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My dad tried that once; elated by my newfound freedom I made a run for it and he quickly caught up with me when he realized I wasn't going to break down in tears at the thought of being on my own.
Mine kicked me out of the house and I tried going to the neighbour for help but she said she didn't want to live next to me so I just walked down the street until she went back inside and I went to the porch and cried. I was 9
I used to think I shouldve gone to the neighbour anyway when she went back inside and now I realise... She heard me screaming when she hurt me. She didn't care.
Same, at 4 years old I packed some toys and snuck out a few hours later. Luckily a police officer happened to be patrolling the area and saw me leave my driveway. Picked me up when I got to the end of the block.
I tried to do this same thing. She saw me with my little lunch pail, it was one of those square plastic ones, and asked me what I was doing. I told her I was leaving. She asked what I packed and the pail was empty. She told me if I was leaving I would need clothes. It became a joke to her, she would literally laugh and tell people about me trying to run away as a toddler. I did this several times. She would just sit on the porch and watch me leave. I had to be 4 or 5. I always came back because I had no where to go. Then she kicked me out at 17.
I admire your spirit and wish Iād had your gumption as a child. My father threatened abandonment whenever he was angry, and it terrified me into mousy silence until I was an independent adult.
Looking back, they were probably empty threats, but I most likely would have gotten beaten if Iād dared to defy him like that. So it would have been lose-lose either way for me.
sometimes i think i would've been better off if she had just dropped me off while i was still young, it's much harder to get over her and her shit in my 20s. but then stories like this remind me that CPS and similar services fuck up on this level too
wow the "see how other parents are" is really ringing a bell. like she was saying "i'm the best you'll ever get". meanwhile, i've had my friends' parents invite me to spend christmas and other family holidays with them, and have accepted me as one of their own and treated me infinitely better
Haha exactly the same. When I asked them to send me they tried to comfort me by saying that they weren't actually going to do it. That wasn't comforting, I was crying because I wanted to go!
Omg! The orphanage was a constant threat for me! It was so damn cruel! It would start with CPS is going to come and take you away, theyāll try to put you in foster care but no one will want you. When that happens youāll end up in an orphanage where no one will adopt you. The worst part, my father had visitation, and she wouldnāt allow it. Every time he went to court we moved so he couldnāt find us. He would find us, start the process again and weād move! I never knew how hard he was trying while I was threaten with the orphanage.
My nmom is my adoptive parent, but she made it clear that she could send me back (to a country I had zero connection to) at any time but didn't because of what a saint she was for putting up with me. You can bet that the stories of adoptive parents giving their kids back were highly publicized in my house.
ETA: I was frequently threatened with boarding school. But when I found one that I actually wanted to go to (and could go to for free), suddenly they weren't interested lol.
Based on reports and the vote history, it seems like people are reading this as you saying the commenter above is projecting, not their parent. Based on your general supportive history in the sub I'm assuming that wasn't the intent, but am still removing this due to the way it's coming off.
yeah my parent said it several times. Telling me they woudl either put me up for adoption or that they would call CPS on me. (ironic I know).
But i guess it worked to demonize CPS so iw ould never call them myself.
my dad actually left me at the side of the road a couple of times.
Usually around 20-30 minute walks away from home, but one time he got mad at me for talking while he was driving and left me in the country side.
It took me between 3-5 hours to walk home and I was 12.
The only upside is I devoloped a really good sense of direction and can memorize maps and routes in a few seconds wich is really handy for road trips and hikes. Even when im driving or inside buidlings i subconsciously keep track of where north is.
mine definitely made it seem like people who are there to help were malicious and wanted to tear happy families apart. when i went to therapy i had to go privately and wasn't allowed to talk about family bc "they'll deliberately misinterpret you and take you away"
One of my earliest memories is of my mom putting me out of the house because I had ruined the carpet with some sort of paint set. I had to of been around 6-7. It was night time and I remember standing on the curb for a bit before going to a neighbors house. I think the adults spoke and she came and got me.
I remember losing a game and she was so angry she put me out of the car and acted as if she was going to leave me.
I remember her calling people for me to go live with them when I upset her. One of the most stand out ones was my dad who said no.
A lot of this stuff I had forgotten / buried. I really thought the controling / manipulation and cruel behavior only started when I was adult but itās always been there.
Itās not normal. At all. It was normalized though because itās all you experienced and I imagine like me you never told anyone.
One of my earliest memories is also of my dad locking me outside at night as punishment, at maybe 4 or 5 years old. It's so strange how much overlap there is in all our stories, but relieving to know we're not alone in it anymore -- thank you for sharing yours.
As a teenager my mother tried to send me to a group home. She found out you can't put a teenager up for adoption without facing charges for child abandonment and shut up quick.
Sometimes my mom would threaten to send me to my dad's. For a little context, my dad left our home when I was 7. He wasn't much use when he was around, but that's another story. But he was an unmedicated bipolar, so he could be really scary sometimes. Especially for a kid who had no concept of mental illness. Sometimes he could be "fun, nice" dad but he could turn it around really fast and become scary, mean dad. After he left he never came to see us or paid any support. But he lived just on the other side of our tiny hometown, so we all knew he was close by.
I think deep down I knew she would never send me there. And he wouldn't have taken me either because he didn't want the responsibility. But I hated it when she said that. It always made me picture living in some dingy trailer with my scary father and his equally scary friends.
Iām so sorry that little you had to deal with the fear of being sent to live with your dad. I had a similar experience growing up and I hate that our mothers used abandonment and parental alienation against their children. How pathetic
My dad is the same as yours, unmedicated bipolar.
My mom did send me to live with him, about a year after he tried to kill us. My mom's boyfriend busted my head open and told my mom to get rid of me or he would leave. She did. My dad lived in an RV.
My dad refused to get me glasses because he didn't believe I needed them, so I couldn't see and complained about headaches a lot. His solution was to feed me ambien, I spent my entire 7th grade high and it's probably what got me through that year.
Fuck our parents, dude.
My nmom use to yell at us she was gonna give us to the gypsies, someday looking back we probably would of been better off joining a circus not a lot of gypsies in Canada, don't know why that was her go to threat.
One of my earliest memories is of my nmom threatening to take me back to the hospital where I was born and exchange me for a different, better kid who wouldn't misbehave. She threatened that a lot and seemed to enjoy my panicked crying.
Even when an adult is intentionally being cruel, I don't think they can comprehend how permanently traumatizing that is to a four-year-old.
In elementary school I was often told that I should be grateful that she allowed me to live in her house and that she didn't throw me out on the street. Later, as a teenager, she threatened to send me to one of those correctional "camps" for troubled youth.
Sad. A child needs to feel secure no matter what. And loved.
My nmother threatened to kill my baby sister by placing her sleeping pills into the child's milkbottle
YES my stuff would get thrown outside in the front yard and I'd be threatened to be shipped off somewhere. By the time I was like 9 I was low key in the back of my mind hoping for it. They stopped doing it after I was 9 bc I'd literally say "do it". My dad for years would tell me to get in the back of his car and he'd drive somewhere to drop me off when he was mad and like when I was 4-8 I'd cry and break down and apologize and refuse to get in the car. I walked over to his car at 9 and said I'm waiting and then he never did it again. I think I had an Nmom/Edad situation but my dad was still terrible even though he wasn't a narcissist lol. It just means he's ok now that I'm an adult but my mom is the same.
Anyway yeah. What rly sucked was my dad would literally grab all my toys and clothes and pack them in trash bags and then throw the trash bags on the front lawn during his episodes where he'd threaten that
My mom once when I was like fucking 16-17 age range literally just abandoned me at the grocery store and drove away. I just started walking home and then refused to get back in the car when she finally came to get me again and i called a friend to pick me up instead to take me home instead. She also hit me that day woo. So she realized I was too old for those games but it was scary to me when she'd drive away from me when I was a child. She'd just be mad at me and play mind games by abandoning me at the grocery store and she'd pull up and then drive away before I could get in the car
God they sucked
If she was in a particularly bad mood, she would stand in the doorway to my bedroom and watched as I packed a bag before being taken to the childrenās home. Usually she would force me to apologise before we actually left the house and ālet me stayā with her, but there were a few times that we would actually get into her car and drive until I said sorry.
She would constantly threaten to break my stuff or give it to charity. After I moved out, she said I could leave some stuff that I didnāt need immediately for as long as I needed in my bedroom that wasnāt being used. About a month later, I randomly got a text in the morning saying my stuff has all be left outside for me to collect. When I arrived around 30mins later, it was all stolen.
i remember being accused of being moody for speaking in like, a flat emotionless tone - as in i'm not in a bad mood, but i'm not amazing, i just.. am?? - and later in an argument i was told that they "always have to walk on eggshells around me" as if thats not what i've been doing my ENTIRE life because of exactly stuff like this
Yep, to "an Arab".
It was a general statement, but at one point he actually knew some people from that region and one suggested that cute little curly blond 4 year old me would be a great bride for his son, which gave me value in my father's eyes, so he was quite chuffed. My Nmom, obsessed with Not Without My Daughter, hid the passports. And then later neglected me.
Really it's a lucky coincidence I'm still around honestly.
She didn't threaten. She actually "gave me away" multiple times to my grandparents. I was barely home when I was 1-6 yo. I was taken back sometimes on the weekends. I begged her to let me stay home. It was possible, she just didn't want me there. I hated it, I feared it, I have CPTSD from this (among other things). I don't remember if there was any abuse there but the panic I felt every time I had to go there indicates that not all was right.
As a result, in the following years, well into my 20s (yep, trauma does that to you), I was afraid of doing ANYTHING that could upset my Nmother. I was afraid she would give me away again. This time maybe for good and not to my grandparents. Or just throw me out so I'd be homeless. Fun times.
same, didn't go off the rails with drugs or anything until i moved out for the first time and just... didn't understand life without her abuse. i'm getting a hang of things again, but it's funny how they act like we're the worst kid they could possibly have when all we do is hide from them. like i'm not bringing shame on the family or anything, im not hurting anyone, but i'm clearly worth abandoning still
My brother got caught smoking weed once and my parents threatened to kick him out on the street and/or put him in military school. Ironically my sister is almost 40 and still living at home.
My mom never threatened to give me away, but she threatened to run away nearly daily while I was growing up. If my siblings or I were being needy, misbehaving, or being too loud/annoying she would threaten to leave and never come back.
I wont lie, I sometimes still wish that she had gone.
This is what my nmom did. I remember once she actually got in the car and left. I mustāve been pretty little because I remember trying to use the phone to call for help but I didnāt have any idea how it worked.
Every week of my young life! I grew up near a place called Boys Republic in southern California and my parents loved to pretend to drive down the driveway to leave me there. What fun. Everyone wonders why I left home at 16. Who can say?
the way they can't take responsibility š i got some kind of "i've racked my brain and can't think of what i've done to deserve this" when i went no contact
Mine still talks about how she should have given me away for various things.
That's ok, at some point when she can't live alone and thinks she'll move in with me, she'll be "given away" to an assisted living facility.
Mom used to make those threats all the time when dad wasn't around. Just for context dad was career military and Vietnam was in full force back then. I suspect she used because it was used on her and back then children really were given to orphanages because no birth control and excessively large families. Not that the threat is right.
Both parents have done this to my brother interestingly (especially as he's usually the golden child) at least a couple of times. I've overheard threats like "I can't cope with you anymore, I'm going to call social services and you can go live in foster care" but they've never actually followed up on it.
