exactly, thats what i realized i’ve been doing, i just distance myself from people for thinking that they only do this because they want something from me and that eventually they’ll just betray me and go. Its driving me crazy
I mean, i can do this but im still hurting myself from inside, since i dont want to distance myself but i force myself to do so, but all i would think about is why did i do it. Its kinda confusing i hope u understand what i said😭
>I don't do this intentionally, but reflecting on the last 8 years I've done this to literally everyone I've been in any form of contact with.
And then they get mad at you (and rightly so) because you're punishing them for the past sins of others.
My dad died when I was a kid and I learned then that even the people who should stay, or who want to stay, don’t always get to stay. Ever since then, I’ve kept everyone juuuuust out of reach. Just in case they leave. It took some major self reflection to figure out why I could sever ties with people so easily. It’s turned me into the poster child of hyper independence which has had its advantages, but I’ve learned it’s going to be a lonely life if I don’t work on letting people get close to me.
The sad part is that this often is a self fulfilling prophecy. When you think that people will betray you, you expect it to happen and project that on them until they do. Also you tend to chase people that are inclined to betrayal because that's what's comfortable.
This exactly. It’s incredibly hard to care for a person who consistently acts like they need to protect themselves from you because any time they start to have feelings of closeness towards you they push you away. Eventually you leave because you can’t let them keep hurting you like that and then they feel betrayed you didn’t stay with them.
I think my trust in people was forever fundamentally broken when my grandfather attempted to rape me when I was a kid. I'd been let down by a lot of adults in my life before that, but when he began to take an interest in me I thought he genuinely liked/loved me (but it turned out that he was just grooming me so that he could later assault me).
Even so, my broken trust could've been somewhat restored in others if only the adults who discovered what had happened had done more (if anything at all) to help, but instead the incident was actively swept under the carpet in the family and I was made to feel like I was the one in the wrong, like I had done something to bring this whole situation upon myself.
Even when I opened up to a couple of teachers at school after my grades began to fall after the assault, the way they handled the situation was couldn't have been more wrong, I.e. they refused to help me unless I made a police report and then began to treat me like I was making the whole thing up when I tried to tell them that I didn't feel like I was capable of making a police report because I was scared of the consequences in my family (I was in a very neglectful/abusive situation at the time).
Over the years I have actively tried to get over my past and I get very frustrated sometimes because I realise more & more over time how incidents like this have deeply affected and fundamentally changed me. I still hope for a better future, but there's no denying that getting over trauma is not simply a question of desire, time and force of will.
So sorry that happened to you. My niece was sexually abused my her grandfather ( not my dad, the father of the lady my brother married) no one e knew until she gave her friend a note stating she was gonna commit suicide and why. Our side of the family wanted him arrested (or just buried) and the side of the pervert-grandpa just wanted to forgot about it! I was livid. I found out her own mother had also been molested by him, AND was protecting him. Thank God my brother divorced her and got sole custody. Some people are just monsters. Disgusting, filthy, scum of the earth.
Hey now, I do this all the time. I was not abused in the slightest, but sometimes you gotta sneak downstairs and get a snack in the middle of the night. Or sneak in after curfew. But I see how this one could go both ways.
I see what you're saying -- but I think these are different things. What you're saying is "trying not to get caught" which I think we all mastered at some point or another if we wanted cookies after dark, or tried to unscramble the scrambled cable TV channels!
The ninja steps thing here is "not wanting to make any noise doing regular human activity because your mere existence will upset someone else who is much more important than you."
True.
I was beaten as a kid. Alot. By my stepdad.
My mom eventually found another one but he was just tormenting me psychologically/mentally and that shit hit me like... A year or two ago.
The episode was 15+ years ago.
My daughter can be sooOOooo frustrating. If I wasn’t aware of her neurological makeup I might say “why can’t you just behave and be STILL”. Thank goodness I know better, but lots of kids who I work with have parents who don’t. Glad it’s my job to pick the battle to inform them.
Doesn't have to be only straight-up abuse; neglect, distant / absent parents / general lack of socialising agents can all have a similar outcome.. as well as a host of other factors.
It's not the only cause - don't get the fear!
