Learning to not be responsible for other people’s feelings is the hardest thing I ever did in therapy. It’s literally world-opening. I feel like the very nature of how I process thought shifted, I’m talking I don’t even get the same outcome on the MBTI eval anymore (which supposedly doesn’t change for much of someone’s life).
Working through that trauma transmuted my interactions with people from Pollyanna into Dr. House. I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks about me anymore, and I gradually learned how to thrive off other people’s discomfort lol (which is just a narcissistic control tactic 50% of the time anyway… so go ahead, let them be uncomfortable)
My mom comes from a family like this, so I know what this is talking about. She has a lot of unhealthy behaviour that is a result of a pretty awful childhood.
OTOH, a certain amount of this is healthy. It’s good to have empathy and notice that your dad isn’t in the best mood. It’s kind to try to cheer him up. IMO the difference is whether your behaviour is driven by empathy or fear.
Yes! I think that gets lost a lot in this type of discourse. A lot of the time the real underlying issue is that our actions are being driven by fear rather than concious, measured choice.
I think that’s a big concern which holds a lot of people who’ve been through this sort of thing back, the fear of “I don’t want to come off as callous”, without realizing that most people who experience this have inherent empathy that won’t be erased so easily if you simply begin prioritizing yourself. It sucks, because you know exactly what it feels like to be around the type of people who only prioritize themselves and you think “Well I don’t wanna be like that, I have to care more about how other people are feeling” without realizing how often you bulldoze your own emotions in the process. As my own therapist put it, “You have a right to prioritize and care for yourself, and that doesn’t make you at all lacking in empathy.”
I think there’s also the additional aspect we learn of “taking care of our caretakers” at such a young age when it should have been the other way around and the adults should have been hypersensitive to the needs of their children, who instead were never allowed to be moody and irrational like they should have been at that age because they were too busy emotionally taking care of the adults in their lives. There’s actually a word for this in psychology called Enmeshment, and it’s a deep developmental trauma.
My mother is a narcissistic, divorced, bitter and scorned catholic. Let her loose in an HOA and she’ll turn it into Palestine.
I learned to let her set her own fires, let them burn down her own domain, I hide in my dark cold basement she gets sunlight and a million problems she creates. I let her stew while avoiding her bullshit.
The most confusing thing for me is I have memories of cuddling with mom and also memories of her yelling at me, and I feel like I randomly shift between two different universes.
Its like when I’m in the good moment, my brain temporarily forgets about the trauma… then when the bad moments come, I wonder if the good memories are even real or have I been daydreaming/hallucinating all this time.
I have intrusive thoughts all the time.
I imagine being like 8 years old and in my parents bed cuddling…
then the next scene is when I try to sleep in my room for some “timeout” cuz my energy is drained and I want some alone time, then I have this thought of like… What if my mom stabs me to death while I’m asleep
The juxtapostion of these two scenes is very weird… creates a very weird feeling within me…
both feeling very emotionally attached… and the simultaneous feeling of dread… of fear…
like y’all ever watched Rick and Morty… like it feel like that type of “vibe” of backstabbing…
The most confusing thing for me is I have memories of cuddling with mom and also memories of her yelling at me, and I feel like I randomly shift between two different universes.
Its like when I’m in the good moment, my brain temporarily forgets about the trauma… then when the bad moments come, I wonder if the good memories are even real or have I been daydreaming/hallucinating all this time.
State-based learning, if you’re curious. For the same reason that studying in the same classroom as where you’ll take the test means a better outcome, the memories you make when you’re happy are easier to recall when you’re happy, and the memories you make when you’re sad are easier to recall when you’re sad.
I know which door was opened and by who so I could be mentally prepared. I still know whose footsteps are whose (although that’s easy when the options are twin, cat, or my husband who has cerebral palsy).
Not to make light of your trauma, but that cat must be a biggun. Pics please!
Aww haha, she can be loud but she’s actually very polite!
