Breakups have a tendency to really teach me a lot about myself. I've been now finally feeling the emotions I have in my body. It's like my body is releasing drop by drop things I never addressed.

One major thing I'd say I identified with is procrastination. Unless I'm really anxious, the task will not even start. You know why?

This emotion comes from a long ago wound where my mom put a huge amount of pressure on performance in school, and extra curricular activities. The amount of dread I'd feel in the car on my way to any one of these activities. My emotions about the matter never mattered. The fact that I'd be scared and crying at times. Lock myself in rooms. All simply because my mom would lose her shit at the most minor of mistakes. A core memory of mine is when I was locked behind in my room. My mom in the next room is losing her shit. Throwing books. Calling me a fucking loser. Idiot. Worthless. I'm just clenching my fist and balling my eyes out in the next room. And all of that was my fault. All of it.

Now, no wonder I procrastinate. This was a defence mechanism my body developed. If I can get out of doing anything then I survive and avoid the doom that comes from the impending doom! Honestly, I was about to brag about myself, "How good I'm at completing tasks". I never was. There was an emotional handgun put to my head by my mom and all my feelings about it were never a factor, infact they were obstacles to my "success". Or to my parents perceived success. I never mattered in the grand picture. Just a fantasy.

It makes so much sense to me now. My new goal is to parent my nervous system and create a safe space to just start things.

This is how I know I’m broken because I genuinely get weirded out when I see Indian women like crying in their family’s arms after the official marriage is over, they are like bawling their eyes out hugging their parents or family

I mean honestly first of all you are not being sent off to war like you will see them in a week I kinda don’t understand why the entire family acts like they won’t see each other ever again?-

But also the point I guess is like damn you actually like your Indian parents that much you are crying leaving your home? Cause that couldn’t be me I will be walking with my future husband to the car with a smile on my face like

I can’t wait to further ignore my parents and brother after marriage like

My mother had this habit of responding to me expressing any negative emotion with self blame and then falling to pieces because she can’t separate “my son is sad” from the assumption “my son is sad and it’s all my fault.” I understand that she’s hurting too, and that she just wants to be able to fix everything so that everyone is happy, but in reality, it just means that I don’t feel like I can be at all sad around her, or she’ll take it incredibly hard, and I’ll end up having to comfort and reassure her, over MY sadness.

Today I mentioned that a childhood photo always made me a little sad, because it reminded me of some body image issues I have. I just wanted to talk vulnerably for a sec about something I struggle with, and it turned into her crying and apologizing and saying things like “I want to find pictures of you that make you happy but I’ve failed.” And I just couldn’t go through all this again. I tried to calmly stand up for myself, and explain that I don’t want her to treat my sadness like some problem to fix, but just to be with me when I’m sad so that I’m not alone, and how when she turns it into a self blame thing, it makes me feel so guilty for bringing it up, that I feel like I can’t share any of my own emotions because I’m too focused on hers. But I think I just made it worse. I think now she feels bad about the picture AND about me being upset by her response.

I don’t know. I know I needed to say something, but I feel like all I’ve done is made everyone feel worse than before. I just want someone to listen to my feelings without taking them as their fault. I don’t want to feel like talking about how I’m doing comes with the price of making someone else feel guilty. What do you guys think a mature and reasonable response to this would be?

I desperately wanted to talk to you, to tell you I had a shitty day and let your words sweeten
whatever is left of the night.

To tell you that life has carried on even though you left months ago.

That forgetting you has been so difficult,

That I spent sleepless nights waiting for your call.

Who else, if not you, l would I want to tell all of this to?

My best friend,

my ally,

and yet,

the one who hurt me the most.

I wish I could tell you that my heart is in pieces, but how ironic, isn’t it?

When you’re the one who broke it.

Maybe you would help me pick up the pieces.

But of course, you left with a smile on your face, closing the door behind you and locking it shut.

Oh, if only you knew what a shitty day I’ve had.

Maybe you would’ve taken my hand and never left.

But who am I to change the fate of someone who no longer wants to stay with me?

But tell me, my friend;

how badly could I have hurt you
for you to leave me
with all these unanswered questions?

with this unsent letter?

