For me, the obvious one was the CSA and certain other things associated with it (that I won’t name so I don’t give predators ideas). However, a less obvious one would be the neglect. I thought it was not just normal but “positive” that no one ever cared for me. I was praised for being “so independent” and “mature.” But no one ever made sure I was safe. No one ensured my needs were met. No one even treated me like a person. I was this dress-up doll that got forgotten about until someone wanted to play with me, and not in ways I ever wanted.
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I thought having big fights daily, being a therapist to my mom, and my mom treating me like a “friend” (when most convenient to her) was normal.
What does CSA stand for?
That having personal needs/preferences/emotions was burdensome to everyone around me, and was the reason other people didn’t like me.
Yeah above all I would say just the daily aura/mood/functionality of the house. People don’t get screamed at, sweared at, called names every day? Parents give their kids gifts just because? You can ask your parent a question any kid could ask and don’t get screamed at/hit?
Yep. Parentification and neglect. Children taking care of adults, cleaning up after them, making and delivering their meals, caring for their other chikdren.
And I confronted them about this as an adult and was told. Okay, so it hurt you. But that’s just normal. You have to forgive and forget.
Um. No. I dont actually.
Pretty sure that attitude is why they dont have any contact with any of their kids anymore… in fact, I know it is. That and the yelling and hitting they also claim is “normal” and good for kids.
I thought a home life was supposed to be like living in a war zone, and all families hated each other.
Id say most impacting is my view on how things work and myself. Everything is so skewed and i have to rework all of it to function ok
One of the worst things I (female) was told (by my mother and her sisters) was that all men are awful. That men only want sex. That they are abusive and will betray you, and that they don’t talk much, don’t feel sadness or compassion, and only feel and express anger.
I believed that when I was single and dating. I was pretty sure I’d stay single because I didn’t want to be married to a monster. Fortunately, I’m someone who questions a lot and does my own thinking, so I eventually questioned that a lot. But I sure dated a lot of jerks because I thought that all boys and men behaved that way and that it was normal.
I eventually did marry a wonderful man and we’ve been married a long time.
Not the worst, (people have already covered some of the bits I also experienced) but I thought losing every single bit of your mind over small things was normal, but no. It was that my mom didn’t just turn molehills into mountains – she could turn anything into an Oedipus-level tragedy. There was so much fucking drama. I think I spent half my childhood just being emotionally exhausted from the whiplash.
I knew the way they went about the CSA was wrong but everything else…. Yea I have no fucking idea what it’s like to be “normal” lol
“We tell you these [emotionally abusive] things because we love you and want you to be a better person.”
I thought it was okay for people to constantly put me down and negate my accomplishments.
Not having access to food or a bed, privacy being a privilege and not a right, being responsible for feeding myself as a young kid, the idea that I (as a child) should have the experience and understanding of an adult and never make mistakes, pushing through and hiding the pain of physical injuries so as to not seem weak or needy, learning how to parent very early on to try and teach your parents how to do it
That when everyone went home, they went to their rooms and didn’t talk to their family much at all.
I don’t think I was convinced, per se, but that was normal/SOP.
When I was a teenager my mother came up with some line about middle child syndrome. She was justifying why the middle child wasn’t as important as the oldest or youngest.
Feeling guilty for making choices for myself instead of others. I’m so used to putting aside my own desires to appease my mother that whenever someone wants me to choose something that I want, I feel incredibly guilty.
Emotional neglect, punishment for emotions, no hugs, no loving words.
To agree on what they say. Even if I don’t agree. Even if I think they’re wrong. They are always right, because that’s respecting your elders. Don’t question it. Don’t challenge it. Don’t make them think they are wrong: whether it be opinions, mode of discipline, their hypocritical actions etc. (I can’t even quite put into words, but my dad berated me about this when I pointed out he was punishing me for the smallest things. Or something like that. Thinking about it now, I was basically being gaslit to accept abuse and that he can’t take any accountability for it.)