This has made me appreciate that thos wasn’t part of my childhood
I still tiptoe around the house at night, and lightly close doors/cabinets so as not to incur the wrath of waking up my father. Left my parents household over 20 years ago. Some shit sticks with you.
Good practice to be careful to not wake anyone up. Fear of anger is a possible consequence of being loud but the real motive is being considerate.
I’m generally very quiet moving about the house, the downside is I regularly scare the living daylights out of my wife.
I’ve been scaring people for 15 years without knowing why lmao, I was nicknamed ninja feet in my college dorm after giving my roommate one too many heartattacks. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out for years why people couldn’t hear me coming, even when I tried to make my presence known.
Same here - I am close to two meters in height and a heavy boy, but i can move so silently that i spook most people when they finally detect me. I actively try to make noise if i come up to someone unsuspecting.
I see where this is coming from but to expect parents will keep an even mood, every day, no matter what, is just ridiculous.
Of course it is important kids know it is not their responsibility but this meme/tweet/post makes it look like a worried parent that speaks less than usual during dinner is basically being emotionally abusive
If it just someone happens once in a while then most kids might not even notice something is up. A kid in an household where it happens often will know it. A kid in an abusive household will be terrified and will try to mitigate it.
Yup. It’s not “oh dad is passively quiet” it’s “oh he’s actively quiet and a plate might go flying if anyone sets him off”
I think it sets that up with the first sentence, that this isn’t every household. This doesn’t describe my childhood, but it does describe my wife’s, where the abusers’ moods were a matter of safety. She still struggles with people pleasing, which served her then, but doesn’t so much anymore
yes, this is why I said “I see where this is coming from” but I still find the framing completely irresponsible
I participate heavily in pretty much every aspect of my house (I am just more of a “high energy” person compared with my wife) Sometimes, I feel down and do get quiet. If my kids (grown already) noticed and tried to cheer me up, I would take that as an incredible sign of love and affection as it is a sign of emotional maturity from them as well as a healthy display of empathy.
What is described in this post, seems to me a normal household where humans, not robots, live.
Completely different story about parents whose mood swings go from loving to beaters, for example… but again, the wording of the post frames very normal human behaviour as abusive
Not everything has to be about you. See all the other posts on this thread and accept it resonates with their experiences.
What is described in this post, seems to me a normal household where humans, not robots, live.
The tone of the post implies an abusive environment. Especially the last sentence.
That’s my point. They insinuate an abusive environment but then lay out a perfectly normal one.
It’s like implying anyone who has a zip of beer is a ranging violent alcoholic
No, it’s not. They describe an abusuve household explicitly. They aren’t talking just about everyone trying to cheer someone down up. They’re also talking about when an entire household goes tense because the matriarch gets in a bad mood and everyone is waiting for things to explode.
Just because there is some overlap between behaviors and events with a normal household does not change the fact that they explicitly stated they are talking about an abusive one. You are willfully ignoring one of the maybe three sentences in order to have a completely different interpretation.
For some more context, because you’re willfully ignoring it at this point:
This is like the difference between “I feel very sad sometimes” and “I am not capable of deriving joy from things that regularly used to bring me joy, and this lack of joy and near omnipresent sadness is impacting my ability to navigate life”. One is normal, the other is depression.
People having basic awareness of the emotions of others they live with is normal. Memorizing the sound of each individual’s footfalls and how they open a door so that you can instantly know who is where and who specifically is stomping around aggressively on the other side of the house so that you can prepare yourself and the space your in to minimize the incoming firestorm… that’s not normal, that’s survival.
Short internet post screenshots are never going to capture the full nuance of a statement and are a poor mediun for things like this, but at the very least you can choose not to ignore part of what little is there to push your own interpretation.
You could also take a quick scroll through the other comments in this thread and get a good overview of many other aspects of this and the myriad disordered behaviors that people who grow up in the type of household being described end up developing. In short, read the god damned room.
That’s me - I’ve been diagnosed with Avoidant Personality Disorder because of situations described above.
