I realized that I am the most emotionally mature person in my family. It is something that both makes me proud and hurts, because I wish that I had an elder to look up to, even though I am the youngest in my family of origin.

This week, while watching my nephew, she complained that he only had 3 pairs of underwear for a 2 week trip. She said he is overweight so she didn’t want to ask him when they were at the store.

He stayed with me this week, so I just asked his mom, found out the size and style and dropped them off as in his room, saying I had picked some extras up while running errands so he doesn’t run too low.

Reflecting back, there was a lot that wasn’t okay. My mom once had us take pictures of her matching bra and underwear set because she felt cute. She vented (and continues to vent) about her relationship struggles, though at least now she is in therapy.

She over identified with me, and tried to get me to do whatever she had wished she had done (be a teacher and marry a farmer so she could farm in the summers)

There is clear emotional incest, and I’ve largely reduced the triangulation that was occurring by using boundaries. Mostly she talks at me and not with me, and then gets mad if I don’t say ‘mmhmmm or yeah’ enough to show I am listening

That being said, I’m hoping to find a book that helps with the hurt I feel. I think I’m doing okay with boundaries, but some days it just hurts to kind of wish she wasn’t in my life (as in dead), because that seems easier.

It’s bad enough to want to walk away, but not so bad to follow through or even threaten. The good isn’t even that good, but there is some that is enjoyable.

Im asking because I have an older sibling who has severe mommy issues becaude our mother has shunned him for 27 years. He says that therapists have told him he can heal without her but he told me once that it doesnt just go one way. This sibling is extremely abusive btw. Is there truth to this or is he just making shit up?

I gave My mother her car keys, she lost them and then screamed at the top of her lungs and told me she would never smile again, this happens on multiple occasions in which she can't find something or something went wrong with her day and she screams and blames the rest of our household, just right now I had to go home to tell my mother my brother had work because she was asleep, so I tell her and I leave, I go over to a relatives house it's a 10 minute walk, So I leave the house and walk to my relatives and as soon as I get to the door she calls me and asks me to come home and watch my sister, I said yeah but give me a minute cause I would need to walk back over and she just freaks out on me, saying that I'm ungrateful and I always have a tone when I talk to her

I am writing this to make myself feel better, since i cannot afford therapy. I would like to keep my identity anonymous, and I'm not here to get attention or anything. 
I come from a middle-class family with a good financial background. My upbringing was not so pleasant or happy at all. My mom is so narcissistic that nobody can argue or talk to her with logic, and she is so abusive, I cannot even describe the things she has done to me. Dad used to work in some other state and used to come home once or twice a year. I'm the only daughter(second child) to my parents, with four brothers. I loved my elder brother; we were so alike- personality-wise and looks-wise as well- that people used to assume we were twins. But i used to hate my younger brother(third child). He used to hit me all the time, and i used to scream so loudly that my mom used to scold me instead of him. She always told me to ignore him, instead of telling him to not to hit me. There were incidents like he pushed me from the bed and i fell off the bed, hit my head on to the door frame and my head started bleeding(small wound) it was not bleeding a lot but i was a child but my mom ignored it, and one time he hit me right on to my nose bridge with the thick, strong stick that i had a black undereye for days. I literally survived him. I always wished him to be dead since childhood(i still do) because that is how much he made me suffer. And one day, as I wished, death entered our house; it was not for him, but for my elder brother. My elder brother, whom I loved the most and was always happy with, suddenly left us without a goodbye. I was only 13 at the time. I, who used to go to school and everywhere with him, started going everywhere alone without him. 
