How awful were your parents?

Jesus Christ how horrible!

My dad threw me against the wall once - I was 11.

Also threw me on the ground and started choking me - I was around the same age.

And none of us really treated him like he was abusive.

But he was.

Robby Benson always said my parents were the best!

My parents? My parents looked up to Joan Crawford and Ryan O'Neal as role models.

They should have aimed higher.

My mom showed up to my elementary school parent-teacher conference high as a kite and drunk. The principal escorted her out of the building. That was the only time she ever came to any school event.

My dad beat me while I was taking a bath one time, because my mom told him I had 'sassed her' earlier in the day.

They made me what I am!

My mom broke a 2x2 piece of wood on my back when I rode my tricycle into the alley next to our house. I was like three? The neighborhood busybody old woman called the sheriff instead of the village police because she knew the police would not do anything. The sheriff's office called the police. A town police officer came and told Mom to discipline me inside the house.

One day that was really fun --our family was all together and playing games (croquet, lawn darts) and preparing for a cookout -- until my dad threw a lawn dart overhand at me, as if it was a dart you throw at a dartboard. It hit my thigh and penetrated over an inch deep. I was ten. My mom's sister-in-law (brother's wife) screamed, snatched me up, and drove me to the hospital. Neither of my parents came to the hospital, where the wound was cleaned, the doctor sewed in eight stitches, and sent me off with my aunt. When we got back home, my mom yelled at me for getting blood all over my aunt's car and a bath towel she grabbed to hold on my leg.

Neither of my parents drank. It was just who they were.

Oh, did I mention ‘The Belt’?

As in “Don’t make me get…The Belt”

Shit. It’s surprisingly easy how this stuff gets tucked into the corners of your mind.

He also called me, wuss and pansy and failure.

Think I’ll duck out of this thread.

Wow, horrible, R8. I wouldn't blame you at all if you excommunicated them from your life.

This is what people don't understand. Sometimes, parents and family members used up their goodwill a long, long time ago.

We have these threads about an OP not wanting to go "home" for X holiday. Poster chime in: it's only ___ (time) out of your life.

I wouldn't want to spend one more minute with somebody who tried to kill me.

PosterS chime in

R10 My sophomore year of high school, in the dead of winter, my mom and sister moved out while my brother and I were supposed to be at school. But I was sick that say. She made me stay upstairs in my bedroom. I did until my brother came home from school and checked in on me. We went downstairs to find almost all the furniture gone and a huge mess everywhere. Our dad came home a while later and just started crying.

I went abroad for the next two years as an exchange student. Then I came home, applied to college, went, and never looked back. Now that they're in their 80's, both of them complain that none of their (three) children have close relationships with them. Both remarried other suckers. I tried to rebuild relationships with each of them, but that had to start at the foundation level. They both carry so much hatred for each other, do not acknowledge their mistakes, and this undermines any attempts at reconciliation.

My father used to get a kick out of abandoning my brother and I after we’d been having a good time at a nice remote park or beach or hiking area. As we would walk back to the car he would run ahead of us and jump in the car and speed off.

I’ll never forget trying to figure out what to do in that situation as a little child w a younger sibling. After the first few times I got used to it but initially it was terrifying for a 7 year old ( my brother was 4). He was always laughing his head off at us when he finally drove back. People who like to bully small children are sick and deserve punishment.

R8 / R12 , I'm surprised you even wanted to build back up relationships.

I have an abusive sister who did most of her abusing when it was just her and me. Nobody would believe my stories. Then, one day, my mom got some of the same treatment (from abusive sis) and finally believed.

I hate it when other family members act like it's not happening. That's even worse than the abuse.

My mother never threatened to kill me but she threatened to killy youngest brother and sister er and herself several times. She once told me she tried to borrow a gun from a guy at the bar to do it but he was afraid he wouldn't get his gun back. Another time she told me she prayed my brothers bus would flip over when he was on his way back home from Oklahoma. She was sorry that the others on the bus would probably also die though.

My stepmother never threatened to kill us but basically reminded my brother and I that she wished we didn't exist because we were such a huge burden. She never said it directly to us but instead making sure we would overhear her lamenting to her sister on the phone about us awful selfish bastards.

"abandoning my brother and I ..."

R13 Let's don't. You would say "...abandoning my brother and ME" in this instance.

My parents made me walk or ride my bike to the country club. Did you ever see a kid riding his bike with a set of golf clubs? Monstrous parents.

Everything was dignified and clean, the bills were paid and there was food in the fridge. We got the stuff we needed. But they just weren't... there. They were like caretakers.

I don't think they wanted to be parents.

They were a little shitty in their own ways, but nothing like the people I’m reading about here. I just want to give everyone here a big hug and tell you how strong you are. Gawd.

I guess I'm lucky. My dad is a calm, quiet, easy-going man who didn't like to yell or spank. He wasn't the type to hug, kiss, and say "I love you", but he was always there. My mom had horrible anxiety and mood swings, and I think she resented the fact that motherhood wasn't fulfilling as she always dreamed it would be. When I was 9, she got a job, and I became a latchkey kid. Not because we needed the money, but because she wanted to get the hell out of the house during the day. But, still I knew she loved me.

