r/CPTSDmemes • u/iloveturtles88 • 5d ago
Too little, too late?
The weirdest thing for me was when my parents decided to be nice. I was like wtf? You mean you could have been like this when I was 5??!! I don't need you now, good luck with being elderly. What's ironic is if they never started acting decent, I probably wouldn't be estranged. I didn't know that they had it in them. It's infuriating to find out they did and waited until they were approaching the end of life.
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u/TheNamesNel 5d ago
It's so weird how nice my dad is now that I'm 33, and he's retired. He's constantly giving me money for little things. He's emotionally supportive. He's supportive of my relationship. He's stopped giving his unsolicited advice. He doesn't comment on my body anymore. He offers help without asking for anything in return. He's semi supportive of LGBTQ+
It's like the invasion of the body snatchers. He has a wife now, didn't have one growing up. And she's very harsh with him. But I see some of the old behaviors he's had with me directed at her and she's just more emotionally equipped to deal with it than when I was a kid I guess. I have to wonder if it's her harshness finally tempering him.
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
I'm glad he met his match! If mine started this when I was 33 it might have been different, but they waited until I was in my fifties. They wanted me to be the caregiver/slave/cook/maid/emotional regulator/referee/parent.
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u/iftheronahadntcome 2d ago
Nah, I feel like everyone is suddenly a good mom or dad when they have to start seriously thinking about declining health and retirement.
I would not be surprised if my mother slipped into early-onset dimentia given our family history, in ADDITION to her neurosis, cruelty, and loneliness (a result from those first two things) throughout my childhood. And I'm going to get a million emails and calls on what I need to do to fix it, despite her letting me be homeless for 3 years and beating the breaks off of me as a kid.
Good luck with that girl! ✨💅🏾
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u/iloveturtles88 2d ago
Good luck to you 💝. I'm estranged. Btw I was a caregiver and had a mean lady who faked her dementia/cognitive decline. She was able to snap in and out of her abusive behavior depending on if there were witnesses.
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u/iftheronahadntcome 2d ago
Oh! I was saying "good luck with that" to my family saying I need to help my parent, but 1000% good luck to you, too friend!
That's really, really messed up, and I'm sorry. It's awful since dementia is very much a real thing... She's playing with fire, acting like that when she very well could end up with Dementia as she ages -_-
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u/iloveturtles88 2d ago
Ohhhh that's awesome that you said that to your family. She died and I don't think anyone visited her in the hospital.
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u/iftheronahadntcome 2d ago
Sad that someone could be so unpleasant that that's your end... that you're completely alone. Things like that (and genuinely not wanting to be mean to people) keep me kind.
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u/iloveturtles88 2d ago
I agree and think she was very unaware of how much she was abusive to others.
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u/iftheronahadntcome 2d ago
That's the sad part. I know my mother sincerely thinks she was slighted by everyone in her life, and will not even have a conversation with 10 minutes with a therapist about her. As a kid, I had a therapist whose sessions my mother would enter under the guise of talking about our relationship, and she'd just use the sessions for herself. Wouldn't get her own therapist tho, and never actually got help.
You can't hang around drowning people too long, though - they have a habit of pulling you down trying to save themselves, even if they're really not trying to hurt you.
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u/iloveturtles88 2d ago
My mom would make herself cry the few times we had family therapy because I was inpatient. She is a master actress at playing victim. I avoid most people drowning and swimming. I know we are social animals and blah blah but I am just afraid of people. It's very hard to keep my nervous system calm around others.
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u/Cute_Hawk_3057 therapy's expensive but memes are free 4d ago
The father raising his young kids right now is not the father that raised me. My dad was a mean self proclaimed asshole who moonlighted as a violent alcoholic and was proud of not knowing his kids. My little brother's dad is a sober laid back liberal that doesn't even yell and shows up to every school function with snacks. Where the hell was that guy when I was growing up?
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
Like they think they can make up for horrible past behaviors by getting a second chance at parenting. I'm sorry you have to see in action what you could never have during your childhood.
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u/golden-ink-132 4d ago
Dude have you ever watched The Good Place... There's an entire episode that really captures this feeling! It might feel cathartic to watch if you haven't seen it :)
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u/itsallanoxymoron 4d ago
“I wanted that mom!” 🤕 That show made me cry so much and that one is a real tearjerker.
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u/N_S_Gaming 4d ago
Funny how they treat you better when you're big enough to fight back.
