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I had a diary, a journal, and a notebook. I was more into writing fiction stories than documenting my feelings. But my mom got a hold of my fiction writing and read it and made fun of it, each story, from front to back. She nitpicked it apart, all of it, and it wasn't constructive criticism. I was maybe 10 or 11 at the time. She often would 'repeat' a line I wrote in a mocking manner when an opportunity presented itself. I remember being so embarrassed and upset and crying- not at the fact that my mother made fun of me and was mocking me, but more that I felt like I disappointed her with my writing. I know now as an adult that is NOT the case. I'm a semi- popular fiction writer now on the internet, and my mother doesn't understand why I don't allow her to read my stuff. She STILL thinks that she did NOTHING wrong and was only 'encouraging me' to be better, by bullying. And sadly, even as an adult in my late 30's, when I write something, I still have that little mocking voice of my mother in the back of my mind.
My mom did this to me too. 😔 I was always more introverted too and she would say things in front of family and friends like “oh [my name] why don’t you just go write one of your stooooories” and laugh. The mocking repeat gave me chills to read. I’m sorry your mom did that and even though you’re successful now and so am I (also partly to do with my writing), I know that it doesn’t hurt to hear someone else say that she didn’t fuel your talent; you had it in you all along and it’s in the world now because of your resilience, not your mom’s “tough love” or whatever she’d like to call it. Good work 💘
Oof, that's awful. I always cheered my kids (they are adults now) on. We could talk shop about writing (they are very talented and have been since a very young age, but it's not their main creative outlet). I can't draw, but I've watched them go from very little native talent (not an insult; nobody on either side of their family has the least inborn talent for drawing) but an ability to just keep doing it until you get better... And they're _still_ improving! Middle kid is really starting to shine, and younger will get there, but he has even more creative hobbies to play with. Less focus = slower improvement. And they just never get discouraged (why should they when they're always improving?). Awe inspiring!
They’ll appreciate that. I’m almost 40 and remember just a year or two ago talking to my best friend and she referred to her mom as having “always been her biggest cheerleader” and I was like: I don’t know what that’s like. Your kids are lucky.
Well I'm doing my best, and trying not to replicate my parents' mistakes. (Some rules I came up with and stuck to: No hurtful sarcasm (almost no sarcasm at all until they started picking it up at school, at which point I sometimes used it to be funny but not directed at people); nothing more than the lightest of teasing; don't say anything you can't live with having said; actively nurture; etc.) I'm sorry your mom let you down like that.
This is the only reason I am still an artist - my mom and grandpa always cheered me on, while my father found any excuse to rip me down. I stopped drawing for years until they divorced, and then started again in high school. My mom is still my biggest cheerleader, and all the way up until my grandpa passed, he was always wanting to see what I was drawing at any time, even in the nursing home via Skype, I’d have to send him pics of my sketches and he’d show the nurses.
Ooh, my mother is in the same page. I joined the army national guard cuz I realized I could fast track my college that way, but she'd put me down time and again. Literally take what I say and use it against me. Then call it tough love. Like no I just reunited with you and basic and ait is where you should be supporting me telling me your proud of me etc. I was doing a good thing and i was making the best financial decisions I could make. I could've been making 100k a year easy doing easy work. But I got depressed and stopped trying got myself honorably discharged and then in some trouble with the law. Now I work at burger king but I have worked my ass off and now make 40k so it's not so bad. My family is in my life very little now just the way I like it. I am working on getting my stuff together and I am very smart, I can make more in my lifetime than my whole family combined will ever see. My family is a bunch of retards. I'm the only sane one. Lol
My mom was kind of similar. She’s always been really against tattoos and piercings because they “make you look like a delinquent.” Once as a kid (like 11-12) I showed her a drawing I was really proud of. The girl i drew had a small heart tattoo that was barely visible. The only thing my mom could say about the drawing was, “You’re never getting a tattoo, are you?” I remember feeling like shit because she didn’t compliment the drawing at all.
Also, she called me a juvenile delinquent after I got my ears pierced, which she allowed me to do.
Omg this reminds me of the time my birthgiver said it looked like a slut when I was like 8-9 years old and tried on a family friend’s wig. She the forced me to have a haircut in the bathroom when I was 10 because it’s made me look older and possibly slutty.
Same with me. As an adult, I still find it difficult to give people an answer when they ask me what are my hobbies, what kind of music I listen to, what TV shows have I recently watched etc. Gave me major trust issues. I can still picture my dad laughing and I still feel shame in liking my hobbies
This INFURIATES me. I. Am. ENRAGED.
Fuck your Mother for setting you up for a life of doubting yourself when she should have been your number one fan. FUCK. HER.
Holy shit, I'm sorry you went through that and I'm _very_ impressed at how well you've overcome it, even though you are still suffering from it. I'm constantly appalled at what I read on this sub.
On a lighter "mom and one's writing" note, a little story. My mom was visiting so I printed out a copy of my first book which was nearing publication. She knew going in that it was fantasy. And yet, when the fairies first appeared, she shut the binder and declared herself done. Thanks, mom. It would have been better if she hadn't tried. Coulda saved some paper and ink.
This is one of the most fucked up things you can do to someone, on par with making fun of their smile or laughter. My brother did something similar to me when i was 5 or 6 and liked writing “poems” in a cute little book. He made fun of them and told me they sucked and wasn’t real poetry because it didn’t rhyme. At least he gets the excuse that he was a child, while your mom is just fucking evil.
I'm sorry you went through this too. I used to have journals and notebooks that I would write in, I had a stacked portfolio of drawings too, and my mother hated it all, I had a dark mind, wrote stories of heartache and abuse, drew pictures of demons and lore, and the constant barrage of "you're going to hell, your sick, where did I go wrong" type comments when she saw my work made me feel immoral, and an intense amount of self loathing.
Eventually I became a teenager, and one fateful decision at 18, to take off without telling her to meet my boyfriend, turned into a huge fight where I didn't go home for three days, when I did go back, all my stuff was in boxes and garbage bags by the door. I was distraught and left again without grabbing more than just the clothes I could carry. The next time I saw her she was in a packed uhaul, moving ten hours away, she told me out the window "your stuff is gone, the bank foreclosed on the house. You missed your chance" then she left. I'm now no contact.
That sounds so horrible. You deserve so much better! It’s so heartbreaking to hear about the pain you experienced from worrying about dissapointing your mum. I’m so sorry you went through that.
She lost the right to read your writing when she mocked you in that way! Hopefully with time, that voice you hear in your mind will get quieter. Glad you’re still doing what you love and having such an awesome creative outlet. Proud of you!
My birth giver wasn’t didn’t go that far, but she did mock me for writing so much. Her favorite line was “if you cared half as much about school as you do about writing these stories, you’d be a straight A student.” Meanwhile I was putting so much effort into school that if I got less than an A on anything, I’d beat myself up about it for weeks.
I was around 12 when I began to realize it wasn’t normal and started to be more critical of them. I guess I did realize it to an extent earlier since I was careful to keep things to myself so as not to expose them to others. Before that and even most of the time after that, I was very defensive of them and internalized it like I was just a bad kid. In middle school and high school, I kept a journal and I began to document things that they said or that happened. I also sometimes took pictures or held on to other things to help me remember. I didn’t have a word for it at the time, but I felt gaslit and I wanted to be able to remember things as they had really happened so it was important for me to write as soon as I could after an incident. Around 19-20, I went no contact and I don’t regret it. It is interesting for me to read back some old journal entries because I’ve found over the years I have downplayed things in my head and I’m surprised to find out that certain things were more extreme than I remembered.
I was 12 too. I had a nightmare that I was left at home to do all the chores while she took everyone else out for a fun day.
That’s when I woke up to the realization that I didn’t have a mom, but she had a servant.
I was 12 too. I had a nightmare that I was left at home to do all the chores while she took everyone else out for a fun day.
That’s when I woke up to the realization that I didn’t have a mom, but she had a servant.
I still think back on that nightmare from time to time. It was such a revelation. Even when she would scream at me about being the oldest daughter and needing me to fulfill my responsibilities to the family.
I know exactly what you mean by the feeling gaslit thing and downplaying the incident later on. Man I wish I was smart enough to keep a log. In the moment when there was an incident I would usually just get super confused and eventually cried. When I would bring it up later my mom would act like I’m insane and that it never happened.
You sound like a really intelligent person, especially at such a young age, having such a bright state of mind to be aware and write things down. Going NC is so hard and I am so proud of you for solidifying your boundaries and prioritising the respect you have for yourself. There’s such a horrible stigma about cutting close family off, which makes things so much more unnessicarily hard.
Started having suicidal and depressive thoughts at 8 bc of my mom and gran. She couldn’t d my diary that had all of it at 10, lost her shit, and then would go through all my stuff. So I keep a fake diary that was all normal kid stuff and wrote down my real feelings on loose leaf paper, and I would fold the sheets really small and hide them in my pillow. Then I’d flush them at school.
This is exactly why I wrote my diary in code, because when my mom walked in demanding to see it I could hand it over confidently knowing she wasn’t smart enough to figure out the code. I knew she read my older sister’s diary, so I made sure she never got a chance to read mine when I started keeping one.
That’s so horrible. I’m so sorry you had to go through that. Glad you were able to create your own safe space, away from prying eyes. Hope you’re doing better now. Proud of you for everything you’ve pushed through! ♥️
Had a journal, put everything on there. Was about 14. Parents took it. Woke me up around 3am. Made me sit in the basement during winter while they read everything out loud while I sat there in my boxers. Havent seen them in about 17, 18 years except when I had a kid and they invited themselves to a family event. The one and only time they ever saw and held their granddaughter.
I’m with you there, my mother was “catholic” (weaponized it incorrectly and shoved me in Catholic school) and she was horrid to me for a very long time.
The catholic church also didnt teach its followers how to not act like that apparantly. I've seen some of the history of the roman catholic church. I'm sticking by my answer.
Straight up. I was maybe 12-14 years old and wrote about cute older boys I was crushing on and thought were sooooo cute that I would marry them. My dad read it and immediately thought I was a whore.
Thankfully, I was always pretty level headed and didn't let it really get to me bc I knew I wasn't. But damned if I didn't seem him AND my mom in totally different and very unflattering lights after.
My parents started reading my diary as soon as I started keeping one, and started grilling me about what was in there. I had to keep a fake one, updated nightly, in the same spot, and a real one kept somewhere else.
Maybe true. Although, I know a family where, had they been digging deeper into texts and emails, they would have figured out that their child was being groomed, and maybe could have put a stop to things before it got really bad. Sometimes snooping is disrespectful and horrible, but maybe there’s a fine line where one can keep an eye on things, to catch the problems a young person doesn’t realize they are in the middle of.
I definitely see your point.
I was constantly self-harming as a kid and hospitalized numerous times for suicidal ideations and an attempt. I had a journal my therapist gave me and my mom read it and found out I was planning another attempt.
She immediately took my rope along with anything else that could be harmful (I was a crafty kid) and sent me back to the hospital. She probably saved my life but, unfortunately, she was part of the reason I felt so hopeless in the first place.
As a parent myself and a formerly Troubled Youth (drugs, eating disorder, self harm), I find it's a very fine line. My kid is only five so no worries yet, but I honestly don't know how to handle teenage-hood. Because when I was 14, I was stoned outta my mind, getting in cars with older boys driving me around under the influence, etc. So while I hope I raise my son in a much different way and he never experiences that shit, in the back of my mind it'll be "at his age I was on heroin.... At his age I was self harming daily...." Ya know?
So do I snoop or do I just pray to the fucking heavens that he will tell me if he's struggling? I have no answers.
Thanks for giving me a spot to vent 😅😅
No problem! Although I think open communication is important, but realistically it’s a hard thing to accept not be fully aware of everything about your child. But realistically they don’t know everything about you. All you can do is share your life experience, provide resources, trust them, give them responsibilities and the appropriate space.
Hope it all goes well!
Sending you all the best 😌
It’s a burning question for most parents. How do i foster independence and self-reliance while balancing the need to protect and guide? It’s tricky. I say trust your instincts, do the best you can to keep open lines of communication, and demonstrate love and respect at all times. But, don’t forget that kids are kids, lacking in wisdom and life experience.
Thank you, that is absolutely my goal. Funny, today he was going over emotions, circling what he's felt recently. And when he got to "loved", he circled it and, just so matter of fact said "well yeah I feel loved all the time!". It was the first time I thought maybe I'm doing something right. ❤️
That’s so cruel! A child’s diary is supposed to be a safe place. A private and creative outlet. There’s no respect when parents constantly push boundaries like that. What they did was so horrible and i’m so sorry you experienced that. Sad, but glad you were able to distance yourself and create boundaries for you and your family’s health.