My real problems with my mom didn't really begin until I reached my early 20s, and she tried to force me into the role of being her therapist. That lasted years.

I was adopted. My adoptive mom threatened to send me back to the country I was adopted from. She also physically and emotionally abused me.

I’m almost sorry I opened this thread. I know others’ parents were worse, but Dad was pretty brutal - the belt, the wooden spoon, his open hand ...plus the name calling - and Mom did zero to intervene. I’m ancient now and I’ve managed surprisingly well. But that early pain never totally leaves your consciousness. Love to all of us...

Um....

What a story! Everything but the bloodhounds snappin’ at your rear end.

And that "everything" includes humble-bragging, prayers, a pretense about being interested in others to afford a chance to regale the carefully constructed tale, and so on.

Snap. Snap snap snap.

I'm R21. What saddens me is I have justified her abuse. I know she loved me, but there was a dark side that affected my life. This abuse has affected my relationships.

This thread reminded me of something i was thinking about last night. Like why don't we see no holds barred tell alls from celebrity children anymore.

Mine were quite messy. They didn't technically abuse me, but they didn't create a happy environment to live in. When I was about 7 or 8, my father had an affair with a woman from work and ended up moving out to be with her. Needless to say I was devastated, but he showed up shortly after begging my mom to let him come back, and she did. She never forgave him, though. As she ended up having a revenge affair 3 or 4 years later, but hers ended because the "other man" died in an accident. She had sort of a breakdown after that and went away for a short break. It was somewhere around this time she got busted for welfare fraud and very nearly went to prison. And she would have gone if an elderly friend of the family didn't take pity on 3 kids about to have their mother taken away and offered to help her pay the money back.

On top of all that, they always got in nasty arguments with my older brother which usually ended with him punching holes in the wall or my father saying "let's take this outside." My brother and parents constantly screaming in each other's faces always had me upset. I definitely didn't have the most peaceful childhood though I suppose it could've been a lot worse.

Wow what a list of shitty parents.

I remember my Mom beating me in the face with a hairbrush. I don’t remember what for. She frequently slapped me and always made sure to let me know what a burden I was. To her surprise I left home when I was 18 and never looked back. Before her death I hadn’t spoken to her in decades.

Not surprisingly, I never had stable relationships or friendships with people. I have been miserable most of my life and feel like I don’t belong.

Get help, R29. Your life doesn’t have to be that way. You can have friends and relationships_ You deserve something nicer than what you got from your mother.

My Mom was/is awesome! My Dad wasn't the nicest to me throughout my childhood to the day I left for college { I worked and paid my way through.} When I received my college acceptance letter I read it to him and my Mom and he said "Anyone could get into there." He demolished me right then and there. I never forgot.

I was molested by my paternal grandfather and when I told my mom at age 11 she blamed me and said - you must of done something to make it happen. I was nine at the time of the abuse. A few months later we had a fight and she said "You were a slut with your grandfather". This is just one of hundreds of vile emotionally abusive statements from her and she beat the fuck out of me too. My dad was wonderful but weak, drank way too much and just could not handle her insanity.

I stopped taking to her at 21, stopped drinking at 38 and now have a wonderful life at 50. Cut them out of your life and get therapy earlier than I did. Soooo much wasted time. So much self loathing.

I think this thread disproves that women are innately maternal too...

My dad who punched me, hated that I was gay, and told me that he wanted me to have a child when I didn't even want one...

Well, he was probably the only loyal and trustworthy person to me my entire life.

He was always available when I needed help, and he was the first to respond.

I can't expect to find anything better than that in anyone else, let alone a future partner...

R6 I am so very sorry all that happened to you. It's just fucking unfair.

I truly hope you've overcome

When I was 14 my mother hit me in the head with a can Campbells Chicken Noodle Soup, and threw a pitcher of iced tea at me. We have never spoke about it.

[quote] How awful were your parents?

Dreadful, just dreadful.

#21 = Mercy Ciccone

What a depressing thread.

My grandparents raised me because my mother left my father and my mother couldn’t afford to care for my older sister and me, I was 8 years younger and a handful.

My grandmother was an old school disciplinarian that used corporal punishment for everything. She would beat me with her preferred tools, the belt her flip flops or open palm.

They later became Jehovahs Witnesses and made my childhood a lonely paranoid hell thinking god was constantly watching me and they never let me have friends or participate in any school or sports activities because that would be associating with worldly people. They made terrible life choices to accommodate religion my grandmother did not work and my grandfather took low paying jobs like a janitor at schools so he could be free evening and weekends to devote to church services and door to door solicitation which included dragging me along against my will. We were poor and they didn’t care, but I remember the deep shame I felt by being made to wear hand me down clothes from older people not other kids my age to church and school. All of the kids made fun of me openly.

I love my grandparents but I resent my upbringing.