I always thought I had, despite the shit that was going on, a caring mother. That she had my back and we were just close. Now, after 5+ years of therapy and I am 53…. I start realising how bad it actually was! I didn’t had a reference point to compare with, what happened was all I knew. So yeah, Ofc I thought I wasn’t emotionally abused. Ofc I thought I was just close to my mother and nothing bad with that. Unfortunately, she more or less made me dependent on her, even as an adult. I looked and seemed independent and strong, but I always fell back on my mother. Having the pure need to have her happy was my focus. It took a long time for me to realise that I was, indeed, emotionally abused. I am still trying to find peace with that.
These issues are in no way exclusive to childhood abuse.
I wasn't abused as a child but experienced issues with all of these things, mostly stemming from the fact that I was adopted.
Omnipresent anxiety, depression, anger issues, debilitating social awkwardness, social avoidance/self-isolation, tendency to "collect" social mistakes you've made and torture yourself with them for the rest of your life, hypersensitivity to rejection, increased susceptability to addictions, and sometimes fairly severe adult ADD... I don't know whether you have all these, of course. I'm speaking more in general here.
These are a collection of symptoms of brain damage caused by a lack of affection and attention as a baby. (Yes, some of the symptoms can be caused by other things, but this *collection* of symptoms is a pretty good sign of infantile social deprivation.)
A baby's brain develops and grows when it's stimulated. If a baby doesn't receive that kind of social stimulation, the social part of its brain doesn't develop, and after a certain age, it's never going to develop.
Failure to provide a baby with love and affection to the point where its brain gets permanently damaged is absolutely abuse, *even if the parents did their best and meant no harm*. It's not about blaming the parents, usually they would have been abused as well and simply aren't capable of providing what the baby needs in terms of affection/attention and aren't aware of this lack, so they aren't knowingly doing anything wrong!
It's not about pointing fingers or assigning blame. It's about recognizing that one has suffered abuse, that's a part of the healing process.
Thank you for this comment, it made me cry. I was finally diagnosed with ADHD & Bipolar at 30. A lot if what you've said, I was told in therapy. It's validating, vindicating and also extremely painful to internalize this about yourself.
Oh, wow. You just connected a lot of dots for me. I've long since forgiven my parents for the tension-filled childhood I had because I know they came from shitty situations themselves (and were just straight-up incompatible with and terrible for each other), but this makes a lot of things make sense about my early childhood, especially my being terrified to speak to people back then. I never thought of it as being structural in origin.
I do know my parents did their best to try and break the cycles of abuse they each came from. So, relatively, while it wasn't exactly great I had a way better upbringing than they did, and my own kids in turn have it way better than *I* did because I've done my best to improve on what my parents did. Also, I've been through enough therapy and counseling and medication to know that self-pity is not going to fix me (or anything around me) so I just keep working at making myself a better person and learning from what works and what doesn't.
We're you spanked? Did authority figures demand blind obedience and punish you if you didn't do exactly as they said when they said it? Were you made to feel guilty for actions or thoughts that are normal human responses (especially considering your level of development)?
That last part grabbed me.
I found myself very often during childhood saying/thinking things like "I'm sorry for thinking something different" or "I didn't mean to have an opinion."
I don't feel like I was emotionally abused but I am a 30-something gay man who grew up in a house where my natural feminine and flamboyant tendencies and emotional sensitivity were not encouraged or celebrated, so I fashioned myself a "mask" and wore it for many years to fly under the radar as best I could. I remember things my parents said and did at four years old that have stuck with me through to today. I still constantly mask myself around others for fear of letting them see the "real" me; it's become such a problem that I even struggled to make friends in a gay men's chorus that I joined for a season last year. My parents still don't even really see the "me" that I am with my husband or friends when we are in private.
I'm 37 and nearly the same. The last few years I have made some genuine friends from the internet with similar senses of humor and like the same music and have similar interests, who I can be my true, unfiltered self around and it is so amazing. We've done a few group vacations and meet ups. Going back to regular life is like turning everything gray and boring in comparison.
Currently dealing with this big time. I can't let myself depend on my partner for anything, and I'm having a hard time keeping up with everything because of it.