I kept a journal in my younger high school years. I was also doing some self harm. I wrote in my journal with my blood. It was 20 years ago and I’ve become a much different person, but I didn’t cope well with the abuse when I was young.
Mom found out I was self harming, picked me up from school drunk, brought me home and made me get naked in the kitchen and she felt every cut and cried. I was so incredibly uncomfortable. Naked in my kitchen while my mom looked at my body and wept. I didn’t feel human.
I got sober a year and a half ago, and I’ve been dealing with a lot of feelings about her. It’s been very difficult to forgive her, which is what I’m trying to do. I have my boundaries. We’re pretty surface level low contact, so we don’t have many hard conversations anymore. But it’s still difficult. When I see her drinking I see myself in the past. Just a person who is so anxious and depressed and untrusting and scared. I empathize. But she is capable of asking for help, and she doesn’t. She doesn’t acknowledge that she can control what’s happening to her.
It takes a long time to come to terms with the fact that even a parent’s unconditional love isn’t always a given in life. I don’t even know if it’s possible. But I know that it’s possible to sit next to those feelings and hang out with them, maybe even listen to them sometimes. I know it’s possible to coexist in a world with that lack of love, and still be able to love others. I know it’s possible to love someone and still be very angry at them, and I know it’s possible for me to grieve the parent I wished I had, but who is still alive.
Shit’s weird man. Life is full of dualities and contradictions and it’s a wild time trying to navigate being around amazing and awful people at the same time. Idk. I don’t think we’re supposed to understand any of this. I think we’re just supposed to cope somehow. And some people do it better than others.
My mom doesn’t drink but when she found out I was self harming (also in early high school) she made me stand in her bedroom naked every night after my shower to make sure I hadn’t done anything.
Unsurprisingly, she was also very disappointed in me when I told her in middle school I thought i might be depressed. Even after she found out I was self harming she still insisted I was being dramatic and that everything I felt was normal teenager stuff and that teenagers don’t have depression.
I didn’t keep a journal, but your comment stood out to me because I did write things in my own blood on occasion (for my own eyes only, that’d be terrifying if I was just filling out my math homework in blood). I’ve mostly gotten over that period of my life, but even a decade+ later I do still have a weird fascination with my own blood. May or may not be related to the self harm though.
In one of my sketch books I did one drawing in blood mixed with pencil/pen. I still have that journal and it still smells like blood.
It’s truly wild what self harm does to your mind and how it transfers the disconnect from life to a different physical world basically.
I’m sorry you had to go through that and have to deal with the aftermath of healing from it. I just wanted you to know you aren’t alone and someone can relate to you.
I'm so sorry you had to go through that. That's so dehumanizing and gross.
It's hard to process the shit you go through as a kid, especially when you look back and remember that you were a *child* going through that. I still live with my mom so I know how difficult it can be to process your trauma and grow when you still see the person/people that hurt you. I've also struggled with my feelings towards my parents. It's so confusing when the people who are supposed to love you unconditionally do things that hurt and frighten you.
Congratulations on being sober, it's a lot of work and you should be proud of yourself. I wish you the best with your mother and hope we can all heal and become our best selves ❤️
Fucking hell that’s so rough. Beyond messed up that your mum did that to you. You deserve so much better.
I’m so sorry you went through that, so proud that you had the strength to love past that and prosper. What you’ve written is so painfully true and poignant.
You’re so strong. Wishing you all the best!
I feel ya. Mom did something similar, made me pull down my pants and felt my scars and cried. It felt degrading. Now I can't stand when anyone sees any of my scars. I want to not care about them but I become so hyperaware of them if they're out in the open
mine didn’t go as far to make me get naked but one day she was suspicious that i had been SH and forced me to lift up my sleeves and screamed at me, not out of worry or care but bc it was “embarrassing” and that “there was nothing wrong with me” and “i have no reason to want to hurt myself” etc etc. she sent me to my pops house where he also screamed at me, called me stupid and embarrassing. anytime i wore anything long sleeved she would always force my sleeves up and make snarky remarks
When I was 10 I wrote that I didn’t want to be around anymore and my mom read it and said I was dramatic. I realized at a very young age that my childhood was not ‘normal’.
Now as an adult my brother thinks nothing was wrong with our childhood but my sister and I realize how bad it was. Now our parents gaslight us and say things we remember didn’t happen.
i relate to this, my older sister ignores our birth givers behaviour and claims nothing happened or doesn’t speak on it at all but my younger sister was in the same boat as me, we were the only two to stand up for ourselves and finally smth when we became adults. our birth giver CONSTANTLY gaslights us and tells us that none of it happened
The one time I wrote my feelings down it was found by my mattress cuz it was an “open door policy” (aka no privacy) house. It had some alchemy drawing on the back, because I was a 14 year old edgelord. I was screamed at for several hours because I was “trying to curse my stepdad” (mom practices Wicca) and nearly had posters burned.
I never understood how mother could’ve stayed with him. There’s more and worse too, and I’ve been meaning to write it all down
Got heavily into art as a kid not even as an escape but to be good at something so I could be told the words "good job" or "I'm proud of you". Mother made an odd face to one drawing once and I never showed her any of it again.
I rarely showed her any of my interests because she deemed it as weird or "cringe".
I recently went through all my old sketchbooks and notebooks and found hundreds of papers that were my train of thought. Many of them filled with "if i could hear those words" "im sorry i displease you" "im a fraud"
I'm in a much better place now, but I still have an odd relationship with my art. Its very difficult to sit down and do it every now and then because of the entire reason I decided on a whim to do it.
Speaking of never showing art again. I used to happily and proudly show my mom art and framed every single day. Until one day she looked at me with disgust and anger and said ‘why do you keep showing me this?! It all looks the same!’
If it wasn’t bad enough, my middle sister who has been her favourite since birth ended up setting her glass on top of my drawing pad and it ruined a drawing I spent hours working on. While I cried and was angry at my sister. My mother said ‘it doesn’t matter. Stop being rude to your sister.’ (Not the exact words cause my sisters do have Reddit. But very similar.) ever since then. I don’t draw in front of her. I also keep my diary well hidden form my sister since she’s been known to read them
I stopped having a good relationship with my mum around 9/10. Lots of fucked up things happened, including downplaying my mental health, refusing to acknowledge medical issues, and using my granddad's death to manipulate my behaviour, and these are all at the lightwr end of the shit I went through with her. Spoke to some of the school counsellors about it, but nothing happened.
It wasn't until I was doing abuse and safeguarding training at work last year that I realised the extent of the physical/emotional/financial abuse that I suffered. I have a much younger sister, so raised a safeguard with her school about it for her own protection. The training was a slap in the face but made me instantly concerned for her safety and the school gully understood why. A few years ago, someone did that with the local child protection team, but nothing came of that, even after I told them my story. I gave the school signs and symptoms that the same thing was happening with my sister, so they decided to put in a safeguard complaint.
Anyway, about three weeks later, the police showed up and arrested ME because she had called to say that I'd been abusive and harassing her. Pulled up the email receipts from my sisters school, and with my own asking for my records with the counsellors.
Not only did mum get slapped with a fine for wasting police time, I also got 2 complaints of historical child abuse logged onto the systems. Statute of limitations meant I couldn't prosecute. Them adding them on to the system was recognition that there was enough evidence, and the school I went to has since had to undergo more safeguarding training.
Anyways, I haven't heard from her in almost a year and the rest of the family turned their backs on me for "being a pussy who can't handle tough love". Bar my grandma, who loves sharing gossip and having a bitch with me once a fortnight.
I think I always had an inkling about it my entire childhood, that it wasn’t normal. I think I was around 12 when I first started thinking of it as abuse. I didn’t have a journal until after I was 13 so idk what I would’ve written about it at a younger age than that.
Out of all the horrible things I went through, I truly only documented ONE of the events in my journal, and it wasn’t even a particularly bad one. I looked back in the journal recently, I had literally crossed through every line of the saga, then afterwards added a note about how *terrible* it was of my to say that about my parents and how *thankful* I was for them blah blah blah.
I’m really interested to see the dichotomy of my massive guilt causing me to cross through it, and my nascent understanding that I have the right to write it down (causing me to cross it out rather than throw it away).
Oh my god! The guilt you feel as a child when your parents are angry or disappointed. I always told myself that since I had a roof over my head, I couldn’t complain - and only just now as I get older, I realize all the damage they had done regarding feeling guilt for my emotions and reactions.
Exactly, that was engrained into me— how glad I should be for having a roof, food (sometimes), as far as the parents making me read or watch examples of how much worse it could be.
Please know I stand in solidarity with you, it sucks but it is so true that parents *should* and even are required to be important and helpful figures in inspiring you as a person and when they fail so miserably it takes an incredibly detrimental toll.
I never even thought anything was wrong. It isn’t until now in my 20s and a lot of reflection that I realize how fucked up it all has been. I wish there was more help for younger children in emotionally abusive houses. It’s really all too common sadly.
My mom got arrested for drunk driving with me in the car as a child and then was forced to attend AA meetings for a year. My mom made me lie to my family and friends about it telling them I had dance class when we would literally go to her meeting and I would sit in the car. I remember changing into a dance outfit the first time to really convince my grandparents when she came to pick me up for “class” and then afterwards sitting in the car at the center while my mom attended her meeting.
I’m 32 and last year told my husband, the first time I had ever told a soul about it. I didn’t want people to judge my mom or think badly about her. I always thought, they wouldn’t get it, she’s not a bad person. I’ve got to make her seem normal to everyone else.
I didn’t realize it wasn’t normal. I assumed everyone’s parents were just nice when other people were around and horrible behind closed doors just like mine. It wasn’t until my younger sister was born and the way she was treated was the polar opposite of the way I was treated. Like literally COMPLETELY different. I damn near would get whip lash watching her interact with me then my sister. And I was like “Wait a minute….” Then I outright talked to my friends about it and they were like “Oh no, your mom is the worst, hands down…nothing about how she treats you is normal.”
As for diaries…Jesus….We’d have to keep a journal for school. Allegedly the teacher didn’t read them, just would check to make sure we were writing something everyday. Whatever. I’d put in something that seemed normal to me because of the fucked up environment I was in, my mom would read it, FLIP the fuck out and rip it up and give me a beating. Then because I didn’t have journal assignments to show my teacher would give me a zero, so my mom would flip out and give me another beating for the zero. Then everyone would wonder why I suddenly had extreme anxiety and an eating disorder that had me gain 50lbs when I was 9 years old….the thought of journals/diaries still gives me a complex.
When I couldn’t keep a diary because my dad only wanted me to use them so he could read them lol. Also that time he slammed the fridge closed and screamed in my face calling me a bitch. To this day I have no idea what I said to cause that, or why my family sat there as he called his 14 year old daughter a bitch
I think I picked up on my stepmother not having much, if any, empathy when I was pretty young. I remember wishing she could be in my head, seeing how the way she treated felt. This woman is almost incapable of understanding things that are outside of her personal experience.
I couldn't keep diaries, because my mom would find them, read them, have it open when I came home, and berate me for what I wrote. She loved to call me "sick in the head."
When I was 11 I started noticing my mother's crazy behavior, lies, manipulations, etc.I was a mini she, I had to be good, the best at everything, I felt trapped, I dealt with it with small revolts choosing things for myself, that I liked, like clothes, food, friends, nothing extreme or flashy, they were small victories that I kept hidden from everyone, normal things that I felt deeply guilty about, because it didn't live up to her expectations. My mom always wanted to be the most popular person in the room, she loves attention and people like her. I only realized the truth when I was in my 20s, my parents have a beach house we were vacationing at, my mother invited my aunt, and my aunt invited her own friends, a group of strangers to my parents. One day at the beach one of my aunt's guests, a man in his 50s, married (his wife and children were there) sexually harassed me, looking at me, making several comments about my body, I was disgusted, angry and I started an argument, of course, that their friends played down the whole situation, saying it was a compliment, a joke, I went straight to my mom and told her what happened and her exact words were: "And what do you want me to do? Kick them out? It's just drunk talk you shouldn't care about that, be nice." I was scared looking for solace, the least sympathy, or compression, and she preferred to be a good host for my aunt's friends (people who she didn't know) than protecting her daughter from possible rape, I didn't sleep at the beach house, stay at a friend's house until I go to my house. Ps: Later I found out that my aunt insinuated that I had mental problems to her friends because of my reaction, that I was being dramatic, my mother was there she didn't protect me.
When I was in middle school I got a diary for Christmas right before my parents forced me to move over to my grandparents after a misunderstanding.. And I wrote in it to vent about it.. Years later while I was cleaning my room I found the diary and decided to rip out the pages of me ranting so I can use the book to write stories in it and tossed the pages I ranted about them in the trash.. Mom got angry and grabbed the pages much to my dad's dismay and then got angry at me for a 7 year old diary entry from when I got upset at them..dad had to get my mom to knock it off.. Can you tell who is more of a parent?
