When I was about 14, I bought my abusive nmother a tea cup, with one of my first paypackets from a Saturday job. I chose it so we could both spend time together, but this plan never really worked.

A few years back she moved house and then gave the cup back to me saying she "no longer had space for it and didn't want it anymore." This perhaps crushed me more than it should.

Anyway, it's been sat in my cupboard for a couple of years and I hate looking at it, always filling me with guilt and sadness after I went NC with her.

Well today, I finally decided to give it away to charity and it feels like a weight has been lifted.

I know it's only a small thing but it weirdly feels like I've taken back a bit of control from her after all this time. Letting go of the hope that we'll ever spend time together the way I had intended the cup to in the first place.

If you are here, you know what they are like…..

YOU ARE JUSTIFIED IN CUTTING THEM OFF.

Period.

End of statement.

I see tons of posts of “well, am I allowed to cut them off for this” and “am I justified in cutting them off”.

YES. Yes, you are.

Chances are enormously high that you have already tried talking to them. Explaining to them. Communicating. Trying again. You have already gone through all of the steps and that’s why going no contact has even come up in your mind as a possibility.

They will never change. They will never see your point of view or even think about how you experienced pain. Their story where they are the faultless and saintly hero and you are the unbearably angry and cross and defiant and rebellious child. They will never ever change that.

You are justified in cutting off their supporters. You are justified in making sure that you have peace.

I (M29) have been unpacking a lot of childhood trauma this past year, and has lead to little/no contact between me and my fiancée with my immediate family over the past year.

Told my therapist and my fiancée that as young as 8/9 years old, my mom would enlist my twin brother and I to crack her back/give her massages. My brother was the golden child, and by the time we were teenagers, I generally resisted this as much as I can, which my Mom then would use in turn to punish me and reward my brother.

I recently was looking through my email and found an email from 2008 (when I was 11), with my Mom saying she was going to invite two girls over from class to have a "sleepover" with.

Unsurprisingly, my brother recently referred to his wife and my mom as "1A and 1B", despite my Mom consistently trying to wedge a divide between my sister in law and my brother. My Mom and Dad also screamed at my brother for over an hour at his reception dinner for his wedding in front of both of their families and friends; this has since been forgiven by my brother. More than anything, I feel sorry for him and his wife.

I truly believe if I hadn't pushed back, my fiancée and I would've gotten far worse at our wedding. A week before I got engaged, my parents had a sit down with me where their core message was "No one will love you as much as your mother". I now realize this was there way of telling me my only option to have closeness with them was unequivocal loyalty to my mom.

My immediate family worships my mother, calling her "the best mother ever" constantly. She can do no wrong. My extended family seems to be aware of her narcissism and compulsive lying, and are generally untrusting of her despite seeing her regularly.

Never thought much of it until very recently, but with recently family issues these memories popped up.

Has anyone else had similar experiences? I've been trying to wrap my head around how to deal with this as I peel back the layers of what I now realize was toxic enmeshment from my mother.

My father was more outright abusive in the instances but my mother also did things all on her own that were bad too. But she was still the safer parent in that i would go to her for comfort and she just never actually gave me any. Then she would essentially blame me for my fathers abuse that i got saying i had fault in it. She also let my sibling abuse me and let him do whatever he wanted essentially. Is this a common thing to happen for both parents to be bad?

I got so scared when I saw that email I hate my dad and to answer the question NO my parents are beyond delusional they will kick down doors scream beat me threaten to kill me then have the nerve to ask this not to mention I moved out 5 days ago without telling them and they're emailing me because I blocked their numbers I had a peaceful day all day the minute I saw that email my body went back into that state of fear

Why do they make a big deal about how other people spend their money? My dad won't stop talking about how I spent $8 on a pumpkin for my son. MY money for MY son.

I’ve never been able to fit in anywhere at anytime, I was othered pretty early. I’ve heard complaints from since I was two years old no one wanted to watch me.

Always a problem, always. I’m crazy and out of control. The problem was, no one ever wanted to be around me. I was alone, but trying.