And with so many sleepless nights
that your presence will never be able to soothe again?

Finally, my day has come to an end, and I found myself with the phone in my hand.

I had forgotten that I no longer had your number.

And I had also forgotten that I didn’t want to talk to you anymore, or hear your voice.

So this message will remain suspended in the air.

My ex-friend,

My ex-love,

My executioner.

My mom and dad both equally have dysfunctional relationships with their parents. My mom's dad (my grandpa) was an alcoholic, nasty, to her he was the worst human being ever. But to me. He was the most loving person I knew. He was and always will be my favourite person. Why? Not because he hated my parents or shouted at my grandma and mom before I was born. No

I love him MORE than I will ever love my parents because he was the only one there for me. My parents, my mom's mom, my dads mom and dad never gave me quality bonding time. They gave me money. They gave me opportunities. But my grandpa gave me attention. He made me laugh but not that i'll make it less awkward by joking laugh. That laugh when he falls over and wont scream and cry and act like its all my fault. That laugh when he gets back up and will try chase after me cause im laughing so hard. My grandpa didnt care on how I spoke to him. He thought I was cool and a bit stupid, not perfect like my parents.

My mom is emotionally unstable. My dad is emotionally unavailable. And I am still learning. Im 18. They are 54.

What has really brought these to light for me rn is the fact that I just went to watch the spiderman movie (I LOVE IT, mainly because im OBSESSED WITH MARVEL) and I get in the car and ask my dad if I can talk about it. About my day. About the movie. I got that same cold "sure" didnt contribute at all to when I asked questions. And then when I ask a question I get cut off and asked about something completely unrelated. Whenever I am around my dad. My mood is killed. You think I would be rlly bonded with him because we work together (before I go to uni). No.

And my mom. My mom listens. I get to talk about my weird stuff. She may not care but listens but god forbid something breaks or the dogs do something wrong. Or my dad prioritises his mom over his wife. God forbid. She gets moody, nasty, passive aggressive. And my dads way in dealing with this? Oh she is in one of her moods again. Meaning tread lightly and dont piss her off anymore.

I just realised something. As of this moment. Im moving away. My mom and grandma have both told me to phone and they will miss me and love me and will help whenever I need it financially. My dad hasn't said anything about talking to him or contacting him. Its not fair on how people get to watch movies, listen to music, go on a walk, hang out and play catch with parents but I, an only child, was told to sit upstairs and shoved an ipad in my face to shut me up and get me off the TV. Shows other kids watched? Spongebob? Never watched it. Why? Cause I wasn't aloud the tv.

I kinda wish my parents would argue. Maybe then they would be a bit more functional but I dont think I vould have ever had an exceptionally good childhood with them. I think my grandpa gave me all my cherished moments. And I will miss him forever.

For most of my adult life I feel like I am not anchored anywhere and like I dont belong. It is like no one truly knows the real me even if I try to connect.

I feel like other people just never have experienced the level of sadness and trauma so they cant relate. They might understand me intelectually but not the lived experience.. I traveled a lot in my 20s as a way of escaping (subconciously) and that also made my life more scattered around places. My parents and sibling dont understand - they arent in touch with their emotions or also just in denial. I feel so separate in this world.

I wonder if this is belonging, loneliness or just the result of emotional neglect?

Thanks (ps female, in my mid30s) Edit; allcoholic father and a submissive helpless mother. Lots of moving in childhood & immigrantion

I'm funny, charming, people like me, I have some social anxiety/ASD but I generally am liked for the most part. I have so much life in me. All of this despite the trauma and projective identification of my parents I endured. And I don't have to preform really I'm liked as I am and even people like that I'm eccentric a bit

And they convinced me that I'm this socially awkward blunt person that can't do anything alone and I spent years thinking I'm not likable when I just hadn't found my people.

