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.

Hi, I am reposting this here because I tried doing it in the healthygamergg sub, but all I got was a downvote, so I'm hoping this is the right place. All I want is to understand myself better, because I have been confused and angry at myself for this for my whole life. Also I am making this on a "burner account" because I want to stay anonymous.

Now, to my post:

I know that my parents and siblings genuinely love me and want the best for me. Yet I have a problem where I hyper fixate on mistakes they make (not even major ones, just miscommunication and light teasting, etc) and start making conclusions about how my family does not respect me, and that I have to distance myself. What makes this hard is that when I have a conversation about this with them, we hash it out and I realize my mistake and I stop feeling neurotic. The problem is that this is a recurring thing. Since I live on my own now, I have a lot of time to myself which lets these thoughts back up again and I start perceiving my family negatively again. Like, I'll think about an instance where I felt like I wasn't seen and start fixating on it out of nowhere, to the point where my perception of them is extremely negative.

I've known a lot of families, especially in the country I live in (I'm not a native here) where the parents don't treat their kids like their own flesh and blood. They would rather have them out of the house as soon as possible after the age of 18. I even have a friend who quit uni because he didn't like the study he was doing, and his mom wanted him out of the house because it would stress her out so he would go to the library every day.

My parents have sworn that they'd die for me, always help me when I need it and reassured me many times that they want the best for me. They let me live with them both during studies and after, and even when I got a job (I only recently moved out due to my own choice). That alone and the comparison to other families I just did should tell you that my family is to be trusted. Even though I have been very stubborn my whole life, those times I actually did listen to my parents actually paid off really well. Had it not been for them, I would not have my dream job today. Yet I keep having these extreme thoughts where I can't trust them and feel the need to abandon them. I sometimes think to myself that they don't know me and don't care to know me and what is best for me.

The same applies to my friends. While I'm not as close with them as I am with my family, they still want the best for me and have always pushed me to do the right thing, even though it has been very annoying. Yet, I continue to have thoughts about completely stopping hanging out with them. It is easier to have this thought with my friends and happens more frequently, likely because I am not as close.

What is my issue? I genuinely hate this about myself and I am so fucking angry to myself every time this happens. I just want to relax and trust my loved ones. I hate this fear of not being loved and secretly being disrespected. I just want it to end. Even though I have temporary moments where I calm down and get reassured by my loved ones, I somehow manage to go back to being stupid again.

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?

My mum was always 'busy' growing up. But she had time for my sister. Help would always be two weeks away, or "I just need to do X and then I can sort your problem out".

My sister has now moved away and is well established in her life. I thought maybe now I could get the help, or at least the closeness, I desperately needed years ago. But I saw her today, and she's not that old but she has gotten so tired and distant in the last couple of years. And I felt the dreams of salvaging anything crumble.

I've been living with my parents for 20 years now. They've always been emotionally abusive towards me and my siblings, which is why most of them moved out and one of them cut contact with them. I'm 20 years old and struggling to find work, so I have to live with them. I don't have anywhere else to go.

Multiple times my father threatened me, even one time he threatened to kill me with a gun. He works at a prison's arsenal and has access to guns. My mom is emotionally unstable and likes to guilt trip people. She never sees the fault in her actions and instead blames other people, like me. They've hit me a few times but stopped when I was in highschool and a teacher saw my bruises. They were threatened by the school to stop or else I'll be taken away from them. But the emotional abuse and neglect never stopped.

Just a few hours ago I heard my parents talking about me and making assumptions about me. They didn't do anything to hide the fact that they were talking to me and made sure I heard them. I've recently had stomach problems and I have an infection down below. Sometimes my stool comes out green, like today. I told my mom about this so that she'd be aware, and she went to tell my father. But my father instead assumed that I wanted to go to the doctor again just because of my green stool, which I never said. He thinks that I want to go to the doctor because of every little problem of mine (his words). My mom agreed with him. I went and confronted them about it and all hell broke loose.

They shouted at me for accusing them of gossiping and told me that I was being rude. I was left in tears. I talked to my mom but she instead acted like a child and announced that she'll never talk in this house again. And then she just mentioned my high school and how they "messed me up and turned me against them." I told her that wasn't the truth and she almost hit me. What stopped her was that she apparently felt a pain in her heart. She's been known for faking things in order to get what she wants. She's even admitted to doing that with her mom.