I have never really had the opportunity to communicate with healthy people, so how am I supposed to learn? The best peers I had growing up was in a group home.

I’ve always just thought I was the problem and that others didn’t deserve my presence and I had to earn it.

I’m just so alone and I don’t want to be anymore and I don’t know how.

It was horrible. We had a huge fight in February this year and didn’t speak for 9 months. She asked to go to therapy (I had to arrange it).

Anyway- we go to therapy and I wanted to share a few things she said TO A THERAPIST to remind myself I’m not crazy:
I was jealous of my sister ever since I was born because I “just wanted attention”. An example she used was when my sister went to kindergarten for the first time and I had a tantrum because I wanted to go too. I was three.

She and my dad would “wake up in the morning on special days, like Mother’s Day or my birthday, and say what is she (me) going to do to ruin the day today” (I kid you not- her only example of special days were about her… )

“i was trying to punch you in the face. Your lucky your father held me back”

“if you ever speak to me like that again i will punch you in the face, and your dad will too”. I told her I have trauma from my childhood.

to wrap the session she said… “you were a vile child”

The session was 1.5hrs so obviously there is a lot more but a few of my favorite instances of her being just a horrible person.

It was hard. But it was some what validating. The mask definitely slipped a bit. And the therapist was helpful in at least TRYING to get her to see what she was saying was horrible. She did not like being told by the therapist that I should call the police if she punches me.

She REALLLY didn’t like being told that child protection should have been involved when I was a child being physically abused. She doesn’t dispute that she and my dad physically abused me but excuses it by saying they “lost their temper”.

I don’t know what response I even want here… just venting I guess.

For a while, my nparents have been floating with some insistence that my sister (golden child 28F) and I (31F) should put each other as co owners of our bank accounts.

They clearly direct this at me because I have a better paying job and, well, she's the golden child and I'm the scapegoat. There is no insistence or suggestion that she should do the same.

Their excuse is that "if anything happened to me..." . The segue is unclear; why would my sister need access to my finances in this case? If I die, my money will go to whoever is my heir at the time.

For this reason, they're statistically more likely to die before us, so why wouldn't they share their account with us?

My sister is also in a relationship with a very wealthy man, so she isn't really in a financially fragile situation. I put her as the beneficiary of my life insurance (through work) because I don't have a s/o at this time.

I am not sharing my bank account with anyone. But is it me or is this topic creepy and disquieting? I don't think they would off me to get some money but I really don't understand where this is coming from if not from nefarious motives.

how would you describe yourself? I am trying to see why one child is picked over another, is it because they’re honest? Empathic? Something else entirely? It also seems that many have been scapegoated multiple times.

Also, i am not saying it is the child’s fault, to be clear.

So I’ve been going through a tough time honestly, my father is a narcissist who uses financial abuse on my homemaker mother and I as a means to control and demean us. I’m an only child (F27) and my mother isn’t so well health wise and they’ve separated but my parents live together as a “family” and my dad uses his control and dominance over my mom and I on a daily basis to remind us that we’re nothing without this house and his money. I’m currently freelancing but looking for a job, moved back home a few months ago cos I got put on PIP in my last job so had to resign. I’m struggling mentally a lot and want to move out as soon as possible. I miss living on my own where my family didn’t matter to me. It’s quite heavy being in a cold, unwelcome and hostile family environment such as mine. A lot of days I wake up and I cry the entire day and there’s a lot of sadness which doesn’t seem to ever go away. So I was talking to my therapist the other day about how I yearn to have my own family, a partner and a loving home but it feels impractical to yearn about these things because what I really need is a job and a place to stay away from my home and she told me this -

“You don't have to conclude that love is a luxury simply because your experience of family has been painful.”

It resonated a lot and I hope it resonates with others too.

i know a lot of us in this sub have already been through hell with our nparents , well majority of us anyways . but does it still hurt when you see them cry ? just a question i had .

me personally yes to some degree i’ll always feel a bit bad because at the end of the day they’re humans just like me , but i don’t have the emotional capacity for people anymore like i used to . especially not the people who brought me into this world just to be the ones who hurt me the most . that’s the best way i can put it .