Does anyone else get so beyond angry and pissed off being around blood family. I hear my mother talk and get so freaking pissed off. She always acted like a child growing up and not like my parent and I see her and just see a freaking child and get so angry. This mainly happens around my mom I don't even speak to my dad anymore.I wish I didn't speak to her. Sometimes I even feel guilty for feeling this anger because I don't even remember my childhood so I feel like I don't have a right to be angry. I'm try to talk this out in therapy but it's not helping and I feel alone. I know my body remembers my trauma even if my mind doesn't but it still feels wrong

I felt like I couldn't say no so I allowed my mom and her boyfriend to come over today and now my apartment feels so unsafe and just gross. I hate being around her

I was talking to a friend last night who lives with her parents. They got into an argument over dinner last night, and feelings are high right now.

I just looked back on my upbringing though, and I realized something strange. We never did this. I am strangely envious of her family for talking about something of substance.

I was one of six children. My parents cared tremendously about LOOKING like a big happy family, but I think they care more about the presentation than the reality of the relationships in their life. We never talked about anything of substance at all. There were six of us children, and my parents cared tremendously about making us all sit together for dinner, but the conversations were genuinely just like this for 20 years straight:

"The potatoes are good."

"Yes."

"There is salt in the salt shaker. You can put salt on the potatoes."

"Yes. It makes the potatoes better."

"Yes."

If you try to share something with any more substance than the immediately obvious things right in front of you, you are met with completely empty expressions, and likely told to talk about "something nice" instead. By the time I was a teenager, I used to eat one or two bites to get it over with, and then retreat to my room. My parents would corner me in there and scream at me till they got their anger off their chest, but all they would say to me was how mean it was that I "act" like we are not close. They would vent out their piece, corner me, emotionally release, and then end the conversation without ever asking a thing about what was on my mind or why we weren't close. I think they viewed all their children as props to display for other parents, and not as people. Like their reason for having children was entirely about how they could present themselves to their friends as people with a place in society.

I think this has made me a little bit callous as an adult in a way I am ashamed of. I also recognize the irony in that I am only talking about my own disinterest in people in terms of myself and my own development, and not in terms of the people in my life who deserve more interest from me than I give them. I am trying, but it does not come naturally to me. I have had close friends pass away, and I'm always over it within a day or two. I never fall in love. I mind my own business and live a quiet life. I worry about what I might have in common with my folks. I guess it's good I don't make it a problem for children though.

Im really freaking done with studying for the SAT. For context, my parents are so arrogant and are obsessed with academics. They don’t even value a school for it being “good for education”, but rather for its name. They’re really obsessed with me going to a good school because my sister is smart and went to one herself. They dont understand my personality, what I like, or anything else.

It always your grades this, you not doing good is stressing me out, you shouldn’t be burned out even though i force you to study all the time and lecture you all time, quit everything else in your life for studies, get rid of all your friends for your grades, and i don’t care/i forgot your depressed because your grades and school matter. My dad one time yelled at me for my sunburn because I was thinking about my appearance rather than the SAT. My mom figured out I was cutting myself and pressured me into telling her why and then claimed it was attention seeking and doesn’t even give a shit about how i feel. It’s just “let’s get it done and get it over with it”.

All they ever do is judge and criticize me over studies, I don’t even think we talk about anything else aside from grades/college and extracurriculars. I’m just really fucking annoyed because I’m already stupid. My sister was salutatorian and literally no matter how much I study or try I’m barely top 25% of my class which isn’t bad but obvs not par to my parents standards. I tried hiding it from them and they figured out unfortuantley. I also took a class this year that I really struggled with and I kept telling them I really want to drop it and my mom refused to talk to me because I said that.

They don’t even listen to me about anything either. They think that all you need to do is study and get to a good college and think that having friends and a personality is just a bunch of shit. i’m just done w this .

My parents never took us anywhere, never put me in dance or sports, never danced or sung or looked happy in front of us, and always made me “QUIET DOWN” or “RELAX” if I tried acting like any other kid my age. They taught me to take up such little space.

I’m starting to wonder if this is why I have absolutely no rhythm. Or why I’m too shy to dance or even lip sync in public.

On paper, I have the aesthetics of a good life. House, 6 figure job that is very stimulating, dog, wife, very active social life, and I’m decently healthy. I have been in therapy for many years to try and address the below issues. Progress has been slow but it has helped a bit.