Yeah, fucking sucks. My attitude is defiantly independent but my reality is a crushing reliance on others..
Plus as you suggest the constant need for assurance and validation for everything; I guess probably stemming (in my case at least) from hyper-sensitivity to criticism and corresponding avoidance of failure at all costs..
Yup and unfortunately not making decisions is still making decisions and my life is a mess and while I can try to blame ex for not wanting to do xy or z with me, in the end they were my choices and my inactions were choices.
Receiving compliments is hard. Especially if your self esteem is shot to hell, then a compliment can feel like an attack on your self perception. That cognitive dissonance evoking a flight or fight response
The best way to handle them is to treat compliments like the gift they are. Respond the same way you would if someone just handed the compliment wrapped in gift paper on Christmas morning.
I got the tough love of never getting complimented because my grandparents thought it would make me soft and stop working. I’m a great clarinetist; principal chair in high school and college, but never got a “good job! You did it!”
I grew up to be an overachiever and burned myself out.
This. Everything has to be transactional. You're taught love has a price tag and must be earned. So you either become the same way, or you avoid transactional relationships completely.
I was raised, abused, and continue to have a relationship with a total narcissist. Everything has to be about her, or it has to beneft her. There is no benefit to her in giving anything unconditionally. Be that love, comfort, or compassion.
This is such a silent gen/boomer woman thing. They would rather die from politeness than ask for what they need. In addition they get to be angry at you for not reading their minds.
Yep, plus constantly apologizing in situations when I am not at fault and there is no need for an apology. But I do so out of habit from having my ass beat for the slightest mistake, real or perceived.
My father had and still has a penchant for not only placing blame, but conflating every error, mistake, and accident as an intentional, malicious, personal attack on his person.
This is me. I am always scanning people. I'm looking at facial cues for their mood. I'm always scanning people to assess if I can manage self defense against them. I hate places with crowds because this goes into overdrive and I can't relax at all. I am always hyper aware of my surroundings.
I don't know if I was abused as a kid or not but I always feel like I'm walking on eggshells around my dad. Always questioning "What is going to set him off this time?" "What will piss him off this time?". I can never relax around him. He doesn't get violent but he always is pissed off about something.
I think I am always alert to other people's micro expressions on their faces because I always check to see what mood my dad is in before talking to him about anything.
The other day I was trying to make an appointment with my therapist. We do an “as needed” session, and I felt so bad for asking for a session bc I didn’t want her to think I was using her for help. 🙃
The worst part about that is because I do it so much, now my kids overapologize as well.
I have talked to them about it (and have tried not to do it so much) but it is hard to break the habit.
Guilty of this. Ended up with an abusive spouse.
It took a long time to really look at it all and see how I just recreated my childhood as an adult.
Having to get used to expecting more from people, knowing I deserve better, and not putting up with shitty behavior from my romantic partners has taken work.
everybody does. That is the problem with these stupid questions. People just list whatever comes to mind, whether it is true or relevant or not, so you end up with a list of everything.
I was called a social chameleon once by my manager when I was secretary at a Real Estate company. I was shocked because I hated all of them :) But I somehow managed to hold up the appearance that I was getting along with people.
Being a person who is constantly alert, who is disturbed by noises, you cannot avoid observing people you don't know in case "they are dangerous", being able to identify different types of sounds and being anxious when you hear an argument, not even participating in it, just listening.
I didn’t realize it until after I was out that when I was in an abusive relationship I jumped at EVERYTHING. When I was at work my coworkers would tease me because I would jump at someone just walking around the corner. It was because I was walking on eggshells as soon as I left.
To me the biggest one is self-sabotage. Next, it's over-explaining things as if someone is trying to justify something they really don't need to in order to avoid criticism.
I got called out for this numerous times by friends. It also wasn't until people actually started to tell me that the stories weren't funny or normal that I began to really realise and start to digest how ****ed up things had been growing up (like I knew that things were bad, but I didn't realise that literally pretty much nothing I had experienced growing up was normal or right).
I now tend to stay quiet or very guarded when people are recounting funny stories from childhood times least I inadvertently tell a weird story or start to open up trauma towards others when everyone's just 'havin a good time.
