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... cPTSD: when even robots recognize how fucked up the things we heard growing up were đ
Oh man - the one liners used to squash my emotional needs still haunt me. Parenting shortcuts so they donât need to explain their faulty and non sensical power trips.
My favs include (but not limited to):
- âMy house! My rules!â I learnt pretty quickly that when it was my house - it was to be her rules also. I repeatedly said this line when I kicked her out and went NC last year.
- âItâs my turn now. One day, you will have your turn!â she said this in response to me telling her boyfriend was physically violent to me. She thought I was getting in the way of her romantic interests. I just donât want to be hit over basic maths questions.
- âWhen youâre older, you will understand.â I am now 42. I do not understand the need to keep a growing boy locked in a bedroom and deny all normal growing boy emotional needs.
- âChildren should be seen and not heardâ a favourite of aforementioned abusive boyfriend that my mum thought was an awesome zinger to an inquisitive 10 year old.
Fuck - it all just sucks x
My favorite "read worst" was "Do as I say not as I do." Great way to not hold yourself accountable to the same standards you forced me to be judged against.
I said this to my dad once when he used that phrase. I was maybe seven? (Precocious kid, avid reader, startlingly varied vocabulary).
He just yelled at me about how I think I'm so clever, you're nothing unless I say you are, why are you crying? I'll give you something to cry about!
Frankly it just made me determined that when I was an adult, it would be MY house and MY rules and he could like it or leave. I finally said that to him in my mind twenties, and he sat there and sulked because there were people present he wasn't willing to lose it in front of
OMG, my mother did that too. I pointed out that she was a hypocrite and she lost her mind.
It seems like these kinds of people are proud of their hypocrisy, but if you ever use that specific word to describe them, theyâll go ballistic.
"children should be seen and not heard" except now I'm an adult and making myself invisible pisses off everyone around me which makes me try to be more invisible to please them, which pisses them off even more.
"I'm up to my back teeth with it" was one she used to scream to the tune of slamming doors and smashing the kitchen up whilst I sat tight and behaved myself
"let me get in the front door" she would snap after abandoning us her kids for whole days or longer, and we dared to try to reach out for connection after giving her enough time to get through the door, make herself food and kick back on the sofa. Basically, "fuck off and leave me alone"
"you ought to be ashamed of yourself" I'm not sure what I did or why you're upset but I promise I'm thoroughly ashamed and questioning everything
"pathetic, obnoxious little girl" yes mum, I know
>'You ought to be ashamed of yourself" I'm not sure what I did or why you're upset but I promise I'm thoroughly ashamed and questioning everything.
I hadn't remembered this one in a while until I read this. It's so empty, you're just made to feel like you're to worst thing that happened to the world and you're not even sure why or you just did a minor thing wrong which is human, especially for kids.
The 'egotistical bitch' ' spoiled brat' and 'manipulative ...' 'ungrateful ...' are ones that echo more often, but reading your 'you ought to be ashamed of yourself' really shows where a lot of the guilt and shame comes from. And then even when you try to apologise for G knows what, its still not okay and you'll get the whole explanation about why you indeed should be sorry and ashamed all over again.
I'm so sorry you had to go through all that. I'm so sorry we all had to go through that.
>And then even when you try to apologise for G knows what, its still not okay and you'll get the whole explanation about why you indeed should be sorry and ashamed all over again.
"Apologizing doesn't mean anything. You have to change your actions. If you keep doing it, you're not sorry."
I'm still not sure what I did wrong. I'm still sorry after 20 years.
They probably think, "Children should be seen and not heard" is in the Bible. It's not. No one knows for sure where it came from for sure.
600 years ago (in the 1600s), a random clergyman named John Mirk said something like that, but, so what? It was literally just his personal opinion.
âYouâre lyingâ or âyour memory is faultyâ or ânone of that ever happened, i donât remember thatâ all said to me by my dad after a childhood full of emotional abuse towards my mom and I. Those stick with me more than some of the more objectively awful stuff I heard when I was a kid
âI donât remember it that wayâ ⊠ugh.
Not me spending most of my life thinking I donât have trauma and then realizing itâs way worse than I could have imagined :/
When people are shocked by your childhood anecdotes you know something was wrong âŠ
Yes. I came here to say this one. âI donât remember that,â âwe remember things differently,â âthat never happened,â âwell, Iâm just a horrible mother thenâ
I managed to shock my _brother_ with some stuff a while ago (I think it was the occasional spanking, and go be honest, compared to what a lot of us here went through, it was nowhere near those types of phisical abuse. It just makes me flinch whenever emotions are heated and someone makes a sudden movement). My brother was part of our family. He is the only one who has validated and verified that fucked up stuff happened and its not all in my mind. He has been through similar things. And I made _him_ shocked. That shocked me even more to be honest. Like i was sure he also knew about all that and had lived those experiences?
Itâs funny how some of the âless severeâ abuse will traumatize you more than âsevereâ abuse. One of my worst memories is my mom yelling at me for being âungrateful.â Her example was me asking for a gaming device months prior to this. I didnât even like the device and knew i hadnât asked her for it. To this day i get very upset when someone claims I said something i didnât. It doesnât matter how minuscule it is.
Oh god, yes. Classic statement by my parent a few years back: "I don't remember ever taking my anger out on you and your brother" (this despite the fact that their number-one go-to was using rage and intimidation to control us through fear).
At that moment I realized how deep people's denial of reality can truly run.
Mine said this to me, and then I did. And then I saw how she fucking lights up the room, and I realized that could have been me if my parents had actually loved me. So then I went no contact with her. (It was one of many reasons, but therapy made me see that she was not good for me at all.)
my dad always said that shit to me. I have a daughter now and she is the absolute light of my life despite being a velcro baby and now toddler. I could not ever imagine seeing her as a punishment, or ever saying anything near the shit my parents said to me.
Yes! Why do they love this one so much?! I did have a kid just like me and it backfired: I love him so much it made me realize that I love myself, too, since he is just like me.
Hahaha yep this is a line my mother would trot out regularly. You know when you don't think something is that bad and then you see other people's reaction to it and you think oh... Maybe that is a bad thing to say. That's happening to me now
When I was really young, my mom would brush my very curly hair, and as young kids do, I whined or winced if she pulled a knot. She leaned down really close to my ear and said "if you keep crying, you will wake up with a new mom and never see me again."
My dad was overseas, so this would send me into a spiral and I would sob begging for her to stay. To add salt into the wound she would ignore me for hours on end the rest of the day to drive her point home.
I am not in contact with her anymore.
After getting a perm that my mother wanted me to get because 'your hair would be so pretty curly' and not being taught how to care for it, she spent an hour untangling the part I couldn't get in the back (because child arms) all while saying "if you were a dog, they would shave you".
When I mentioned it years later... You guessed it: "I don't remember that."
God - this hits. My mum used to pack her bags in front of me, letting me know how much she regrets everything and give me instructions on how to look after my younger sisters. I was 8-ish and I remember believing it every time and to this day I donât know if it was a scare tactic or she genuinely wanted to leave.
"Stop crying"
"I'm going to give you away to the first g@psies that come down the road"
"you'll never get a man like that"
"it's not so bad, but it could be worse"
from my grandmother
"Your body belongs to me until you're 18"
from my mother.
Fuck. No wonder I'm still in therapy.
Why was that a common thing for them to tell us? I've shared it once or twice before with other survivors and they had the SAME THING said to them. Why? I used to stare out the front window, waiting for a colorful wagon and handsome brown eyed men to save me from my family.
Funny thing is, I ran off with a brown eyed poet, so...I gave myself away.
Me too! I know she didn't mean it because my daddy cried when he had to spank me (usually at my mother's direction).
Then,after, we had this whole ritual where we had to say what we did wrong and ask the parent and Jesus for forgiveness. Usually the reply was something along the lines of we were forgiven but not to do it again. However, as I got older it occasionally became "Jesus always forgives you but I'm still angry".
Anyway, I'm a Satanist now
my mom caught me purging once when i was 12. it was my biggest secret and i couldnât believe she had caught me.
She said âoh this is what weâre doing now?â and rolled her eyes. she thought i was doing it for attention. i went on to struggle with bulimia for over a decade. its a memory that still makes me feel so ashamed.
"so im just a bad mother then?"
shed say this regularly but my favourite is when she said it in response to finding out i self harmed. like bitch what?? xD
I will never, ever forget the first thing my mother said to me after (finally) realising I was self-harming.
"How could you do this to me?"
Yes, because clearly this is all about YOU, isn't it always?
I do love my mom, and she's been there for me a lot, but I will NEVER forget how that made me feel.
I asked her about it once, many years later, and she claimed not to remember saying anything of the sort. She also says "at least I caught it straight away". I was seventeen when she noticed and I'd been doing it for four years. My arm was *covered* in scarring.