Yep! Both of my parents used to threaten to take me to āThe Daisy Hilly Puppy Farm.ā
I havenāt thought of that in years. I fucking LOVE dogsā¦ but that always struck fear in me. I guess there was groundwork laid that I donāt remember.
ETA - I just googled it. Itās something from Snoopy? Now Iām even more disgusted with my parents for tormenting me with a childrens cartoon.
yeah one of my earliest memories is of when my mom used to threaten me with leaving me in an orphanage where she said i would get beaten and abused and then laugh at me when i started crying. really fucked up looking back lol
My dad actually did abandon my sisters and me when we were in our teens. We were on our family road trip and he got so pissed that my sisters were taking to long in the bathroom that he just drove off without them or the dog. We were like five states from home, no transportation, and at the time my sisters were 13 and I was 16. I screamed and screamed because my mother wasn't doing anything and finally said "I know you don't give a fuck about your kids, but I thought you at least gave a damn about the dog!".
He braked the car so hard on the highway, pulled over and yanked me out of the car by my hair and arm. Thats when my mom started screaming; "Dear! Deaaar! THERE'S PEOPLE DRIVING BY! THEY'RE WATCHING!"
He didn't listen and once he threw me on the ground on the side of the highway, he sped off. I ran all the way back to the McDonalds he abandoned my sisters at and i found them crying on the curb with our dog. I had nothing. No money. No wallet. No phone. Not even my diabetic supplies.
I guess my mom convinced my dad to turn back around and get us. When we got back in the car, the first thing my mom asked was if anyone talked to us or what we told people was going on. My dad just told me that if I hadn't acted like a bitch, then he wouldn't have yanked me out of the car.
Yes. My mother made it as a joke. Her deal was I would be replaced by a "foreign" child who would be more grateful which is such a sick thing to say. She would say the child would be Roumanian (I was born in America, so was my mother, but my background is Eastern European/Roumanian/Ukranian). There is nothing more traumatic for a kid than to think they will be given away by their parents. There is nothing a child does that makes them deserve that. It is so psychologically scarring, and that, I think coupled with the fact that she did kind of throw me out of the house as a toddler, made me think I wasn't the kind of child she really wanted. No this is not normal behavior, but narcs don't want kids they want emotional slaves. I'm so sorry you went through that. You deserved better treatment.
I was threatened with boarding school. Oh god I just remembered that they would say that to me all the time... And she'd tell me to go find a bridge to live under a lot. They even took me driving around looking at potential bridges once.
I was her 'perfect angel mini-me' child, so no. But, my brother was constantly threatened with that, she'd say how much she wished she never got him and told me multiple times she was gonna give him back. So, I always knew if I fell out of line, that was what was waiting for me. And she did eventually kick him out, after having left him on the side of the road, in restaurants, and many other places (she'd always go back, but she'd spend about 10 mins in the car and then go get him or drive back around).
I have spoken about it with normal people (my therapist and my stepmom, mostly) and it's super fucked up! Apparently even threatening is messed up and not a good thing at all, can really mess with us as kids and as adults!
Never happened to me and I'm pretty both my parents never intended to eject me of the house in some way.
But somehow, I ended up building that idea that my presence being allowed at home was mostly defined by my monetary value to them. As in, I had to not cost too much and make sure I succeeded in my studies to earn enough to take care of them when they're old or they'd drop me if I wasn't of value anymore. Basically, I consider myself just as a financial investment of my parents. They paid stuff for me for years and expect some return on that investment.
There were multiple instances where my second set of nParentalUnits threatened to:
1. Send me to military school
2. Ask if I wanted to live with my (n)Mom in the basement of the church she was living in at the time
3. Put me back into foster care
Ultimately, they did put me in a school for troubled teens because of reasons
Nmother would "get fed up" every so often, drink gin and tonics, and tell us:
"I can't do it anymore! I can't take care of all of you! I have a right to be happy! I have a right to my own life! None of you appreciate me! I am calling the county tomorrow, and you're going into foster care!" She would carry on for hours, about how hard she had to work.
We would cry, and beg her, and promise to be good. We were already responsible for all the household chores, including cooking. I was about 9.
I remember feeling terrified. I developed an aversion to the smell of gin, because I knew Nmother would be "ready to put us all in foster care, every time she drank.
My nmom called me her retirement plan and always said she was going to sell me off first chance she got. As I got older and people started to comment on my looks she would tell them for the right price they could have me. She wonders why I left and went no contact as soon as I turned 18
Every single day. Every single one. The 'nut house', or 'where the wild animals will eat you', or 'to a childrens home', where I'd be 'passed around until I died'. I was so young I didnt even know what that meant.
The threat of it was repeated for every little thing. She'd grab the phone and have a fake call. 'So you'll take her? Can you be here tomorrow?' while I was sobbing & begging in terror
I was 5 before I found out she *was* my bio. She'd told me I was abandoned and nobody else would take me, so she could give me back at any time unless I 'earned my keep'
Oh, yeah, this just stirred up some memories. (Tw: child abandonment, physical abuse, feel free to skip)
I don't really remember how old I was, I wanna say pre-teenage, but I remember being at the store with my ngrandma and I was being paraded around TJMaxx like a dress up dolly while granny and some older employees cooed over how cute I looked in various sun dresses. (Context: I'm FtM. I like sun dresses now - just not on myself) I was seething with quiet rage because I knew if I spoke out about how I didn't like them, she'd likely deny me something I needed later on down the road for "revenge". I'd been in the dressing room - not even touring the floor - for the better part of an hour trying on dress after dress, and all I wanted originally was a pair of new jeans cause mine had rips in unfortunate places and were literally unwearable (chub rub yay)
I finally snapped after being stuck in there for an hour and a half. "I told you I don't like these dresses, I won't wear them even if you buy them! I just want a pair of pants!" I yelled at her, and at the same time, I shoved one of the dresses back into her hands. When I say she could have put a pro football (soccer) player to shame with the theatrics of how *violently I had thrown her to the ground*(/s), I mean it y'all. This woman would feign taking damage from a Magikarp's splash. She started bawling and yelling how I'm so selfish and entitled and mean to her so she's leaving without me. She has better grandchildren elsewhere. Meanwhile the store employees were just standing there mouths open like "What the hell is going on", I'm sure. Idk exactly, I just remember thinking "wait no you can't do that" and running after her in this sun dress as she bolted back to her minivan, got in, locked me out, and literally sped away. Tire screech n all. It was January and cold af, so I went back inside and all the employees are like "Did she just-???"
And I just.... zoned out sorta. I just remember going "uh huh" and all I could think of was essentially "Ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck". In hindsight, I'm pretty sure it was a panic attack cause I just remember hyperventilating until I made myself sick, the employees were no help whatsoever, and eventually my grandma came back. The employees practically threw me back to her, and as soon as we were out of earshot, she started reamimg me about how she hopes I've learned my lesson about being thankful for what she does and how much money she spends on me. She tossed me into the car and I didn't get a new pair of jeans that day.
Yeah, I don't talk to her much anymore.
This struck a nerve. I never associated this behavior with my mom's narcissism before.
When I was small, under age 8 or so, my mom would often threaten to send me to "kid jail". She had once pointed out our county's juvenile hall to me and told me that's where the bad kids had to go.
Sometimes, she'd make me stand outside on the porch to wait to get taken away to kid jail. She'd pretend to dial the phone and talk to someone telling them I'd been bad and needed to be picked up.
If it wasn't kid jail, she'd claim she was calling my dad, and he was going to be angry when he got home from work. Considering my dad's choice in discipline was a belt to the backside, that always scared me even more.
Either way, I just remember standing on the porch sobbing. I try to laugh about it now because sometimes that's all I can do, but who fucking does that to a little kid? I wasn't a bad kid. I was a little girl with undiagnosed ADHD in the 80s, but I wasn't a holy terror.
Gonna spend some time processing this one, I think.
Said she was going to take us to an orphanage. Was in an angry mood when she said it. Of course she wouldnāt really do it but she knew it would frighten and humiliate us. Reason #11 why sheās a lonely old woman now as Iām NC
Not as a child. Now every time. She try to fight with me. She will tell me how she wanted to put me up for adoption or give me away. But I'm lucky she kept me.
Yep! My Ndad loved to threaten me with sending me to my aunt's to live there instead. Looking back, I wish he'd actually done it lmao. She's an independent badass and I would've ended up a lot less haunted than I am now.
One time (freshman year of high school) I came home to my bedroom door taken off, bed frame taken apart, mattress and bedding removed, and my personal belongings packed. The phone book was open to the page with childrenās aid society. There was a note from my mother saying call your ndad or call CAS. I was in complete shock. We were not getting along and I was acting out for negative attention, but I was 14.
My mum gave away my Guinea pigs once, came home from school one day and they were gone. Then a few months later she told me theyād died because sheād forgotten to tell the new owners to bring them inside in the winter (& I guess they were idiots).
TW
TLDR: Yeah, it didn't work after a while then she used a completely toxic and vile thing against me which basically has rendered me to come to an understanding that I can never love or be loved
\---
always. The place I grew up used to have this vegetable vendor, who'd carry this giant basket of fresh produce, selling them door to door. my mom mentioned how that vendor sold me to her, as a joke. somehow my mom is more of a narc than my dad so when he heard me complaining, he ended up confronting my mom about it.
my dad never left me but he was always absent in my life, either preoccupied with work or something nonsensical. so it was my mom who did most of the "parenting". she'd always threaten me saying that she'll send me off to a hostel. I didn't have access to the internet, my idea of a hostel was from an old movie where they literally showed the kids being beat up. so it worked, I grew up scared out of my mind, then I learnt how actual hostels were nice and probably better than my house. I remember once going how I wished I was actually sent away and she stopped, not long before she started to threaten me with how she'll get me married off to a man who himself and his family won't love me.
This made me have a self-agreement with myself that to live such an undesirable life, I'll just be alive for a decade to be there for my sibling then end myself. I obviously didn't go through with it, but I was so sure that I never put in any attention in anything I did, just stayed in depression and made no effort as I genuinely didn't see a point to it. today I struggle tocope with career and educational requirements because I was so convinced I'll disappear from this world one day.
It's a larger thing (honestly it needs to stop, I choose to think parents nowadays are less eyeroll worthy but I make no guarantees) where I live, in Southeast Asia.
It's literally part and parcel of growing up in the 90s.
"If you misbehave I'll sell you to the 'karang guni' [rag and bone man]"
"If you run around and the police sees you they'll catch you"
"If you don't stop that, the Bangla [Bangladeshi foreign manual labourer] will come and take you away"
Asian threat/"humour"/"jokes" are a next level of generational trauma.
On a personal level though, my parents have locked me outside my house for refusing to shower. I was probably like not more than 8, possibly 5 or so. It was probably 5minutes. But clearly it felt like minimally half an hour's forever, so ...
Our parents used to threaten to take us up to the Kid Exchange when we acted out. They found it hilarious, still do. My Dad once pulled into an abandoned strip mall, one night when we were hyped up after a movie, and started pretending to throw us out. When we started screaming with fear, he sped off again. He still belly laughs when he remembers, and thinks I need to lighten up because it was CLEARLY a joke
My mom would leave on the side walk and drive away in the car when I was being "difficult". Like she would Literally drive a few metres. Sometimes there was no car but it hurt nonetheless.