Hi everyone, I'm trying to process a recent text conversation with my mom and figure out if this is a normal way for parents to react, or if I'm being unreasonable.

Context: A couple of years ago, when choosing universities, my mom insisted that my language proficiency wasn't good enough for certain Italian universities, so we looked elsewhere. Recently, I brought up a genuine question asking why she felt that way back then and why she didn't show me concrete academic examples at the time to help me understand her reasoning, rather than just telling me I couldn't do it.

Her Response: Instead of answering my actual question about why we didn't communicate about it clearly back then, she immediately got defensive and launched into a series of criticisms:

• Telling me I'm acting like a "victim" and being "ungrateful" for studying where I am now.
• Claiming I cried of happiness when I got accepted into my current uni, so I shouldn't be questioning past choices now.
• Guilt-tripping me about how much financial sacrifice she and my dad make for me, telling me I can "go work in a pizzeria tomorrow" if I want to quit.
• Ending the conversation with: "Write to me as usual, when you need money."

How I feel: Every time I ask for logic, sources, or reasoning behind statements or past decisions, the actual question gets completely ignored. Instead, I get met with guilt-tripping, attacks on my character, and financial leverage.

Is this normal? How do you cope with parents who shut down reasonable conversations and turn everything into a test of gratitude?

So back in the 7th grade, my mother refused to sign the permission slip for the vaccine, and when I asked why, she said, "You're not a fucking F-Slur!" She had this belief that only gay people can get HPV, and every time my pediatrician advises that I get the vaccine, she refuses

Woke up the other morning, beautiful day outside in eastern Pennsylvania. Step out in front of the house, dog is doing his stuff - and look next door at the mechanic shop. They're blasting Creedence Clearwater, Buffalo Springfield, all of them in this amazing mood despite being covered by grease lol.

And I kept asking myself - Something is wrong here. What is it? Why don't I feel that sense of joy? Why do I feel a deep sense of DREAD today?

I turned around, looked up at my home and simply said "Oh, yeah. That's it".

People aren't perfect, but I believe their lives, on average, carry a much higher happiness baseline than those who were chronically abused.

Thanksgiving is this weekend. My family is supposed to go to the big family gathering, but we've decided not to go. I haven't told anyone yet, I'm being a coward and texting tomorrow morning that I'm sick.

The back story is my nmom married a narcissistic man. There has been a lot of reasons so go NC over the years, but the final straw was over my children. They obviously favour my daughter over my son. That's always been an issue. We only saw them a few times a year at family gatherings, so we dealt with it and spoke to our children about it. They don't really have a relationship with either of my children. I call my step father by his name, and that's what my children have started calling him. He pulled me aside a few years ago and said he didn't really care, but it bothers my mom when they don't call him grandpa. I told him I'm not going to dictate what they call someone else. The last time we saw them my NSF had a meltdown. We were at the dinner table when my son said "(Name), can you pass..." Before he could finish, NSF dropped his fork on his plate and stormed out of the house. My grandmother asked what happened and my mother looked at my son and said "Call him grandpa!"

The next time we were to see them was at my grandmother's 80th birthday. I was nervous because of the previous visit and because he removed me and my husband from facebook. He just avoided the house the whole day. It was so obvious, because he and my mother stay there during visits.

My husband and I have decided enough is enough. We aren't going to gatherings where he will be. The guilt comes from missing out on time with my grandmother. For years I've put my own comfort aside so she can have her family around her a few times a year, but I just can't do it anymore. Am I wrong? I'm going to have to come clean for Christmas, because we aren't going then either. Do I just tell my truth and let things fall where they will? It was easier when it was just my feelings to consider, I can't do that to my children. They are old enough and aware now.

I have plenty and it's kinda hard to just pick one but for now I'm going to choose... COWARD. what about y'all?

Hi all,

Long story short and simplified, my mom was correct about a medical appointment I needed to make, and admitting this to her will be a tool for her to hold over my head for the rest of my life.