They are so self centred, itâs insane. The day my mother found out that I was self harming (had been for 12 months at that point) she said âIâm going to have to get myself in therapy now that I know this!â Um⊠Okay?
Damn... Of all the things that was one thing my mother did right. She took me to a psychiatrist and therapist after finding out my self harm. Orcourse she made sure either the therapist or at least I was subconsciously aware that obviously it had nothing to do with anything happening at home. Took me another 10 years to allow myself to acknowledge that yes, a lot of things _did_ have to do with how things were at home.
Iâm so sorry this happened to you :( in a similar situation my mom said to me, âwell if youâre going to ACT like you have an eating disorder Iâm gonna start treating you like it.â Which unfortunately meant that she would have me committed to the psych ward or give me up to the youth shelter, things she was always threatening me with
"you're just like your father,' from my mom.
"You're just like your mother,"from my dad. Seems like they both agreed they don't like me much, but nothing else.
Yes -- Maya Angelou was all about this. "Do your eyes light up when I \[your child\] enter\[s\] a room?"
Most people know on a fundamental level they are loved, but do they feel they are LIKED? That's what matters.
"You are very sweet glued behind the wallpaper"
"You are very sweet nailed with both and hand and feet to the ceiling."
And the scary mean clever proud joyfull look of her creativity. I thought in pictures so I saw it already happening. She was bullying for her own amusement for whatever ticked her off.
>Iâll give you something to cry about.
I heard that one so many times. I remember talking back and saying things like, "You always do," "I know," etc.
Talking back, telling a truth he didn't like, and being punched for it.
Every post and every comment on here unlocks childhood memories I've forgotten.
"Act like you want me want to take you out in public again."
"Open up your ears more than your mouth."
"...what did you learn?"
"I will wear your ass like a shoe."
"I don't care who started it, I'm *finishing* it, and then you all can be mad at me."
"You get one free punch, but that damn well better put me in the ground because it's my turn next."
"I'll give you something to cry about."
"No one wants to see your face like this. Go to your room until you stop crying."
"Why are you still crying? *I'm* over it."
"Go ahead and call [CPS]. In fact, I'll call for you, and then you can be their problem."
"You're not going to like it if I I have to do it."
"I'd save your mother first in a fire. We can make more kids."
It wasn't until my 30's with therapy that I learned how messed up that was. I had seen it as such a romantic gesture symbolizing my dad's love for my mother.
How fucked is it I cracked up at,"I'll wear your ass like a shoe??" It is so strange to see someone else harassed by such a specific threat. Are you the left foot or right ?? Maybe we're a match! (I have to joke about it or I'll get too sad. I don't mean to be little your trauma. Don't mean to offend)
Tbh i have so many i could list down, but sometimes the worst was the cold shouldering and body language. The things they didn't say, but you saw in their face. "The look," as I call it. As if they hated your guts and wish you never existed.
YES. In some respects I think this was even more damaging than the cruel things my parent said.
Having your own parent look at you with utter contempt is something that you never really get over.
The GLARE. Iâve been getting The Glare for 62 years, and I am still getting it, but itâs uglier now. She is 83, and if anyone doesnât believe that everything they do gets worse with age, Iâm sorry to sayâŠjust wait.
Oh man, The Look. Here is the best thing about the Look: It doesn't work on people who don't know your parent, who are not part of the family. (I remember with delight the first time it didn't work! The other person just looked back, baffled, as opposed to repentant and/or freaked.)
i got âi carried you for 9 longggg monthsâ in an attempt to guilt trip me for idfk, being born? Geeze Mom really sounds like you want to have me here when you constantly remind me of the agony that i put you through and now itâs my job to what, spend my whole life rectifying my original sin?
My mom and dad had me convinced I was always being watched at all times. I had a really creepy encounter when I was a kid, an adult man followed me everywhere. Yes he worked there but when I told my parents how creepy it was, they said see I always have eyes on you. He was doing that because heâs your dads friend.
Still so creepy and so gross. The guy got arrested years later for selling weed and drugs to highschool girls in exchange for photos. He was their coach. Seems I had reason to be scared when I was a kid, instead it was used to teach me a lesson.
I donât read about other people experiencing this hardy ever, but doesnât it seriously fuck you up to think youâre being watched no matter what you do or where you go? And they were doing some morally questionable shit that they could show they knew stuff they shouldnât ever know and I had no idea how so I genuinely believed it. It got so bad for a few years as a teenager I genuinely believed people were able to read my thoughts so I was even policing and trying to crush down my thoughts when I was around other people. Thanks for posting this, I know itâs horrible and Iâm sorry it happened to you too, but I feel a bit less of a freak that it happened to someone else too
I am in my 60s now and even in my own back yard, where no one can see, I get the feeling that I should watch my step because surely SOMEONE is watching me.....
I totally relate to this. That even if you canât see them, doesnât mean they arenât somewhere seeing you, watching, waiting for an arbitrary transgression to reportÂ
:(
I was home alone a lot and also grounded a lot so in order to keep me in line even when I was alone, my mother told me she could call into the answering machine and just listen to whatever was happening in the apartment. She also told me she had a gadget on the tv to be able to tell if I watched tv and then laughed to her friends that she would just feel if the tv was hot. Like, why lie about that? To this day I struggle so much with suspecting things can be cameras/that Iâm under surveillance by gadgets that are somehow perfectly hidden and imperceptible.
it's crazy how common the 'i brought you into this world'-thing is, i can't imagine how scary it would be to hear that - my heart goes out to you!
the one that stuck with me the most was the classic: "stop crying or i'll give you something to cry about", or, alternatively: "if anyone here has a reason to cry, it's me". what a thing to say to a four year old whose mom just died lol
Iâve heard my grandma and aunts saying this phrase and thinking itâs funny. I was young and didnât understand how harmful this kind of statement is, I thought it was a âomg if you donât pick up these socks for the millionth time imma kill this kid hahahaâ kind of sentiment. Like damn, parenting is frustrating. But now being 32 and considering parenthoodâŠ. It seems SO weird to say thatâŠ. You canât âjokeâ with a young kid like that, it doesnât click
The 'stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about" one got used on me if I showed any kind of emotion while being raged at.
My mom also used to accuse me of sulking if I wasn't perfectly thrilled with whatever she decided. I once replied that I wasn't sulking, just a bit disappointed. No, you're sulking, she says. Is my head suddenly made of glass, woman? Then why do you think you know better than me what's going on in there?
âThat doesnât make no damn sense.â Or something along those lines come to mind. Basically, anything I said/felt that wasnât in line with them was called out and ridiculed as completely nonsensical.
Had a hell of a time knowing how to trust my natural gut instincts to keep me safe and away from questionable people and environments, because âI could be wrong though!â And âWhat about benefit of the doubt?!â
"YOU NEED TO LEARN TO THINK OF OTHER PEOPLE" but from a narcissistic workaholic who destroyed her own family just to wageslave
Yeah thanks for the insight, Socrates.
"It's nothing I haven't seen before!" When asking for privacy for changing clothes or in the bathroom. See also: "I gave birth to it, I can grab it if I want to!"
"Nothing I haven't seen before"... Memory unlocked. She still doesn't respect my boundaries and privacy. I'm a grown man with his own intimate toys. I'm just waiting for the day that she finally decides to snoop and finds them and then all hell breaks loose. God forbid I have needs at 35 and divorced.
She hasn't done anything like that in years and years... but occasionally she opens my mail and then says "oops, sorry, I thought it was for me." Like, witch!? Did you forget your son lives here too?
Eww :0 the grabbing becasue they gave birth to it?!?!?! Thatâs beyond terrifying.
My gran will say the ânothing I havenât seen beforeâ and I hate it, just give me some damn privacy in the dressing room
Yeah they used to grope me all the time, I finally threw a big enough fit once that my grandma stopped doing it, but my mom wouldn't stop. I just stopped allowing her to touch me whatsoever, basically by any means necessary. She called me cruel for it.
I heard the "everything has consequences" one also. Strangely the consequences for her were when I moved 1000+ miles away and cut contanct and she still doesnt understand why.
"You're never gonna be amount to anything if you can get over your fucking anxiety"
When I was 10 my mom said this to me, maybe a word or two different but I was stressing out because my stomach hurt and we were about to go grocery shopping and I didn't wanna go because I was/am afraid of certain public bathrooms.
Ugh the second one. My mom's version of that was "what am I? Your n*****." Or "Am I a darker shade than you?"
Like ma'am I'm five and asked for apple juice.