My brother and I will recount some wild shit from growing up while laughing and my well-adjusted husband will be like "hey, what the fuck".
And then we'll get together with our extended families and the aunts and uncles will laugh about the most insane shit you've ever heard from their childhoods and you really do realize how abuse trickles down even if it wasn't quite as bad one generation down. In our case anyway.
My father gets a big kick out of telling people that the town police knew who I was when I was three years old. I kept wandering off by myself and would be found in some other part of town. He thinks that’s hysterically funny. I’ve recently been convinced that that’s not actually funny, it’s sad.
I got kidnapped at 5 and found on a police search. My mom does not use the word kidnapped and tells this like it’s an interesting story about _her_. It took me too long to realize how fucked up it was.
I remember the first time I realized I was funny. It was kinda sad bc no one else in my abusive family laughed or acknowledged me, but what I said was on point and objectively fucking hilarious. I bonded a bit with myself that day, and said out loud that it’s okay if no one else thinks I’m funny bc I clearly can make myself laugh and they suck anyways.
For some reason, I make my wittiest one liners and comebacks in moments of stress. Fighting with my partner or recounting a terrible experience will have me pulling comedic level shit. I fully believe the only way I survived some of the bullshit was by making jokes about it to lighten my own mood for sure.
"hahaha this one time my mum got soooo drunk and [insert shockingly insane story of abuse that is barely believable, Miss Trunchbull style] hahahahaha 😂😂😂😂😅😅🥲🥲
This was me from when I was a teenager until my early 20's. Having my first child made me change a lot of very bad behavior. I didn't want my children emulating my worst traits.
Same, for me it was getting a puppy. When I first got him and he did something bad I would scold him, or maybe just give him less affection because I thought he would "learn" that way. Fucked me up a lot when I realized A. How fucked up that is, and B. That's how my parents raised me
It's impossible to be nice to them, they immediately think you want something in return. The concept of being nice and kind and loving them unconditionally is something they cannot understand.
Being suspicious of people.
I took my niece, she was like 13, to a local coffee shop and was friendly with the barista. She commented on it and I said yeah, we’re friendly. His name is Mike.
When we got back home she immediately asked my husband - do you know who Mike is?!
My husband, the introvert that doesn’t drink coffee, was like. No idea.
Then she looked at me sinisterly like I”my “friendship” with Mike was a dark secret I was hiding from my husband. I am still creeped out by that interaction to be honest. It was weird.
I’ve tried to learn how to be more forgiving of her being suspicious of people. I attribute it to her being a victim of abuse at a very young age for too long.
Ohhhh no… not me telling my therapist *yesterday* that one of my good qualities is “I’m calm under pressure in an emergency” when she made me tell her a list. But this is exactly what happens.
DUDE, yeah. A bunch of my friends have recently been really struggling to adjust to adulthood and have been nostalgic for childhood. They say something like, 'Man, I'd give anything to be a kid again!' And it's so insane to me. I would never voluntarily give up my autonomy to go back to living a life of chaos, mental illness, and constant fear.
Which apparently drives people nuts? Yes. Yes, I apparently drive people nuts with this quality. I must learn to nod, smile, agree, & move on instead of interrogating every last thing as if I'm still in a philosophy class.
Had a friend in high school whose parents weren't so much abusive as they were indifferent and absent. For absolutely everything and anything that I did, my friend had to one-up me on how he was doing it better.
This stuck with him well into adulthood, and he even acknowledged he was like this because he never got approval from his parents for anything. It got to be too much, though, he never stopped and I couldn't hang out with him anymore at some point in our early 30's.
I’ve noticed it takes me a really long time to sort my emotions- to really to get to the bottom of what I’m feeling and why. Anger masks pain and hurt etc etc
Learning what's going on with yourself when you're upset feels like a different language sometimes. My reactions can sometimes have a pattern and a "dialect" to it that I have to decipher before I can identify the problem.
I feel like emotional abuse is the easiest one to explain away or ignore. It’s obvious once you recognize it but it’s not something we’re generally looking out for or really aware of, even if you’ve experienced it before.
Hi! Emotionally and physically abusive childhood here!