I try to be invisible whenever possible. I try to not stand in the way in the subway even if there is enough space to go around. I always try to stand close to a wall - if I cannot see part of a room i get anxious. The worst experience is being in a mess hall or large waiting room, because in addition to the above my brain cannot filter the noise of so many people to find out if there are threatening voices somewhere in the mix.
That also means that I cannot keep social contacts alive. If you call or message me, my brain fears that i did something wrong and i cannot answer. I also can not reach out, because I feel that i will trigger someone to be angry at me. Even if I am simply talking with someone, i suspect that i am a burden in some way, because “just keeping up the conversation” is what i would do to prevent repercussions.
People, don’t shout at your kids - verbal aggression is aggression too.
I think the biggest thing that I try to do with my kiddos around this topic is emotional predictably. I think as others have stated learning abilities to deal with other people’s emotions a good ability to have.
My parents were never consistent with their emotions and I am not talking between the two I am talking about them as individuals… I could get yelled at by my Dad about the same thing twice and the reactions be completely different.
If I am having a bad day and do fly off the handle a bit more than normal I make sure to apologize to my kiddos and explain to them why I reacted the way I did. Now I’m trying to get my babies mama on board.
I think a lot of parents out there forget that thier kids are people too.
The predictability and clearly communicated rules are worth a lot and very important, it instills a sense of security. in my opinion there’s nothing worse than instability for a kid,
Yep! And the worst part is in addition to fucking you up, it instills habits with which you can accidentally hurt people you care about. Having a trauma response to legitimate criticism makes your partner uncomfortable bringing up issues they’re facing. Most of the issues I’ve had in my marriage have stemmed from behaviors I learned to protect myself growing up. It’s taken a lot of work over the years to improve on these issues, and a lot of communication to ensure that what I’m still struggling with doesn’t hurt the relationship.
Curiously, this is something parents are often on the lookout for with their kids - especially younger and less verbal kids. Watching for physical and emotional queues is the difference between knowing when your kid is genuinely upset and just hungry or sleepy. The tenor of a wail can be the difference between “I’ve lost my ball under the couch” and “I’ve seriously injured myself, get me to a doctor asap”. You’ll also notice little kids adopting coping mechanisms - self-soothing by sucking on a hand or clucking a toy can indicate stress even if your child isn’t crying. Flinching from a seemingly harmless object can indicate some kind of pain or trauma (recoiling from food because you’ve got a sore throat, flinging a book because it has a scary picture, etc).
Kids get older and they start learning how to read queues from their parents in turn. And that’s a normal, healthy way to grow, even if what you’re discovering about your family is that they’re chronically stressed or ill-tempered.
“I noticed my mom was upset, so I tried to cheer her up” is an emotional development you should want to see in your children. Because you’re going to be around people who are upset the older you get. And developing empathy is a good thing precisely because it means you’re looking outside yourself and recognizing others as people like yourself.
In theory, it sets off a positive feedback loop. You’re grumpy, and your parents notice, so they try to cheer you up. They’re grumpy, and you notice, so you try to cheer them up. And the net result is less stress, more love, and a stronger bond between family members.
emotional queues
cues
*breaks down and cries in street from error*
Your are correct, however you are describing empathy here when the post is about how children become emotional regulators for abusive/absentee parents which becomes a lifelong and debilitating psychological issue for them as adults.
Empathy is best nurtured in a reciprocal manner especially during childhood development and it starts between the child and their caregiver(s).
Curiously, this is something parents are often on the lookout for with their kids - especially younger and less verbal kids.
… Not the kind of parents the OP image is talking about, no, they’re not doing this much or at all.
They’re too busy.
From their erractic, extreme emotional shifts.
They’d actually be more likely to mock and punish a child displaying those early coping mechanisms.
I am kind of amazed you managed to describe the opposite of what this image is saying.
What a truly blessed life you must have lived.
Its about a disregulated, unpredictable emotional environment at home, for young kids, causing various kinds of ultimately self-destructive coping mechanisms… as survival mechanisms.
The negative feedback loops.