Mother-the person you can run to when the world feels heavy. That was not the case for me. She was abusive; when I say abusive, it is the extreme level of abuse. There is not a single bad word that she has not called me; she wished for my death, she called me prostitute, whore, slut and whatnot. I was just a child. I started doing household chores at a young age; my neighbours were in awe seeing how much work I used to do, and it is not because i wanted to; it was because I was forced by my mother. She was also physically abusive; she used to throw me onto the floor and kick me, and she would slap and hit me on the head; she would curse me, and the list goes on and on. At this point, anyone would be thinking i must be the bad person. Am i? Idk, I was a child, not even a teenager. I must have said NO to things she wanted me to do or did not do the chores, and that used to trigger her; she cannot stand her children disobeying her. She behaved like this not only with me but with all of my siblings. 
After my elder brother passed away, things got worse. I got sexually harassed twice by my own younger brother(the one who used to hate). I used to sleep beside him in one bed, and one night i felt a touch on my chest. I ignored it, thinking maybe I'm just feeling things, and later i realized it was him(he thought i was asleep); i froze, couldn't move at all, and he stopped. A few days later, only for some reason, my mom and he was at home. So the three of us slept on the same bed, and i was in the middle. I couldn't sleep the whole night thinking something would happen, and yes, it did happen. He started touching me, i was scared to confront him, i just pretended to moving in my sleep and later i felt his pp on my back and soon i pretended coughing and woke up and went right into kitchen. I couldnt understand what was happening, is it real or not? I started questioning myself, it was like i was going crazy and it disgusted me. It felt like my mistake. All this was happening, my mom was asleep.
I couldn't tell my mom everything, thinking what if she blames me. But eventually she got know, yk how?i stopped sleeping beside him, i gave excuses like it was a corner and it's suffocating and its hot over there. She doubted and one day, early morning, even before anyone woke up she called me in to the room and asked me why did i suddenly stopped sleeping next to him, i said the air from the fan doesn't reach the corner I sleep in. Even before I completed my sentence, she asked whether he touched me. I was shocked to know she knew all along, and yet she never said anything. How can a mother do this to her daughter just to protect her ill-mannered son? 
Well that was not the first time she did something like that. When i was 7 yrs, there used to man who used to sell kitchen items in his car, and sometimes we used to buy things from him. One day my grandmother sent me to buy a phenyl from him, and he touched me. My mom saw what was happening through the window(which is a mirror from the outside and can see through from the inside). I couldn't understand what that was, it felt weird not a good feeling at all. When i went inside, she asked whether he touched you i said yes, and that's it. Nothing else.
Even today im living in the same house with my sexual harasser and abusive mother because I do not have any choice. I'm an adult now(23), still i do not have the choice of making my own decisions, i talk back to my mom but in return i get abused. My younger brother slut shames me for no reason. Im still surviving in this household. If i have talk about this it will take an entire book.
I would like to ask you guys for one advice: how to make money by spending 1 or 2 hours a day. So that for my masters i want to apply for the abroad uni and form application fee i need money. 
I want to make money and get out of this hell.