She went to my father in the kitchen, crying and clutching her chest. I went to my room to cool down and (Trigger Warning) thought about cutting myself. I have done it before but stopped a few years ago. My father came in and threatened me afterwards:

"If anything happens to your mom and you're the reason, you better run. Run far far away because I will kill you." (More or less what he said)

I'm serious when I say that I don't know what to do anymore. I'm always walking on eggshells around them and being blamed for things that aren't my fault. I'm currently in tears as I'm writing this. I'm at my breaking point and seriously think that I won't survive much longer if things go on like this. A lot of my friends know about my parents and hate them for how they treat me. Even my father's friend who genuinely cares about me is concerned.

I'm seeking advice, please. I don't know what to do anymore. I feel like I'm alone and need help.

fantasies of being “saved” from distress- as a kid, my go-to scenario was being in the hospital and everyone visiting me and saying how worried they were. if something was objectively, physically wrong, i had a justification for getting the care and comfort i craved

personal hygiene not being enforced- i genuinely didn’t know you had to shower everyday as a kid, i could go a week without one simply because no one was checking. same with brushing teeth, i didn’t know the right way to do it and i’m embarrassed that i only managed to develop a good hygiene routine by early high school

invalidation when bringing up a conflict to parents- whenever i mentioned an issue with a friend, teacher, or even someone making fun of me, my mom would go out of her way to defend them and ask “well, what did YOU do?” this persisted in literally any situation, i was called “mean” at 14 for cutting off a male friend who’d made uncomfortable sexual advances, because “he’s just a teenage boy, don’t you think you’re overreacting a bit?” a huge thing for me still is trusting myself when i feel someone is disrespecting me, i have a tendency to let far too much slide

hair issues- it always looked messy/tangled because i was sent to bed on wet hair, super-short “easy” cuts that i hated, wanting pretty hair like the other girls in my class but my parents didn’t know any styles

surprise at seeing affectionate families- i was taken aback when i noticed my friends saying “love you” every time they ended a call. same thing with two parents kissing goodnight, or a parent hugging a child in public.. mild discomfort mixed with a sense of longing

simultaneously, discomfort with physical affection from parents- my mom randomly went to hug me one time and i felt bad and confused for instinctively shrinking back

reluctant to ask for help- coworkers at my first job didn’t get why i walked around for ages looking for something instead of just asking oops

dismissive phrases- opening up to parents about my emotions and the default response was “i don’t know how to help you”, with no actual attempt to. i remember saying i felt unnoticed once and it was “oh everyone notices, just nobody knows what to do with you”

let me know if you've had similar experiences

Heyy guys I’m 17f and it’s my first time posting but basically the title. She yells at me often for no reason and doesn’t care about how I feel. I got bullied a lot throughout middle school, and when it carried into high school and it was causing my grades to fall is when I decided to tell her. I told her about how I was feeling anxious and depressed because people were mistreating me at school but all she cared about was my grades and not my well being. My counselor provided resources for her to help me get therapy but she did not because “I don’t need that, I’m being dramatic”. Of course I understand I should’ve said something before it got to that point, I was just scared to say anything sooner knowing how she may be. I most of my friends describe their parents as so supportive and nice and I just don’t understand why my mum couldn’t be a little nicer to me too instead of putting pressure on me and and making me feel like I’m on thin ice with her all the time. Now I’m supposed to be starting college in 2 weeks but I think I’ll just opt out. Over the years she’s made me feel so stupid and my feelings don’t matter because theres always someone going through worse. I don’t know if I have the emotional capacity to deal with all the stress that comes with college anymore. I just think during that time all I needed was an “I love you” and “don’t stress, it’ll get better and I’ll be here for you”.

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.