My dad would always physically threaten me to Make me tougher. Said I was worthless and embarrassed that I had his name . He would always apologize. Honestly he was a lot worse towards my mother which I think had more of negative impact. They would fight and then he would slap if he felt she needed to be “reminded” that he was in charge.

My parents were terrible. Abandoned one child and endangered another who was repeatedly raped. Of course they can’t talk about it now and “don’t remember” the past.

Terribly verbally and emotionally abusive with some physical. Still scarred

My dad would slam my head into walls, or he would smash my head against my siblings. He also used a belt on us. My mother screamed at us, pulled hair and slapped. One time she stepped on my back and I was momentarily paralyzed. I recall it being quite painful. I was eventually taken to the ER with a story of falling off my horse.

I will say my mother would buy me nice things to atone for the abuse, so it was an odd cycle of fear but anticipation of obtaining something special.

Just pessimistic and hypercritical about everything. So negative. My father took a perverse delight in quashing our dreams. That was what his father did to him. Physical punishments and name-calling resulted in my self esteem being subterranean.

My father would also call my mother racial slurs like black bitch. My mother thinks I had a perfect a childhood because we lived in a nice house, went to private schools, and a lot of toys. When I bring up the abuse she says I need to get over it. She also blames me for it. I was the reason she stayed married to my father and didn’t leave.

Jesus Christ @R43 That’s horrible!

Yes r45. I can totally get that. My mother would constantly threaten to leave my father. I waited for her to. But she never would. She was afraid to be out there on her own. And didn’t want to move back in with my grandparents. My grandmother spoiled me and my brother, but she had a bitchy streak.

Hugs to all of you guys who had abusive parents.

My parents are amazing and I really lucked out. My mother was severely neglected throughout her childhood. She spent time in an orphanage because her parents abandoned her. Luckily my paternal grandmother and my aunts taught her how to be a mom and in many ways I think she overcompensated as a mother to make up for her shitty childhood. In so many cases abuse is a generational trait and I am so happy that she was able to break that chain.

God I hated childhood. So claustrophobic and at the whims and moods of other people.

I also regret reading this one. I know it's all true though. One time my brother and I were playing with stuffed animals. I'm three years older than he is, so I always had it in my mind that I should teach him things and be a good role model (my older sister treated me like an embarrassing burden, and I never wanted to be like that). I guess he pulled a large toy dog by a string around the neck, and I said something stupid like "how would you like it if someone pulled you by the neck." I father (who had been dozing in the next room) ran in and grabbed me by the neck and pushed me down on the bed, screaming at me not to strangle my brother. I didn't want to remember this.

Wow, this thread sounds like the movie “ House of strangers”which centers on a family rife with dysfunctional issues. So many of us comes from this type of family which is so sad..🥲

Wherever we go there we are.

My father has a rage disorder, and he's a malignant narcissist like Trump. I grew up cowered in fear, I was very timid at school and got made fun of. My only 2 friends had to call the cops on my dad and after that, I had no friends. Weekends and holidays consisted of doing work, all crazy stuff that he would make up on the fly, like trying to plant new trees from acorns and then soaking them in weed killer and miracle grow. Spraying all that shit around all the time had to have fucked me up, my mom got lung cancer even though she never smoked.

My father also has rage issues. When I was young, he told me all fags should be rounded up and shot. He kicked pets and my youngest brother when enraged. Even now he will say he is against gay marriage despite having a gay son. In restaurants he is still rude to waiters. He only is tolerable now because he is old and dependent. My parents also have no friends. That generation (teenagers in 1950’s) was a mess with parenting.

Hello Phillywhore here! Thanks, DL, for the wonderful post about parents& childhood. To R9...I hear you; I'm 60 yrs old and I'm still remembering shit about my non-DNA dad. Your post made me remember the "belt Buckle"& a tub full of red water after my bath. I haven't thought of that in 40 yrs. That belt disappeared in a dumpster fire. I think it's time for a large whiskey& walk the dog Merlin.

LOL. Good one. 0/100000000000000.

R32, Old-fashioned ideas about little kids tempting and seducing grown men have sadly taken a long,long time to be corrected and changed. Adults not taking responsibility for their inappropriate behavior is the #1 reason why it continues.

My mother once blamed me for not washing my hands properly when a friend's visiting dog rubbed himself against me. Thankfully the friend enlightened her that that's what dogs do when in heat.

Dad didn't live in my family home thankfully. No they weren't divorced nor legally separated. Strangest behavior could easily be rationalized.in my household I didn't mourn his death when I was 14. Often wondered if I had a different father or I was just born into the wrong family.

When dad made his yearly visit he always say he'd trade his five daughters for just one son. My mother would add that she made five tries to get a boy. Grandmother joked that when I got a cat as an older teen there was finally a male living in my home. Girls, especially those who weren't married with a son, just weren't valued in my culture and religion. Took me a long while to divorce all of it.

R58 , women really do catch hell. Even today, folks want them to be wombs.

R29 you have to start telling yourself daily that i will not be like my mom, i refuse to be like my mom. You can break the cycle.