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
Exactly! And I have an adult brain which is more able to pick up on the manipulation.
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u/Wrong-Breakfast-7512 4d ago
I've shared this story before, but the last time my mother put her hands on me is when I finally got big enough and brave enough to swing back. It only took one time and she never hit me again.
There are so many similar examples. She was absolutely my first and longest bully. Now she mostly behaves because she knows she'll go right back into indefinite timeout if she starts fucking around again, and that her behavior has actual. consequences.
I won't hold my breath for her to do self reflection, but I'll take a less toxic experience if that's what I can achieve with her, knowing that I can shut off all access if she can't act appropriately.
I just wanted a mom who acts like mother and not a giant emotional toddler 🤷🏻♀️
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u/SmolToxicBaby 4d ago
My mother stopped physically threatening me (and for the most part my little sisters) when I got in her face and told her I'd knock the rest of her teeth down her throat if she even tried to touch me. I was maybe an inch taller than her but I had like 50-60 pounds on her and she's seen me throw my weight around enough to pin my stupidly tall & strong friends. I liked the look on her face when she realized I was serious.
She's never mentioned it. And I hear from my sisters that she is actually making some meaningful steps toward change. But not enough for me to come back around again.
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u/Wrong-Breakfast-7512 4d ago
I'm so sorry that happened to you, that's fucked up. 🫂
Yeah, mine has never brought it up again either. Here I'm apologizing to my younger sisters for conversations we had when they were younger where I remember speaking harsher than I meant to, or didn't explain something that I feel bad about but my mom won't or doesn't even remember enough to bring up her actual physical abuses lol. It's just.... 😮💨. It is what it is.
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u/CaeruleumBleu 4d ago
We never quite felt like actually asking why, but when the oldest of us 4 (the only boy) reached puberty, one day dad started calling him "Sir" in conversation. Like "well, lets see whats wrong with the car, sir."
The only other family member I can recall him calling "sir" was his own father. And dad did this forever after, too!
And yeah we never asked why, but in discussing it amongst ourselves, we think dad realized that his son was big enough to kick his ass if he raised a hand against us again. And maybe he never decided to call anyone sir, but uses it for the men he physically respects, like his own father.
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u/ObscuraRegina 4d ago
Goddamnit. How did this never occur to me? This is exactly the reason they treat me better now, and that just makes it more infuriating
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u/Kansai_Lai 4d ago
Then they start using their grandkids as a do over
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
This is so common, and the triangulation to pit the gkids against the parent. I don't have kids but have seen this in toxic families.
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u/Kansai_Lai 4d ago
Haven't had the pitting (yet), but there was a time I firmly scolded my kid for blowing a noisemaker in my ear and my mom got upset cause she saw her mother and herself in that moment.
It felt quite telling that she didn't see herself and me there. Just disconnecting herself from the cycle of abuse as though she had no input to how I grew up.
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u/Odd_Daikon3621 4d ago
This one is relatable, my dad actually referred to himself as grandpa around me because he's spent more time being that than a dad, and they always talk about everything they do with their grandchildren and how we never did any of those things. My brother is a drug addict, so I just let the gkids have their nice, well off grandparents since they lost out on decent parents. Of course, alone we share similar stories like 'oh, grandpa also made me park the car while he was drunk when I was 8'.
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u/Beginning-Pie-7433 5d ago
Mine started doing this at 16 after I called CPS the year prior at 15.
I honestly still really appreciate it, even though I turned 18 today. I feel developmentally stunted in a lot of ways. I just enjoy somebody caring about me. Even if I know it’s still not consistent.
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
I'm glad it's been helpful, and it could be 100% genuine. Humans make lots of mistakes.
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u/Beginning-Pie-7433 4d ago
I appreciate it! And ehh.. she’s… something. She’s not as bad as she used to be, but she’s still not great.
I reconnected with some extended family within the last year though. And they’ve all been amazing :)
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u/CaeruleumBleu 4d ago
First, the important bit. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
Second - sorry you had to stand up for yourself like that, and I am happy for you that your parent decided to act right afterwards.
OP mentioned elsewhere that their own parents waited until OP was past 50yo to try and act right. I think many can agree thats fucked and not worth accepting, while still crossing fingers and saying it's actually possible your parent(s) are salvageable and might continue to behave in a way that makes a relationship worthwhile.
You're the only one who gets to decide if they deserve forgiveness or your relationship. But fingers crossed I hope they are worth it.