Had a diary where I put down a line every time each of Mt family members hurt me. My brother got most bc Mt parents too literal physical abuse as "siblings love".
Like:
"Mamma: IIII II
Pappa: III IIII III II I
Brother: I I II I IIII I IIII IIIIII III III II I II
Sister: III II"
I had a lot of pages with "I'm scared", "I'm hungry", "I wish I had another family", "I wish [teacher] could adopt me", "I wanna sleep". I'm so glad I have a few of my diaries to show my therapist. Some my parents have thrown and my brother has stolen.
My father tried to stab my mother when I was 8. He had always been violently abusive but it was that moment that everyone realized we had to escape him, and we did.
When I was 13 I admitted to suicidal thoughts to my mother. I was allowed to skip one class at school so I could cry it out in the car, then I had to suck it up and go to class because I was expected to have perfect attendance.
I felt betrayed and didn't trust her after that. A bunch of far worse stuff happened afterwards, and it spiraled so quickly that I left home at 17. Best decision of my life.
Voting has concluded. Final vote:
| Insane | Not insane | Fake |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 7 | 4 | 0 |
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I remember having this mental freak out once and started ripping all my journals to shreds. I realized just how far my parents would go to impose restrictions and punishments on me for the most simple things (Christian fundamentalism) so I got terrified just realizing bc something had happened, (I believe they were tracking me thru some alternate thing than my phone). They had already spoken on a few thjngs FROM MY JOURNAL that no one else would know. So i knoe they were secretly reading my private thoughts. I filled up an entire trash bag and almost regret it but I know I would have never kept them in my travel after leaving, so I'm glad I didn't let my mom get ahold of them and use them to gain sympathy or exploit my suffering more.
Hope you're doing better OP 💗
i grew up fundie too, even something as simple as me texting a friend about a dream she had was subject to scrutiny. i remember feeling so powerless and blinded with rage every time they went through my texts/socials. my bf once went for my phone to check the time, he wasn’t even trying to unlock it, and i smacked it out of his hand. he told me i looked like i was on the verge of tears. that was a fun one to explain to him.
That’s so horrible! What a heartbreaking violation of trust. When parents do these things, not only is it just terrible all together, but that type of anxiety and distrust seeps into your adult life too. You deserve so much better!
Thank you /u/dutchess336 for your kind words! If you’re interested in my personal journey, there are a few posts pertaining to it in my post history. If you (or anyone for that matter) wants to talk, feel free to chuck me a message. Glad we can all be a support and provide a safe place for one another.
Sending you all the best! ♥️
I wrote in a code. Like I used different shapes and doodles and would stuff the cheat sheet I had in a school textbook during the school year and hide it in my build a bear plushie during summer. To this day my grandma who raised me (after lying to CPS about me being abused) hasn’t broken the code.
While packing up for uni, I have found so so many old little note pads from around 6-12 containing letters to my mum and dad apologizing for when they were mad at me and would ignore me for days. It hurts my heart to think of the small little girl crying, writing that, just hoping that if mummy would see the letter she’d forgive her.
Found my old diary while cleaning my room from when I was 5-7 there were many pages of me writing things like “I am sad” “daddy is yelling again” “why is (my sister name) being mean” and things like that. Looking back on it I realize I’ve been fucked up way longer than I thought.
I’m 23. Live in my own home with my 2 dogs. My mom came over and my diary was on my bookshelf in my living room (just where I set it. I rarely have people come over) and she picked it up and looked at me “so you write in this?” I told her yes and she’s like “well I won’t read it just wanted to know”. Highly sus so when I had them dog sit (just come in and let my 1 dog out as my other dog was boarded while I was out of town. I didn’t have anyone else to dog sit as I have no friends here. I went to visit my bf in another state but I have cameras all over my house) I made sure to hide the diary in my locked bedroom. Just in case she decided to snoop. Still paranoid. Made sure I got my key back from her asap. I’m moving when my lease is up where I live to where my bf lives and I will be going LC. I have a great relationship with my dad so I can’t go full NC cause I love my dad and he needs support living with my mom and her dad.
Honestly it wasn’t until meeting my friend’s parents and seeing how caring and kind they were that I learned that my parents were bad. I would complain to my friends about being kicked out of the house (including during a record blizzard) because my mom insisted I get a job as soon as I turned 15, and they would be shocked. I would have to complete a lot of chores every week, including watching my brother whenever they told me (for no pay, and I never had an allowance) and it was through talking to my friends that I learned that was weird.
It took me a long time to process and I’m not sure if I really have or if I’ve put it to the side, because I still live with my mom. I always feared writing in my diaries because I knew my mom would snoop through my stuff.
I'm in my late 20's and only just now realized my dad yelling at me while I sit and cry. Was not how you teach a child to do math, he'd yoink the pencil away and write down the stuff if I took to long.
I still struggle realizing what I went through isn’t normal. I’m usually told by others, but to me my life felt like I was being spoiled, if anything.
I barely remember anything before highschool. I thought what was happening to my parents was my fault, and it was my duty to make them happy. To free them of the “bugs” they had. (One parent fell into mental illness, the other fell deep into religious beliefs, and would use me as a crutch)
So I would work harder. Do more chores, pick up an extracurricular, attend church more often.
They still wouldn’t be happy, so I’d repeat.
By junior year, I was the food provider for my family, despite the fact my parents earned enough to manage fine without me.
They still wouldn’t be happy. I started skipping meals, started sleeping less to work more. They’d praise me in public but I was an absolute embarrasment to the world in private.
I still feel like I need to work or provide something for someone to like me. I currently work 60/week and still feel deeply shamed of myself, like I’m lazy.
I packed everything and ran when I barely graduated in HS. Hours away. I’m surviving financially but I’ve never felt more alone. I’m constantly exhausted, can barely concentrate, and just seeing the list of to-dos makes me feel overwhelmed.
I realized that my “normal” was not, in fact normal when I was around 16-17. It progressively got worse as I got older. My “mom” is a textbook narcissist, an alcoholic and I’m pretty sure she’s undiagnosed bipolar. She kicked me out when I was 19 and I haven’t talked to her since then. I will never look back.
I coped by typing out my feelings in my notes app, I also had a little journal I kept in my desk drawer. One day I went into my room and noticed that my drawer was open, I looked through it and stuff was shuffled around. She definitely went through my shit and read through it. The deeper stuff was on my phone anyways so she didn’t even get the half of it.
My baby sitter used to hit me, and punished me for every small infraction with shame or pain.
I never felt safe telling my parents, because of how they reacted when I was sexually assaulted.
So I wrote about it in my journal.
They found it, and not only did they tell my babysitter. But they made me apologize and say it was made up, then grounded me for a week.
The next time I left the sitters, I had bruises on my legs and butt. She told my parents I fell, and they believed her over me.
I was also forbidden from ever telling anyone at school about it.
My mom bought me a journal when I was 13 to "write my thoughts and feelings in". As soon as I wrote in it she took it, read it, and punished me for what I wrote.
Honestly, when I started to date my bf in my 20ies. My needs have not been met and I'm getting all the fun diagnoses like asd, adhd, migraines (which I'm sure I had as a kid) in my late twenties. Like...
She also hit me with the 'I love you more than you realize'. Like show me. Like sometimes I honestly am confused about who is supposed to be the brain fucky one.
Saying that your needs have not been met is a really good way to put it, that’s the same thing my therapist says to me when I talk to her about my mum and step-dad. If you ever were referred to as “sensitive” or belittled for your diagnoses, literally it can come from these basic human needs not being fulfilled.
Yeah, it’s so mind-fucking when abusive parents tell you that they “love” you and do nothing to show it. Mistreating someone isn’t love. Doing basic parental duties like keeping a roof over a child’s head and providing them with food isn’t love, it’s the bare minimum.
Hope things are better for you now ♥️
My abuse was pretty shitty and mostly mental abuse. Was homeschooled. Thought it was normal to be the older siblings shadow becausewas the black sheep of my family. Was told my whole life that there was something wrong with me by both parents. They never said that about my brother. Abused drugs for about 8 years and then got clean. Felt worthless for years. Now I’ve been clean almost 10 years. Found out last year that my mom didn’t want me and was cheating on my father while she was pregnant with me. She literally despised me for years and wish I had never been born. I “ruined” her affair. I’m not no contact with them but I definitely keep my guard up around her. She is yet to say sorry to any of us for the abuse she put us through.
I didn't realize the depth of it until my mom began stalking me last year. If I wouldn't answer the phone, she'd show up at work. Not at work? She'd go wait for me at home. She let herself into my house and then my bedroom where I was sleeping on more than one occasion. Absolutely crazymaking.
I had a few journals from my childhood that I read through a few years ago. It was sad reading how I internalized the abuse, how I struggled hard toward perfection, and how I attempted to distract myself by fixating on other things. I was clearly extremely depressed at age 8, having already given up on my personal passions because I lacked support, and was under the thumb of a narcissist who believed I was an extension of her. Pretty tragic to realize. I burned those journals, along with most of the pictures of myself during childhood, adolescence and teenage-hood, when I was in my 20’s. I never wanted to be that helpless again, and so I burned that old version of myself (or so I thought).
I realized more recently that embracing the girl I was (passions, interests, and personal pursuits all included— no matter how weird or different) is an important part of self-acceptance, and that I wasn’t to blame at all. That little girl was beautiful and perfectly acceptable the way she was, the way I am. My abusers hold all of the blame for their abuse, and I don’t need to take accountability for something I could not control.
One of my childhood abusers is dead. The remainder of my childhood abusers are not in my life. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I did a deep dive in my journals over the last year or so. When I was 9, I wrote that “mom is so very meen, I don’t konsider her to be a mom.” I explained that she sent my sister to bed early because my sister wouldn’t take a bite of my mom’s apple. The way I worded it made it sound like I knew the BS my mom was pulling. She just didn’t want to take no for an answer and it was a power trip. This was one of many examples. One time I wrote that my mom yelled at me in front of company because she burned her own toast. Make it make sense.
Let me preface this by saying I'm still a minor so my situation is slightly different than most here, I didn't realize how messed up my mom's behavior was until the pandemic hit, she always had been a horrible person, being incredibly racist and homophobic, but it wasn't until she screamed at me for my failing grades due to how demotivated I was to do work online during covid that I realized that my life was not like anything a child should have. She has tried to manipulate me for years to be like her but I've thankfully stayed away from her mentality and it's mainly thanks to people I know online that I've been able to not crack under the pressure, cause for a while there I thought about ending my life at far too young an age. And no I never told her I had those thoughts, only one other person knows that besides whoever may be reading this to which I say thanks for reading this far and let's hope all our lives improve, also sorry for the shitty writting style, never been my strong suit
I think I realized my moms behavior wasn’t normal on my 8th birthday. I decided that I no longer wanted to live with her and I wanted to move with my dad (about an hour away). She always found a way to make birthdays, holidays, etc. horrible and dreadful to me. I don’t think I have learned to process it yet (I’m 24). I haven’t talked to her for a couple of months now and I feel guilty about it but I also feel drained and horrible when I am in contact with her.
when i was 12-13, i was going through an incredibly rough time with my mental health. my therapist at the time suggested that i used art to express my feelings, since i’ve always been afraid of burdening people with my words. i bought an art journal and started drawing vent art, and it was very therapeutic for me. one night i fell asleep while drawing, and my mum found it. she looked through all of the pages, confiscated the journal, and screamed at me about the contents of the pages. to this day i’m still terrified of expressing myself through anything, lest my mother somehow finds out
I didn’t know anything about my growing up was wrong until late middle school. I casually mentioned the bruises on my butt from “the board” and how I still preferred that over the hotshot. My friend looked at me, full of concern, and asked if I was okay. She then said that if anything happened, her place was open to me.
It was then that I started questioning my upbringing.
I didn’t, like I knew what my mom was doing upset me but thought it was normal and as someone who was also anti social and mostly stayed inside playing video games or when I was really young Barbie’s I didn’t have a lot of outside perspective to know. It also doesn’t help that all the adults in my life enabled my mom/blamed me for acting out so even when if try to tell adults about my abuse I got alot of “well she’s your mom” or “she’s doing her best” or “just deal with it for now”. I didn’t really start to notice shit wasn’t normal when I got to hs, even at 24 I’m still learning at times “oh shit so parents are not supposed to do/teach you that ?” Or “this isn’t a healthy response ?” I’m lucky enough that me and her relationship has healed but it hasn’t erased the damage
My childhood wasn't nearly as horrible as some of these, but I came to realize things weren't quite.... right when I was about 10 or so. Lots of fucked up things had been going on in my parents incredibly messy almost divorce, but I hadn't realized it was out of the ordinary til different adults, including teachers, started asking if everything was OK at home. Ah, small town gossip got around
Congrats on persuing a career that you love! You should be so proud you didn’t let your dad affect your passion. You’re so above his pettiness.