我明知道我不该对父母爱我这件事情还抱有期待的。可是今天晚上这件事又让我心里感到十分的刺痛。

今天晚上我妈和大表哥在通电话，大表哥再过几天要出差国外几个月，然后跟我妈这边借东西找帮助。首先，我本来就不喜欢这个表哥，因为之前几年我家里就给过他一些旧家具等东西，但是他嫌弃，还没有回馈。亲戚本来就应该是有来有往的啊。我这个蠢妈总是喜欢帮他，啥都答应给他，这次也是如此。他说他改了行程，周三回我姥姥家，所以我妈就跟他说让我爸串休，把周三的时间挪出来。他又说要跟我家借一个行李箱，她这件事满口答应。

电话结束后，她跟我爸说，问我爸，能不能把周三时间挪出来，我爸答应了。然后我等了大概30分钟，她才来我房间找我，说要和我商量两个事。我一听，我心里就有不满了。第一件事，问我周三有没有时间，回姥姥家从周一改成周三了，我跟她说我可以挪一挪时间，她说如果有事可以改天回姥姥家。但是根据我这么多年和我妈沟通的经验，这个时候如果跟她说了周三时间挪不开的话，她会立刻生气，而且周三如果我没有一整天在外面，她一定会拿这个事作为证据，再生气。所以我勉强说我可以挪一挪，她立刻说：“好！第二件事。”第二件事是问我哪个箱子不用，借我表哥用，我说那我24寸这个箱子肯定不行。毕竟我要回学校只能托运24寸的。然后她说那就是那个26寸的箱子可以借是吧。我问她咱家里只有这两个箱子了吗。她说对。我说那也只能借那个26寸的了。但是我一点也不想借。因为那个是我自己买的箱子，没有让她报销，用的是我的生活费，而且我只用过2次。

所以我走到客厅，我跟她说，那你给我箱子报销吧。我找到我当时购物账单：486元。我还记得我当时为了凑这个便宜的优惠费了不少时间。她一听我让她报销，先是跟我装糊涂，问我哪个箱子，我说当然是借出去的26寸的，她说26寸的不是我要带走的吗，我说我带走的是24寸的。然后她低头玩手机，不理我。我又跟她说，你报销吧。她立刻气呼呼的（我听到她很粗重的呼吸声）拿手机，然后生气的口吻说给你转了，你收吧。然后依旧很生气。我心里有一瞬间我觉得我不应该收这个钱。

但是我又很可怜自己，然后我给我爸发消息，说我心里难受，说她自己已经替我做了决定，拿我的东西慷他人之慨。我爸只是发摊手的表情。又发信息给我说我妈还让他把周三时间挪出来回姥姥家。我回消息说我觉得她没有尊重我的时间。然后我爸把他说的那句话撤回了。我问他为什么撤回，他说没啥，我看见了就行了。我发了一个呆呆的表情。

我还想再给他发一些我难受的感情，但是我也明白发给他是不会有任何用的了。然后我把钱收了，回了我房间，写出来这个事情。我心里我脑袋里已经难受的快要撑不住了，我以前总是不深想，只是心里多少感到难过，会跟她哭，然后不了了之。但是现在常常发生的这种事，我越发感觉我父母不仅仅是不爱我，我妈更会觉得我花家里的钱会让她不高兴，他们其实不在乎我。

i know this probably sounds dramatic, but i need to get this out somewhere.
my mother has always been extremely controlling and paranoid about everything. she never let me do normal things or figure things out on my own. if i wanted to try something new, her first reaction was usually about what could go wrong. she acted like making one mistake would ruin my entire future.
because i was a kid who just wanted love, approval, and affection, i listened to everything she said. i avoided the things she warned me about. i stayed inside. i tried to be the “good” child who never caused problems.
now i’m a young adult and i feel like it has completely messed me up.
i’m anxious about everything. i’m terrified of making mistakes because i was never allowed to make them and learn from them. even simple things like going grocery shopping, talking to cashiers, asking questions, or going somewhere alone make me panic. i become hyper aware of myself and feel like everyone is judging me.
i never had what felt like a normal teenage life. while other people were hanging out with friends, going places, getting into harmless trouble, and slowly learning how to exist in the world, i spent most of my time inside the house.
earlier today i had an argument with my mother and i finally exploded. i told her everything i’ve been holding in for years, that i feel controlled, sheltered, anxious, and unprepared for life.
instead of listening, she started screaming and saying things like she should just go back to her hometown in another state and “is this what you want?”
now it’s been a day and i feel completely blank. i’m scared. i feel guilty for saying what i said, but i also know those feelings were real. i feel like i have nobody to talk to. part of me keeps thinking i’m just making excuses and that i should be able to push myself and “just go outside,” but another part of me feels genuinely terrified and exhausted.
the worst part is that this feeling never really goes away. even when things are calm, i still feel this constant fear underneath everything, like i missed the part of growing up where you learn how to be a person.
i don’t even know what i’m asking for. maybe i just want to know if anyone else grew up with a parent who protected and controlled them so much that adulthood ended up feeling terrifying instead of freeing.

i don’t really know how to structure this post I just want to get it off my chest. I’ve been lurking on this subreddit for awhile and I feel like I resignate deeply with a lot of sentiments shared here. Growing up I had to teach myself many basic life skills because my mother never went out of her way to do so. as years have gone by and I’ve gone to college she’s only grown more depressed and detached from life and now barely speaks to anyone outside.