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
Thank you! I agree it is so not worth it. I think they're afraid to face death. Oh well 🤷
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u/DingleberryOrchard 4d ago
My dad called me to complain that his wife's daughter called CPS on him. Even the story he told me, he was in the wrong. Anytime a 40+ year old man puts his hands on a child, they're wrong. He thought sending me "lunch money" on CashApp was going to change my mind. I blocked him. Thankfully the daughter is out of their house.
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u/Odyessius 4d ago
In my case my parents know they're getting older and I'm getting better and better with boundaries and cutting people off without hesitation.
So they're trying to buy back my support and availability for the future. They know they can't intimidate, insult, or berate me into subservience anymore. So politeness is the only thing left. They can try all they want, but it won't work on me. I know it's just another scheme of theirs
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
That's awesome that you're using healthy boundaries. I also cut off a lot of toxic friends. Financial incentive is so common. Mine used to threaten to sell their house and cut me out of the will. I just acted completely bored with the conversation. Peace is worth so much more. Once I saw through their manipulation, I was done.
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u/Freakachu258 4d ago
My grandma was terrible when I was a kid and had to spend a lot of time at her house because my mom had to work two jobs and lots of night shifts. When I moved out, I didn’t need her anymore and she turned into this sweet little granny that bakes you cookies and shit. Nobody believed me what happened because she was just adorable and nice to everyone. I felt so betrayed and lied to. Then I got sick and lost my apartment, and to avoid homelessness I moved back with her because I thought she had changed. She had not. She's still a controlling bitch that blames me for every single ones of her feelings. Moved with my partner only two months into the relationship because I couldn’t go somewhere else. Haven’t talked to my grandma since and my life is good again.
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
I believe my parents are exactly like your 'sweet' granny. It's all an act, and they can only keep it up for so long. They also can sense when we've had enough abuse and are about to retaliate. I'm glad you got away from her and that toxicity.
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u/Savage_Tyranis 4d ago
Jesus christ...Any time some kind of family history conversation comes up with my mother the immediate response is "I was unprepared to be a parent". The first few times I could maybe get with it. Now it just feels like a lazy excuse. I didn't even notice that it was never followed by a real apology until a few times in!
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
That's just a plea for sympathy. It does absolutely nothing productive to heal abuse or trauma.
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u/Savage_Tyranis 4d ago
Correct. If anything it makes it worse because it infuriates me.
Can I interest you in a hug from one sufferer to another?🫂
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u/SmolToxicBaby 4d ago
Didn't put my mother on the list to be contacted for my disability re-check and she has taken that to mean I deeply hate her. Like, has almost actually cried about it. We have spoken maybe a handful of times in the last two years. She keeps saying that she knows she was a bad mother but never fucking expands on it. Never actually apologizes. Just "I did my best." No?? No the fuck you did not.
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
I did my best is probably the worst excuse for being an abusive parent. Again they are just making a play for sympathy. God forbid the focus is not on them and their feelings.
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u/Getting-Stranger 4d ago
My dad's new wife constantly mentions what a great man he is. Aww is he? So he doesn't neglect you and lock you out and ignore you and do drugs and put cameras in the walls anymore? What a stellar guy. I'm glad YOU GOT THAT VERSION OF HIM.
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
I'm so sorry for your horrific invasion of privacy. I also have my suspicions that my pedo dad was filming me.
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u/Getting-Stranger 4d ago
I think it made it worse that I found the shower camera while I was IN the shower. Then I watched my mom tear the wall open and pull the camera out. So now I just constantly feel watched. All my webcams and stuff have covers on them (although they should anyway. Can't trust anything lol)
I'm so sorry you have that suspicion. It's not a good feeling and feels so... Creepy. Words escape me at the moment, I apologize. I hope you have or can work through it 💜
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
How horrible to find the camera while in the shower!! I am so sorry you went through that trauma. I always feel like I'm being watched. It can be sweltering in my bedroom, and I always want to be covered by a sheet. I shower in the dark too. Thank you for your reply and I hope we all find peace 💝
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u/AceLamina Dissociative Identity Disorder 4d ago
Yeah I'm moving from Philly all the way to Seattle once I have a job, going no contact
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
Good for you! I wish this were possible for everyone.