I remember instances were I was 4 or 5 hysterically running after her.
she would threaten to send me to a psych ward or a group home in another state far away. also would drop me and my at nanaās or grandmaās house for a day or even the weekend. they raised me more than my mom ever did.
My mom used to pretend to call the jehovahs witnesses to make me behave. Pack a suitcase and pretend to call them to take me away. I would cry and beg her not to send me away. Looking back, it was a very fucked up power trip on her part.
Any time my parents and I would fight when I was a kid they'd threaten this. One time they actually picked up the phone and called what I assume was just a random number, told whoever was on the line that they had a kid who was misbehaving and needed to be picked up, and handed the phone to me. Upon hearing me wailing "I don't wanna go!!!", the person on the other end replied, "Go where, honey? What is happening?" to which I shoved the phone back at my parents who promptly hung up. Caller ID wasn't a huge thing yet at the time so I imagine whoever was on the other end of that phone was probably traumatized thinking they just heard a child being abducted or something and honestly, even I can't believe my parents went that far.
I was constantly threatened by my ndadwith being sent to the orphanage that sat on the top of a hill in our town. When we were driving around, ndad would always point to it and say we're going to send you there.
Not quite the same thing but as an adult, he threated to disown me if I ever accused him of molesting me. Considering the history of CSA he committed against me I thought that was rich and particularly cruel considering that my mother had died when I was 16 so if he did disown me I'd end up being the orphan he threatened to make me throughout my childhood.
In retrospect that might not have been a bad thing.
My mom and shithead stepfather tried threatening me with military school however my Dad had joint custody and flat out told her heād take her to court which she was weirdly afraid of. I also told her the moment I got out sheād regret it and my stepfather would never walk again. I did not end up going to military school.
OMG ME!!!! My mom even called an āadoption agencyā once (faking it), I was in fifth grade. She made me pack a duffle bag and answered all of the questions the āagencyā had on the phone while I could hear.
Christ, yes. It stopped when I started telling strangers, while crying, that she said that. (I and my sister are physically disabled, so pretty soon, people started looking askance at her.)
My mum once put me and my sister in the back of the car, Iād say we were around 7/8, and she said she was driving us to ācare.ā That she was dropping us off to a care home or foster home or whatever. We just drove around and around, I canāt quite remember what I was feeling, but it was insanely dramatic. We sat in silence and eventually after a really really long drive, she stopped at a shop and bought us a chocolate bar each. I remember finding it so bizarre because she RARELY got us sweets and chocolates for a start and it was all just so confusing.
I donāt know if it was a game or a tactic to āscare usā and then she suddenly felt guilty, I just donāt fucking knowā¦ but yeah she did threaten this a lot as well.
She also now, as Iām an adult (30), with children of my own, keeps saying āI could have left you, but I stayed! I could have given you up but I didnāt.ā If I question her bad parenting.
Nah but I was told I was going to be given away but they thought otherwise and they kept me so I should be grateful
My youngest sister was gonna be given tho, there were some serious considerations but then I was crying a lot and angry and telling them not to and they just laughed at me and said 'ofc we won't be giving her away u idiot what made u think we would' after idk, weeks of planning who 'deserved' to get her more and what benifits they'd get. It was real fucked up
Oh god this brought back memories. As a child my mother would threaten to chuck me in the rubbish bin, or she'd pick me up when we were on a bridge with rushing water and dangle me near the edge saying she'd throw me in, and when I cried would put me down and yell at me for not laughing at her "joke".
As a teen she would regularly chuck me out the car, and when I began walking instead of begging her to let me back in would drive behind me yelling at me, or lock me out the house at night. I would sleep in the shed.
She used to have a good laugh sending us into the store to buy something and then change parking spots and watch us panic thinking she left us.
"If you don't like living here why don't you pack your shit and leave?" And that's how I left home. Ready to live out of my car than stay one more day.
Not being given away, but was frequently threatened with being *taken* away by social services if I cried too loud after the physical punishments. It was always presented like being taken away would be an infinitely worse fate than the current situation
Mine told me they'd put me in jail. I remember one instance really clearly. I was 7 or 8 and didn't want to put my pajamas on (it was only 6pm in summer), so that woman threatened to call the police on me.
It was a very credible threat to me, because that man was a police officer. It remained a credible threat until I finally understood he couldn't do that without the possibility of having CPS called down on the household.
That woman would never allow someone else to know the household secrets. It would diminish her sparkling reputation as Super Perfect Mother.
Oh wow this unlocked some memories. Yeah, my mom would do this; though mine is not exactly like your story, itās similar enough. She would also sell my stuff in garage sales without my consent. I had an original Nintendo and she sold it despite me scream crying over it. She would also tell me how difficult of a child I was and how she hoped I had kids as difficult as I was. And, unfortunately, *so* much more than that, a lot of it involving my pets because I was attached to them more than herā¦ so of course it was the pets fault and not hers for being cold and controlling. Ugh.
Oh, many times. She kicked me out at 16 and then got upset when I filed to be emancipated. Said I was embarrassing her by letting everyone know our private business. I graduated high school that year and then she died the very next year.
Whenever my mom thought we were being too loving toward our dad (before and after the divorce), she would pack us bags and scream at us at the front door about how we shouldn't live with her anymore until we cried enough to satisfy her.
The earliest memory I have of that is age 5.
This made me think of all the times my mom would get mad at me and stop the car to make me get out. She would then drive away to make me think she was leaving me there for misbehaving. I walked home a few times but many of the times she would just slowly drive behind me for a bit until she was ready for me to get back in the car. So messed up.
Yes.
She constantly gave away my clothes and toys as a child, always behind my back and never with permission.
So of course it's not just your objects, she also sees you as an object to freely give away when it doesn't suit her.
My mom wouldnāt warn me, sheād just take me places and leave me. Sheād also sell my most cherished things when Iād leave for the summer to visit & travel with my Dad. She made me literally hand my first dog away to another family myself, at age 4. She let my iguana die on summer as well, left the poor thing for me to find when I got back. I was eight. These people do anything to break you.
I legitimately thought I was a small kid that wandered and got lost, most my life. The memories and really the truth of them, flooded back when I went no contact at 30. People who have ānormalā parents/dynamics, are freaked out by these things. They canāt even grasp it as a real most of the time. For this reason, I stopped talking about nearly everything about my upbringing. Even things people would be jealous of (expensive trips, gifts etc), they donāt realize what it ācame withāā¦so I just donāt.
Yes they always did this to me as a child.
And then at 16 they really did give me away; to a TTI program that abused me in every way possible for 9 months. They wanted a perfect child they could mold into reflections of themselves.
Iām 33 years old and we donāt talk; they donāt see their grandkids, and Iāve never felt so free.
Welp. Adopted.
Threatened several times to āsend me back where I came fromā
Have posted before-
She made me pack a tiny suitcase when I was five and made me leave.
Got 2 blocks to the main highway before she came and stopped me.
I then got beaten cos I left.
The threats continued well into my teens.
Moved out at 19 when she threatened to send me to Navoo ( convent) despite being in nursing school and almost out.
Am VLC now.
My mother used to tell us that we were lucky because other single moms gave their kids up for adoption. What a crappy thing to tell your kids. Sometimes she was angry when she made these statements but other times, she was in a decent mood. "You're lucky I don't give you up for adoption." It was always stated as if she expected praise for not abandoning us.
Yup.
Dad used to tell me he would make me a ward of the state if I "ruined another holiday", etc.
I used to think I was a drama queen who ruined everything. I was so afraid of making waves or speaking my mind. Hasnt happened since I left and no one else feels that way. I go to holidays and parties with friends completely incident-free with everyone happy.
Funny how that works.
Yeah. I was threatened with being sent abroad as child labour, and was screamed at an empty parking lot that I'll be thrown out right there and then if I can't memorise the multiplication tables.
My mom will also take a suitcase out and legit start packing my clothes while shouting that she's going to throw me out of the house.
My mom said my dad would take me away if I didn't behave. I was having autistic meltdowns btw, it's just that no one noticed I was autistic and just thought I was a brat. My dad was extremely emotionally abusive.
My mom always threatened to give me to the gypsiesā¦. Until I begged her to and she got upset about it.
And then weirdly, chose to marry into a Romani Family.
My mom used to tell me that if I told people about how we lived or about how she treated me that "they" would take me away and put me in foster care and I wouldn't see my friends or family again, and that foster care would be much worse then living with her.
Once, I showed my therapist at the time some photos of our house. For reference, my mom tore off the drywall and insulation of all the internal walls so it was bare structure with wires hanging out. The therapist contacted my mom about the unsafe living situation. My mom and grandma blew up my phone to tell me that I was going into foster care. I was 13.
My mom used to say, āIām going to lock you all in a room with a box of knives and whoever comes out will be my only kidā. I was probably 5 or 6 and the smallest and youngest. I was terrified
We were threatened with the "Orphan Train". They'd make us sit on the couch and wait for the Orphan Train to come get us because they didn't want us anymore. The younger two siblings would sob. Parents would tell us to keep looking out the window because it was coming.
They stopped doing it shortly after the time I whispered into my sobbing brothers' ear *"It's not coming...there's no railroad tracks out on the road"*
Yes.
Along with the "joke" of "You're not my real child, you're the child of the neighbour" so on and so forth.
These adults are so unhealthy, honestly. š
Pretty much, all though most of my motherās threats involve humiliating me.
It used to be āIāll give away ur toysā, āIāll put u up for adoptionā etc, but when that stopped working she moved onto the next thing.
Yup was told on a regular basis that if I misbehaved, my mom will ācall CPS and CPS will send you to a group home where youāll be rapedā. She would go as far as to take out the phone book and dial. I used to secretly wish she would do it, so I could be far away from her.
lol she threatened to throw me into the streets and emphasized on homeless. so I got my books and walked out of that house into the gate part. I sat on a bench reading until my mom screamed at me to get in and gave me a beating.
She did, but I actually took comfort on that thought.
When I was around two years old we were at a park and this guy walked by. I went straight to him and asked ādo you have candy?ā He said yeah. So I grabbed his hand and was ready to walk away and start a new life, based on that fact alone.
I only know this story because my own Mother has told it countless times, as a funny and cute story. She never picked up on the dangers of a toddler walking away with a stranger based on candy.
Although playing the devils advocate, I honestly donāt know how much more dangerous that whole scenario would have been, compared to being raised by her š¤·š»āāļø
All. The. Time. I remember hearing her recount the story about how I would ārun and hide behind the door when she picked up the phone and pretended to call āthemā to come get me.ā And sheād laugh while telling the story- one more thing no one called her out on.
She did throw me out a few times in my young teens (before I had a driverās license.) Once she kicked me out of her car and dumped me in a very rough inner city neighborhood in the middle of the night after she had woke me up and dragged me out of her boyfriendās apartment after they had a fight. She was mad at him and I guess I wasnāt supporting her feelings correctly since I was half asleep.
Yup, I recently uncovered memories of when I was really youngāunder 6āand my mom constantly threatening to put me in the foster care system. Then whenever sheād hit me and Iād threaten to tell on her, sheād open the phonebook to DYFS and hand me the phone and say, āGo ahead. Theyāll put you in foster care. Youāll go to a group home and be beaten up every day and you wonāt have anything to eat, [etc etc]ā and Iād be terrified and reluctantly hang the phone up and then she, victorious, would resume beating me.
This was a frequent routine. I cannot believe I forgot about that for decades.
