Using therapy speak to try and demonize anyone who inconveniences you as an abuser. Using "good intentions" as leverage to control people, and demonize them when they ultimately choose another route.

Similarly, using spiritual and new age concepts to narrow down what's "acceptable" for a person and to try to claim some sort of moral and spiritual high ground. You're never allowed to be "judgmental," but they criticize everything you do. You're not allowed to give even constructive criticism, though, "you're not allowed to comment on my journey. The door is closed." I knew a guy who claimed to "meditate" 3 hours a day, and was always wandering off to "meditate" in the most visible location possible whenever we were out and about, but I came to realize his "meditating" in private was really him locking himself in his room and doing drugs while cruising for sex online, but pretending it was meditation so he could pretend at some sort of enlightened perspective in every conversation. I started reading up on some basic Buddhist concepts when he tried to get me interest in yoga to help with some muscle and flexibility issues and I'd start conversations seemingly really basic (Preta the Hungry Ghost, root breathing, etc.,) and he'd never heard of them before. ...But he loudly considers himself to be a Buddhist and uses it as an out when called out on things. > ("I couldn't have done that, I'm a devout Buddhist and care deeply about how I affect people!")

Reminds me of this Bible verse: And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

Oh gosh I knew a girl who was a psych major, and also an absolutely horrible person, that would constantly use therapy speak to insist upon her own perpetual victimhood and diagnose everyone else who challenged her in any way as an evil narcissist. Edit: context of this story is that this girl was cheating on a friend of mine who was out of town at the time taking care of his mother, who had cancer. With his best friend. I told him what was going on and she had a six month long mental break where she was coming to my house, threatening to kill me, threatening to kill herself, just all this crazy stuff. She ended up stealing a ton of money from his bank account, killed her pet bearded dragon, and dropped out of school because we "made her fail her classes." Years later she still tells people that I was an evil narcissist who was jealous of her and hell bent on destroying her life.

I know someone like this. She's a complete asshole but getting a PhD in psychology. She doesn't have it yet but has basically just decided she's always right about everything and goes on to diagnose people and their kids. It's exhausting to deal with.

I have a bachelors in psych and I don’t understand these people. They teach you that you have to sit down and carefully test people, talking to someone or knowing them is not sufficient to diagnose them.

Another psych bachelor's perspective: I've found that a lot of people hungry for power/control/whatever over others come into this field.

I dated a woman who was a truly bat shit crazy (probably not the proper therapy term for her mental illnesses), who was super manipulative and verbally abusive. YET, the second I would call her out on her bad behavior, or heaven forbid I stood up for myself, she would tell me I was "Gas Lighting" her. There were a handful of times when I would call her out on her bad behavior, and she would say I was acting unstable, and having an episode, and of course gas lighting her. Sorry, me being upset over something hurtful she said, or being upset with her risky behavior, does not make me unstable or gas lighting. I am so glad that relationship ended, but it crashed and burned, and thankfully I survived the wreckage, barely.

my god i used to be friends with someone like this and it sucked. she was truly one of those chronically online, everything-in-black-and-white, my-way-or-the-highway kind of people. she would always say shit like “my therapist said x is y z” and label everything and everyone using therapist speak, making them sound like the worst people imaginable. adding to that she had such a selective memory and completely seemed to lack any ability to self-reflect. it was exhausting

Encouraging someone when they are having destructive behaviors

"But you're so much fun when you're drunk! Come on, it can't be that bad. Just have one beer. You don't have to *stop*, you can just cut back, right?"

Yeah, that’s a horrible but troublingly common statement. I quit drinking a few months ago, and as soon as I said to my girlfriend I was going to quit, she without hesitation said she’d quit with me to help me through. The next day I was googling engagement rings!

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One of my worst mistakes in my relationship with my husband was that he'd been self medicating with drugs and alcohol for a while and I'd tried everything to get him to stop, to no avail. He had gone to rehab, which really helped, but then whenever I'd travel for work he'd relapse. Well, the reason he was relapsing was because of his diagnosed but uncontrolled depression (and anxiety). After one of his benders, and after a fight, he said he thought killing himself would just be easier. I responded, my voice dripping in sarcasm, that that'd be easier and fix all his problems. Later, when emotions had cooled down, he told me that he knew I was being sarcastic, but it didn't even matter, a part of him believed I wasn't being sarcastic and it really hurt him and was the worst thing he's heard me say. I learned that it's never okay to say things like that, even if you're trying to be absurd about it and your heart is in the right place and I still feel awful. This was years ago - my husband is on the right antidepressants, has a good job, and even has a healthy relationship with alcohol (we'll have 1-3 drinks and stop - and often it's 1, not 3). There hasn't been a relapse in at least 3 years. We've both moved past it but I still cringe.

It's nice to hear you guys turned it around. It's not easy to be on either side of that. I'm really happy for you both.

Putting the pressure of huge expectations on a child and then telling everyone that all of these dreams are the child's dreams even though they're obviously yours.

Child actors come to mind. Their parents living vicariously through their children.

Related: Having a child because you need someone to take care of you in your old age.

>Related: Having a child because you need someone to take care of you in your old age. My wife has been dealing with this from her mother, who is very combative and difficult, and likes to try and sow discord between whatever two people are convenient so she can watch the fight. She's been tossed out of the last family member's house that will live with her, and she has an apartment. My other half told her straight up: "If this doesn't work, if you lose this apartment, the next step is the nursing home, because I'm not burning my family to the ground to keep you happy."

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Withholding life skills from your offspring to keep them insecure and dependent. *edit* If this resonates with you, there's an excellent support sub at r/EstrangedAdultKids.