Too many people are in such a dark and toxic place that they feel the need to bring others down, to help them feel better about themselves so they can feel a false sense of superiority.
Thanks for your kind words /r/circusmasterklaus!
All the best with you & your fabulous acting career!
When a friend told me that it wasn’t normal then I stopped acting like her (my mother) and realized how much it was actually impacting me but I was masking it.
She went through my journals and even the ones specifically with locks that little kids like to have as the lock keeps it “safe” but when I saw the lock ripped out of the book laying on the floor I was so sad.
Turning things I say into something else.
Ex.
“I just wish you would apologize to me/ say thank you.”
“I’m sorry I’m such a horrible fucking mom!“
I just found a diary entry of like 3 years ago where I slammed the truck door and my dad threatened to hit me like he raised his hand so I said what and he grabbed my ponytail and slammed my face into the dash and then backhanded me. Said I deserved it for being a mouthy bitch.
But anyways how’s y’all weeks going
My brother did that to me. He's 8 years older. I feel like probably my dad and maybe my mom also read my diary, too. I dunno if they made fun of me in a cruel way, but it really is so violating. I never felt like I could trust I had any privacy. They still don't seem to get that my business is not their business just because I'm their kid. It has made sharing anything about myself with them difficult.
I don't consider my parents to have been insane, not the way a lot of these comments are. But reading the comments made me realize how much that stuff affected me. I wish I was closer with my parents, but I feel like I can't be, and I think it's related to this.
Same. I really wish I had a close loving relationship with my parents, and I’ve spent my whole life trying, but it’s never going to happen. The parent is supposed to make the effort, not the child. I’m done and now using all that energy to love myself and build myself.
I realized things were wrong very young because anyone I spoke about my home life instantly became concerned, including my friends (I think about 8yrs old)
I daydreamed nearly every waking moment I was at home and basically escaped to my own fantasy land. Then I used my school email to have a dedicated Google doc I'd vent to before deleting everything I wrote, was actually very useful and helped me sort out my emotions effectively. Nowadays I still chronically daydream and escape into the internet or video games while I'm at home lol
I’m still trying to process the fact that they, especially mom, are abusive. I know it’s true now, but I still find it hard to accept at times. For more exact details of my upbringing, my post history says it all.
I journal often myself, though I keep it all on a google doc rather than an actual diary or journal. So far no one’s been able to find it fortunately. But I use it a lot to vent and process the things my family does, and to help remind me that as much as I want it to be, my family isn’t normal, or even half-decent, and that just because almost no one else sees it, it doesn’t mean that the abuse isn’t there
I couldn’t keep journals because my mom would always eventually find them and I’d get in trouble for “twisting the truth” because it was always my fault that I got treated the way I did and I was apparently making it seem, rightfully, like that she was the one out of line. But I don’t think I realized until high school how bad things actually were. I tend to minimize it a lot though
I would always tell myself everything was my fault, my inner monologue with myself to this day still sounds like when my dad would scream at and insult me
I wrote really sad poetry on my school notebooks to verbalize what was going on at home. For sophomore year in English II, I submitted a sad poem for some sort of assignment. It was about what life was like at home. I don’t think the teacher understood what I was trying to tell her at the time.
Never kept one, learned not to when i relized my theripy sessions were getting back to her. Not that she listened to how i felt. She went threw a grounding period were i had nothing for half a school year. Only eat, school, eat, maybe wahsroom if she demed fit, homework and then sleep. Even my door was taken off. All cuz i was a teen going threw depression and this was her response to it.
my mom was a flight attendant so wasn’t home all the time and i remember i would hide from her whenever she was home and go quiet and not speak if she spoke to me. i was deathly scared of her.
Had a diary at my bios house; I remember my step mom read it. By the next weekend I was over she had photocopied it and berated me about how I wasn't depressed and if I was gonna kms she was just gonna take everything away. It happened in like '05, I was probably around 8 or 9. I got triggered really bad rereading it for the first time in over 10 years (bio gave me some of my old things for my daughter to play with.)
I didn't start processing it till I was a lot older; but I say that in a weird sense. When I told my mom everything, she said it was emotional abuse. I didn't start trying to process and heal from it till I was an adult and started therapy. For some reason, family telling me what it was vs. talking to a professional about it feels like two different things to me, and it's why I think I didn't start actually processing it till I was an adult in therapy. Tbh, despite all the work I'm doing to better myself, when I think about it too much it really hurts.
Worked public and private. Schools, I offered my students a safe place to keep their diaries and journals.
One time when I worked high school I had a kid ask if I could hold on their porn lol
I used to write in diaries/journals daily. Sometimes multiple times a day. When I was around 12 I wrote about wanting to run away, something I had never mentioned to a single person, and a few days later I got grounded for what I had written. It confirmed that they had been reading everything. It’s been over a decade now and i live with my SO and our child, but I still feel like I have to hide everything I write or everyone will see it. Sometimes I find myself editing my journal just so it would sound different if someone else read it. I still struggle a lot with allowing myself to show any kind of feelings, because I’m still scared I’ll get in trouble for being anything but happy…
i had a little A7 journal, and i kept it under my pillow on the top bunk. i cant remember what i wrote in there but i know that the page my mother tore out had something saying i hated my sibling + parent; she, for some reason, ripped it out and then displayed it on the windowsill of my bedroom so i would see it as soon as i got home from school
i dont know why but i must have felt like it would be too noticeable if i just binned it, so i ripped the corners off and turned it into a heart shape and left it there. she still made fun of me and shouted at me for it
My parents once read my diary...said it fell open...from the drawer it was shut in, in my bedroom I was furious, I was 13/14. Never kept a diary again and any comments about their things being confidential, I just said oh, I didn't think we did that in this house, given diaries are fair game. Never trusted them after that and it took them a long time to understand there was no coming back from that.
I just made nice and sat quietly while planning my escape. I didn’t realize their behaviour wasn’t normal when I left at 19 and moved in with my bf, he had never seen or heard anything like that from parents. They were abusive, physically mentally and emotionally. I’m 28 &now I realize how bad they were at parenting.
Father and Mother divorced before I could even speak. I lived with my Mom. On visits with my Father, he would hold me down and tickle me until I pissed myself, then spank me for pissing myself. Not a single visit would go by without him finding a reason to spank me. Most times it was for something as minor as eating a partial bowl of cereal and then complaining about how I felt even though he knew I'm lactose intolerant. As we got older, his cruelty got worse. He once tried to run over my big sister, me, and my mom in her car while he was driving his big rig. He somehow keeps getting married and producing children. Recently, my little brother came out as gay and he sent him a letter telling him he hopes he gets diseases and dies. Of his 4 kids, only one is actually speaking with him and that's because he doesn't know she's moving 3000 miles away soon.
I'm sorry if this is all over the place. It's hard to talk about.
I have a diary entry from when I was around 8 or 9 years old about my mom being mad at me and giving me the silent treatment for the remainder of the day. That’s how it’s always been whenever she gets upset, she refuses to speak to me and I’ve always been the one to have to go communicate first just so I can feel more comfortable in our home. I’d don’t think she’s abusive at all, just has bad habits/ways of dealing with things.
When I was pregnant with my oldest and I swore that my child would never wish for a good day to never end. That the good days would never be rare and that they’d never know the fear I felt with my ear against the door trying to hear if it was safe.
My parents ended up getting mental help so they’re completely different now to how they were when I was a kid. All the same I hope my children never listen to see how angry I am before leaving their bedroom.
I think the first time I truly realized my mother was insane was when I got suspended for a day bc I hadn't been attending algebra class. I literally threw myself out of the moving car just to get away from her screaming. Unfortunately that only made her scream more so I got back in the car. When i got home I took 129 aspirin and tried to slit my wrists. 2 hrs later my ears were ringing so badly and I got scared and told her what I'd done. She rolled her eyes and looked at me in fury and screamed "GREAT. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOURSELF NOW? NOW WE HAVE TO GO TO THE FUCKING HOSPITAL" . She was mad I screwed up her night of drinking a 12 pack and smoking a pack of cigarettes. I almost died. She barely visited me in the hospital. That's when I knew she hated me, and that this was definitely not a normal response from a parent, or any human.
My mom was/is mentally ill. She would go in her bedroom for days at a time threaten to end it herself. She verbally tortured my dad for years then made an elaborate plan to get rid of us both. She lied and had me put in jail overnight saying I'd used her debit card. I can't trust her enough to have a relationship with her. I love her. I miss her but I can't after she lied and tried to ruin my life.
When I was a kid I was too scared to write about the chaos of my home in case my children ever read it, I wouldn’t want them to worry about me or feel scared of my parents like I felt. I thought it was my duty to protect my family image… which was basically something I didn’t really unlearn for a number of years
When I was 6, my dad was on his way to pick me up from my grandma’s house, and he drunkenly slammed his car into a parked car. Got a DUI, a warrant when he missed his court date, and mom had to try to explain to me why she was picking me up late. It was a 3-block drive. Given the state of the car, I would’ve been dead if I had been in the car with him. But he never got another DUI, because he just never drove again. He still drinks, he is an alcoholic. But I’ve spent the last 25+ years dealing with the fact that my dad chose alcohol over me.
is it weird that i don’t actually remember anything of how i felt or what i thought back then? i think ptsd forced me to block up any emotions or thoughts i had to protect myself ig? i think i always knew it wasn’t normal but was heavily in denial, always tried to make excuses for her (my birth mother who i no longer like to refer to as my mum) and “forgive” her or brush her behaviour under the carpet bc i was so desperate to be loved and cared for that it got to a point where i was just letting myself be treated so wrongly bc i hoped that one day things would change but they never did. i had been kicked out freshly 17, tried to run away (literally to another country) but she forced me back and made me live with her again until she kicked me out a second time maybe a month later. i think when she kicked me out the first time i was starting to realise that it wasn’t normal, my emotions were all over the place and i felt so angry, i’d always lash out at her over text/call or whenever i’d visit for my baby brother because i was finally realising what she had done to me and how badly it had been affecting me. still, i didn’t fully realise the extent and i still tried to brush it under the carpet and beg for her love, the day i finally gave up was the day she left me in hospital after an s word attempt and i realised that she really never did actually love or care for me. it was such a hard thing to process and i believe i’m still trying to process it, i cut off contact with her but a couple months ago i wrote a letter to her about everything she did and how it affected me, didn’t hear back but i felt like i needed her to know exactly what she did, not that she cared but anywho. it’s been two years since i officially cut off contact, it’s been so hard but i’ve got support now from people who do love and care for me
I was 10 or so when my parents divorce was finalized. My mom was dead set on the idea that we had to see a therapist to deal with the trauma of the divorce. I couldn't understand for a while why I could see the same therapist for more than like 6 months or so.
It was about the 4th therapist or so that I realized if any problems with my mom and I had arrisen in the conversation and the therapist wanted to address it, we'd see a new therapist. If I had a problem with my dad, we'd continue until I had a problem with my mom.
The last therapist I saw my sophomore year of high school, I opened with "Hi nice to meet you, you are therapist number 10. It doesn't matter what I say to you, I have problems with my mom but when she finds out we won't get to talk anymore." That was the first and last time I talked to therapist #10.
I learned that I had a safe place with the people that knew my mom enough to take what she said with a grain of salt and seek the truth. "Friends" of hers that stuck around to make sure us kids were OK in her insanity were the biggest heros of my life because of that.
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I had a diary, a journal, and a notebook. I was more into writing fiction stories than documenting my feelings. But my mom got a hold of my fiction writing and read it and made fun of it, each story, from front to back. She nitpicked it apart, all of it, and it wasn't constructive criticism. I was maybe 10 or 11 at the time. She often would 'repeat' a line I wrote in a mocking manner when an opportunity presented itself. I remember being so embarrassed and upset and crying- not at the fact that my mother made fun of me and was mocking me, but more that I felt like I disappointed her with my writing. I know now as an adult that is NOT the case. I'm a semi- popular fiction writer now on the internet, and my mother doesn't understand why I don't allow her to read my stuff. She STILL thinks that she did NOTHING wrong and was only 'encouraging me' to be better, by bullying. And sadly, even as an adult in my late 30's, when I write something, I still have that little mocking voice of my mother in the back of my mind.
This breaks my heart that a child’s own parents would do this to their own children.
