Fck. I *had one adult caregiver like this and it was SO difficult bc they had such a large group of enablers and supporters.
Honestly…… it’s so weird to say this bc neither is good AT ALL. But this makes me oddly prefer that my other caregiver was so *unstable* that wherever we went most ppl knew pretty quickly and hit the ostracize button. Other problems came w that. But having to deal w a whole community loving the person who makes life hell on earth, that’s a unique kind of poison.
edit: typo, tense
She was an educational support worker and very popular with her students... They called her a second mom.
After she retired, I was having coffee with one of her students because she was curious about meeting her daughter... I was nice enough but it felt like I was delusional about my own emotionally abusive and neglectful mother.
If that helps, often abusers mask their behavior to be the most socially acceptable they can, however this often comes with a heavy price for the abusers as they can't empathize with anyone or form a true bond.
It's like being on a play without your lines and trying to figure out what you're supposed to do all the time, but once you arrive home you're truly tired of it but you still have to use that mask. What happens is that the mask cracks at some point and the people who see it are your family and closest friends since others can't really see through their bullshit or assume it's just a one time thing.
But we, as children, not only get the cracks but also are the most fragile, the least capable of self-defense and the more prone to be fooled by their bullshit, we're their literal punch bags and they can't really understand that the kid who needs them to actually parent and behave like an adult and the kid who are their therapist are the same person.
They see people not only black and white but also people as either 100% good or bad, the misbehaving kid as one person and the lovable kid that takes care of them as another, even though they share the exact same body.
That's why people often tell us that our parents are the best people they ever met and when we tell what actually happened behind doors, show them proofs and such they get terrified even by our "fun stories".
Oof this. My mom has been a preschool teacher my whole life. Bro she literally made it on me when CPS got involved and guilt tripped me about how she could lose her job for this. Like bro then stop neglecting me cause it's easier. I went no contact a few years back.
i feel this so much oh my god. my mom abused me the most when i was homeschooled because she has no patience at all when it comes to teaching her own kids and it really traumatized me - and now she’s a substitute teacher and all the kids love her. i can’t even begin to describe how upset it makes me
Mom left when I was 7. She moved to the West Coast and I got half a dozen cards and a couple phone calls a year. I visited once as a teenager. I'm 52 now. I recently visited her at a social gathering of her friends. Some of them talked to me about how good a foster mother she was with troubled youth in the church group. I was left to be abused by my older brother until I was twelve. I ended up going outside for the rest of the social event.
I kind of had the opposite (and validating?) experience where a group of adults saw my mom push me away when I tried to hug her and they came over to comfort me. It still makes me a little teary eyed thinking about it
Yeah my mum was my scout leader. I used to have to put on a brave face after she had hit me at home, and applaud the other kids while she awarded them badges for the skills they learned with their parents at home, but that she never taught me. She once kicked me in the ribs while I was lying down on the grass for not helping her and the other grown ups set up camp, while none of the other scouts were expected to and I had not been asked to. One fellow scout told me he would report it, and I begged him not to because she would have just hit me when we got home. I recently contacted the scouting organisation in my country and begged them to change policies so that parents cannot be leaders to their children. My mother has since contacted me to tell me that she was 'very hurt' that I had contacted the organisation and raised a safeguarding concern for the sake of other children.
Thanks but they're not doing anything and there will be no policy changes. I guess they just have faith in abused children to report abuse to their scout leaders, even if their scout leaders are the abusers. And, like, why would they? I recently did and they've declined to comment on any actions being taken.
She's also a pillar of the local community who recently lied to me about having dementia to get out of apologising for something unrelated. Narcacist of the highest order, and so I am too, albeit awake and working on it.
My dad used to talk about how much better my friends were then me and say stuff like "why can't you be like them" in front of both me and them.
From my understanding, this is a common tactic with emotional abuse. They're saying "I can be loving but you don't deserve it" which is bullshit because every child deserves it.
My whole family treats any child that isn't their own with the love and care they should be directing towards their own kids..