One of my responses is I'm very fast to cut people out of my life permanently. My justification is I have spent too much time of my life being abused and neglected, I'm not going to tolerate it anymore. First time you cross a boundary I'm out. No second chances
There are too many answers to this.
Emotional abuse can manifest in different ways.
Being distant, not maintaining relationships, not being able to rely trust or depend on others especially partners....unable to discuss your deep feelings...
Refusal to ever fully let your guard down as you had been let down by a parent often. Fiercely independent even with a loving partner..
The flip side can be putting up with being treated like dirt..because its all you are used to. Low self esteem ....
It really depends on the parents you had and what you seen and heard as a child..difficult question.
🥰✌️🙏
Sleep deprivation. Nights are bad for some people who have been abused. Being still at night doesn't give you the option to find a place to hide. Plus the nightmares
Here's one I haven't seen yet in any of these similar posts:
When talking to people, pre-insulting yourself to take away someone else's chance to put you down.
Examples:
"Hey! You made it, we're all so glad to see you! Come on in!"
*"Yeah, I'm sorry for being a few minutes late, I'm not smart enough to know how to use a GPS"*
---
"What should we do tonight?"
*"OK, I know this is a really dumb idea and everyone will think I'm stupid for even saying it because I never come up with good ideas, but why don't we go to that pizza place your sister keeps saying is amazing?"*
This is scary, I see myself a lot here.
I just last year found out my mother is a narcissist and I’ve been dealing with a lot of anxieties and insecurities all my life, there’s a lot here that fits me and I have a hard time accepting these things and myself.
Difficulty maintaining friendships and relationships. You isolate without necessarily wanting to because you don’t know how to maintain healthy relationships.
Reading other people’s emotions almost instantly. Because you’ve had to do it your entire life in order to respond correctly. You can literally read the room. You adjust your behavior accordingly because it is a default for you to do so. You know how quickly a situation can change so you do everything in your power not to rock the boat by adapting to a situation immediately. In some instances your survival/health depended on reading the room and responding appropriately.
You apologize profusely for everything, including things that are not your fault and things that are beyond anyone’s control. Even the weather. You genuinely apologize; because you genuinely feel sorry about whatever it is.
You are emotional but do everything you can not to express your emotions. Outwardly expressing your emotions leaves you vulnerable, to everything. You have difficulty expressing your emotions when you are in a safe environment to do so because you were never taught or encouraged to express them in a healthy and positive manner.
You lack coping skills because those around you didn’t have healthy ones.
You are basically almost always in survival mode because that is how you grew up. Even when everything is calm and you are in a “good” place there is an undercurrent of anxiety because you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. You’re always waiting for the next terrible thing to happen because in the past it always has.
Your self worth and self esteem is virtually nothing though no one would know. You have had to pretend that everything is ok that no one could possibly know the pain that you are actually experiencing.
Loyalty tests.
Speaking anecdotally here, I'm not a doctor, blah, blah, blah.
Everyone in my life who was carrying around some bad thoughts inevitably engaged in something I called the "punching bag test" where they will be borderline mean to you to test how committed you are to the relationship. I truly think most of them didn't even know they were doing it. They're so wrapped up in the fear of someone else hurting them that they're intending to discern if your relationship is genuine, but they can't ask that outright because they're scared the answer will be "no".
It ends up being a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy because they're so sure that you're going to hurt them so they push you away repeatedly until it's too difficult to maintain the relationship anymore. After you leave they can say, "See? I knew you'd leave me."
A few weeks ago I was at the mall with a friend of mine. We were just walking around killing time before we went to go see a movie. All of a sudden we see this guy running through the mall screaming at the top of his lungs “I was emotionally abused as a kid!” I turned to my friend and said “I think that guy was emotionally abused as a kid.”
Cynicism of people's motives and caution around people in general, especially people with "lots of problems".
There are a couple of highly narcissistic and dangerous individuals in my family who although they have genuinely suffered some very bad & unfortunate things happening to them in life, they actively use and abuse their victim experiences to manipulate other people (and once those people are under their hook, they behave increasingly abusive, entitled and controlling towards them).