This isn’t about developing empathy, its about growing up in an environment that teaches you that other people’s emotions are fundamentally time bombs that can go off, and cause very real problems, so you learn how to defuse them.
Empathy?
No no no, that never happens to or for a kid in this kind of environment, at least not within the household.
The household is an ongoing threat management training simulator, which bomb do I need to defuse now, and how, and if I can’t, how do I brace for impact and aftermath… empathy might be a thing they experience and can then maybe eventually internally model, if they know other people and kids, from stable families, but its typically not fully experienced or developed untill years after they get out of that home, and manage to surround themselves with better examples of people.
And even still, the kid, now adult, learns micro expressions and tone shifts and that kind of stuff as primarily a threat assesment paradigm.
Takes years and decades to unlearn all that CPTSD, retrain your brain, and it usually never fully goes away, you usually just end up with a set of stable coping mechanisms and an insistence on either boundaries and/or local environment control.
By the way, to anyone who actually grew up in an environment the OP describes:
Your entire comment reads as an obvious misdirection from the topic at hand, that’s trying to sound neutral and cool, and intelligent, but is insincere, self-aggrandizing by way of obviously shifting the topic to … whatever it is you wanted to talk about.
It’s insulting, disrespectful, and triggering / re-traumatizing.
The abused person’s lived experience?
Nah, not important, there’s this other thing to talk about, blah blah blah blah blah blah, anyway, what were you talking about?
… Most of the other people who’ve been abused the way the OP image describes… well, they’re too non-confrontational to tell you how they really feel.
Because that’s been trained into them.
Seconding this reply, because that was the most blatantly tonedeaf comment I’ve read in ages. Checked moderation history to see whether they were being intentionally dense as it was approaching gaslighting territory and whaddaya know? lmao
If I had to guess, people like this crave empathy to abuse so no surprise to see them advocate for it.
“I noticed my mom was upset, so I tried to cheer her up” can also mean “i have to cheer mom up because dad was mean to her”.
“My siblings are upset, i have to cheer them up” - this is parentification.
I am still very empathic, sensing emotions and reading subtle cues really good - but my brain interprets a lot of stuff as threatening, because all of this sensing was mixed with unpredictability. If you always get the same response, you can learn to work with that - if the response is not predictable, you get fucked up like me.
In my case it meant “if I can’t cheer them up, they’ll hit me”. They both did it, but my stepdad was worse about the random punishments. Turns out he had undiagnosed schizophrenia, and I was getting hit because he was having hallucinations about me doing/saying something.
Damn that’s hard, sorry you had to experience that. My mother was a teen who couldn’t fend for herself when she got me and my father was a drunkard, never hitting anyone but always shouting physical threats around. In the last years I’ve grown the suspicion that he had the same issues as i have, with no therapy. (He died stumbling while drunk hitting his head alone in his messy apartment, so i can’t ask him and i wouldn’t if he lived anyways)
AvPD is developed in the first few years of life (there is definitely a genetic component in play, but there is not much research on it, since we are not problematic for our surroundings and tend to not seek help because we don’t want to inconvenience anyone - any researcher will have a pretty hard time finding enough of us), so i can only make an educated guess what happened back then, which probably was the same stuff i experienced later.
I think i might have had a chance at a much better life if the first few years had been stable, just so that the core of my personality had enough time to form. I am missing the basic trust most people have that everything will turn out all right and that what people tell me in regard to my relationship with them is the truth. Like, people can tell me straight up they enjoy spending time with me and i don’t believe them.
I hope you have at least a bit of that basic trust going for you. If you have, hold onto it, it’s something precious.
Yeah, mom was also a teen when she got pregnant, my bio dad isn’t even listed on my birth certificate. She had a string of incredibly bad boyfriends and another baby before settling down with my stepdad, falling into the incredibly cult-y church he was in, and having one more baby. My youngest brother was always the favorite, because he’s the only “legitimate” child out of us, and I was the oldest and only girl so a lot of parenting fell on me even when I was still in elementary school.