For me, it was being extremely close to my family. Like, always being home and available to my parents, even when I became an adult. Allowing them to accompany me to appointments for my mental health and have a say as an adult. They got so used to that and when I finally learned I didn’t have to allow it…well…it didn’t get better, it got worse but I am working on it.
The emotional neglect and physical abuse. To this day, my 36 year old brother still thinks we grew up better than most people because he hasn’t gone to real therapy yet to understand unhealed people will always surround themselves with what they know. He thinks our mother did better than most because she helicoptered instead of promoting independence (but only for him, her helicoptering me led to personality defects, apparently, not the physical abuse, emotional abuse, and the fact that I had been the most obvious, textbook case of CSA).
Even my husband, who has the inner being of NPD (I don’t think he has it anymore thanks to therapy) due to pretty severe emotional neglect, recognizes that it’s messed up.
Be toxic to others first before they do it to you first!
It took me losing all my high school friends and some caring people in University to change that.
I thought daily screaming matches were normal. It didn’t help that when you try to share with peers that you and your parents fight all the time, it’s met with “everyone fights with their parents!” So I thought that meant we all were yelling and screaming in each other’s faces every day. Which led to me yelling and fighting with my friends all the time in high school. I was so defensive about every single thing until I was a young adult and it’s still hard to fight the urge. I thought everything was meant to be an attack always
I thought it was normal that I didn’t go to therapy after my dad committed suicide and I was a freshman in high school
The CSA point hits hard. (TW!) When I confessed to my mom, I was SA’d and raped by my high school bf, she said it didn’t count unless I was “physically held down against my will and forced into it,” and that “every girl gets pressured into sex.” Okay, never mind the misinformation, but >!did that happen to you repeatedly over the span of several years by the same person who claimed to love you and when you confronted them about it, begging them to get help, they deflected the blame and said that “you should have physically fought back,”!< and you eventually developed c-PTSD? Yeah man idk, I think it counts.
I thought it was normal to constantly have your privacy invaded. When I went to a friends house to work on a school project I was surprised as hell that their mother would knock on their door before opening it and I was surprised to see that they would be able to be in their room with the door closed and the mother wouldn’t even bother them
“Every time there is a wedding or funeral a family relationship falls apart”-my father
He said it like he was handing out angel wings when a bell rings.
A lot of things already mentioned also that everyone acts different behind closed doors. Another one is that everyone gossips and talks bad behind peoples backs, that everyone is hyper critical of others and judges them.
my nFather convinced me it was normal to be unhappy, scared, worried and in despair 24/7.
His mantra was ‘life is not supposed to be happy’.
Very much CSA for me as well as the normalization of my mom’s Munchausen by Proxy and the starvation that went with it. My older brother and sister were fed regularly, but my mom severely limited my food intake in an effort to keep me below 100 lbs and looking sickly. It was normal to have daily supervised weigh-ins and to be chastised when the scale started to creep up during normal female development. It was normal to be rewarded with praise only for how many days in a row I could go without eating at all. I was so hungry in high school that I’d eat my looseleaf paper from my school binders to try and stop the gnawing pain, and I was so brainwashed that I thought every kid lived like me.
Shouting contests were so normal I became desensitized to screaming. Then I went to therapy, then it became a really bad trigger for me when I understood what it was
That I couldn’t actively be excited about things. “Honey that’s not normal! You’re gonna scare people off!”
Fuck you, I laugh loud, pop off, and get hype for stuff I like. That’s normal. That’s Human.
Treating her kids like therapists and asking us for advice for all of her personal and familial problems.
I thought every family played that weird game where we all had plan several steps ahead of each other to not piss anyone off. Which led to this crazy ability for pattern recognition that only heightened the daily hypervigiliance I was under.
That the problem was my reactions not their actions.
Drinking and driving.
