stops immediately if I tell him to.
I can't tickle my kids. I join in sometimes but only for a few seconds. I haven't even admitted that this is the reason for my husband yet, I've just now realized. But when my husband and kids are having tickle fights my anxiety goes off the walls.
The kids will sometimes giggle "stop" and I immediately intervene if they don't stop but there's a difference between playfully saying stop or no and meaning it. I can't tell that difference I guess. My kids just normally go "No keep going" and play continues so I guess it's teaching them healthy consent at least. I just get so much anxiety from it.
HiveFleetOuroboris
49. Invisible Affection
I never saw my parents kiss once in the whole time I was with them, let alone actually be affectionate with one another. I thought it was actually normal that way in a family.
The cruelty was normalized, as some other posters have alluded to.
Growing up in a narcissist’s environment is just deciding how much you can make yourself disappear to fit into their delusions because we as children are vulnerable and want to belong to something/anything even if it’s obviously poisonous.
Woodeehoo
50. Hidden Pains
Where do I begin?
My mom was never held accountable for her comments about my weight. My Dad would always say, “Your mother loves you; she’s not perfect; she’s just concerned.”
She would act nice while on the phone or with company and then as soon as they hung up or our guests left immediately but would get angry and start yelling at me for bothering her.
Whenever we’d go on family trips, my Mom kept wandering off ahead of us without waiting or acknowledging that we weren’t with her, like she was the only one who mattered about having a good time Everything was being swept under the rug and everyone else acting like nothing happened
She told me as an elementary schooler that she suspects my dad to be cheating on her with someone who works for him and another general adult venting despite not being nearly old enough to understand.
I regularly up at odd hours of the night to my abusive brother and Dad screaming and hurling insults at each other (bonus points if it was right before I had to get ready for school).
Also regularly wake up in the middle of the night to find my Mom on my computer going through everything I may have opened. I learned to password-lock my computer and it mostly stopped around then.
My mom would say or do something that upset me, getting into a fight with both parents about it then my Dad would blame me or say that I was being overly sensitive or disrespectful, then as SOON as I left the room I heard him quietly telling her she was in the wrong (this one especially gets me).
Neither parent ever apologized for hurting me or my siblings The one time my Dad did because I threw in his face how his son beats the rest of his family and how my Dad lets him, he kept stammering and couldn’t look me in the eye
I really could go on but this is the tip of that iceberg. While I wouldn’t say I always thought all of this was necessarily NORMAL, it didn’t occur to me it wasn’t until I was much, much older.
Inperceivable
51. Decoding Insincerity
Not every "sorry" is truly an apology. My mother tries to apologize sometimes but in a way that you cannot accept it even when you want to, saying stuff like "I'm sorry you feel this way," and "Sorry, we should forget about it already" or "I don't want to argue anymore so I will be the bigger person and will be the first one to say sorry.”
Sometimes, she is sorry that I misunderstood her intentions and she meant it well when she was saying I am going to be a bad mother and that I am too sensitive. I got angry at that. I hope I will never end up like this!
Positive_Storage3631
52. Unapologetic Echoes
My parents NEVER EVER apologized to me. Not even once in my whole life. They would call me names, shame my appearance, attack my character, tell me that nobody liked me, scream at me while I was already crying, and then rationalize it to themselves by creating an explanation for why “I deserved it." Can you really imagine being a grown adult and having this little self-awareness? They made me belittle myself. What the actual stuff are their brains like on the inside?
When I apologized to them, they would just respond with "okay." They were that awful.
Ok_Specific6904
53. Trauma Junkie
My mom is a trauma junkie. I grew up on stories of how family members, past and present, suffered. She collects tragic stories like ”Isn’t this a lovely view? This park bench is dedicated to a woman who died in a car accident!” When she visited the country her father came from and came back with stories of war crimes.
One of the few times I visited my hometown and got to spend much time around my sister-in-law and had a chance to get to know her a little. She went and got the local paper and sat near us reading the obit section aloud. She was looking for people in my age range and kept asking me, “Is this person a little older or younger than you” or “But maybe you knew them?” She also recited a list of every teacher or teacher's spouse she knew of who now had a serious illness.
I thought this was all normal stuff or she was trying to keep me safe from accidents and informed about people I cared about.
Smlstrsasyetuntitled
54. Transactional Relationships
Treating some parts of relationships as transactions and projecting your needs onto others. More simply, doing things for people with the expectation that they will do it for you.