I think I got lucky with having my great-grandmother help raise me before the cult. Quite a lot of my personality mirrors hers, but she was a teen during the Great Depression, so I inherited some weirdly relevant worldviews there. These were further reinforced with living in a state that didn’t believe in social safety nets like adequate food assistance, so I got roped into helping mom with finding edible food in the grocery store garbage, because I was small enough to fit into the dumpsters.
I don’t know if it’s PTSD, AvPD, or what, but I do have a hard time connecting with people who haven’t been through similar trauma before. I find that too many people are insulated in a comfortable bubble and don’t want to believe these things can happen, so I always feel like everybody thinks I’m a liar, and I just get so angry and stop talking to them.
I’ve been with my partner for the past 16 years tho, because they’ve got similar trauma and they understand.
I don’t know if i can actually connect with people who have the same issues I have, although i know me and the other person would have to be locked in the same room so we can keep in touch - two people who don’t call each other might get along, but it’s not really a relationship isn’t it lol
I also have two younger siblings, but our mother slowly got her act together over the years, so i took the brunt of the instability at home - i might have acted as a stabilizing factor for my siblings too, at least i hope i did. I know they both do a lot better than I do.
The culty stuff reads awful; weirdly enough i stumbled across this piece where lots of US troops got told by their superiors the war against Iran is so that Jesus can return (and they have the sick idea Trump is anointed) - this sounds very much like the same thing, or at least very adjacent.
I have the luck to live in central Europe, with a useful social safety net - i was declared unfit for work after i had a nervous breakdown because i couldn’t withstand the stress of regular work. it’s actually the way i get a little apartment for me if all works out… 36m² isn’t large, but enough for me and my 2 cats, and i can afford it with my little pension. I just wanted to write that i do not know what would have happened if i lived in the US, but that’s not true: reality is that i would be a crazy homeless person or dead.
It’s good to read you have such a stable relationship and hope you are happy in it. Wish you all the best!
I have AvPD, and I am sure there is a genetic link, but it’s hard to separate it from my mother’s issues and treatment of me. She had schizo-affective bipolar and was an alcoholic on top of that.
I’ve found therapy to be a bit frustrating, because I am able to cope with my fears and recognize when I’m slipping into avoidance but still unable to form connections with people. I’ve been released from therapy but still don’t have any friends or relationships because I still react to other people’s unpredictable emotions with fawning and then cutting them out of my life lol
It’s a very lonely disorder
Therapy is very frustrating, i agree with you. Progress is soooo slow, and there seems to be this barrier i simply cannot break through. But at least it helped with some of my most self-destructive impulses like my addiction to fentanyl painkillers, which is the reason i keep going there,
I am a bit of an outlier i think, because i have been in multiple relationships for the last 27 years (it’s not that i had the courage to actually try for relationships, but it still happened, back then when i had a bit of social life in my early 20s), so i at least wasn’t physically lonely (in the beginning), but emotionally i always withdrew after the “honeymoon” phase, trapping myself in a limbo where i lived with someone, but i couldn’t do shit because i wasn’t able to take the space for myself i would’ve needed to actually live, or even end the relationship out of fear of conflict.
I am actually going to live on my own for the first time now (starting with april or may), and I think it will be for the better. I do fear the loneliness, but it will probably beat being stuck in perpetuity in a long dead relationship.
It really is a lonely disorder, even when there are people.
I had a string of relationships in my 20s as well, but I don’t think any of them were healthy and I developed my own drinking habit to cope before realizing I didn’t want that misery for myself.
Dunno if you want any advice to consider, but I’ve lived alone for most of my 30s, and I have to say having a pet really helps. I have a cat and a dog, and the dog does provide more opportunities for conversations to happen just seeing the same people on the trails we walk every day. These are usually shallow conversations so it’s easier to avoid feeling like I’ve upset anyone (it still happens lol “why did I say good morning that way??” but it’s low stakes at least). But even having a plant to take care of helps with the loneliness, because you have this living thing that occupies the same space as you, and even if you can’t leave the house today you can still share being alive and existing with this plant or creature.