I was repeatedly told as a young child (before 12 years old) that I was selfish and self-absorbed (by my Nmom!) and I came to believe those words reflected who I truly was because “that’s what my own mother thought of me”…
Also: my Ndad installed a hook-and-eye latch outside of my hyperactive little brother’s bedroom door to “minimize [his] disturbace”. I had normalized this cruelty so thoroughly that its abusive essence went unexamined until literally a few years ago (thank you, psychoanalysis!).
The negativity. The fear, the hatred, the despair. When i was in middle school i spent so many nights crying, wishing i could be louder so that someone would hear me and care, but knowing i couldnt bc if i was hed find me and “give me a reason to cry”. Most of the time i cried myself to sleep.
Now i live in spite. to spite. To spite everyone who said i couldnt, and to spite my younger self who never thought they would. The only motivation that actually works is spite. I hate it.
I thought the level to which my mom and I screamed at each other as teenagers was normal but it’s in fact very not normal.
feeling that i have to “earn” love
That I had no confidence, no voice, and that was just how I was. Feeling scared and anxious around them.
Probably showering with them when I was <6/7 teen years? Still the butt slapping or watching me change because they changed my diapers
Screaming is normal, my earliest memories are just screaming, when people yell or someone raises their voice I flinch and my heart now starts skipping. When I’d tell them as a child to stop it was scaring me I was told to just get over it and stop being so sensitive or there she goes, always going on about the screaming and fighting. Even when comforting you, they scream at you for crying, so I hold in my tears a lot and basically shut down. It’s destroyed so many relationships but I realized I want to be better than them, so I try my best even if some days it doesn’t feel like a lot.
You have to hear this.
She tried to convince yesterday that is okay to kiss her on the lips, here is the hilarious part, she says that it’s not okay to do the same with my dad.
I was like “bitch its not okay for both duh”.
This is where i realized that i live with a mentally fucked mom, i hope she dies soon.
Only being thought of in the context of anothers needs and being available for others needs reguardless of how it effected me. I’ve driven myself half crazy trying to fulfill every need of someone else while completely ignoring my own humanity.
Only now, at 35 am I trying to be a human being.
consent being an entirely unknown concept. it started early, I remember when I was very little and my older brother was picking on me (I don’t blame him for this, he was a child too) and my nfather literally laughed at and made fun of my attempts to set boundaries, saying “oh the twins are back, Stop It and Don’t”.
my nfather also told me at one point that I couldn’t tell him not to touch me because he “made” me… so he was assumedly entitled to my body forever?
That it’s normal to fight with people close to you.
Only offering help when there’s strings attached or they want to maintain some kind of control
When I was at primary school, a boy called me a ‘lesbian’ by way of a playground insult. I had absolutely no idea what that meant (and to be fair, he probably didn’t either!)
The next morning we were in the bathroom brushing our teeth, getting ready for school and I casually asked, “Mum, what’s a lesbian?”
She looked thunderstruck and spinning round to face me, with an expression of such rage and fury that I felt I had asked something truly horrific, she demanded to know where I’d heard that word.
When I explained that a boy in my class had called me a ‘lesbian’, she told me that it was “absolutely disgusting” and that no one was to ever call me that.
I can’t even remember her explaining what it was (although I’m sure she must have given some version of the truth)… but her undisguised outburst of disgust and revulsion at the idea of someone being a lesbian convinced me (until I was old enough to know better) that it really must be something truly terrible indeed. 🙄🙄🙄
Mind you, this was the same woman who told me in no uncertain terms that I’d be kicked out of the house if I ever became pregnant as a teenager… so she wasn’t exactly famous for her empathy and compassion.
As an adult, I confronted her about the teen pregnancy thing. She denied it at first, and then tried to pass it off as a ‘joke’.
She was not joking.