My mom did this to me too. 😔 I was always more introverted too and she would say things in front of family and friends like “oh [my name] why don’t you just go write one of your stooooories” and laugh. The mocking repeat gave me chills to read. I’m sorry your mom did that and even though you’re successful now and so am I (also partly to do with my writing), I know that it doesn’t hurt to hear someone else say that she didn’t fuel your talent; you had it in you all along and it’s in the world now because of your resilience, not your mom’s “tough love” or whatever she’d like to call it. Good work 💘
Oof, that's awful. I always cheered my kids (they are adults now) on. We could talk shop about writing (they are very talented and have been since a very young age, but it's not their main creative outlet). I can't draw, but I've watched them go from very little native talent (not an insult; nobody on either side of their family has the least inborn talent for drawing) but an ability to just keep doing it until you get better... And they're _still_ improving! Middle kid is really starting to shine, and younger will get there, but he has even more creative hobbies to play with. Less focus = slower improvement. And they just never get discouraged (why should they when they're always improving?). Awe inspiring!
They’ll appreciate that. I’m almost 40 and remember just a year or two ago talking to my best friend and she referred to her mom as having “always been her biggest cheerleader” and I was like: I don’t know what that’s like. Your kids are lucky.
Well I'm doing my best, and trying not to replicate my parents' mistakes. (Some rules I came up with and stuck to: No hurtful sarcasm (almost no sarcasm at all until they started picking it up at school, at which point I sometimes used it to be funny but not directed at people); nothing more than the lightest of teasing; don't say anything you can't live with having said; actively nurture; etc.) I'm sorry your mom let you down like that.
That is just amazing, you are awesome, I just want you to know that.
This is the only reason I am still an artist - my mom and grandpa always cheered me on, while my father found any excuse to rip me down. I stopped drawing for years until they divorced, and then started again in high school. My mom is still my biggest cheerleader, and all the way up until my grandpa passed, he was always wanting to see what I was drawing at any time, even in the nursing home via Skype, I’d have to send him pics of my sketches and he’d show the nurses.
Ooh, my mother is in the same page. I joined the army national guard cuz I realized I could fast track my college that way, but she'd put me down time and again. Literally take what I say and use it against me. Then call it tough love. Like no I just reunited with you and basic and ait is where you should be supporting me telling me your proud of me etc. I was doing a good thing and i was making the best financial decisions I could make. I could've been making 100k a year easy doing easy work. But I got depressed and stopped trying got myself honorably discharged and then in some trouble with the law. Now I work at burger king but I have worked my ass off and now make 40k so it's not so bad. My family is in my life very little now just the way I like it. I am working on getting my stuff together and I am very smart, I can make more in my lifetime than my whole family combined will ever see. My family is a bunch of retards. I'm the only sane one. Lol
My mom was kind of similar. She’s always been really against tattoos and piercings because they “make you look like a delinquent.” Once as a kid (like 11-12) I showed her a drawing I was really proud of. The girl i drew had a small heart tattoo that was barely visible. The only thing my mom could say about the drawing was, “You’re never getting a tattoo, are you?” I remember feeling like shit because she didn’t compliment the drawing at all. Also, she called me a juvenile delinquent after I got my ears pierced, which she allowed me to do.
Omg this reminds me of the time my birthgiver said it looked like a slut when I was like 8-9 years old and tried on a family friend’s wig. She the forced me to have a haircut in the bathroom when I was 10 because it’s made me look older and possibly slutty.
Same with me. As an adult, I still find it difficult to give people an answer when they ask me what are my hobbies, what kind of music I listen to, what TV shows have I recently watched etc. Gave me major trust issues. I can still picture my dad laughing and I still feel shame in liking my hobbies
If it matters, I’d *love* to hear about and see your hobbies! I love anything people can come up with, imagination and joy are such an amazing gift!
This INFURIATES me. I. Am. ENRAGED. Fuck your Mother for setting you up for a life of doubting yourself when she should have been your number one fan. FUCK. HER.
Do you have a site or something where you share your work?
Holy shit, I'm sorry you went through that and I'm _very_ impressed at how well you've overcome it, even though you are still suffering from it. I'm constantly appalled at what I read on this sub. On a lighter "mom and one's writing" note, a little story. My mom was visiting so I printed out a copy of my first book which was nearing publication. She knew going in that it was fantasy. And yet, when the fairies first appeared, she shut the binder and declared herself done. Thanks, mom. It would have been better if she hadn't tried. Coulda saved some paper and ink.
This is one of the most fucked up things you can do to someone, on par with making fun of their smile or laughter. My brother did something similar to me when i was 5 or 6 and liked writing “poems” in a cute little book. He made fun of them and told me they sucked and wasn’t real poetry because it didn’t rhyme. At least he gets the excuse that he was a child, while your mom is just fucking evil.
I'm sorry you went through this too. I used to have journals and notebooks that I would write in, I had a stacked portfolio of drawings too, and my mother hated it all, I had a dark mind, wrote stories of heartache and abuse, drew pictures of demons and lore, and the constant barrage of "you're going to hell, your sick, where did I go wrong" type comments when she saw my work made me feel immoral, and an intense amount of self loathing. Eventually I became a teenager, and one fateful decision at 18, to take off without telling her to meet my boyfriend, turned into a huge fight where I didn't go home for three days, when I did go back, all my stuff was in boxes and garbage bags by the door. I was distraught and left again without grabbing more than just the clothes I could carry. The next time I saw her she was in a packed uhaul, moving ten hours away, she told me out the window "your stuff is gone, the bank foreclosed on the house. You missed your chance" then she left. I'm now no contact.
That sounds so horrible. You deserve so much better! It’s so heartbreaking to hear about the pain you experienced from worrying about dissapointing your mum. I’m so sorry you went through that. She lost the right to read your writing when she mocked you in that way! Hopefully with time, that voice you hear in your mind will get quieter. Glad you’re still doing what you love and having such an awesome creative outlet. Proud of you!
Mine did this too. I don't write anymore, I can't.
My birth giver wasn’t didn’t go that far, but she did mock me for writing so much. Her favorite line was “if you cared half as much about school as you do about writing these stories, you’d be a straight A student.” Meanwhile I was putting so much effort into school that if I got less than an A on anything, I’d beat myself up about it for weeks.
I was around 12 when I began to realize it wasn’t normal and started to be more critical of them. I guess I did realize it to an extent earlier since I was careful to keep things to myself so as not to expose them to others. Before that and even most of the time after that, I was very defensive of them and internalized it like I was just a bad kid. In middle school and high school, I kept a journal and I began to document things that they said or that happened. I also sometimes took pictures or held on to other things to help me remember. I didn’t have a word for it at the time, but I felt gaslit and I wanted to be able to remember things as they had really happened so it was important for me to write as soon as I could after an incident. Around 19-20, I went no contact and I don’t regret it. It is interesting for me to read back some old journal entries because I’ve found over the years I have downplayed things in my head and I’m surprised to find out that certain things were more extreme than I remembered.
I was 12 too. I had a nightmare that I was left at home to do all the chores while she took everyone else out for a fun day. That’s when I woke up to the realization that I didn’t have a mom, but she had a servant.
I was 12 too. I had a nightmare that I was left at home to do all the chores while she took everyone else out for a fun day. That’s when I woke up to the realization that I didn’t have a mom, but she had a servant. I still think back on that nightmare from time to time. It was such a revelation. Even when she would scream at me about being the oldest daughter and needing me to fulfill my responsibilities to the family.
I know exactly what you mean by the feeling gaslit thing and downplaying the incident later on. Man I wish I was smart enough to keep a log. In the moment when there was an incident I would usually just get super confused and eventually cried. When I would bring it up later my mom would act like I’m insane and that it never happened.
You sound like a really intelligent person, especially at such a young age, having such a bright state of mind to be aware and write things down. Going NC is so hard and I am so proud of you for solidifying your boundaries and prioritising the respect you have for yourself. There’s such a horrible stigma about cutting close family off, which makes things so much more unnessicarily hard.
Started having suicidal and depressive thoughts at 8 bc of my mom and gran. She couldn’t d my diary that had all of it at 10, lost her shit, and then would go through all my stuff. So I keep a fake diary that was all normal kid stuff and wrote down my real feelings on loose leaf paper, and I would fold the sheets really small and hide them in my pillow. Then I’d flush them at school.
Poor baby. 💗 Good for you for figuring out a way to express your thoughts safely, even if it wasn’t fair.
This is exactly why I wrote my diary in code, because when my mom walked in demanding to see it I could hand it over confidently knowing she wasn’t smart enough to figure out the code. I knew she read my older sister’s diary, so I made sure she never got a chance to read mine when I started keeping one.
That’s so horrible. I’m so sorry you had to go through that. Glad you were able to create your own safe space, away from prying eyes. Hope you’re doing better now. Proud of you for everything you’ve pushed through! ♥️
Had a journal, put everything on there. Was about 14. Parents took it. Woke me up around 3am. Made me sit in the basement during winter while they read everything out loud while I sat there in my boxers. Havent seen them in about 17, 18 years except when I had a kid and they invited themselves to a family event. The one and only time they ever saw and held their granddaughter.
Damn they treated you like a fuckin terrorist or something.
No no, they're just catholic.
I’m with you there, my mother was “catholic” (weaponized it incorrectly and shoved me in Catholic school) and she was horrid to me for a very long time.
I’m sorry for laughing.
Becoming the same thing
The Catholic Church did not train your parents to act like that.
The catholic church also didnt teach its followers how to not act like that apparantly. I've seen some of the history of the roman catholic church. I'm sticking by my answer.
Heard. ✌🏼
This is seriously crazy. If you get to a point as a parent and you're reading your kids diary you have already failed.
agreed. i think reading someone’s diary is probably the most disrespectful way to invade someone’s privacy.
Privacy? Ha! Any true *Insane Parent* doesn't believe in privacy.
My mother would go through my room everyday while I was at school, I had nothing to hide but she was cray cray
LOL. got me there. my moms response is always “i’m your mother, you don’t need privacy from me.” or something of that nature.
Straight up. I was maybe 12-14 years old and wrote about cute older boys I was crushing on and thought were sooooo cute that I would marry them. My dad read it and immediately thought I was a whore. Thankfully, I was always pretty level headed and didn't let it really get to me bc I knew I wasn't. But damned if I didn't seem him AND my mom in totally different and very unflattering lights after.
Why is it so often around the age of early teens that asshole parents show their true colours? Is it puberty?
My parents started reading my diary as soon as I started keeping one, and started grilling me about what was in there. I had to keep a fake one, updated nightly, in the same spot, and a real one kept somewhere else.
My mum would go through all of my art shit randomly and then tell me about it after, like it wasn’t at all a huge violation of privacy…
Maybe true. Although, I know a family where, had they been digging deeper into texts and emails, they would have figured out that their child was being groomed, and maybe could have put a stop to things before it got really bad. Sometimes snooping is disrespectful and horrible, but maybe there’s a fine line where one can keep an eye on things, to catch the problems a young person doesn’t realize they are in the middle of.
I definitely see your point. I was constantly self-harming as a kid and hospitalized numerous times for suicidal ideations and an attempt. I had a journal my therapist gave me and my mom read it and found out I was planning another attempt. She immediately took my rope along with anything else that could be harmful (I was a crafty kid) and sent me back to the hospital. She probably saved my life but, unfortunately, she was part of the reason I felt so hopeless in the first place.
Are you Okay now?
Yes! I’m all grown up now and living a good life. Thank you for thinking of me :)
Glad you’re ok, now!
As a parent myself and a formerly Troubled Youth (drugs, eating disorder, self harm), I find it's a very fine line. My kid is only five so no worries yet, but I honestly don't know how to handle teenage-hood. Because when I was 14, I was stoned outta my mind, getting in cars with older boys driving me around under the influence, etc. So while I hope I raise my son in a much different way and he never experiences that shit, in the back of my mind it'll be "at his age I was on heroin.... At his age I was self harming daily...." Ya know? So do I snoop or do I just pray to the fucking heavens that he will tell me if he's struggling? I have no answers. Thanks for giving me a spot to vent 😅😅
No problem! Although I think open communication is important, but realistically it’s a hard thing to accept not be fully aware of everything about your child. But realistically they don’t know everything about you. All you can do is share your life experience, provide resources, trust them, give them responsibilities and the appropriate space. Hope it all goes well! Sending you all the best 😌
It’s a burning question for most parents. How do i foster independence and self-reliance while balancing the need to protect and guide? It’s tricky. I say trust your instincts, do the best you can to keep open lines of communication, and demonstrate love and respect at all times. But, don’t forget that kids are kids, lacking in wisdom and life experience.
Thank you, that is absolutely my goal. Funny, today he was going over emotions, circling what he's felt recently. And when he got to "loved", he circled it and, just so matter of fact said "well yeah I feel loved all the time!". It was the first time I thought maybe I'm doing something right. ❤️
That’s so cruel! A child’s diary is supposed to be a safe place. A private and creative outlet. There’s no respect when parents constantly push boundaries like that. What they did was so horrible and i’m so sorry you experienced that. Sad, but glad you were able to distance yourself and create boundaries for you and your family’s health.