I tend to let people "off the hook" so that when I choose not to do my best, they will do the same for me. If they don't, I feel angry and resentful. This can be other favors too like cooking dinner for someone and then expecting them to do the same under similar circumstances and feeling sad, abandoned, and straight up like a better person than them. After all, I cooked, I'm clearly the better person!
These are nasty fleas that have caused me and my loved ones a lot of misery.
FriendCountZero
55. Manipulative Favors
My parents liked to say they did me a “favor” that was really only beneficial to them. Then they would say something like, “We did that for you (even though you didn’t ask for it), and you had fun. In return, you can help me do this other thing that only benefits me while I tell you that you don’t appreciate anything.”
The favor was usually getting some kind of fast food without the other parent, or getting driven to a sports practice, or getting a new pair of shoes. All things that any other parent was happily doing without drama or manipulation.
TjbMke
56. Triangulation And Controlled Communication
I think that triangulating is a huge one in most dysfunctional families. It is to the point in my family where telling somebody directly that you have an issue is framed as being outrageously mean and horrible, nobody can deal with it.
Communication has also always typically gone through my mother for all people especially my father who is the top-tier narcissist, but let's just say she has always been very judicious about whether, when, and how she shares information. I am only now looking back and seeing how she molded situations to her benefit by controlling the flow of information.
Since I cut off the rest of my family I have a very open and genuine relationship with my youngest brother. It is very freeing, although it does upset me that he still tiptoes around the others to maintain his relationship with them.
Girlsoftheinternet
57. Deconstructing Dysfunctional Family Dynamics
This is a really interesting comment. In a way, my mom would appoint a scapegoat and then the rest of the family could find solidarity in agreeing what a problem they were. So toxic.
Regarding triangulation, I will say that in dealing with a narcissist it is not possible to make headway on a situation by talking it through. And because of narcissism/fleas, several of my family members are impossible to converse rationally with. So while I do prefer direct conversations between people rather than about people, it’s sort of impossible to have that healthy straightforward dialogue with a narcissist.
So the few healthy members of the family do end up venting to each other about the narcissists/those with bad fleas. It’s not ideal, but the only alternative is keeping things bottled up (vs therapy which not everyone can afford).
Nytnaltx
58. Navigating Narcissistic Manipulation
My mother would harshly criticize and mock anything anything I said the moment we were alone, after socializing with people. I used to have social anxiety and hated going out (mom would have to be there). I used to stay in my rooms for a month, as much as possible if can.
My mom gaslighted about me and my personality. Now I'm obsessed with going outside and I struggle to stay inside for more than a day. I get depressed immediately. Ironically, my mom thinks I'm still "shy" or "make," but she's not around to witness me doing my struggles.
She is like Judge Judy when she meets people. Everyone is an idiot except her, even if she smiled straight to your face, for whatever aspect she could criticize you over. Very few people are chosen to be “intelligent ones” in her world. She'll bad-mouth anyone over anything.
She screams and cries in public spaces. I remember once she did that over my desire to change my major and left somewhere and a waitress tried to calm me down, telling me that my mom would get over it. She hasn't really.
She told me adult stuff in her life like my dad cheating on her and her fear of getting STDs or that she was friends with a carnal worker. She mostly told me direct words rather than something different or more child-friendly. I used to make people uncomfortable as a kid over things Nmom shouldn't have told me.
She called me "overly-dramatic" or "drama queen" literally anything I got upset. She lied to me plenty of times by rewriting history, and gaslighting. She admitted she would lie to people to get what she wanted.
I don't trust her anymore. I even told her that I don't trust her anymore and she told me that people would judge her and she denied anything wrong. She even flipped it around and said I'm a liar and she's been abused. I did and still do lie to her. I don't care anymore as I realize that I lie because I don't trust her anymore.
ApocalypticThoughts_
59. Naked Confessions
My mom was a carnal worker, a "high-class escort,” and would bring clients home. Me and my brother and I were adults at the time, we would have to stay in our rooms. We knew all the details.
She encouraged me multiple times to get into it which, unfortunately, I did because I'm "stunning and could make a month's worth of money in a couple of days.” She also goes into rants about how her husbands hurt her so much she wish she had started selling herself when she was younger.
Of course, she is so high up in society and does so much perceived good that NOBODY would believe me if I told them my mother is a carnal worker. Lately, I've stopped giving care and just telling people.
