This hits home hard. While the writer talks within the context of a mother/daughter relationship, everything written applies equally to any parent/child relationship, and even beyond the family to...
This hits home hard. While the writer talks within the context of a mother/daughter relationship, everything written applies equally to any parent/child relationship, and even beyond the family to any relationship where people involved are not treating each other as equals.
My parents were incredibly toxic. It took over a decade after escaping their house before it clicked for me. Even then, I mostly just went through the motions anyway, as I saw that as the easiest way of coping with it.
But then I had a kid, and their toxicity was endangering my 4 month old baby. That was the last straw, and after a big struggle, I have cut off contact for the foreseeable future, if not forever.
My wife and I are now much happier than we ever were before cutting them out, and I sleep easier knowing that my parents can't play a direct role in fucking up my kid's mental health the way they did mine.
My only regret is not cutting them out of my life sooner.
Glad you were able to escape! It's going on 10 years for me since I cut my parents out of my life. I see them about every 2-4 years at weddings and funerals. I'm civil to them, but don't tell them...
Glad you were able to escape! It's going on 10 years for me since I cut my parents out of my life. I see them about every 2-4 years at weddings and funerals. I'm civil to them, but don't tell them anything about my life. I don't think they realize the damage they did. Instead they act baffled that I won't talk to them or see them outside of those settings, despite me making it perfectly clear what the reasons were when I finally made the decision not to talk to them anymore. I don't think they even think what they did was real or wrong. Like you, my main regret is not doing it sooner.
Reading this article was like reading a biography. I know the article was targeting daughters, but despite being a man I still really identify with a ton of points raised here. I have so many...
Reading this article was like reading a biography. I know the article was targeting daughters, but despite being a man I still really identify with a ton of points raised here.
I have so many issues with my self-esteem and my image because of how my mother treated me as I grew up. She was never physically abusive, and I wouldn't necessarily say she was purposefully trying to be psychologically abusive either, she showed plenty of kindness at times even, but it's those snide remarks to the side, that gaslighting, intentional or not, that really sticks with you as a kid. You don't fully comprehend what your mother is saying, or why she is saying it, and sometimes you don't even understand how her remarks are impacting you, but they affect you, and that impact will manifest itself sooner or later.
One of the things that I'm still struggling with to this day is trying to stay healthy, because when I first started getting a little bigger as a kid, the only thing I got from my mother was stuff like "wow you must have gotten pregnant". That really stung deep down, but I only realized of it way, way later, when the damage of remarks like that had already morphed into deeper psychological issues with myself. It was as if my mother, instead of trying to be positive, just commented on my weight like it was a joke, as though that was supposed to make me want to lose weight. Spoiler alert: It made me absolutely loathe myself and how I look, which in turn lead me to eat more as escapism.
And that's just one example, there's also stuff like pressuring me to do certain things or pick certain paths in life. For example I'm trying to follow my dream profession of being a translator and every time I talk to my mother about it she always comments on how I should be doing this or that, as if my life should be molded the way she sees best. It's infuriating now, but it was especially toxic as a kid, when I had no clear direction of where I wanted to go, and she tried to coerce my choices even when I wasn't comfortable with them.
As a child I thought stuff like this was normal. It was only when my father decided to separate from my mother, and she left the house, that I finally realized how great it was to live without someone constantly making snide remarks at you. She still visits from time to time, and every time she does she will inevitably bring snide remarks about something (if not about me then it'll be about the house she herself used to live in. I can't help but feel she's just projecting, because I know her living situation isn't great and she's constantly butting heads with my grandmother, who she now lives with). But now I've learned what she's doing and how to protect myself from it a little more and just kinda ignore it.
Sorry if this was a bit rambly, I had never talked at length about how I feel about my mother and just sort of wanted to get it all out there.
I know exactly what you mean. The worst part is the gaslighting, IMHO. You grow up thinking that life is supposed to be this bad, and the misery is just part of the way the world is. What is wrong...
I know exactly what you mean. The worst part is the gaslighting, IMHO. You grow up thinking that life is supposed to be this bad, and the misery is just part of the way the world is. What is wrong with you that is making you far too emotional about these simple facts of life?
I actually had a therapist for most of my late adolescense and teenage years. In retrospect, I'm a bit impressed at how bad some of them were at figuring out what my problems were. But I'm bringing them up because they're a part of a particular story.
For some reason or another, I had decided to write something about my life, and it turned out I was somehow able to write about subjects that I couldn't say out loud and get my feelings off my chest. I guess it was something like an emotional breakthrough. By the time I had finished I had been crying my eyes out and was almost too emotionally drained to stay awake any longer. By coincidence, I had an appointment with the therapist soon after. I explained that I was too depressed to go but of course that wasn't good enough, they kept trying to barge into my room to force me to go. And so with a mixture of desperation and stupidity, I gave them what I had written and told them that they should give it to the therapist and that it was absolutely private.
Naturally my privacy meant nothing to them, so they opened it up and read the whole thing, including all the bad things I had said about them.
I don't think I need to explain what happened next; whatever you are imagining happened next probably actually did. This may or may not have been when they decided I didn't need the privacy of a door on my room anymore; the exact details of that event is pretty hazy.
As bad as that day ended up becoming, and as much as it made life worse for me in the future, it did have one shining pearl; I finally could see where my problems were coming from. Though things did get much darker before they got better - I couldn't stop from drinking from that well - it was the first step towards fixing things. Now I can see that the well was full of seawater; I could never have drank enough to satisfy my thirst without it killing me.