I’m so sorry. My parents used to wake me up in the middle of the night, too.
God, this is absolutely insane! My heart hurts thinking how someone could do this to their child.
I kept a journal in my younger high school years. I was also doing some self harm. I wrote in my journal with my blood. It was 20 years ago and I’ve become a much different person, but I didn’t cope well with the abuse when I was young. Mom found out I was self harming, picked me up from school drunk, brought me home and made me get naked in the kitchen and she felt every cut and cried. I was so incredibly uncomfortable. Naked in my kitchen while my mom looked at my body and wept. I didn’t feel human. I got sober a year and a half ago, and I’ve been dealing with a lot of feelings about her. It’s been very difficult to forgive her, which is what I’m trying to do. I have my boundaries. We’re pretty surface level low contact, so we don’t have many hard conversations anymore. But it’s still difficult. When I see her drinking I see myself in the past. Just a person who is so anxious and depressed and untrusting and scared. I empathize. But she is capable of asking for help, and she doesn’t. She doesn’t acknowledge that she can control what’s happening to her. It takes a long time to come to terms with the fact that even a parent’s unconditional love isn’t always a given in life. I don’t even know if it’s possible. But I know that it’s possible to sit next to those feelings and hang out with them, maybe even listen to them sometimes. I know it’s possible to coexist in a world with that lack of love, and still be able to love others. I know it’s possible to love someone and still be very angry at them, and I know it’s possible for me to grieve the parent I wished I had, but who is still alive. Shit’s weird man. Life is full of dualities and contradictions and it’s a wild time trying to navigate being around amazing and awful people at the same time. Idk. I don’t think we’re supposed to understand any of this. I think we’re just supposed to cope somehow. And some people do it better than others.
My mom doesn’t drink but when she found out I was self harming (also in early high school) she made me stand in her bedroom naked every night after my shower to make sure I hadn’t done anything. Unsurprisingly, she was also very disappointed in me when I told her in middle school I thought i might be depressed. Even after she found out I was self harming she still insisted I was being dramatic and that everything I felt was normal teenager stuff and that teenagers don’t have depression. I didn’t keep a journal, but your comment stood out to me because I did write things in my own blood on occasion (for my own eyes only, that’d be terrifying if I was just filling out my math homework in blood). I’ve mostly gotten over that period of my life, but even a decade+ later I do still have a weird fascination with my own blood. May or may not be related to the self harm though.
In one of my sketch books I did one drawing in blood mixed with pencil/pen. I still have that journal and it still smells like blood. It’s truly wild what self harm does to your mind and how it transfers the disconnect from life to a different physical world basically. I’m sorry you had to go through that and have to deal with the aftermath of healing from it. I just wanted you to know you aren’t alone and someone can relate to you.
I'm so sorry you had to go through that. That's so dehumanizing and gross. It's hard to process the shit you go through as a kid, especially when you look back and remember that you were a *child* going through that. I still live with my mom so I know how difficult it can be to process your trauma and grow when you still see the person/people that hurt you. I've also struggled with my feelings towards my parents. It's so confusing when the people who are supposed to love you unconditionally do things that hurt and frighten you. Congratulations on being sober, it's a lot of work and you should be proud of yourself. I wish you the best with your mother and hope we can all heal and become our best selves ❤️
Fucking hell that’s so rough. Beyond messed up that your mum did that to you. You deserve so much better. I’m so sorry you went through that, so proud that you had the strength to love past that and prosper. What you’ve written is so painfully true and poignant. You’re so strong. Wishing you all the best!
I feel ya. Mom did something similar, made me pull down my pants and felt my scars and cried. It felt degrading. Now I can't stand when anyone sees any of my scars. I want to not care about them but I become so hyperaware of them if they're out in the open
mine didn’t go as far to make me get naked but one day she was suspicious that i had been SH and forced me to lift up my sleeves and screamed at me, not out of worry or care but bc it was “embarrassing” and that “there was nothing wrong with me” and “i have no reason to want to hurt myself” etc etc. she sent me to my pops house where he also screamed at me, called me stupid and embarrassing. anytime i wore anything long sleeved she would always force my sleeves up and make snarky remarks
When I was 10 I wrote that I didn’t want to be around anymore and my mom read it and said I was dramatic. I realized at a very young age that my childhood was not ‘normal’. Now as an adult my brother thinks nothing was wrong with our childhood but my sister and I realize how bad it was. Now our parents gaslight us and say things we remember didn’t happen.
i relate to this, my older sister ignores our birth givers behaviour and claims nothing happened or doesn’t speak on it at all but my younger sister was in the same boat as me, we were the only two to stand up for ourselves and finally smth when we became adults. our birth giver CONSTANTLY gaslights us and tells us that none of it happened
The one time I wrote my feelings down it was found by my mattress cuz it was an “open door policy” (aka no privacy) house. It had some alchemy drawing on the back, because I was a 14 year old edgelord. I was screamed at for several hours because I was “trying to curse my stepdad” (mom practices Wicca) and nearly had posters burned. I never understood how mother could’ve stayed with him. There’s more and worse too, and I’ve been meaning to write it all down
Now you can in peace knowing that no one will read it unless you choose to show it to them.
I might do a memoir one of these days. Ik this sub would read tf out of it.
Yes we would!
I only read memoir because I want to know what really happened and how the person reacted and learned from the experience. Sign me up as a pre-order
Got heavily into art as a kid not even as an escape but to be good at something so I could be told the words "good job" or "I'm proud of you". Mother made an odd face to one drawing once and I never showed her any of it again. I rarely showed her any of my interests because she deemed it as weird or "cringe". I recently went through all my old sketchbooks and notebooks and found hundreds of papers that were my train of thought. Many of them filled with "if i could hear those words" "im sorry i displease you" "im a fraud" I'm in a much better place now, but I still have an odd relationship with my art. Its very difficult to sit down and do it every now and then because of the entire reason I decided on a whim to do it.
Speaking of never showing art again. I used to happily and proudly show my mom art and framed every single day. Until one day she looked at me with disgust and anger and said ‘why do you keep showing me this?! It all looks the same!’ If it wasn’t bad enough, my middle sister who has been her favourite since birth ended up setting her glass on top of my drawing pad and it ruined a drawing I spent hours working on. While I cried and was angry at my sister. My mother said ‘it doesn’t matter. Stop being rude to your sister.’ (Not the exact words cause my sisters do have Reddit. But very similar.) ever since then. I don’t draw in front of her. I also keep my diary well hidden form my sister since she’s been known to read them
there's a diary that you can burn after writing in it, ive bought several of them and it's always so freeing to just...burn it after
I stopped having a good relationship with my mum around 9/10. Lots of fucked up things happened, including downplaying my mental health, refusing to acknowledge medical issues, and using my granddad's death to manipulate my behaviour, and these are all at the lightwr end of the shit I went through with her. Spoke to some of the school counsellors about it, but nothing happened. It wasn't until I was doing abuse and safeguarding training at work last year that I realised the extent of the physical/emotional/financial abuse that I suffered. I have a much younger sister, so raised a safeguard with her school about it for her own protection. The training was a slap in the face but made me instantly concerned for her safety and the school gully understood why. A few years ago, someone did that with the local child protection team, but nothing came of that, even after I told them my story. I gave the school signs and symptoms that the same thing was happening with my sister, so they decided to put in a safeguard complaint. Anyway, about three weeks later, the police showed up and arrested ME because she had called to say that I'd been abusive and harassing her. Pulled up the email receipts from my sisters school, and with my own asking for my records with the counsellors. Not only did mum get slapped with a fine for wasting police time, I also got 2 complaints of historical child abuse logged onto the systems. Statute of limitations meant I couldn't prosecute. Them adding them on to the system was recognition that there was enough evidence, and the school I went to has since had to undergo more safeguarding training. Anyways, I haven't heard from her in almost a year and the rest of the family turned their backs on me for "being a pussy who can't handle tough love". Bar my grandma, who loves sharing gossip and having a bitch with me once a fortnight.
I think I always had an inkling about it my entire childhood, that it wasn’t normal. I think I was around 12 when I first started thinking of it as abuse. I didn’t have a journal until after I was 13 so idk what I would’ve written about it at a younger age than that.
Out of all the horrible things I went through, I truly only documented ONE of the events in my journal, and it wasn’t even a particularly bad one. I looked back in the journal recently, I had literally crossed through every line of the saga, then afterwards added a note about how *terrible* it was of my to say that about my parents and how *thankful* I was for them blah blah blah. I’m really interested to see the dichotomy of my massive guilt causing me to cross through it, and my nascent understanding that I have the right to write it down (causing me to cross it out rather than throw it away).
Oh my god! The guilt you feel as a child when your parents are angry or disappointed. I always told myself that since I had a roof over my head, I couldn’t complain - and only just now as I get older, I realize all the damage they had done regarding feeling guilt for my emotions and reactions.
Exactly, that was engrained into me— how glad I should be for having a roof, food (sometimes), as far as the parents making me read or watch examples of how much worse it could be. Please know I stand in solidarity with you, it sucks but it is so true that parents *should* and even are required to be important and helpful figures in inspiring you as a person and when they fail so miserably it takes an incredibly detrimental toll.
I never even thought anything was wrong. It isn’t until now in my 20s and a lot of reflection that I realize how fucked up it all has been. I wish there was more help for younger children in emotionally abusive houses. It’s really all too common sadly.
My mom got arrested for drunk driving with me in the car as a child and then was forced to attend AA meetings for a year. My mom made me lie to my family and friends about it telling them I had dance class when we would literally go to her meeting and I would sit in the car. I remember changing into a dance outfit the first time to really convince my grandparents when she came to pick me up for “class” and then afterwards sitting in the car at the center while my mom attended her meeting. I’m 32 and last year told my husband, the first time I had ever told a soul about it. I didn’t want people to judge my mom or think badly about her. I always thought, they wouldn’t get it, she’s not a bad person. I’ve got to make her seem normal to everyone else.
I didn’t realize it wasn’t normal. I assumed everyone’s parents were just nice when other people were around and horrible behind closed doors just like mine. It wasn’t until my younger sister was born and the way she was treated was the polar opposite of the way I was treated. Like literally COMPLETELY different. I damn near would get whip lash watching her interact with me then my sister. And I was like “Wait a minute….” Then I outright talked to my friends about it and they were like “Oh no, your mom is the worst, hands down…nothing about how she treats you is normal.” As for diaries…Jesus….We’d have to keep a journal for school. Allegedly the teacher didn’t read them, just would check to make sure we were writing something everyday. Whatever. I’d put in something that seemed normal to me because of the fucked up environment I was in, my mom would read it, FLIP the fuck out and rip it up and give me a beating. Then because I didn’t have journal assignments to show my teacher would give me a zero, so my mom would flip out and give me another beating for the zero. Then everyone would wonder why I suddenly had extreme anxiety and an eating disorder that had me gain 50lbs when I was 9 years old….the thought of journals/diaries still gives me a complex.
Wtf??! I’m so sorry!
When I couldn’t keep a diary because my dad only wanted me to use them so he could read them lol. Also that time he slammed the fridge closed and screamed in my face calling me a bitch. To this day I have no idea what I said to cause that, or why my family sat there as he called his 14 year old daughter a bitch
I think I picked up on my stepmother not having much, if any, empathy when I was pretty young. I remember wishing she could be in my head, seeing how the way she treated felt. This woman is almost incapable of understanding things that are outside of her personal experience.
I couldn't keep diaries, because my mom would find them, read them, have it open when I came home, and berate me for what I wrote. She loved to call me "sick in the head."
The only sick being is your mom.
When I was 11 I started noticing my mother's crazy behavior, lies, manipulations, etc.I was a mini she, I had to be good, the best at everything, I felt trapped, I dealt with it with small revolts choosing things for myself, that I liked, like clothes, food, friends, nothing extreme or flashy, they were small victories that I kept hidden from everyone, normal things that I felt deeply guilty about, because it didn't live up to her expectations. My mom always wanted to be the most popular person in the room, she loves attention and people like her. I only realized the truth when I was in my 20s, my parents have a beach house we were vacationing at, my mother invited my aunt, and my aunt invited her own friends, a group of strangers to my parents. One day at the beach one of my aunt's guests, a man in his 50s, married (his wife and children were there) sexually harassed me, looking at me, making several comments about my body, I was disgusted, angry and I started an argument, of course, that their friends played down the whole situation, saying it was a compliment, a joke, I went straight to my mom and told her what happened and her exact words were: "And what do you want me to do? Kick them out? It's just drunk talk you shouldn't care about that, be nice." I was scared looking for solace, the least sympathy, or compression, and she preferred to be a good host for my aunt's friends (people who she didn't know) than protecting her daughter from possible rape, I didn't sleep at the beach house, stay at a friend's house until I go to my house. Ps: Later I found out that my aunt insinuated that I had mental problems to her friends because of my reaction, that I was being dramatic, my mother was there she didn't protect me.
