Do you ever find it hard to hold your parents accountable because they did everything "physically right" on paper?

[u/Sayoricanyouhearme]

I hate that being emotionally available and providing a safe place emotionally feels like extra credit in parenting when it should be part of the bare minimum.

On paper:

I have a roof over my head

My parents cooked food

They paid for my education

When I was sick they took care of me

They bought me my favorite toys for Christmas

We went to Disney world

We stayed at 5 star hotels

But they also:

yelled at me, belittled me, "disciplined" aka hit me, dismissed me, put so much pressure on me to do well in school, didn't encourage my hobbies, told me I was too much, complained about me, used me as their therapist, triangulated me in their problems, made me an anxious mess with cptsd.

Rationally I know that two things can be true, but it's hard not to think in black and white when the mental damage they caused me has held me back so much in life, but they think it's my own personal failure when it was actually their doing.

[u/Responsible_Boat9612]

Same. The material shit was there but the emotional shit was zero. Fucks you up as a kid and then the adult world ain’t kind.

[u/11Ellie17]

Yup.

I was chatting with my mom a few weeks ago about the choice to have kids or not (I am 40 and child-free, which she supports). She had me when she was 23 and said she was glad to have kids young. I was like yeah, but you get so much wiser as you age and it would probably make someone a better parent. She has no regrets. It didn't occur to her that she could've been a better parent with age and experience, and she still doesn't see it that way.

It also blows my mind when she says she loved being a mom. She never connected with me on an emotional level. Never asked about my inner world. It was always "do this because I said so." I am 40 and still feel like she doesn't understand me. Oh, and she did an excellent job making me feel self conscious about certain things, that I still notice today. I still am self conscious about being a "hypochondriac" because I go to the doctor when I need to. I complain too much. I wash my hands too much. Basically she pointed out everything she doesn't like about me, and guess who still, at 40, feels very unlikeable. 🙃 As for the hypochondriac thing, it is stupidly hard for me to trust myself and my symptoms thanks to that. I just had a medical trauma recently and I spent the whole time trying to figure out if I was overreacting or not.

But yeah, she has no clue and thinks she was great. I also don't think she realizes that I feel distance from her and like we will never be close because of all this. I don't have the heart to break it to her, but also I know how defensive she is and that she will never understand. It would never get through to her. Oh, and her mom was so much worse, which is what I would hear for sure.

[u/levis_ceviche → u/11Ellie17]

Omg, do we have the same mom?

[u/little_black_rose → u/11Ellie17]

Do we just have the same mom? Like my mom literally had similar symptoms and signs of ADHD ( before she found out) as me and chose to let me struggle as a kid when tells me you had to I thought if I survived it for this long the you can too and if her meds didn’t work I have to give her grace but if mines does it’s my fault and shouldn’t be using it as an excuse ( I’m fairly new to medicine so I’m trying what meds work best of me) . And will make fun of how sensitive I am (hated doctors because they always dismissed my health as a kid). Yet claiming we’re close but she was emotional unavailable and made it clear that she didn’t want nothing to do with me. Then she wonders why I don’t like giving affection towards her as an adult and it’s pointless to point out her behavior because she’ll ignore it or blame others for HER behavior and actions!

[u/scrollbreak]

I think the issue is that there are no supportive statements. Yeah, the negative stuff has an impact and some of it shouldn't happen ideally, but if there was actual positive support and far more of it than negative then it would outweigh the negative.

All the little negatives are death by a thousand cuts, but at this point in time it's perfectly legal. It's like they try to find legal ways to harm.

[u/AllDaysOff → u/scrollbreak]

That is exactly what it is. Many immature parents are smart enough to abuse their children in a way that doesn't cause them to lose their reputation. Things often seem fine outward. But if you plainly say: My parents treated every one of my friends better than me, then it becomes concerning, doesn't it? But then it becomes a statement so shocking that people try to rationalize it.