Naive-Importance7500
60. Emotional Overload
My mom treated me like I was an adult and expected me to have the emotional maturity and emotional regulation skills of an adult. From as far back as I can remember, she incessantly trauma-dumped on me and treated me like her personal emotional support animal.
It's been 42 years and still, every conversation is one-sided, with me listening to her go on and on about all the trauma in her life while I get no support in return. I am now very low contact. She's just too exhausting to be around or talk to for more than short bursts of time.
Apriliasmom
It's been 42 years and still, every conversation is one-sided, with me listening to her go on and on about all the trauma in her life while I get no support in return. I am now very low contact. She's just too exhausting to be around or talk to for more than short bursts of time.
Apriliasmom
61. The Fallout Blame
As a teenager, I would never go to my parents when in trouble. I would get blamed for whatever was happening to me. It doesn’t even matter if it’s my fault or not. I thought that was normal teenage behavior and when I saw kids trusting their parents either on TV or in real life I thought they were fake, melodramatic, or plain bad parenting. Because I grew up into thinking that “your parents aren’t your friends.”
I just turned 44 and I’m still discovering ways how this messed me up and trying to figure out trust towards myself and others.
EleEle1979
62. Missing Pieces
My fiance's family has a massive group of friends. Like people WANT to hang out with their parents every day and have very close people to call at the drop of a hat.
I didn't realize that you can have friends like this and honestly, still unpacking what I have to do to be like them, in therapy. Very sad stuff to see how happy others are and know you don't have those skills because your parents are severely broken people who hate everyone they meet for one reason or another.
Burritoimpersonator
63. Illusions Of Silence
My mom loved gossiping and talking trash about other people, too. And she had the constantly insulting me thing down pat.
But I think the one that I still struggle with is the idea that I was responsible for other people's feelings (mom's in particular, of course). If she had one overarching rule, it would have been don't make a fuss.
Don't ever tell your mother anything that might make her worry, that was strictly forbidden. So no telling her that you were being bullied in school, don't tell her about your depression and harming yourself ideation, make sure you cover up all the places where you've been hurting yourself.
When I was 13 I tried to end myself, and nearly succeeded. I went into a coma and stopped breathing. I was so careful to avoid making it look like an attempt to end myself though. My mother had once criticized a family friend whose son had ended himself by saying that she would know if I was like that because she wasn't a bad mother.
Even during what I thought might be the end of my life, I was programmed to do everything I could to hold up that illusion for her. So I saved up the tricyclic antidepressant that I'd been prescribed for migraines, hiding my regular dose one day at a time for weeks, and then taking it by opening all the capsules and dissolving the contents in water to drink, and flushing the outer capsules down the toilet.
Sure enough, when they counted my pills and came up with the correct number, pumped my stomach and didn't find pills, and I denied harming myself, the doctors concluded I'd reacted to my medication. That was how far I used to be willing to go to hold up her "good mother" self-image. I was trying to preserve it even in the end.
So it blows my mind when people tell me that they talk to their parents about their problems, and go to them for help and support. I have no problem helping my son out, and I'm glad he seems to talk to me, but the idea of being on the other side of that interaction is just unfathomable to me.
SheepMarshal
64. Untangling The Web
There are things that I thought were common for a very long time.
I thought "gifts" only come with strings attached, so “I owe her” something for the gift, she would brag about it for months. The gifts would never really be "mine.” She would take it away or force me to give it to my siblings.
She could hit me, hurt me, scream at me, but if I dared to talk about it, it never happened. I'm a liar and even if there were witnesses (like my siblings and dad) they would take her side, even if they KNOW the truth has never happened. For many years I'd believed it was normal, I was crazy.
It's so validating and so good to know that I'm not alone with my "narcissistic experiences.”
Salty_Crow
65. Escaping Screams And Gaslighting
I thought for a very long time that it was normal to solve every conflict or argument within the family with so much yelling and gaslighting. I also thought that instilling fear in the other person as a way to make them comply with you was completely normal. Which it definitely is not, it is sad and also disgusting.
It feels so out of this world when I rarely have a serious talk with someone else and there is no hate involved. I seem to be very scared of arguments themselves, unfortunately.
JustANormalHuman3112
66. Weaponized Anecdotes
My family tends to use storytelling as a conversation tactic. They usually tell “funny” stories about embarrassing, stupid, or even humiliating things other people have done.