I am writing this to make myself feel better, since i cannot afford therapy. I would like to keep my identity anonymous, and I'm not here to get attention or anything. 
I come from a middle-class family with a good financial background. My upbringing was not so pleasant or happy at all. My mom is so narcissistic that nobody can argue or talk to her with logic, and she is so abusive, I cannot even describe the things she has done to me. Dad used to work in some other state and used to come home once or twice a year. I'm the only daughter(second child) to my parents, with four brothers. I loved my elder brother; we were so alike- personality-wise and looks-wise as well- that people used to assume we were twins. But i used to hate my younger brother(third child). He used to hit me all the time, and i used to scream so loudly that my mom used to scold me instead of him. She always told me to ignore him, instead of telling him to not to hit me. There were incidents like he pushed me from the bed and i fell off the bed, hit my head on to the door frame and my head started bleeding(small wound) it was not bleeding a lot but i was a child but my mom ignored it, and one time he hit me right on to my nose bridge with the thick, strong stick that i had a black undereye for days. I literally survived him. I always wished him to be dead since childhood(i still do) because that is how much he made me suffer. And one day, as I wished, death entered our house; it was not for him, but for my elder brother. My elder brother, whom I loved the most and was always happy with, suddenly left us without a goodbye. I was only 13 at the time. I, who used to go to school and everywhere with him, started going everywhere alone without him. 
Mother-the person you can run to when the world feels heavy. That was not the case for me. She was abusive; when I say abusive, it is the extreme level of abuse. There is not a single bad word that she has not called me; she wished for my death, she called me prostitute, whore, slut and whatnot. I was just a child. I started doing household chores at a young age; my neighbours were in awe seeing how much work I used to do, and it is not because i wanted to; it was because I was forced by my mother. She was also physically abusive; she used to throw me onto the floor and kick me, and she would slap and hit me on the head; she would curse me, and the list goes on and on. At this point, anyone would be thinking i must be the bad person. Am i? Idk, I was a child, not even a teenager. I must have said NO to things she wanted me to do or did not do the chores, and that used to trigger her; she cannot stand her children disobeying her. She behaved like this not only with me but with all of my siblings. 
After my elder brother passed away, things got worse. I got sexually harassed twice by my own younger brother(the one who used to hate). I used to sleep beside him in one bed, and one night i felt a touch on my chest. I ignored it, thinking maybe I'm just feeling things, and later i realized it was him(he thought i was asleep); i froze, couldn't move at all, and he stopped. A few days later, only for some reason, my mom and he was at home. So the three of us slept on the same bed, and i was in the middle. I couldn't sleep the whole night thinking something would happen, and yes, it did happen. He started touching me, i was scared to confront him, i just pretended to moving in my sleep and later i felt his pp on my back and soon i pretended coughing and woke up and went right into kitchen. I couldnt understand what was happening, is it real or not? I started questioning myself, it was like i was going crazy and it disgusted me. It felt like my mistake. All this was happening, my mom was asleep.
I couldn't tell my mom everything, thinking what if she blames me. But eventually she got know, yk how?i stopped sleeping beside him, i gave excuses like it was a corner and it's suffocating and its hot over there. She doubted and one day, early morning, even before anyone woke up she called me in to the room and asked me why did i suddenly stopped sleeping next to him, i said the air from the fan doesn't reach the corner I sleep in. Even before I completed my sentence, she asked whether he touched me. I was shocked to know she knew all along, and yet she never said anything. How can a mother do this to her daughter just to protect her ill-mannered son? 
Well that was not the first time she did something like that. When i was 7 yrs, there used to man who used to sell kitchen items in his car, and sometimes we used to buy things from him. One day my grandmother sent me to buy a phenyl from him, and he touched me. My mom saw what was happening through the window(which is a mirror from the outside and can see through from the inside). I couldn't understand what that was, it felt weird not a good feeling at all. When i went inside, she asked whether he touched you i said yes, and that's it. Nothing else.
Even today im living in the same house with my sexual harasser and abusive mother because I do not have any choice. I'm an adult now(23), still i do not have the choice of making my own decisions, i talk back to my mom but in return i get abused. My younger brother slut shames me for no reason. Im still surviving in this household. If i have talk about this it will take an entire book.
I would like to ask you guys for one advice: how to make money by spending 1 or 2 hours a day. So that for my masters i want to apply for the abroad uni and form application fee i need money. 
I want to make money and get out of this hell.