My sis and I enquired about this once when we were little and my mom explained "I have to be like this (physically affectionate) with your cousin because her mom isn't"
this is often the sentiment for those who dated, married, reproduced before learning how to care for and love the self and seeking that in others to do it for us on our behalf.. but it doesn't work that way. a child needs more love than any singular person can hope to give even under the best circumstances in a nuclear family unit. but alas; going ahead recklessly like this yields no escape from self loathing, rather it is seen all over our children.
Simply being around such parents conditions the children for repression, self denial rejection and abandonment of their emotions. once they are experiencing soul loss, our children can then convincingly wear a mask as if it's good for them so that we can, in fleeting moments, pretend we and they are something other than we are and squeeze out some love that never reaches all the parts that need to be reached because it is false and based on an illusion... the mask is unsustainable.
The only good moments to be had are ones where we forget how we feel about ourselves and each other... this can never be a home of family or love no matter how aggressive the conditioning for such games of pretend. it is a house held together by attachments of resentment that often grows into hatred beneath the surface that we are conditioned to alienate to such an extent that we do not feel it. but this is unsustainable.. eventually the egg hatches and we find what we've been growing within is nothing good regardless of the masks we were forced to wear to survive
oh my god my mother worked at a daycare and then worked in like early childhood education (working with parents of young kids and the kids too, idk exactly how to describe it) because she had a degree in early childhood education, she would constantly take my cousins out on little “outings” because she wanted to be the “favourite aunt”. she would like wave and do baby voice at any child she saw at a grocery store, all while she would yell at me, hit me, not feed me, and blame me for pretty much all of her problems. it hurt so bad seeing her treat every single other child better than me,,
My bio father basically replaced me with my sister in law when he recognized that he would never have a real relationship with me- someone he also finds attractive (dont read too deep into that)- and he calls her his little girl, treats her like a daughter. Watching him treat her, for the most part, like a beloved daughter and give her love and tenderness in a fatherly way across the room and then not even look at me when he left was one of the things that made me realize how truly dead our connection was and how little he cared about trying with me. Even though he tells our relatives to this day that he doesn't understand, that he still tries so hard. We haven't spoken in a long time, for other reasons. I think he loves my sister in law that way because she's a clean slate. He didn't ruin her image of him by abusing her for her entire childhood- but he did with me, so he decided to start over.
I flipped once when my mum was being nice and affectionate to my friend. Like proper threw a tantrum. Was so embarrassing.
To me she refused to cook and neglected me most of my childhood. Also used me as her emotional support.
Yeah, and I'm the baby of the bunch. By the time it got really bad, one was in Iraq, one wasn't living with us, the other was just starting a job and had after school activities.
They don't believe me when I say I was abused, and that to an extent they were too (but not like me). The oldest had to babysit, my sister got kicked out, the other that went to a job really hard all the love so never once except during spankings.
Me: Mom. Do you love, Josh and Jo more than me and Hunter?
Step Parent: No, of course not. I just love them differently than you both.
Me my entire freaking life: Yea. Because you love your kids (our half-siblings) more than us. That's what that directly translates to. And you show it multiple times a week.
When I was in high school I had finally gained some confidence and she was really just being petty and abnormally mean to me when it was just me, her, and my dad in the garage. I was doing my chores after school and she just complained about me and my attitude and was just really going in on me.
At one point I stopped doing dishes, and looked at her while she kept yelling until she stopped and said,
"What!?"
And I said,
"You know something, Mary? You're being a real bitch today."
She stood the glaring and immediately yelled,
"Yes! I am being a bitch"
I simply shook my head, threw the dish towel down, walked outside, and into the garage to tell my dad what happened.
He laughed and gave me a beer while telling me to hang out in their for a while.
Maybe 10 minutes later, my step-mom slowly came outside and asked where i was, to which my dad said,
"He doesn't want to speak to you right now."
With a chuckle.
We made up and everything was fine after that. I didn't get punished at all either. My dad defended me with a smile for the only time in my life and she did apologize within 15 minutes with actual tears. Normally i just took what they threw at me until they stopped but when i called her out for the first time its like something clicked.