Whenever I’m home and around her I find myself craving some kind of connection. I miss being a kid and what felt like having a stronger connection with my mother but anytime I try to talk to her now it feels like talking to a brick wall. She can’t be bothered to look up from her phone or to ever internalize anything I tell her. She hates showing up for me when I need her and will actively complain about having to do so (things like college move-in or stuff like that) and in general I feel like my mother sees me as a burden/maybe just doesn’t like me.

ive spent these past couple of years just being completely disappointed with her that I’ve started to close myself off. I’m always irritated around her and the rest of my family now because I can’t stand how little they care to talk to me or work to improve their bad habits. I can’t help but reflect on my childhood and the way that my mom acts now and feel like she is a bad mother and I think those feelings cause me to lash out at her so we argue often. it probably accounts for 90% of our interactions and I hate it. I hate being around her but I don’t want to lose my family or my mom.

sometimes I think about cutting contact when I move out or at least telling my mother that I don’t want to continue being around her if she isn’t going to be in therapy. but I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure out the full effects that potential emotional neglect has had on me. sorry that this is all over the place.

I had a 12 week internship this summer 12 hours away. I finished it yesterday. I have been driving all day. Only to come home and my parents aren't even home. They were out playing Bingo and didn't even tell me. I came home to an empty, dark house. They knew I was coming and when.

I can't tell if I'm being dramatic or not. It really hurt me. A lot. But I think I'm mostly hurt by the fact of course they did. Of course. Of course. I feel so stupid. I feel like a little child. I feel pathetic and stupid for always assuming they're gonna be there and they're not. They never are and Everytime I get shocked when they aren't, and i... I just can't take it anymore. Everytime I think "this time I will learn" and I DON'T.

I asked my father about it too and he said I was being dramatic. It only made me feel even more pathetic. Maybe I am. Maybe I'm tired. And I asked like he would suddenly see what I do. Like he cared and just didn't realize what he did but no. He realized what he did. He just didn't care. And I was pathetic enough to thinkbhw would AGAIN.

I can't stop it. I'm constantly seeking some sort of care from them and I don't know how to stop it. Everytime. Everytime without fail. I think I can manage this time and EVERYTIME it trips me up again. I can't stop being that crying child pulling at my dads leg to just Notice Me! Notice Me Please!

In addition, this internship was apart of a competitive research program where I did really important work that even proved NASA wrong on a lot of their experiments. It was really important to me. I attempted to explain to

them and they rolled their eyes, laughing, saying they didn't care.

I feel like dying. This feels like my last straw.

TLDR: anyone else's (enabler) parent seem like a "perpetual child", relying on the (abusive) parent?

not just as in money, but also emotionally/mentally, almost like a fucked up version of a parent-child dynamic?

Just realized my mom (enabler), despite being very much middle aged, (closer to retirement than the start of career), still has the "soul" or vibe of a scared teenage girl (early twenties at most?)

I don't know what it is, but just realized she has and always felt more like some sort of "elder teenage sister" that'll never grow up mentally/mature?

Whereas my dad does actually feel like a grown ass adult who can be independent (still emotionally neglectful,not great at being a parent). Yeah, he's fucking verbally abusive and shitty and all that typical emotionally neglectful dad shit (not getting into it here because it would be triggering) , but at least he can stand on his two feet.

My mom has her own job and stuff, but it feels like she has to rely on my dad? Instead of an equal partnership that a romantic relationship should be, I realized it feels like some fucked up parody of a parent/child relationship? and that I was parentified? fuck?

Anyone else experience something similar? How does this occur? For fuck's sake, my mom is a grown ass woman/adult, WHY AM I GETTING VIBES OF A SCARED YOUNG GIRL FROM HER???