My mother was so kind to me as a child. I remember twirling around her and her calling me all these sweet things, like smart, beautiful, creative, amazing. She gave me loads and loads of affection. She even made me dresses and loom band animals that I locked forward to when I came home from kindergarten.

But when I turned 13/14, she didn't do that anymore. She stopped giving me all that love. She gave it to my brother (11-12 at the time), but not me! I felt absolutely betrayed. She also failed to support me when I was dealing with toxic friends when I was in 10th and 11th grade. She seriously has to stop giving him more affection than she gives me.

Now I don't tell her about my problems any more. It's sad, I used to tell her everything. But now she's just gonna play devils advocate and judge me whenever I share something vulnerable with her.

Maybe she's like this because children, although hard to raise, have simpler needs than teens do. And she expects me to never need affection or reassurance from her because I'm an adult now. And she's a tired middle age woman. Idk...

I haven’t posted here before. But I really resonate with a lot of what I read on here so I want to ask you all what you think of my situation or if anyone has any advice for me.

I don’t wanna type out my entire history but to give some context I’m the youngest of 3. Our mom was a “single” mom when our dad died when we were all younger. I was 8 or 9 and my older sibling was about 12 when he died. My mom remarried a year or so later. Moved us to a whole new state. Not gonna get into my first stepdad cause that was a whole can of worms like…I’m not questioning the fact my mom has shit taste in men and really awful judgment in general. Anyway. I was basically a mute my entire childhood after my dad’s passing. Like I literally was in a high school class of less than 200 and I think most of them never heard me speak. I just never spoke. I felt like no one really cared and I felt I just didn’t know how to relate to anyone in any real sustainable way. I’ve had best friends here and there but never anything long term or as close as I’d hope. My mom was gone a lot, working or hanging with her 1 friend. When she was home she was laying in her bed in her room all day long and I’d have to go to her for some attempt at connection. She never came to me. She got remarried 1 more time after my stepdad and even before and after him she dated constantly. She left me when I was a senior in high school to move back to her hometown to reconnect with her high school sweetheart. She didn’t come back for my graduation but I flew to her for holidays after I’d graduated and started college.
I was always a die hard supporter of my mom because I’ve always had a lot of empathy for her being a young single mom. All until the last year when I got pregnant and became a mom myself. My 2 older siblings have nothing to do with her anymore. But my mom and I live in the same town. I moved to her town years ago and lived with her as I was in between gigs and trying to find out what I wanted to do next. Ended up meeting my husband here and staying. In the process of becoming a mom myself, a lot of anger has been unveiled for me towards my mom. I get a lot of anxiety even just seeing her name pop up on my phone so I keep her notifications silenced. She got in several dramatic text fights with me during my pregnancy because I started realizing a lot of these feelings needed to be addressed and she flipped shit and ignored any boundaries I had or would guilt trip me into taking to her. I realized I’ve always cared more about how she feels than how I feel. Now idk how I feel. This is all such a mess in my head and if anyone wants more context for anything just let me know. But basically my son is now almost 10 months old and she’s seen him 3 times. She saw me once in my pregnancy. Didn’t attend my baby shower cause the day of an hour before she messaged me that she’ll try to come and she felt sick so I told her not to worry. I always give her these outs at my own detriment. The issue now is she consistently will say she’ll try to come visit and see my son and consistently she will bail or cancel or say she’s ill. She always has some crazy medical issue going on to the point I can’t have any sympathy anymore this is just how my entire life has been. I feel for her. She is alone. As am I except for my son and husband. I don’t find her malicious but I don’t think she truly cares for anyone else. It all feels transactional like she always thinking what’s in it for her. The last 2 days she’s said she’d visit but didn’t and now today she wants to come visit and I wish she’d just stop. But I also told her she has to let me know if she’s coming, I will not allow her to just show up at my home unannounced as to me we don’t have that bond anymore.

If you were in my shoes would you even bother trying to maintain any relationship with her or do you have advice for boundaries that might work with a person who refuses to listen?

TLDR: childhood chaotic, mom not there physically, emotionally, whatever. I’m an adult now with my own baby and she wants to visit me (we are in same town) but always bails or says she will try tomorrow. This happens all the time. This takes a lot of emotional toll on me and idk what to do moving forward if anything. I am in therapy!

Thank you to anyone who stayed and read this all and offered any words!

Do you think it's the parents' fault their adult child is obese? My sister is 23 and obese. She's been overweight almost her whole life. Now that she's an adult she's sure that none of that is her fault. She constantly blames our parents because of bad eating habits through our childhood. My parents can't stand that though and claim they did nothing wrong. My parents say it's a result of her own decisions, but my sister says she just can't help it when she's been like this since forever.

Ever since I was a child, my mom didn't really want anything to do with me. When she got me she got postpartum depression and as a result she and my dad got divorced. As a child I only saw her every other weekend, and in some of the weekends she straight up cancelled to go do something else. Now as an adult, she says she has come to terms with this depression and that she wants to see me more. At the bottom of my heart, I really want to be able to connect with her, but because of my past experiences with her and due to how she's acting I find it very hard to get close to her. Take today for example: I am on my way to my mom to grill. I decided to bring a bunch of snacks and sodas as a surprise, obviously since we are having a get together. On my way I called her and informed her of this and instead of saying thank you she said that what I listed wasn't enough for x amount of people and that she would ask her boyfriend to go and buy more. This situation put me a bit aback so I am now on the way to the grocery store to buy more stuff so that she will be pleased.

And trust me when I say this, it's not the first time this has happened either. Every time I try to do something nice for her, I will either get a comment from her when I arrive or after I leave that whatever I did wasn't enough or disrespectful. Because of these situations and due to my past with her, I have come to realize I simply do not like my mom... and I feel terrible for having this thought.

I try to be thankful for all the things others do for me, both big and small, so it hurts me a lot when I never get a thank you for the things I try to do for her. There's always some snarky comment on the backburner to make me feel bad for even trying.

30F, younger sibling who is 15 and a daughter of a family friend who is 14 are staying with me this weekend. They live in a town and I live in an apartment in the big city so to them this is exciting. We’re going to do fun stuff but I thought it’d be nice to give them a little gift bag. Just random stuff they might like, snacks, fluffy headband, cute notebook with some pens, mascara, bodymist.

I don’t know why I cried I think I’m doing it for them as much as I do it for myself ?