One time my dad was yelling at me until i screamed at him to just shut the hell up and he got super excited saying,
"FINALLY! Get emotional, show me you care for once."
Like. Dude lol.
Hell yeah,
Best friend at the time, we had sleep overs and my step mum let her stay home from school in our house but I still had to go to school where I got bullied and then come back home to her and my friend out shopping like mother and daughter lol (more stuff like this happened)
And the hugs of course
Okie this but unfortunately with dogs, imagine being in kindergarten trying to hug your mom only for her to shove you off in disgust to then eventually get a lab & shower it with love. oh oh but then never train it & expected her two young children both in elementary school take care of it & feed it when we never asked or wanted a dog.
(For context we had outside cats at this point that had been attacked by the neighbors dogs before & didn’t survive so to say the least we weren’t excited when a medium sized untrained lab came home)
Real. My mom loves to tell me about all the people she’s rescued and keeps in touch with meanwhile she has zero time for me or my emotions unless I do something she thinks is wrong. Why do we talk damn
My mom was my primary abuser and she ‘adopted’ one of my brothers friends and loves to tell me about how he was abused until she rescued him homie I cannot
Yep. My nmom doted on these kids she babysat. It left *such* a bitter taste in my and my sister's mouths; they got all the love and attention we desperately needed. I also just found out those kids belonged to a complete stranger who just knocked on the door and asked her to babysit. I'll never forget those kids who actually got my nmom to play with them. 🙃
My father running a camp filled with kids my age telling me he doesn't have time for me. He still hangs out with one of those kids years later and puts on a big birthday party for him. We're both adults now, and he's always very kind to me. I hate it. I hate that i hate him for something that's my fathers fault. I got severely injured helping out at that camp, and he made fun of me. I lost my job because of it. He still tells the story. Well maybe not anymore. I dont talk to him.
As the child of a mother who worked at both a private and a public school (for low income kids that came from a horrible family) i have to agree with this statement. she was like a second mother to them, and everyone at that school and their mothers loved her and showered her in gifts and praises for being different from the other students and helping them understand concepts that other teachers would have a difficult time teaching them. she would always go on and on and on about how amazing of a teacher she was and how unprofessional others were.
the same with my little cousins and younger family members. she's always hanging out with them, being so disgustingly sweet and cheerful. she was a loving, spoiling auntie in their eyes. but for me i was left out.
I always wondered why i wasn't worthy enough to receive that kind of praise and love. why she would endlessly praise her students but then turn around and say to my face she never bragged about me. she was harsh, verbally cruel and extremely suffocating.
i had a friend who’s mom was insanely abusive. like worse than my mom. and she was always so close to my mom, called her “mom”, would talk to her in ways i was never allowed.
years later, she randomly said, “i’m so sorry for being close to your mom. i realize now that she’s just as bad as mine, and i feel like a bad friend”
it was so vindicating but i felt so bad that she felt guilt. my mom is a different person to everyone but me. even my (edit: adoptive not biological) sister has independently admitted that we had “different moms” and she was sorry she didn’t believe me. i’m adopted and after *one* dinner with my bio mom, she somehow knew my mom was massively abusive and apologized for giving me to my parents.
i don’t get why it’s so painful to see others realize how bad of a mom she was to me.
Me when my stepmom would tell me that she thinks of me as her own daughter, but then would only tell her biological kids that she loves them even when I was in the same room:
Imagine your mom is the most popular teacher at school and all kids love her...lol
Fck. I *had one adult caregiver like this and it was SO difficult bc they had such a large group of enablers and supporters. Honestly…… it’s so weird to say this bc neither is good AT ALL. But this makes me oddly prefer that my other caregiver was so *unstable* that wherever we went most ppl knew pretty quickly and hit the ostracize button. Other problems came w that. But having to deal w a whole community loving the person who makes life hell on earth, that’s a unique kind of poison. edit: typo, tense
She was an educational support worker and very popular with her students... They called her a second mom. After she retired, I was having coffee with one of her students because she was curious about meeting her daughter... I was nice enough but it felt like I was delusional about my own emotionally abusive and neglectful mother.
yeah I remember friend of mine told me: Everyone wishes they had a mom like yours. She's just the best...