It’s hard to say what’s the worst, but there are a couple I can think of right now:
– Feeling physical pain all day every day of your life (leading me to walk on a broken ankle/foot for literal months)
– Conflict = fighting (it was really bewildering to me when I had a disagreement with my current partner and it was a discussion vs. a screaming fit)
I thought everyone got beat and their hair pulled for “talking back”
Being physically and emotionally deprived of support and also not going to therapy
Having my siblings 10 years my senior abuse me in a few ways but “they’re just playing” since it’s my brother and sister. No I’m sorry an 18 and 20 year old do not normally hit and leave bruises an 8 year old because they’re “playing”
Sharing a joint bank account. I endured years of being tied to a mortgage that I didn’t want.
The silent treatment. I thought it was normal to stop talking to someone when they pissed you off.
Being bribed with money/gifts/vacations to show up.
I thought everyone didn’t want to spend anytime with their parents and was also faking enjoying it, posing for the pictures, and getting bribes but we just didn’t talk about it. I knew I got bigger bribes than other people because the circumstances on which they decided to engage with educational consultants and send me to a teen lockup camp for almost a year were found to be made up and I have (managed) CPTSD from my childhood and my time in what was effectively a kidnapped and prisoner of war situation.
Not going to the doctor when you were sick. One example is I had a very bad ear infection when I was about 4 or 5 and they refused to take me to the pediatrician until one night I was screaming bloody murder from the pain.
It was something that was deeply internalised to the point that I spent the first 30 years of my life living with a severe mental illness thinking it was normal because life was just supposed to be extra hard.
That everything she did was just to discipline me to become a better person. Well. News flash – I’m now an adult in therapy working hard to be the better person I want to be.
I also thought it’s normal to scream so loud at each other the house sometimes felt like it shook, her cursing my and my sibling’s downfall because we go against her despite her sacred role of being a mother, and the awful religious guilt. We didn’t apologise to each other ever, too. However, she keeps moaning about us never apologising to her because she’s the one deserving of it.
Not helping your kids out with college, or buying them vehicles or anything really , was one thing they put a lot of energy into explaining to me for some reason, I see it as it’s on them not me for being so crumby. Also having a brother that’s aloud to do whatever he wants , they convinced me that his behavior was normal: anytime I had a very good question or intention for my life , they insisted that they new best , but I’m seeing now they were wrong about almost everything.
Being criticized daily, no matter how much you try to achieve to make your nparents happy and proud of you. And always thinking of what their friends would think about us if we decide to do something.
that it isnt normal a kid cant ask their caregivers for literally anything, from food to toys; and they are guilted for it immensely. starting from the age of 4.
Her breaking into my room in her rages to beat me, and being told I deserved it and me talking back was “abusing” her. That what she’d do wasn’t abuse because she’d keep a roof over my head, and didn’t make me pay room and board (well, she was stealing my SSI all for herself and her weed anyway). That any of her physical abuse that I didn’t even provoke some kind of way just didn’t happen or was deserved/”TOUGH LOVE”. That if therapists and nobody else wanted to believe or hear me out, my problems weren’t real ones.
When I told my dad I hadn’t liked the way he touched me that night and would prefer he not do it again, he promptly told me I had dreamt it and it was very normal for an 11 year old girl to have such dreams about her dad.
Then he did it again.
I never went to the doctor unless I was dying because both my parents, despite not being anti-vaccine, were vehemently anti-doctor
Not directly but I was always made to apologize for “mouthing off” when all I was doing was defending myself against my dad, who was an alcoholic & verbally/emotionally abusive
So b/c of that, I’m apologizing for literally everything & to the point where my SO got worried & said something
Kids don’t get to pee when they need to. Kids pee when it’s most convenient for the parent
Being 100% dedicated to school work and cleanliness while not supporting me/showing me how to do it.
If I wasn’t taught that I would probably have more than Just work and internet friends by now.