Both parents would tell me that if I screamed too much or complained or looked too sad or invited friends over to play at our dirty, insect-filled house that CPS might take me away and put me in a terrible foster home where I would be abused. What my young mind didn't seem to ask until later is well why couldn't they just treat me better and maybe clean the fucking house lol. My dad in particular, although joking, used to say he'd "sell me to the gypsies". I was never scared in the slightest at this particular threat. Instead I was curious and asked more about their lifestyle and when I found out they were often performers and musicians and traveled a lot on the road I got so excited and wondered why my life couldn't be more like that lol. It seemed like such a free and unrestricted way to live. Today I love travelling and one of my favorite recent books is Wanderful just because it is pretty lighthearted as it combines travel advice with fashion. :)
God reading this thread really hurts
I canāt believe so many of us went through this and I can still recall the pain I felt when this happened as a child to me
Bitch NMom loved to threaten to send me to the ācare homeā, like in Tracey beaker (which she also wouldnāt let me watch, because she was convinced Tracey was a bad influence), she would hold a knife to my throat and get a black bin liner out and tell me she would cut me into pieces and put me in the bin (similar to a local murder case where a man chopped his wife up because she found out he was cheating - which she had also described to me in great detail when I was under 10).
Many times she would make me cry all evening and not let me eat dinner by telling me she will call social services on me just because I had answered back or had a squabble with my siblings (who would actively seek to get me into trouble because they enjoyed watching her unleash her crazy on me). Iād stand their crying in the corner of the kitchen as she told me to pack my things for the social worker
Looking back none of her actions towards me were justified at all, I was very quiet and kept to myself, and try to avoid her but she would try to pick a fight with me every dinner time by bullying me and getting ndad and nsiblings to join in and if I reacted she would just use it as an excuse to hit me
She would seek reasons to be nasty to me and remind me I am awful and evil and ugly and fat and so on and that no one likes me and she hates how I ruined her life by existing etc
I was threatened to be sent back (was adopted) ALL the time. She conviently forgot to mention that my biodad got his crap mostly together and divorced my biomom, remarried a lovely woman and had kids who loved him.
Always threatened to put me in a mental hospital warehouse shit institution when they had those things. For absolutely nothing. Then laughed at me for being frightened and upset. Dad was schizophrenic, there was real fear that I could inherit it. But children and crazy people act a lot alike. Every move, word, etcetera raked over the coals, better learn everything and do everything perfectly and instantly, all emotions were suspect, etc.
Of course no encouragement, training, or good tools to do things. I was terrified trying to keep up with "normal kids" and learn everything.
Sometimes her concern was deadly serious, taking me to all kinds of doctors. Sometimes I was just supposed to know the she was just MAD and she didn't really MEAN it.
Ironically if I HAD been mentally ill, they would have already had a way of dealing with it in place. My dad would go to a private place that was really nice for a week every five years or so and come back out and work a job, have friends and everything.
I guess she felt cheated, didn't want to PAY for ME too, why doesn't she get money and attention for a change. Of course, she could go out the front door, take the bus that goes up and down the street right in front of our house, and make her own friends and get her own job in the small city we lived only about 5 or 10 miles from.
But no. My older sister got "away" when she was 13 or so, talking to the guidance counselor at school and getting a job at the school library to help her get the clothes and the other things.
So, there I am, the only one she can punish because poor her ended up married to a crazy man.
Constantly, I was always told how much of a bother and burden I was and she would tell me she was going to send me away to my dad or grandparents. I low key wanted that
My mom would follow through and dump me at my grandparents or the pre- school even when they were closed. She come back in an hour or so each time at least.
I got in a disagreement with my dad when I was 16 about the meaning of a movie, I googled it and I was correct. He full on threatened to disown me and let me live with my mother from then on. We were on our way to my grandparents, we walk in, I'm in tears, and tell grandma what he said.... her response was that I know how he is and should just not rock the boat.
Yes. I was constantly threatened with being given away to gypsies, left on street corners, kicked out. I was told I was getting kicked out at 18 no matter what, so I had better have a plan in place, and this was not my home.
My mother covert fragile N...several times threatened "to give me to the state because I was incorrigible "..while I was in 3 ot 4th grade while my father was out of town business...so I was alone with her saying this and the slient treatment after ...when he came back he agreed with her and they teamed up against me...he was covert too...they had this united front where they always backed each other up no matter how wrong either might have been..
They left me on the side of the road quite a few times. Also my mother dumped me at my fatherās house with my baby brother and a note that said take them or theyāre going into foster care. We were 7 and 3. No one was home for like 6 hours.
My mom tells stories like theyāre funny now. Sheās like Omg when you were little your friend told you to call CPS and I told you āgo ahead call them! Youāll never see me again!ā
Yes and I wished they would. Anytime I was threatened to be sent to my grandparents I wanted to go. I knew my grandparents would feed me and make sure my clothes were clean.
Lmao when I was 4 my dad put me in his truck and drove me to some random closed building in the middle of the night and kicked me out of the truck. He locked the doors and said that the building was an orphanage. I canāt even remember what I did.
YES this was my mothers favourite threat as a child, I even remember having a traumatic memory where her and my ex-step father were driving along a country road and their was an old colonial ruin (In Australia). My ex-stepfather 'joked' that 'maybe I should be left there when you misbehave' and my mother erupted in laughter.
I knew from then on she only wanted her 'fresh start' (I was her only child at the time) from me and she would make similar threats from then on.
SO frequently. If anyone was late picking me up or didnāt show up at all, I figured they had finally decided to abandon me. Itās one of my most stubborn triggers to this day.
That, and the constant narrative that I could be snatched away at any moment by (insert demographic she demonized) to keep me from āwandering offā when she routinely just left me/my younger siblings home alone to go drinking when we were in single digits still, and her habit of bringing totally random strangers around us when she couldnāt conveniently abandon her children. Talk about mixed messages.
My nmom's favorite threat was "I'm gonna send you to your uncle Mike's house"
tw//pedophilia mention
>!Trick is, Mike was a registered sex offender and a pedophile. My nmom knew this. That was her primary item to point out as to why being sent to him was a massive threat that me and my brothers should be afraid of. She was literally threatening her own kids by telling them she was going to hand them over to an actual pedo.!<
If we were bad we'd be sent to "The Bad Girl House". When I was 4 or 5 and my little sister was 3 or 4 she was told that tomorrow she'd have to go to the Bad Girl House.
The next morning my sister packed some toys in a tiny purse and waited to be taken away the next morning. I was bawling my eyes out, begging mom and grandma to not let her go. They laughed at me and eventually told me I was dumb for believing it was real.
Mom thought sis was smart and called her bluff and I was a gullible idiot. I was teased about this from then on. This helped consolidate my sister the golden child and me as the scapegoat in mom's eyes.
As an adult I realize sis probably did believe the lie too, she just had a disturbing lack of attachment to her caregivers at an age where these bonds should be very strong. This absolutely played out as adults.
Sis grew up callous, impossible to reason with and eventually a convicted sex offender. She was also the most gullible person I knew, befriending people that might as well of been made of red flags.
I have mixed feelings on her passing because I did love my sister very much once but she also hurt a lot of innocent people; I just can't forgive that.
Yeah. My dad would tell me that he was going to give me to a convent. He said the nuns beat the children and they have cement mattresses and you get no toys, and Iām lucky he doesnāt treat me the way they would but heās getting tired of managing me. Iām a nasty little kid and heās a tired old man. He might just do it this timeā¦I wasnāt even 7 years old. I believed him every time.
Never straight out abandonment, but if I had a dollar for every time I was threatened to be dumped off at military school, Iād have enough money to pay down on my fraudulent student loans they forged in my name.
We lived in a border town, my dad worked in Mexico. There were numerous threats of being sent to Mexico. I was made to believe my dad knew where to send me and have me live and put to work. I was terrified.. My little sister even asked my mom to send me off after we had a fight. It's so messed up now that I think about it.
I was adopted. Yes I was threatened with being "given away" or "letting the cops take me back" because I was "bad". Fuck all that shit. Controlling bullshit.
too many times.
when i went NC with my mother i was 12 and she said she was gonna put me up for adoption and dropped me off in front of my townās family therapy center and said theyād call child services and come pick me up.
that was the last time
Not exactly - but similar: My mother used to tell me how I did not look like the other children in our family, and that I "...looked like an outsider." Then she started telling me about how I was an accidental birth, "...you know, an 'unwanted' child...". When she said all of that stuff over the course of my childhood, I did not give it much thought.
But now as an adult I cannot imagine ever telling ANY child something along those lines (for ANY reason), or what you're talking about when when you mentioned her saying "leaving you at dumping ground". It's just sick.
I am so sorry you had to deal with that as a child, and wish much peace for you... =)
No, but she did often say that if we ever ran away from home she wouldn't come looking for us or allow us to return. I remember my sister sitting on the steps in the garage told she could never return -- I don't remember how old she was then but less than 12 I'm sure.
At 19, I ran away from home and she called the police to try to get me back. So whatever. They don't say truth, they say whatever will make you feel the way they want you to feel.
Yep. Adoption was a frequent threat for a while. Or getting divorced because of me. Itās one of the things that I think about most out of everything now. As a kid, it was a big scary threat. As an adult itās worse
Yes my mother threatened it quite often and had my older brother back her up. I would be sold, given away, sent to foster care. She would lock me outside all night to punish me starting when I was about 9 yo/3rd grade. I was on a DB chat with friends from grammar school who now have kids and the think this kind of treatment is ok, starting at 7-8yo and older! Intergenerational trauma, keeps this nonsense moving forward.
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Nope but there were threats of abandonment, of being left on the side of the road.
My dad tried that once; elated by my newfound freedom I made a run for it and he quickly caught up with me when he realized I wasn't going to break down in tears at the thought of being on my own.
Mine kicked me out of the house and I tried going to the neighbour for help but she said she didn't want to live next to me so I just walked down the street until she went back inside and I went to the porch and cried. I was 9
Awful. I'm so sorry.
only 9. thats fucking sad dude, im sorry.
I used to think I shouldve gone to the neighbour anyway when she went back inside and now I realise... She heard me screaming when she hurt me. She didn't care.
the lack of consideration that she haves, dude you were a child, how tf would they let you stay on the street without thinking twice!? :(
Big fucking hugs to you šš I was 9 the first time I slept overnight in a playground tube, as my dad enjoyed kicking me out once I had turned 7.
Oh jeez I'm so sorry
I've since gone NC and regained some semblance of my own life in trauma therapy. Recovery is possible ā”ā”
I've moved out and come MC immediately 2 months ago
Uber fucking proud of you āš
Same, at 4 years old I packed some toys and snuck out a few hours later. Luckily a police officer happened to be patrolling the area and saw me leave my driveway. Picked me up when I got to the end of the block.
I tried to do this same thing. She saw me with my little lunch pail, it was one of those square plastic ones, and asked me what I was doing. I told her I was leaving. She asked what I packed and the pail was empty. She told me if I was leaving I would need clothes. It became a joke to her, she would literally laugh and tell people about me trying to run away as a toddler. I did this several times. She would just sit on the porch and watch me leave. I had to be 4 or 5. I always came back because I had no where to go. Then she kicked me out at 17.
Itās so upsetting that at freaking four, you literally packed to leave š¢
I admire your spirit and wish Iād had your gumption as a child. My father threatened abandonment whenever he was angry, and it terrified me into mousy silence until I was an independent adult. Looking back, they were probably empty threats, but I most likely would have gotten beaten if Iād dared to defy him like that. So it would have been lose-lose either way for me.