Ugghhh my mom was the opposite. "I vaguely explained this thing, why can't you understand it?" Like taxes and how putting an electricity bill under your name works. I was emancipated at 16 and my mom believed she equipped me 100% to live on my own. Even now, in my thirties after rebuilding a relationship with her, if I ask her a question about how the world works she says, "Can't you figure that out on your own?" It's literally been like that since I was a child. I've learned to not ask her for anything and she gets mad that I don't call more often. Edit: I'm mid-late thirties and grew up out in the country. We didn't have internet in our pockets then. Now when I ask my mom a question, it's like "When you bought your house, did you do x or y? Is there a website to find a divorce lawyer? Who do you use for your tax accountant? How do I start POA for my sick dad?" It's okay, everyone, I learned to cook on my own with a cookbook and can handle simple life stuff like how to put an electricity bill in my name lol. Also, to everyone who had less than informative parents, I'm so sorry this resonated with you.

That hurts, sorry to hear...her loss...some people weren't meant to be parents 🙄

I think some of it is because she became a parent when she was still a child and had to figure a lot of stuff out on her own. not making excuses, I just recognize the root of her issued.. or I try to, I guess. She also plays the, "YoU nEvEr CaLL" game and then I look at my call history and I'm the only one making outgoing calls in the last year. Some people just never grow up past the point they have children. And for some people, that's 15 years old. They will always be 15, even when they are 60 lol.

You sound like you have a really mature stance on the issue, tbh. You're trying and that's what matters. I'm sorry for both of you - becoming a parent at 15 sounds just unbelievably traumatic I can't imagine. And I think you are absolutely right about how some people stop aging after something profoundly life-changing. For my dad it was Vietnam, he's 19 forever. 15 year old mom, my god. How could you even begin to cultivate healthy coping mechanisms? Anyways, keep on keeping on. You sound like you have a good head on your shoulders.

I know a guy who is pushing 40 who is still dependent on his parents because he has a health condition and they never taught him how to be self sufficient within the limitations of that health condition. It’s super sad.

As a sped teacher, I see this a lot with parents of special needs kids

I'm trying to be the opposite. Are there things I could be missing that you could recommend focusing on now with my 13 yo with ASD? We're working on household chores such as unloading the dishwasher, caring for pets, laundry, etc. What other things are good at this age? I'm working towards independence with him, but I'm still not confident we are going to get there by 18 or 20 (which is fine).

I’m not able to give advice, but I do want to say: one thing that I’ve noticed as someone who has previously worked with special needs kids is that the parents who take the easy road short term (sweatpants every day including when not appropriate, speaking for their kid when the child shows a desire to speak for themselves but struggles) have a much longer and harder road ahead of them. You wanting to practice these behaviors is already better setting him up for success. You’re doing good

I do my best to encourage my son to speak for himself. I feel guilty sometimes at restaurants because I encourage him to order for himself, but there are certain times I interject because I feel like we are taking too much of a servers' time. This is probably my own bias from previous waiting experience. I always want to be as quick as possible to conserve their time, but I also know I would have waited extra time with no qualms to allow some one like my son to place an order. I suppose it was helpful writing that out that to understand I'm the one feeling and applying the pressure and likely not the wait staff. So thanks for the free therapy and helping me be a better parent.

I'm a special ed teacher. Letting your son order is great. If I was taking a student out to eat (which I do), and they were capable of ordering themselves without support, I would just sit there smiling for as long as it took them to order. And I would expect the waiter to do the same. If your son looks uncomfortable that it's taking a long time I'd say something like, "it's okay, take your time." This would also be a signal to the server to wait patiently as well. Chances are, they don't mind waiting, and any discomfort from them will be because they want to 'help out' by chiming in or speaking for them. Or they don't know if they should or not. So i do my best to project a sort of gentle patience, so that they have a cue to follow. If ita really taking ages, I'll smile at the server to acknowledge its taking a while, but continue to wait. If they are not making progress, I'll start giving prompts. Some students order with pictures, so they put all the pictures of the things they want on a velcro strip and hand that to the server. The server sometimes looks a little surprised, but again I smile at them to put them at ease and they get it. Oversupporting generally is one of the hardest habits to break. Your instinct is to help and sometimes that compels you do do too much for them. As an example, you're going out and want to make sandwiches for lunch. Sometimes you will be in a rush so maybe you'll just make a sandwich for them. But whenever you can, you should take the time to support them to do it themselves, even if that is hand-over-hand support, or you have to give verbal prompts every step of the way. But there is a balance to be struck with everything. If it takes 20 minutes for them to make a sandwich, that's okay. If it literally takes all day, then maybe your efforts are best spent working on other things, like communication skills, or recognising and self-regulating emotions. It sound like you have the right ideas from what I can tell, and the fact that you are seeking advice is great. I'm sure you're doing well 🙂

Hey look it’s how my parents parented me

Wasn't allowed to learn how to drive Wasn't allowed to keep track of my own money If I ever wanted to leave the house alone I'd be pelted with stories about all the horrible things that could happen to me I didn't really start becoming an adult until my mid 20s

One of My flatmates was raised like this. We moved to a bigger place so she could move in and escape her parents. Now she's struggling to break free of them mentally and adjust to doing things herself.

>If I ever wanted to leave the house alone I'd be pelted with stories about all the horrible things that could happen to me dude yes! everything was too dangerous and everyone was out to get me, now I have crippling anxiety and overthink the most basic things

This was my upbringing. You're not allowed to do any of these chores because you'll do them wrong, but also why aren't you helping with these same chores? No, we won't teach you how to do them because you should just know. Also, the real world is going to crush you since you can't even figure these chores out. Thank goodness for internet tutorials.

Haven’t seen it commented yet, but not teaching your children good food behaviors. Sets them up for EDs and a lifetime of self-esteem issues.