People should have to go to parenting school before they ever have children.

Even worse that what has been described here. Specialists in physical, mental, and emotional abuse (the older cousins took on the sexual).

this thread is a perfect example why woman shouldn't be allowed on datalounge...one hair pull and they claim a life time of abuse

"People should have to go to parenting school before they ever have children."

If potential parents had to prove they could provide adequate financial support to the child, as well as successfully completing a parenting course, the birth rate would drop dramatically, perhaps even below replacement levels.

[quote]He wasn't the type to hug, kiss, and say "I love you", but he was always there

That means nothing. If he never said I love you that means he didn't. He was fulfilling a parental obligation, nothing more R20.

R54, I'm sorry you went through that. Your dad sounds like a horrible person, and he should have never had kids. A lot of socially inept people manage to get married, and then they have kids because everyone else is doing it. Or because they want to create people to be a replacement for friends. People who can't leave them when they're assholes.

My Mummy sounds like an angel compared to these stories but she was thoroughly unpleasant to us 3 kids, sarcastic, mocking, insulting, critical. She didn't drink, kept a spotless house and screamed like a banshee if we messed it up or showed any trace of us living there. Then my sister tried to run away but the shock of it (what, you kids are unhappy?) sent her into the first of several psychotic episodes resulting in institutionalization for weeks at a time. Afterwards she would come home and snarl at us for months for making her crazy at the same time insisting she wasn't crazy and we all were gaslighting her. {We were all under 14, my brother was 3. He was guilty too.}

My friend told me once that I was living in an absurdist play. I guess there are worse things?

“this thread is a perfect example why woman shouldn't be allowed on datalounge...one hair pull and they claim a life time of abuse.”

You sound like a dumb fuck.

Curious how old people are here. A lot of this sounds like stuff that happened regularly in 1950s-70s. Parents were horrible. I feel like many of us born before 1980 suffered horrible parents who had kids because it was what people did - and abortion/birth control wasn’t widely available. I’ve become an anti-natalist- don’t think anyone should have kids. But appreciate it’s based on having horrible parents - no physical abuse but parenthood was a misery to them and now they think they are owed life long adoration for having raised us. Parenthood is narcissism and misery - wrapped in societal myths about the value of having kids.

[quote] He wasn't the type to hug, kiss, and say "I love you", but he was always there

[quote] That means nothing. If he never said I love you that means he didn't. He was fulfilling a parental obligation, nothing more [R20].

I'd like to know what "always there" means. If it means financially providing, a good listening ear, returns phone calls right away, then that's valuable.

Some people and cultures don't say "I love you." Apparently, the Swedish / Norwegian people don't. I agree parents in the US should get over it and say "I love you" to their kids. But failure to say "I love you" doesn't obliterate every other good thing the parent did for the child.

R39 I'm so very sorry you went through all that. Bless you.

My mother was an abusive bitch both physically and emotionally. I had enough at age 12. I backed her up against the kitchen counter with my hands around her throat. I told her if she ever touched me again I would kill her. She left me alone after that, at least physically.

By the way, I was born in 1959.

Phillywhore, born in 1961, turn 61 yrs old in June.

Many times here on DL, I wonder why people are so bitchy, quick to anger, and hypercritical. This thread may explain some of that.

I didn't have the easiest childhood, but my God some of this is so dark and sad. May all of you overcome.

[quote] My mother was an abusive bitch both physically and emotionally. I had enough at age 12. I backed her up against the kitchen counter with my hands around her throat. I told her if she ever touched me again I would kill her. She left me alone after that, at least physically.

My friend (a guy) was the oldest of 4 children. His father used to beat his mother (how severely, I don't know). (I've met the mother before and she was a tiny woman, skinny.) Anyway, my friend said that, one day, he did something similar to his father. Told his father that if he ever put his hands on the mother again, friend would kill him. From that day on, father never hit mother again.

It shouldn't have to take a death threat to make people stop, but it does make you think about battered spouse syndrome. Yes, Mary, but come on. There's something to feeling like you have to obliterate the other person in order to have peace.

R69 Fuck off, narcissism troll. There is no such thing.

R75 Stick your head back up Jesus' ass, Mary. Jesus loves you. LOL.

