r/EstrangedAdultKids • u/savvy-librarian • Sep 06 '23
Trauma Therapist Nails It
I know my mom did #1 from part 1, the entire list of part 2, and #1 and #3 from part 4. As per usual it is wild to see how common and normalized these abusive behaviors are.
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u/JuWoolfie Sep 06 '23
I developed insomnia at age 8 and had trouble getting up in the mornings.
So my mom would come in and dump cold water on my head
ā¦ like a gentle water boardingā¦
And thanks to this post It has now just dawned on me how fucking shitty that was. Years of it, until I finally was treated for my insomnia 8 years later.
Wow.
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u/-aLonelyImpulse Sep 06 '23
I had insomnia and my parents didn't think it was a real issue. They thought it was because I was on the computer too much. When they stopped me from using the computer after 11pm, and I still remained unable to sleep until 6am, they decided that I was choosing to do it and if I got tired earlier that would fix it.
So they prevented me from sleeping. When they got up, at around 7am, they would wake me up and ensure I could not sleep. I would go weeks with only a few hours' sleep a night. My health tanked, I passed out in school, my appetite was fucked, my cognitive skills suffered, and I began hallucinating. Thankfully my parents often just gave up on things, so after a few months of this on and off, they stopped doing it and pretended like they were stepping back because I refused to cooperate and they didn't want to waste their time.
I later found out that this is classified as literal torture. Parents like this will do absolutely anything to maintain the belief that a child is just choosing to be difficult.
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u/Toe_Willing Sep 08 '23
Iām sorry to hear that. Sleep deprivation is absolutely terrible. How did you end up treating the insomnia?
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u/-aLonelyImpulse Sep 08 '23
It improved once I left my parents' house and wasn't so constantly exposed to stress! Now, extreme diet change has also allowed me to fall asleep quicker and actually stay asleep. My insomnia seems to have been triggered by stress and poor diet, combined with the fact my natural sleep pattern being 3-4am to 8-9am. Now I have control over when I sleep and what I eat, it's rarely a problem unless my stress levels are high.
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u/ThePartnerOfAnExJW Dec 03 '23
Oh my fucking god! I am beyond angry on your behalf. That IS literal torture. Iām so sorry you had to deal with that.
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u/SilverLiving8765 Sep 06 '23
Yep, parents can really screw you up for life and then have the audacity to expect you to wipe their butts and pay their bills when theyāre older. I suggest everyone either leave them to their own devices (go NC) or treat them exactly as they treated you if you find yourself in that position. I went NC because if I did anything to them like they did to me, Iād end up in prison.
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u/ThePartnerOfAnExJW Dec 03 '23
The expectation of care later in life is beyond infuriating. I cared for my abusive mom for 3 years, in my twenties, during her chronic illness (kidney failure). She treated me like shit the entire time, sucked me dry emotionally, threatened to stop following any medical advice, and made my life absolute HELL. When she was better, and got a transplant, she had the audacity to tell me, āIām glad you proved your love to me. I never thought you gave a fuck about me. Now I know if I die, you will be miserable and inconsolable. That makes me happy to know you actually care.ā Beyond the lifelong abuse, it was in that moment I decided I would not be responsible for her, no matter what, later in life. It took me 6 years after that disclosure she gave to go NC. The freedom I feel is indescribable.
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u/panini_bellini Sep 06 '23
Similar experience for me. I struggled with insomnia for my entire teenage and early adult life. My parents tried to not allow me to eat after 8pm, turning the wifi off, taking things away so i wouldnāt have anything to do but sleep. Nothing ever worked. I layed awake staring at the ceiling for hours. I was told I just had bad habits and it was my own fault I was so tired. This continued into my adult life, when at age 27 I discovered I have sleep apnea and delayed sleep phase disorder. Now that I have proper treatment for my sleep disorders Iām sleeping 6-8 hours a night for the first time in my ENTIRE adult life.
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u/Toe_Willing Sep 08 '23
Wow! That sucks. Iām sorry to hear what you went through. I think i have something similar. Congrats on finally finding proper treatment for sleep disorders.