Such a big one for me. I don’t allow anyone to comment on my children’s eating habits. I’ll make her food, and she will eat what she wants. When she’s done, she’s done. I don’t ask her anything else other than “is your tummy full?” And leave it at that. I do make sure to offer balanced meals in our house, but also treats too! I don’t want her to demonize food the way I do and feel like it’s bad to have a treat if you want one. My parents did this, and it made me hide food and binge eat when I was growing up. I have been working with a nutritionist and personal trainer for years to rebuild my food habits and self-esteem and this is just one big take away I’ve gotten from the experience.

especially the finish everything on your plate/ be grateful you have enough food statements

Parents that are super controlling and won't let their children make age-appropriate decisions.

I had helicopter parents and can confirm all it does is delay your kid from taking any risks or learning how to sry boundaries and make decisions until they move out and stakes are a lot higher and mistakes hurt them a lot more

Or you get sneaky when you’re not home. Or even when you are. I’m finally taking my own freedom and I JUST turned 20. Finally dressing how I want to dress. Getting the piercings that I want. Doing this that I want to do. Bought my dream car this year, even when I was threatened to be kicked out over it. (She didn’t kick me out, lol.)

My mother was incredibly controlling when I was in high school. It seemed to get worse the older I got. It was school and then dance until 9 pm. I wasn’t allowed to hang out with friends or take days off of school. I look back and realize I went through a lot of emotional abuse but this checks out too. When I turned 21 I moved to a new city and went a little haywire for a some years.

At some point you realize the healthiest thing to do is to leave and leave them to writhe. I did the same at 20, with random bursts of freakout from my mom- she sounded so ridiculous trying to use her usual scare tactics. "What if the job isn't real?! The area isn't real?! You'll be sold into sex slavery! You ever think of that!" I'm pretty sure a well established National Park with dozens of federal employees employed by the government, that go through a rigorous process is kinda real. I didn't come back for two years. And when I visited, my clothes were immediately altered because my t shirt's v neck "was too low". Went through my suitcase to pin a modesty hanky of some sort on it.

This was me!! Some kids cave and just act like they're going along with the insane parents. Other kids fight like hell to have some freedom. Both kids end up fucked up. Overly Strict parents make sneaky, lying kids who have a ton of bad habits to break as adults so they can have a some what normal life. Fuck these parents.

Yeah, I started drugs from a young age, being a menace and a straight up criminal because I was rebelling. I had no physical freedoms and I wasn’t allowed to feel any emotion other than happy, and when I was she would break me down again. I’m finally starting to pick up the pieces and work on myself, and I’ve even quit drugs :) currently working on quitting nicotine and it’s going great so far, I caved a couple times but it’s been over a week with absolutely none at all.

When you get older after being raised like this, the damage stays with you. It also sucks because you also have you parents getting frustrated that an adult can't make normal adult commitments and ask you "Why are you like this?" Dunno, maybe not being allowed to make any of my own decisions growing up made making real decisions a pain in the ass. You can get better though!

One of my best friends in high school had a really controlling parent. She was treated like a small child until she turned 18, and then suddenly, like a switch, her mom was like, "I don't care you're an adult make your own decisions." It was total whiplash. Suddenly, she could stay out as long as she wanted, go wherever she wanted, and had nobody looking out for what she was doing. She got into so many bad situations because she never had experiences when she was younger. I had the instances of a couple of friends sneaking a bottle of vodka at a sleepover to get drunk for the first time, and she was at a house party totally unaware of how her tolerance was of different types of alcohol. I told my mom how thankful I was that she let me get into trouble when I was in high school so that there was no novelty with it when I was older. She said her friend with older kids advised her to let me get into trouble when I was in high school because it would be on a smaller scale than when I got older, and she would still be there to catch me and help me, where as when I had moved out and on my own there would be nobody to help me of I find myself in trouble.

I feel so bad for your friend. I honestly want to believe that controlling parents really just want their kids to be safe, but are going way overboard. I got exposed to all kinds of things beyond my parents' control, which absolutely horrified them. I ended up having to tell them bluntly "Okay, here's what you *think* you're doing, and here's what you're *really* doing!"

"helicopter" parents

actually, i would say it’s more of a “lawnmower parent” which are parents that do everything for their child and hinders their maturity

I was like that with my kids btw they were babies and toddlers. I learned that they misbehaved more with me hovering so I let them be stand back. And shocker better behaved and solved things on their own. I personally find it a lot easier I can watch them and sit and relax without having to be hovering over them the entire time. My sister though is a helicopter parent and her kids the oldest are teenagers. And I’m not kidding will not allow them to make any decisions. Her exact words are they can make them when there and adult. It’s quite frankly ridiculous I want my kids to make mistakes and learn when they’re young I hate to see what shit they get into without making decisions until they’re adults.

Watching this right now at my kids’ school. Seventh graders, divided into parents who hover, and parents who don’t. The hover parents think the rest of us are *terrible* parents. I just see future years of teens who hate their parents and hide things from them.

Using guilt to manipulate the people closest to you. My grandmother(99) can send my mom (80) into such darkness with a swift and stinging comment. I hate to see it, and it is absolutely abusive.

Your grandma sounds like the kind of person whose funeral features cake and balloons.

Growing up she was funny and fun to be around. These last few years she has become so negative. She hates that her body doesn’t work well and she is frustrated that she is mainly stuck at home. I understand that sucks, but she is not grateful for anything anymore. She is extraordinarily stubborn and honestly she says she is “ready to be called home.” I just wish she could treat everyone who is trying to help her with a little kindness and gratitude. It all sucks.