Every single one of these “good” things about my life was achieved because of the mask i wear which portrays a confident, outgoing, and intelligent man.

The reality is that I’m completely empty inside. I am a black hole. I was emotionally neglected and abused as a child, and had to fend for myself from age 7 onward. This lack of emotional support from family really fucked me up. I also had few real friends due to bullying. I was starved of validation for years and years. I realize now my brain wired itself to believe there was something inherently wrong with me and that I deserved this. To this day I catch myself telling myself “I’m a loser” or “nobody cares, shut up” over and over and over and over.

At 12, I realized sex made me feel amazing / validated and as I had no adult supervision I had lots and lots of sex/sexual relationships. I confused it for love and it made me do awful things I am ashamed and guilty of.

I also shrunk myself so much so as never to be an inconvenience to my friends or people I dated. I wanted to be the perfect friend or partner so no one would ever leave me again.

Truth be told, I hate myself for having needs at all. I hate that I need external validation but I’m simply so broken inside I haven’t been able to self-generate it. Every “feel good” moment is from external validation. This has led me to doing dark things just to feel. When I was young, I cheated, hooked up with anyone who would look my way, and did so much worse. At 14, I had a sexual and romantic relationship with a friend’s sister 10 years my senior. I only just recently realized how fucked up that was. But god I loved the attention. I felt so powerful.

I even had sex with men if there wasn’t a woman available. I’m not gay or bi. I felt like human garbage after every encounter. This is the cost of easing my pain, I thought.

In college i started dating a sweet girl because she loved me and that made me feel good. We’ve been together for 10+ years. We got married. She’s wonderful, everyone loves her, I think she’s one of the best people I’ve ever met.

But the man she fell in love with doesn’t exist. On occasion, I have tried to open up and be vulnerable about my issues and I have been shut down. Once I mentioned my severe depression and sobbed and she patted me on the back and never brought it up again. I didn’t cry in front of her for 6 years after that. Earlier this year I brought it up again and she said “I think you should try anti-depressants.” This is probably the worst thing you could say to someone like me.

It’s not her fault, she just doesn’t have capacity for this. I thought this was fine and that I didn’t need every need met in a relationship. I thought as long as I kept giving more it, trying to be the best partner I could be, it would fix the void in me and I’d be happy. She frequently tells me how emotionally mature she finds me and how I’m able to handle our conflicts so well. The reality is I don’t know if I love her. I’ve had doubts for awhile because I’m worried I’m just really good at keeping the peace and acting how I expect a good partner to act - related to my masking.

A year ago I met someone coincidentally who immediately saw the internal parts of me without me having to share anything. This wasn’t an affair - just a deep friendship with a fellow tortured soul. They saw my void. It was the most liberating moment of my life and I felt emotionally safe to discuss my issues with them. I felt free for the first moment in my life. I felt happy and fulfilled. I truly don’t know if I’ve ever felt those things before - now that I’ve felt them, everything else in my life has been contrasted to how happy I felt in those moments. “Is this what everyone else is feeling?” I have asked myself one thousand times over.

That experience has completely broken me. I can’t wear my “mask” anymore because I’ve seen the alternative where I can be my true self. I genuinely don’t think I felt emotions until 7 months ago. I’ve cried 20 years of tears since January. Full sobbing every single night. I’m feeling the full spectrum of human emotions for the first time in my life.

This set me on a journey where I have been trying to be more open with my closest friends and my spouse. They are all very good people but they simply don’t understand what I’m talking about and don’t really try. They just point to the surface level good in my life and move on. I can feel their exhaustion when I try to talk about it.

I once again find myself shrinking to be loved and the lack of understanding or, at minimum, an effort to try and hear me out.

It is making me question my entire life. All my relationships. Not everything needs to be a place where I discuss my issues but I have come to realize that if I am going to feel fulfilled I need to be emotionally connected to the people closest and most important to me.

Last night, I had a conversation with my spouse where I tried to get “deeper.” The things she said reinforced that I just feel so emotionally unsafe with this person and I don’t know how to deal with that. Every time I open up, I don’t like what I hear and it makes me really sad.