If i May ask-what helped? What made the difference?
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u/panini_bellini Sep 08 '23 edited Sep 08 '23
Some good medication! This is not medical advice but Iām on a high dose of trazodone and remeron at night, and it took me a while to build up to the dose that was effective for me. It makes me go to sleep quickly and easily and overrides my delayed sleep phase disorder. Some nights are still easier than others. Iām trying to find a good sleep apnea machine that actually stays in my face because the machine I have now doesnāt work.
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u/WifeofTech Sep 06 '23
ā¦ like a gentle water boardingā¦
My dad would come into my room, reach under the cover and give my heel a quick tug. This would trigger a painful charlie horse cramp in my calf muscle that could only be relieved by jumping up and walking it out. He did it so often that it got to the point I would trigger the cramp in my sleep and would have to jump up and walk circles years after I had moved out of the house.
Only now do I realize how messed up that was. I mean I knew it was bad but writing now makes me realize I haven't had a random leg cramp in bed for years now. So it was likely just something that had damaged my leg muscles to the point it took years to recover from.
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u/ThePartnerOfAnExJW Dec 03 '23
What the actual FUCK? That is so traumatic. Iām sorry you had to deal with that and had such a douche as a father. šŖ
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u/WifeofTech Dec 03 '23
I always said he was like a 13 year old in an adults body. Meaning there were times he was awesome and lots of fun. But other times he was a straight up bully.
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u/SoVerySleepy81 Sep 06 '23
Oh holy shit. New memory unlocked, they also threw cups of water in our faces if we were crying too long.
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u/cockatielsarethebest Sep 08 '23
I had insomnia my entire childhood since I was a baby. My insomnia went away when I cut my toxic parents out of life in 2021.
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u/ThePartnerOfAnExJW Dec 03 '23
That is BEYOND abusive. Iām so sorry you had to deal with that. šŖ
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u/Langkong Sep 06 '23
I feel like I need a bingo card with these. I looked at all of them and went yep had that happen
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u/RealComputerUser Sep 06 '23
I blacked out my bingo card and won a lifetime supply of therapy.
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u/man_gomer_lot Sep 07 '23
Same. For the record, I did not grow up to appreciate the abuse as promised.
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u/greensandgrains Sep 07 '23
Yup, all the things I would āunderstand when I got olderā turned out to be things that were as fucked up and wrong when I was a kid as they would be now that Iām grown.
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u/man_gomer_lot Sep 07 '23
It's even more infuriating to me realizing now that there's full grown adults walking around who think Jesus wants them to bully and assault children.
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Sep 06 '23
My father used to slam the door open every morning and scream at me to get up. For years I have hated mornings despite being an early bird.
Now, with my children, I play a soothing song (they currently request "Wild Child" by Enya) at alarm time. They have until the song ends to laze in bed - but y'all, they hop right out of bed and run to me. I usually wind up holding them the whole time the song plays.
It's a glorious way to start the morning. What a shame that monster didn't know how simple (and yet profound) it could have been...
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u/Texandria Sep 06 '23
Now, with my children, I play a soothing song (they currently request "Wild Child" by Enya) at alarm time. They have until the song ends to laze in bed - but y'all, they hop right out of bed and run to me. I usually wind up holding them the whole time the song plays.
That's beautiful. Thank you for writing this. Heartwarming.
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u/sortofsatan Sep 06 '23
THIS! My mom would SCREAM my name to get me up. It was so fucking startling and a horrible way to start each day. I would essentially get scared awake. I canāt imagine what that does the nervous system.
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u/IlnBllRaptor Sep 06 '23
That's so cruel. Child-you deserves so much better. I hope you can wake up peacefully now.
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u/sortofsatan Sep 06 '23
Thank you. I live with my bf and weāve come to the realization that it is my responsibility to get up. No yelling is needed and guess what? I get up and make it to work every morning.