That “rape” is just “breaking up with an ex bf” as I was told that if I’m ever raped I should just deal with it
I thought neglect was normal, especially because my mother usually sided with my stepparents against me. I thought that feeling constant fear, fear of speaking, of expressing myself, of my mother freaking out was normal. And finally, I thought that the fact that my mother didn’t show love and affection was because she had a somewhat brutish attitude.
Being picked on to the point of tears.
denying every experience you have just to watch you suffer! broke my foot as a kid, was forced to “walk it off” because i was being “dramatic.” was later confirmed broken. told my mom my stepdad was coming onto me and she said no he’s not. told her i was being actively stalked and was in danger and she said i was being “dramatic” again, and dismissed it until the police got involved. etc
That no one really ever has your back. Even if they say they love you, it’s only so far as it’s convenient for them.
I was actually a bit weirded out by the care and empathy my partner gave me when we first met. I kept waiting for the shoe to drop and the abuse to start. Because people are only nice to you if they want something from you.
Our relationship really opened my eyes to the abuse I’d grown up with. I went NC with my Nparent a few years after my partner and I got together.
That her emotions were my responsibility, so I had to fix them.
That being “talked to like an adult” was normal, and that other parents that didn’t do it like that were weird.
That she can say whatever she wants to me without consequence, but as soon as I become a consequence I’m not allowed to talk back to her or have an opinion.
That just saying “Sorry,” followed by an explanation of why she exploded on me was “good enough,” and then from there it was my responsibility to not trigger that response again, instead of it being hers to not react to me in that way in the first place again.
That her “advice,” wasn’t advice and was instead instructions on what to do and how to do it and if I didn’t do it that way I was doing it wrong and therefore was deserving of being shouted at.
That after being asked to get something for her, asking back “Where is it?” is not the correct response. I’m just supposed to know what this thing looks like and where it is in our shit tip of a house without ever seeing it before.
That me, my sister, and dad were the problems, and she could never do any wrong. Even if she had been blatantly wrong.
That having £140k+ of debt is a normal and responsible thing to do.
That relying on your disabled daughter’s benefits to buy food for the household, because you’re too busy spending all the money from your job on useless Amazon tat, is a responsible thing to do.
That storming out of a house you are a guest in, out of anger because you were being told to follow a simple request, is acceptable behaviour.
That shouting at everyone and everything that even so much as breathes near you after something completely unrelated to that person happens to piss you off, is the best way to deal with being pissed off.
That saying to your, at the time, 15-year-old daughter that she “needs breastforms” because “her breasts are too small.” in the middle of a shop. While holding a pair of breast forms she found. Proudly proclaiming that “you need these.” (Sorry remembering this one got under my skin)
Some of these are pretty sarcastic in their level of how “normal” I think she tried to make them, others are just straight up what she taught me as a kid growing up under her care.
Asking my friends parents for money because if not we would be homeless.
To this day my family has never met my friends in adulthood nor any partner I ever had.
Talking over people / being talked over. Being polite/”respectful” of others was a good thing. Fuck that. I don’t give a fuck who you are. I’m not going to be an arrogant prick, but I certainly am not letting you speak on my life or talk over me or whatever. And then when I retaliated, they used to make me feel shame for getting upset (remember it’s in reaction to what they do)
I thought it was normal to have a huge argument or small tiff and then just…’forget’ about it (not address it afterwards) or just saunter off in the middle. We weren’t allowed to make valid points or stand up for ourselves, and there were zero apologies after raised voices or broken objects. Imagine my surprise when I realized that disagreements and positive feelings could coexist.
I thought the bullying and shaming me for my adhd and calling me disgusting and constantly telling me I was a disappointment was just strict parenting. I thought I deserved it. Hell, I thought I deserved it until I finally wised up in my 40s. And the gaslighting… I’m still trying to learn that I don’t have to have irrefutable proof of anything I say before I say it. The urge to back up every statement I make with facts and justification is still plaguing me.