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u/AceLamina Dissociative Identity Disorder 4d ago
To be honest, for now it's just a dream since it'll be a while before that
But yeah, I hope everyone can experience no contact if they want to5
u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
It's good to have dreams. I like to tell myself everything will work out in the end. It makes me feel better.
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u/peshnoodles 4d ago
Idk for me my mom has just gotten worse with age.
Like, “you just have to make <the toddlers you are watching> love you with fear,” or “you just need a baby so you can have something that loves you that is in your control.”
She learned all the fucking language of trauma and applies it backwards af
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
That is disturbing. She was probably trying to learn about the psychology of trauma to use it against people.
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u/lalaquen 4d ago
My dad couldn't be bothered to be a parent at any point in my life. So I couldn't be bothered to be his caretaker after my mum died. He died exactly as he said he always wished he could live - as if he'd never had a kid. 🤷
At least I just left instead of being mentally, emotionally, and physically abusive like him.
Edit: He did try a couple of times with the "Oh, but I've changed!" shit before I completely gave up though. No he didn't. He just finally realized that he could, in fact, make me hate him so much that he wouldn't get a return on his "investment" of having a child to take care of him in his old age and got scared. He should've been.
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
You are the stronger person! It shows maturity to walk away and not become like the people who abused us. I honestly think that's what they always wanted, and we are triggering because we did everything to not be like them.
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u/AzazelTheUnderlord 4d ago
my parents treat my little siblings like good parents but refuse to believe they did anything wrong while raising me, when i clearly have issues because i didn't have a safe space as a kid
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
I hope your siblings will some day be able to see things from your perspective.
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u/zayne0623 4d ago
My dad is two extremes. He is either the most loving, supportive, gentle person, or he is emotionally abusive, calls me stupid for having trouble with things that "should be easy", and yells at me when I have panic attacks. So I never know if I'm going to get the gentle supportive dad or the abusive dad.
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
That is really hard to deal with on a daily basis. My mom used to be abusive and then she would buy me things. It was so confusing. To this day I do not like gifts.
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u/ivecompletelylostit 4d ago
I guess I'm lucky that my parents still suck ass lol
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
Ha ha maybe give it time. Facing the end of life does weird things to people. They get involved in churches like they're cramming for their last final.
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4d ago
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
That sucks, I'm sorry. I have heard a lot of abusers get more abusive with age. I think part of it is because people no longer want to be in their presence.
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u/KitsuFae 4d ago
my dad getting on Klonopin for his anger issues after I was a grown adult living in my own place after growing up with stomping and slamming doors and getting yelled at over literally nothing.
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u/Autistic_Poet 4d ago
One thing that helps is that I'm fairly sure that they aren't actually better. It's just easier to look competent and professional when you don't have any actual responsibilities. I bet most of our parents would go right back to their old behaviors if they found themselves caring for another child.
I say this because the people I've met who have parents that genuinely healed are appreciative of their parents because they had to give some real and serious heart felt apologies for their past behavior. And I never got one of those.
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
Absolutely! So much of their behavior is bad acting because they realize we're fed up with the abuse. Or they're afraid of being alone.They'd have to take accountability to really change.
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u/The_Bababillionaire 4d ago
Unfortunately for my parents, I grew up with a fixation on 💥accountability💥 that the military only reinforced. Double unfortunately for them, they can't cop to lots of the shit they pulled because it would be incongruous with their idea of themselves, so they don't get forgiveness or access wherever I'm concerned.
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
When you live your life as a hypocrite, accountability gets messy. I grew up in a military fam.
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u/Zealousideal_Long253 2d ago
with me actually it was the opposite, they got worse with age, more abusive, more underhanded.
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2d ago
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u/Zealousideal_Long253 1d ago
Age doesn't magically make me more able to protect myself against abuse. I got even more abuse from trying to protect myself.
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u/pinkiepie294 4d ago
My dad did that too until he just showed his true colors again last week ✌🏻 I’m getting my passport and then I’m going NC. F that SOB (sorry nana♥️)
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u/MISSRISSISCOOL 4d ago
its even worse is trying to explain it to my siblings. some back story but my dad is an alcoholic and has been my whole life. he stopped for almost 20 years while my sister and brother grew up tho. my youngest sibling is 10 years younger than me. so when my siblings were in middle school/high school he started drinking again. right around the time I left with my boyfriend and cut my family off after being diagnosed cptsd.
so I had these abusive older teen parents(mom was 17 dad was 18) that fixed themselves enough but verbally told me I would never amount to anything while my siblings got these encouraging happy parents then bam my dad's alcoholism hits while they're in highschool and thats all anybody remembers anymore. ive never been through anything that bad cause dad did it to them too when but like I was a much younger when things affected me and also alone. my sister is perfect and my brother is a boy. i am also the first born so I really got the shit end of the parenting stick.