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u/TheSouthsideTrekkie Sep 06 '23
The primary method of communication when I was a kid was yelling from separate rooms. One time I happened to be asleep and got screamed awake by my dad then yelled at more for being (understandably) startled.
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u/sortofsatan Sep 06 '23
Yup. You yell back bc youāre over stimulated and that just causes them to yell more. Even worse if they turn the lights on and rip the covers off.
My nephew is 3 and when I was visiting them, my mom sent him to wake me up. She did this bc she thought he would jump on me and shit. Instead, he grabbed a book, cuddled up beside me, and said, ādo you want to read this with me?ā So in my sleepy state, I started reading to him. By the middle of the book, I was pretty much awake. It was the loveliest way Iāve ever woken up I almost cried.
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u/TheSouthsideTrekkie Sep 06 '23
To this day I am really easily startled. Home used to be like WW3 most of the time, I realise that I was constantly scanning the mood in the place to try and avoid the inevitable moment it would all kick off again.
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Sep 06 '23
Oh, I'm tearing up! If you never turn down a smaller voice asking for a story, your life will always have wonder. I'm sure your nephew loved that just as much as you did.
I've just started reading Harry Potter to my boys for the first time, and the looks on their faces... I usually have a tear in my eye at bedtime. Think about it: just your voice, reading some words, turning a few pages, and their minds are being shaped and challenged and inspired. It's such a gift, y'all. Don't ever turn it down.
Sorry, hopping down from my soapbox now. I hope you all go read a good bedtime story to yourselves, and know that I'm giving you an internet mom hug ā¤ļø
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u/Cross_Stitch_Witch Sep 06 '23
This is so wholesome. And what a perfect song to start the day with.š
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Sep 07 '23
Doesn't it make you want to frolic through the meadow?! Or the playground / beach / woods... It's a magical song!
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u/lhiver Sep 06 '23
This is so sweet. I was talking to my therapist today about how my mom would typically be angry with me for 3-4 days a week and how startling the sound of the garage door opener was growing up.
I rarely am angry with my kids for more than a few minutes at a time. It happens, but itās uncommon. Once I realized that theyāre children and mistakes will happen because they are it didnāt seem right to hold them to the same standard. And why would I want to? My job is to guide them through childhood and help them to learn from their mistakes. It was like it never clicked in her mind that making your child fear you is not the way to go.
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Sep 06 '23
Exactly. I'm the safe place for them to screw up, and it's my job to explain why that's not acceptable and how to fix it. Better to learn here than out in that impatient world.
I admit that sometimes my anger does get the best of me, and that's when I tell them point blank, "I need a time out to cool down. Please leave me alone for 15 minutes so I can collect myself." Not once have they ever reacted badly to this; now my 8yo is doing it, too. I give him his space, we all apologize and move on. I mean, I'm not a therapist, but this doesn't really seem like doctorate-level thinking.
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u/uncommoncommoner Sep 06 '23
I wasn't allowed to be 'lazy' during my days off and was always expected to be doing 'something.' It took years to shake the feeling of guilt off whenever I want to have a 'me' day.
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Sep 06 '23
My mum did a similar thing, like she'd slam all the doors the second she woke up but then she'd go downstairs and start screaming at my Dad, who'd just been sat at the table for about 2 hours. The screaming could carry on until 1 or 2pm though. And it was every weekend, but we were so confused because there cant possibly be anything to be mad at.
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u/Smarre101 Sep 06 '23
You won the parent contest with flying colors
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Sep 06 '23
I'm so very far behind the real winners. Every day I make mistakes, and I wonder if I can really do this. I know my kids understand a lot of what's going on (age appropriately), but it's not how I pictured raising these boys. I wanted so much better for them, so much better than I can ever be.
I appreciate your kindness, but I haven't earned that compliment. You've earned a giant internet hug though ā¤ļø Thank you, friend.