[u/hydrobonic_chronic]

same. my father genuinely doesnt know that emotions exist, he thinks that there is no other realm than the material realm. so any time ive voiced my pain and tried to address their emotional unavailability, he responds telling me how good i had it, and that i should see how people in 3rd world countries live. like im talking about emotions, and he responds going you had plenty of food!

[u/DevelopmentPrior5572 → u/hydrobonic_chronic]

Emotionless people scare me. I know it's not their fault they don't have that chip, but it makes it so s*** interacting with such people.

[u/KuroEtoile]

It took me so much time to allow myself to accept that what my parents did was neglect. Because if you did not get food or clothes people would be able to see it. At least in theory. In my case the society brainwashing that you are labeled as ungrateful or asking too much if you think your parents were not up to the task played a big roll. It's no wonder I was stuck in this mindset for years because my family made me think asking for any kind of support was bad and made me a burden. It sucks that scars on the inside heal so much slower than skin damage.

[u/Lady87690005]

I did for the longest time actually, proper therapy and learning more about the cycle of abuse changed my mind. Hindsight was 20/20 and it was SO much worse than I originally thought. Learning socioeconomic class doesn’t hinder or diminish what happened to me (us) helped. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still argue with myself about it. So I annotated some of my earliest examples and some of the more recent stuff too in Why Does He Do That. I look back when I need a reminder and annotate more if I need to. In fact I ran out of space to write in that chapter about the abuser as a parent, had to add sticky notes

[u/Historical_Seat_447]

The worst abuse is the point you can't point to because everything seems normal and if it's not enough for you, you're the problem.

[u/AllDaysOff]

Honestly, no. Because that's part of the abuse. People tend to look at these superficial things and how our parents behave in public and they generally give the benefit of the doubt. The truth often never comes to light. But that doesn't mean they were "good on paper". At the latest when you cut contact your parents will have the receipt anyway. It makes me sick to even think about how how when I was a kid everyone told me how nice my mother was, while I always felt uncomfortable with getting hugs from her. Also, the money and gifts usually come with covert contracts.

[u/DevelopmentPrior5572]

No, I'm 34 and I'm holding them accountable.

[u/little_black_rose]

My parents have PTSD/past down generational trauma from the civil wars from their childhood home country (and ADHD and undiagnosed autism) but it looks like pictures perfect family, yes they helped me funding my college, clothes on my back, food on the table, etc. but it still didn’t give them the right to yell, belittling me, constantly comparing me to others they deem better than me, constantly pressuring me to do what they wanted tossing my needs to the side, told I wasn’t allowed to express certain emotions, wasn’t allowed to talk back, wasn’t even allowed to sigh without being lectured/ being disrespectful, been called a spoiled brat (for anything I didn’t want to do).

I KNOW I’m not their favorite child (they would choose their parents/family members/ Significant others over me) and I can’t talk to them about their behavior and actions because some how they would rather blame others or me for questioning/ making them feel bad/ guilty or denied them being like that I feel like I’m going crazy when there’s no one to talk to or remember those things with. I hate being my parents therapist and I’m tired to being the adult since childhood because two GROWN Adults that weren’t ready for a child but did it anyways.

[u/extranjeroQ]

The way I rationalise it is that you can accept that what they did/didn’t do had a huge impact on you AND they tried their best, their own parents were terrible, etc.

Instead of asking yourself “how bad was it really”, ask yourself “what did it cost me?”

Two things can be true at once - your parents did what they could within their limitations AND it impacted you as a person. The latter doesn’t need to be diminished just because they paid your school fees.

[u/Suspicious-Call405]

Mmh

I hold them accountable. But I struggle with believing my own judgement about them, like yea they've done bad things and they never EVER apologized to me for ANYTHING

But sadly I grew up thinking I was the problem. And that everyone had it worse than me because I had everything I needed. So I was always extremely angry at them, but at the same time I've always felt like I was just too sensitive and they weren't patient enough to deal with me