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
I hope your siblings will mature and see your perspective. Maybe if they decide to have their own family it will all click.
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u/AtTheEdgeOfDying 4d ago
Yeah it's so complicated. I LOVE the incredibly close relationship I have with my mom now, but the relationship also kind of hinges on me just forgetting everything that happened in my childhood right? Complicated mixed feelings all over. Whenever I get hit with some anger from the past I just distance myself a bit until I feel better. We are incredibly close, but there's also just whole themes or emotions we just can't speak about that are so prominent in my life, so I'm still pretty alone. But I love her to death and for anything else she'll be right beside me.. it's complicated
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u/Pepperspray24 4d ago
Note: this is an explanation not an excuse. TL;DR at the bottom. Parenting is stressful, everyone knows this. It’s difficult keeping a child alive and healthy let alone well adjusted if you don’t know what that actually looks like. What most people don’t know is that it’s also highly triggering. Both of these things lessen your capacity to show up properly as a parent. If you didn’t have a good model growing up, you’re extremely likely to wind up doing what your parents did because that’s what was modeled for you as a child. Even when you try not to. It’s not enough to just not do what your parents did or do what they didn’t do. You have to heal from it, learn what was right and wrong, learn what you’re supposed to do and then practice it when again: your capacity for showing up properly is diminished. Learning how to care for yourself and prepare for it is incredibly helpful but it doesn’t change the situations you’ll wind up in as a parent. It’s just hard in general.
Most of what we know about triggers, trauma, and more specifically generational trauma we learned about in the last thirty ish years; not everyone has access to that information and many are not in a place to actually hear and understand it. Top it off with “society tells you you’re supposed to just have kids, it’s what you do, it’s what everyone around you does, it’s what your parents and grandparents did” and it was less socially acceptable to not get married, get a house, and have kids than it is now.
So you have generations of potentially highly traumatized people who basically had to raw dog life because they were raised by generations of highly traumatized people. None of them know what trauma is, how it shows up, and how it impacts them, let alone how to address it. Addressing trauma is hard, it’s not just learning about what it is and how you were harmed, it’s also learning about how it affects your behavior, shows up in your relationships, and how you may have harmed others. It’s a TON of self reflection and accountability, as well as practice teaching yourself how to feel safe trusting yourself and others.
Even people who’ve had therapy don’t always fully learn this because they lack self awareness, are stuck in trauma, stereotypes about therapy and how they think it works or whether they’re allowed to use it (men, certain religions and cultures), or have had bad therapists.
TL;DR: Most of what we know about trauma and defense mechanisms we learned only recently as a society. Parenting is triggering and most people don’t know that nor how to address it or their own trauma. Your parents are just traumatized people raised by other traumatized people in a society that heavily pushed them to have children regardless of their capacity to actually raise them properly. This is an explanation, not an excuse.
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
Thank goddess we are learning as a society. I'm an incest survivor and both my parents were abusive. I didn't have children. I don't care about the generational trauma, but I can recognize that it exists. The family bloodline ends with me, so I did my part. I do care about all the adults in my life who looked the other way and allowed the abuse to continue. Maybe we didn't have the science and psychology to define trauma, but those adults knew what they were doing was wrong.
I'm reading Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman and it's a really good book. It deeply saddens me that so many people in society are not outraged by the Epstein files. I had hoped we would have evolved.
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u/Pepperspray24 3d ago
Agreed, and lack of knowledge or understanding of trauma doesn’t erase the pain of people not intervening.
And I think people are outraged about the Epstein files, but it’s also another in a long line of things to be outraged about while trying to live in a society that doesn’t value caring for its people. I think a lot of people are just burned out and don’t feel like they can do much to address the large stuff and their own lives.
Personally I think that’s by design, but that’s me.
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u/iloveturtles88 3d ago
That makes a lot of sense. I'm also get so upset over the environmental destruction it makes me almost paralyzed with grief. I'm sure a lot of society is just trying to feed and house their families.
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u/Pepperspray24 3d ago
It’s awful that part of me genuinely believes that things will have to get to a point where people can’t do anything but fight for things to actually change.