Born in 1965, from Philadelphia. Everyone I know from my generation was disciplined with physical punishment. At least my parents didn’t beat me on the street like some of the neighborhood kids. But I was a screaming queen. So when I got an ass whipping, everyone knew. My father beat us less than my mother, but he was a bit more brutal. He was also a bully. I once made the mistake of talking during one of his favorite commercials. He punched me in the stomach! For talking during a commercial! My mother was furious. But she wasn’t much better. They were such hypocrites. I got my mouth washed out with soap for calling my brother a motherfucker (he was and still is). But my parents used to curse like sailors in front of us. The hypocrisy was a bad as getting beaten, because my values were screwed up. I’m still deprogramming my mindset from all the bullshit my parents taught me. And now my mom is sitting in a nursing home with dementia. She can only remember the pleasant times. I have to forgive her, don’t I? Sometimes she’d slap my face when she was drunk. Or angry with my father or brother. If I made the mistake of asking for anything when she was in one of her moods, my face would get slapped. I’d do passive aggressive stuff like hide her makeup or crush her cartons of cigarettes. Once she asked me if I crushed them and I flat out told her. “Yes I did because you slapped me and I was mad!”. Surprisingly, she walked away. She’d shout at me on the street if I was acting effeminate. “ Stop acting like a faggot.” And the kids would laugh. One night she and my father just laid into me for my effeminate behavior. And I cried and cried because I thought that I was okay. But they verbally abused me one night I didn’t even think that anyone could cry that much. They sent me to bed. Can’t believe how many times they called me a faggot or a sissy. That shit is traumatizing. Especially when it comes from the people responsible for bringing you into the world. It hurts. Badly.

[quote[they called me a faggot or a sissy

Those are such horrible words for a little kid to hear. Not my parents, but my older brother delighted in calling me that.

This thread is so heartbreaking, but in an odd way, a bit cathartic. Thank you all for sharing such deep trauma so openly.

R79 LOL. Hilarious. I haven't had a good laugh in a long time. He gave you da beats.

"Can’t believe how many times they called me a faggot or a sissy. That shit is traumatizing. Especially when it comes from the people responsible for bringing you into the world. It hurts. Badly."

I am very sorry, baby. No child should have to hear that. It wasn't your fault that your parents are shit. You deserved better.

I’m sorry @R79

Someone upthread called it right - the vitriol some of us, including me, is a result of childhood trauma, from our family and from others. Being gay is NOT for sissies, is it?

R81, if I weren't an atheist I'd pray for you. Instead, I think you are fucked up in the head. Someone must've treated you really shitty for you to make fun of my anecdote.

I am very sorry for you all.

My problems of being hit by my dad is nothing compared to what has been described here.

R84 That time of the month, hey. Change your cunt kotex, girl.

My father was a good man but my mother was a monster.

[quote]If it means financially providing, a good listening ear, returns phone calls right away, then that's valuable.

Orphanages do that, R70.

My parents drained their pasta AND cooked their lasagne noodles.

R87, some people say that’s the blueprint for homosexuality.

I had a good childhood until my mother died when I was 10. Then I became invisible, unless I screwed up. The woman my father married three years later boasted -really - boasted about her mental problems. My father took her side for everything.

She was obsessive compulsive about cleaning. If I didn’t do it exactly how she wanted, I was worthless. She would throw my clothes away and hide letters from my grandparents. She even went through my trash. I had to have all my college papers sent to my part time job, so they wouldn’t get tossed out “by accident”. Leaving that house for college was one of the best moments of my life.

She made it hell for my brother as well. He died young and she was boohooing about it. Well, he had mental issues I’m sure she played a part in.

I don’t have much to do with her. She likes to steal money and meds. She and my father are miserable. She recently called my dearly departed grandmother a bitch and my father wouldn’t defend his own mother.

Thank God I was never physically abused. My heart goes out to everyone who was. But psychological abuse is no joke. I’ve got out and I’ve done well but five minutes around that c-word and I’m an angry 16 year old again.

I never understood the kids who had a hard time leaving home for college. It remains the best day of my life 35 years later. I can remember distinctly thinking “I’m free”. Have felt that way ever since. Nothing physical, but the misery of my parents individually and the horror of their marriage made for an unhappy childhood. Glad I escaped and will always appreciate being alone and independent. But I also see how much worse it was for many here - though I do wonder if the clarity of physical abuse makes it easier to make a clean break and see them clearly as evil.

Both my parents were lower middle class “Christian” Republicans with 8th grade educations and a gay son. My parents threatened generically that if we were “queer,’ we would be kicked out of the house. So lots of fear growing up for me. When I got to college, I never looked back. When my dad died years later, mom told me how she used to protect me from dad. I’m like you were supposed to, you were the parent. But she wanted credit.

If you all would please indulge me…..below is a link explaining the ACE quiz, which scores you based on abuse, trauma, neglect. I would bet that many of you are a 6 or higher. If you are willing to take the quiz, it’s just ten questions, I would love to see your scores.

I am a 7, which explains why I enjoy working in my county jail as a volunteer so much, I identify with traumatized people, big time. If you went through great trauma, I want to encourage you to give back through service. Why? Because *you* are uniquely equipped to help others get over their own trauma, you are what I call a “credible messenger”. You have learned how to walk through trauma, and while you may feel unqualified to help others because you are still healing, that isn’t (always) the truth. For so many, your healing will carry on for the rest of your life, so don’t wait to be magically “healed” because that day will never come. But what can happen is that you force yourself to go serve people who are worse off than you, and just through being a good listener to others, you suddenly realize you’ve healed a lot more than you realized, and you have done a lot of work in your journey that is finally starting to stack up.