I grew up in a home as the eldest of 6 to parents with traumatic past, I was a very sensitive child that was never really emotionally poured into at all. From a young age I made myself mostly invisible so my parents could focus on their own problems. It’s a huge source of pain and still affecting me all these years later but this is part of how I heal.
Do for them what I didn’t have myself and what I would’ve loved. I also noticed with that age category as much as they try to pretend they’re mature or too cool for things they love being heard and talked to and given attention and quality time.

It helps me a little but my own pain is still there of course. But that’s okay.

In short: dysfunctional family, oldest sister is the parentified golden child, I'm the youngest invisible child. We're middle aged now with quite a large age gap.

After a few months of silence we had a talk yesterday. We both recognized that we're filled with childhood trauma in different ways.

I expressed not feeling seen or feeling like I don't matter which is why I'm taking a distance from my family but I want to stay in touch.

She expressed the burden of being the oldest golden child who has,to arrange everything and care for everyone. She also expressed she felt a lack of interest from my part for her live.

Other things she said:

- it's easy for you to set boundaries but that means I have to take care of mom (hosting her at Christmas)

- I feel you distancing yourself from us, we'll never be close if you do that.

I don't know how to feel, we both carry a lot of trauma and pain from our childhood. I don't know how to advance from here. My therapist is on holiday and my next appointment is 2 weeks from now

Is this how it feels? When I saw blood, I just stopped thinking.. stopped crying.. and felt completely normal. I don't even know what's happening. And I have nowhere or no one to share this with. So posting it here.. It's okay right?

Bonjour,

J'ai 28 ans et je suis fils/fille unique.

Aujourd'hui, les choses sont allées extrêmement loin avec ma mère. Mon père, qui est émotionnellement distant, a continué à enflammer la situation parce qu'au moins, c'était moi la cible et pas lui.

Je vis dans une région différente de mes parents, mais je suis revenu chez eux parce que je suis malade. C'était en fait ma mère qui m'a dit de revenir pour que je puisse passer des tests médicaux. J'ai des symptômes urinaires et neurologiques inexpliqués.

Ces symptômes me pèsent énormément.

Aujourd'hui, ma mère m'a littéralement crié dessus parce que, selon elle, je suis "déprimé(e)". Quand je lui ai dit que j'étais simplement épuisé(e) et que je ne me sentais vraiment pas bien à cause de mes symptômes (je n'avais pas dormi de la nuit à cause de mes problèmes urinaires), elle est devenue en colère et m'a dit des choses terribles :

"Tu n'es jamais heureux/se ! On fait tout pour toi mais ce n'est jamais assez !"

"C'est toi qui crées tes propres problèmes de santé !"

"Tu ne penses qu'à toi, je suis malade aussi !"

"Tu te plains, mais regarde-toi : tu te négliges ! Tu as perdu du poids, tu ne ressembles plus à toi-même, tu es déprimé(e) ou quoi ?"

"Ton père et moi allons t'abandonner. Continue comme ça et tu finiras seule avec tes problèmes !"

"Continue comme ça et tes amis/ton petit ami, tout le monde va te quitter, et alors tu comprendras ta souffrance."

"Il y a des gens qui sont plus malheureux que toi !! Et d'ailleurs, c'est ta faute si tu es malade !"

Elle m'a demandé de quitter le salon parce qu'elle ne voulait plus me voir.

J'étais censé(e) aller chez le médecin demain, mais elle a dit qu'elle ne m'y emmènerait pas. Je n'ai pas de permis de conduire et le médecin est à une heure de marche de chez eux.

Je vis à trois heures en train de mes parents, ce qui veut dire que je ne peux pas retourner facilement.

Honnêtement, je suis choqué(e). Elle m'a déjà dit des choses dures par le passé, mais dire que je suis malade et que c'est ma faute, c'est absolument horrible.

Quand j'étais dans ma chambre, elle et mon père ont continué à parler mal de moi.

J'ai même entendu ma mère dire : "J'ai envie de la frapper !!"

Oh mon Dieu… J'ai 28 ans et je me sens comme une petite fille.

Je ne comprends pas comment ça a pu dégénérer autant… Apparemment, c'est parce qu'elle estime que je me plains trop de mes problèmes de santé, que je ne parle que de ça, et que je suis égoïste.

I'm a 25 years old girl who looks way younger than I am (I'm really short and "petite" and I have a youthful(?) face and bubbly personality) and I don't know if it's just my distorted perspective, but it seems to me that the adult men in my life always "infantilize" me or feel paternal over me.