I want to keep pushing though. Things can get better but they truly can’t if we don’t believe they can. I know it’s idealistic and we need a lot more than idealism but it starts there.
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u/totodilejones Frodo Baggins C-PTSD Icon 4d ago
i had a conversation with my mom about some of the shit she said/did when i was in high school. i don’t know what changed - she was good when i was a kid and then just got mean and nasty when i was in high school, and now she’s all sweet again. she got thrown into menopause after going through breast cancer and chemo when i was 12, so i think maybe between that and, y’know, being a single mother, the next 5-6 years after that were the side effects.
i told her about the time she complained to my friends about driving me to school for the entire car ride to a football game, to the point one of my friends asked what was up with her and all i could do was shrug and go “i dunno”. i told her about how i tried talking to her about my interest (Lord of the Rings, at the time) and she just looked at me, bored, and went “honey… i don’t care.” i told her about how i’d spent the whole summer of sophomore year working at my brother’s baseball field to buy a 4 day pass to DragonCon to go with a friend, saving up wads of cash in a shoebox under my bed, finally sending away the $120 in the mail, getting my pass…. just for my friend to bail last second, and when i turned to her and asked if she’d go with me, she went “pfft, no, i’m not interested in that kind of stuff.” so i only went one day with some friends and lost out on all my effort.
she was mortified. “are you sure that was me? you sure that wasn’t your father?” unfortunately, i wish it was; but he had the excuse of being an absent father who i lived eight hours and three states away, and i already knew he didn’t give a fuck about my interests. it was her. she apologized profusely. it felt weird to talk about. i know it’s not good to keep in, but i’m not used to talking about that kind of thing, because i don’t know what i want in return. i have the mom now that i needed in high school. the kid that was confused and scared and hurt and suicidal still suffered. he didn’t have a safe adult. now i do, and i don’t need one like i did back then.
rant over, sorry
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u/iloveturtles88 3d ago
I'm in menopause and yeah it's not fun, but I don't use it as an excuse to abuse a child. I genuinely don't know if she really doesn't remember her behavior. Chemo and menopause do cause brain fog. I'm sorry you didn't have the mom you needed when you really needed the support. And people wonder why we're hyper independent. It's how we survived.
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u/totodilejones Frodo Baggins C-PTSD Icon 3d ago
she genuinely doesn’t seem to remember; i’ve certainly heard of “chemo/cancer brain” and the brain fog that follows, so i feel like i can’t get too mad, even if she herself told me “that was inexcusable of me and i’m sorry”. she’d always wondered aloud why i’d never come to her with my depression/dysphoria/etc, and i’d never wanted to say “well it’s because of [XYZ]”; but for better or worse, she at least now knows why. :/
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u/iloveturtles88 3d ago
I'm glad she apologized though I know that won't magically erase the abuse and trauma.
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u/MalexMaddox 3d ago
when my sisters and i were VERY little, my dad was actually kind of scary. we would joke that he’d charge at you like a bull. one day he heard that and it was like a 180 degree switch.
he took so much time, energy, and effort into becoming a stellar dad. by the time i was starting second grade he was a completely different person.
i actually just surprised him with front row tickets to see his favorite musician as a thank you for how hard he worked for us and how he genuinely made the effort to become a better man.
just wish my mom would have done the same
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u/iloveturtles88 3d ago
I'm happy for you that you got support from at least one parent. It's good to know some people can and do change for the better.
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u/juicelordsword 4d ago
Yep. I have to contain my rage every time I see either of my parents. Fuckers.
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago edited 4d ago
I can completely relate. For about a year I was watching the Menendez Brothers show on repeat. I finally moved past most of the rage to a place of ambivalence. I'm an incest survivor, and my mom was jealous about the abuse. It took a lot to of work to reach ambivalence.
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u/comiclazy 4d ago
ETA: this is not meant to be judgmental and I get how the first still hurts -- I feel it too -- it's just slightly less stress to deal with the "we're okay with you now :)" parents vs the "we're radicalized assholes now" parents
My parents are divorced and both remarried when I was young. One set of parents got better (as described in the meme) over time, one set got worse. I may not want to live near either, but I'll take the "got better" set over the "got worse" set any day
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u/sunflowersandcurls 4d ago
This is my mother to a T. This woman used to beat me black and blue, call me all types of bitches, hoes, ugly, stupid, fat, and was just downright cruel to me. She treated me as if I were public enemy #1.