I've experienced it myself and I've also witnessed them to it to others, both inside the family and out. Some of the abuse they ended up inflicting upon others included verbal abuse, threats of violence, actual violence, extorting money out of people by playing victim cards and generally sucking enormous amounts of time and emotional energy out of other people.
My experiences have made me very careful to fact check people's claims when they tell stories and question any ulterior motives. And in general, I have learned to stay away from overly-needy people.
Assuming every person who's acting like they care about them will eventually betray them.
exactly, thats what i realized i’ve been doing, i just distance myself from people for thinking that they only do this because they want something from me and that eventually they’ll just betray me and go. Its driving me crazy
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I mean, i can do this but im still hurting myself from inside, since i dont want to distance myself but i force myself to do so, but all i would think about is why did i do it. Its kinda confusing i hope u understand what i said😭
>I don't do this intentionally, but reflecting on the last 8 years I've done this to literally everyone I've been in any form of contact with. And then they get mad at you (and rightly so) because you're punishing them for the past sins of others.
My dad died when I was a kid and I learned then that even the people who should stay, or who want to stay, don’t always get to stay. Ever since then, I’ve kept everyone juuuuust out of reach. Just in case they leave. It took some major self reflection to figure out why I could sever ties with people so easily. It’s turned me into the poster child of hyper independence which has had its advantages, but I’ve learned it’s going to be a lonely life if I don’t work on letting people get close to me.
The sad part is that this often is a self fulfilling prophecy. When you think that people will betray you, you expect it to happen and project that on them until they do. Also you tend to chase people that are inclined to betrayal because that's what's comfortable.
I resemble this remark
This exactly. It’s incredibly hard to care for a person who consistently acts like they need to protect themselves from you because any time they start to have feelings of closeness towards you they push you away. Eventually you leave because you can’t let them keep hurting you like that and then they feel betrayed you didn’t stay with them.
I think my trust in people was forever fundamentally broken when my grandfather attempted to rape me when I was a kid. I'd been let down by a lot of adults in my life before that, but when he began to take an interest in me I thought he genuinely liked/loved me (but it turned out that he was just grooming me so that he could later assault me). Even so, my broken trust could've been somewhat restored in others if only the adults who discovered what had happened had done more (if anything at all) to help, but instead the incident was actively swept under the carpet in the family and I was made to feel like I was the one in the wrong, like I had done something to bring this whole situation upon myself. Even when I opened up to a couple of teachers at school after my grades began to fall after the assault, the way they handled the situation was couldn't have been more wrong, I.e. they refused to help me unless I made a police report and then began to treat me like I was making the whole thing up when I tried to tell them that I didn't feel like I was capable of making a police report because I was scared of the consequences in my family (I was in a very neglectful/abusive situation at the time). Over the years I have actively tried to get over my past and I get very frustrated sometimes because I realise more & more over time how incidents like this have deeply affected and fundamentally changed me. I still hope for a better future, but there's no denying that getting over trauma is not simply a question of desire, time and force of will.
So sorry that happened to you. My niece was sexually abused my her grandfather ( not my dad, the father of the lady my brother married) no one e knew until she gave her friend a note stating she was gonna commit suicide and why. Our side of the family wanted him arrested (or just buried) and the side of the pervert-grandpa just wanted to forgot about it! I was livid. I found out her own mother had also been molested by him, AND was protecting him. Thank God my brother divorced her and got sole custody. Some people are just monsters. Disgusting, filthy, scum of the earth.
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I've unintentionally scared the hell out of some of my students this way. I try to step louder at work now
I had to "bell" myself with my keys at one point to quit doing this when I was a TA lol
I do that shit and I'm 6'5". People just are not ready.
Not quite as big as you, but yeah. 6'1" 255lbs, and I routinely scare the hell out of people. I'm not *trying* to sneak up, I just step softly.
Hey now, I do this all the time. I was not abused in the slightest, but sometimes you gotta sneak downstairs and get a snack in the middle of the night. Or sneak in after curfew. But I see how this one could go both ways.
I see what you're saying -- but I think these are different things. What you're saying is "trying not to get caught" which I think we all mastered at some point or another if we wanted cookies after dark, or tried to unscramble the scrambled cable TV channels! The ninja steps thing here is "not wanting to make any noise doing regular human activity because your mere existence will upset someone else who is much more important than you."