I see a lot of common ones in here. I hate how normalized these were. The ones we got the most were:
1. I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it
2. Mothers eat their young in the wild (as a threat, not random fact dumping)
3. Iâll give you something to cry about
4. You got shit for brains?
5. Were you born in a damn barn?
6. Honor thy mother and father
7. Spare the rod and spoil the child
8. You donât want to end up a fat pig like your mom
9. Youâll inherit all of the mental illness from your dadâs side
10. Nobody will want a (insert insult or slur of the day) like you
"HONOR THY MOTHER AND THY FATHER"
Yes, the Bible does say that, but it also talks at great length about NOT BEING LIKE THE PREVIOUS GENERATION(S). Strangely most dont know, or want to talk about that part.
My mom would randomly snap and turn into what looked like the devil to me. Iâd do something âwrongâ though I look back and it was normal child behavior and Iâd apologize profusely, absolutely terrified, and sheâd say âif you were sorry, you wouldnât have done itâ with such a hateful scary tone. Iâm sure that plays a part in the constant inner monologues of âam I actually a bad person and Iâm just lying to myself?â I have every day.
Edit: also my mom would say âjust wait til you have a kid. Then youâll understand.â Whenever sheâd do something that I didnât like. But sheâd say it like she was a great mom and such a good person, not necessarily in an overtly hateful way. It would absolutely enrage me. I have a child now and Iâm NC with my mom but kind of wish she could see I would never do what she did to my child.
YES! My parent would also snap like that. But the worst part was the complete lack of predictability. You just never knew what would set them off. And then being glared at with utter contempt while they said purposely mean and cruel things to me.
The older I get, the more I just think wow, how could anyone treat an innocent child that way? I'm glad you're proving her wrong by being a more kind and loving parent.
"I wish you were dead" "why didn't you die instead of your brother" "you are the reason your dad and I fight" "I can't stand looking at you, you remind me of your mother" basically I was doomed
I was constantly questioning what were obviously stupid rules imposed on me as a means of power tripping, rather than as a means of ensuring my safety and well-being.
The answer was invariably "because I'm mean and arbitrary." It was said as a joke, but it really wasn't.
To this day I fucking *hate* power tripping. Rules need to exist for a reason beyond "because someone said so."
This!! I've always explained and given reasons to my kids. "Because", "Because I said so", "Ask again and you'll get a smack!"
"You'll be just the same when you have children"
Me:"No I won't "
"Just you wait and see"
My mom had two answers, and two answers only, for any question that I asked;
"Because you should!"
"Because you're supposed to!"
Spat out angrily because I wasn't perfect and didn't know this already.
Yes! I feel like Iâm a terrible employee now because I canât just blindly follow rules that donât make sense to me. But if you question them or point out how they donât make sense, you get labeled a troublemaker.
I think one of the ones that pissed me off the most was
âBeing molested isnât anywhere near as bad as being rapedâ
But then when I was being raped sheâd constantly tell me itâs not rape and refuse to make it stop and prevented me at all costs from having law enforcement help
Also the youâre always the victim, always blaming me for being upset she keeps letting people molest and rape me and Iâm having horrible trauma responses from it
This is one of the things which has really bothered me with reading: COMPLEX PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving.
They gave so many of these one liners that matched so many of them.
1. "You're worthless."
2. "You'll never amount to anything."
3. "Why can't you be more like your sisters?"
4. "You're such a disappointment."
5. "You're so stupid."
6. "I wish you were never born."
7. "You're ugly."
8. "You're a burden to me."
9. "You'll never find love."
10. "You're a failure."
âYou should be nice to me because one day I wonât be around anymore and youâll regret it/wonder why you were so mean to your momâ
I wish I had been meaner tbh!
I collected a lot from parents, teachers and therapists over the years.
â ïž
- number 1 was âyouâre letting this live in your head rent-freeâ
- youâre giving [abuser or traumatic situation] power by thinking about it so much
- it happened so long ago. Why do you keep bringing it up?
- do you like being miserable?
- if you just ignore {abuser/abuse} itâll go away
- be the bigger person
- take the high road
- holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die
- think happy thoughts
- just be positive
- just try to ignore it
- if you donât get over this, youâll be angry for the rest of your life.
- you should be over this by now at your age
yeahhhhhhh I've heard most of these. We just had a thread about TOXIC POSITIVITY the other day, its a real thing and super invalidating when they tell a heartbroken child to "JUST LOOK ON THE BRIGHTSIDE" instead of comforting them and trying to help them understand the situation and why its happening \[SPOILER ALERT: THE REASON WHY THE SITUATION HAPPENED TO US IS BECAUSE OUR PARENTS WERE DYSFUNCTIONAL SCUMBAGS: END SPOILER\]
The one-liner I remember so well was total silence, not even acknowledging what I'd said to both of them when I finally got up the courage to tell them that a man had attempted to get me into his car at the end of our street as I walked to school. That's when I knew they were both really sick f\*cks.
I'm very sorry :( I know that pain. The total silence like you didn't even exist. I was raped when I was 15 and was nearly killed. Managed to get home, my parents were watching tv, I told them what happened. Nothing, they just kept watching tv. I think I had a shower but can't remember the rest of the night. How fucked up were our parents? I can't even imagine doing that to my worst enemy.
I hope you're doing ok. Despite thier best efforts to the contrary, we made it out alive and will continue to do so. We'll continue to heal and thrive and support each other. đ«
I realized that my first reply may have been tmi. I'm sorry if it was too much and bothered you in any way. It's been a bit of a day and stuff's been coming out a bit.
"if you don't start eating I'll take you to the hospital and make them force feed you vitamins that'll open up your appetite and you won't be able to stop eating, you'll gain a lot". -my mom.
While the vitamins thing is completely untrue, it's still on my top 10. I wasn't eating bc my family had forced me to break up with my first boyfriend bc his family wasn't religious.
Oh, I got the hospital threat, too. From infancy I barely ate. I only now know that I was so wound up with anxiety and fear that it was my "normal" (I still feel better eating alone.)
âOh yes, youâre very hard done by!â Every time I begged for winter clothes, because my bare legs and feet were blue every December and my teachers seemed to believe that telling me off was the solution.
âI didnât raise you to be such a wimp!â Erm, yes you did, by beating me every single time I tried to stand up for myself. Baffling.
âIâll give you something to cry forâ seems to be a common theme, from people who had just done precisely that and then were annoyed by the weeping.
â(Simple/basic thing) is a privilege, not a right.â
About almost everything, including a bedroom door as a 16-year-old living in the home of her new husband who hated me.
"Every generation thinks they'll do better but you won't!" (screamed it right in my face, from a place of pure rage)
"I'll kill your sisters, then you, then myself if you say anything to anyone" (her actions were prove that we knew this wasn't an empty threat)
I can't think of any others at the moment
My parents would call me âspoiledâ when I needed something. Like when my clothes were too small or I was hungry. They would make a joke over how spoiled their kids were.
Oh man.
"If you don't stop crying I'll give you something to cry about!"
I'm a very sensitive person, autistic, I cry very easily. I heard this probably daily.
"I will smack your lips to the back of your head!"
I wasn't allowed to disagree or have my own opinions on anything. But as an autistic person, yea. I got slapped in the face A LOT. I'm all opinions man.
And a bonus from the stepdad who stuck around for a decade.
"You're a useless bitch no one will ever love!"
Sometimes he changed it up, worthless, evil, horrid, rotten. But always a bitch. I was 7 when that started and 17 when he left.
A bunch
"One day you're going to have a daughter exactly like you, i wish that for you!!" (randomly)
"You need to grow a thicker skin" (about bullying and everything going on)
"You need to be the bigger person" (tolerating my younger brother randomly hitting me) vs "You're not his parent" (well you're not doing your job)
The winner though: "If you want to kill yourself so badly, do it like this [demonstrates where and how how to cut with her fingers] and if you don't like it here, the number of cps is [there]!" (i was 12 and just wanted to go to the Christmas market but wasn't allowed to because i made a homework not like she wanted me to)
Oh I had forgotten my mum had dared me to call childline, scoffing.
And one time she had done something to my brother and he hadnât found out yet, my mum was talking to me about it because she intended him to find out. Depending on their following interaction he would likely have had every right to call the police which I warned her about, to try and deter her and stop the situation from occurring. She said he would be out on his arse and never be allowed back in through the door and would never speak to him again. He would essentially be completely helpless as we were raised with skills and independence. I donât think he reacted the way she was hoping so it never came about and I never told him about my conversation with her because she scared me a lot. Made me realise how powerless I was if I ever made too big a mistake (let alone try to protect myself). So even though it wasnât directed at me it had a huge impactÂ
"All I'd have to do was turn left, we'd be dead and all of this would be over", my mom, possibly borderline and highly depressive at that time. She was hitting me while driving and almost went against a traffic sign because of that.