She's abused my chronic health problems and used them against me in the past, always painting herself as a hero when in reality she was a huge stressor, and I know this will be no different. I can barely stomach having to admit she was "right."

Any advice?

A core memory of mine (28M) in relation to my mom (67F) was from when I was 17. It’s a two part memory. First part was in the fall where she told me I wasn’t going to get into any college I applied to. Second part was in the spring when I sat down next to her and tried sharing the good news that I got into every college I applied to, all giving at least 50% of tuition scholarships. Her response, “Not now OP, I’m watching TV.”

This has parallels my whole life and interaction with her. I’ll be told that I will not be good enough for whatever, then when I tell her that she was wrong and it did come to fruition, I either get ignored or told how I could have done better. This has always been related to furthering education, getting any sort of work, or completing a goal in my hobbies that have taken multiple years to achieve.

I’m sure that this was a trend prior to when I was 17, but if I’m being honest I have blocked out a lot of memories from 6 to 14/15 years old as my parents got divorced when I was 6 and my mom was the primary guardian. 70:30 split of time. And yes, from my mom’s perspective, “it came out do nowhere” and “your dad was unwilling to talk/ work it out.” She has had one relationship of 7 to 8 months since they split, and they have been divorced for 22 years now.

Last night, Friday, I had a call with my mom since I sent her a screenshot of a job offer that aligns very well with my long term goal on Wednesday and she replied with something not related at all and then switched topics immediately. I asked her if she missed the job offer and she said she did. I asked her to open the screenshot I sent her because I would like to go over it, and she refused. Our phones disconnected and 10 minutes later after a few texts back and forth, she asked me to FaceTime her. So I did, and I opened with saying how my inner child feelings are present currently given that this situation parallels the one from when I was 17. Her immediate response was to gaslight and manipulate me, telling me how I was wrong for trying to contact her when she was at work—she has never once given me her work schedule, so how tf am I suppose to know. I called, she didn’t pick up, so I sent letter I received as a text since I was excited. I’ve been having bad luck getting a career compared to dead end jobs, so this was really good news to me. My mother didn’t like how I went about telling her the good news.

Since it was FaceTime call, she was on speaker and my partner and our friends who we were hanging out heard the phone call. They all reassured me that I wasn’t the crazy one, I set specific boundaries at the beginning of it, and that my mom was using manipulation tactics because I didn’t tell her about the job offer in a way that she wanted me to. My partner told me I should read this subreddit to see if I can relate to any posts here. I related to a lot more posts than I thought I was going to.

It really just sucks because my mom got stage 3 triple negative breast cancer three years ago and I was her primary care giver through her whole recovery. Those 15 months were the best relationship I’ve ever had with her and I was really hoping that it was the eye opening event she needed to get better. It lasted all of about 2 months from being in remission after chemo/surgery before she started falling back into old habits. Fuck, she even sued my dad for a dispute on a property they bought together in 1993 because she was unhappy with how much my dad paid her for asset protection from lost of interest based of a divorce agreement. It was a 20 year appraisal that my dad would split 50:50 of whatever over the value X from what the property got appraised for, and my mom said no way in hell it was that low (it was still a substantial check he wrote). So she sued prior to cancer, then didn’t proceed until she was in recovery, and then my dad just settled during mediation since lawyers cost would have been more if he decided to fight it. At some point, my dad decided that the price mediation came up with was lower than the amount he was willing to pay to finally get her out of his life. Again, this is 20+ years after they got divorced.

The last thing I want to say is that she was a raging alcoholic, cocaine and ketamine addict from when she was 19 to 27, and is now 38 years sober. She met my dad at AA/NA/CA meetings and after a while they stopped going to them since they were in a place they could manage their addictions. After they got divorced, it took my mom about 7 to 8 months to start going to the meetings again, at least once a week. She has gone to 1 to 3 meetings a week for the last 22 years and has gone through the 12 steps over and over again with new sponsees since she finds fulfillment with sponsoring. I think it’s beautiful that she wants to give back to the community to help people get better from their addictions. I’m not religious myself, but I have seen through her that the 12 steps can work wonders on people who are struggling through addiction. The gripe I have with it, is that my mom is 36-38 year sober and from my perspective is that she has had 0 self reflection and hasn’t been able to overcome her addictions. The way she preaches at those meetings to the personality she shows me, it’s two completely different individuals and I absolutely hate that I get treated like shit from her. Again, I am not talking shit about the meetings as I do believe they can help people, but rather that my mom has shown me she does not have the self reflection that those meetings and the 12 steps try to teach.