They would often told that right in front of the person that the story is about. Of course, that person isn't supposed to have a problem with the “funny” story being told in public, or their ridiculous sensitivity might be the inspiration for the next “funny” story.
2woCrazeeBoys
67. Beyond The Bedroom Walls
I found it weird that none of my friends would hear their parents or parent and their stepparents having loud, wild intimacy every night. It was something I experienced almost every night and I even thought that it was just normal.
If they did hear on the off chance, and told their parents to scold them about it, the parents wouldn't then tell them, "We are entitled to physical intimacy!" and then have intimacies even louder intentionally to piss you off.
Seriously, I thought EVERYONE heard their mother getting relentlessly having intimacies on a nightly basis.
Naive-Importance7500
68. Melancholy Symphony
We tend to get annoyed at a happy family member which dampens the mood. Everyone in the house had to feel the same way. If Mom was angry, everyone was angry. No one can have a different mood than mom, especially a positive one without getting picked on. It spread to everyone to the point that hearing someone else laugh or see them smile was irritating because only pain would ensue.
There were times when a sibling walked through the door smiling. Then my parents would say “What the heck are you smiling for? Did you go on a date? That girl doesn’t even like you. She’s ugly anyway.” Then he will go on a rebuttal and defense of their remarks. The parents will then respond, “Shut the heck up.” And they will add more grilling ensues from supporting parties like my dad, other siblings, or whoever was present. We were all against each other all the time. No one could be happy or they were going against the grain.
Bagagwa
69. Unmasking Familial Fictions
I always found it weird when families were close, affectionate, and genuinely liked each other’s company. I always felt inwardly cynical and awkward whenever I saw that and felt it might have not been real.
It was years later that I realized that felt alien and weird to me because, even when our family appeared “close,” it felt shallow to me. Like, we were close for the show, but my mom berated and micromanaged my dad and our narcissistic eldest sister always ran the show, while simultaneously insulting every family member, especially my dad and me.
I realized later on just why I was scapegoated and why I always wanted to run away and be independent from them.
JustEatUbe
70. Unlearning Hate
Growing up in a super small Midwest town full of lots of toxic people, including my father and lots of relatives. I didn't care much for how these people treated my friends of color and the LGBTQ+ community, but I just assumed that was just how it was. So I just avoided using the most offensive terms that were often used around me.
Not until I moved to the city and got into college did I realize how many terms and sayings I grew up with were just hateful and hurtful for no reason whatsoever than that person is different. It was all thanks to a very kind and incredibly patient and understanding college classmate who pulled me aside to explain things to me it finally sunk in how awful certain terms were.
I'm still so thankful for that woman. It was a tough lesson to learn, and I cried like a baby from the guilt, and the big hug we shared still sticks with me 15 years later. Cut contact completely with my awful, hateful family shortly after that.
RavenmadPoe
71. Dad’s Indifference And Mom’s Amplification
As a kid whenever I had a problem, my dad would just walk away if I asked for help. My mom would somehow only make the problems bigger.
It didnt matter what the problem was. In school, a problem with the teacher, somehow she would pick a fight with that teacher (not about the problem but about something else) and now I had an angry teacher to deal with, while still having the problem.
So I learned at a very young age to just never let my mom know that there was a problem. If she did find out somehow I would try to sit it out. She did that with everything and everybody, a small problem? Have to make it a BIG one or it is no fun. She would never fix it but take all the credit for it getting fixed.
Catcarer
72. The Nap Dictator
My mom took so many long naps and I could not wake her up until a certain time. If I needed to ask her anything, she would either not help me or get angry when I woke her up. This was like most days throughout my childhood.
Even after my younger siblings were born when I was 10 and 12 years old, I had to take care of them while she napped. If I wanted to go to a friend's house or the mall or a movie or something on the weekend and she was napping, I couldn't even ask her for permission to go and could end up missing out or pissing her off by waking her up.
Orangetastingpeach
73. Emotional Withdrawal
They’d refuse to say “I love you” or give any kind of comfort if you did something that was not okay in their eyes. My mom has my stepdad on a tight leash so he started doing it too after a while.
For example, my cat was scheduled to be put down and I was taking the day to sit with him outside and cuddle him so I didn’t clean the bathroom the minute my mom asked me.