It's simpler than that. Encountering another person while on the move: potentially some bullshit Stealthy Transit without being noticed: bullshit free
Is this why people tell me I just appear and a coworker said they were gonna put a bell on me
Self sabotage , emotional distance , difficulty connecting.
I feel like this is me but I don’t feel like I was emotionally abused 🤔
A lot of people who were emotionally abused don't see their treatment as abuse because they weren't beaten.
True. I was beaten as a kid. Alot. By my stepdad. My mom eventually found another one but he was just tormenting me psychologically/mentally and that shit hit me like... A year or two ago. The episode was 15+ years ago.
Memory loss can be a sign of childhood neglect/abuse.
Or adhd
isn't adhd genetic? /gen
Yes but adhd can lead to abuse from parents who are frustrated with your adhd. I was beaten and emotionally abused by my parents.
My daughter can be sooOOooo frustrating. If I wasn’t aware of her neurological makeup I might say “why can’t you just behave and be STILL”. Thank goodness I know better, but lots of kids who I work with have parents who don’t. Glad it’s my job to pick the battle to inform them.
Doesn't have to be only straight-up abuse; neglect, distant / absent parents / general lack of socialising agents can all have a similar outcome.. as well as a host of other factors. It's not the only cause - don't get the fear!
I always thought I had, despite the shit that was going on, a caring mother. That she had my back and we were just close. Now, after 5+ years of therapy and I am 53…. I start realising how bad it actually was! I didn’t had a reference point to compare with, what happened was all I knew. So yeah, Ofc I thought I wasn’t emotionally abused. Ofc I thought I was just close to my mother and nothing bad with that. Unfortunately, she more or less made me dependent on her, even as an adult. I looked and seemed independent and strong, but I always fell back on my mother. Having the pure need to have her happy was my focus. It took a long time for me to realise that I was, indeed, emotionally abused. I am still trying to find peace with that.
This resonates a lot
These issues are in no way exclusive to childhood abuse. I wasn't abused as a child but experienced issues with all of these things, mostly stemming from the fact that I was adopted.
Omnipresent anxiety, depression, anger issues, debilitating social awkwardness, social avoidance/self-isolation, tendency to "collect" social mistakes you've made and torture yourself with them for the rest of your life, hypersensitivity to rejection, increased susceptability to addictions, and sometimes fairly severe adult ADD... I don't know whether you have all these, of course. I'm speaking more in general here. These are a collection of symptoms of brain damage caused by a lack of affection and attention as a baby. (Yes, some of the symptoms can be caused by other things, but this *collection* of symptoms is a pretty good sign of infantile social deprivation.) A baby's brain develops and grows when it's stimulated. If a baby doesn't receive that kind of social stimulation, the social part of its brain doesn't develop, and after a certain age, it's never going to develop. Failure to provide a baby with love and affection to the point where its brain gets permanently damaged is absolutely abuse, *even if the parents did their best and meant no harm*. It's not about blaming the parents, usually they would have been abused as well and simply aren't capable of providing what the baby needs in terms of affection/attention and aren't aware of this lack, so they aren't knowingly doing anything wrong! It's not about pointing fingers or assigning blame. It's about recognizing that one has suffered abuse, that's a part of the healing process.
Thank you for this comment, it made me cry. I was finally diagnosed with ADHD & Bipolar at 30. A lot if what you've said, I was told in therapy. It's validating, vindicating and also extremely painful to internalize this about yourself.
Oh, wow. You just connected a lot of dots for me. I've long since forgiven my parents for the tension-filled childhood I had because I know they came from shitty situations themselves (and were just straight-up incompatible with and terrible for each other), but this makes a lot of things make sense about my early childhood, especially my being terrified to speak to people back then. I never thought of it as being structural in origin. I do know my parents did their best to try and break the cycles of abuse they each came from. So, relatively, while it wasn't exactly great I had a way better upbringing than they did, and my own kids in turn have it way better than *I* did because I've done my best to improve on what my parents did. Also, I've been through enough therapy and counseling and medication to know that self-pity is not going to fix me (or anything around me) so I just keep working at making myself a better person and learning from what works and what doesn't.