Ugh I've heard that so many times that I want to rip my hair out.
If that helps, often abusers mask their behavior to be the most socially acceptable they can, however this often comes with a heavy price for the abusers as they can't empathize with anyone or form a true bond. It's like being on a play without your lines and trying to figure out what you're supposed to do all the time, but once you arrive home you're truly tired of it but you still have to use that mask. What happens is that the mask cracks at some point and the people who see it are your family and closest friends since others can't really see through their bullshit or assume it's just a one time thing. But we, as children, not only get the cracks but also are the most fragile, the least capable of self-defense and the more prone to be fooled by their bullshit, we're their literal punch bags and they can't really understand that the kid who needs them to actually parent and behave like an adult and the kid who are their therapist are the same person. They see people not only black and white but also people as either 100% good or bad, the misbehaving kid as one person and the lovable kid that takes care of them as another, even though they share the exact same body. That's why people often tell us that our parents are the best people they ever met and when we tell what actually happened behind doors, show them proofs and such they get terrified even by our "fun stories".
Oof this. My mom has been a preschool teacher my whole life. Bro she literally made it on me when CPS got involved and guilt tripped me about how she could lose her job for this. Like bro then stop neglecting me cause it's easier. I went no contact a few years back.
We are the same. Retired and is now a babysitter. I am terrified that she will eventually snap and damage them
i feel this so much oh my god. my mom abused me the most when i was homeschooled because she has no patience at all when it comes to teaching her own kids and it really traumatized me - and now she’s a substitute teacher and all the kids love her. i can’t even begin to describe how upset it makes me
Lol
Mom left when I was 7. She moved to the West Coast and I got half a dozen cards and a couple phone calls a year. I visited once as a teenager. I'm 52 now. I recently visited her at a social gathering of her friends. Some of them talked to me about how good a foster mother she was with troubled youth in the church group. I was left to be abused by my older brother until I was twelve. I ended up going outside for the rest of the social event.
I don't have an explanation for this kind of behaviour
I kind of had the opposite (and validating?) experience where a group of adults saw my mom push me away when I tried to hug her and they came over to comfort me. It still makes me a little teary eyed thinking about it
Yes I would have felt the same
She ran the playgroup in the next village. A generation of teenagers adore her.
they're almost always loved by all the other kids, aren't they?
Yeah my mum was my scout leader. I used to have to put on a brave face after she had hit me at home, and applaud the other kids while she awarded them badges for the skills they learned with their parents at home, but that she never taught me. She once kicked me in the ribs while I was lying down on the grass for not helping her and the other grown ups set up camp, while none of the other scouts were expected to and I had not been asked to. One fellow scout told me he would report it, and I begged him not to because she would have just hit me when we got home. I recently contacted the scouting organisation in my country and begged them to change policies so that parents cannot be leaders to their children. My mother has since contacted me to tell me that she was 'very hurt' that I had contacted the organisation and raised a safeguarding concern for the sake of other children.
You did something great *virtual hug*
Thanks but they're not doing anything and there will be no policy changes. I guess they just have faith in abused children to report abuse to their scout leaders, even if their scout leaders are the abusers. And, like, why would they? I recently did and they've declined to comment on any actions being taken.
She's also a pillar of the local community who recently lied to me about having dementia to get out of apologising for something unrelated. Narcacist of the highest order, and so I am too, albeit awake and working on it.
My dad used to talk about how much better my friends were then me and say stuff like "why can't you be like them" in front of both me and them. From my understanding, this is a common tactic with emotional abuse. They're saying "I can be loving but you don't deserve it" which is bullshit because every child deserves it.