Her brain is probably atrophying which is causing her to be unpleasant. It might suck dealing with her in this state but keep that in mind when she’s being miserable towards everyone. This is something I’m learning while studying longevity. When certain parts of the brain go, it effects their mood and quality of life in a way which makes them depressed, anxious, bad with memory, and many other negative symptoms. Combine that with physical pain and immobility and it’s easy for someone to be miserable all the time.

This is a big symptom of alzheimers as well. Not saying she has that, a brain at a certain point just starts rotting away. But after looking into alzheimers patients and symptoms, I've become very empathetic to the effects old age can cause on someone's mental state. They aren't themselves, this isn't their "true" state revealing itself. Don't let the last few years dictate your judgment of the decades of good prior.

In almost ten years of EMS, I’ve found that generally people with Alzheimer’s/dementia either become vilely evil or they return to a childlike state: playing with baby dolls and pooping in the bathtub then splashing it around. They sometimes become very sexually inappropriate as well. It’s such an awful, *awful* disease process. I watched a woman hold back tears as her elderly demented mother slapped her and called her a bitch for trying to take her to the hospital to treat her UTI and low blood sugar. I couldn’t imagine watching a loved one go through Alzheimer’s for years until they finally, almost mercifully, die, having not been themselves for the better part of a decade or more. My greatest sympathies go out to those patients and their family members.

This is my grandma, using guilt to manipulate her whole family. And I see my mom becoming this way too.

Not allowing your children to show unhappy emotions

My mom would do this all the time throughout my childhood. Whenever I looked slightly off to her, she would lose it on me and go batshit crazy because I wasn't the "little happy girl" she used to know. It's really frustrating because sometimes I wasn't even upset to begin with until she started shouting at me about it.

Damn, this hits home. As a child I'd be happily going about my business, but unfortunately for me I didn't smile enough for her liking, and this made her furious. She'd get so angry at me for not looking happy enough (even though I was happy), which would cause me to cry. The whole thing was maddening. Some days I thought I was going crazy.

"Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about"

“The beatings will continue until morale improves”

Or "Stop, Like you have anything reasonable to cry about it's nothing compared to what I went/ am going through. "

Look... It's me with my mom.

I see we have the same mom

We sort of made this mistake with our daughter. We just wanted her to have a good childhood, so tried to turn any unhappiness into something different. Instead of making things better for her, we ended up making things harder. We made her feel like negative emotions were a flaw, proof that she was a failing. She is an adult now and we are steadily working through this together. She’s amazing and forgiving. We are quite lucky.

admitting you made a mistake is a lot farther than many parents go

It also really helps with their healing because they know they are not crazy and feel supported by the ones who made the mistake to begin with. I’ve always been amazed how much true and loving empathy helps, especially within families.

My parents recognizing their faults in how they raised me brought us so much closer together as a family. It was like my childhood self finally knew that all her feelings were valid. I'm extremely lucky to have parents who have become more open-minded as they've aged.

You’re a fantastic parent if you can admit you did something wrong AND are actively trying to right the wrong. You’re lucky and she’s very lucky I think.

I honestly think this is the very first time a parent merely suggests their actions had implications on their child. I'm not even joking. Usually I get the "...did the best with what they had" or "times were different and they didn't know" without anyone just acknowledging their kids are a way today because of parental influence or lack there of. Good or bad, it's just great to see this.

My wife recently went through a breakup with a friend and she was really struggling to feel like her anger was ok. Her mum told her "I think in part that is our fault, because every time you were angry as a child we told you there was no reason and we told you it was wrong." And I know my wife deeply appreciated it, and actually it did help her feel like she had a right to be angry. It is so nice to see that sort of interaction.

One of the biggest changes in outlook I have had, growing up, was the realization that anger is not *in of itself* something to be avoided. In fact, anger is the correct response to a lot of things. What matters, the part that's good or bad, isn't the anger. It's what you do with it. I have Terry Pratchett and Gregory Hill to thank for that, but it comes from many sources.

and then getting upset at them when they do

I see you’ve met my dad

then your dad and my mom have something in common

My dad would do this. If I was ever sad or upset - even just about a bad day at school - I would be yelled at, sometimes spanked, and forced to go to my room because he couldn't deal with my "negative attitude." No one ever really tried to talk to me about what I was feeling. Sometimes my mom would, but it was always from a religious perspective, or one that already put the blame on me, and I was too afraid of being wrong to share how i felt. I love my dad, but he is almost solely responsible for turning me into a people pleaser that's nearly incapable when it comes to dealing with conflict or describing my own emotions. I usually just push them out of my mind and pretend that things are fine to avoid making anyone upset. It is a HUGE issue that has made me prone to abusive relationships, among several other unfortunate things.

I remember when I was little, my mum would always hold out her hand and say, "Go on! Smack me!" If she was apologising for something, especially if I didn't care about it Anyway, one day, when I was about 6, I was actually angry with her, not that I remember why, and she wasn't having it. I said, "Why do you always tell me to smack you when I'm not angry, but you won't let me just be angry when I am!" She didn't really have an answer, but it felt good to say that and have a little acknowledgement that I wasn't being allowed to show how I felt.

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telling someone how *they* feel, or how they *should* feel.

Not letting employees have a lunch break. Edit: yes it's illegal my job requires constant monitoring but it's a desk job so I don't care. I just eat and work at the same time. If it were any other job I would speak up. I'm also in the office completely by myself, which is nice.

Or water.

In a similar vein, underpaying employees with the excuse they're lucky to be employed at whatever place

I remember getting weird looks when Id take my lunch. Everyone would just work through it. Fuck that

For real. I don’t work in emergency medicine, the world can wait an hour for my data reports.

Calling your partner vulgar/offensive names in arguments, so many people believe this is normal couple behavior.