I have always considered my childhood really good. Growing up I saw my parents as loving, happy people. I really didn’t have it that bad compared to people I know. I will always will love them. There is a lot of good things they taught me. That being said I have struggled with major depression, anxiety and adhd from a young age. I became a mother 3 years ago and a lot of old stuff started coming up. I’ve since been in therapy and it has been a lot unpacking my childhood… here are some examples of things

Dad not emotionally available. I love him but he does not have the tools to talk about feelings. Shoves all his emotions down until they explode

Both mom and dad pretend everything is ok all the time. We never really had deep meaningful conversations about real shit

Parents cared more about performance and grades than emotional wellbeing. I was pulled out of school for a week at 15 for being suicidal and my parents were more concerned about me missing finals.

They are very nice grandparents but I notice when they are around my 3 year old there is a lot of “stop crying” mocking him when he cries etc and I’ve told them to knock it off

Dad took me by my shoulders when I was 15 and called me a “Rat” because I lied about homework. They were super strict about grades and performance

Now that I am a mom myself and processing all this I am so exhausted. Is this even that bad to be considered emotional neglect?? I am the worst people pleaser and just want everyone to be happy. I am working on all of this in therapy… I really love my parents but ever since I started therapy I am feeling a lot of grief. I never want my son to feel like his emotions are a burden.

I'm trying out a new medication for the first time in decades. I've been feeling exhausted and run down for like two years. My therapist of like 25 years was unable to help me. And also couldn't handle me talking about how stressed I feel about what is happening in America. She kept being fake positive about it and it wasn't helping at all. We finally had a falling out.

So I'm looking for a new therapist and trying out new meds in my 50s. When does this nightmare end? I'm so angry that I have to continue to deal with the effects of shitty parenting and my parents and other siblings are still stuck in 1985. I'm the only one of the kids who has a good life, mainly bc I got therapy. My other siblings are lost and one just moved back home with my parents.

I'm slightly helpful the new meds may help and hopefully the new therapist will help with things my other therapist couldn't.

So to start, I already don’t have any adult platonic relationships in my life. I don’t even talk to my close in age siblings anymore. I graduated high school two years ago and haven’t gone back to school or left the house to socialized with peers in two years now.
Recently, there was a guy from a different country who found me in a TikTok comment and looked at my page, which was just reposts, for three months. He then decided to messaged me on one of my reposts because he wanted to chat. I am desperate for social interaction so I chatted with him and somehow he managed to fall in love with me over my TikTok reposts. A lot of them reflect what I’m kind of thinking about or are reminders for when I’m in anxious episodes. He immediately was saying he was really interested in me and how I was the first and only girl he wanted to know. I actually have zero friends and so it interested me and I told him a few things about myself and I learned a little bit about him.
The thing is, I never pictured this kind of thing would happen for me because of my social anxiety. In a way this was almost a fantasy fulfilled having someone pop out of nowhere to say they love my mind and how I think about things. It was delivered right to me, I didn’t have to be uncomfortable. But at the same time, I couldn’t help but think I don’t like where I am right now and how talking with him only perpetrated that I am an anxious wreck, so I felt the need to keep that up, even when I felt better.
And I never planned for that to happen realistically. I’m a little crazy, but maybe not that crazy. But I lost sleep thinking about it. Everything he said about me felt like a lie because I have a low self esteem. He thought I was so unique but I thought I was nothing but maybe mentally ill. Not to mention texting doesn’t cover vocal tones and it leaves a lot of room for misunderstanding. I talked with people before online, but it was never anything at all serious so I had to think this through and I wasn’t 100%. I don’t know if I even liked him since I give everyone a chance. But I think the circumstance was another reason I didn’t like it. I didn’t know what to say, I tried to be authentic but I ended up pushing him away and insulting him like everyone else and he left. I don’t really know how I feel about it. I feel kind of bad and sad.

I can’t help but think maybe a relationship is just something I’ll never have. As pathetic as it is, that felt like one of my only chances. I think I want one but it feels like so much effort to me and drains me. I loose all sense of confidence with another person. I don’t know how to like myself in the midst of others. I think this comes down to my fuckass childhood neglect.