But when you do service work, be sure it’s with people you will regularly see, so you build real relationships. Maintain strong, healthy boundaries too. You aren’t there to fix anyone, you’re there to just listen, and through that, it will fix YOU. Guaranteed. Of course, I don’t mean “fix” the way it sounds. You are fine just the way you are. But what I mean is that it will “fix” you by allowing you to shift how you see yourself.

To R79, what part of Philly were you from? I was from East Falls in NW section of Philly off Kelly Drive ( near Roxborough-Manayunk). I went to St Bridget's, then Penn Charter (thank God I got a scholarship)

I got hooked on drugs at the age of six. This was because my pothead father thought it was cute to teach his kid how to smoke a joint. I was abusing alcohol by the time I was ten. My mother was well-meaning but entirely in her own world. My father abandoned us and my sister went with him. Hello, life in a slum apartment with bars on the windows. I dove into theater and this helped save me. It did nothing to increase my worth in my parents' eyes. When I dropped out of high school neither made any protest. I remember when I was in my twenties and facing a pretty bleak drug addiction and someone asked him - in my presence - did he think at times that I would die of it. He said, yes, many times - sort of if he was discussing losing his keys. I remember being so unseated by his tone that I actually blew up - not at him but at the person who had asked him the question. So, yeah, not an ideal home environment. Further addiction issues, a screwed up first marriage, jail time and shit that happened in jail that I never want to think about.

But then I sobered up, married again and made Iron Man.

Oh, RDJ, glad you're writing here!

R94 I got a 6.

R95, I was from Nicetown. My house was around the corner from the SEPTA bus barn. Went to high school at Central then to Penn Center Academy in Center City. I wasn’t that far from East Falls - I even shared a zip code. I also lived with my grandparents in Germantown when I got older, up on Ross Street near Washington Lane.

I never knew my father. My mother knew him fairly briefly. My mother was cold-hearted, absinthe-swilling, bohemian nymphomaniac. After I was born she said, "Take it away! And bring me another lover!"

Well, nothing so bad as OP or some other posters, thankfully. Feel for all of you, none of youse deserved that. Nor does any kid. There should be mandatory psych screening and home evaluations for prospective and new parents.

That said, my avoidant and withholding NPD father has called me some awful things before now, like a bitch and a manhating-dyke (which I am, but he said it in a venomous way) and “full of shit”. Sometimes he’s done this in front of others. He also occasionally gives me cold shoulders or laughs at me in public when I say something counter to his beliefs. I’ve been conditioned to just nod or smile vacantly or agree with whatever he says when we have to socialise, because I don’t want to engage more than I have to. He’s a relentlessly negative person, and a deadbeat (former military man, delinquent and possibly a CA victim—not a good resume), so it’s for the best our relationship stays surface and tokenistic. Still, I wish my lovely and caring and sociable mom would leave him or kick him out; I’ve been wishing and hoping and hinting for years (to no avail). She could have a way better life without him dragging her down, and draining her money and energy and freedom. Depressingly for my family, I think the bastard is gonna have to leave or die on his own steam.

Once my sister was born, that was it for me. My mother just didn't like me. I could never BE what she wanted. And I didn't know what that was except to be someone who pleased her. Everyone tells me what a wonderful woman she was and how much she loved me and was proud of me. I didn't feel it. I broke my foot playing football in high school. She was supposed to drive me to school and pick me up. One afternoon she "forgot" and I had to walk home on the cast. She took me back to the ER to get the cast redone and blamed me for wrecking it. Which I guess was sort of accurate. In grammar school at a recital I had a solo. I was so nervous and anxious for her to attend. She didn't come because "your grandmother needed me". Bitch.

dreadful. All but useless.

Thank you r98 for sharing that.

This thread explains so much about all you DL cunts... Sad!

Before their marriage, one of my mother's co-workers said to my father, "You're not really going to marry that bitch, are you?" He should have listened.

My mother was afraid of being an old maid. She was 24 and single. Most of her friends got married right after high school. That’s what women did in the 50s and 60s. Her mother and aunts would tell her that she was too dark skinned and thin to find a husband. It made my mother kind of desperate to find a man.

In reality she was pretty enough to be a model. She even had professional photos taken. But my grandmother bullied her out of that. It left scars. And she took her frustrations out on her children. For the most part, my maternal grandmother was sweet to me and my brother. But she was a real cunt towards my mother. I think that she was jealous. I know she was.

How many tried to be dutiful daughters yet still felt like failures?

r105 r100 Self Raising Flowers, eh?

I’m a millennial and my parents used to beat us, not often but our dad could be really harsh and relentless once he started. To be honest I don’t know why I took it, but I guess you don’t know any different when you’re a kid. I’m the past 25 years it has become frowned upon to slap your kids, and I don’t know any teenagers so I don’t know if it still goes on much.

My father was an emotional abuser until I left home at 16 for college. I have always believed he suffered from some sort of mental issues, just like his late father who was so mean he would throw knives or forks at the children if they spoke out of turn at the dinner table. Thankfully he was killed by being electrocuted after a storm in the mid 40s.