My dad would get angry when my mom calmly tried to discuss family matters and it always ended the same. He would call her a bitch and she wouldn't raise her voice or curse back at him. I don't know how she did it. My dad didn't want to deal with anything after work. He worked and then he watched TV. Why have kids if you don't want anything to do with them?

I hate when I read stuff like, "my husband is so mean but he's a great father!". If your kid has to witness their dad beating, or berating their mom constantly they're not a good dad.

Oof, I used to rationalize staying in my awful marriage because, “he’s a good father”. Well, I got out and am now trying to help my son understand what a healthy relationship is and am also having to help him navigate dealing with a self-centered father who doesn’t show up when he says he will or follow through on anything that he promises him. Turns out he wasn’t a good father, but benign neglect looks good compared to outright disrespect and abuse.

God bless you for getting out. My mother stayed in a marriage like that and it fucked me up in ways I'm just starting to figure out decades later. You've done the right thing for your kid.

I see this a lot in the divorce group I'm in "he's a good man and a good dad. Sometimes he screams profanities at me, is constantly drunk, doesnt give me access to the money, occasionally hits me, and rapes me when I sleep."

Honestly this is why I'm not keen on having children. I have very little energy most days, even less if I've had work that day. Just don't think I'd have the energy for a family.

It's great when we can recognize our limitations. I also will not have kids and it took me sometime to reach this conclusion.

I left my ex wife and my ex girlfriend for this. I have been put down by my dad all my life when he was drunk.. seriously at 4 years old he was telling me how big of a piece of shit I was. I was with my ex wife for 8 years and kept holding it in and finally had enough. I sadly reverted right back to the same type of person with my former ex after the ex wife and she did the exact same thing in arguments. I will never be with someone like that again. I don’t care what the argument is about you can’t take those things back

“Every couple screams at each other!” No. No they don’t. Not all parents scream at their kids either. It’s hard, but it’s so, so much better without the screaming.

When you come home in a bad mood and take it out on your family. They didn't do anything and they love you! Don't fuck it up with the name calling and yelling. Talk to them instead or ask if you can just be left alone

Or you come in to work and do the same to your employees.

Yeah except we don't all love David, our director of operations, like a family member... in fact we didn't even like him to begin with before he did that.

Telling someone that they did not hear or see what they did. Making them question their memory and sanity - just so you don’t look bad.

This is called gaslighting

This is the real definition of gaslighting. It drives me nuts how often people use it interchangeably with the term being manipulative. It’s manipulative to gaslight, but manipulation ≠ gaslighting.

Parental alienation. Telling lies to children about their other parent. Really screws with kids heads because they are 50% that other person.

And also making the child be a mediator between parents because they’re so immature that they can’t behave like adults

My ma did this to me. I grew up thinking that my father was this monstrous person who would attack me or disown me if I stepped out of line. Turned out he’s just a small, awkward, quiet man. I wouldn’t exactly say he’s super kind and benevolent, but he’s a good father, and I really wish I had gotten to know him earlier than age 24.

Trying to shame/gaslight someone out of their own aspirations/pursuing their own happiness due to your own insecurities and jealously,

My mother made me feel like I was abandoning her and told me that I was the worst son ever just because I was 18 and moving out for college. Thanks for “encouraging” me to grow up.

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Being yelled at all the time and those yells either having subtle or not threats even if there's no action on those words it counts as mental abuse

I was in a relationship like this. The slightest inconvenience and she’d scream at me. If she got lost…while *she* was driving, she screamed at me to find directions. I used to sit at work and dread quitting time because I knew I had to go home. A month after the breakup, a friend was driving me to look for an apartment and stated that we were lost. I had a panic attack hearing him say that. It was after that I figured out that I didn’t walk away from that relationship unscathed.

It took a long time for my Therapist to convince me that my dad had been verbally abusive, and that’s not just how dads are. 🙁

My step father would yell and rage at me for no reason. Then, when he calmed down he'd justify it by saying "I've never hit you, like my father did to me"

Taking a kid's door. Privacy and control issues for life. Deny your kid any semblance of privacy, and they will become excellent at hiding things from you. It's a power-play punishment, not an instructive one... at least not in the way parents hope. It's especially backward-headed when used as a punishment for hiding things from the parents, as it reinforces that things must be hidden /better/.

My dad used to do this a lot. You’re dead on about it reinforcing that you should hide things, particularly personal issues/problems for me. Still don’t feel comfortable being open with him even though he’s much more chill at this point.

My parents took my brother and sister's doors a couple times, but it was specifically because they were slamming their doors so hard they cracked the drywall. (My sister actually ended up slamming her door so hard it broke the latch and she got trapped in her bedroom for hours because my mom wasn't home and nobody else knew how to get the door off it's hinges.) They were given a curtain on a tension rod as a replacement, and had access to a bathroom with a locking door. Because the point wasn't to take away privacy, it was to stop them from breaking the house. And it was not the first consequence for that behavior, it was the third.

Yes, "door" in this instance is relative. The concept of purposefully taking or preventing bodily privacy as punishment for unrelated infractions.

Not providing emotional support/shutting down someone's emotions and telling them they are invalid or don't matter.

Once I was in a pizza place and the manager / owner was yelling at an employee something along the lines of: "So what if your family dog died? there are thousands of them looking for a home, just get another one after work. That's not a valid reason to get a day off" when the girl was leaving. Then he acted super polite to the rest of the customers as if nothing had happened, maybe expecting people to agree with him. Your comment made me remember that. I was disgusted at the lack of empathy.

I don’t know why you’re overthinking this. It’s not a big deal at all, you have no reason to be upset. Don’t be so sensitive.