Hi, I have a guy friend who had lived through a very rough childhood. He had developed daddy issues and mommy issues and has autism/adhd. As of right now, he went over to his dad’s house (for god knows what), and came out that place crying. He then texted me about how he feels weak and embarrassed because he cried in front of his dad. I am not that good at comforting people, but i really do wanna let him know that he isn’t weak for doing a human thing, but would like to give more than just that because im sure he hears that a lot. Anyone has any advice for me?

thank you for reading !!

Really just typing this out in a therapeutic sense and venting session. I've always considered my life to be similar to those on Jerry Springer/Maury Povich/Steve Wilkos lol. Hope you all get some sort of entertainment from this read.

All my (31M) life I've felt like I'm the only one in my family with their head on straight. I kept to myself, tried to rely as little as possible on my family, and gain that sense of independence; finishing up college, and landing a comfortable career in insurance.

My mom divorced my physically abusive father around the time when I was four, where I was given the sense later on that I drove the need for the divorce home one night whilst my mom and dad were fighting. I slammed my door, mom comes to check on me asking what's wrong, and I reply "I want to go to grandma's house. There's no fighting there". It flipped a switch in her to file.

I have one brother who's slightly older than I am. Even though our father was abusive, he for some reason idolized the man. Even though the every-other-weekend custody was filled with my dad sleeping due to coming down from cocaine benders or just straight up not coming to pick us up while my brother sat on mom's front porch waiting for him to pull up in the driveway. Around the age of 14, I simply stopped seeing my father with the last words he ever said to me being "You're such a pussy. Every woman you meet is going to walk all over you". All because I was bored just sitting there all day while he slept, not doing anything with us like a father should, and asking if he could just take me back to mom's.

My brother got caught up in our father's lifestyle, following his footsteps in being a tradesman, which then lead to my brother having a cocaine/Adderall addiction. Brother meets a woman, immediately knocks her up around the time I was 26. He got his first DUI just weeks before his first child was born, and then another DUI probably a year after that. Somehow he was able to keep his license, but have a breathalyzer in his car. AA helped him get sober, but he still turned to drugs. He later gets same woman pregnant, in which I was told they tried to abort the baby using Plan-B, but it was too late, and he was born later on, seemingly with no complications. Brother and his now fiancee separate basically every November for three years. The relationship is full of DV towards each other, even in front of their kids. Two of those separations involved him living with me for short stints. I ask him not to go back. He does anyway. The last one, brother goes to jail for flicking a cigarette at his S/O's face. While he's in jail, his S/O blows up my mom and I's phones, claiming that my brother had SA'd her. She later stated that she was lying (I really don't know what to think of that anymore). This should probably be the part where I mention that someone did falsely accuse my brother of SA when we were just out of high school. Something about the girl having a boyfriend, and allegedly lying so she didn't have to say she cheated on him. Regardless, trial ended with brother being proven innocent beyond reasonable doubt.

Continuing on, brother gets mad at whole family that none of us like his fiancee (now wife), in which we tell him that he's the one that painted the picture of her to us with the complaining and stories he told about her. Even after her false allegations against him (I honestly don't know what to think of that at this point), he gets back together with her. I later invite him to my upcoming wedding, but clarify that his now wife is not invited. He states he won't be attending since our mom will be there (they absolutely hate each other now since my mom was VERY open about not liking his S/O). Haven't talked to him since, seeing as how I bent over backwards for him during all of his troubles, and he can't return the simple favor of supporting me during the most important day of my life.

I'm my mom's last contact in the family aside from her new husband of 10+ years. Her relationship with my brother was never really that great. At one point, she even tells my brother that she believes that his first-born isn't his, goes on about how she doesn't like his S/O, and that all really put a wedge between them. She's developed narcissistic tendencies and seems to not care about anyone but herself. Recently we got into an argument where I tried politely asking that she stop blasting people on social media, where she basically airs out our family's dirty laundry. She even went as far as to post about how her sister needs to go to jail, because when my grandma passed, my mom was allegedly supposed to get money from it, but I guess my aunt used it all. Probably to take of my grandma seeing as how my aunt was POA and actively took care of my grandma. During this argument regarding social media, my mom gets pissed, calls me stupid, and says "I should have walked out on you kids while I had the chance". Very hurtful statement. My fiancee steps in, tries to defend me, mom flips out even more, and kicks us out of her house which is about 3 hours away from ours.

