To be succinct and private… My incubator worked me for weeks to build rapport and trust with me in my younger days, to get me to tell her a something that she would ultimately, and immediately use and weaponize against me and others.
This wasnt the first time I tried to have a relationship with her, but it did finally open my eyes and become the last. In the many many decades since, I’ve not so much as acknowledge her existence when crossing paths.
This feels quite minor compared to most of the stuff here, but something that has stuck with me.
I was on holiday with my parents when I was younger - maybe around 12 or 13. We were on a short boat trip, and I noticed my dad was wearing a baseball cap. In my mind I had this cute scene of me taking the hat off his head and putting it on myself, and all of us laughing. Kinda wholesome. But the second I reach for the hat he whacks me hard around the back of my head. I was more confused than anything - why did he instantly resort to violence? I hated the injustice of it; the image in my mind of doing something fun, something you’d see other families doing, but then the actual result being the complete opposite. I never understood it, but then I’ve never had much in common with my dad.
I think your dad hitting you for no reason is a very valid, very not-minor issue friend.
We’re not in the olympics, We’re not racing for the gold medal in misery. We don’t need to compare and rank what we’ve been through against others to find a winner.
What you went through shattered the image you had of father and family, and is very real and valid.
Thank you for saying so ❤️
Refused to acknowledge cystic fibrosis is actually a real difficult struggle that I needed help and support with
Well, mine both died, so there’s that.
But prior to that they voted for Brexit.
Me - “if you can’t uld go back and change your divorce from Mom, would you change anything?”
Dad - “no”
The man left and I mean LEFT. When I told him about how much that had damaged me, I asked him this. This is merely a crumb of how little a shit he gave about me. Die alone, fuck face.
Metaphorically speaking, but putting the boot down on the neck that is the form of my individuality. They both did a terrible job in preparing me for life. Their idea of readying you for life is going on tireless banters about themselves and maybe a couple lessons dropped in between. There’s just no recovery when parents just do not prepare for you for life, leaving you into a life full of struggle and improvision.
Calling me heretic and deviant in my early teens, Getting enormously angry when I try to challenge their viewpoints (once they said that even if we are wrong, you have to say that we are right, upon which I remained silent and they get angry), Being against other religions and ideologies, mocking them and calling LGBTQ+ a mental illness (luckily, I did not come out to them), Being angry and thinking I am arrogant if I choose not to talk to them and to be in my own space, Forcing me to eat and drink a lot more than I want, Comparing and belittling me yet still saying “We love you”, Not letting me go outside and now they complain why I don’t go outside, Always saying, “We did not even beat you or did anything physical. We give you so much comfort but you disappointed us, you pimp, dog, bastard”, Saying I am not masculine just cuz I am extremely careful not to neglect my sunscreen, I get sick here and now and so I trust medicine over the pseudoscientific remedies, and many other things which made me lost trust in them and entire humanity and even myself sometimes. I will not forgive them.
I adopted a baby from a different race and my father only talks about the white one, refused to meet the other kid.
father in law posted KKK shit on his Facebook page.
we’ll just prune those two branches now…
I’m sorry and good riddance to them.
Called my partner a gold digging whore (hilarious, considering she was earning 3x as much as I was at the time) and outright said I should marry the woman (daughter of a family friend) that they liked for me and keep my partner around as a side piece because “a real man knows how to make everyone happy”.
I don’t speak to them any more.
“The girl you like is a whore, you’d be much better marrying this girl instead, and fucking other women, you know, like a whore, but a good one”
What stellar logic they have.
Remembering all the times growing up when teachers suggested I get tested for ADHD and my mom would refuse because she “wanted me to be me, not a zombie” but was wildly disastrous for my future. Now she claims she has it too.
Then she voted for trump 3X.
My mom told me that she heard my soon-to-be-wife say some really horrible things about her and my kids behind my back.
Whatever she thought that would accomplish didn’t work, because I had already told my wife to start recording her interactions with my mom. (Clearly not my first rodeo)
Mom wasn’t real happy when I told her I’d listen to the audio.
God that would fuck me upppp, I’m so sorry your mom is such a mess. :(
That is utterly evil (ok the everyday sense). Glad you were prepped for that, but I’m very sorry that you’ve had life experiences that taught you it was necessary.
I still don’t know what Mom’s problem was with her, not that I even care. Before that point, they would each text me “You won’t believe what she said to me!”. I was stick on the middle trying to figure out what really happened, but something my mom said didn’t match with a major detail that she didn’t know about my wife’s past, so I had a feeling she was the one causing the shenanigans. That’s when I suggested the recordings.
You’re her property and another woman is encroaching on you.
That theory was definitely on my list of possibilities.
what Mom’s problem was with her
She competed for your attention
I wouldn’t doubt it.
I have to ask.
If your moms such a piece of shit, why is your solution to your wife “make sure to record every interaction” instead of “Lets just stop dealing with this bitch”
Definitely a fair question.
We all lived in the same house at the time, and Mom’s name was on the deed, so up until that point we were walking on eggshells to keep things civil until other arrangements were in place.
Ah, thats fair then. Sometimes you do have to make sacrifices like that, as you make your preparations for the future.
Like, there might be a decent answer, but it is worth the ask.
Probably variations of
“I’m going to kill myself cause of you.”
And
“You have to love me or you have to leave.”
We left.
Used the fact that he named me after himself to commit fraud using my name.
Mine didn’t do that, he just forged my signature.
Thats disgusting levels of premeditation.
Sounds like he only had a child, to give it his name, to run its credit into the ground like he’d run his own.
Hope you managed to right those wrongs once you came of age
Told my friend that he’s like the son he never had, in front of me.
I assume that was absolutely calculated for maximum pain. I’m so sorry.
Thanks. It really fucked me up for a long time. ;-;
I know the feeling. I was lucky that my first therapist was solid as a rock and spotted things I wasn’t even aware of. But working through it was damn tough.
You deserve a good life now and I hope you get it.
o7
Being a parent myself now I still can’t understand how you can intentionally inflict pain on your own children. I’ve been trying to understand my whole life.
I think the part of their humanity that feels empathy, bonds, compassion and so on are completely absent in some people. But more than that, not only are they incapable of feeling or reciprocating love and empathy, they also have a sadistic appetite for other people’s suffering and little else can satiate them.
My father was pretty draconic. No time for friends, no time for extra curriculars, no time for homework (he didn’t believe in public education, which caused its own problems), because there was always something to do: my chores, my siblings’ chores, home improvement projects, random “educational” outings that were mostly just me sitting in the car. Not to mention the verbal and physical abuse, leaving me on the side of the road to “scare me straight”, making me live in a tent in the backyard for a while.
I tried to be the bigger person after I moved out and practice hippy-dippy radical forgiveness. Unfortunately, he’s a malignant narcissist and even when he realized he had no leverage anymore and had to behave, he was still a really really bad influence. The more time I spent with him, the more his traits rubbed off on me. I had to cut him off entirely because it became too much.
going into my backpack and stealing my HRT while i was in the shower, and refusing to give it back
My mom did that with my psych meds. The kind of meds that break your brain if you stop abruptly and don’t taper off. I’m lucky I found them because I hate the brain zaps.
Thats one of two things you just dont fuck with, no matter what, and thats medications and food.
it’s funny you should mention food because they did also fuck with that! from the time i was zero until i was twenty i believed my parents when they said i was allergic to MSG and that it would give me asthma and that it was in basically everything besides what they cooked. but eventually i realized it was just another batshit method of control