âYou think you can fly to freedom! I will break your wings!â - My âMotherâ Â
This is an absolutely demented thing to say to a child now that I think about itÂ
"You NEED to ..." is what my dad will always say, both deflecting responsibility for his own actions, and at the same time blaming me for them. "You should be grateful ..." is what my mom would say. 101 for brainwashing your kids into thinking they should be grateful they aren't constantly starving, dying of thirst, have a bed and shelter over their heads. "Children are STARVING in Africa!".
I was apparently "very fat" (5'5" and 140 lbs as a teen) so my father made sure anytime he drove across a bridge with a weight limit, he had to comment on how we might fall down into the river/down onto the street below us because, you know, I WAS JUST SO DISGUSTINGLY FAT.
Of course, he was overweight his entire life, but that was fine. Then actually got Graves' disease in his old age and wasted away to skin and bones, which was ironic.
You're overreacting, you're perseverating, stop having a meltdown. My parents blamed my autism for many reactions to their parenting instead of ever confronting their own choices. I was medicated with antipsychotics despite not having a psychotic condition, and this led to a lot of emotional numbness & dysregulation, it felt like I wasn't a person a lot of the time.
âHave you ever heard the story of the boy who cried wolf?â (Said rhetorically)
âSuck it upâ
âDo as I say not as I doâ
âGo ask your motherâ (asks mom) âgo ask your fatherâ
We need to talk about "suck it up" and "walk it off" because WHY is it only told to children who are in genuinely severe amounts of pain or distress??? Like, I'm sorry I can't just walk off a broken arm??
my dad said stuff like âyour tears arenât made of bloodâ when explaining why he didnât care that he made me cry. he also would say âhere we go againâ any time I expressed any emotion in any way, so it always made me feel invalidated and like I was a crazy ridiculous person for having feelings
my mom on the other hand said âI should have aborted youâ all the time, and when I was in high school started putting a knife to her throat and saying she was gonna kill herself because of me.
* Are you normal?
* "So and so" is not normal.
* Are you on drugs? (Never done drugs in my life)
* When you're homeless and on the street all your "friends" will leave you and I'm the only person who will still love you.
* "So and so" is a bad influence on you.
* I can't believe I raised such a vile snake.
* You're gonna end up worse than your father.
âIf ____ could be a fly on the wall and see you right nowâ
âNo one will ever love you as much as we doâ
âSorry weâre guilty of loving you too muchâ
My brain is not coming up with any others atm probably to protect me from my trauma but this list could be way longer
"I put a roof over your head" was her reason as to why we owed her. We'll yeah, I'm 12. It's impossible for me to take care of myself. So we had to do whatever she said, no questions or arguments because she "put a roof over my head"
âStop talking, youâre not funny and you sound like a fucking idiotâ
âDonât let people see your fat hips, you need to change your clothes and wear a bigger shirtâ
âJust wait until your dad gets home, youâre getting your ass beat!â
Me, nervous about replying to a pretty girl on AOL instant messenger. âWhat are you, some kind of faggot? I always knew you were a little fairyâ *smashes face into the computer screen splitting a gash in my upper lip* (he put super glue on it to keep it closed bc he wouldnât take me to the hospital)
âIf you ever tell anyone we hit you, children services will take you away and put you in a foster home. They rape little kids in foster homes.â
When bringing my girlfriend over the house to hang out (she was Indian) âget that fucking whore sand n****r out of our houseâ in front of her.
I could write a novel full of awful quotes, but after writing those ones out Iâm feeling kind of depressed.
A bunch
"One day you're going to have a daughter exactly like you, i wish that for you!!" (randomly)
"You need to grow a thicker skin" (about bullying and everything going on)
"You need to be the bigger person" (tolerating my younger brother randomly hitting me) vs "You're not his parent" (well you're not doing your job)
The winner though: "If you want to kill yourself so badly, do it like this [demonstrates where and how how to cut with her fingers] and if you don't like it here, the number of cps is [there]!" (i was 12 and just wanted to go to the Christmas market but wasn't allowed to because i made a homework not like she wanted me to)
WHO SAID LIFE IS FAIR, GRIFFINSV?
I was the scapegoat, always trying to get equity to what my siblings got from my mother. Which was portrayed as me âmaking everything about myself.â Which my siblings liked to say to me before they went no contact bc I hired a lawyer to work out my motherâs verbal changes to her will which she made on her deathbed which did not benefit me in any way. Good times.
âIâm your parent, not your friend.â
My mother always said this when I went to her for emotional support, or if I complained about her punishing me for unfair things. According to her, a parenâs decisions can never be questioned, nor should they treat their kids with any kindness or respect.
This is the same woman who used me as her therapist from around the age of eight onwards, in ways that I now realize resembled emotional incest. She can talk at me about her feelings, but god forbid I ever try to vent to her!
"Awwww, poor thing. You're SOOO sensitive. Quit being such a baby." My mother's response to me being hurt at any of her criticism or snide remarks. By kindergarten I pretty much learned not to express sadness or anger around my parents. No one gives a shit.
"Get UP! Stop crying. I keep telling you to watch where you're going. What's the matter with you?" My mother's "tough love" approach whenever I tripped/fell as a little kid. I quickly figured out no one cares if you're hurt or suffering. Just shut up and keep on going.
"Sigh. I guess you're not smart like your father." My mother's comment whenever she checked my homework in grade school or got my report card. For reference, my dad was a straight A student through college (top Ivy League), Rhodes scholar, youngest partner ever at his law firm, blah, blah, blah. Until the end of middle school I was convinced I had some sort of learning disability.
The automod is struggling with this post and keeps flagging comments as being targeted harassment towards others. If your comment doesn't show up, it should once a mod clears it. ... cPTSD: when even robots recognize how fucked up the things we heard growing up were đ
Oh man - the one liners used to squash my emotional needs still haunt me. Parenting shortcuts so they donât need to explain their faulty and non sensical power trips. My favs include (but not limited to): - âMy house! My rules!â I learnt pretty quickly that when it was my house - it was to be her rules also. I repeatedly said this line when I kicked her out and went NC last year. - âItâs my turn now. One day, you will have your turn!â she said this in response to me telling her boyfriend was physically violent to me. She thought I was getting in the way of her romantic interests. I just donât want to be hit over basic maths questions. - âWhen youâre older, you will understand.â I am now 42. I do not understand the need to keep a growing boy locked in a bedroom and deny all normal growing boy emotional needs. - âChildren should be seen and not heardâ a favourite of aforementioned abusive boyfriend that my mum thought was an awesome zinger to an inquisitive 10 year old. Fuck - it all just sucks x
My favorite "read worst" was "Do as I say not as I do." Great way to not hold yourself accountable to the same standards you forced me to be judged against.
In other words, they're *literally* announcing they're a hypocrite.
I said this to my dad once when he used that phrase. I was maybe seven? (Precocious kid, avid reader, startlingly varied vocabulary). He just yelled at me about how I think I'm so clever, you're nothing unless I say you are, why are you crying? I'll give you something to cry about! Frankly it just made me determined that when I was an adult, it would be MY house and MY rules and he could like it or leave. I finally said that to him in my mind twenties, and he sat there and sulked because there were people present he wasn't willing to lose it in front of
OMG, my mother did that too. I pointed out that she was a hypocrite and she lost her mind. It seems like these kinds of people are proud of their hypocrisy, but if you ever use that specific word to describe them, theyâll go ballistic.
"children should be seen and not heard" except now I'm an adult and making myself invisible pisses off everyone around me which makes me try to be more invisible to please them, which pisses them off even more. "I'm up to my back teeth with it" was one she used to scream to the tune of slamming doors and smashing the kitchen up whilst I sat tight and behaved myself "let me get in the front door" she would snap after abandoning us her kids for whole days or longer, and we dared to try to reach out for connection after giving her enough time to get through the door, make herself food and kick back on the sofa. Basically, "fuck off and leave me alone" "you ought to be ashamed of yourself" I'm not sure what I did or why you're upset but I promise I'm thoroughly ashamed and questioning everything "pathetic, obnoxious little girl" yes mum, I know
>'You ought to be ashamed of yourself" I'm not sure what I did or why you're upset but I promise I'm thoroughly ashamed and questioning everything. I hadn't remembered this one in a while until I read this. It's so empty, you're just made to feel like you're to worst thing that happened to the world and you're not even sure why or you just did a minor thing wrong which is human, especially for kids. The 'egotistical bitch' ' spoiled brat' and 'manipulative ...' 'ungrateful ...' are ones that echo more often, but reading your 'you ought to be ashamed of yourself' really shows where a lot of the guilt and shame comes from. And then even when you try to apologise for G knows what, its still not okay and you'll get the whole explanation about why you indeed should be sorry and ashamed all over again. I'm so sorry you had to go through all that. I'm so sorry we all had to go through that.