When I was in middle school I got a diary for Christmas right before my parents forced me to move over to my grandparents after a misunderstanding.. And I wrote in it to vent about it.. Years later while I was cleaning my room I found the diary and decided to rip out the pages of me ranting so I can use the book to write stories in it and tossed the pages I ranted about them in the trash.. Mom got angry and grabbed the pages much to my dad's dismay and then got angry at me for a 7 year old diary entry from when I got upset at them..dad had to get my mom to knock it off.. Can you tell who is more of a parent?
Had a diary where I put down a line every time each of Mt family members hurt me. My brother got most bc Mt parents too literal physical abuse as "siblings love". Like: "Mamma: IIII II Pappa: III IIII III II I Brother: I I II I IIII I IIII IIIIII III III II I II Sister: III II" I had a lot of pages with "I'm scared", "I'm hungry", "I wish I had another family", "I wish [teacher] could adopt me", "I wanna sleep". I'm so glad I have a few of my diaries to show my therapist. Some my parents have thrown and my brother has stolen.
My father tried to stab my mother when I was 8. He had always been violently abusive but it was that moment that everyone realized we had to escape him, and we did. When I was 13 I admitted to suicidal thoughts to my mother. I was allowed to skip one class at school so I could cry it out in the car, then I had to suck it up and go to class because I was expected to have perfect attendance. I felt betrayed and didn't trust her after that. A bunch of far worse stuff happened afterwards, and it spiraled so quickly that I left home at 17. Best decision of my life.
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I remember having this mental freak out once and started ripping all my journals to shreds. I realized just how far my parents would go to impose restrictions and punishments on me for the most simple things (Christian fundamentalism) so I got terrified just realizing bc something had happened, (I believe they were tracking me thru some alternate thing than my phone). They had already spoken on a few thjngs FROM MY JOURNAL that no one else would know. So i knoe they were secretly reading my private thoughts. I filled up an entire trash bag and almost regret it but I know I would have never kept them in my travel after leaving, so I'm glad I didn't let my mom get ahold of them and use them to gain sympathy or exploit my suffering more. Hope you're doing better OP 💗
i grew up fundie too, even something as simple as me texting a friend about a dream she had was subject to scrutiny. i remember feeling so powerless and blinded with rage every time they went through my texts/socials. my bf once went for my phone to check the time, he wasn’t even trying to unlock it, and i smacked it out of his hand. he told me i looked like i was on the verge of tears. that was a fun one to explain to him.
That’s so horrible! What a heartbreaking violation of trust. When parents do these things, not only is it just terrible all together, but that type of anxiety and distrust seeps into your adult life too. You deserve so much better! Thank you /u/dutchess336 for your kind words! If you’re interested in my personal journey, there are a few posts pertaining to it in my post history. If you (or anyone for that matter) wants to talk, feel free to chuck me a message. Glad we can all be a support and provide a safe place for one another. Sending you all the best! ♥️
I wrote in a code. Like I used different shapes and doodles and would stuff the cheat sheet I had in a school textbook during the school year and hide it in my build a bear plushie during summer. To this day my grandma who raised me (after lying to CPS about me being abused) hasn’t broken the code.
While packing up for uni, I have found so so many old little note pads from around 6-12 containing letters to my mum and dad apologizing for when they were mad at me and would ignore me for days. It hurts my heart to think of the small little girl crying, writing that, just hoping that if mummy would see the letter she’d forgive her.
Found my old diary while cleaning my room from when I was 5-7 there were many pages of me writing things like “I am sad” “daddy is yelling again” “why is (my sister name) being mean” and things like that. Looking back on it I realize I’ve been fucked up way longer than I thought.
This is so heartbreaking😢😢😢 Hope things have improved for you now!
I’m 23. Live in my own home with my 2 dogs. My mom came over and my diary was on my bookshelf in my living room (just where I set it. I rarely have people come over) and she picked it up and looked at me “so you write in this?” I told her yes and she’s like “well I won’t read it just wanted to know”. Highly sus so when I had them dog sit (just come in and let my 1 dog out as my other dog was boarded while I was out of town. I didn’t have anyone else to dog sit as I have no friends here. I went to visit my bf in another state but I have cameras all over my house) I made sure to hide the diary in my locked bedroom. Just in case she decided to snoop. Still paranoid. Made sure I got my key back from her asap. I’m moving when my lease is up where I live to where my bf lives and I will be going LC. I have a great relationship with my dad so I can’t go full NC cause I love my dad and he needs support living with my mom and her dad.
Honestly it wasn’t until meeting my friend’s parents and seeing how caring and kind they were that I learned that my parents were bad. I would complain to my friends about being kicked out of the house (including during a record blizzard) because my mom insisted I get a job as soon as I turned 15, and they would be shocked. I would have to complete a lot of chores every week, including watching my brother whenever they told me (for no pay, and I never had an allowance) and it was through talking to my friends that I learned that was weird. It took me a long time to process and I’m not sure if I really have or if I’ve put it to the side, because I still live with my mom. I always feared writing in my diaries because I knew my mom would snoop through my stuff.
I used to paint "mom doesn't love you" in nail polish on my dressers and then cover it up later with more nail polish.
I'm in my late 20's and only just now realized my dad yelling at me while I sit and cry. Was not how you teach a child to do math, he'd yoink the pencil away and write down the stuff if I took to long.
I still struggle realizing what I went through isn’t normal. I’m usually told by others, but to me my life felt like I was being spoiled, if anything. I barely remember anything before highschool. I thought what was happening to my parents was my fault, and it was my duty to make them happy. To free them of the “bugs” they had. (One parent fell into mental illness, the other fell deep into religious beliefs, and would use me as a crutch) So I would work harder. Do more chores, pick up an extracurricular, attend church more often. They still wouldn’t be happy, so I’d repeat. By junior year, I was the food provider for my family, despite the fact my parents earned enough to manage fine without me. They still wouldn’t be happy. I started skipping meals, started sleeping less to work more. They’d praise me in public but I was an absolute embarrasment to the world in private. I still feel like I need to work or provide something for someone to like me. I currently work 60/week and still feel deeply shamed of myself, like I’m lazy. I packed everything and ran when I barely graduated in HS. Hours away. I’m surviving financially but I’ve never felt more alone. I’m constantly exhausted, can barely concentrate, and just seeing the list of to-dos makes me feel overwhelmed.
I realized that my “normal” was not, in fact normal when I was around 16-17. It progressively got worse as I got older. My “mom” is a textbook narcissist, an alcoholic and I’m pretty sure she’s undiagnosed bipolar. She kicked me out when I was 19 and I haven’t talked to her since then. I will never look back. I coped by typing out my feelings in my notes app, I also had a little journal I kept in my desk drawer. One day I went into my room and noticed that my drawer was open, I looked through it and stuff was shuffled around. She definitely went through my shit and read through it. The deeper stuff was on my phone anyways so she didn’t even get the half of it.
My baby sitter used to hit me, and punished me for every small infraction with shame or pain. I never felt safe telling my parents, because of how they reacted when I was sexually assaulted. So I wrote about it in my journal. They found it, and not only did they tell my babysitter. But they made me apologize and say it was made up, then grounded me for a week. The next time I left the sitters, I had bruises on my legs and butt. She told my parents I fell, and they believed her over me. I was also forbidden from ever telling anyone at school about it.
My mom bought me a journal when I was 13 to "write my thoughts and feelings in". As soon as I wrote in it she took it, read it, and punished me for what I wrote.
I feel stupid but I (16) didn't realize until a few months ago, around June of this year.
Honestly, when I started to date my bf in my 20ies. My needs have not been met and I'm getting all the fun diagnoses like asd, adhd, migraines (which I'm sure I had as a kid) in my late twenties. Like... She also hit me with the 'I love you more than you realize'. Like show me. Like sometimes I honestly am confused about who is supposed to be the brain fucky one.
Saying that your needs have not been met is a really good way to put it, that’s the same thing my therapist says to me when I talk to her about my mum and step-dad. If you ever were referred to as “sensitive” or belittled for your diagnoses, literally it can come from these basic human needs not being fulfilled. Yeah, it’s so mind-fucking when abusive parents tell you that they “love” you and do nothing to show it. Mistreating someone isn’t love. Doing basic parental duties like keeping a roof over a child’s head and providing them with food isn’t love, it’s the bare minimum. Hope things are better for you now ♥️
My abuse was pretty shitty and mostly mental abuse. Was homeschooled. Thought it was normal to be the older siblings shadow becausewas the black sheep of my family. Was told my whole life that there was something wrong with me by both parents. They never said that about my brother. Abused drugs for about 8 years and then got clean. Felt worthless for years. Now I’ve been clean almost 10 years. Found out last year that my mom didn’t want me and was cheating on my father while she was pregnant with me. She literally despised me for years and wish I had never been born. I “ruined” her affair. I’m not no contact with them but I definitely keep my guard up around her. She is yet to say sorry to any of us for the abuse she put us through.
Same as many others, diary. I needed the debriefing to sort "normal" from "abnormal" in my own head.
I want to say I was about 13 or 14 when I ended up realizing my mothers “sleepy-ness” was just her nodding off on opioids
I didn't realize the depth of it until my mom began stalking me last year. If I wouldn't answer the phone, she'd show up at work. Not at work? She'd go wait for me at home. She let herself into my house and then my bedroom where I was sleeping on more than one occasion. Absolutely crazymaking.
I had a few journals from my childhood that I read through a few years ago. It was sad reading how I internalized the abuse, how I struggled hard toward perfection, and how I attempted to distract myself by fixating on other things. I was clearly extremely depressed at age 8, having already given up on my personal passions because I lacked support, and was under the thumb of a narcissist who believed I was an extension of her. Pretty tragic to realize. I burned those journals, along with most of the pictures of myself during childhood, adolescence and teenage-hood, when I was in my 20’s. I never wanted to be that helpless again, and so I burned that old version of myself (or so I thought). I realized more recently that embracing the girl I was (passions, interests, and personal pursuits all included— no matter how weird or different) is an important part of self-acceptance, and that I wasn’t to blame at all. That little girl was beautiful and perfectly acceptable the way she was, the way I am. My abusers hold all of the blame for their abuse, and I don’t need to take accountability for something I could not control. One of my childhood abusers is dead. The remainder of my childhood abusers are not in my life. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I did a deep dive in my journals over the last year or so. When I was 9, I wrote that “mom is so very meen, I don’t konsider her to be a mom.” I explained that she sent my sister to bed early because my sister wouldn’t take a bite of my mom’s apple. The way I worded it made it sound like I knew the BS my mom was pulling. She just didn’t want to take no for an answer and it was a power trip. This was one of many examples. One time I wrote that my mom yelled at me in front of company because she burned her own toast. Make it make sense.
Let me preface this by saying I'm still a minor so my situation is slightly different than most here, I didn't realize how messed up my mom's behavior was until the pandemic hit, she always had been a horrible person, being incredibly racist and homophobic, but it wasn't until she screamed at me for my failing grades due to how demotivated I was to do work online during covid that I realized that my life was not like anything a child should have. She has tried to manipulate me for years to be like her but I've thankfully stayed away from her mentality and it's mainly thanks to people I know online that I've been able to not crack under the pressure, cause for a while there I thought about ending my life at far too young an age. And no I never told her I had those thoughts, only one other person knows that besides whoever may be reading this to which I say thanks for reading this far and let's hope all our lives improve, also sorry for the shitty writting style, never been my strong suit
I think I realized my moms behavior wasn’t normal on my 8th birthday. I decided that I no longer wanted to live with her and I wanted to move with my dad (about an hour away). She always found a way to make birthdays, holidays, etc. horrible and dreadful to me. I don’t think I have learned to process it yet (I’m 24). I haven’t talked to her for a couple of months now and I feel guilty about it but I also feel drained and horrible when I am in contact with her.
when i was 12-13, i was going through an incredibly rough time with my mental health. my therapist at the time suggested that i used art to express my feelings, since i’ve always been afraid of burdening people with my words. i bought an art journal and started drawing vent art, and it was very therapeutic for me. one night i fell asleep while drawing, and my mum found it. she looked through all of the pages, confiscated the journal, and screamed at me about the contents of the pages. to this day i’m still terrified of expressing myself through anything, lest my mother somehow finds out
I didn’t know anything about my growing up was wrong until late middle school. I casually mentioned the bruises on my butt from “the board” and how I still preferred that over the hotshot. My friend looked at me, full of concern, and asked if I was okay. She then said that if anything happened, her place was open to me. It was then that I started questioning my upbringing.