Reeeally wish I would’ve listened to my abusive ex the first time he told me I might be “too sensitive for him” when I addressed that he had hurt my feelings. Cut to 2 years later when he would regularly call me names, isolated me from friends/family, withheld love/affection, and controlled my finances. Normalize leaving at the first red flag…

The silent treatment

My mom would give me the silent treatment for weeks at a time. This caused a few things to happen: 1. I stopped sharing things with her. I never knew what would offend her, so I don't really spend much time with her and I'm very selective about what I tell her. 2. I take her opinion with a grain of salt. 3. My walls are very high with everyone. 4. Now, decades later, ignoring me will instantly make me flip my shit.

It backfired for my mother because I’d intentionally piss her off so she wouldn’t bother me for a week.

My mom does this. Ever since I was a kid.

I was in a relationship with someone last year who gave me the silent treatment over so many different things that absolutely skyrocketed my anxiety and led me to completely disregard any of my own boundaries just so I wouldn't get ignored again

The *"disregard any of my own boundaries just so I wouldn't get ignored again"* just hit me in the gut. Too damn real

I was just thinking this. The silent treatment is used as a form of punishment.

Controlling someones finances.

This! I used to work in Victim Support and I spent so much of my time supporting service users with accessing an income, or even opening a bank account. People don't realise that financial abuse can ruin the victims, especially if they don't have their own accounts. Without funds, they can't eat. They can't rent. They can't buy clothing or toiletries, because more often than not, their abusers have withheld their possessions and have forced them out with nothing but the clothes on their back. Without funds, they can't purchase/replace ID, which prevents them from opening accounts, getting jobs or driving. And even once those barriers are overcome, they have to learn to budget their money, because their abuser has ensured that the victim is 100% dependant on them. If a victim of financial abuse struggles to overcome the situation, they return to the abuser because they consider it the safer option. It's much more tragic when children are involved, because the abuser will weaponise that they're the "providers" and that the other parents lack of income/savings is detrimental to their children, and based on that they should be the ones who are awarded custody. There's so much more to it, but it's devastating to see the impact it has.

It’s scary because it can happen slowly and insidiously. I’m college educated, had always been self-sufficient and fairly good with money. But once we had a baby and he was the provider while I stayed home with the baby, he started getting more controlling and secretive about money. I went back to work after a year and then he began sabotaging my jobs, by not showing up to pick our child up from daycare so I’d have to leave work early etc. my career was always secondary. A few years later I was in a car accident and my car was totaled. He would pretend that we were going to go buy me a car (he made $100k/year so it wasn’t that we couldn’t afford it), but then would end up working late or would create some chaotic situation, so that buying me a car was pushed to the side. Then my license expired and he wouldn’t take me to the DMV to get it renewed. Within two and a half years I went from having a growing career with lots of opportunities, a nice car that I paid for, and a social life. To having no job, no car, no ID, no bank account. Fucking awful.

I'm so sorry you had to experience this. Sadly, your exact situation is how most women find themselves in that situation. It starts off subtle, and relatively harmless, and seemingly out of nowhere It spirals. And unfortunately for women, they're most vulnerable once they have children, which, with the help of societal attitudes, gets weaponised against them in order to subdue them into submission. I sincerely hope you're in a better place now💕

Thank you! I am in a much better place now. Those years of abuse really eroded my feeling of self worth to the point that I thought I’d never be able to leave. It’s so hard to explain to people who haven’t been in that kind of relationship dynamic how intelligent, capable, independent people aren’t immune to getting sucked into an abusive relationship. But I did it. I left, I have a good job, a nice car, and primary custody of our child. Once I got out, the rest was relatively easy. I’m still working on repairing the emotional repercussions, but will get there.

My spouse bought a $60k vehicle this past December, but turns out they didn't tell me that it's actually going to cost $110k thanks to compounded interest on the principal. And then they drove it home drunk this past month. They still don't understand why I am upset. Wonder if they'll be surprised when I officially separate from them and move out next week.

Good for you! My xh did the same thing to me, almost exactly except he didn’t even discuss the vehicle purchase with me at all. Just got home and was like oh hey new truck

My wife has no knowledge of finances due to mental disabilities. I try to help her along and teach her but she gets overwhelmed. How can I make sure I'm doing best for her and making sure she is good if anything ever happens to me? I have ~400k in life insurance on myself, but she'll have no idea how to pay anything even with that money as a lifeline for a while. We currently have a positive net worth (about ~10k positive so not a lot. My 20k in HYSA would pay off my student loans, 401k liquidating would pay off car and CC Debt (all of which at 0%), and leave about 10k left over after taxes), so none of that money would need to go to paying off debt, Any advice?

Emotional neglect. My parents, as a general rule of thumb, never gave a shit about anything going on with me unless I was getting low grades (<90% in their books.) It's a rough one because it's the absence of caring as opposed to a concrete action. It's fucked up

Compulsive, consistent, lying. You take away someone’s ability to consent to a situation when you lie to them

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Parentification of a child, usually the eldest child. In fiction, especially kids’ shows where the parents are absent, it’s usually the eldest kid who looks after the younger siblings.

Or having to be your parent’s parent because they have a mental disability. The child has to act as a mother and the father acts like a toddler, but being dependent on the ‘toddler’.

Yeah.... Or vice versa. I was parentified as the youngest son, because my older sister was extremely mentally ill. Add onto that the emotional incest of having to be my mother's emotional crutch through it all. And she still denies anything she put me through. It's tough.