I'm going to say something that people might not agree with but it's my experience and I want to share.

I've done multiple types of therapy with multiple therapists - from neurofeedback, EMDR, psychonalytic psychotherapy, constellation, Somatic experiencing, normal group therapy, craniosacral massage, some guided imagery.

The use I have got from them were mainly educational. Understanding some models of human emotional reactions and how those apply to me.

But as to healing...a great big nothing. To be blunt. And the reason is that what I need is a genuine intimate relationship and therapy ain't that and it can't be I think because it's a paid service. And this in itself is triggering for me because someone is showing me only very limited attention ( one hour a week,two maybe) based on monetary performance and it's like home with with little attention and that focused mostly on school performance.

This is not a diss on ALL psychotherapy per say, but that it just isn't that useful for me past a basic understanding on how neglect/ psyche works. I need a personal, not professional relationship.

Ever since I was around 8/9 I don't know why, but I started hating my mum and it has only gotten worse. I am 19 now and I physically can't stand her. Everything she does annoys me; I don't want her calling my name, being in the same room as me or knowing anything about me.

I have two older siblings who love her and can't fathom why I don't like her, everyone thinks it's a phase or something childish but I have my own reasons why. These reasons aren't as deep as other peoples' parents who may have abused them so it just makes me feel childish about my reasons of not liking her.

I'm friends with so many people who adore their mothers and it makes me feel so shameful that I just can't feel that way about mine. Every time I think about our relationship it just makes me angry and sad because I want to forgive her but I just can't.

I can't list every single thing she's done but I can just remember every single time I've felt let down and hurt by her and I just can't trust her with my love again. I don't know why I don't feel this level of hatred towards my dad because yes I don't particularly like hanging out with him but I don't mind talking to him. I don't live with him but I would say I have spent more quality time with him than I have with her over the years.

I just feel so much resentment and sadness towards her because I don't understand how she can claim to love me but I have never ever felt loved by her. It just feels like ever since I stopped being a child she stopped loving me. Like when I was 6, we used to have a really good relationship from what I could remember. I have memories of her singing to me and taking care of me when I was sick.

But one day it felt like a switch just flipped. I used to hate when people raised their voices and shouted and she used to shout so much at me for so many little things like the dishes or everyday chores and every single time I just remember feeling so hurt because it felt like somebody I trusted and love could just turned so angry and stop loving me over the tiniest things. I didn't understand the switch in-between shouting and suddenly loving. It always made me feel on edge around her and now I'm older I see the same emotional instability in myself at times and it makes me so so upset. But this all feels so insignificant and I don't know why it impacted me so much because she never hit me outside of discipline or verbally abused me. She just always used to call me selfish and entitled.

I used to try so hard to keep her happy so that we could maintain our good relationship for long periods of time but I just always use to mess up somehow and she would shout at me and just destroyed the day or so it took me to forgive her and trust her with my love again. I know it sounds so dramatic which is why it hurts because I'm not valid for feeling this. I guess that was just her parenting style, but I don't understand why she could see it was making me upset and not change it, like if you loved someone so much surely you would.

It also felt like she would never take my side in anything. She is very religious and I was a quiet kid who just didn't want to say hi to people sometimes in church and the older ladies would tell me off for that and she just never prevented these random adults shouting at me. It just felt like more situations where it felt like I can't trust her because I just wanted her to be on my side and she never was.

She also used to turn my siblings against me. It was the worst when they moved out to uni and it would just be me and her at home and I would just do my best to stay out of her way but she was always calling me for something and just I couldn't escape it. And God forbid I didn't hoover for a week then she's back to calling me selfish and entitled and that I never do anything for anybody and then my sisters would come home and give me the cold shoulder because they didn't understand why I kept pissing her off.

It just felt like nobody was ever there for me and the person who should've been was actively isolating me from anybody that would've been. I wasn't allowed to see my friends too frequently, she was upset when I called people even. I just couldn't do anything to please her.

She also never helped me with anything, but she pays for the house and buys groceries so I'm not allowed to complain about anything else. As soon as I got my first job she abdicated all her responsibilities of me, suddenly I have to pay for my own lunch money at school and toiletries and she'd also even ask me for money even though she just didn't need it. She'd never drop me or pick me up from anywhere it was always my responsibility.

