My Horrid Parent

Would a workshop be held anywhere near south Yorkshire? Very interested. Many thanks

While some parents are horrid all the time, others are inconsistent and change from day to day and moment to moment. This means that you can be constantly on edge waiting to see what mood they are in and whether or not they are going to be unkind and critical to you.
Even though you get some respite from their horrid comments, you are forever on the look out for that change in their expression heralding another attack. It is exhausting.

This hits home for me. My mother got pregnant with me out of wedlock in a period of history where such things were just not done. She was a college student living in a women’s dorm on a college campus just as women’s rights were just beginning to be a thing that existed and experiencing a taste of greater freedom when she discovered she was pregnant. As soon as she told her parents they picked her up from the school, took away the car they’d provided her for school, and demanded a quickie almost literal shotgun wedding. I became the thing that took away her new freedoms, her car, and her dreams of a career leaving her stuck on a broken down old farm in the middle of nowhere with me all day every day.

My mother was incredibly inconsistent with her parenting to the point my core memory of my childhood is of a sinking fearful feeling of walking on eggshells. There was no knowing what would set her off. Things that had been specifically permitted, even encourage one moment could become horrific, screaming, how could you ever think that would ever be ok the next.

Eventually I realized to some degree it was just that she would permit things because she didn’t want to be bothered, then be upset when me doing them became a problem for her. Yet that didn’t explain all of it. Many times I was just a convenient punching bag to take out her frustrations on.

Abortion rights was a hot topic frequently on the news throughout my younger years as Roe V Wade was decided while I was in grade school. My mother was an ardent supporter. She rarely missed an opportunity to tell me she believed abortion should be cheap and easily available so young women wouldn’t have to ruin their whole lives with one mistake. It was always clear I was the mistake. 

  Hello all Im new. I came across the website... For me it's old father that's a pain, he has Ocd control freak tendencies, very rigid home bully to mum and me. And he puts on an act to outsiders who can't believe he's abnormal. Won't get rid of junks and even pick up others' stuff ugh

Yes I would be interested in a workshop as well. I am based in London.

I'm glad I found this website after reading the Guardian article. I had to move back in with my horrid parents post Covid. It has been really hard even with reasonably regular psychological support from a therapist.

My mother physically and emotionally abused me for years until I left home in my early 20s. I can see how that would have happened, she grew up in a home with regular domestic violence and I am her first born, my father never really supported her to raise my sister and I, from my own experiences with him, it is clear that he is very emotionally distant and irresponsible to an extent, likely from his own upbringing.

I have been furious at them both for years because of the impact of the trauma on my relationships and life generally. Its been made worse now because of my proximity to them and they daily reminders of my childhood. I can see they did the best they could and were also woefully inadequate parents who should have definitely worked on their own **** instead of replicating it. My mother's physical and emotional abuse is something I've only started recently acknowledging in its entirety (I'm in my late 30s). She once put her hands around my throat and became even more furious when I tilted my head to try and tried to squeeze her fingers enough to let go. My dad meanwhile stood there. I was 15. When I was 13 she thought my sister or I was lying and put a butter knife in the first to heat up saying 'it won't burn if you are telling the truth' I was 12. Most of the time, even though he might have voiced disagreement with my mum (which would send her into a rage) he never stepped in to help. I find that much harder to understand than my mum and her behaviour. The kicker was that he would blame me for the bile and the beatings saying things like 'you know what she's like, why didn't you etc etc'. Leaving her would have been financially and emotionally hard but goodness staying meant years of trauma and internalising what a shitty ungrateful daughter I was. Ha! That's taken me about a decade of therapy to unlearn.

Its clear even now that my parents have never been considerate of my feelings. Funny the things you notice when you've been in therapy for a bit. Any feeling or concern or experience I share is dismissed or minimised, possibly because of their own fears. There is no real space for me to be myself with them, more so with my dad. It feels like he has no interest in knowing me as an adult and frankly I have no interest in connecting with him. My mother has shown a little remorse for her actions, though she has never really apologised. I feel sorry for her. She is still essentially emotionally immature, stunted at 16. I don't have any expectations of either of them. I just want to leave and keep them at arms length. They are both so excellent at forgetting what life was like at home years ago. Naturally I remember all of it.

I'm grateful to be a cyclebreaker and sad that I never had the family I wanted or deserved to be honest. In moving forward reparenting myself has helped and loving myself in a way my parents just aren't capable off has really helped. Lots of love and healing to all of us x