My father would at times show affection to his children (who he treated more as employees than children), but you always knew that not long after that affection was demonstrated he would do something to make you hate him even more. He never wanted you to get too confident that he really did love you. He had the most distaste for me, the youngest one, the gay one. He never once said one word about me being gay and that's because he knew that if he ever crossed an invisible line, more so with me than my older brother and sister, who are just like him, he would pay dearly. My mother, my maternal grandparents, and the lady who raised my mother and all the children in my family would have made him pay dearly, and he was terrified of all of them in that way. He loved my mother with all his heart, but he knew there were limits she would accept and he made sure he never crossed them, so his abuse was much more subtle and he was very careful to make sure no one other than the one he was abusing at the time was witness to it. His abuse was a form of psychological torture. The same form of torture he'd endured by his own father. It's all he knew.

My mother, however, was an angel in earthly form. An angel who didn't suffer fools easily. I've never met a woman in all my 68 years who was anything like my mother.

Narc /borderline momster chased me around the kitchen with a knife in front of my dad and friend. What provoked her? I asked what was in a container of Chinese food....le sigh.

There wasn't a moment when she wasn't screaming at one of us.

[quote] An angel who didn't suffer fools easily.

No offense R111 but it sounds like she was fooled by your dad.

Not at all R113. My mother never had to suffer my father for one second because he was always the perfect gentleman when she or anyone else was around He made sure he never did anything to cause my mother one ounce of grief, and I made sure to never say one word about him to her because I would have cut my own arm off rather than make her sad. I learned to cope very early in life.

The most fucked up families are always the nuclear ones where one or both of the parents are psycho but will never ever EVER divorce.

And I forgot to add. She knew our relationship with him was not all sweetness and light. I'm sure they had plenty of conversations about it. She was never fooled by anyone about anything.

R115 yep. As a society, we need to normalise and make provisions for either single-parent families, or better yet for healthy non-cult communal groups of families. Things need to change.

R111 So your father didn't fool anyone. Your mother knew he was a good dad. I'm happy for you.

Did that childish snark make you feel good? Just can't leave well enough alone can you. I'm happy for you too.

R117 Yes I agree. I believe that the situation has gotten somewhat better since the normalisation of divorce. I've heard the most hair curling horror stories from older people about their experiences growing up in the " ideal" nuclear family. But even nowadays there are people who prefer to hand wring and finger wag about one parent households rather than accept that they will always exist and help create a social safety net.

My story can’t touch any of these in this thread. My parents loved us and liked us as people, they took great care of us and the only physical abuse was spanking, which was considered normal at the time.

But my mother had intense contempt for my father and seemed to hate him, the way you would hate being around an assigned roommate. She would pretend not to hear him when he talked to her. She would make noises of disgust at the way he chewed or sneezed. And he wasn’t cruel to her that way, but seemed to view her as little more than a cute object around the house, with no respect for her intellect, not an equal partner but someone to dismiss. It is crushing emotionally to watch your parents hurt each other every day in this casual, offhand way, and to feel that even if they love you, they hate the life they chose to build together, to feel the burden of being the one to plan birthdays or trips because your parents don’t care about each other or try to spend time together. I’ve never seen my parents even hug each other, or really touch each other. As a child that seemed normal, but the moment I realized other couples weren’t like that, it was like a bomb went off.

That's intense R121. One divorced mom I know said she just couldn't bear to think of her kids growing up watching their parents have no real respect and commonality with each other. But she felt so guilty for traumatizing them with divorce. And the reports do make divorce sound like child abuse. I'm going to tell her about your experience.

Im sad so many people here had bad experiences with your parents. I have the best parents in the world and can't imagine my life without them.

Please do R122. I know it affected my siblings too. We’ve all been broken up with and told we weren’t affectionate enough. It just doesn’t come naturally to us.

R111/r116, you might want to consider you have some denial/idealistic view of your mother going on.

Nothing about your dad is a surprise to her - don’t fool yourself; it’s not fair to you or her. Or your dad, actually.

She picked him and she did so for a reason.

Everyone turns a blind eye now and then, but to do so consistently at the detriment of your children is not okay.

I idealized my parents until my late twenties/early thirties, it served my own manufactured identity to do so.

Then I slowly started chipping away at the facade.

It is to everyone’s benefit to see all concerned as only human.

It took me a while to get angry with my parents, especially mom. It was liberating. I even spoke with her about it. She said that children don’t come with blueprints. It was a cold answer, but I realized that she was incapable of doing better. I only had to look at her relationship with her own mother to understand.

I was adopted at 10 months through Catholic Charities in a location about 50 miles from my parent's home. Whenever I would be disagreeable, get less an A's in 1st and 2nd grade or not do my chores to a certain standard, I would be put in the car, and they would start to drive back to Catholic Charities. While driving they would tell me, "If you can't be good, we'll turn you in and pick out another little boy who knows how to be perfect."

After I would become hysterical and vow to change, they would turn the car around and return home.

It stopped when I was 9 and announced, "Take me back. Maybe I'll get some parents who know how to be parents!"