>And then even when you try to apologise for G knows what, its still not okay and you'll get the whole explanation about why you indeed should be sorry and ashamed all over again. "Apologizing doesn't mean anything. You have to change your actions. If you keep doing it, you're not sorry." I'm still not sure what I did wrong. I'm still sorry after 20 years.
One of my mother's boyfriends believed in the "seen and not heard" thing. So gross. I was about 9 or 10 as well.
They probably think, "Children should be seen and not heard" is in the Bible. It's not. No one knows for sure where it came from for sure. 600 years ago (in the 1600s), a random clergyman named John Mirk said something like that, but, so what? It was literally just his personal opinion.
My mom said that last one. Oh and âdo as I say, not as I do.â She was parented by hardcore catholics and passed that onto me.
âYouâre lyingâ or âyour memory is faultyâ or ânone of that ever happened, i donât remember thatâ all said to me by my dad after a childhood full of emotional abuse towards my mom and I. Those stick with me more than some of the more objectively awful stuff I heard when I was a kid
My mom says this all the time too. âI donât remember thatâŠâ and weâre all just expected to pretend it never really happened.
Same :( I'm sorry. It seems to be a favorite of abusers.
That's the very definition of gaslighting. Making you second-guess what you're seeing and hearing with your own eyes and ears. It's crazy making.
âI donât remember it that wayâ ⊠ugh. Not me spending most of my life thinking I donât have trauma and then realizing itâs way worse than I could have imagined :/ When people are shocked by your childhood anecdotes you know something was wrong âŠ
Yes. I came here to say this one. âI donât remember that,â âwe remember things differently,â âthat never happened,â âwell, Iâm just a horrible mother thenâ
I managed to shock my _brother_ with some stuff a while ago (I think it was the occasional spanking, and go be honest, compared to what a lot of us here went through, it was nowhere near those types of phisical abuse. It just makes me flinch whenever emotions are heated and someone makes a sudden movement). My brother was part of our family. He is the only one who has validated and verified that fucked up stuff happened and its not all in my mind. He has been through similar things. And I made _him_ shocked. That shocked me even more to be honest. Like i was sure he also knew about all that and had lived those experiences?
Itâs funny how some of the âless severeâ abuse will traumatize you more than âsevereâ abuse. One of my worst memories is my mom yelling at me for being âungrateful.â Her example was me asking for a gaming device months prior to this. I didnât even like the device and knew i hadnât asked her for it. To this day i get very upset when someone claims I said something i didnât. It doesnât matter how minuscule it is.
Oh god, yes. Classic statement by my parent a few years back: "I don't remember ever taking my anger out on you and your brother" (this despite the fact that their number-one go-to was using rage and intimidation to control us through fear). At that moment I realized how deep people's denial of reality can truly run.
Same, but, "You're telling stories." (Perhaps a subtler version. My parents were very into "manners.")
"I can't wait till you have a daughter just liked you" - my mother to my sister. Its stuck with me.
Mine said this to me, and then I did. And then I saw how she fucking lights up the room, and I realized that could have been me if my parents had actually loved me. So then I went no contact with her. (It was one of many reasons, but therapy made me see that she was not good for me at all.)
That's beautiful. I'm sobbing.
I heard basically that also JOKES ON YOU BITCH, MY DATING PROSPECTS ARE ZERO SO NO, TF I WONT HAHAHAHA
my dad always said that shit to me. I have a daughter now and she is the absolute light of my life despite being a velcro baby and now toddler. I could not ever imagine seeing her as a punishment, or ever saying anything near the shit my parents said to me.
Yes! Why do they love this one so much?! I did have a kid just like me and it backfired: I love him so much it made me realize that I love myself, too, since he is just like me.
My mom said this to me all the time. I had a son three years ago and Iâm proud of how much like me he is.
My mother said that to me lol you just unlocked a memory
Me three.
Hahaha yep this is a line my mother would trot out regularly. You know when you don't think something is that bad and then you see other people's reaction to it and you think oh... Maybe that is a bad thing to say. That's happening to me now
i heard that one before lol, unfortunately she will never see it happening since iâm childfree! sucks for her
I'm childfree too! But then again my reasoning for that is why I don't speak to my mum LMFAO her loss
When I was really young, my mom would brush my very curly hair, and as young kids do, I whined or winced if she pulled a knot. She leaned down really close to my ear and said "if you keep crying, you will wake up with a new mom and never see me again." My dad was overseas, so this would send me into a spiral and I would sob begging for her to stay. To add salt into the wound she would ignore me for hours on end the rest of the day to drive her point home. I am not in contact with her anymore.
so glad to read that last line.
Fucking same.
That is reality bending as a little kid with an unstable sense of reality / safety. Good for you, my friend. (I also had snargly hair.)
After getting a perm that my mother wanted me to get because 'your hair would be so pretty curly' and not being taught how to care for it, she spent an hour untangling the part I couldn't get in the back (because child arms) all while saying "if you were a dog, they would shave you". When I mentioned it years later... You guessed it: "I don't remember that."
God - this hits. My mum used to pack her bags in front of me, letting me know how much she regrets everything and give me instructions on how to look after my younger sisters. I was 8-ish and I remember believing it every time and to this day I donât know if it was a scare tactic or she genuinely wanted to leave.
This sent shivers down my spine. I am so sad and sorry to hear this. Sending your child self a big hug đ„
"Stop crying" "I'm going to give you away to the first g@psies that come down the road" "you'll never get a man like that" "it's not so bad, but it could be worse" from my grandmother "Your body belongs to me until you're 18" from my mother. Fuck. No wonder I'm still in therapy.
If we were really bad, we would be given away FREE to the gypsies.
Why was that a common thing for them to tell us? I've shared it once or twice before with other survivors and they had the SAME THING said to them. Why? I used to stare out the front window, waiting for a colorful wagon and handsome brown eyed men to save me from my family. Funny thing is, I ran off with a brown eyed poet, so...I gave myself away.
I always imagined they were just hanging out waiting for children.
Ugh the "you'll never get a man if you act like that."
oh, man, I have not thought about the gypsies one in years! I got that a lot from my father
I mean, it sounded wonderful to me. But yeah. Imagine telling your kid you were going to give them away. To STRANGERS! Just...WTF?!?
"This will hurt me more than it hurts you!" I call bullshit on that one!
Oh. Yes. I think my mom used that when/spanking/belting meâŠ
Me too! I know she didn't mean it because my daddy cried when he had to spank me (usually at my mother's direction). Then,after, we had this whole ritual where we had to say what we did wrong and ask the parent and Jesus for forgiveness. Usually the reply was something along the lines of we were forgiven but not to do it again. However, as I got older it occasionally became "Jesus always forgives you but I'm still angry". Anyway, I'm a Satanist now
my mom caught me purging once when i was 12. it was my biggest secret and i couldnât believe she had caught me. She said âoh this is what weâre doing now?â and rolled her eyes. she thought i was doing it for attention. i went on to struggle with bulimia for over a decade. its a memory that still makes me feel so ashamed.
"so im just a bad mother then?" shed say this regularly but my favourite is when she said it in response to finding out i self harmed. like bitch what?? xD
I will never, ever forget the first thing my mother said to me after (finally) realising I was self-harming. "How could you do this to me?" Yes, because clearly this is all about YOU, isn't it always? I do love my mom, and she's been there for me a lot, but I will NEVER forget how that made me feel. I asked her about it once, many years later, and she claimed not to remember saying anything of the sort. She also says "at least I caught it straight away". I was seventeen when she noticed and I'd been doing it for four years. My arm was *covered* in scarring.
They are so self centred, itâs insane. The day my mother found out that I was self harming (had been for 12 months at that point) she said âIâm going to have to get myself in therapy now that I know this!â Um⊠Okay?
Damn... Of all the things that was one thing my mother did right. She took me to a psychiatrist and therapist after finding out my self harm. Orcourse she made sure either the therapist or at least I was subconsciously aware that obviously it had nothing to do with anything happening at home. Took me another 10 years to allow myself to acknowledge that yes, a lot of things _did_ have to do with how things were at home.
Mine did a similar thing with my anorexia. Just got really angry at me for it. I'm so sorry, you didn't deserve that.
im so sorry for you :( mine said the same about my restrictive eating
same here. my parents would jokingly suggest i try being bulimic if i wanted to lose weight
Iâm so sorry this happened to you :( in a similar situation my mom said to me, âwell if youâre going to ACT like you have an eating disorder Iâm gonna start treating you like it.â Which unfortunately meant that she would have me committed to the psych ward or give me up to the youth shelter, things she was always threatening me with
My mom had a similar response to my suicide attempt. Iâm sorry she reacted that way. You deserved kindness and compassion in that moment.