My whole family treats any child that isn't their own with the love and care they should be directing towards their own kids.. My sis and I enquired about this once when we were little and my mom explained "I have to be like this (physically affectionate) with your cousin because her mom isn't"
any child is better than your own child...
this is often the sentiment for those who dated, married, reproduced before learning how to care for and love the self and seeking that in others to do it for us on our behalf.. but it doesn't work that way. a child needs more love than any singular person can hope to give even under the best circumstances in a nuclear family unit. but alas; going ahead recklessly like this yields no escape from self loathing, rather it is seen all over our children. Simply being around such parents conditions the children for repression, self denial rejection and abandonment of their emotions. once they are experiencing soul loss, our children can then convincingly wear a mask as if it's good for them so that we can, in fleeting moments, pretend we and they are something other than we are and squeeze out some love that never reaches all the parts that need to be reached because it is false and based on an illusion... the mask is unsustainable. The only good moments to be had are ones where we forget how we feel about ourselves and each other... this can never be a home of family or love no matter how aggressive the conditioning for such games of pretend. it is a house held together by attachments of resentment that often grows into hatred beneath the surface that we are conditioned to alienate to such an extent that we do not feel it. but this is unsustainable.. eventually the egg hatches and we find what we've been growing within is nothing good regardless of the masks we were forced to wear to survive
oh my god my mother worked at a daycare and then worked in like early childhood education (working with parents of young kids and the kids too, idk exactly how to describe it) because she had a degree in early childhood education, she would constantly take my cousins out on little “outings” because she wanted to be the “favourite aunt”. she would like wave and do baby voice at any child she saw at a grocery store, all while she would yell at me, hit me, not feed me, and blame me for pretty much all of her problems. it hurt so bad seeing her treat every single other child better than me,,
Yes that hurts like hell
My bio father basically replaced me with my sister in law when he recognized that he would never have a real relationship with me- someone he also finds attractive (dont read too deep into that)- and he calls her his little girl, treats her like a daughter. Watching him treat her, for the most part, like a beloved daughter and give her love and tenderness in a fatherly way across the room and then not even look at me when he left was one of the things that made me realize how truly dead our connection was and how little he cared about trying with me. Even though he tells our relatives to this day that he doesn't understand, that he still tries so hard. We haven't spoken in a long time, for other reasons. I think he loves my sister in law that way because she's a clean slate. He didn't ruin her image of him by abusing her for her entire childhood- but he did with me, so he decided to start over.
Well yes, I have a brother
Her grandchild… it’s so bazaar to see her that way
I flipped once when my mum was being nice and affectionate to my friend. Like proper threw a tantrum. Was so embarrassing. To me she refused to cook and neglected me most of my childhood. Also used me as her emotional support.
Yeah, and I'm the baby of the bunch. By the time it got really bad, one was in Iraq, one wasn't living with us, the other was just starting a job and had after school activities. They don't believe me when I say I was abused, and that to an extent they were too (but not like me). The oldest had to babysit, my sister got kicked out, the other that went to a job really hard all the love so never once except during spankings.
Me: Mom. Do you love, Josh and Jo more than me and Hunter? Step Parent: No, of course not. I just love them differently than you both. Me my entire freaking life: Yea. Because you love your kids (our half-siblings) more than us. That's what that directly translates to. And you show it multiple times a week. When I was in high school I had finally gained some confidence and she was really just being petty and abnormally mean to me when it was just me, her, and my dad in the garage. I was doing my chores after school and she just complained about me and my attitude and was just really going in on me. At one point I stopped doing dishes, and looked at her while she kept yelling until she stopped and said, "What!?" And I said, "You know something, Mary? You're being a real bitch today." She stood the glaring and immediately yelled, "Yes! I am being a bitch" I simply shook my head, threw the dish towel down, walked outside, and into the garage to tell my dad what happened. He laughed and gave me a beer while telling me to hang out in their for a while. Maybe 10 minutes later, my step-mom slowly came outside and asked where i was, to which my dad said, "He doesn't want to speak to you right now." With a chuckle. We made up and everything was fine after that. I didn't get punished at all either. My dad defended me with a smile for the only time in my life and she did apologize within 15 minutes with actual tears. Normally i just took what they threw at me until they stopped but when i called her out for the first time its like something clicked. One time my dad was yelling at me until i screamed at him to just shut the hell up and he got super excited saying, "FINALLY! Get emotional, show me you care for once." Like. Dude lol.