My parents divorced when I was 8, shortly after my older sister died from a long illness. There had never been a raised voice in our home. My mother's next husband was a controlled alcoholic, until the night three of us were having dinner and I said something that enraged him. I was in the 11th grade, he stood up from the table screaming at me, punched me in the face and as I started to run out of the house he grabbed a fireplace andiron and chased me down the street swinging it. I spent the night at a neighbor's house, went to school with a black eye, and nothing was said until 20 years later, when my mother apologized and said that she should have left him when that happened. I didn't think that he was abusive towards her and he stopped drinking for the last 20 years of his life. I didn't cry when he died and didn't go to his funeral. I had to laugh when my sister told me that he directed others to forbid me from going to his funeral. Fat chance.

R127 Sure, Jan. Not one thing you wrote is true.

Nobody likes you, r129. Not even your family.

R130 Sure, Jan. You're terrible at trolling. Are you five years old? That's how you type, cretin.

R130 I have this troll blocked. Try it. It helps.

Now, now, girls, we’ve all had shitty childhoods let’s try to get along!

And reading the 100% troll postings of the DL makes our lives even better.

R130 I have this creature blocked too.

My parents divorced when I was 3. She was an emotionally immature woman who would fly into rages and shout that she wished she never had children. Otherwise, she didn't acknowledge me at all, particularly after my much older siblings left home. I didn't "get" Ordinary People the first time I saw it because Beth Jarrett was Mrs. Claus compared to my mother.

My dad moved half way around the country after the divorce. He would call every week to talk about himself and ask if I had read the bible. I thought he was nicer when I was young as he never screamed. It wasn't until I was older that I realized what a schmuck he was. He knew what she was like, but he left us to bear the brunt of her anger. When I asked him about it as an adult, he told me Jesus had forgiven him and that was all that mattered.

Needless to say, I don't have much to do with either one- but, of course, those martyrs tell everyone they gave me their all.

This was a tough thread.

I love my parents. They were not perfect, and both of them fucked me up in some way, but I love them, and I understand them. They truly did the best they could.

My father was an alcoholic, and had some serious issues being warm and personable with any of his children unless he was drunk - I actually preferred Drunk Daddy to the sober one, who was as stern as an Amish farmer. But I give him credit for never striking any of us and rarely yelling at us. Especially when I learned his father beat him so badly that he (a) ran into the path of a moving car - not once but twice, and (b) went off to live with his great grandmother in a house with no running water or electricity. In 1950 (!)

I wish I had inherited less of Mom's thin skin, lack of willpower and fearfulness, and more of her kindness and big heart.

So many awful stories in this thread. But, we're all still here to tell them so, in a way, we triumphed. They tried to grind us down but we're still standing.

Oh man that last episode. And the last scene set to “Both Sides Now.” Gutted me.

I’m going to rewatch all three seasons again.

My stepmother threw a canister vacuum cleaner at me.

Do people have normal healthy happy childhoods?

R142, I almost didn’t want to post here, but my parents were pretty great. Dad died when I was young but they only had one big fight in their marriage. It was in front of us kids. Afterward they sat us down and apologized to us.

That gives me hope that the world isn’t so awful @R143 Good parents do exist!

R144, it says a lot that our family is incredibly close after many years. We don’t fight at all… and it’s not because we repress feelings. We actually are very upfront, but we don’t argue at all. It all stems from our upbringing.

I think it’s really ok for you to post whatever you lived through, because you are not being disrespectful at all. You are generously allowing the people with PTSD to just share what they went through without fear of condemnation. When we can actually set aside our preconceived notions of their appearance, their stories, their tone, their strengths, that’s when we can really be in a compassionate posture. Compassion is the hope our country needs because it will be the catalyst for real change.

My father would beat me and my older sister for no reason and leave the middle sister alone...because she looked exactly like his mother who he had a difficult relationship with. His temper was out of control at times but he wasn't all bad. He'd be generous and thoughtful as a way of compensating us for his outbursts. My mother is nuts. Neurotic, paranoid, a bit OCD. She'd guilt the fuck out of us and would be very vocal about my weight and the weight of my older sister....who ate our feelings because we never knew when our father would become the Incredible Hulk. They're also MAGA. I still love them for their good points but fucking hate the terrible shit they did that turned me into the anxious, depressed crazy mess I am!!!!!!

R136, Didn't get Ordinary People either, as I had extremely emotionally abusive parents who always rationalized their rotten behavior and extremely inappropriate rants.

Got dissed due to my previous post only revealing a tiny bit of what went on. Learned years ago to pretend that I came from an OK family as no one wanted to really hear the truth, especially not school counselors. Response to talking about very serious issues was always, "Well my mother insisted on using a separate tea towel to dry each dish." and "All daughters should love their mothers unconditionally."

Used to be a crazy assumption that educated WHITE families who APPEARED to be lower middle class or even working class couldn't possibly be totally dysfunctional and/or mentally ill. Or if they went raged and screamed for hours, well then mom's just going thru "the change."