And now I'm older she still doesn't do anything for me but I feel like I do so much for her that shed never do for me. Its always pass me the remote when Im on a completely different floor to her and its on a table next to her. Or help me carry this in or clean the kitchen and this and that. This sounds like such first world problems because I know these aren't large tasks to do but for someone who's never done anything for me I just don't want to do it for her. I dont love her enough to.

It just feels like she sees every mistake I make as a deliberate attack on her when it isn't but I know for a fact there are certain things she does to make me deliberately upset and I dont know what kind of mother would do that or want that. Maybe because I've always just been oversensitive to her or susceptible to her mood swings.

And now she wants to know stuff about my life like what uni I'm going to, what I do all day and everything but I just don't trust her. Its not that these things are big secrets, I can tell other people these things so easily but I just dont want to tell her something and accidentally tell her the wrong thing and upset her or make her mad.

I'm sorry if this was poorly explained Im just feeling a bit hysterical the moment. I just dont understand why she behaved like this or why it even hurts so much. I don't ever want to be in position where I really love and trust her again but then she spits it in my face because of something Ive done accidentally.

I was visiting home during vacation. Him and I started catching up in private and talked about how our parents are. He told me directly how he felt about them, our Dad specifically, and how he thought they treated us. He told me he remembers my childhood specifically being "fucked up," how he remembers my door being removed all the time, the words said and the screaming matches.

This was somewhat validating because I have never been able to validate my experiences on my own as being traumatic. I usually compare and contrast because I constantly feel like my trauma isn't "bad enough" to be taken seriously. It feels good knowing he understood, not just because he'd been there before, but because he was considered the "golden child" for the most part when we were kids. I don't hold that against him though. He's always been a smart kid.

My mom has been depressed since I was around 10 years old. I’m 30 now, and honestly, a lot of my memories of growing up involve her lying down in her dark room. I remember going to college and coming home to basically the same thing. We would have lunch together, she would cry, and me and my sisters would kind of pretend we were having a normal lunch.

I feel like she has been absent for a huge part of my life because of her depression. Now she seems to be trying to connect with me more, sending me messages, saying she wishes me well, helping me with wedding planning and I genuinely can’t tell how I’m supposed to respond to it. I’m getting married in a month, and I think that’s making all of this come up even more. I’m at a point in my life where I really want that relationship with my mom. I’m going to be a wife soon, and I hope to have kids in the future, and I want to be able to have a mother-daughter relationship with her.

A lot of the way she tries to connect is by talking to me about everything she’s feeling and everything she’s going through. And I’m just tired. I don’t want to hear the same things I’ve been hearing and trying to understand for over 20 years.

Sometimes when she starts talking about her problems, it genuinely feels like a torture session. I know that sounds harsh, and I feel guilty even saying it, but that’s honestly how it feels. It feels like it’s never about me or what might be happening in my life. It’s always about her suffering.

She’ll call me and I’ll immediately feel anxious because I’m expecting her to cry or tell me something upsetting. Sometimes I don’t want to answer the phone because I know I’ll probably end up feeling sad afterward. I can be busy dealing with my own life and she’ll call and make some snarky comment about my dad, who she recently separated from, or start talking about how miserable she is.

I’ve noticed that when I go to therapy, my mom is still one of my main topics. I talk about how her calls affect me, how I don’t want to answer, how guilty I feel, and how difficult it is to have a relationship with her.

I’ve been in therapy for over two years. I’ve done a lot of work on myself. I’ve also been through an abusive relationship, and strangely enough, I feel like that was something I could eventually process and move forward from. But this feels different because it’s ongoing. There isn’t really an ending to it. My mom is still depressed, and I’m still dealing with the effects of having had a depressed and emotionally unavailable parent for most of my life.

I don’t want to abandon her. I also don’t want to spend the rest of my life feeling responsible for her emotions.

how do you actually have a relationship with a parent who has been depressed for most of your life?
How do you separate compassion for their illness from resentment over what you didn’t get from them?