No emotional support. “Life goes on” is what I always heard rather than any offer of support
That they think you are their belonging or tool? Or object? It’s so hard to put into words but they were taking me for granted, always super controlling helicopter parent style, super anxious and acting the anxiety out on me for instance if on my way home from school I’d take a 10 min chat with a friend before taking the bus they’d terrorise my phone and wreck havoc saying they were worried. In reality it was them wanting me to be isolated and only available for them. This went on like this well into my twenties when I was able to move out.
Unloading her anxiety on us at a very early age
Ugly language and emotional abuse. “We’re just kidding!” “We’re trying to toughen you up!”
Having to predict my parents moods.
I thought all kids were in charge of the mood of the house and the parents emotions. Turns out they’re not. Who knew?? Not me growing up.
I thought that everyone taking their word over mine and that I was a pathological liar was extremely normal. I had extra bad things done (like a cavity search instead of a body check my first time in a psychiatric hospital) because I wasn’t believed about not using or selling drugs. It’s a tough world when teachers, therapists, doctors etc don’t believe the person in front of them.
My mom is so conditional and transactional with her love and she uses money as a way to manipulate people
I thought it was normal to be cruel and mean to your favorite people. My dad and I had the sort of relationship where he was more like my mischievous older brother, and he would mercilessly make fun of me and my mom, with the classic “it’s just a joke, lighten up!” if we got upset. It became the way we bonded, we’d watch TV and make fun of everyone on the news, we’d make fun of people we saw in public (from the safety of inside the car of course). But my mom and I got the most of it. I genuinely thought that’s just how relationships work. I got really good at it, and picking on people, sarcasm, pushing people’s buttons and laughing at them when they cried. I thought that’s what friendship was. But I knew that it really really hurt when he did it to me, but I thought I was just overly sensitive and not tough enough, like a secret weakness I had to hide. And I always felt really bad for upsetting people even though I’d laugh at them. I was so miserable. I never actually wanted to hurt anyone, I just thought “joking” was how you bonded.
As I got older and started socially maturing and becoming more emotionally aware, it started to click to me that this fucking sucks and even if it was the way relationships worked, I didn’t want it to be. This was about when the dynamic between my dad and I shifted. I was maybe 13 or 14 (embarrassingly old to be figuring this shit out.) When I understood that I was a bully, and that I was being bullied, and I couldn’t do it anymore. My dad and I started to not get along, and his “jokes” got meaner and meaner. I started making a conscious effort to not “riff” on my friends or anyone else, but it was second nature and sometimes I got carried away and would have to backpedal.
I still feel awful for all the kids in middle school I teased. Even now I have to be careful not to get into teasing matches with friends because I am too good at it. Occasionally I get on a roll and then have to check in with the friend in private later to apologize and ask if I went too far (though these days that happens less and less, and thankfully everyone always says they thought what I said was hilarious.) But I really do just try to avoid teasing altogether now.
Yeah I thought “teasing” was normal and I am still upset at my delayed social skills development. I have horrible social anxiety now. I never ever want to hurt people. I wish I’d been taught how to interact with people like a normal person.
Handling everyone’s emotions and manipulating situations so they work out okay. I had to make sure my family was safe, but I didn’t realize I should not have had to do that, and it’s not the way I want to live my life now.
I’m so independent, I don’t trust anyone and I really struggle to form and keep close relationships.
Being in trouble all the time. I never knew what was going to set them off. I was expected to know things I never experienced. It was “common sense”. I also thought I had a bad memory because we never remembered anything the same. I was always told I was wrong, or I misheard/ “heard what you wanted to hear”
Having my dad turn off the hot water if we took a shower that was longer than eight minutes
Not being allowed to flush unless you pooped because dad didn’t want to pay for the cesspool
I thought every kid was afraid of pissing off their parents in any way whatsoever. Turns out kids with GOOD parents are able to depend on them when they need help or make a mistake. Like if I got in a car accident when I just got the hang of driving, the last thing I would want to do is call up my parents and tell them. Other teenagers will call their parents the minute they’re uncomfortable. Good parents focus on making sure their kid is okay before anything else. And as such, they are the people to go to when you’re dealing with something, NOT to avoid.