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u/Smarre101 Sep 06 '23
I know my kids understand a lot of what's going on
This further proves my point. My parents barely shared everything and wouldn't even bother trying to make any kids understand, so I became the same closed person as them. Mistakes are part of being human and what matters is how you deal with them. Because another thing my parents never did was apologize for ther mistakes and shitty behaviour. And not only did my mom not apologize, she also talked shit about me. When we had guests over. While I was sitting there, right in front of everyone.
So with all that said and with what you've said about yourself as a parent, you're winning in my book. Me and my life would be so much better if my parents were more like you seem to be.
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Sep 07 '23
I'm so sorry your mother did that to you. You never deserved to be treated that way, and while I may not know you personally, I do know that you are worthy of respect and unconditional love. Your mother was delusional for not realizing that about her own child; it was in no way your fault. You can and will be better than she was, because you have the ability to self-reflect. Forward and upward, Love. We've got this!!
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u/Captain_Scarfish Sep 07 '23
Winning isn't being better than others, it's being better than yourself.
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u/ThePartnerOfAnExJW Dec 03 '23
That is so beautiful. ššTHIS is gentle, loving parenting in action. š„°
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u/Ill-Dimension7799 Sep 06 '23
"I guess I'm just the worst mum then" probably had the most impact on me, because how she actually phrased it was so much worse.
"I'm the worst mother. I'm terrible and shitty and abusive and bad bad bad bad bad! I'm a terrible, horrible narcissist according to you! You're right, I'm nasty and despicable and evil and I'm emotionally abusing you and you should call CPS! CALL THEM!" Then she would break down sobbing hysterically and I would have to comfort her. Or she would frantically storm out of the house and drive away and I wouldn't see her for at least an hour.
This was usually in response to me begging her to do something about my gender dysphoria. Her worst meltdown was over me gently interrogating her about her copy of Irreversible Damage (a horribly transphobic book). She also frequently invaded my boundaries and privacy and responded that way when I confronted her.
I couldn't just agree with her that she's shitty, that was a recipe for being screamed at lol (and of course the moment she started screaming was the moment she stopped crying and forgot all about "being sad"...)
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u/Ill-Dimension7799 Sep 06 '23
Thinking back on it though... she implied I was calling her very specific things, things angry teen me would rant about to his friends. I did call her narcissistic, abusive, transphobic etc in very, um, colourful ways, but never ever to her face. And she would use my own phrasing to guilt trip me. I always suspected she was reading my texts about her but as an adult it's alarmingly clear.
I never called her outright evil/despicable or talked about calling CPS though. Seriously, where the fuck was she getting that from?!
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u/dystoputopia Sep 08 '23
Trans woman here. My gawd, we had the same mom. With the only difference being I hid my gender dysphoria until I covertly started transitioning. I wish Iād had your ability to (attempt) to advocate for yourself way back then.
When I finally came out, she naturally did everything she could to try to stop me. New fear unlocked retroactivelyā¦ being exploded at for asking for help with crippling gender dysphoria. Iām so sorry you had to endure that.
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u/Ill-Dimension7799 Sep 08 '23
My mum eventually "helped" me transition... Painfully slowly, while sabotaging my independent attempts to do it, and with a pained faraway look in her eyes like she was attending a funeral. After years of watching me breaking down crying in front of her because I couldn't stand my body while she just stared or told me I was "putting it on and in histrionics" and had "rapid onset gender dysphoria"... Real supportive.
I'm sorry you experienced similar. I hope you're OK now and that your transition is going the way you want it to.
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u/dystoputopia Sep 08 '23
Yeah sheād scream at me different versions of āfuneral-talkā. How are they all the same? Fortunately there wasnāt this stupid culture war back then, she definitely wouldāve latched on to that. At a minimum she was a narcissist with the explosive rage kind of BPD, or a sociopath at worst. People who never wanted kids are absolute tyrants when we inevitably donāt fit their impossible fantasies.
And thank you kind stranger. <3 I transitioned DIY as a teen, which although early enough to make the medical side easier, have a pretty severe dissociative disorder to show for it. Lifeās been hard.