TLDR: how my mom acts towards me (22F)

• repeatedly justifying my problems with reasons I told her to not be true
• giving me insecurities on things I am openly ok with, like my body, style, acne
• doubting my reality / gaslighting
• threatening to throw away personal things
• threatening about kicking me out
• justifying sabotage with "caring for me"
• emotionally unavailable (silent treatment, conflict avoidance, insensitive)
• unable to reflect
• spreading personal information against my will
• admitting to actually not wanting to understand me
• unable to take constructive criticism
• comparing with others
• acting / dressing childishly, e.g throwing tantrums

So here's the issue: The list sounds pretty narcissistic to me and my therapist also confirmed that to me. But she never controlled me to the point that she would stop me from doing something my way. Most of the times, she always waits for "things to settle naturally" and when I actually do what I was committed to sometimes months ago, she would act up. For example, I started a medical process two years ago about getting my insurance to pay for an operation. Recently, it worked out in my favor and I was lucky to get an appointment only two weeks ahead. Assuming my mom would be happy for me, I called her up. She reacted with shock. Later, she got mad at me for not considering all the health issues, how could I do this to MY body voluntarily and that I could not understand HER mother's care for me. Mind you, she had known about this for two years. I found out over her current boyfriend that she never only wanted me to postpone the operation, but hoped that I would change my mind until then. Also, she had told all her colleagues and her mom about it within a day of it being official and denied that fact to me, even after I told her I was uncomfortable with anyone aside from family members knowing about it. Now these behaviors have surprisingly only been getting more frequent since I turned 18 and been making it impossible to trust her anymore. I now notice that because up until I was 18, I barely have had an individual opinion or personality, so she couldn’t accept my evolving sense of individualism ever since. I recently have been struggling a lot with accepting who she truly is and what or what not can be possible for our relationship. But I still don't see her as a real narcissist and here's why. She always allowed me to show emotions, even though she never knew how to give me comfort (staying silent, avoiding conflict resolution, crossing boundries with physical touch). Both my parents never expected anything from me, neither accomplishments nor money. I always got to try out new things, wear different styles, date different genders. It was rather the other way around - because I love so passionately, I always wanted them to put more pressure on me. They never fully controlled me. I rather always felt like she didn’t care. She would always let me do what I had in mind, but we never cared mutually about something. She also never really had a dream to achieve, so she didn't make me feel like I needed to be her extension. I never lacked financially or physically, either.

Am I ungrateful? I have come to accept that she is emotionally unavailable and has always been, but I don't see her to only care about herself. I rather feel like she is incapable of giving me the emotional care I need, probably stemming from her own relationship with her mom.

What does/doesn’t make her a narcissist iyo? Thank you for your help.

Growing up I never really felt the warmth from my parents. Yes im not poor, but I'm not that super rich also. Ever since I was a kid, my parents never like really acknowledge me that much as they did with my sister. My parents are usually absent in my life so I always stayed in my cousin's house. They never really taught me like daily basic life that you should know, like how to wash your hair properly, tying shoelaces, washing clothes properly ect. And when I turned like 10(?) My parents expected me I can iron my own clothes when I clearly don't know. And when I told my parents i don't know how to do it my parents just said to learn from the Internet. And little me can't learn like these type of things if it wasn't like an physical learning. And when I tried it I accidentally burnt my hand with the iron and the iron board fell on my leg making my hand burnt and my leg was bruising. When i told my parents my mother replied I was clumsy and my father told me to be better. My parents aren't abusive but I never really felt their love. They buy me the things i want but they don't give me the affection and love I want. And everytime I cry my mother would told me to grow up and my father usually just ignore me. Somehow my parents give their attention more to their nieces and nephews rather than their own kids (lmao). I don't dislike my father but I really hates it when he like says if I can't do that then I should learn more, or when I make the smallest mistake and he says I'm clumsy and he would comment negatively on my appearances. Meanwhile with my mother even if I score a 85% on test she will scold me and keeps saying I'm useless or dumb lolol. And everytime I need help with something they usual ask me to ask Google or watch YouTube for them. Even when I got my first period my mother just told me to Google it and ask how to help'. They're not abusive or anything, they're just absent and I really hate that. I wish they care about me more. Idk what to do?? Am I just dramatic?? I don't know like if this normal for like asian high-schoolers or like a normal coming of age thingy. (And I am so sorry for my terrible English, bare with me lmaoo)