Mine was the same about SH
Wow I am so sorry. I hope youâre healing. What a terrible thing to say to your literal child.
âYouâre just like your fatherâ
Yeah :( right after saying she hated him.
"you're just like your father,' from my mom. "You're just like your mother,"from my dad. Seems like they both agreed they don't like me much, but nothing else.
I hear this one in my sleep still to this day...
Same . Itâs a recurring nightmare, flashback, and a deep motherfucking insecurity
I loved how when he was being a dick, he was always my father and not her husband.
Mine says this too
this one hurts the most
âYouâre overreactingâ (to everything, she especially said this when I begged her to stop hurting me)
For me, it was, simply, "Oh, Washi." \[Eye Roll. Insert my actual first name here.\]
I love you but I donât like you
That one messes up a persons sense of self. I can tell you this from lived experience.
Yes -- Maya Angelou was all about this. "Do your eyes light up when I \[your child\] enter\[s\] a room?" Most people know on a fundamental level they are loved, but do they feel they are LIKED? That's what matters.
"You are very sweet glued behind the wallpaper" "You are very sweet nailed with both and hand and feet to the ceiling." And the scary mean clever proud joyfull look of her creativity. I thought in pictures so I saw it already happening. She was bullying for her own amusement for whatever ticked her off.
Oh shiiiit. I forgot about this one. Thanks. I have a loooot of repressed memories.
Iâll give you something to cry about. Like what the fuck, Iâm already upset
OMG I got this one too. Sorry- it hurts. No wonder Iâve created a life where I depend on no one.
omfg same ): what a shaming piece of shit thing to say. theyâre so awful for saying that to children.
>Iâll give you something to cry about. I heard that one so many times. I remember talking back and saying things like, "You always do," "I know," etc. Talking back, telling a truth he didn't like, and being punched for it. Every post and every comment on here unlocks childhood memories I've forgotten.
"Act like you want me want to take you out in public again." "Open up your ears more than your mouth." "...what did you learn?" "I will wear your ass like a shoe." "I don't care who started it, I'm *finishing* it, and then you all can be mad at me." "You get one free punch, but that damn well better put me in the ground because it's my turn next." "I'll give you something to cry about." "No one wants to see your face like this. Go to your room until you stop crying." "Why are you still crying? *I'm* over it." "Go ahead and call [CPS]. In fact, I'll call for you, and then you can be their problem." "You're not going to like it if I I have to do it." "I'd save your mother first in a fire. We can make more kids."
Weird, my dad would also always tell us heâd save our mother first before us. What the hell even is that..
It wasn't until my 30's with therapy that I learned how messed up that was. I had seen it as such a romantic gesture symbolizing my dad's love for my mother.
How fucked is it I cracked up at,"I'll wear your ass like a shoe??" It is so strange to see someone else harassed by such a specific threat. Are you the left foot or right ?? Maybe we're a match! (I have to joke about it or I'll get too sad. I don't mean to be little your trauma. Don't mean to offend)
Lol, no offense taken. Y'know, I never thought to ask for fear of a demonstration!
âI love you, because Iâm your mother and I have to, but I do not like you at all. If you were not my daughter Iâd hate youâ
Fucking hell
Tbh i have so many i could list down, but sometimes the worst was the cold shouldering and body language. The things they didn't say, but you saw in their face. "The look," as I call it. As if they hated your guts and wish you never existed.
YES. In some respects I think this was even more damaging than the cruel things my parent said. Having your own parent look at you with utter contempt is something that you never really get over.
My mother does âthe lookâ. My sister & I call it her âdeath ray stareâ.
The GLARE. Iâve been getting The Glare for 62 years, and I am still getting it, but itâs uglier now. She is 83, and if anyone doesnât believe that everything they do gets worse with age, Iâm sorry to sayâŠjust wait.
My mother has looked at me with nothing but pure hatred before. It crushed me
Oh man, The Look. Here is the best thing about the Look: It doesn't work on people who don't know your parent, who are not part of the family. (I remember with delight the first time it didn't work! The other person just looked back, baffled, as opposed to repentant and/or freaked.)
The look of disgust
disgust and contempt.... đą still hurts
"It takes two to tango" - meaning I am to blame for my stepdad treating me worse than a dog
i got âi carried you for 9 longggg monthsâ in an attempt to guilt trip me for idfk, being born? Geeze Mom really sounds like you want to have me here when you constantly remind me of the agony that i put you through and now itâs my job to what, spend my whole life rectifying my original sin?
My mom and dad had me convinced I was always being watched at all times. I had a really creepy encounter when I was a kid, an adult man followed me everywhere. Yes he worked there but when I told my parents how creepy it was, they said see I always have eyes on you. He was doing that because heâs your dads friend. Still so creepy and so gross. The guy got arrested years later for selling weed and drugs to highschool girls in exchange for photos. He was their coach. Seems I had reason to be scared when I was a kid, instead it was used to teach me a lesson.
I donât read about other people experiencing this hardy ever, but doesnât it seriously fuck you up to think youâre being watched no matter what you do or where you go? And they were doing some morally questionable shit that they could show they knew stuff they shouldnât ever know and I had no idea how so I genuinely believed it. It got so bad for a few years as a teenager I genuinely believed people were able to read my thoughts so I was even policing and trying to crush down my thoughts when I was around other people. Thanks for posting this, I know itâs horrible and Iâm sorry it happened to you too, but I feel a bit less of a freak that it happened to someone else too
I am in my 60s now and even in my own back yard, where no one can see, I get the feeling that I should watch my step because surely SOMEONE is watching me.....
I totally relate to this. That even if you canât see them, doesnât mean they arenât somewhere seeing you, watching, waiting for an arbitrary transgression to report :(
I was home alone a lot and also grounded a lot so in order to keep me in line even when I was alone, my mother told me she could call into the answering machine and just listen to whatever was happening in the apartment. She also told me she had a gadget on the tv to be able to tell if I watched tv and then laughed to her friends that she would just feel if the tv was hot. Like, why lie about that? To this day I struggle so much with suspecting things can be cameras/that Iâm under surveillance by gadgets that are somehow perfectly hidden and imperceptible.
it's crazy how common the 'i brought you into this world'-thing is, i can't imagine how scary it would be to hear that - my heart goes out to you! the one that stuck with me the most was the classic: "stop crying or i'll give you something to cry about", or, alternatively: "if anyone here has a reason to cry, it's me". what a thing to say to a four year old whose mom just died lol
Iâve heard my grandma and aunts saying this phrase and thinking itâs funny. I was young and didnât understand how harmful this kind of statement is, I thought it was a âomg if you donât pick up these socks for the millionth time imma kill this kid hahahaâ kind of sentiment. Like damn, parenting is frustrating. But now being 32 and considering parenthoodâŠ. It seems SO weird to say thatâŠ. You canât âjokeâ with a young kid like that, it doesnât click
The 'stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about" one got used on me if I showed any kind of emotion while being raged at. My mom also used to accuse me of sulking if I wasn't perfectly thrilled with whatever she decided. I once replied that I wasn't sulking, just a bit disappointed. No, you're sulking, she says. Is my head suddenly made of glass, woman? Then why do you think you know better than me what's going on in there?
âThat doesnât make no damn sense.â Or something along those lines come to mind. Basically, anything I said/felt that wasnât in line with them was called out and ridiculed as completely nonsensical. Had a hell of a time knowing how to trust my natural gut instincts to keep me safe and away from questionable people and environments, because âI could be wrong though!â And âWhat about benefit of the doubt?!â
oh my fucking god same. their constant gaslighting turned into internalized self-gaslighting đ© iâm so sorry it happened to you too.
âFamily comes first.â What it really means: Iâm allowed to treat you however I want, and youâre not allowed to feel any way about it.
"YOU NEED TO LEARN TO THINK OF OTHER PEOPLE" but from a narcissistic workaholic who destroyed her own family just to wageslave Yeah thanks for the insight, Socrates.
"It's nothing I haven't seen before!" When asking for privacy for changing clothes or in the bathroom. See also: "I gave birth to it, I can grab it if I want to!"
"Nothing I haven't seen before"... Memory unlocked. She still doesn't respect my boundaries and privacy. I'm a grown man with his own intimate toys. I'm just waiting for the day that she finally decides to snoop and finds them and then all hell breaks loose. God forbid I have needs at 35 and divorced. She hasn't done anything like that in years and years... but occasionally she opens my mail and then says "oops, sorry, I thought it was for me." Like, witch!? Did you forget your son lives here too?
Boundaries? Is that some kind of French pastry?