Anyway, I wish you all the luck with your move and your new future
Edit: I just realized we’ve commented to each other before, I was on a different account though lol. I’m glad your move date is so close now :)
Empathy is a double edged sword, it’s true. The difference that makes a difference is the emotional maturity of the parents.
Empathy is a double edged sword
No it isn’t. I can’t think of a drawback to empathy that is worse than anything caused by lack of empathy. Specially empathy towards loved ones
I think you mistake my meaning, I wasn’t intending to stake the claim you’re arguing against. I was only saying empathy can hurt sometimes.
Ok, still not sure I get you… hurt through empathy is still a good thing (kind of like pain due to exercise)
In the context of kids using their empathy to survive neglect and abuse… Agree to disagree?
Where is the abuse or neglect of a father being quiet during one dinner?
Again, I do think I know where this is coming from… but what is written in the post is NOT that.
This post is like describing a baseball butt slap as sexual abuse… yes, there is such a thing as sexual abuse but a friendly butt slap in baseball is basically in the baseball manual
Where is the abuse or neglect of a father being quiet during one dinner?
The implicit presumption is that if someone is quietly fuming now, they’ll become physically violent later. Or verbally abusive. Or neglectful to the point of harm (refusing to feed a hungry child or change a dirty diaper out of spite, hunkering down in front of the TV and leaving the kids to put themselves to bed, etc).
But the flip side of this is a child seeing a parent in distress and trying to accommodate/relieve their pain (as opposed to a child blissfully unconcerned/unaware of the parent’s stress antagonizing them).
Again, I do think I know where this is coming from…
YMMV. It’s very hard to discuss a real historical situations when you’re working from a superficial description or hypothetical implication.
I think where OP’s narrative goes wrong is in describing tense moments in the house as a parental failure without looking beyond the immediate tension. Relationships aren’t some morality play or ethical binary, with a Good Parent and a Bad Child or visa versa. Sometimes you’ve just got an overwhelmed parent and a child thrust into more responsibility than they’re prepared to handle, as a consequence. Or a sick parent being cared for by a child. Or a grieving parent who is being comforted by a child who doesn’t really understand what is going on.
A friend of mine just had his father-in-law pass away, and - of course - his wife was devastated. He had to take over all the household affairs while she worked through her grief. His kids, in turn, had to cope with a mom who was emotionally unresponsive and a dad who was juggling twice the workload. I’ve gotten a few curious anecdotes about how they’ve been processing the trauma. A lot of it has them replicating the care their parents showed them back onto their parents (as best a 2 year old and 4 year old can).
This post is like describing a baseball butt slap as sexual abuse…
I think even that is too specific. I’m more reading it like someone describing a response to the Jaws soundtrack. Are you excited or intrigued or terrified or all of the above? Kinda depends on how you feel about seeing a big shark.
Emotionally abusive parents is what is described, you become very sensitive to nonverbal clues of your parent(s).
It’s not exaggerating, you really get to live around their personal tripwires. And then assume everybody else has those, which makes it hard to trust people.
They’re not calling those specific things abuse, but if you’ve lived in an emotionally abusive home they’re highly recognisable moments. It sounds like you’re coming at this from a slightly too literal frame of mind.
That’s normally where the kids learn it from.
What can be scary is when you get to grow up during the Good Times and develop that emotional maturity, then tip into the Bad Times (economic downturn, family drama/death, social upheaval) such that your parents can’t hold shit together anymore. Anyone who has lived through the illness/death of a loved one or a divorce or an ugly recession gets to see the impact on their parents in real time.
Suddenly you’re caught trying to understand why seemingly proper, happy parents can’t manage themselves anymore. It’s a lot to ask from everybody - parents and kids alike. One reason why having strong social safety nets and robust public services can be the difference between families struggling through and falling apart.
That’s when the depression sets in.
I live on my own now and I can’t possibly go back to living with someone who I have to walk on eggshells like that with.