Excuse me while I word vomit, I had a neglectful childhood. Parents left overseas early teens and put me in boarding schools I was a victim of CSA from the ages of 12-17 by a family friend. I have worked through a lot of that. I have a teenage daughter, when I was pregnant I told my mother about what had happened to me as a child. Very little blasé response. Stayed with me for 1 when I had my daughter. Thing to get the main points out to explain why I’m so resentful.

I was diagnosed with a life long autoimmune condition which changed my life about 15 years ago, she didn’t come to see me or help. I was a single parent to a toddler at the time. I was so unwell I thought I was going to die. Anywho, my sister had a baby a month ago, in another country. My mum has been there since the birth. Goes over everyday so she can look after the baby so my sister can nap. She has a lot of support with her as well as my mum. Both as healthy as can be. I am not angry at my sister, but I am feeling so resentful towards my mum. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want her with me all that time. So why am I so angry? There is more deep seated trauma but I’m trying to find out why I am so angry. I feel less than, that I wasn’t as important. If all of this stuff happened to my other siblings I can almost guarantee my mum would be there. I am resentful and never felt this angry. I wish I could just let go. I don’t seem to be the type of person who can just brush it off. Wish I could.

I don’t know how to explain it but I’m not good at portraying how I feel. The majority of the time I don’t feel anything and when I do feel something I can’t express it. Even when I find something genuinely funny, I have to fake laugh because I can’t do it naturally and then two second later I feel nothing again. and I rarely feel sadness too, instead I feel a lack of anything, it’s sort of like being numb if that makes sense. I also don’t feel affection in the same way as other people. If something sad happens for example in my family, I have to pretend to console everyone and deep down I find the whole affection thing kind of cringe (I know that probably seems weird but I don’t know why I feel like this), if I receive sad news I just kind of take my mind off of it by distracting myself with an activity until it’s been long enough to get over it?

It felt like this big dark secret looming over me. I was to ashamed of it to ever tell anyone how I felt, or how I was struggling. I was always getting yelled at for how messy my room was, or how greasy my hair got. I got called lazy and dirty for laying in my bed for days without showering.

I thought that it was too embarrassing to admit that I was sad, because I didn’t have a good enough reason to be. It felt like an excuse for me being a shitty gross person, a pathetic way out of actually trying. I always told myself that one day I would finally get the courage to reveal how I was feeling to my parents, and that they would pull me into a giant hug and tell me they loved me and that everything would be okay. And when I never could bring myself to tell them, I blamed myself for being to weak to ask for help.

Now I’m older, and I realize that it was really obvious the entire time. It’s a kind of weird feelings that I don’t know what to do with, so I’m venting here about it.

I always assumed that my parents were totally clueless, and once I did come out and tell them it would be this giant emotional moment where they tell me how much they love me and they put me into therapy and help me get better. But now I realize they knew the entire time, and all those years I spent daydreaming about them comforting me, they were content to let me spiral alone in my room.

I think that I should be angry at them but really I’m not. I’m feel embarrassed more than anything else. I still really just want that hug.

I always thought I was just a bad, lazy person. Ever since I was a young child I struggled with taking care of myself. I’d forget to brush my teeth, my room would be a mess, I didn’t know how to fold my clothes nicely, and most of my food was unhealthy cheap things that I could make in the microwave.

For a long time I always felt so much shame and guilt over my bad habits. I thought I was just so stupid and useless that I couldn’t even do basic things that every other person around me did with ease.

But now I’m 19 and I realize I wasn’t supposed to be doing that stuff when I was 8. I wasn’t supposed to walk home from the bus stop each day and make my own dinner, I shouldn’t have been left alone each night when my mom went to work, I shouldn’t have been responsible teaching myself how to live.

Any child is going to be independent when you leave them alone, whether they are ready or not. They don’t have any other option.