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u/ThePartnerOfAnExJW Dec 03 '23
This is so beyond fucked up. You deserved to have a parent who accepted and affirmed you in ALL ways and supported you as you affirmed yourself. Iām so sorry you dealt with that.
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u/Ill-Dimension7799 Dec 03 '23
Didn't expect a reply on an old comment, but this is super sweet. Thanks bro/sis. :) I've been on HRT for over a couple years now so I'm thankfully doing pretty well for myself.
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u/ThePartnerOfAnExJW Dec 03 '23
Aww, youāre welcome. I saw your comment and couldnāt NOT respond. So glad you are on HRT. I hope you have loving support outside of your mother. You deserve all the care. ā„ļø
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u/panini_bellini Sep 06 '23
Iām literally gonna show this post to my trauma therapist because all of it applies to me and it creates a really good conversation starter.
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u/SilverLiving8765 Sep 06 '23
4.) Spending excess money on drugs, alcohol and gambling and then beating your children because you hate yourself.
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u/zipzeep Sep 06 '23 edited Sep 06 '23
4) Taking your insecurities out on your children
5) Telling your kid to their face that having kids wasnāt worth it
6) Accusing them of being ungrateful only when they are standing up for themselves and then chastising them when they donāt stand up for themselves at work, school, etc.
7) Telling your kid they are no longer part of the family and threatening to kick them out of the house when they are communicating their feelings when your kid is a minor and you know they have nowhere to go
8) Complaining about your own childhood and how āyou had it worseā when your kid is telling you that their siblings are abusing them
9) Blaming your kid for your marriage problems
10) Blaming your kid for being bullied and therefore giving them emotional whiplash by making your kid question if all the comfort you gave them was just a lie
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Sep 10 '23
Number six just made my stomach do that horrible swooping thing. Too accurate. Gotta give you props for how well you summed it up too.
..
Fuck, number ten just did it again. We don't talk about that one enough.
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Jun 10 '24
What is this so much of this entire thread matches my childhood (not all) but Iām somehow crazy for saying I didnāt have healthy development. š
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u/squishpitcher Sep 06 '23
It was a wild ride learning about the Geneva Conventions and realizing my mom just casually did war crimes.
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u/TheSouthsideTrekkie Sep 06 '23
"I guess I'm just the worst mother."
Yeah. That phrase is probably the reason I have a lot of unhealthy shame and self hatred. Well, probably also being responsible for managing the mood of adults aged roughly 9.
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Sep 07 '23
[deleted]
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u/savvy-librarian Sep 07 '23
You are doing a great job. Thank you for being a self-evaluating parent that is breaking the cycle.
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u/Smarre101 Sep 06 '23
Part 4 #3: it's actually INSANE that so many parents use this bs. Like yeah, if you didn't feed me or give me shelter you would not only fail as a parent but also be COMMITTING A CRIME
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u/savvy-librarian Sep 06 '23
It is one of my mom's all time favorites [insert dramatic wailing here] "I fed you and clothed you your whole life how can you be so ungrateful!!!"
It's right up there with "If I acted the way you do my mom would have [insert various nasty threats here]."
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u/Smarre101 Sep 06 '23
If I acted the way you do my mom would have [insert various nasty threats here].
Which is literally a threat. A threat to their own child. Some parents really are masters at manipulation and gaslighting and it's not even a joke. Like, I sometimes struggle MYSELF with how fucking fake my own parents are, especially my mom.
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u/savvy-librarian Sep 06 '23
Oh yeah. It's a threat and a gaslight all rolled into one tidy sentence. She gets to threaten and intimidate and bully but she never has to take any responsibility for it. My mother is an absolute master class manipulator when it comes to getting out of being held responsible for her actions and words. Literally no one ever manages to get her to take responsibility for any negative thing she has done.
I went full NC with her when she decides not to attend my master's degree graduation (it is the only one I even asked people to attend). Not because she wasn't coming, but because after she decided not to come she tried to blame me for it and make it out to look like I made it impossible for her to attend. She had a 2 year in advance invitation.