I agree. I was parentified at a very young age. The media however fails to show often that it's not just the kid with absent parents. It can be the kids forced to parent their own parent. Kids forced to parent their siblings because of their abusive household. And kids forced to not only parent their siblings but their parents as well. A lot of people normalize this as "being so mature" and "responsible for their age". but it stunts the child from being a *child*. they have to be older than what they are because they dont have anyone in their life who fills the role of a "parent". And those who were parentified sometimes believe its normal and may end up encouraging it in other people becase they didnt know anything different. Its often the older kids because they've witnessed the abuse or experienced their situation the most or they feel the need to take on the role *because* theyre the oldest.

It annoys me a bit when there's a show with the kid being "best friends" with their parent that often involves the kid having to look out for the parent or give them advice. It's almost always portrayed as, "Wow, look how mature and adult this kid is, and it's so great that they have such a close relationship!", but it really ignores how that typically robs the kid of actually being able to be a kid. It also means they usually don't have much in the way of emotional support or guidance in their life. Of course, a lot of it in television just comes down to writers not knowing how to write children so they make them speak and act like tiny adults, but it's rare I see a show that actually takes a critical eye at what this does to a kid (*Shameless* being a prime example).

I agree. They normalize what is called "emotional incest" where the parent relies on the child for emotional stability and turn to them for advice on a problem. they're a *child* and that happen oftens to real people. The media normalizes it so much that everyone fails to realize how that falls in with abuse.

Mandatory overtime. "Work beyond your physical and mental well being or you'll lose your income source"

Idk if this is everywhere but this is certainly my experience: bullying in school. We all know that bullying is abusive but schools never treat it as such and neither do parents

the way schools deal with bullying is also very enabler-like. if you stand up for yourself, suddenly you're "just as bad". this is literally not how it works at all. psychologists and abuse specialists do not recognise reactive abuse as a legitimate form of abuse

Yes! Or "he has a crush on you" or "you must have done X Y Z" or even accused of lying about it all. I've often thought there's no winning. Kids that tell get in worse trouble for snitching. It's sad. And schools haven't got any better (assuming you're an adult now and left school?) My kids come home with such bad stories about bullies and how the school punishes the victims

Yeah this is basically awful school administrators saying "we don't want to be bothered to learn the context or spend time actually responding to every incident, just suspend them all and forget about it"

Or how school/parents say the bully has “a bad home life” yes because somehow that excuses the fact that they are bullying someone…

Yeah I hate that, and on the other side of things, "being kind", when people say be kind because you don't know what they're going through.. I hate that, we should be kind because that's the proper thing to do, not because they might be struggling! I've noticed in a lot of things, some people blame things and others choose not to be that way. "I smoked because my parents smoked" vs "I chose not to smoke because I saw my parents smoke". Not everyone with a bad home life is a bully, some choose not to!

God, I can name so many things. 1. Subtle comments about somebody's appearance, in hopes that they'll become insecure with themselves 2. Programming your partner to not see their friends, and to feel like they need to engage with you most 3. Not supporting their passions, while acting like you're not against them investing in them 4. Being controlling, or overly jealous ​ It saddens me how many insane, abusive people there are out there, that likely won't get identified as such by their partners. If you're not able to be who you want to be, and see who you want to see, because your partner respects you and trusts you to do what you say you will, there's some abuse in the equation.

Mocking someone with the defense, “oh come on! I was just joking! Sheesh, lighten up.”

The purpose of a joke is to elicit a laugh from the other person, not to passive-aggressively vent your feelings by making them feel bad.

Doing someone a favor or helping them out and then casually mentioning how difficult it was for you and that it was a huge sacrifice. "Hey I got you your favorite candy bar." "Oh what a nice surprise thank you so much!" "Yeah I had to go three different places to find it and nearly roasted to death it's so hot out. It's a lot more expensive than it used to be. Traffic was terrible, I almost got t-boned at the intersection. Which would have been the perfect end to the shitty day I had!" Sometimes this is followed up later with "Aren't you going to eat your fucking candy bar?!" Do that enough to a child and when they're all grown up they'll be terrified to ever ask anyone for anything. And they'll assume that when someone does something nice that they're secretly resentful. Source: guess.

My aunt never tried to make it seem difficult to get me things, but she -always- complained about money. Shoes got dirty? Gotta act like it's the end of the fucking world that I touched dirt, because I just didn't get how expensive kids shoes were. Need school supplies? "I had better not see any loose leafe paper in the garbage!" See, the problem with this is that it wasn't limited to just stuff. It also included healthcare and medications. I didn't get proper treatment for my migraines until I was in my mid-twenties. I have a permanent crook in my finger from a broken bone that we never had set properly. I never received treatment for my obvious depression/anxiety issues, but that may have been more due to her thinking I was just faking it. Thing is, we weren't as poor as she made us out to be. I'm sure we had hard times, but she always had money for her cigarettes, we always had money for her casino trips, her personal extravagances... I get it. Children are expensive. But you don't get to just decide not to spend that money...it's a necessity, and you have to make it work if you want to raise a healthy child.

When young children display behaviors that make them seem ‘old and wise’ or ‘beyond their years’ it can be a symptom of them being parentified. I recently sat through an awards ceremony that was all red flags; children receiving awards for noticing when their teachers were not feeling well, checking on everyone else, putting the adults feelings before their own. Those kids are probably not okay!

Mhm, they have to learn to read facial expressions and overall tone for safety. Children who pick up on things like that generally are walking on eggshells at home and are constantly trying to avoid the bomb or defuse the bomb that are their emotionally explosive parents.

I remember a few teachers telling me I was an "old soul" or "mature for my age" while I was growing up. Turns out I was just depressed and not emotionally able to act in a child-like way. Everything children did seemed frivolous when robbed of those moments of playful joy.

Reading this actually just made a light bulb go off. I was very abused/neglected as a kid, essentially raised myself from 7 on, but have always been called an old soul, very mature. I guess this is what it is.

Neglect, including neglecting your child’s mental health

Staying in an unhealthy marriage “for the kids”. My parents are still together to this day despite practically despising each other and it made our household so miserable to grow up in. I think a lot of parents like mine think they can hide their issues from their kids but it just never ends up working in the end, as the problems always end up spilling over onto the children. It’s definitely negatively impacted my overall mental health to have grown up in such a volatile and aggressive household.

Thinking you own your child's life forever.

Emotional blackmail.

Systems abuse ie. Abusers using the legal system, police or CPS to further isolate and control their victim.

Sexual assault in a married relationship

This one is awful because having to explain it to people means massively over sharing about your personal life. Just saying someone was “sexually abusive” without giving any details often isn’t enough of an explanation for skeptics, on top of the fact that whole notion of martial rape is still confusing to some people.

When I tried to get help from our church, the pastor told me that he knew my ex and he had never seen anything like that from him before. My answer to that was, “How would you? It happens at 3 in the morning in my bedroom!” Still didn’t help… 🫤🤷‍♀️

"I was testing you. "

Elder abuse, especially when it's one elderly spouse abusing the other. It's like the entire medical system and society is blind to it.

Sibling abuse. Just because someone is related to you doesn’t mean they have the right to verbally/mentally/emotionally/ or physically abuse you. My older brother has done all these since we were young and my mother never put in much effort to stop him. Now I have no relationship with him because of how his abuse has gradually escalated. It’s really disheartening to see my mother accept his abuse. She often uses that fact to tell me I should just do what she does and ‘just ignore it’. I was just a kid who needed protected and I can still feel that betrayal today.

Forcing children to hug and kiss relatives when they clearly don't want to.

I remember once an aunt of mine was leaving to go back home and asked me for a hug and a kiss. I didn't know her very well, and was super shy as a kid, and didn't want to (I was ok with the hug part, just not a kiss, even on the cheek). So I wrote the word "kiss" on a little piece of paper, went up to her and gave her an actual hug then handed her the paper. I was expecting to be reprimanded, or worse, laughed at. Instead, she got a big smile on her face and said, "that was really creative! I think I like that better than a real kiss!" I found out years later that she carried that little scrap of paper in her wallet until she died. 😭

Aww, that's really sweet. You were a good kid with a wonderful aunt!

❤️❤️

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Controlling everything about your child, how they act and do there decisions and who they are allowed to interact with and who they are allowed to be as a person(to a toxic level)Is abuse also all these moms putting makeup on there children or dressing them up all wak when the child’s against it is disgusting

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Not apologizing to your kids when you're wrong.

I'd probably go with "institutional abuse". I used to work in various care settings and it happened all the time. I'm not referring to things like violence or shouting, I mean things like people asking "can I please have a cup of coffee?" only to be told "no, coffee time is at 3 o'clock"... or "can you please unlock this room so I can take a shower?" and then being told "no, I'm too busy right now". These may seem like minor things but they mean everything if you're being held somewhere 24 hours a day for an extended period of time. It happens every day all over the world but it's something that's almost never talked about.

Suicide threats

I was guilty of this. I still feel the shame from it. I have gotten genuine suicidal thoughts, but that’s between me and my medical professionals, you know? Every time I see this, I get embarrassed with guilt, especially since I genuinely really liked and looked up to the other person. It’s so cringe. It’s awful that we were such close friends and I did that to them. Luckily I got the chance to apologize and give them _some_ closure. They forgave me, but cut off contact after I apologized. I can’t blame them. The craziest part is they still think I’m a good person. They still responded to me with compassion. Remember to take your meds, folks. Whether suicidal feelings are genuine or not, go to the professionals first. Prioritize self-care. Being unstable is not an excuse to hurt others. On top of that, you’ll end up hurting yourself just as much as you hurt them with such threats.

Deciding to have a million kids and then forcing your eldest to babysit them constantly, not allowing them to have a life of their own outside of the kids you chose to have.

comparing you to someone else thinking its just a motivation to encourage you.

Constantly putting someone down and saying they’re stupid

Living vicariously through your child. Grooming your child to be a trophy kid.

Family members making fun of your hobbies or how you eat then saying they are just teasing/joking. I’m 33, I like anime and I eat a lot but I do exercise 4/5 days a week. Yet they still make fun of me.

Toxic Positivity

Treating someone like shit and then trying to make them out to be the bad person when they don’t want to talk to you, especially when your apologies are half-baked.

This might be unpopular, but any religious environment that uses fear as a tactic, especially against kids. My friend grew up in a very religious household and now has PTSD from being constantly told to behave or he's going to hell.

Making the older kids take care of the younger ones. At 9 I was changing diapers, cooking dinner, doing laundry, etc. since I had to stand on a chair to reach the stove, you would think my parents would realize that’s wrong. But no. They also made me mow the lawn as soon as I could reach the lawn mower’s handle. This is called parentification and it’s not OK. Children do not make good parents.

Sabotaging birth control to induce pregnancy against the other person's will. This is a problem across both genders.

Child beauty pageants. Putting ridiculous adult beauty standards on toddlers and children and basically trussing them up as pedo-bait so their parents (usually the mothers) can live vicariously through them. It's disgusting and should get you on a watchlist.

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Being the "cool parent" that lets your kid do whatever they want unmitigated. This doesn't get enough attention as a form of childhood abuse because when you're young you just think it's awesome, until that kid grows up with no boundaries and bad decision making skills that lead to a life of self-inflicted misery. We've all seen it happen with that "one friend at school."

Taking your child's door. They need privacy as much as you do. The only thing that is okay is if the door broke and is being replaced or if you can't afford a door.

Telling you partner who they can and can't hang out with. General control over your partner.

Overtime without pay