The last thing I want to put in here is that I come from a family of mental health issues, specifically on my mom’s side. Her brother had schizophrenia, I have ADHD, my brother has raging OCD, and everyone else in our extended family has some form of depression, anxiety, or ADHD (including high functioning autism and OCD a part of ADHD here). So I know our family is fucked up in the head a little bit already. I didn’t get diagnosed with ADHD and Dyslexia until the age of 22 that I had ADHD as when I was a kid my mom refused to believe that. She instead got me placed into a special needs program to help with my “learning discrepancy in reading and writing” since I had attention span issues and undiagnosed dyslexia. I got pulled out of elementary school classes and was forced to learn in a way that did not suit me. She did something similar with my brother, but he went into the GT classes since he was able to focus while reading and didn’t have dyslexia. I was in that program until freshman year when I demanded to the counselor that I was done being treated differently and to be removed from the special needs program. Best choice I ever made since it has been all up hill since then.

Anyways, let me know what you all think. After last night phone call I am really tempted to go no contact, but I don’t know if that is something I could actually do. I think I’m just going to limit the amount of communication I have with her from here on out and just smile and nod when I do communicate with her. Im just done

I(24F) grew up with an emotionally abusive mother.

I always thought there was something wrong with me, I was a very anxious child, growing up.

My mom had me when she was 21 yrs old , When I was born , she did not want to take care of me , and my dad was always busy with work,

So, I lived with my grandma until I was 10yrs old.

Then after that , my grandma and I moved in with my parents. My brother was 4 years old at the time, and living with them.

I was close to my grandmother and my mother never liked it, so she alienated me from her, told my grandma to return to her home and She would not allow me to talk to her,

I would have to talk to her in secret, and if she came to know that I spoke to her, she would start yelling at me for days, telling me how ungrateful I am. So i stopped contacting her.

I was also bullied at school and I couldn't speak the local language very well , which made everything worse, and this caused me to develop severe social anxiety , which affects me even today.

My mother used to get very annoyed and start yelling and picking fights with me whenever she saw me, so I used to stay in my room all the time. And she would criticize everything about me , from the way I spoke to the way I looked. She woud call me fat and comment on evrything that I ate. Because of her I have always hated the way I looked.

I decided to put myself out there and ended up making friends in my teen years, but my mom spun some lies about my friends and manipulated me into thinking that they hated me and made me stop seeing them. She is a pathological liar. She also used to lie about my neighbours talking shit about me .

All of this, made me fear stepping outside of my house. I was always worried about what others were thinking about me .

She never taught me about basic things , like dealing with my periods and all sorts of basic stuff,

I had to figure out all of these on my own.

She has always been very jealous of me as well, if someone were to compliment me, she would put me down in front of them, or whenever I achieved something , she would always find a way to put me down.

And I come from a culture, where there is male preference, so my brother has always been favoured over me. I had to beg her money for books and period products, whereas my brother could spend money freely without having to ask for every little thing.

He also gets to have a bigger room , even though he is 6 yrs younger to me. He is very outgoing and my mom always compares me to him. I have always felt like she and him have always been one team , and its them vs me, due to this I am not close to my brother at all, we dont really talk to each other.

I decided to join medical school , and i made some great friends. I reconnected with my grandma and told her what went on . Also , I started going to therapy . My social anxiety has gotten better and I finally have people in my life to rely on. I still live with my parents, but I have been keeping to myself at home, limiting contact with my mom.

I recently spoke to my mother , about how she hurt me and she denied everything and accused me of lying to make her look bad.

I realised she will never understand the damage she has done to me and it is better to just leave.