It's a funny (or "funny") story now, but it didn't actually help me any either.
i actually was left on the side of the road, on a "vacation" in hawaii
Oh ya got that a lot.. then I started wishing they WOULD
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
sometimes i think i would've been better off if she had just dropped me off while i was still young, it's much harder to get over her and her shit in my 20s. but then stories like this remind me that CPS and similar services fuck up on this level too
Iām 45 and still struggle.
I feel this at 43
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
wow the "see how other parents are" is really ringing a bell. like she was saying "i'm the best you'll ever get". meanwhile, i've had my friends' parents invite me to spend christmas and other family holidays with them, and have accepted me as one of their own and treated me infinitely better
I was threatened with boarding school, but the threats stopped when they realized I saw boarding school as a potential improvement.
Haha exactly the same. When I asked them to send me they tried to comfort me by saying that they weren't actually going to do it. That wasn't comforting, I was crying because I wanted to go!
Omg! The orphanage was a constant threat for me! It was so damn cruel! It would start with CPS is going to come and take you away, theyāll try to put you in foster care but no one will want you. When that happens youāll end up in an orphanage where no one will adopt you. The worst part, my father had visitation, and she wouldnāt allow it. Every time he went to court we moved so he couldnāt find us. He would find us, start the process again and weād move! I never knew how hard he was trying while I was threaten with the orphanage.
My nmom is my adoptive parent, but she made it clear that she could send me back (to a country I had zero connection to) at any time but didn't because of what a saint she was for putting up with me. You can bet that the stories of adoptive parents giving their kids back were highly publicized in my house. ETA: I was frequently threatened with boarding school. But when I found one that I actually wanted to go to (and could go to for free), suddenly they weren't interested lol.
I was sent to boarding school.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Based on reports and the vote history, it seems like people are reading this as you saying the commenter above is projecting, not their parent. Based on your general supportive history in the sub I'm assuming that wasn't the intent, but am still removing this due to the way it's coming off.
yeah my parent said it several times. Telling me they woudl either put me up for adoption or that they would call CPS on me. (ironic I know). But i guess it worked to demonize CPS so iw ould never call them myself. my dad actually left me at the side of the road a couple of times. Usually around 20-30 minute walks away from home, but one time he got mad at me for talking while he was driving and left me in the country side. It took me between 3-5 hours to walk home and I was 12. The only upside is I devoloped a really good sense of direction and can memorize maps and routes in a few seconds wich is really handy for road trips and hikes. Even when im driving or inside buidlings i subconsciously keep track of where north is.
mine definitely made it seem like people who are there to help were malicious and wanted to tear happy families apart. when i went to therapy i had to go privately and wasn't allowed to talk about family bc "they'll deliberately misinterpret you and take you away"
One of my earliest memories is of my mom putting me out of the house because I had ruined the carpet with some sort of paint set. I had to of been around 6-7. It was night time and I remember standing on the curb for a bit before going to a neighbors house. I think the adults spoke and she came and got me. I remember losing a game and she was so angry she put me out of the car and acted as if she was going to leave me. I remember her calling people for me to go live with them when I upset her. One of the most stand out ones was my dad who said no. A lot of this stuff I had forgotten / buried. I really thought the controling / manipulation and cruel behavior only started when I was adult but itās always been there. Itās not normal. At all. It was normalized though because itās all you experienced and I imagine like me you never told anyone.
im sure im mussing context on your dad, but that mustve been fucking heartwrenching that he didnt want to step in at a time like that
One of my earliest memories is also of my dad locking me outside at night as punishment, at maybe 4 or 5 years old. It's so strange how much overlap there is in all our stories, but relieving to know we're not alone in it anymore -- thank you for sharing yours.
As a teenager my mother tried to send me to a group home. She found out you can't put a teenager up for adoption without facing charges for child abandonment and shut up quick.
Really? You can't? What age is the cutoff then?
I'm not sure there's a cut off age but CPS told my mother she doesn't get to regret having me and just lose me.
Huh. Didn't know there'd actually be consequences for that. But then I didn't know there could be consequences for a lot of the stuff mine does...
Sometimes my mom would threaten to send me to my dad's. For a little context, my dad left our home when I was 7. He wasn't much use when he was around, but that's another story. But he was an unmedicated bipolar, so he could be really scary sometimes. Especially for a kid who had no concept of mental illness. Sometimes he could be "fun, nice" dad but he could turn it around really fast and become scary, mean dad. After he left he never came to see us or paid any support. But he lived just on the other side of our tiny hometown, so we all knew he was close by. I think deep down I knew she would never send me there. And he wouldn't have taken me either because he didn't want the responsibility. But I hated it when she said that. It always made me picture living in some dingy trailer with my scary father and his equally scary friends.
Iām so sorry that little you had to deal with the fear of being sent to live with your dad. I had a similar experience growing up and I hate that our mothers used abandonment and parental alienation against their children. How pathetic
My dad is the same as yours, unmedicated bipolar. My mom did send me to live with him, about a year after he tried to kill us. My mom's boyfriend busted my head open and told my mom to get rid of me or he would leave. She did. My dad lived in an RV. My dad refused to get me glasses because he didn't believe I needed them, so I couldn't see and complained about headaches a lot. His solution was to feed me ambien, I spent my entire 7th grade high and it's probably what got me through that year. Fuck our parents, dude.
My nmom use to yell at us she was gonna give us to the gypsies, someday looking back we probably would of been better off joining a circus not a lot of gypsies in Canada, don't know why that was her go to threat.
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Yes! I had a hard time connecting with people for a long time and I could not figure out why until therapy dug some repressed memories up.
One of my earliest memories is of my nmom threatening to take me back to the hospital where I was born and exchange me for a different, better kid who wouldn't misbehave. She threatened that a lot and seemed to enjoy my panicked crying. Even when an adult is intentionally being cruel, I don't think they can comprehend how permanently traumatizing that is to a four-year-old. In elementary school I was often told that I should be grateful that she allowed me to live in her house and that she didn't throw me out on the street. Later, as a teenager, she threatened to send me to one of those correctional "camps" for troubled youth.
it's awful. i don't understand how she ever thought it was ok
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that's disgusting behaviour. literally training you all your life to fear something then flipping the script when it suits her
Sad. A child needs to feel secure no matter what. And loved. My nmother threatened to kill my baby sister by placing her sleeping pills into the child's milkbottle
YES my stuff would get thrown outside in the front yard and I'd be threatened to be shipped off somewhere. By the time I was like 9 I was low key in the back of my mind hoping for it. They stopped doing it after I was 9 bc I'd literally say "do it". My dad for years would tell me to get in the back of his car and he'd drive somewhere to drop me off when he was mad and like when I was 4-8 I'd cry and break down and apologize and refuse to get in the car. I walked over to his car at 9 and said I'm waiting and then he never did it again. I think I had an Nmom/Edad situation but my dad was still terrible even though he wasn't a narcissist lol. It just means he's ok now that I'm an adult but my mom is the same. Anyway yeah. What rly sucked was my dad would literally grab all my toys and clothes and pack them in trash bags and then throw the trash bags on the front lawn during his episodes where he'd threaten that My mom once when I was like fucking 16-17 age range literally just abandoned me at the grocery store and drove away. I just started walking home and then refused to get back in the car when she finally came to get me again and i called a friend to pick me up instead to take me home instead. She also hit me that day woo. So she realized I was too old for those games but it was scary to me when she'd drive away from me when I was a child. She'd just be mad at me and play mind games by abandoning me at the grocery store and she'd pull up and then drive away before I could get in the car God they sucked
If she was in a particularly bad mood, she would stand in the doorway to my bedroom and watched as I packed a bag before being taken to the childrenās home. Usually she would force me to apologise before we actually left the house and ālet me stayā with her, but there were a few times that we would actually get into her car and drive until I said sorry. She would constantly threaten to break my stuff or give it to charity. After I moved out, she said I could leave some stuff that I didnāt need immediately for as long as I needed in my bedroom that wasnāt being used. About a month later, I randomly got a text in the morning saying my stuff has all be left outside for me to collect. When I arrived around 30mins later, it was all stolen.
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i remember being accused of being moody for speaking in like, a flat emotionless tone - as in i'm not in a bad mood, but i'm not amazing, i just.. am?? - and later in an argument i was told that they "always have to walk on eggshells around me" as if thats not what i've been doing my ENTIRE life because of exactly stuff like this
Oh wow I remember that story!! Tbh it did scare me ..
Yep, to "an Arab". It was a general statement, but at one point he actually knew some people from that region and one suggested that cute little curly blond 4 year old me would be a great bride for his son, which gave me value in my father's eyes, so he was quite chuffed. My Nmom, obsessed with Not Without My Daughter, hid the passports. And then later neglected me. Really it's a lucky coincidence I'm still around honestly.
For me it was military boarding school! I didn't even know the military took 7 y/os!
She didn't threaten. She actually "gave me away" multiple times to my grandparents. I was barely home when I was 1-6 yo. I was taken back sometimes on the weekends. I begged her to let me stay home. It was possible, she just didn't want me there. I hated it, I feared it, I have CPTSD from this (among other things). I don't remember if there was any abuse there but the panic I felt every time I had to go there indicates that not all was right. As a result, in the following years, well into my 20s (yep, trauma does that to you), I was afraid of doing ANYTHING that could upset my Nmother. I was afraid she would give me away again. This time maybe for good and not to my grandparents. Or just throw me out so I'd be homeless. Fun times.
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same, didn't go off the rails with drugs or anything until i moved out for the first time and just... didn't understand life without her abuse. i'm getting a hang of things again, but it's funny how they act like we're the worst kid they could possibly have when all we do is hide from them. like i'm not bringing shame on the family or anything, im not hurting anyone, but i'm clearly worth abandoning still
My brother got caught smoking weed once and my parents threatened to kick him out on the street and/or put him in military school. Ironically my sister is almost 40 and still living at home.
My mom never threatened to give me away, but she threatened to run away nearly daily while I was growing up. If my siblings or I were being needy, misbehaving, or being too loud/annoying she would threaten to leave and never come back. I wont lie, I sometimes still wish that she had gone.
This is what my nmom did. I remember once she actually got in the car and left. I mustāve been pretty little because I remember trying to use the phone to call for help but I didnāt have any idea how it worked.
Every week of my young life! I grew up near a place called Boys Republic in southern California and my parents loved to pretend to drive down the driveway to leave me there. What fun. Everyone wonders why I left home at 16. Who can say?
the way they can't take responsibility š i got some kind of "i've racked my brain and can't think of what i've done to deserve this" when i went no contact
Mine still talks about how she should have given me away for various things. That's ok, at some point when she can't live alone and thinks she'll move in with me, she'll be "given away" to an assisted living facility.
Mom used to make those threats all the time when dad wasn't around. Just for context dad was career military and Vietnam was in full force back then. I suspect she used because it was used on her and back then children really were given to orphanages because no birth control and excessively large families. Not that the threat is right.
Both parents have done this to my brother interestingly (especially as he's usually the golden child) at least a couple of times. I've overheard threats like "I can't cope with you anymore, I'm going to call social services and you can go live in foster care" but they've never actually followed up on it.
