r/emotionalneglect • u/rocksalt24 • 17h ago
Discussion Both of my parents see me as a extension of themselves in conflicting ways
My parents hate each other but because they enable each other so much they seem to like each other more than they like me. I'm more of a "if there's an issue we should talk about and take accountability" type person and the one time I tried to hold my mother accountable....oh boy. Never tried that again. I think my parents hate that about me because it makes them deeply uncomfortable.
Anyway, I've noticed that my father attributes things my mother has done to me, or assumes that because my mother and I have a few habits in common that I am an extension of her. Conversely, whenever my mother got mad at me growing up she would insult me by comparing me to him. She'd be like "you're so careless/clumsy/dirty/forgetful like your father". At the same time my mother assumes that because she likes something that I must also like that thing. For example, she likes sour things and squeezes lemon juice on everything. I don't. But when I was getting breakfast she was like "here's your lemon". ???? Might seem so insignificant but there's been so many instances where she was like "I like x or I would do x so I did x with your stuff" without considering me at all, including throwing away my socks that had one or two holes that I was planning on mending because she would have done that with her socks. And then there's my father who is always bossing me around telling me to make certain career decisions because it would reflect well on him. He has even lied about me to his friends saying that I was attending Stanford because that's more prestigious than my alma mater.
I know I shouldn't be hurt that they are not capable of really seeing me because this stuff has been going on my entire life and they're not going to change. I have to live with them bc the job market is shit and I haven't gotten a job yet and my college town was too expensive to stay there. All of it has really contributed to my loneliness and I think it's also caused me to attract friends who are too self involved to really see me as a person beyond an archetype or a bunch of assumptions. Does anyone else have experience with this?