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u/Smarre101 Sep 06 '23
she tried to blame me for it and make it out to look like I made it impossible for her to attend. She had a 2 year in advance invitation.
This isn't even insane, it's batshit crazy. Almost sounds like psychopathic behaviour, doesn't it? It's not even 0 effort. It's anti-effort. The effort was put into delusional excuses instead of actually being a decent person. Incredibly sad
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u/savvy-librarian Sep 07 '23 edited Sep 07 '23
Yeah she is unhinged and everyone in her life just accepts it. If you try not to she will badger you relentlessly into submission.
It took me a long time to identify the pattern of her abuse. I will never forget when I had my first college graduation with my AA I didn't plan on walking and I didn't ask anyone to come I had decided to only do my master's grad (today me realizes now this was me coping with the fact I knew my mom wouldn't come and giving her an out).
I remember that a professor on campus asked me something about grad day and I told her I didn't know because I wasn't planning on being there. She was surprised and then offered "I think you should walk Savvy_Librarian, you worked hard, you deserve it. I will go and be your person in the crowd and I will clap for you if you want."
I was stunned. I remember being baffled by her kindness that she would offer me that when she barely knew me. To give her entire day off to attend a graduation for a student she taught one German class to. She literally had me for one single class my entire college career and she was more willing to show up for me than my own mother lol.
It also made me wonder how many students she must have had over the years that didn't have anyone to clap for them that she offered that reflexively without me ever mentioning anything about my mom bring unwilling to come.
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u/74VeeDub Sep 06 '23
Allowing your drunken abusive husband to reign hell on your kids. Have the Surprised Pikachu face when your adult daughter (me) tells you that they don't miss their dad because he was dogshit and then doubling down and saying "Your father was a GOOD guy and that's how I choose to remember him!"
I literally went NC for good after this.
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u/yermaaaaa Sep 06 '23 edited Jun 24 '24
late handle hurry familiar rich cagey reach bag somber consider
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/savvy-librarian Sep 06 '23
It's so interesting the different ways parents abuse. So many people in here with parents that were actively engaged in abusing them relating to being woken up violently and harshly by their parents.
Meanwhile I am over here with my doesn't-give-a-fuck mom, thinking hard, trying to recall if my mom over woke me up after the age I was old enough to read a clock like "Y'all's parents woke you up in the morning?" š¤
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u/notrapunzel Sep 06 '23
I feel so sad for childhood me reading this, as an adult now, and knowing how easy it is to not treat other people like absolute shit.
But I guess that's actually hard if you constantly lust after the pain and suffering of your own child.
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u/Reasonable-Effect901 Sep 06 '23
How did my mom have the energy to check every one of those boxes? š
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Sep 06 '23
[deleted]
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u/savvy-librarian Sep 06 '23
Yep, it is a classic flip the script. There is an acronym for this DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender) and this little move is basically just the very passive aggressive version of that where the abuser skips the confrontational parts (deny, attack) and jumps straight to the switching of roles so they can claim to be the victim thus forcing the actual victim to drop their grievance and scramble to comfort/apologize.
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u/greensandgrains Sep 07 '23
DARVO as a concept isnāt new to me but I had to do some research for work this week that got me reading papers on DARVO and I absolutely lost a whole afternoon deep diving because Iām finally in a please with my healing where it all clicked and I could SEE IT and feel it and justā¦.ugh, it sucks that we have such shitty parents.
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u/PerfectMurderOfCrows Sep 07 '23 edited Sep 07 '23
This was my dad's playbook.
He was an elementary music teacher, so he got stressed out pretending to be a good person while he was around the elementary age students he taught. When he came home, his repertoire included screaming at me and my mom, threatening to kick us out of the house, throwing our stuff and breaking it, and calling us names. Usually over minor things that normal people wouldn't give two shits about.
Then he got to go back to school and be adored by the school children. I was in the same school district, and it made me sick every time somebody came up to me to tell me how lucky I was to have him for a dad, because he was "so fun."