The next day came and we put my cat down, she refused to hug me or say anything kind. She rolled her eyes a lot and just sighed. She asked me to clean the bathroom within 5 minutes of us leaving the vet.
There were many times when she used the phrase “I love you because you’re my daughter but I don’t like you.”
Savethingsthatglow
74. Breaking Free From The Cycle
I used to badmouth my friends behind their backs when I was younger because it's what I've been taught from a very young age. I was taught not to trust anyone because people only have bad intentions, and none of my friends were true friends, people were either jealous or would eventually backstab me.
And as kids, we were not allowed to speak to adults. We were given a mental script of what answers to give (mostly vague, or straight-up lies) so I was very used to giving one-word answers and lying. Stopping the lies was easy when I grew up but I struggled with confidence and speaking to adults of any age even if we're the same age.
Kalelover22
75. Ill-Timed Insensitivity
Two days ago I opened up to my mother-in-law for the first time ever about how difficult my own mother's death was ten years ago. I only did so because it was relevant to the situation.
She pulled a sad face, sarcastically and exaggeratedly said, "Aw, you're so sad because you have no mom," and then proceeded to tell me that “I'm a real angel, an angel in hell!" I will never forgive that wench.
She is the most disgusting, toxic, vicious, volatile, and self-absorbed human being I have ever met. I swear to God I would laugh if I found out she passed away.
Nympho27
76. Nurturing Mental Health Awareness
When I was growing up, especially in my teens, I now realize I suffered from anxiety and severe depression. My parents never did anything about it even though they definitely could see something wasn't right. I don't place ALL the blame on them, as this was back in the 90s when mental health was still not openly discussed. But I was messed up for a very long time.
I got the help I needed, albeit as an adult, and now am a mom to an 11-year-old daughter. I have started to see some familiar things in her: anxiety is the big one right now. So we have "Brain Checks". If she ever needs to talk, at any time, all she has to do is say she needs a "Brain Check" and I stop whatever I am doing and let her tell me what is bothering her. I can't always fix her problem for her, but we talk it out and see if we can ease her mind or how we can do that.
I know she won't come to me for everything, but I hope that by doing this, she knows I will always provide her with a safe space to speak her mind and not be judged. I have no qualms about dragging her for either meds or a therapist referral though if I feel talking to me just isn't enough. I don't want her to suffer like I did.
Emjaybe
77. Scapegoat’s Perspective
I have accepted that I am the scapegoat and my other siblings are the golden child. All that I ask is that you do it in front of me. Is it that hard? Sometimes I don't know.
Like for example my brother was going on vacation and I lived separately from the rest of my family. My mom waited till we were at the airport to give us some pocket money. My mom had all the time in the world to give my brother his share but she waited till we were at the airport and gave us the money. I was grateful at first until I saw how much my mom gave my brother. I was like would it hurt to have given it to him beforehand? I don’t even know why she does that.
Darkapao
78. Isolation Tactics
My mom would try to convince me that my friends were bad influences and she would forbid me from hanging out with them. I ended up being alone most of the time of my life.
Eventually, that stopped but now that I'm just going out for walks alone, my mom tries to spread the lie that I'm going out to smoke crack in the middle of broad daylight, in a busy city. Okay if that’s what she thinks then fine.
In reality, they just want me at home 24/7 so they can use me as a punching bag whenever they need to ignore their issues.
Yeetgodmcnechass
79. Broken Childhood
I think I was six years old when my substance-dependent parents started making me babysit my newborn brother so they could go out and party all night. That was when I started to notice how bad things were.
By the time I was nine, my little sister passed away because of my parents’ abuse and neglect and when the social workers came to pick up me and my brother, they started crying when they realized we lived in the office of an actual junkyard. I never looked at anyone in my family the same after that day.
My parents' court case is still studied to this day because their lawyer got them off with basically a slap on the wrist.
Tsujimoto3
80. The Asthma Attack Wake Up Call
I was 8 and sitting in my new babysitter's apartment having an asthma attack. I was very allergic to cats and my mom had left me with her despite knowing my allergy and knowing that she had nine cats.
What was so important that she left me there? She wanted to fool around with my older sister's boyfriend and needed me out of the way. She hadn't even sent my inhaler with me.
I nearly passed away. My sister found out and got in a fistfight with my mom in the hospital hallway while the respiratory therapist was working with me. They both caught a contagious disease from the dude and I learned to always have my inhaler on me.
Kalooboo