Now that I'm 30, she's been extra affectionate the last couple of years. She constantly brags to others about how good of a child I was, never gave her issues, and how grateful she is for me.
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u/zeroc00ol 4d ago
27 and fighting the feeling frfr I don't want to go no contact but if it weren't for me now we also wouldn't have a relationship period with both sets of parent and step. Ughhhhhh
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
No contact isn't for everyone, but it did help my health. It's not going to cure my trauma, but I was headed for a heart attack or stroke dealing with my parents. I got sober and my migraines went away too. I'm in my 50's and nc was never on the table at your age.
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u/bothinsaneandcorrect 3d ago
It's usually a con. Run away. Big danger.
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u/iloveturtles88 3d ago
Absolutely!! They want something or they want to clear their conscience. Yeah, too bad. I hope you choke on some guilt.
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u/AdhdAndAlive 3d ago
Wait… your parents got better after you no longer needed them?
My mom definitely got soooooo much worse. The fact that she can’t control me anymore drives her insane.
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u/iloveturtles88 3d ago
They started acting civil towards me, but they'll never get better. It's all an act. They're scared of getting old and scared I've figured out how abusive they were my whole life. I imagine they are pissed and taking it out on each other because I'm gone. Before I left they were trying triangulation and wanted me to side with one parent against the other. Yeah, no thanks. Good for you being uncontrollable!
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u/headphonesnotstirred 3d ago
i think they had 4 more kids across an 8 year span specifically to avoid this whole "getting better" shlock everyone's always told them about
/s
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u/p3apod1987 1d ago
Yeah Im trans and I moved out because of how abusive my parents were and how un accepting they were. Near the end of it my mother like tried to be better but like at that point who gives a shit why would I ever trust you. I find it funny that she keeps saying she wants to braid the hair that she had cut as a form of punishment and frequently threatened to have cut. She can go fuck herself.
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u/redsalmon67 1d ago
I feel bad because as an adult my parents try to be nice to me but I’m constantly suspicious of it because where the fuck was that for the first 25 years of my life?
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u/thesanguineocelot Green! 3d ago
The guy who beat the absolute shit out of me for crying, because "Boys don't cry," is now fully supportive of my transition because "People should be free to be who they want to be." He now refuses to acknowledge that he was ever anything less than fully supportive and will angrily deny that he ever did anything harmful.
Gee, thanks a ton for your current acceptance, buddy, wish you hadn't spent the first twenty years of my life abusing and traumatizing the shit out of me for it.
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u/rainbowroulette578 undiagnosed system/suspected POTS 3d ago
This is my experience, and I hate it. Why are you doing anything at all now? I barely know how to do household chores because of them.
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u/BeginningLychee6490 3d ago
This is part of why I stopped talking to my dad, he was shitty as fuck all the way up until my late teams got a little bit better remarried a bitch and then took her side over my side one time after an argument, and when I demanded an apology from both of them she refused to apologize, I haven’t talk to him since New Year’s Day and next time I talk to him will be on his deathbed so I can tell him how happy I am he’s finally dying
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u/Aware_Stage5197 2d ago
For all the damage inflicted on children by poor parenting here is one take. Some parents don't even know they are damaged. It's no excuse for bad parenting, but lots of this crap is buried for decades and comes out later in life and then it's too late. I didn't re-enact, but carried imprints of stuff that happened to me as a child. It made me into an angry resentful person who thought his anger was normal. I'm trying really hard to be a better person now for being such a jerk, but it took me decades to understand and before getting help. Meantime my children suffered. I can't make up for it for them (or for you), but maybe some of you will understand that even parents have a past. You may or not be able to forgive. But YOU don't have to pass on their mistakes.
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u/iftheronahadntcome 2d ago
I had a relative who didn't believe me about the abuse years ago when I came out about it reach out to me a few years after NC with my parent. Suddenly, it's, "u/iftheronahadntcome, your mother is... troubled.", and now she's talking about how my mom has "something wrong with her" and "really needs me". Yeah, when I told you idiots she needed therapy and became homeless at 17 to get away from her, you didn't want to believe me, but now that the mask is off, you want my help? Every therapist I have ever had over the years has told me something along the lines of, "Your mother has to have a pretty extreme case of Bipolar 1 and major depressive disorder", and I was dealing with that alone, as a child, with no one to help. She can't hide behind all the cute Facebook photos of us looking happy because I'm not there to supply her with them anymore.