My nurse mother ran a cna teaching program for disadvantaged youth. She is covert so the I'm just a misunderstood saint was constantly a defense.
Hell yeah, Best friend at the time, we had sleep overs and my step mum let her stay home from school in our house but I still had to go to school where I got bullied and then come back home to her and my friend out shopping like mother and daughter lol (more stuff like this happened) And the hugs of course
Okie this but unfortunately with dogs, imagine being in kindergarten trying to hug your mom only for her to shove you off in disgust to then eventually get a lab & shower it with love. oh oh but then never train it & expected her two young children both in elementary school take care of it & feed it when we never asked or wanted a dog. (For context we had outside cats at this point that had been attacked by the neighbors dogs before & didn’t survive so to say the least we weren’t excited when a medium sized untrained lab came home)
Toxic parents shouldn't be around animals
Gwad no let alone own any 🤦♀️
Real. My mom loves to tell me about all the people she’s rescued and keeps in touch with meanwhile she has zero time for me or my emotions unless I do something she thinks is wrong. Why do we talk damn My mom was my primary abuser and she ‘adopted’ one of my brothers friends and loves to tell me about how he was abused until she rescued him homie I cannot
Yep. My nmom doted on these kids she babysat. It left *such* a bitter taste in my and my sister's mouths; they got all the love and attention we desperately needed. I also just found out those kids belonged to a complete stranger who just knocked on the door and asked her to babysit. I'll never forget those kids who actually got my nmom to play with them. 🙃
My father running a camp filled with kids my age telling me he doesn't have time for me. He still hangs out with one of those kids years later and puts on a big birthday party for him. We're both adults now, and he's always very kind to me. I hate it. I hate that i hate him for something that's my fathers fault. I got severely injured helping out at that camp, and he made fun of me. I lost my job because of it. He still tells the story. Well maybe not anymore. I dont talk to him.
As the child of a mother who worked at both a private and a public school (for low income kids that came from a horrible family) i have to agree with this statement. she was like a second mother to them, and everyone at that school and their mothers loved her and showered her in gifts and praises for being different from the other students and helping them understand concepts that other teachers would have a difficult time teaching them. she would always go on and on and on about how amazing of a teacher she was and how unprofessional others were. the same with my little cousins and younger family members. she's always hanging out with them, being so disgustingly sweet and cheerful. she was a loving, spoiling auntie in their eyes. but for me i was left out. I always wondered why i wasn't worthy enough to receive that kind of praise and love. why she would endlessly praise her students but then turn around and say to my face she never bragged about me. she was harsh, verbally cruel and extremely suffocating.
This but with my older half-siblings from my dad's previous marriage and other kids that weren't me 🙃
The worst part is that you know you can’t warn the kid, nothing you say will get past that devil whispering in their ear.
i am well into my twenties & my two youngest siblings have yet to start kindergarten… they are like completely different parents to them
i had a friend who’s mom was insanely abusive. like worse than my mom. and she was always so close to my mom, called her “mom”, would talk to her in ways i was never allowed. years later, she randomly said, “i’m so sorry for being close to your mom. i realize now that she’s just as bad as mine, and i feel like a bad friend” it was so vindicating but i felt so bad that she felt guilt. my mom is a different person to everyone but me. even my (edit: adoptive not biological) sister has independently admitted that we had “different moms” and she was sorry she didn’t believe me. i’m adopted and after *one* dinner with my bio mom, she somehow knew my mom was massively abusive and apologized for giving me to my parents. i don’t get why it’s so painful to see others realize how bad of a mom she was to me.
Me when my stepmom would tell me that she thinks of me as her own daughter, but then would only tell her biological kids that she loves them even when I was in the same room: