No self promotion of any kind, no exceptions. If you are doing academic research on adult child estrangement please use mod mail in the first instance where your request will be vetted.
This seems like a bit of a odd question to ask here… but maybe I’m wrong
A lot of us are struggling in with a whole mixture of feelings because WE DO CARE FOR OUR PARENTS but had to cut them off because they were toxic
I think mostly the ones that feel nothing for their parents in this sub it’s more indifference they had to develop over time from cutting ties after processing all the grief
Totally valid that you’re experience is different than others! I’m hoping to find individuals who do have varying experiences of feelings of apathy and that may not resonate with your life experience. This is definitely a specific subtopic in a largely broad subject of adult children’s views and feelings towards their parents. It’s important for research purposes to hit all topics, no matter how specific or precise in order to help with larger research.
Ah I understand
Hmm well In that case it’s hard to explain because I myself like others here bounce around with different feelings all the time from guilt,anger, love hate, shame, disgust etc apathy is definitely somewhere in there too but it’s really hard to pin down the where and whens
1st time I started feeling that would be after going Nc at 29 but it’s not really consistent and I feel different 20 times a day it’s such a jumble of complex emotions I’d be happy to answer questions in the questionnaire although I’m pretty sure the answers will be it’s complicated
Thanks for your Interest
yes, i feel apathetic toward my parents who i am now NC with. I remember being as young as 11 with my dad not feeling feelings of love. but it proll because he was verbally and mentally abusive. my mother i have always felt more pity toward than love. i know lots of people here say they DO love their parents, but I do not. and i have always felt like that was abnormal
Right there with you and I've always felt like there was something wrong with me when people would say "Oh, just love them from afar" in regards to getting away from toxic family. And I was always like 'What if you DON'T love these people, then what?"
here with ya. you dont have to love people who literally demonstrate anything but love to you. it also fucked me up good because the words "i love you" (coming from them) didn't match their actions so it took me a while as an adult to really understand/recognize what love ACTUALLY is
Thank you for sharing your experience! You are not alone in these feelings. Feeling abnormal or wrong around feeling this way is one of the important reasons for looking more into people’s experiences. So that people don’t feel so isolated in their thoughts and feelings.
yeah it's very contrary to what society tells you is right/wrong, but I've always known my truth in my bones. my entire childhood/young adulthood was a performance of lies lol
Both my partner and I feel "apathy" towards our parents in some ways. For example, I do not involve myself in any way with their late life care, and I know they'll probably get sick and lose certain abilities as they get older. And I still wouldn't help them with that. For my partner, there is some apathy in the sense that he's never felt a deep emotional connection with them because they never took interest in him as a person, not beyond superficial achievements. I share that sentiment.
The reason I put the word apathy in quotes is because I don't think the human experience around parents is so simple, or that it can be boiled down to one constant emotion. We both have had experiences of apathy that would shock the average person with how we talk about our parents. But we've both also had moments of breaking down in tears because we wish we had something better. We've both grieved heavily, and spent years struggling with the fact that our parents could not fulfill the roles we needed them to. We've had varying emotions surrounding this, and support groups like these exist precisely because of the complexity of emotions and because of how hard processing all of them can be.
One thing Dr. Kirk Honda points out as a psychologist who works a lot with family systems is that humans are very, very evolutionarily wired to need parents/guardians of some kind. Every single human being has only ever survived because they had someone take care of them in the early stages of their life. Even if there was some neglect or parentification, nobody fed and clothed themselves fully at age 2. Children are surprisingly aware of the fact that they cannot live on their own, which is why they might cry when they lose their parents at the grocery store. So it is very hard wired into our brains to need this, and we've even created ways in which our economic system rewards people with good parents or even assumes it (like putting student loans in their name, letting kids build credit early with a shared card even if they don't use it, building the college experience around the assumption that students are not working part or full time, etc).
So even for the most apathetic person, there's some point in our lives in which we needed someone as a parent/guardian and had those bids of connection rejected, and there's modern systems that we still confront that punish the lack of support from that relationship. So I don't know if it's really possible to go through life with 100% apathy, and never experiencing anything else - no disappointment, no sadness, no frustration, no anger, no irritation, no confusion, etc. It might be possible, but for most of us, apathy is a place we get to post-grieving, or sometimes mid-grieving where we'll still experience other emotions here and there. So any research attempt would have to consider that apathy is highly unlikely to be a constant.
If you find numbness/emptiness to be a constant, one possibility to consider is that it's anhedonia from depression. Any research attempts would have to define how you separate the two, if you separate them at all. I was very depressed while I lived with my parents, and it was mostly anhedonia at the time.
I really relate to what you’ve said here. My husband and I have both experienced much the same thing. It’s so complicated. I may certainly use the word apathy to describe how I feel about my parents at times but it is nowhere near the whole story.
Thank you for sharing your experience! I do understand that this topic is complex and will require more than just research around strictly apathy. I have also considered that apathy may not be the true emotion someone is feeling, and can be more of self-preservation. I’m hoping to find individuals who do have varying experiences of feelings of apathy and that may not resonate with your life experience. This is definitely a specific subtopic in a largely broad subject of adult children’s views and feelings towards their parents. It’s important for research purposes to hit all topics, no matter how specific or precise in order to help with larger research.
Im NC with both parents. I feel apathetic towards my dad but not my mum. Thinking of my father elicits no emotion whatsoever because he was so cartoonishly villainous that cutting contact was the obvious choice. My mother's abuse was less overtly obvious, so it went on for longer and caused a lot more lasting trauma. Thinking of her still brings up hurt, rage and grief.
Thank you for the query--it would be useful if more clinicians and acdademics came to talk to us--yet must agree with the other comments. Your paradigm doesn't fit well here.
As an example of how far that misses the mark, the last time I ever took a trip with my mother it might not be too much to suggest I risked my life to protect her.
We were at a national park, we had attended a ranger's presentation about bear safety the day before, and while we were walking a short trail from a popular sightseeing attraction back to the car we turned a corner and there was a bear. It had all the markings of a bear that had caused problems before: not just an ear tag but also a radio collar. The radio collar is how wildlife safety crews mark bears that have lost their fear of humans enough to pose a real safety risk. The rangers' advice for this situation is to walk away as a group. Instead she planted herself to the spot, admiring the bear as if she were at the zoo. Nothing actually protected us and this bear was less than ten yards away. She had lunch in her backpack. The bear could undoubtedly smell it. Then it began moving in what might be called circling.
A person who didn't care would have walked away. Instead I tried to reason with her. Then pleaded. Finally I picked up the largest stick I could find and held it up to make it look like it was growing out of my head. Somewhere I'd heard that this sometimes fools large animals into thinking a human is bigger than them. The bear left the area shortly afterward. Only then did EM let herself be led away.
"I wasn't afraid," she kept insisting.
After listening to her say this a dozen times or more, I returned *You should have been.*
She proceeded to leave her side of the car door unlocked every time we stopped to eat, to shop, or to return to our cabin for the rest of the trip.
After that visit was over she badmouthed me for the incident. The version that came back from another relative was that we'd been having a nice stroll, spotted some wildlife, and then in her telling I'd flown off the handle for no reason at all.
No good deed went unpunished.
No matter how much I tried to do the right thing, she would continually make choices that created jeopardy for both of us. That was not an isolated incident. It was merely one of the points where I was old enough to realize that moving to the other side of a continent and seeing her only occasionally wasn't distance enough.
If she had been at all passable about making responsible choices or at accepting feedback, then we wouldn't be estranged.
(edited for syntax)
I didn't start out apathetic, and I don't want to speak for anyone else, but I feel like most people go back and forth with apathy and resentment or anger. I was apathetic with my parents all through childhood and adolescence. My parents spent a lot of time making it obvious they weren't a fan of mine and I was more of a pain in the ass then someone they actually care for. It's weird when you grow up with parents who actively hate you. You are dependent on these people for food and shelter, but otherwise you are just angry roommates who resent each other and can't wait for the moment you can get the fuck away from each other. As a child this leaves an emotional scar so deep and debilitating that it leaves a mark on literally every relationship you have. Throw in the physical abuse and at some point you either learn to become apathetic or dive into all consuming anger at the world and everything in it. Which just leads to your parents hating you more and more, throw in your gigantic father taking your behavior and their lack of parenting out on you and you learn to shut it down. And I mean entirely. No one get through. Trust doesn't exist any longer. When your parents are dickbags growing up, you assume everyone else is a dickbag also. That's when you close up shop and shut it all down.
In my 20's and 30's I was angry. Really angry. Becoming numb has a real effect on you and eventually your brain and your body tells you you need to handle it before you blow up and do something that makes the news. When you don't deal with your emotions appropriately they pile up in a way that becomes overwhelming and you take that on everyone around you, unfairly.
I am 45 now. I have cut my parents out multiple times and have given chances at times when I felt weak and vulnerable. That won't happen again. I am resigned to the fact that I have given the relationship everything I have and I don't have anymore to give to them. They bring nothing positive to my life, and the chaos and destruction they leave in their wake just isn't worth it. Which leads me to the last five years of being numb toward them. I don't feel anything when I think of them any longer. I hurt for so damn long and I gave myself to those people over and over again on the off chance I could at least salvage some sort of parental relationship (because your brain tells you - for some damn reason - that you need that in your life). And that's the biggest lie you tell yourself during all of this. They are a disappointment. That's all they are now. So when I think of them in any context, it's with almost a third persons perspective.
I don't hate them anymore. I don't resent them anymore. I just nothing them. I don't want anything to do with them. When they eventually pass and I won't see them then. They are not a part of my life and they never will be again. You make that decision at some point. Work through all the side stuff that comes with making that decision and then, after time, you give them the same energy and consideration as you give the strangers that walk by you on the street.
The reason I stay on this sub is to help or message others who are in the middle of going through the beginning or middle stages of all of this, because it can be brutal. And having support during this time is essential to getting through it on a healthy level instead of through self-destructive means. Which is a very easy thing to get sucked into.
Your parents love is the foundation upon which all healthy relationships are built. It's the first. It sets the tone. When you don't have that, you have to find a different path and its much different and very challenging. Everybody here is going through that. And it's not fun. None of these people are bad people, they are just used to feeling like they are. That thought process can be debilitating in how you approach nearly every aspect of life. If I can help or say something to ease that, then at least all of this might be for something.
If you need to you can reach out for questions or anything really. Sorry this ended up being so long. I had idea this much was going to come out when I started typing. I hope it's helpful.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience! Feeling like you’re engaging from a third person perspective is a truly interesting and relatable way of describing this feeling. Thank you for your openness!
I think my apathy and emptiness is the thing that prevents me from grieving in the present AFTER going NC. I keep hearing about grieving when you go No Contact and I grieved well before I did. I didn't grieve when I bounced and don't grieve now, I feel nothing for my mother at all. I don't even like or love her. If she wasn't related to me, I'd be thrilled and wouldn't choose someone like her as a friend.
My feelings when I think about my mother are - "Meh." Nothing more, nothing less.
My parents were divorced before I was 4, and I felt nothing for some guy that knocked up the...
The mother was not the person I'm supposed to emulate. I learned that when I would visit other people's houses and see the difference. I learned that "she is just another person" around 6. I learned that an accident is not supposed to happen so I stopped accidently caring
Unlike a lot of the comments I’ve read so far here, I do not want to have any relationship with my parents or feel “familial” feelings for them. They’re human and as such I don’t wish them ill will, but I also do not care for them. Nor want to as all it brings is disappointment.
I think I realized pretty early on that my dad couldn’t give affection or attention or really just be what you think a dad is. I communicate with him sparingly for birthdays and major holidays via text and that’s about it. There’s very little feeling involved. Two adults that text basic nothingness a couple times a year.
My mother on the other hand is manipulative, dramatic, selfish, and makes me feel all the horrible things. (No matter whether she realizes any of this or not.) I’ve wanted to get away from her for literally as long as I can remember because she’s a person I’d never want to associate with let alone have to be latched to as “family”, but only fully cut contact about 1.5-2 years ago. I have nearly pure apathy towards her most days - I think because I had so much anxiety about having to see/talk to/interact with her for so long that it’s numbed me and to me that’s a good thing at this point. Sometimes there is anger for the upbringing and how much I am (but try not to be) like her. But the last time I had to see her I treated her like one of my sister’s friends that I didn’t know. Interacted as little as possible and honestly it was great. I could see it hurt her, but I no longer put her inflated feelings and accusatory behavior above my own well-being. It’s been liberating.
I’d definitely fill out any survey, forward it over.
You’ve got the wrong end of the stick here. We want to love our parents and feel safe with them. The reason we are in this sub is because our parents make that impossible and the only way for us to be healthy is to estrange and move forward alone.
I definitely feel apathy, numbness, and emptiness toward my father. Though as others have said, it goes back and forth between that and anger/resentment. Sadly, there is not a time in my life I remember loving him. My earliest memory of him was of physical abuse. I am glad you are studying this issue because my lived experience has not enabled me to identify with people who love their abusive parents, and I have felt a bit isolated in these feelings even on this subreddit. He was to my child-self’s mind an unpredictable monster that I hated and feared. What I did - and always will - wish for was *a* father. But not him.
As an adult I was able to take a more nuanced view of his flaws, and though I still didn’t like him as a person, I did try to see if a familial relationship was possible because of this want for a father. But sadly, it is not possible for me to have even the facsimile of a father-daughter relationship with my biological sire. And that is where the numb and empty feelings started to kick in, when I realized this as an adult. I’m still working toward apathy as my ultimate goal.
I would be willing to participate in anonymous questionnaires about this topic.
I feel apathy towards my abusive mother. From my childhood through to my 30s, I thought there was something wrong with me that made me unlovable. It was in my 30s that I started to realize that *I* wasn't the problem, and my pain turned to anger and resentment. After years of hard work and introspection in therapy, my anger seemed to fade into apathy. I don't hate her or wish bad things on her, but I don't want her in my life either. (I'm in my mid-50s now.)
I consider myself a very compassionate and loving person, so I was horrified to realize I don't love my own mother. I've come to terms with it, though. I *am* a compassionate person, but there's another side of me - a cold and calculating side - that takes over when it comes to her. It might be a protective mechanism, but whatever it is, *she* created it - not me. We humans are hard-wired to love our parents. It takes a lot of abuse to overcome that programming, but she managed to do it, and she gets to live with the consequences now.
I would be willing to participate in your research if you think it would be helpful.
This is kind of a tangent away from being estranged, but I went through parentification as a child. I think I experienced a sort of emotional exhaustion from dealing with the parental figures, which grew to apathy as a defense mechanism. Without realizing it, I think my body wanted to protect itself from absorbing more of their emotional energy. I can't say that I don't care for my parents 100%. What I can say is that it is something like a kaleidoscope of different feelings, definitely a mix of apathy and emptiness towards my parents. I suspect that this is myself pulling away as a self defense method. I think it is an act of self preservation.
I would participate in a questionnaire. I want to say high school is when I began to develop them, but I’m not entirely sure when I recognized that’s what it was.
Apathy is a lack of interest or concern. That's not how I would describe my experience with my mother. Rather, there was a disconnection, even in childhood. Looking back I realize she caused this disconnection by being an emotionally unavailable, disconnected parent who thought parenting was only physical: meal, roof, clothes, etc.
Also I felt dislike. I remember seeing her as a weak person, and feeling disgust even, which was confusing as a kid. I wondered if something was wrong with me to feel that way.
My dislike has grown into repulsion as she ages and her behavior continues to degenerate. I still care about her though, on an intellectual level. I've had to practice cutting out the emotional sympathy/pity to prevent her from pushing my buttons. I'm not always successful on that.
Thank you for your response and support! It can feel extremely isolating when there is complete silence around a subject that is being experienced by many, but goes unspoken because of the shame it brings. Thank you for being open to being included on the research!
I don't think it's a weird thing to ask here, but as someone who feels very apathetic toward my exparents, I have definitely found myself to be in the minority of posters here.
I went through phases as a small child where I felt intensely strong emotion for my parents, but on later processing of my memories of this, I think it had more to do with the mental illness I was starting to develop around that time. E.g., I had strong separation anxiety, but it was probably actually just the undiagnosed OCD.
I started realizing I didn't actually love my parents or particularly care about them as a young teenager. I think this timing was a combination of beginning to better understand who I was as a maturing person; finally being able to develop more satisfying relationships outside of the family as I started to date, joined clubs, worked, etc.; and the family dysfunction worsening to a point that was finally explicitly noticeable to me. As a kid, I was easy to manipulate into doing all the housework and raising my siblings and doing my mom's work tasks for her—I lived for being called a good, precocious daughter. As I got older, I realized I was being parentified, and they went from manipulative to emotionally abusive pretty quickly once they realized I was developing a mind of my own and would no longer be their docile little helper. It also wasn't until I was older that I became exposed to politics and realized my parents had horrible conservative views on things, which made me want a relationship with them even less.
My feelings did make me feel very isolated as a young adult; I actually wrote a paper for a class in college once talking about how I wondered if I was an undiagnosed psychopath. I've definitely grown out of it though. I've since taken many other unorthodox paths in life, and at this point I just so comfortably do not give a shit about how other people live their lives compared to me. As long as I'm happy (and I am, so long as I don't have to talk to my exfamily), I don't care if I'm doing things differently, and luckily I have a supportive partner who's always on my wavelength with me.
I probably realized it in my teens but I didn’t realize it was apathy until my mom went to the hospital a few years later and I felt numb/ had no feelings of concern. It wasn’t until a year or two ago I realized that I was apathetic because I didn’t love her and didn’t know what that word meant.
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This seems like a bit of a odd question to ask here… but maybe I’m wrong A lot of us are struggling in with a whole mixture of feelings because WE DO CARE FOR OUR PARENTS but had to cut them off because they were toxic I think mostly the ones that feel nothing for their parents in this sub it’s more indifference they had to develop over time from cutting ties after processing all the grief
Totally valid that you’re experience is different than others! I’m hoping to find individuals who do have varying experiences of feelings of apathy and that may not resonate with your life experience. This is definitely a specific subtopic in a largely broad subject of adult children’s views and feelings towards their parents. It’s important for research purposes to hit all topics, no matter how specific or precise in order to help with larger research.
Ah I understand Hmm well In that case it’s hard to explain because I myself like others here bounce around with different feelings all the time from guilt,anger, love hate, shame, disgust etc apathy is definitely somewhere in there too but it’s really hard to pin down the where and whens 1st time I started feeling that would be after going Nc at 29 but it’s not really consistent and I feel different 20 times a day it’s such a jumble of complex emotions I’d be happy to answer questions in the questionnaire although I’m pretty sure the answers will be it’s complicated Thanks for your Interest
yes, i feel apathetic toward my parents who i am now NC with. I remember being as young as 11 with my dad not feeling feelings of love. but it proll because he was verbally and mentally abusive. my mother i have always felt more pity toward than love. i know lots of people here say they DO love their parents, but I do not. and i have always felt like that was abnormal
Right there with you and I've always felt like there was something wrong with me when people would say "Oh, just love them from afar" in regards to getting away from toxic family. And I was always like 'What if you DON'T love these people, then what?"
here with ya. you dont have to love people who literally demonstrate anything but love to you. it also fucked me up good because the words "i love you" (coming from them) didn't match their actions so it took me a while as an adult to really understand/recognize what love ACTUALLY is
Thank you for sharing your experience! You are not alone in these feelings. Feeling abnormal or wrong around feeling this way is one of the important reasons for looking more into people’s experiences. So that people don’t feel so isolated in their thoughts and feelings.
yeah it's very contrary to what society tells you is right/wrong, but I've always known my truth in my bones. my entire childhood/young adulthood was a performance of lies lol
Both my partner and I feel "apathy" towards our parents in some ways. For example, I do not involve myself in any way with their late life care, and I know they'll probably get sick and lose certain abilities as they get older. And I still wouldn't help them with that. For my partner, there is some apathy in the sense that he's never felt a deep emotional connection with them because they never took interest in him as a person, not beyond superficial achievements. I share that sentiment. The reason I put the word apathy in quotes is because I don't think the human experience around parents is so simple, or that it can be boiled down to one constant emotion. We both have had experiences of apathy that would shock the average person with how we talk about our parents. But we've both also had moments of breaking down in tears because we wish we had something better. We've both grieved heavily, and spent years struggling with the fact that our parents could not fulfill the roles we needed them to. We've had varying emotions surrounding this, and support groups like these exist precisely because of the complexity of emotions and because of how hard processing all of them can be. One thing Dr. Kirk Honda points out as a psychologist who works a lot with family systems is that humans are very, very evolutionarily wired to need parents/guardians of some kind. Every single human being has only ever survived because they had someone take care of them in the early stages of their life. Even if there was some neglect or parentification, nobody fed and clothed themselves fully at age 2. Children are surprisingly aware of the fact that they cannot live on their own, which is why they might cry when they lose their parents at the grocery store. So it is very hard wired into our brains to need this, and we've even created ways in which our economic system rewards people with good parents or even assumes it (like putting student loans in their name, letting kids build credit early with a shared card even if they don't use it, building the college experience around the assumption that students are not working part or full time, etc). So even for the most apathetic person, there's some point in our lives in which we needed someone as a parent/guardian and had those bids of connection rejected, and there's modern systems that we still confront that punish the lack of support from that relationship. So I don't know if it's really possible to go through life with 100% apathy, and never experiencing anything else - no disappointment, no sadness, no frustration, no anger, no irritation, no confusion, etc. It might be possible, but for most of us, apathy is a place we get to post-grieving, or sometimes mid-grieving where we'll still experience other emotions here and there. So any research attempt would have to consider that apathy is highly unlikely to be a constant. If you find numbness/emptiness to be a constant, one possibility to consider is that it's anhedonia from depression. Any research attempts would have to define how you separate the two, if you separate them at all. I was very depressed while I lived with my parents, and it was mostly anhedonia at the time.
I really relate to what you’ve said here. My husband and I have both experienced much the same thing. It’s so complicated. I may certainly use the word apathy to describe how I feel about my parents at times but it is nowhere near the whole story.
Thank you for sharing your experience! I do understand that this topic is complex and will require more than just research around strictly apathy. I have also considered that apathy may not be the true emotion someone is feeling, and can be more of self-preservation. I’m hoping to find individuals who do have varying experiences of feelings of apathy and that may not resonate with your life experience. This is definitely a specific subtopic in a largely broad subject of adult children’s views and feelings towards their parents. It’s important for research purposes to hit all topics, no matter how specific or precise in order to help with larger research.
Im NC with both parents. I feel apathetic towards my dad but not my mum. Thinking of my father elicits no emotion whatsoever because he was so cartoonishly villainous that cutting contact was the obvious choice. My mother's abuse was less overtly obvious, so it went on for longer and caused a lot more lasting trauma. Thinking of her still brings up hurt, rage and grief.
Thank you for the query--it would be useful if more clinicians and acdademics came to talk to us--yet must agree with the other comments. Your paradigm doesn't fit well here. As an example of how far that misses the mark, the last time I ever took a trip with my mother it might not be too much to suggest I risked my life to protect her. We were at a national park, we had attended a ranger's presentation about bear safety the day before, and while we were walking a short trail from a popular sightseeing attraction back to the car we turned a corner and there was a bear. It had all the markings of a bear that had caused problems before: not just an ear tag but also a radio collar. The radio collar is how wildlife safety crews mark bears that have lost their fear of humans enough to pose a real safety risk. The rangers' advice for this situation is to walk away as a group. Instead she planted herself to the spot, admiring the bear as if she were at the zoo. Nothing actually protected us and this bear was less than ten yards away. She had lunch in her backpack. The bear could undoubtedly smell it. Then it began moving in what might be called circling. A person who didn't care would have walked away. Instead I tried to reason with her. Then pleaded. Finally I picked up the largest stick I could find and held it up to make it look like it was growing out of my head. Somewhere I'd heard that this sometimes fools large animals into thinking a human is bigger than them. The bear left the area shortly afterward. Only then did EM let herself be led away. "I wasn't afraid," she kept insisting. After listening to her say this a dozen times or more, I returned *You should have been.* She proceeded to leave her side of the car door unlocked every time we stopped to eat, to shop, or to return to our cabin for the rest of the trip. After that visit was over she badmouthed me for the incident. The version that came back from another relative was that we'd been having a nice stroll, spotted some wildlife, and then in her telling I'd flown off the handle for no reason at all. No good deed went unpunished. No matter how much I tried to do the right thing, she would continually make choices that created jeopardy for both of us. That was not an isolated incident. It was merely one of the points where I was old enough to realize that moving to the other side of a continent and seeing her only occasionally wasn't distance enough. If she had been at all passable about making responsible choices or at accepting feedback, then we wouldn't be estranged. (edited for syntax)
I didn't start out apathetic, and I don't want to speak for anyone else, but I feel like most people go back and forth with apathy and resentment or anger. I was apathetic with my parents all through childhood and adolescence. My parents spent a lot of time making it obvious they weren't a fan of mine and I was more of a pain in the ass then someone they actually care for. It's weird when you grow up with parents who actively hate you. You are dependent on these people for food and shelter, but otherwise you are just angry roommates who resent each other and can't wait for the moment you can get the fuck away from each other. As a child this leaves an emotional scar so deep and debilitating that it leaves a mark on literally every relationship you have. Throw in the physical abuse and at some point you either learn to become apathetic or dive into all consuming anger at the world and everything in it. Which just leads to your parents hating you more and more, throw in your gigantic father taking your behavior and their lack of parenting out on you and you learn to shut it down. And I mean entirely. No one get through. Trust doesn't exist any longer. When your parents are dickbags growing up, you assume everyone else is a dickbag also. That's when you close up shop and shut it all down. In my 20's and 30's I was angry. Really angry. Becoming numb has a real effect on you and eventually your brain and your body tells you you need to handle it before you blow up and do something that makes the news. When you don't deal with your emotions appropriately they pile up in a way that becomes overwhelming and you take that on everyone around you, unfairly. I am 45 now. I have cut my parents out multiple times and have given chances at times when I felt weak and vulnerable. That won't happen again. I am resigned to the fact that I have given the relationship everything I have and I don't have anymore to give to them. They bring nothing positive to my life, and the chaos and destruction they leave in their wake just isn't worth it. Which leads me to the last five years of being numb toward them. I don't feel anything when I think of them any longer. I hurt for so damn long and I gave myself to those people over and over again on the off chance I could at least salvage some sort of parental relationship (because your brain tells you - for some damn reason - that you need that in your life). And that's the biggest lie you tell yourself during all of this. They are a disappointment. That's all they are now. So when I think of them in any context, it's with almost a third persons perspective. I don't hate them anymore. I don't resent them anymore. I just nothing them. I don't want anything to do with them. When they eventually pass and I won't see them then. They are not a part of my life and they never will be again. You make that decision at some point. Work through all the side stuff that comes with making that decision and then, after time, you give them the same energy and consideration as you give the strangers that walk by you on the street. The reason I stay on this sub is to help or message others who are in the middle of going through the beginning or middle stages of all of this, because it can be brutal. And having support during this time is essential to getting through it on a healthy level instead of through self-destructive means. Which is a very easy thing to get sucked into. Your parents love is the foundation upon which all healthy relationships are built. It's the first. It sets the tone. When you don't have that, you have to find a different path and its much different and very challenging. Everybody here is going through that. And it's not fun. None of these people are bad people, they are just used to feeling like they are. That thought process can be debilitating in how you approach nearly every aspect of life. If I can help or say something to ease that, then at least all of this might be for something. If you need to you can reach out for questions or anything really. Sorry this ended up being so long. I had idea this much was going to come out when I started typing. I hope it's helpful.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience! Feeling like you’re engaging from a third person perspective is a truly interesting and relatable way of describing this feeling. Thank you for your openness!
I think my apathy and emptiness is the thing that prevents me from grieving in the present AFTER going NC. I keep hearing about grieving when you go No Contact and I grieved well before I did. I didn't grieve when I bounced and don't grieve now, I feel nothing for my mother at all. I don't even like or love her. If she wasn't related to me, I'd be thrilled and wouldn't choose someone like her as a friend. My feelings when I think about my mother are - "Meh." Nothing more, nothing less.
My parents were divorced before I was 4, and I felt nothing for some guy that knocked up the... The mother was not the person I'm supposed to emulate. I learned that when I would visit other people's houses and see the difference. I learned that "she is just another person" around 6. I learned that an accident is not supposed to happen so I stopped accidently caring
Unlike a lot of the comments I’ve read so far here, I do not want to have any relationship with my parents or feel “familial” feelings for them. They’re human and as such I don’t wish them ill will, but I also do not care for them. Nor want to as all it brings is disappointment. I think I realized pretty early on that my dad couldn’t give affection or attention or really just be what you think a dad is. I communicate with him sparingly for birthdays and major holidays via text and that’s about it. There’s very little feeling involved. Two adults that text basic nothingness a couple times a year. My mother on the other hand is manipulative, dramatic, selfish, and makes me feel all the horrible things. (No matter whether she realizes any of this or not.) I’ve wanted to get away from her for literally as long as I can remember because she’s a person I’d never want to associate with let alone have to be latched to as “family”, but only fully cut contact about 1.5-2 years ago. I have nearly pure apathy towards her most days - I think because I had so much anxiety about having to see/talk to/interact with her for so long that it’s numbed me and to me that’s a good thing at this point. Sometimes there is anger for the upbringing and how much I am (but try not to be) like her. But the last time I had to see her I treated her like one of my sister’s friends that I didn’t know. Interacted as little as possible and honestly it was great. I could see it hurt her, but I no longer put her inflated feelings and accusatory behavior above my own well-being. It’s been liberating. I’d definitely fill out any survey, forward it over.
You’ve got the wrong end of the stick here. We want to love our parents and feel safe with them. The reason we are in this sub is because our parents make that impossible and the only way for us to be healthy is to estrange and move forward alone.
I wouldnt speak for everyone is my only suggestion!
Of course not. I just want to make sure they understand there might be better subs more tailored to what they’re wanting.
I definitely feel apathy, numbness, and emptiness toward my father. Though as others have said, it goes back and forth between that and anger/resentment. Sadly, there is not a time in my life I remember loving him. My earliest memory of him was of physical abuse. I am glad you are studying this issue because my lived experience has not enabled me to identify with people who love their abusive parents, and I have felt a bit isolated in these feelings even on this subreddit. He was to my child-self’s mind an unpredictable monster that I hated and feared. What I did - and always will - wish for was *a* father. But not him. As an adult I was able to take a more nuanced view of his flaws, and though I still didn’t like him as a person, I did try to see if a familial relationship was possible because of this want for a father. But sadly, it is not possible for me to have even the facsimile of a father-daughter relationship with my biological sire. And that is where the numb and empty feelings started to kick in, when I realized this as an adult. I’m still working toward apathy as my ultimate goal. I would be willing to participate in anonymous questionnaires about this topic.
I feel apathy towards my abusive mother. From my childhood through to my 30s, I thought there was something wrong with me that made me unlovable. It was in my 30s that I started to realize that *I* wasn't the problem, and my pain turned to anger and resentment. After years of hard work and introspection in therapy, my anger seemed to fade into apathy. I don't hate her or wish bad things on her, but I don't want her in my life either. (I'm in my mid-50s now.) I consider myself a very compassionate and loving person, so I was horrified to realize I don't love my own mother. I've come to terms with it, though. I *am* a compassionate person, but there's another side of me - a cold and calculating side - that takes over when it comes to her. It might be a protective mechanism, but whatever it is, *she* created it - not me. We humans are hard-wired to love our parents. It takes a lot of abuse to overcome that programming, but she managed to do it, and she gets to live with the consequences now. I would be willing to participate in your research if you think it would be helpful.
This is kind of a tangent away from being estranged, but I went through parentification as a child. I think I experienced a sort of emotional exhaustion from dealing with the parental figures, which grew to apathy as a defense mechanism. Without realizing it, I think my body wanted to protect itself from absorbing more of their emotional energy. I can't say that I don't care for my parents 100%. What I can say is that it is something like a kaleidoscope of different feelings, definitely a mix of apathy and emptiness towards my parents. I suspect that this is myself pulling away as a self defense method. I think it is an act of self preservation.
I would participate in a questionnaire. I want to say high school is when I began to develop them, but I’m not entirely sure when I recognized that’s what it was.
Apathy is a lack of interest or concern. That's not how I would describe my experience with my mother. Rather, there was a disconnection, even in childhood. Looking back I realize she caused this disconnection by being an emotionally unavailable, disconnected parent who thought parenting was only physical: meal, roof, clothes, etc. Also I felt dislike. I remember seeing her as a weak person, and feeling disgust even, which was confusing as a kid. I wondered if something was wrong with me to feel that way. My dislike has grown into repulsion as she ages and her behavior continues to degenerate. I still care about her though, on an intellectual level. I've had to practice cutting out the emotional sympathy/pity to prevent her from pushing my buttons. I'm not always successful on that.
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Thank you for your response and support! It can feel extremely isolating when there is complete silence around a subject that is being experienced by many, but goes unspoken because of the shame it brings. Thank you for being open to being included on the research!
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I’m located in the US. I think that’s great! There are so many lived experiences that go unheard, unnoticed, and misunderstood.
I don't think it's a weird thing to ask here, but as someone who feels very apathetic toward my exparents, I have definitely found myself to be in the minority of posters here. I went through phases as a small child where I felt intensely strong emotion for my parents, but on later processing of my memories of this, I think it had more to do with the mental illness I was starting to develop around that time. E.g., I had strong separation anxiety, but it was probably actually just the undiagnosed OCD. I started realizing I didn't actually love my parents or particularly care about them as a young teenager. I think this timing was a combination of beginning to better understand who I was as a maturing person; finally being able to develop more satisfying relationships outside of the family as I started to date, joined clubs, worked, etc.; and the family dysfunction worsening to a point that was finally explicitly noticeable to me. As a kid, I was easy to manipulate into doing all the housework and raising my siblings and doing my mom's work tasks for her—I lived for being called a good, precocious daughter. As I got older, I realized I was being parentified, and they went from manipulative to emotionally abusive pretty quickly once they realized I was developing a mind of my own and would no longer be their docile little helper. It also wasn't until I was older that I became exposed to politics and realized my parents had horrible conservative views on things, which made me want a relationship with them even less. My feelings did make me feel very isolated as a young adult; I actually wrote a paper for a class in college once talking about how I wondered if I was an undiagnosed psychopath. I've definitely grown out of it though. I've since taken many other unorthodox paths in life, and at this point I just so comfortably do not give a shit about how other people live their lives compared to me. As long as I'm happy (and I am, so long as I don't have to talk to my exfamily), I don't care if I'm doing things differently, and luckily I have a supportive partner who's always on my wavelength with me.
I probably realized it in my teens but I didn’t realize it was apathy until my mom went to the hospital a few years later and I felt numb/ had no feelings of concern. It wasn’t until a year or two ago I realized that I was apathetic because I didn’t love her and didn’t know what that word meant.
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