So much this! My life at home was like: My parents and brothers: poke. poke. poke. poke. Me: STOP FUCKING POKING ME! Them: Why are you always so angry?
The worst part is the gaslighting, IMHO. You grow up thinking that life is supposed to be this bad, and the misery is just part of the way the world is. What is wrong with you that is making you far too emotional about these simple facts of life?
So much this! My life at home was like:
My parents and brothers: poke. poke. poke. poke.
Me: STOP FUCKING POKING ME!
Them: Why are you always so angry?
This hits home hard. While the writer talks within the context of a mother/daughter relationship, everything written applies equally to any parent/child relationship, and even beyond the family to any relationship where people involved are not treating each other as equals.
My parents were incredibly toxic. It took over a decade after escaping their house before it clicked for me. Even then, I mostly just went through the motions anyway, as I saw that as the easiest way of coping with it.
But then I had a kid, and their toxicity was endangering my 4 month old baby. That was the last straw, and after a big struggle, I have cut off contact for the foreseeable future, if not forever.
My wife and I are now much happier than we ever were before cutting them out, and I sleep easier knowing that my parents can't play a direct role in fucking up my kid's mental health the way they did mine.
My only regret is not cutting them out of my life sooner.
Glad you were able to escape! It's going on 10 years for me since I cut my parents out of my life. I see them about every 2-4 years at weddings and funerals. I'm civil to them, but don't tell them anything about my life. I don't think they realize the damage they did. Instead they act baffled that I won't talk to them or see them outside of those settings, despite me making it perfectly clear what the reasons were when I finally made the decision not to talk to them anymore. I don't think they even think what they did was real or wrong. Like you, my main regret is not doing it sooner.
Reading this article was like reading a biography. I know the article was targeting daughters, but despite being a man I still really identify with a ton of points raised here.
I have so many issues with my self-esteem and my image because of how my mother treated me as I grew up. She was never physically abusive, and I wouldn't necessarily say she was purposefully trying to be psychologically abusive either, she showed plenty of kindness at times even, but it's those snide remarks to the side, that gaslighting, intentional or not, that really sticks with you as a kid. You don't fully comprehend what your mother is saying, or why she is saying it, and sometimes you don't even understand how her remarks are impacting you, but they affect you, and that impact will manifest itself sooner or later.
One of the things that I'm still struggling with to this day is trying to stay healthy, because when I first started getting a little bigger as a kid, the only thing I got from my mother was stuff like "wow you must have gotten pregnant". That really stung deep down, but I only realized of it way, way later, when the damage of remarks like that had already morphed into deeper psychological issues with myself. It was as if my mother, instead of trying to be positive, just commented on my weight like it was a joke, as though that was supposed to make me want to lose weight. Spoiler alert: It made me absolutely loathe myself and how I look, which in turn lead me to eat more as escapism.
And that's just one example, there's also stuff like pressuring me to do certain things or pick certain paths in life. For example I'm trying to follow my dream profession of being a translator and every time I talk to my mother about it she always comments on how I should be doing this or that, as if my life should be molded the way she sees best. It's infuriating now, but it was especially toxic as a kid, when I had no clear direction of where I wanted to go, and she tried to coerce my choices even when I wasn't comfortable with them.
As a child I thought stuff like this was normal. It was only when my father decided to separate from my mother, and she left the house, that I finally realized how great it was to live without someone constantly making snide remarks at you. She still visits from time to time, and every time she does she will inevitably bring snide remarks about something (if not about me then it'll be about the house she herself used to live in. I can't help but feel she's just projecting, because I know her living situation isn't great and she's constantly butting heads with my grandmother, who she now lives with). But now I've learned what she's doing and how to protect myself from it a little more and just kinda ignore it.
Sorry if this was a bit rambly, I had never talked at length about how I feel about my mother and just sort of wanted to get it all out there.
I know exactly what you mean. The worst part is the gaslighting, IMHO. You grow up thinking that life is supposed to be this bad, and the misery is just part of the way the world is. What is wrong with you that is making you far too emotional about these simple facts of life?
I actually had a therapist for most of my late adolescense and teenage years. In retrospect, I'm a bit impressed at how bad some of them were at figuring out what my problems were. But I'm bringing them up because they're a part of a particular story.
For some reason or another, I had decided to write something about my life, and it turned out I was somehow able to write about subjects that I couldn't say out loud and get my feelings off my chest. I guess it was something like an emotional breakthrough. By the time I had finished I had been crying my eyes out and was almost too emotionally drained to stay awake any longer. By coincidence, I had an appointment with the therapist soon after. I explained that I was too depressed to go but of course that wasn't good enough, they kept trying to barge into my room to force me to go. And so with a mixture of desperation and stupidity, I gave them what I had written and told them that they should give it to the therapist and that it was absolutely private.
Naturally my privacy meant nothing to them, so they opened it up and read the whole thing, including all the bad things I had said about them.
I don't think I need to explain what happened next; whatever you are imagining happened next probably actually did. This may or may not have been when they decided I didn't need the privacy of a door on my room anymore; the exact details of that event is pretty hazy.
As bad as that day ended up becoming, and as much as it made life worse for me in the future, it did have one shining pearl; I finally could see where my problems were coming from. Though things did get much darker before they got better - I couldn't stop from drinking from that well - it was the first step towards fixing things. Now I can see that the well was full of seawater; I could never have drank enough to satisfy my thirst without it killing me.
So much this! My life at home was like:
My parents and brothers: poke. poke. poke. poke.
Me: STOP FUCKING POKING ME!
Them: Why are you always so angry?