Equalizing responsibility for a relationship between the minor child and parent. That realization was wild.
Not the worst, but a significant one: it’s better to stay with an abusive partner (even when it ruins your life and your kids’ lives) than to leave. That it’s a ‘failure’ and not just a normal and respectable part of life to go through separation when things aren’t working or are causing you harm. When I eventually split from my abusive partner, they gave me no support, blamed me, and instead and have been shaming me and insinuating that I’m crazy and unstable since.
Screaming before everything. Screaming before going out to eat, vacations, holidays, before school…just constant meltdowns. I was programmed for a long time to freak out over everything, but NC solved that. That’s all behind me now.
Oh boy, your second point hit right in the gut. I cannot tell you how many times my mom told me that no one cares about me so I’ll have to do everything by myself. Always in a snappish tone. Always gaslit after the fact by her, of course, saying she never said that.
See also, being told that if someone asks how you are, you have to just say fine bc they don’t actually care and just want to talk about themselves (projecting much?).
I cut my foot at a friend’s house and bled on the carpet. I was amazed that her parents were more worried about me than the carpet and didn’t yell at me.
My ngrandmother would always vent to me about her shitty husband, then scream at me because I wasn’t an adult and blame me that she didn’t have adult friends to talk to.
I thought it was normal for me to be my nmom’s “rock” as she called it. Complaining to me about her husband, the finances, business matters, and other family drama since i was about 10. I thought it was normal that she threw all her problems and emotions onto me to either solve or comfort her.
Now i know that there is a term for this – emotional incest.
Living in filth. Neither of my “parents” ever cleaned. Yes, we were poor and lived in poverty, but that was no excuse to be filthy. I grew up surrounded by roaches and the overwhelming stench of neglect.
I vividly remember being about nine years old, getting ready for school. I went to brush my teeth in the kitchen sink, but the drain was clogged, and roaches floated in the murky water. From that moment on, I stopped brushing my teeth. My parents didn’t care, and over time, my gums turned black.
Even now, brushing my teeth is a struggle, but I push myself to do it. My gums are pink again, and I’m no longer ashamed to smile. I won’t pretend I’m the cleanest person, but I make sure my room and apartment never reach that same level of filth. I refuse to live like that ever again.
Elitism. That you’re better than somebody else because of XYZ shit.
It wasn’t until I joined the corporate world that I realized my life wasn’t normal. When something happened at work (a big bank), I was expecting yelling and criticism but was met with grace and constructive advice. I was like wait..people don’t yell at other people? & the best part was, the thing that happened wasn’t even my fault, but i automatically default to: everythingismyfault. Still working with these wounds. If you have any healing tips, please share.
My mother spent her widowhood cursing my father day and night. She took no responsibility for her children. She was a VICTIM.
Yeah additionally constantly thinking “we would be on the streets” when my dad was out of a job. Very scary hearing that as a child constantly. Made me not ask for things which seeped into my adulthood not just in not asking but literally filling the void through buying stupid shit all the time. I didn’t try out for the tennis team bc of it but my sister got everything she ever wanted $ wise no matter what but since I was older and understood the situation, I never asked. Efffed
Let’s just say that the scene in Honey We Shrunk Ourselves where a girl gets mad at a boy for kissing her all of a sudden was a better education on consent than the rest of my childhood combined.
So much… forgery and other forms of theft that wasn’t exactly taking something from someone or somewhere but was still theft, being reactively abusive, having 0 boundaries with certain other people but tons with others which was very confusing
That I didn’t need my parents there to watch me play sport.
No shutting doors. That is just behavior that signifies something is wrong. Even when using the restroom, the door never needs to be shut.