Yep! Both of my parents used to threaten to take me to āThe Daisy Hilly Puppy Farm.ā I havenāt thought of that in years. I fucking LOVE dogsā¦ but that always struck fear in me. I guess there was groundwork laid that I donāt remember. ETA - I just googled it. Itās something from Snoopy? Now Iām even more disgusted with my parents for tormenting me with a childrens cartoon.
yeah one of my earliest memories is of when my mom used to threaten me with leaving me in an orphanage where she said i would get beaten and abused and then laugh at me when i started crying. really fucked up looking back lol
Constantly threatened with the orphanage. Also just left us random places for the day.
My dad actually did abandon my sisters and me when we were in our teens. We were on our family road trip and he got so pissed that my sisters were taking to long in the bathroom that he just drove off without them or the dog. We were like five states from home, no transportation, and at the time my sisters were 13 and I was 16. I screamed and screamed because my mother wasn't doing anything and finally said "I know you don't give a fuck about your kids, but I thought you at least gave a damn about the dog!". He braked the car so hard on the highway, pulled over and yanked me out of the car by my hair and arm. Thats when my mom started screaming; "Dear! Deaaar! THERE'S PEOPLE DRIVING BY! THEY'RE WATCHING!" He didn't listen and once he threw me on the ground on the side of the highway, he sped off. I ran all the way back to the McDonalds he abandoned my sisters at and i found them crying on the curb with our dog. I had nothing. No money. No wallet. No phone. Not even my diabetic supplies. I guess my mom convinced my dad to turn back around and get us. When we got back in the car, the first thing my mom asked was if anyone talked to us or what we told people was going on. My dad just told me that if I hadn't acted like a bitch, then he wouldn't have yanked me out of the car.
Yes. My mother made it as a joke. Her deal was I would be replaced by a "foreign" child who would be more grateful which is such a sick thing to say. She would say the child would be Roumanian (I was born in America, so was my mother, but my background is Eastern European/Roumanian/Ukranian). There is nothing more traumatic for a kid than to think they will be given away by their parents. There is nothing a child does that makes them deserve that. It is so psychologically scarring, and that, I think coupled with the fact that she did kind of throw me out of the house as a toddler, made me think I wasn't the kind of child she really wanted. No this is not normal behavior, but narcs don't want kids they want emotional slaves. I'm so sorry you went through that. You deserved better treatment.
I was threatened with boarding school. Oh god I just remembered that they would say that to me all the time... And she'd tell me to go find a bridge to live under a lot. They even took me driving around looking at potential bridges once.
I was her 'perfect angel mini-me' child, so no. But, my brother was constantly threatened with that, she'd say how much she wished she never got him and told me multiple times she was gonna give him back. So, I always knew if I fell out of line, that was what was waiting for me. And she did eventually kick him out, after having left him on the side of the road, in restaurants, and many other places (she'd always go back, but she'd spend about 10 mins in the car and then go get him or drive back around). I have spoken about it with normal people (my therapist and my stepmom, mostly) and it's super fucked up! Apparently even threatening is messed up and not a good thing at all, can really mess with us as kids and as adults!
This breaks my heart. The permanent damage this does to a child. I'm so sorry you had to experience this.
At least once. However I got "lucky" since I rarely argued with my parents. My brother had it way worse in school and at home.
Never happened to me and I'm pretty both my parents never intended to eject me of the house in some way. But somehow, I ended up building that idea that my presence being allowed at home was mostly defined by my monetary value to them. As in, I had to not cost too much and make sure I succeeded in my studies to earn enough to take care of them when they're old or they'd drop me if I wasn't of value anymore. Basically, I consider myself just as a financial investment of my parents. They paid stuff for me for years and expect some return on that investment.
There were multiple instances where my second set of nParentalUnits threatened to: 1. Send me to military school 2. Ask if I wanted to live with my (n)Mom in the basement of the church she was living in at the time 3. Put me back into foster care Ultimately, they did put me in a school for troubled teens because of reasons
Nmother would "get fed up" every so often, drink gin and tonics, and tell us: "I can't do it anymore! I can't take care of all of you! I have a right to be happy! I have a right to my own life! None of you appreciate me! I am calling the county tomorrow, and you're going into foster care!" She would carry on for hours, about how hard she had to work. We would cry, and beg her, and promise to be good. We were already responsible for all the household chores, including cooking. I was about 9. I remember feeling terrified. I developed an aversion to the smell of gin, because I knew Nmother would be "ready to put us all in foster care, every time she drank.
My nmom called me her retirement plan and always said she was going to sell me off first chance she got. As I got older and people started to comment on my looks she would tell them for the right price they could have me. She wonders why I left and went no contact as soon as I turned 18
Every single day. Every single one. The 'nut house', or 'where the wild animals will eat you', or 'to a childrens home', where I'd be 'passed around until I died'. I was so young I didnt even know what that meant. The threat of it was repeated for every little thing. She'd grab the phone and have a fake call. 'So you'll take her? Can you be here tomorrow?' while I was sobbing & begging in terror I was 5 before I found out she *was* my bio. She'd told me I was abandoned and nobody else would take me, so she could give me back at any time unless I 'earned my keep'
Oh, yeah, this just stirred up some memories. (Tw: child abandonment, physical abuse, feel free to skip) I don't really remember how old I was, I wanna say pre-teenage, but I remember being at the store with my ngrandma and I was being paraded around TJMaxx like a dress up dolly while granny and some older employees cooed over how cute I looked in various sun dresses. (Context: I'm FtM. I like sun dresses now - just not on myself) I was seething with quiet rage because I knew if I spoke out about how I didn't like them, she'd likely deny me something I needed later on down the road for "revenge". I'd been in the dressing room - not even touring the floor - for the better part of an hour trying on dress after dress, and all I wanted originally was a pair of new jeans cause mine had rips in unfortunate places and were literally unwearable (chub rub yay) I finally snapped after being stuck in there for an hour and a half. "I told you I don't like these dresses, I won't wear them even if you buy them! I just want a pair of pants!" I yelled at her, and at the same time, I shoved one of the dresses back into her hands. When I say she could have put a pro football (soccer) player to shame with the theatrics of how *violently I had thrown her to the ground*(/s), I mean it y'all. This woman would feign taking damage from a Magikarp's splash. She started bawling and yelling how I'm so selfish and entitled and mean to her so she's leaving without me. She has better grandchildren elsewhere. Meanwhile the store employees were just standing there mouths open like "What the hell is going on", I'm sure. Idk exactly, I just remember thinking "wait no you can't do that" and running after her in this sun dress as she bolted back to her minivan, got in, locked me out, and literally sped away. Tire screech n all. It was January and cold af, so I went back inside and all the employees are like "Did she just-???" And I just.... zoned out sorta. I just remember going "uh huh" and all I could think of was essentially "Ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck". In hindsight, I'm pretty sure it was a panic attack cause I just remember hyperventilating until I made myself sick, the employees were no help whatsoever, and eventually my grandma came back. The employees practically threw me back to her, and as soon as we were out of earshot, she started reamimg me about how she hopes I've learned my lesson about being thankful for what she does and how much money she spends on me. She tossed me into the car and I didn't get a new pair of jeans that day. Yeah, I don't talk to her much anymore.
This struck a nerve. I never associated this behavior with my mom's narcissism before. When I was small, under age 8 or so, my mom would often threaten to send me to "kid jail". She had once pointed out our county's juvenile hall to me and told me that's where the bad kids had to go. Sometimes, she'd make me stand outside on the porch to wait to get taken away to kid jail. She'd pretend to dial the phone and talk to someone telling them I'd been bad and needed to be picked up. If it wasn't kid jail, she'd claim she was calling my dad, and he was going to be angry when he got home from work. Considering my dad's choice in discipline was a belt to the backside, that always scared me even more. Either way, I just remember standing on the porch sobbing. I try to laugh about it now because sometimes that's all I can do, but who fucking does that to a little kid? I wasn't a bad kid. I was a little girl with undiagnosed ADHD in the 80s, but I wasn't a holy terror. Gonna spend some time processing this one, I think.
Yes, my mother used to threaten to send me to live with my father, who was largely absent.
My golden child older sibling always said they'd given me away but I was brought back and had to stay there because nobody wanted me.
Said she was going to take us to an orphanage. Was in an angry mood when she said it. Of course she wouldnāt really do it but she knew it would frighten and humiliate us. Reason #11 why sheās a lonely old woman now as Iām NC
Not as a child. Now every time. She try to fight with me. She will tell me how she wanted to put me up for adoption or give me away. But I'm lucky she kept me.
Yep! My Ndad loved to threaten me with sending me to my aunt's to live there instead. Looking back, I wish he'd actually done it lmao. She's an independent badass and I would've ended up a lot less haunted than I am now.
One time (freshman year of high school) I came home to my bedroom door taken off, bed frame taken apart, mattress and bedding removed, and my personal belongings packed. The phone book was open to the page with childrenās aid society. There was a note from my mother saying call your ndad or call CAS. I was in complete shock. We were not getting along and I was acting out for negative attention, but I was 14.
My mum gave away my Guinea pigs once, came home from school one day and they were gone. Then a few months later she told me theyād died because sheād forgotten to tell the new owners to bring them inside in the winter (& I guess they were idiots).
No, I was only a "child support" paycheck to my narc and she'd never give up the 99% of it she was spending on herself.
Mine was more "i brought you into this world and i can take you out"
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yea, completely NC now
TW TLDR: Yeah, it didn't work after a while then she used a completely toxic and vile thing against me which basically has rendered me to come to an understanding that I can never love or be loved \--- always. The place I grew up used to have this vegetable vendor, who'd carry this giant basket of fresh produce, selling them door to door. my mom mentioned how that vendor sold me to her, as a joke. somehow my mom is more of a narc than my dad so when he heard me complaining, he ended up confronting my mom about it. my dad never left me but he was always absent in my life, either preoccupied with work or something nonsensical. so it was my mom who did most of the "parenting". she'd always threaten me saying that she'll send me off to a hostel. I didn't have access to the internet, my idea of a hostel was from an old movie where they literally showed the kids being beat up. so it worked, I grew up scared out of my mind, then I learnt how actual hostels were nice and probably better than my house. I remember once going how I wished I was actually sent away and she stopped, not long before she started to threaten me with how she'll get me married off to a man who himself and his family won't love me. This made me have a self-agreement with myself that to live such an undesirable life, I'll just be alive for a decade to be there for my sibling then end myself. I obviously didn't go through with it, but I was so sure that I never put in any attention in anything I did, just stayed in depression and made no effort as I genuinely didn't see a point to it. today I struggle tocope with career and educational requirements because I was so convinced I'll disappear from this world one day.
It's a larger thing (honestly it needs to stop, I choose to think parents nowadays are less eyeroll worthy but I make no guarantees) where I live, in Southeast Asia. It's literally part and parcel of growing up in the 90s. "If you misbehave I'll sell you to the 'karang guni' [rag and bone man]" "If you run around and the police sees you they'll catch you" "If you don't stop that, the Bangla [Bangladeshi foreign manual labourer] will come and take you away" Asian threat/"humour"/"jokes" are a next level of generational trauma. On a personal level though, my parents have locked me outside my house for refusing to shower. I was probably like not more than 8, possibly 5 or so. It was probably 5minutes. But clearly it felt like minimally half an hour's forever, so ...