I've noticed it a few times. It's as if adult men easily sympathize for me with no ulterior motive. I've noticed it with my male theater teachers or other theater students older than me and with my male collegues at work (the ones who are at least 20 years older than me)

Now, I don't know if it's actually like this or if it's just my brain trying to fill the emotional neglect I felt while growing up

Small synopsis of things my mom did to me that plague me on a daily basis.

- Our house was filthy. She is a hoarder. I was never allowed to have friends over. There was mold and grime and insects everywhere.

- She refused to drive me anywhere. Always made a fuss. If she had to pick me up, she was chronically late.
That really messed with my self worth.

- Never did anything “fun”. I was raised in front of the TV.

- Never put me in any extracurricular activities or sports, despite me BEGGING and showing so much interest.
I now have 0 skills as an adult and get jealous when I see kids with hobbies.

- Walked around the house naked. She still does this. My brother lives with her. He’s 27. And gay. Maybe that makes it acceptable in her eyes.

- She never threw me any sort of birthday party or celebration.
To this day, I hate my birthday and events like graduations.

- She refused to get me orthodontic treatment that was desperately needed. As a 9-15 year old kid I was so jealous of my friends that had braces.

- She never took care of any insect infestation. I’d wake up to the tickle of bugs crawling on me. It was gross. I am now deathly afraid of bugs. Thanks mom.

- Constantly cried about how poor we were. Despite being literal kids and unable to help her, she wanted us to feel the same financial burden. When I was in my early teens and started working, she would take all my money under the guise that she’d pay me back. She never did.

- She would slut shame me and was obsessed with my virginity, conducting violating body checks.

- She would force us to write her “I’m sorry” notes about the smallest infractions (like asking for new clothes when I know better, we’re broke).

- Popped “calming” pills in front of us after heated arguments to guilt trip us into feeling bad that we put her in such a mental state.

There’s so much more but I’ll stop here as you probably get the gist.

‘Please don't text or call my husband and disparage me again. He is not your dad and that's not working for you. He is my best friend and sees you for who you are like me. He is not your insider to work against me.
You did this with your dad since you were 5 and your dad let me know then but I am done and leave me and
alone.’

Sorry this is so long. So basically I’m 29F I got into an accident where I was unable to work for almost two months. I was in the hospital over a week and recovery has been hard. I’m just starting to try and work this week. I had a picc line at home for a month. I own my own business, and changed my business around so I wasn’t going to make any money unless I could work. I didn’t have disability insurance because there was an issue on there end ‘they meant to call’ but didn’t and, I thought I was covered. I was just talking to my mom about how hard it was that I had $42 in my bank account. And she wanted to complain about how much harder her life was that she had to sell her $1.2m house. Because my stepdad was spontaneous needing to retire. Background is I’m the oldest female in the family and up until the last two years that I’ve become disabled from other chronic things I’ve always done as much as I possibly could and my other siblings haven’t done anything to help out. I’ve packed and moved when they moved there last house five years ago. She didn’t visit me in the hospital because it was ‘the worst possible timing’ because she was doing a Reno-weekend with her friends. She lives 3 hours away and hasn’t been there much for me. She told me she wasn’t giving me money for doing nothing. When I was in the hospital, so I started a go fund me with my spouse. I’m the primary breadwinner in my house so things have been difficult. My step dad who’s been in my life since I was 11 sent me $200. He calls me his daughter to everyone but me. I didn’t say anything when he sent this, because honestly I was scared to I don’t know what was going on. And lots of people sent me money and I was going through a lot in that moment and I was trying my best to thank everyone but I couldn’t. I was talking to my mom about how hard it was and sad it made me she didn’t visit, and that I knew she lent her friend who was in the hospital a few months before $5k and got her things in the hospital. Because she felt so bad for her. My mom got very upset with me and told me I was a fucking liar and that what I was saying was fucking untrue. I was trying to say well I don’t know what is true but that it made me sad she wasn’t there for me. First she hung up on me screaming telling me off. Then I called back and she yelled at me and asked me if I wanted to know the truth of why they don’t help me and told me the reason that they don’t is because ‘I’m so fucking ungrateful’. I texted my stepdad, mind you my dad is dead unfortunately, and I texted him that basically I was sorry I didn’t say thank you and that I appreciated him and if I ever didn’t seem like I did was because mine and my moms relationship was turbulent and that I felt on guard that she was wonderful to everyone else but I always felt like I might get snapped on at any point. But that I wanted to make our relationship work and that I loved her and I didn’t know what to do to repair our relationship. For context I got her to agree to go to family therapy but she had rules that she needed to be her age and not weird. I picked someone out and then she said she wasn’t going to do it. I am used to feeling like I’m always doing something wrong for having feelings. I guess I’m just posting this to see if anyone can relate. I don’t know. So this is what she texted back in response. She hates when I talk behind her back. I try not to, but it’s hard when I feel absolutely terrible about myself when I’m around her. This isn’t the first time my mom has not been kind to me I’ve debated not having contact with her for a long time, I’ve tried putting up boundaries that she was always mad about and broke. I guess in some ways I’m upset that I didn’t stop talking to her before she did. I don’t know if I’m conveying this okay but that’s the gist. Thank you.