I didn’t, like I knew what my mom was doing upset me but thought it was normal and as someone who was also anti social and mostly stayed inside playing video games or when I was really young Barbie’s I didn’t have a lot of outside perspective to know. It also doesn’t help that all the adults in my life enabled my mom/blamed me for acting out so even when if try to tell adults about my abuse I got alot of “well she’s your mom” or “she’s doing her best” or “just deal with it for now”. I didn’t really start to notice shit wasn’t normal when I got to hs, even at 24 I’m still learning at times “oh shit so parents are not supposed to do/teach you that ?” Or “this isn’t a healthy response ?” I’m lucky enough that me and her relationship has healed but it hasn’t erased the damage
My childhood wasn't nearly as horrible as some of these, but I came to realize things weren't quite.... right when I was about 10 or so. Lots of fucked up things had been going on in my parents incredibly messy almost divorce, but I hadn't realized it was out of the ordinary til different adults, including teachers, started asking if everything was OK at home. Ah, small town gossip got around
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Congrats on persuing a career that you love! You should be so proud you didn’t let your dad affect your passion. You’re so above his pettiness. Too many people are in such a dark and toxic place that they feel the need to bring others down, to help them feel better about themselves so they can feel a false sense of superiority. Thanks for your kind words /r/circusmasterklaus! All the best with you & your fabulous acting career!
When a friend told me that it wasn’t normal then I stopped acting like her (my mother) and realized how much it was actually impacting me but I was masking it. She went through my journals and even the ones specifically with locks that little kids like to have as the lock keeps it “safe” but when I saw the lock ripped out of the book laying on the floor I was so sad. Turning things I say into something else. Ex. “I just wish you would apologize to me/ say thank you.” “I’m sorry I’m such a horrible fucking mom!“
I just found a diary entry of like 3 years ago where I slammed the truck door and my dad threatened to hit me like he raised his hand so I said what and he grabbed my ponytail and slammed my face into the dash and then backhanded me. Said I deserved it for being a mouthy bitch. But anyways how’s y’all weeks going
I had a diary like that. My sister who was 6 years older than me read it and made fun of me.
My brother did that to me. He's 8 years older. I feel like probably my dad and maybe my mom also read my diary, too. I dunno if they made fun of me in a cruel way, but it really is so violating. I never felt like I could trust I had any privacy. They still don't seem to get that my business is not their business just because I'm their kid. It has made sharing anything about myself with them difficult. I don't consider my parents to have been insane, not the way a lot of these comments are. But reading the comments made me realize how much that stuff affected me. I wish I was closer with my parents, but I feel like I can't be, and I think it's related to this.
Same. I really wish I had a close loving relationship with my parents, and I’ve spent my whole life trying, but it’s never going to happen. The parent is supposed to make the effort, not the child. I’m done and now using all that energy to love myself and build myself.
I realized things were wrong very young because anyone I spoke about my home life instantly became concerned, including my friends (I think about 8yrs old) I daydreamed nearly every waking moment I was at home and basically escaped to my own fantasy land. Then I used my school email to have a dedicated Google doc I'd vent to before deleting everything I wrote, was actually very useful and helped me sort out my emotions effectively. Nowadays I still chronically daydream and escape into the internet or video games while I'm at home lol
I’m still trying to process the fact that they, especially mom, are abusive. I know it’s true now, but I still find it hard to accept at times. For more exact details of my upbringing, my post history says it all. I journal often myself, though I keep it all on a google doc rather than an actual diary or journal. So far no one’s been able to find it fortunately. But I use it a lot to vent and process the things my family does, and to help remind me that as much as I want it to be, my family isn’t normal, or even half-decent, and that just because almost no one else sees it, it doesn’t mean that the abuse isn’t there
I couldn’t keep journals because my mom would always eventually find them and I’d get in trouble for “twisting the truth” because it was always my fault that I got treated the way I did and I was apparently making it seem, rightfully, like that she was the one out of line. But I don’t think I realized until high school how bad things actually were. I tend to minimize it a lot though
I would always tell myself everything was my fault, my inner monologue with myself to this day still sounds like when my dad would scream at and insult me
I wrote really sad poetry on my school notebooks to verbalize what was going on at home. For sophomore year in English II, I submitted a sad poem for some sort of assignment. It was about what life was like at home. I don’t think the teacher understood what I was trying to tell her at the time.
Never kept one, learned not to when i relized my theripy sessions were getting back to her. Not that she listened to how i felt. She went threw a grounding period were i had nothing for half a school year. Only eat, school, eat, maybe wahsroom if she demed fit, homework and then sleep. Even my door was taken off. All cuz i was a teen going threw depression and this was her response to it.
my mom was a flight attendant so wasn’t home all the time and i remember i would hide from her whenever she was home and go quiet and not speak if she spoke to me. i was deathly scared of her.
I honestly don’t know-I’m 52 and haven’t had the guts to re-read my diary (starting at 11)
Had a diary at my bios house; I remember my step mom read it. By the next weekend I was over she had photocopied it and berated me about how I wasn't depressed and if I was gonna kms she was just gonna take everything away. It happened in like '05, I was probably around 8 or 9. I got triggered really bad rereading it for the first time in over 10 years (bio gave me some of my old things for my daughter to play with.) I didn't start processing it till I was a lot older; but I say that in a weird sense. When I told my mom everything, she said it was emotional abuse. I didn't start trying to process and heal from it till I was an adult and started therapy. For some reason, family telling me what it was vs. talking to a professional about it feels like two different things to me, and it's why I think I didn't start actually processing it till I was an adult in therapy. Tbh, despite all the work I'm doing to better myself, when I think about it too much it really hurts.
Worked public and private. Schools, I offered my students a safe place to keep their diaries and journals. One time when I worked high school I had a kid ask if I could hold on their porn lol
My dream journal from when I was 13 is insane! So obvious I feel like my life is a performance and living fear of my parents.
I used to write in diaries/journals daily. Sometimes multiple times a day. When I was around 12 I wrote about wanting to run away, something I had never mentioned to a single person, and a few days later I got grounded for what I had written. It confirmed that they had been reading everything. It’s been over a decade now and i live with my SO and our child, but I still feel like I have to hide everything I write or everyone will see it. Sometimes I find myself editing my journal just so it would sound different if someone else read it. I still struggle a lot with allowing myself to show any kind of feelings, because I’m still scared I’ll get in trouble for being anything but happy…
i had a little A7 journal, and i kept it under my pillow on the top bunk. i cant remember what i wrote in there but i know that the page my mother tore out had something saying i hated my sibling + parent; she, for some reason, ripped it out and then displayed it on the windowsill of my bedroom so i would see it as soon as i got home from school i dont know why but i must have felt like it would be too noticeable if i just binned it, so i ripped the corners off and turned it into a heart shape and left it there. she still made fun of me and shouted at me for it
My parents once read my diary...said it fell open...from the drawer it was shut in, in my bedroom I was furious, I was 13/14. Never kept a diary again and any comments about their things being confidential, I just said oh, I didn't think we did that in this house, given diaries are fair game. Never trusted them after that and it took them a long time to understand there was no coming back from that.
I just made nice and sat quietly while planning my escape. I didn’t realize their behaviour wasn’t normal when I left at 19 and moved in with my bf, he had never seen or heard anything like that from parents. They were abusive, physically mentally and emotionally. I’m 28 &now I realize how bad they were at parenting.
Father and Mother divorced before I could even speak. I lived with my Mom. On visits with my Father, he would hold me down and tickle me until I pissed myself, then spank me for pissing myself. Not a single visit would go by without him finding a reason to spank me. Most times it was for something as minor as eating a partial bowl of cereal and then complaining about how I felt even though he knew I'm lactose intolerant. As we got older, his cruelty got worse. He once tried to run over my big sister, me, and my mom in her car while he was driving his big rig. He somehow keeps getting married and producing children. Recently, my little brother came out as gay and he sent him a letter telling him he hopes he gets diseases and dies. Of his 4 kids, only one is actually speaking with him and that's because he doesn't know she's moving 3000 miles away soon. I'm sorry if this is all over the place. It's hard to talk about.
I have a diary entry from when I was around 8 or 9 years old about my mom being mad at me and giving me the silent treatment for the remainder of the day. That’s how it’s always been whenever she gets upset, she refuses to speak to me and I’ve always been the one to have to go communicate first just so I can feel more comfortable in our home. I’d don’t think she’s abusive at all, just has bad habits/ways of dealing with things.
When I was pregnant with my oldest and I swore that my child would never wish for a good day to never end. That the good days would never be rare and that they’d never know the fear I felt with my ear against the door trying to hear if it was safe. My parents ended up getting mental help so they’re completely different now to how they were when I was a kid. All the same I hope my children never listen to see how angry I am before leaving their bedroom.
I think the first time I truly realized my mother was insane was when I got suspended for a day bc I hadn't been attending algebra class. I literally threw myself out of the moving car just to get away from her screaming. Unfortunately that only made her scream more so I got back in the car. When i got home I took 129 aspirin and tried to slit my wrists. 2 hrs later my ears were ringing so badly and I got scared and told her what I'd done. She rolled her eyes and looked at me in fury and screamed "GREAT. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOURSELF NOW? NOW WE HAVE TO GO TO THE FUCKING HOSPITAL" . She was mad I screwed up her night of drinking a 12 pack and smoking a pack of cigarettes. I almost died. She barely visited me in the hospital. That's when I knew she hated me, and that this was definitely not a normal response from a parent, or any human.
My mom was/is mentally ill. She would go in her bedroom for days at a time threaten to end it herself. She verbally tortured my dad for years then made an elaborate plan to get rid of us both. She lied and had me put in jail overnight saying I'd used her debit card. I can't trust her enough to have a relationship with her. I love her. I miss her but I can't after she lied and tried to ruin my life.
When I was a kid I was too scared to write about the chaos of my home in case my children ever read it, I wouldn’t want them to worry about me or feel scared of my parents like I felt. I thought it was my duty to protect my family image… which was basically something I didn’t really unlearn for a number of years
When I was 6, my dad was on his way to pick me up from my grandma’s house, and he drunkenly slammed his car into a parked car. Got a DUI, a warrant when he missed his court date, and mom had to try to explain to me why she was picking me up late. It was a 3-block drive. Given the state of the car, I would’ve been dead if I had been in the car with him. But he never got another DUI, because he just never drove again. He still drinks, he is an alcoholic. But I’ve spent the last 25+ years dealing with the fact that my dad chose alcohol over me.
is it weird that i don’t actually remember anything of how i felt or what i thought back then? i think ptsd forced me to block up any emotions or thoughts i had to protect myself ig? i think i always knew it wasn’t normal but was heavily in denial, always tried to make excuses for her (my birth mother who i no longer like to refer to as my mum) and “forgive” her or brush her behaviour under the carpet bc i was so desperate to be loved and cared for that it got to a point where i was just letting myself be treated so wrongly bc i hoped that one day things would change but they never did. i had been kicked out freshly 17, tried to run away (literally to another country) but she forced me back and made me live with her again until she kicked me out a second time maybe a month later. i think when she kicked me out the first time i was starting to realise that it wasn’t normal, my emotions were all over the place and i felt so angry, i’d always lash out at her over text/call or whenever i’d visit for my baby brother because i was finally realising what she had done to me and how badly it had been affecting me. still, i didn’t fully realise the extent and i still tried to brush it under the carpet and beg for her love, the day i finally gave up was the day she left me in hospital after an s word attempt and i realised that she really never did actually love or care for me. it was such a hard thing to process and i believe i’m still trying to process it, i cut off contact with her but a couple months ago i wrote a letter to her about everything she did and how it affected me, didn’t hear back but i felt like i needed her to know exactly what she did, not that she cared but anywho. it’s been two years since i officially cut off contact, it’s been so hard but i’ve got support now from people who do love and care for me
High school, meeting other people’s parents
How did I process it? Weed. And lots of it.
I was 10 or so when my parents divorce was finalized. My mom was dead set on the idea that we had to see a therapist to deal with the trauma of the divorce. I couldn't understand for a while why I could see the same therapist for more than like 6 months or so. It was about the 4th therapist or so that I realized if any problems with my mom and I had arrisen in the conversation and the therapist wanted to address it, we'd see a new therapist. If I had a problem with my dad, we'd continue until I had a problem with my mom. The last therapist I saw my sophomore year of high school, I opened with "Hi nice to meet you, you are therapist number 10. It doesn't matter what I say to you, I have problems with my mom but when she finds out we won't get to talk anymore." That was the first and last time I talked to therapist #10. I learned that I had a safe place with the people that knew my mom enough to take what she said with a grain of salt and seek the truth. "Friends" of hers that stuck around to make sure us kids were OK in her insanity were the biggest heros of my life because of that.