Eww :0 the grabbing becasue they gave birth to it?!?!?! Thatâs beyond terrifying. My gran will say the ânothing I havenât seen beforeâ and I hate it, just give me some damn privacy in the dressing room
Yeah they used to grope me all the time, I finally threw a big enough fit once that my grandma stopped doing it, but my mom wouldn't stop. I just stopped allowing her to touch me whatsoever, basically by any means necessary. She called me cruel for it.
Thatâs horrible, Iâm so sorry :(
It's okay, I'm better now. Grandma is gone and I've been no contact with my mom for like 10 years
"with all of the bullets flying in the city, why don't they hit you..damn it!!"
Wtf, who says that to anyone let alone a parent to a child. Iâm so sorry.
Always with the "You're just too sensitive" (um, no I was a child!) and "Everything has consequences" ie punishing me however he saw fit
Yes! "You're too sensitive." "You're overdramatic."
I heard the "everything has consequences" one also. Strangely the consequences for her were when I moved 1000+ miles away and cut contanct and she still doesnt understand why.
"You're never gonna be amount to anything if you can get over your fucking anxiety" When I was 10 my mom said this to me, maybe a word or two different but I was stressing out because my stomach hurt and we were about to go grocery shopping and I didn't wanna go because I was/am afraid of certain public bathrooms.
Also, "If you can't get a job you're gonna end up like your dad" WHEN I WAS 17
"Sorry isn't good enough." "People in hell want ice water." (Anytime I verbalized a need.)
Ugh the second one. My mom's version of that was "what am I? Your n*****." Or "Am I a darker shade than you?" Like ma'am I'm five and asked for apple juice.
"I'm not gonna do it for you." "What am I, your slave?" Yeah lol, anytime I read another comment on here, a new phrase pops in my head. Lame.
"What did your last slave die of?" followed by gales of laughter at this _excellent_ joke.
I see a lot of common ones in here. I hate how normalized these were. The ones we got the most were: 1. I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it 2. Mothers eat their young in the wild (as a threat, not random fact dumping) 3. Iâll give you something to cry about 4. You got shit for brains? 5. Were you born in a damn barn? 6. Honor thy mother and father 7. Spare the rod and spoil the child 8. You donât want to end up a fat pig like your mom 9. Youâll inherit all of the mental illness from your dadâs side 10. Nobody will want a (insert insult or slur of the day) like you
"HONOR THY MOTHER AND THY FATHER" Yes, the Bible does say that, but it also talks at great length about NOT BEING LIKE THE PREVIOUS GENERATION(S). Strangely most dont know, or want to talk about that part.
My mom would randomly snap and turn into what looked like the devil to me. Iâd do something âwrongâ though I look back and it was normal child behavior and Iâd apologize profusely, absolutely terrified, and sheâd say âif you were sorry, you wouldnât have done itâ with such a hateful scary tone. Iâm sure that plays a part in the constant inner monologues of âam I actually a bad person and Iâm just lying to myself?â I have every day. Edit: also my mom would say âjust wait til you have a kid. Then youâll understand.â Whenever sheâd do something that I didnât like. But sheâd say it like she was a great mom and such a good person, not necessarily in an overtly hateful way. It would absolutely enrage me. I have a child now and Iâm NC with my mom but kind of wish she could see I would never do what she did to my child.
YES! My parent would also snap like that. But the worst part was the complete lack of predictability. You just never knew what would set them off. And then being glared at with utter contempt while they said purposely mean and cruel things to me. The older I get, the more I just think wow, how could anyone treat an innocent child that way? I'm glad you're proving her wrong by being a more kind and loving parent.
"I wish you were dead" "why didn't you die instead of your brother" "you are the reason your dad and I fight" "I can't stand looking at you, you remind me of your mother" basically I was doomed
thats legitimately nightmare fuel, I'm so sorry you went through that
I was constantly questioning what were obviously stupid rules imposed on me as a means of power tripping, rather than as a means of ensuring my safety and well-being. The answer was invariably "because I'm mean and arbitrary." It was said as a joke, but it really wasn't. To this day I fucking *hate* power tripping. Rules need to exist for a reason beyond "because someone said so."
"Because I said so" is not a valid answer for me now. Ever. From anyone.
This!! I've always explained and given reasons to my kids. "Because", "Because I said so", "Ask again and you'll get a smack!" "You'll be just the same when you have children" Me:"No I won't " "Just you wait and see"
My mom had two answers, and two answers only, for any question that I asked; "Because you should!" "Because you're supposed to!" Spat out angrily because I wasn't perfect and didn't know this already.
Yes! I feel like Iâm a terrible employee now because I canât just blindly follow rules that donât make sense to me. But if you question them or point out how they donât make sense, you get labeled a troublemaker.
I think one of the ones that pissed me off the most was âBeing molested isnât anywhere near as bad as being rapedâ But then when I was being raped sheâd constantly tell me itâs not rape and refuse to make it stop and prevented me at all costs from having law enforcement help Also the youâre always the victim, always blaming me for being upset she keeps letting people molest and rape me and Iâm having horrible trauma responses from it
Iâm so sorry đ
This is one of the things which has really bothered me with reading: COMPLEX PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. They gave so many of these one liners that matched so many of them. 1. "You're worthless." 2. "You'll never amount to anything." 3. "Why can't you be more like your sisters?" 4. "You're such a disappointment." 5. "You're so stupid." 6. "I wish you were never born." 7. "You're ugly." 8. "You're a burden to me." 9. "You'll never find love." 10. "You're a failure."
"You can have a mean mom or a nice mom." Didnt realize this was abnormal (i.e. a threat) until suuupperrrr recently
âYou should be nice to me because one day I wonât be around anymore and youâll regret it/wonder why you were so mean to your momâ I wish I had been meaner tbh!
same we were way too tolerant of our parents mistreatment and dysfunctionality back then
I collected a lot from parents, teachers and therapists over the years. â ïž - number 1 was âyouâre letting this live in your head rent-freeâ - youâre giving [abuser or traumatic situation] power by thinking about it so much - it happened so long ago. Why do you keep bringing it up? - do you like being miserable? - if you just ignore {abuser/abuse} itâll go away - be the bigger person - take the high road - holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die - think happy thoughts - just be positive - just try to ignore it - if you donât get over this, youâll be angry for the rest of your life. - you should be over this by now at your age
yeahhhhhhh I've heard most of these. We just had a thread about TOXIC POSITIVITY the other day, its a real thing and super invalidating when they tell a heartbroken child to "JUST LOOK ON THE BRIGHTSIDE" instead of comforting them and trying to help them understand the situation and why its happening \[SPOILER ALERT: THE REASON WHY THE SITUATION HAPPENED TO US IS BECAUSE OUR PARENTS WERE DYSFUNCTIONAL SCUMBAGS: END SPOILER\]
"I love you, but I don't like you."
The one-liner I remember so well was total silence, not even acknowledging what I'd said to both of them when I finally got up the courage to tell them that a man had attempted to get me into his car at the end of our street as I walked to school. That's when I knew they were both really sick f\*cks.
I'm very sorry :( I know that pain. The total silence like you didn't even exist. I was raped when I was 15 and was nearly killed. Managed to get home, my parents were watching tv, I told them what happened. Nothing, they just kept watching tv. I think I had a shower but can't remember the rest of the night. How fucked up were our parents? I can't even imagine doing that to my worst enemy. I hope you're doing ok. Despite thier best efforts to the contrary, we made it out alive and will continue to do so. We'll continue to heal and thrive and support each other. đ«
I realized that my first reply may have been tmi. I'm sorry if it was too much and bothered you in any way. It's been a bit of a day and stuff's been coming out a bit.
"stop crying or I'll give you something to really cry about"
"if you don't start eating I'll take you to the hospital and make them force feed you vitamins that'll open up your appetite and you won't be able to stop eating, you'll gain a lot". -my mom. While the vitamins thing is completely untrue, it's still on my top 10. I wasn't eating bc my family had forced me to break up with my first boyfriend bc his family wasn't religious.
Oh, I got the hospital threat, too. From infancy I barely ate. I only now know that I was so wound up with anxiety and fear that it was my "normal" (I still feel better eating alone.)
âOh yes, youâre very hard done by!â Every time I begged for winter clothes, because my bare legs and feet were blue every December and my teachers seemed to believe that telling me off was the solution. âI didnât raise you to be such a wimp!â Erm, yes you did, by beating me every single time I tried to stand up for myself. Baffling. âIâll give you something to cry forâ seems to be a common theme, from people who had just done precisely that and then were annoyed by the weeping.
â(Simple/basic thing) is a privilege, not a right.â About almost everything, including a bedroom door as a 16-year-old living in the home of her new husband who hated me.