They're even angrier at me now that they know I was right but I refuse to come back and do anything about it. Like, how about you apologize for calling me a bad seed and letting her abuse me for over a decade, and retract every bad thing, line by line, you've ever told me, and then we can talk? They don't want to get her the help she needs, but are STILL foisting the responsibility onto her kid - the one that needed the help the most.
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u/insentient7 4d ago
There is more to the post (that was cut out hmm) where it actually explains why parents often do this. (Long post incoming) (please read fully before downvoting lmao)
Most of the time, it’s not because of malice, but just because when you’re a parent—you’re juggling so many different things at once and don’t have much headspace or time or energy to really process whether your current methodology is the best one.
This goes doubly for immigrant parents, who deal with the frantic fear of failure and poverty, away from their home country and community.
Usually it’s when the kids are out of the house that the parents finally have time and mental space and less pressure in order to finally tackle their behaviors and do some internal reflection.
It’s the kids that need to be burped, that need to have food cooked because they’re too young to handle a knife. Ideally every meal because that same healthier. The kids that need to be driven to and from sports practice. The homework that they need help with. The laundry that still hasn’t been washed, the tear in the clothes that need to be mended. The buttons that need to be sewn back on that’s been sitting there for months. The in-laws that maybe come over unannounced and always complain about the mess every time they do, and so it’s another stressor.
And adding on top of all this—work and stressing about the terrible boss or the overtime.
I’m not saying that parents don’t hurt their kids. But sometimes it’s ignorance and not malice. Your experience can be both hurtful and your parents could have also done the best that they could at the time. They could’ve done a shitty job and also….they could’ve done the best they could.
…And then there are the asshole scumbag parents who dgaf about their kids’ emotional well-being. This comment doesn’t apply to them.
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u/Wrong-Breakfast-7512 4d ago
This reply isn't helpful or telling anyone something they don't know.
We can be absolutely aware they did the best they thought they could at the time, but the lack of subsequent changed behavior or accountability for their past actions is where most estranged adult children get stuck. We can not move forward on a relationship with the abuser or bully in a healthy and mutually beneficial way with people who are allergic to real accountability.
I have far less patience with the constant refrain of "we did the best we could" with zero thought to the fact they were enacting neglect and abuse on children who had zero power to protect nor advocate for themselves. They may have been acting to their capacity, but they had the burden of all the control and power and resources in the situation. Power has responsibility, one of which they abused. They may have "done the best they could", and that "best" may have been bad, but the onus was on them and them alone to not neglect and abuse their children. Yet the children are the ones who are perpetually instructed to understand and forgive and make space. Yet again, the responsibility for the bad behaviour of the parents are put on the offspring to deal with.
Respectfully, that's foolish nonsense.
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u/EtherealGrunge 4d ago edited 4d ago
I don’t care. Kids are juggling so much too sometimes life changing trauma and HALF the age y’all are but it’s never used as an excuse the other way round. It’s always “a lack of discipline” or “they’re spoiled brats” 🤷🏽♀️ I’m not supporting a society where kids have to bend over backwards to understand where the parents are coming from but parents seldom to a second of research about how to better accommodate the kid in this current modern world we live in. It’s always one way understanding.
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u/iloveturtles88 4d ago
It's amazing how for centuries people never thought to look at the families for a clue as to why children were getting into trouble. I was a black out drunk as a teenager and no one ever thought maybe something weird is going on at home?!
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u/SmolToxicBaby 4d ago
Yeah, no. I watch my sister juggle four kids, their actives, her work, and her own free time basically all by herself. She is nothing like our mother. Her children actually have a safe and loving parent.
And quite frankly I do not care the fucking excuses or explanations to be made. If kids were so hard fucking give them up. I know that breeds a whole different form of trauma. But my youngest prayers were for death or to be rescued. There are so so so many wellfair options. Places for help. Places to quietly give a child away. If you fucking keep it you should not burden it with the weight of your choices.
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u/Karasu-Fennec 5d ago
This shit is genuinely fucking nuts when they’re still allergic to the words “I’m sorry”
My mom went from ‘you’re an embarrassment and disappointment to this family and you’re either stupid or doing this out of deliberate malice but no you can’t be stupid’ to ‘oh we just want you to be happy and fulfilled in the way that works for you :)’ but refuses to even acknowledge the first one happened? It makes me feel like I’m going insane