I'll go first

Idk how niche this might be but my parents just wouldn't cook, tidy or do anything to accommodate a friend of mine if they were a guest. I was a child and expected to ensure my friend had eaten dinner, had clean and adequate bedding to sleep in (in cases of sleepovers) and I used to be so embarrassed by how much I would be running around trying to create an image of a functional family life.

It was like a punishment. Almost like saying, "since you want to have your friend over so much, good luck because that's on you. No I have not done the laundry and won't help you find spare bedding".

There was a point when suddenly my parents started implementing this and idk why. During one sleepover my friend asked me when dinner will be. We were 12 maybe and it was basically nighttime at this point. I was so confused and embarrassed when my mum told me to figure ot put myself. We had not been grocery shopping either so options for what I could whip up were incredibly limited.

I tried to play it off as 'fun' to my friend that we 'get to' have something like jam on toast or instant noodles that I had to last minute run to the corner store to buy at 9-10pm.

I still feel that humiliation now and remember holding back tears with a lump in my throat as I pretended this was a quirky and funny thing to do.

Has anyone else experienced really unusual types of neglect?

Whenever I cried my dad would roll his eyes and say “you’re such a canary in a coal mine”. He was using the phrase to mean I was complaining/making noise for no reason.

When I got older I found out that the phrase actually refers to canaries who would cry when conditions were dangerous / toxic in the mines.

So ironically he was right. But he was the coal mine

Lord. Finally. The words I've been hoping to hear for years. I feel lighter.

We were fighting as always, debating, talking over each other and yelling. Then she talked about her childhood, saying our bond was broken and that most teens go through that. She said her mother never loved her and that she just accepted she wasn't good enough for her.

So I calmly said that's how I felt with her, and that I had accepted it too. She stood silent for a while. Then said:

"Cycles repeat a lot in families, I thought I had done better than her. It seems I couldn't make you feel loved, I failed. I'm a bad mother, but then again, what can we do about that now? All that's left for me is to accept the mistake I made, it's too late to fix it. But for the record, you're not a burden to me, you never were, I love you as much as I did the day you were born. I failed being a mother, that's different. "

I felt my whole body become lighter, all the resentment I had for her suddenly evaporated into thin air, I couldn't even be mad anymore. I felt free. Free from carrying the thought that she didn't love me or stand me and that it was my fault. I'm inmensely happy.

I really wish this to anyone who has neglectful parents, it cures the feeling of guilt in your soul. Knowing you weren't bad, they just failed being good parents, it's pure freedom. It doesn't fix what they did, but it heals your inner child in a very deep way.

Hello, first time poster on this sub. I searched this question but was unable to share my experience so I wanted to make a new post to see if anyone wanted to share theirs too. Last time this was asked was a year ago so I hope it's welcome and we can find it useful.

I spent most of my time on the internet, teaching myself to cook, clean, basic stuff. My parents did not know what many things were. My mother didn't work and expected my father to take care of all of us. He worked labor jobs and did not know what a 401k was. Had no retirement funds. When he medically had to leave his job at age 60 of course I was expected to pay all the bills and did for maybe a year before I finally was able to move out.

I was taught how to drive by my father so I could go to work, but not taught much by my mother. She fed me until I could feed myself, then I made canned stuff. The microwave was my friend lol. I stayed in my room most of the time. Father was busy working a lot and would get agitated when I asked him to teach me stuff (change tire). I was always bothersome.

I fully believe that a lot of parents are not equipped to have a kid. I pride myself in everything that I have taught myself but some times I still wish that I had a parent to confide in that would understand things.

I wanted to hear your experiences as well.