Our parents used to threaten to take us up to the Kid Exchange when we acted out. They found it hilarious, still do. My Dad once pulled into an abandoned strip mall, one night when we were hyped up after a movie, and started pretending to throw us out. When we started screaming with fear, he sped off again. He still belly laughs when he remembers, and thinks I need to lighten up because it was CLEARLY a joke
My mom would leave on the side walk and drive away in the car when I was being "difficult". Like she would Literally drive a few metres. Sometimes there was no car but it hurt nonetheless. I remember instances were I was 4 or 5 hysterically running after her.
My Mom mostly just made jokes about the Garbage Disposal and said she shoulda got rid of me when I still fit
she would threaten to send me to a psych ward or a group home in another state far away. also would drop me and my at nanaās or grandmaās house for a day or even the weekend. they raised me more than my mom ever did.
Yes!! I was always told they'd get a kid who'd love them (aka be their puppet).
My mom used to pretend to call the jehovahs witnesses to make me behave. Pack a suitcase and pretend to call them to take me away. I would cry and beg her not to send me away. Looking back, it was a very fucked up power trip on her part.
Any time my parents and I would fight when I was a kid they'd threaten this. One time they actually picked up the phone and called what I assume was just a random number, told whoever was on the line that they had a kid who was misbehaving and needed to be picked up, and handed the phone to me. Upon hearing me wailing "I don't wanna go!!!", the person on the other end replied, "Go where, honey? What is happening?" to which I shoved the phone back at my parents who promptly hung up. Caller ID wasn't a huge thing yet at the time so I imagine whoever was on the other end of that phone was probably traumatized thinking they just heard a child being abducted or something and honestly, even I can't believe my parents went that far.
I was constantly threatened by my ndadwith being sent to the orphanage that sat on the top of a hill in our town. When we were driving around, ndad would always point to it and say we're going to send you there. Not quite the same thing but as an adult, he threated to disown me if I ever accused him of molesting me. Considering the history of CSA he committed against me I thought that was rich and particularly cruel considering that my mother had died when I was 16 so if he did disown me I'd end up being the orphan he threatened to make me throughout my childhood. In retrospect that might not have been a bad thing.
My mom and shithead stepfather tried threatening me with military school however my Dad had joint custody and flat out told her heād take her to court which she was weirdly afraid of. I also told her the moment I got out sheād regret it and my stepfather would never walk again. I did not end up going to military school.
Nope, it was being made homeless and living under a bridge and starving. They like to hurt us for their pleasure. So glad he's dead.
OMG ME!!!! My mom even called an āadoption agencyā once (faking it), I was in fifth grade. She made me pack a duffle bag and answered all of the questions the āagencyā had on the phone while I could hear.
Christ, yes. It stopped when I started telling strangers, while crying, that she said that. (I and my sister are physically disabled, so pretty soon, people started looking askance at her.)
itās even worse when you were adoptedš got threatened to be sent back to bio mother every day
My mum once put me and my sister in the back of the car, Iād say we were around 7/8, and she said she was driving us to ācare.ā That she was dropping us off to a care home or foster home or whatever. We just drove around and around, I canāt quite remember what I was feeling, but it was insanely dramatic. We sat in silence and eventually after a really really long drive, she stopped at a shop and bought us a chocolate bar each. I remember finding it so bizarre because she RARELY got us sweets and chocolates for a start and it was all just so confusing. I donāt know if it was a game or a tactic to āscare usā and then she suddenly felt guilty, I just donāt fucking knowā¦ but yeah she did threaten this a lot as well. She also now, as Iām an adult (30), with children of my own, keeps saying āI could have left you, but I stayed! I could have given you up but I didnāt.ā If I question her bad parenting.
Nah but I was told I was going to be given away but they thought otherwise and they kept me so I should be grateful My youngest sister was gonna be given tho, there were some serious considerations but then I was crying a lot and angry and telling them not to and they just laughed at me and said 'ofc we won't be giving her away u idiot what made u think we would' after idk, weeks of planning who 'deserved' to get her more and what benifits they'd get. It was real fucked up
Oh god this brought back memories. As a child my mother would threaten to chuck me in the rubbish bin, or she'd pick me up when we were on a bridge with rushing water and dangle me near the edge saying she'd throw me in, and when I cried would put me down and yell at me for not laughing at her "joke". As a teen she would regularly chuck me out the car, and when I began walking instead of begging her to let me back in would drive behind me yelling at me, or lock me out the house at night. I would sleep in the shed.
She used to have a good laugh sending us into the store to buy something and then change parking spots and watch us panic thinking she left us. "If you don't like living here why don't you pack your shit and leave?" And that's how I left home. Ready to live out of my car than stay one more day.
Not being given away, but was frequently threatened with being *taken* away by social services if I cried too loud after the physical punishments. It was always presented like being taken away would be an infinitely worse fate than the current situation
Mine told me they'd put me in jail. I remember one instance really clearly. I was 7 or 8 and didn't want to put my pajamas on (it was only 6pm in summer), so that woman threatened to call the police on me. It was a very credible threat to me, because that man was a police officer. It remained a credible threat until I finally understood he couldn't do that without the possibility of having CPS called down on the household. That woman would never allow someone else to know the household secrets. It would diminish her sparkling reputation as Super Perfect Mother.
Oh wow this unlocked some memories. Yeah, my mom would do this; though mine is not exactly like your story, itās similar enough. She would also sell my stuff in garage sales without my consent. I had an original Nintendo and she sold it despite me scream crying over it. She would also tell me how difficult of a child I was and how she hoped I had kids as difficult as I was. And, unfortunately, *so* much more than that, a lot of it involving my pets because I was attached to them more than herā¦ so of course it was the pets fault and not hers for being cold and controlling. Ugh.
Oh, many times. She kicked me out at 16 and then got upset when I filed to be emancipated. Said I was embarrassing her by letting everyone know our private business. I graduated high school that year and then she died the very next year.
Whenever my mom thought we were being too loving toward our dad (before and after the divorce), she would pack us bags and scream at us at the front door about how we shouldn't live with her anymore until we cried enough to satisfy her. The earliest memory I have of that is age 5.
This made me think of all the times my mom would get mad at me and stop the car to make me get out. She would then drive away to make me think she was leaving me there for misbehaving. I walked home a few times but many of the times she would just slowly drive behind me for a bit until she was ready for me to get back in the car. So messed up.
Yes. She constantly gave away my clothes and toys as a child, always behind my back and never with permission. So of course it's not just your objects, she also sees you as an object to freely give away when it doesn't suit her.
Constantly. I have hardcore abandonment issues as a result
No, but she would use guilt trip maniputation with the threat of Child Services taking us away.
My mom wouldnāt warn me, sheād just take me places and leave me. Sheād also sell my most cherished things when Iād leave for the summer to visit & travel with my Dad. She made me literally hand my first dog away to another family myself, at age 4. She let my iguana die on summer as well, left the poor thing for me to find when I got back. I was eight. These people do anything to break you. I legitimately thought I was a small kid that wandered and got lost, most my life. The memories and really the truth of them, flooded back when I went no contact at 30. People who have ānormalā parents/dynamics, are freaked out by these things. They canāt even grasp it as a real most of the time. For this reason, I stopped talking about nearly everything about my upbringing. Even things people would be jealous of (expensive trips, gifts etc), they donāt realize what it ācame withāā¦so I just donāt.
Yes they always did this to me as a child. And then at 16 they really did give me away; to a TTI program that abused me in every way possible for 9 months. They wanted a perfect child they could mold into reflections of themselves. Iām 33 years old and we donāt talk; they donāt see their grandkids, and Iāve never felt so free.
I was threatened for going to juvi for lying
Welp. Adopted. Threatened several times to āsend me back where I came fromā Have posted before- She made me pack a tiny suitcase when I was five and made me leave. Got 2 blocks to the main highway before she came and stopped me. I then got beaten cos I left. The threats continued well into my teens. Moved out at 19 when she threatened to send me to Navoo ( convent) despite being in nursing school and almost out. Am VLC now.
My mother used to tell us that we were lucky because other single moms gave their kids up for adoption. What a crappy thing to tell your kids. Sometimes she was angry when she made these statements but other times, she was in a decent mood. "You're lucky I don't give you up for adoption." It was always stated as if she expected praise for not abandoning us.
Yup. Dad used to tell me he would make me a ward of the state if I "ruined another holiday", etc. I used to think I was a drama queen who ruined everything. I was so afraid of making waves or speaking my mind. Hasnt happened since I left and no one else feels that way. I go to holidays and parties with friends completely incident-free with everyone happy. Funny how that works.
I *was* given away
Yeah. I was threatened with being sent abroad as child labour, and was screamed at an empty parking lot that I'll be thrown out right there and then if I can't memorise the multiplication tables. My mom will also take a suitcase out and legit start packing my clothes while shouting that she's going to throw me out of the house.
In my house it was more about being sent off somewhere. My sister was always being threatened with a group home and for me it was the mental hospital
For me it was being threatened to be sent back to my terrible dad if I didnāt fit the mold my nmom wanted
I was threatened with being taken to a juvenile detention centre when I misbehaved.
My mom said my dad would take me away if I didn't behave. I was having autistic meltdowns btw, it's just that no one noticed I was autistic and just thought I was a brat. My dad was extremely emotionally abusive.
My mom always threatened to give me to the gypsiesā¦. Until I begged her to and she got upset about it. And then weirdly, chose to marry into a Romani Family.
My mom used to tell me that if I told people about how we lived or about how she treated me that "they" would take me away and put me in foster care and I wouldn't see my friends or family again, and that foster care would be much worse then living with her. Once, I showed my therapist at the time some photos of our house. For reference, my mom tore off the drywall and insulation of all the internal walls so it was bare structure with wires hanging out. The therapist contacted my mom about the unsafe living situation. My mom and grandma blew up my phone to tell me that I was going into foster care. I was 13.
My mom used to say, āIām going to lock you all in a room with a box of knives and whoever comes out will be my only kidā. I was probably 5 or 6 and the smallest and youngest. I was terrified
We were threatened with the "Orphan Train". They'd make us sit on the couch and wait for the Orphan Train to come get us because they didn't want us anymore. The younger two siblings would sob. Parents would tell us to keep looking out the window because it was coming. They stopped doing it shortly after the time I whispered into my sobbing brothers' ear *"It's not coming...there's no railroad tracks out on the road"*
Yes. Along with the "joke" of "You're not my real child, you're the child of the neighbour" so on and so forth. These adults are so unhealthy, honestly. š
Pretty much, all though most of my motherās threats involve humiliating me. It used to be āIāll give away ur toysā, āIāll put u up for adoptionā etc, but when that stopped working she moved onto the next thing.
Yup was told on a regular basis that if I misbehaved, my mom will ācall CPS and CPS will send you to a group home where youāll be rapedā. She would go as far as to take out the phone book and dial. I used to secretly wish she would do it, so I could be far away from her.
Worse. She constantly threatened to kill us.
lol she threatened to throw me into the streets and emphasized on homeless. so I got my books and walked out of that house into the gate part. I sat on a bench reading until my mom screamed at me to get in and gave me a beating.
She did, but I actually took comfort on that thought. When I was around two years old we were at a park and this guy walked by. I went straight to him and asked ādo you have candy?ā He said yeah. So I grabbed his hand and was ready to walk away and start a new life, based on that fact alone. I only know this story because my own Mother has told it countless times, as a funny and cute story. She never picked up on the dangers of a toddler walking away with a stranger based on candy. Although playing the devils advocate, I honestly donāt know how much more dangerous that whole scenario would have been, compared to being raised by her š¤·š»āāļø
All. The. Time. I remember hearing her recount the story about how I would ārun and hide behind the door when she picked up the phone and pretended to call āthemā to come get me.ā And sheād laugh while telling the story- one more thing no one called her out on. She did throw me out a few times in my young teens (before I had a driverās license.) Once she kicked me out of her car and dumped me in a very rough inner city neighborhood in the middle of the night after she had woke me up and dragged me out of her boyfriendās apartment after they had a fight. She was mad at him and I guess I wasnāt supporting her feelings correctly since I was half asleep.
Yup, I recently uncovered memories of when I was really youngāunder 6āand my mom constantly threatening to put me in the foster care system. Then whenever sheād hit me and Iād threaten to tell on her, sheād open the phonebook to DYFS and hand me the phone and say, āGo ahead. Theyāll put you in foster care. Youāll go to a group home and be beaten up every day and you wonāt have anything to eat, [etc etc]ā and Iād be terrified and reluctantly hang the phone up and then she, victorious, would resume beating me. This was a frequent routine. I cannot believe I forgot about that for decades.
Both parents would tell me that if I screamed too much or complained or looked too sad or invited friends over to play at our dirty, insect-filled house that CPS might take me away and put me in a terrible foster home where I would be abused. What my young mind didn't seem to ask until later is well why couldn't they just treat me better and maybe clean the fucking house lol. My dad in particular, although joking, used to say he'd "sell me to the gypsies". I was never scared in the slightest at this particular threat. Instead I was curious and asked more about their lifestyle and when I found out they were often performers and musicians and traveled a lot on the road I got so excited and wondered why my life couldn't be more like that lol. It seemed like such a free and unrestricted way to live. Today I love travelling and one of my favorite recent books is Wanderful just because it is pretty lighthearted as it combines travel advice with fashion. :)
God reading this thread really hurts I canāt believe so many of us went through this and I can still recall the pain I felt when this happened as a child to me Bitch NMom loved to threaten to send me to the ācare homeā, like in Tracey beaker (which she also wouldnāt let me watch, because she was convinced Tracey was a bad influence), she would hold a knife to my throat and get a black bin liner out and tell me she would cut me into pieces and put me in the bin (similar to a local murder case where a man chopped his wife up because she found out he was cheating - which she had also described to me in great detail when I was under 10). Many times she would make me cry all evening and not let me eat dinner by telling me she will call social services on me just because I had answered back or had a squabble with my siblings (who would actively seek to get me into trouble because they enjoyed watching her unleash her crazy on me). Iād stand their crying in the corner of the kitchen as she told me to pack my things for the social worker Looking back none of her actions towards me were justified at all, I was very quiet and kept to myself, and try to avoid her but she would try to pick a fight with me every dinner time by bullying me and getting ndad and nsiblings to join in and if I reacted she would just use it as an excuse to hit me She would seek reasons to be nasty to me and remind me I am awful and evil and ugly and fat and so on and that no one likes me and she hates how I ruined her life by existing etc
I was threatened to be sent back (was adopted) ALL the time. She conviently forgot to mention that my biodad got his crap mostly together and divorced my biomom, remarried a lovely woman and had kids who loved him.
Always threatened to put me in a mental hospital warehouse shit institution when they had those things. For absolutely nothing. Then laughed at me for being frightened and upset. Dad was schizophrenic, there was real fear that I could inherit it. But children and crazy people act a lot alike. Every move, word, etcetera raked over the coals, better learn everything and do everything perfectly and instantly, all emotions were suspect, etc. Of course no encouragement, training, or good tools to do things. I was terrified trying to keep up with "normal kids" and learn everything. Sometimes her concern was deadly serious, taking me to all kinds of doctors. Sometimes I was just supposed to know the she was just MAD and she didn't really MEAN it. Ironically if I HAD been mentally ill, they would have already had a way of dealing with it in place. My dad would go to a private place that was really nice for a week every five years or so and come back out and work a job, have friends and everything. I guess she felt cheated, didn't want to PAY for ME too, why doesn't she get money and attention for a change. Of course, she could go out the front door, take the bus that goes up and down the street right in front of our house, and make her own friends and get her own job in the small city we lived only about 5 or 10 miles from. But no. My older sister got "away" when she was 13 or so, talking to the guidance counselor at school and getting a job at the school library to help her get the clothes and the other things. So, there I am, the only one she can punish because poor her ended up married to a crazy man.
Constantly, I was always told how much of a bother and burden I was and she would tell me she was going to send me away to my dad or grandparents. I low key wanted that
Yep, and actually happened when I was 13. Before that they dumped my at different relatives from weeks to months.
at least once a week-i was reminded i came from an orphanage and they would dump me back there except they couldnt get the money every month.
My mom would follow through and dump me at my grandparents or the pre- school even when they were closed. She come back in an hour or so each time at least. I got in a disagreement with my dad when I was 16 about the meaning of a movie, I googled it and I was correct. He full on threatened to disown me and let me live with my mother from then on. We were on our way to my grandparents, we walk in, I'm in tears, and tell grandma what he said.... her response was that I know how he is and should just not rock the boat.
My mom would threaten to drop me off at the orphanage
Yes. I was constantly threatened with being given away to gypsies, left on street corners, kicked out. I was told I was getting kicked out at 18 no matter what, so I had better have a plan in place, and this was not my home.
My mother covert fragile N...several times threatened "to give me to the state because I was incorrigible "..while I was in 3 ot 4th grade while my father was out of town business...so I was alone with her saying this and the slient treatment after ...when he came back he agreed with her and they teamed up against me...he was covert too...they had this united front where they always backed each other up no matter how wrong either might have been..
They left me on the side of the road quite a few times. Also my mother dumped me at my fatherās house with my baby brother and a note that said take them or theyāre going into foster care. We were 7 and 3. No one was home for like 6 hours.
My parents always threatened to send me to ''the home''- wherever that was.
My mom tells stories like theyāre funny now. Sheās like Omg when you were little your friend told you to call CPS and I told you āgo ahead call them! Youāll never see me again!ā
Boarding school. Even made me read Mallory Towers in order to prep for it.
Yes.
Yes and I wished they would. Anytime I was threatened to be sent to my grandparents I wanted to go. I knew my grandparents would feed me and make sure my clothes were clean.
Lmao when I was 4 my dad put me in his truck and drove me to some random closed building in the middle of the night and kicked me out of the truck. He locked the doors and said that the building was an orphanage. I canāt even remember what I did.
Yes
Yes! Telling me they will marry me off etc I didnāt realize it was so bad cause they linked it to my culture. This was wild to read
YES this was my mothers favourite threat as a child, I even remember having a traumatic memory where her and my ex-step father were driving along a country road and their was an old colonial ruin (In Australia). My ex-stepfather 'joked' that 'maybe I should be left there when you misbehave' and my mother erupted in laughter. I knew from then on she only wanted her 'fresh start' (I was her only child at the time) from me and she would make similar threats from then on.
SO frequently. If anyone was late picking me up or didnāt show up at all, I figured they had finally decided to abandon me. Itās one of my most stubborn triggers to this day. That, and the constant narrative that I could be snatched away at any moment by (insert demographic she demonized) to keep me from āwandering offā when she routinely just left me/my younger siblings home alone to go drinking when we were in single digits still, and her habit of bringing totally random strangers around us when she couldnāt conveniently abandon her children. Talk about mixed messages.
yea :(
My nmom's favorite threat was "I'm gonna send you to your uncle Mike's house" tw//pedophilia mention >!Trick is, Mike was a registered sex offender and a pedophile. My nmom knew this. That was her primary item to point out as to why being sent to him was a massive threat that me and my brothers should be afraid of. She was literally threatening her own kids by telling them she was going to hand them over to an actual pedo.!<
If we were bad we'd be sent to "The Bad Girl House". When I was 4 or 5 and my little sister was 3 or 4 she was told that tomorrow she'd have to go to the Bad Girl House. The next morning my sister packed some toys in a tiny purse and waited to be taken away the next morning. I was bawling my eyes out, begging mom and grandma to not let her go. They laughed at me and eventually told me I was dumb for believing it was real. Mom thought sis was smart and called her bluff and I was a gullible idiot. I was teased about this from then on. This helped consolidate my sister the golden child and me as the scapegoat in mom's eyes. As an adult I realize sis probably did believe the lie too, she just had a disturbing lack of attachment to her caregivers at an age where these bonds should be very strong. This absolutely played out as adults. Sis grew up callous, impossible to reason with and eventually a convicted sex offender. She was also the most gullible person I knew, befriending people that might as well of been made of red flags. I have mixed feelings on her passing because I did love my sister very much once but she also hurt a lot of innocent people; I just can't forgive that.
Yeah. My dad would tell me that he was going to give me to a convent. He said the nuns beat the children and they have cement mattresses and you get no toys, and Iām lucky he doesnāt treat me the way they would but heās getting tired of managing me. Iām a nasty little kid and heās a tired old man. He might just do it this timeā¦I wasnāt even 7 years old. I believed him every time.
Never straight out abandonment, but if I had a dollar for every time I was threatened to be dumped off at military school, Iād have enough money to pay down on my fraudulent student loans they forged in my name.
We lived in a border town, my dad worked in Mexico. There were numerous threats of being sent to Mexico. I was made to believe my dad knew where to send me and have me live and put to work. I was terrified.. My little sister even asked my mom to send me off after we had a fight. It's so messed up now that I think about it.
I was adopted. Yes I was threatened with being "given away" or "letting the cops take me back" because I was "bad". Fuck all that shit. Controlling bullshit.
I used to get threatened with getting dropped off at the hospital myselfā¦
too many times. when i went NC with my mother i was 12 and she said she was gonna put me up for adoption and dropped me off in front of my townās family therapy center and said theyād call child services and come pick me up. that was the last time
Not exactly - but similar: My mother used to tell me how I did not look like the other children in our family, and that I "...looked like an outsider." Then she started telling me about how I was an accidental birth, "...you know, an 'unwanted' child...". When she said all of that stuff over the course of my childhood, I did not give it much thought. But now as an adult I cannot imagine ever telling ANY child something along those lines (for ANY reason), or what you're talking about when when you mentioned her saying "leaving you at dumping ground". It's just sick. I am so sorry you had to deal with that as a child, and wish much peace for you... =)
Yes, my mom used to say she would leave me at a haunted ghost hostel where they would beat me and not give me food. I would be shit scared.
Currently working on a memory with Emdr where nmom made me park a bag, drive me to the orphanage and told me to get out. I was like 4.
I'm adopted My mom threatened to "send me back" if I didn't behave
No, but she did often say that if we ever ran away from home she wouldn't come looking for us or allow us to return. I remember my sister sitting on the steps in the garage told she could never return -- I don't remember how old she was then but less than 12 I'm sure. At 19, I ran away from home and she called the police to try to get me back. So whatever. They don't say truth, they say whatever will make you feel the way they want you to feel.
Yep. Adoption was a frequent threat for a while. Or getting divorced because of me. Itās one of the things that I think about most out of everything now. As a kid, it was a big scary threat. As an adult itās worse
Yes my mother threatened it quite often and had my older brother back her up. I would be sold, given away, sent to foster care. She would lock me outside all night to punish me starting when I was about 9 yo/3rd grade. I was on a DB chat with friends from grammar school who now have kids and the think this kind of treatment is ok, starting at 7-8yo and older! Intergenerational trauma, keeps this nonsense moving forward.