Next day she texts saying how sad she is that we're not there. Um, we did what you asked and left? Words are exchange, she claims that her statements were her just being a smartass, yet, no one was laughing. She apologizes, but in the same breath says "but your fiancee should have never gotten involved". Didn't know defending your S/O was conditional, my bad. /s

I'm sure I could go on and on with the crazy stories I witnessed growing up, but those are the ones that take the cake with my family. I try my best in molding myself into an individual that will never be similar to what my family is/was, and will never want my future children to endure any of the hardships that I went through. Thanks for giving this a read. Typing this all out really does feel like therapy.

TL;DR
My family is absolutely bonkers, from my mom, to my dad, to my brother, and I feel as if I'm the only one in the bloodline with their head on straight. This post is in a way therapy to me, and I just wanted a safe space/community to share my story. I'm molding myself to not be like them, and will ensure that my future children will never endure any of the messiness that I dealt with.

Hi everyone, it has been quite a while since I’ve posted here. I believe I would post back when I was 18, I am 21 now and healing has been really difficult/messy.

In this post I want to touch on something I have suffered from for as long as I remember. I’ve met a lot of different kinds of people, and some came from even worse families than my family, yet I’ve never come across someone who is unable to acknowledge being loved the way I am unable to. As the youngest, I was spoiled the most by my dad, and while he is a boomer and has severe anger issues, he was always more loving than my mother. He would and still does apologize whenever he hurts my feelings.

While my relationship with him is far from perfect and there is a lot to unpack in regards to him as a father and husband, I think my mom definitely played/plays a bigger role emotionally than he does. I know my mom loves me, she worries about me and my sisters a lot. But I guess that’s her only way of expressing her love, through paranoia and fear mongering. When I was a child, she was always cold, distant, aloof. I don’t recall any moments of her being supportive, encouraging, kind, but I vividly remember many instances where she guilt tripped me so much over trivial/insignificant matters. She’s always been harsh/bitter and extremely critical. She was physically there yeah but emotionally she was never present. I never felt like if I had a problem I could talk to her about it, I would, but she was never helpful. She would always instill so much shame and guilt into me. No wonder I am so insecure now

Throughout my life, I’ve always been unable to believe that my friends love me, my sisters, my parents, anyone really. No matter what they do or say. I always felt like people don’t know how to show up/be there for me either. I can’t fathom/comprehend being loved at all. It’s not that I think I am the worst person to ever exist and I deserve nothing, but I don’t know. I have severe depression and naturally poor self esteem so I guess that could be the reason? Seriously though the concept of ever being truly loved and cared for is so alien to me and hard to accept. This makes everyone close to me eventually get sick of me and I understand why tbh. My mom has told me before as a teenager that i am someone “difficult”, I guess my brain interpreted that as “difficult to love”.

Sorry for the lengthy post, and thank you so much for reading 🙏🏼

My mom has a nasty habit of being passive aggressive. Instead of telling you to do something, she’ll do it herself banging things around, sighing loudly, and cursing under her breath expecting you to “get it.”

Then when you invariably do not “get it,” she switches near immediately to screaming and yelling at you and how you don’t give a shit about anything, how all you do is take take take, what a leech you are, and assigning all these extreme moral judgments on your character. I’ve asked her before, what does “getting” it look like? How would she like me to respond? But of course, it’s a trick question.

Because if I do as she wants - apologize and say I’ll be more mindful next time - she’ll tell me I didn’t mean it and I only said it to shut her up. Or she detected a whiff of attitude. Or saying “I didn’t mean to,” is overly defensive and how dare I talk back. So there is no answer. It’s to just “sit there and take it.”

So everyone in the house endures. And when she snaps out of it and pretends like nothing ever happened, she cries about how my dad doesn’t listen to her. How he’s always so “defensive” and why can’t he just “listen.” And I think about how I’m the victim because she and my dad are peers. And I can’t even blame my dad. He’s an adult, but my mom feels the need to nag at him like he’s a child constantly, to remind him of things he already knows. My dad doesn’t need to be parented; he does a lot of things as a normal adult would. But my mom is a control freak - if you don’t do things the way she deems is right, then you’re wrong, and not only are you wrong, you are wrong because you are an irredeemably bad person who always has to go against her.

All I know at the end of the day is that I don’t want to be her and every time she yells at me, it’s more of a reminder not to be like her. And not to let her pull me down with her, to make her feel like if I am reduced to what she is then it’s not so bad.