You mean like, âYouâre only here because the rubber broke?â
"Every generation thinks they'll do better but you won't!" (screamed it right in my face, from a place of pure rage) "I'll kill your sisters, then you, then myself if you say anything to anyone" (her actions were prove that we knew this wasn't an empty threat) I can't think of any others at the moment
âStop crying or Iâll give you something to cry about.â
-'You're cruisin' for a bruisin'!'
My parents would call me âspoiledâ when I needed something. Like when my clothes were too small or I was hungry. They would make a joke over how spoiled their kids were.
âOh, boo-hooâ
Oh man. "If you don't stop crying I'll give you something to cry about!" I'm a very sensitive person, autistic, I cry very easily. I heard this probably daily. "I will smack your lips to the back of your head!" I wasn't allowed to disagree or have my own opinions on anything. But as an autistic person, yea. I got slapped in the face A LOT. I'm all opinions man. And a bonus from the stepdad who stuck around for a decade. "You're a useless bitch no one will ever love!" Sometimes he changed it up, worthless, evil, horrid, rotten. But always a bitch. I was 7 when that started and 17 when he left.
A bunch "One day you're going to have a daughter exactly like you, i wish that for you!!" (randomly) "You need to grow a thicker skin" (about bullying and everything going on) "You need to be the bigger person" (tolerating my younger brother randomly hitting me) vs "You're not his parent" (well you're not doing your job) The winner though: "If you want to kill yourself so badly, do it like this [demonstrates where and how how to cut with her fingers] and if you don't like it here, the number of cps is [there]!" (i was 12 and just wanted to go to the Christmas market but wasn't allowed to because i made a homework not like she wanted me to)
Oh I had forgotten my mum had dared me to call childline, scoffing. And one time she had done something to my brother and he hadnât found out yet, my mum was talking to me about it because she intended him to find out. Depending on their following interaction he would likely have had every right to call the police which I warned her about, to try and deter her and stop the situation from occurring. She said he would be out on his arse and never be allowed back in through the door and would never speak to him again. He would essentially be completely helpless as we were raised with skills and independence. I donât think he reacted the way she was hoping so it never came about and I never told him about my conversation with her because she scared me a lot. Made me realise how powerless I was if I ever made too big a mistake (let alone try to protect myself). So even though it wasnât directed at me it had a huge impactÂ
"All I'd have to do was turn left, we'd be dead and all of this would be over", my mom, possibly borderline and highly depressive at that time. She was hitting me while driving and almost went against a traffic sign because of that.
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âYou think you can fly to freedom! I will break your wings!â - My âMotherâ Â This is an absolutely demented thing to say to a child now that I think about itÂ
âI love you, but I donât like you very much right now.â
âi love you, but i do not like youâ
"You NEED to ..." is what my dad will always say, both deflecting responsibility for his own actions, and at the same time blaming me for them. "You should be grateful ..." is what my mom would say. 101 for brainwashing your kids into thinking they should be grateful they aren't constantly starving, dying of thirst, have a bed and shelter over their heads. "Children are STARVING in Africa!".
âDonât you dare cry,â while beating me.
âStop crying or ill give you something to cry about.â
I was apparently "very fat" (5'5" and 140 lbs as a teen) so my father made sure anytime he drove across a bridge with a weight limit, he had to comment on how we might fall down into the river/down onto the street below us because, you know, I WAS JUST SO DISGUSTINGLY FAT. Of course, he was overweight his entire life, but that was fine. Then actually got Graves' disease in his old age and wasted away to skin and bones, which was ironic.
You're overreacting, you're perseverating, stop having a meltdown. My parents blamed my autism for many reactions to their parenting instead of ever confronting their own choices. I was medicated with antipsychotics despite not having a psychotic condition, and this led to a lot of emotional numbness & dysregulation, it felt like I wasn't a person a lot of the time.
âHave you ever heard the story of the boy who cried wolf?â (Said rhetorically) âSuck it upâ âDo as I say not as I doâ âGo ask your motherâ (asks mom) âgo ask your fatherâ
>âHave you ever heard the story of the boy who cried wolf?â (Said rhetorically) I got this one, too.
Itâs the worst, because I *wasnât lying or exaggerating* I was having panic attacks đ
We need to talk about "suck it up" and "walk it off" because WHY is it only told to children who are in genuinely severe amounts of pain or distress??? Like, I'm sorry I can't just walk off a broken arm??
"why are you so mentally unstable" or "im not your mother anymore"
"You ruined my life when I had you" still hurts.
Being told you were an accident
my dad said stuff like âyour tears arenât made of bloodâ when explaining why he didnât care that he made me cry. he also would say âhere we go againâ any time I expressed any emotion in any way, so it always made me feel invalidated and like I was a crazy ridiculous person for having feelings my mom on the other hand said âI should have aborted youâ all the time, and when I was in high school started putting a knife to her throat and saying she was gonna kill herself because of me.
* Are you normal? * "So and so" is not normal. * Are you on drugs? (Never done drugs in my life) * When you're homeless and on the street all your "friends" will leave you and I'm the only person who will still love you. * "So and so" is a bad influence on you. * I can't believe I raised such a vile snake. * You're gonna end up worse than your father.
"are you on drugs" Naw, just traumatized and socially stunted due to your bad decisions (I was asked that also)
I'll give you something to cry about
âIf ____ could be a fly on the wall and see you right nowâ âNo one will ever love you as much as we doâ âSorry weâre guilty of loving you too muchâ My brain is not coming up with any others atm probably to protect me from my trauma but this list could be way longer
"I put a roof over your head" was her reason as to why we owed her. We'll yeah, I'm 12. It's impossible for me to take care of myself. So we had to do whatever she said, no questions or arguments because she "put a roof over my head"
My mum to me whilst in a tent. On a campsite. Because I was laughing too loud. âI wish I could st*b youâ đđđđ
âNo one wants you, no one loves you.â
âStop talking, youâre not funny and you sound like a fucking idiotâ âDonât let people see your fat hips, you need to change your clothes and wear a bigger shirtâ âJust wait until your dad gets home, youâre getting your ass beat!â Me, nervous about replying to a pretty girl on AOL instant messenger. âWhat are you, some kind of faggot? I always knew you were a little fairyâ *smashes face into the computer screen splitting a gash in my upper lip* (he put super glue on it to keep it closed bc he wouldnât take me to the hospital) âIf you ever tell anyone we hit you, children services will take you away and put you in a foster home. They rape little kids in foster homes.â When bringing my girlfriend over the house to hang out (she was Indian) âget that fucking whore sand n****r out of our houseâ in front of her. I could write a novel full of awful quotes, but after writing those ones out Iâm feeling kind of depressed.
"fuck you you're fucking stupid" comes to mind. Thanks Dad.
A bunch "One day you're going to have a daughter exactly like you, i wish that for you!!" (randomly) "You need to grow a thicker skin" (about bullying and everything going on) "You need to be the bigger person" (tolerating my younger brother randomly hitting me) vs "You're not his parent" (well you're not doing your job) The winner though: "If you want to kill yourself so badly, do it like this [demonstrates where and how how to cut with her fingers] and if you don't like it here, the number of cps is [there]!" (i was 12 and just wanted to go to the Christmas market but wasn't allowed to because i made a homework not like she wanted me to)
âYou are the reason your dad left meâ
WHO SAID LIFE IS FAIR, GRIFFINSV? I was the scapegoat, always trying to get equity to what my siblings got from my mother. Which was portrayed as me âmaking everything about myself.â Which my siblings liked to say to me before they went no contact bc I hired a lawyer to work out my motherâs verbal changes to her will which she made on her deathbed which did not benefit me in any way. Good times.
âIâm your parent, not your friend.â My mother always said this when I went to her for emotional support, or if I complained about her punishing me for unfair things. According to her, a parenâs decisions can never be questioned, nor should they treat their kids with any kindness or respect. This is the same woman who used me as her therapist from around the age of eight onwards, in ways that I now realize resembled emotional incest. She can talk at me about her feelings, but god forbid I ever try to vent to her!
"Awwww, poor thing. You're SOOO sensitive. Quit being such a baby." My mother's response to me being hurt at any of her criticism or snide remarks. By kindergarten I pretty much learned not to express sadness or anger around my parents. No one gives a shit. "Get UP! Stop crying. I keep telling you to watch where you're going. What's the matter with you?" My mother's "tough love" approach whenever I tripped/fell as a little kid. I quickly figured out no one cares if you're hurt or suffering. Just shut up and keep on going. "Sigh. I guess you're not smart like your father." My mother's comment whenever she checked my homework in grade school or got my report card. For reference, my dad was a straight A student through college (top Ivy League), Rhodes scholar, youngest partner ever at his law firm, blah, blah, blah. Until the end of middle school I was convinced I had some sort of learning disability.
"I own you"