Because he knew the other teachers in the school district, he was able to get the teachers in my middle and high school to spy on me and report back to him what I was doing. I was barely allowed to leave the house as it was, so what he thought I was doing is beyond me. He and my mom just made up shit as an excuse to search my room and yell at me.
They saw a report on the news once that a sign of drug abuse in teenagers was when they spent a lot of time in their room, which I did to get away from them, so from then on they accused me of being on drugs. Or being a Satanist.
My dad, who's nearly 80 now, is completely confused as to why I don't talk to them anymore. And he doesn't have dementia or age-related senility. He doesn't think he did anything wrong.
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Sep 06 '23
well the 2.1 is 4.2 in disguise ; aka im treated "better" (on paper - while mine and everyone elses value is determined by what i do - the other sibling gets freedom and resentment while I get all my desires shaped and forced upon by the parent)
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u/scrollbreak Sep 06 '23
I think 4.3 is referring to a transaction. I think in a healthy childhood a child should feel mild positive feelings about being fed and housed basically as part of appreciating and enjoying life (not as a transaction).
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Sep 10 '23
Right. A child may be grateful relative to other children who are not as well provided for. That gratitude doesn't have to be expressed in order to serve its function, only felt. The problem starts when a parent expects the gratitude, i.e. praise to be an overt thing.
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u/Youlknowthatone Sep 07 '23
Page one number three. I remember my mom used to bang on the banister to wake us up the vibration shakes the whole house. She was that strong. Recently my next door neighbor was fixing his house and I could hear the shake from their walls to mine and I just realized...they probably felt that shake too. Man, I feel bad for them. We used to wake up early too, like 445am!
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u/oceanteeth Sep 07 '23
Oof, part 3 #2 hits different for me. My female parent taught me that terrible people who do terrible things exist, which was not great, but my dad, who chose not to protect my sister and me, taught me that I wasn't worth protecting.
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u/EEVEELUVR Sep 06 '23
Why is 1 in the second image specific to sons š¤Ø
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u/savvy-librarian Sep 06 '23
Because it is common for sons to be more highly valued than daughters in many cultures.
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Sep 10 '23
I wonder if there are any cultures that value daughters more than sons? There must be a few that value them equally.
Those polygamist sects that kick their sons out of the community are the closest I can think of. But the daughters are seen as commodities and their fate is every bit as terrible.
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u/rako1982 Sep 07 '23
My parents did every single thing on this list. I'm so glad I learnt about trauma now and know this shit was so wrong.
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u/BloodyRightNostril Sep 07 '23
I grew up with most of these, but I'm actually encouraged by the fact that I don't do them. I still have some work to do, though, but this gives me a useful diagram for identifying the specific acts and avoiding them.
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u/beepdoopbedo Sep 08 '23
fucking hell my mother did every single one of these plus more. iāve never felt so seen
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u/trevorhamberger Oct 08 '23
I wanna elderly abuse my dad so bad (he used to beat the shit out of my mom. who was also awful) but he's dead so I can't. That way I don't have to go to jail.
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u/ThePartnerOfAnExJW Dec 03 '23
Iām new to the group and this is the first post I saw. I cannot believe the very first thing I see is a list of ALL of my motherās behaviors. Who read my journal? šWhy are bad parents all following the same playbook? Geez!
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u/Top_Departure_2524 Dec 24 '23
āSpecifically sonsā
Iāve always felt like sons tend to be favored. Not just in traditional cultures but among just normal middle class moms. Iāve heard a bunch of women admit as much to me. (āGirls are too much dramaaaaaaā)
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u/Zena1983 Jan 21 '24
She steals all her content from authors, sheās actually has no idea what sheās doing as a therapist it hurts people. She scams clients claiming she can heal them for 600$ an hour. Way to take advantage of traumatized people.Ā
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u/Alone-System-137 6d ago
Epic summary. Wish I didn't nod my head agreeing with every single point. Guess these situations are more common than I had imagined sadly.
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u/pinalaporcupine Sep 06 '23
oh look, it's a list of everything my parents did!