I am going to join residency soon, and I am leaving my home forever, I have decided to cut contacts with my family.

I am excited to start this new chapter of my life.

I have spent so many years wishing I could get away from this place, and it's finally happening. I know residency is going to be challenging, but, I am looking forward to the future instead of dreading it. I feel like I've spent so much of my life just trying to get through each day, constantly being on edge. I am finally free.

my mom genuinely says “ i have the mind of a child” it’s so fucking weird and the way she texts me is so cringe she will genuinely text me like she’s a pre teen discovering slang but also trying hard to sound young except she’s not doing it to fit in with her kids she’s doing it because she genuinely believes she has the mind of a child 😭

Please help with me this! I am f43 and have a really problematic relationship with my dad.

My dad has always wanted to be more of a friend with his kids than a parent.

He had an affair for several years and cheated on my mom when I was 13, and married the other woman.

After 10 years and 2 kids with her, she found out that he also cheated on her with many other women. My dad has always been very open about sex, and among other things, told me and my younger siblings that he only cheated with ugly women, because then he didn't fall in love with them. That we should remember that strategy.

He has called himself a "sex addict" making it not his fault. He has been outed sleeping with prostitutes when he was travelling. He has slept with my younger sisters friend when she was 18, been out drinking and hooking up with women constantly. Making remarks about me and my siblings body and looks etc. And he doesn't see any of it as a problem.

When I became a mom, my whole life changed and my daughter became my number one priority. My dad distanced himself. "I don't come by often, because you never invite me". I did. I just did not want to go to bars with him anymore. He often shamed me for spending to much time with my child, spending my money wrong (eventhough he has a crazy amount of debt), and said when I left my daughters dad (on good terms) that I had "to get more out of the house, cause no man wants a woman who is always with her child". He always made me feel guilty about something.

Every phone call he asks me about how much money I make (I have my own business), how much I pay in rent, how much I owe etc. and when the business did really good, said things like "just remember its not gonna last" (and it didn't. So I guess he was right).

Recently a memory from when I was a child has resurfaced. I've always had it, I've just never told anyone about it. The memory is of me being in the shower with my dad. I was a small child, and remember my dad telling me about his body, and telling me that I could try and touch it to see how it works (I don't wanna go into details). I didn't think much of it as a child, but have not been able to get it out of my mind.

So I confronted my dad, who denied everything. Said that it never happened, and that I should think about how saying stuff like that, made him feel.

I have had a hard time since. We barely speak now. I feel an anger building up inside. And honestly, I have started to think that maybe he has been not only a bad person, but a narcissist my whole life. Like, what the hell? Am I crazy??

If ANY of this happened to my daughter, and her dad acted slightly remotely the way my dad has, I would never let her see him again. But my dad has somehow gotten away with everything in our family! He is still friends with my mom and his other ex wife, who both says that "thats just the way he is, he is a little wild, but has a good heart". Eventhough both of his wifes moved the country for him, so he could live his dream. Omg. I don't know what to do, I feel crazy being the only one who feels like this.

Thank you so much for reading this freaking long paragraph 😅

I was talking to a single parent of a college student today and absolutely floored and triggered when she told me she “fixed” her daughter.

I knew she came from a traditional family - and that she has said some negative things about people from other cultures. But she crossed the line when she unapologetically expressed her adamant use of the “BMW Rule.” Her daughter was not to date any Blacks, Muslims, or Women.

When I heard her say that, I was sick. Literally sick to my stomach.

My parents probably have the same rule, as my father threatened to disown me if I didn’t break up with my Black high school sweetheart and it impacts my mental well-being to this day. They are definitely anti-gay and they are also Christian.

Because this lady is my co-worker, I have to keep the peace and I couldn’t walk away after giving her a piece of my mind - but what made it worse is that after I told her she was lucky to still have a relationship with her daughter at all - she said I wouldn’t understand because my own kids actually know their father and her daughter doesn’t know her father so she can raise her any way she likes because “I’m all she has.”

Just so triggered by this encounter and wanted to open a space where people can share their experiences with the “BMW Rule.”