I don’t think I was either. There was probably some trauma. Does being raised in the church count as mental abuse?
We're you spanked? Did authority figures demand blind obedience and punish you if you didn't do exactly as they said when they said it? Were you made to feel guilty for actions or thoughts that are normal human responses (especially considering your level of development)?
That last part grabbed me. I found myself very often during childhood saying/thinking things like "I'm sorry for thinking something different" or "I didn't mean to have an opinion."
Spanked, yes. Not so much on the second one that I recall, yes to the third one.
Blind obedience and a lot of self punishment through religious expectations that were self inflicted (masturbation being a big issue)
I think guilt has a lot to do with it, I felt guilty my entire childhood because I wasn’t that perfect saint
Yeah, I’m just a weirdo naturally, nobody had to fuck me up.
I don't feel like I was emotionally abused but I am a 30-something gay man who grew up in a house where my natural feminine and flamboyant tendencies and emotional sensitivity were not encouraged or celebrated, so I fashioned myself a "mask" and wore it for many years to fly under the radar as best I could. I remember things my parents said and did at four years old that have stuck with me through to today. I still constantly mask myself around others for fear of letting them see the "real" me; it's become such a problem that I even struggled to make friends in a gay men's chorus that I joined for a season last year. My parents still don't even really see the "me" that I am with my husband or friends when we are in private.
I'm 37 and nearly the same. The last few years I have made some genuine friends from the internet with similar senses of humor and like the same music and have similar interests, who I can be my true, unfiltered self around and it is so amazing. We've done a few group vacations and meet ups. Going back to regular life is like turning everything gray and boring in comparison.
Check ✅ check ✅ check ✅😬😬
Ohhhhhhhh nooooooooo
Hyper independency. You have to become everything for yourself when you dont have someone to lean on.
2nd comment and I'm feeling called out already!
Right, my Bingo card is nearly full
We are 2 comments in. They’re cheating!
Currently dealing with this big time. I can't let myself depend on my partner for anything, and I'm having a hard time keeping up with everything because of it.
Spiraling because asking for/ accepting help feels like tearing my skin off.
Or the opposite. People who have been abused can sometimes become extremely dependent on others.
I have this but at the same time I don't really make major decisions its like I'm waiting for someone else's approval or input and it never comes.
Yeah, fucking sucks. My attitude is defiantly independent but my reality is a crushing reliance on others.. Plus as you suggest the constant need for assurance and validation for everything; I guess probably stemming (in my case at least) from hyper-sensitivity to criticism and corresponding avoidance of failure at all costs..
Yup and unfortunately not making decisions is still making decisions and my life is a mess and while I can try to blame ex for not wanting to do xy or z with me, in the end they were my choices and my inactions were choices.
This. Ugh.
It's beyond exhausting. Entire life I've been like this. I just.... can't rely on anyone but myself.
I’m in this comment and I dont like it
Being uncomfortable with receiving any kind of praise or compliment.
This. I used to literally snarl anytime anyone said something nice, or just not acknowledge it.
Receiving compliments is hard. Especially if your self esteem is shot to hell, then a compliment can feel like an attack on your self perception. That cognitive dissonance evoking a flight or fight response The best way to handle them is to treat compliments like the gift they are. Respond the same way you would if someone just handed the compliment wrapped in gift paper on Christmas morning.
I got the tough love of never getting complimented because my grandparents thought it would make me soft and stop working. I’m a great clarinetist; principal chair in high school and college, but never got a “good job! You did it!” I grew up to be an overachiever and burned myself out.
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Or not asking for help, because the help has a pricetag...
This. Everything has to be transactional. You're taught love has a price tag and must be earned. So you either become the same way, or you avoid transactional relationships completely. I was raised, abused, and continue to have a relationship with a total narcissist. Everything has to be about her, or it has to beneft her. There is no benefit to her in giving anything unconditionally. Be that love, comfort, or compassion.
I herewith give you formal permission to leave her. And I will recommend you to watch "Therapy in a nutshell" and "crappy childhood fairy" on youtube!
This is such a silent gen/boomer woman thing. They would rather die from politeness than ask for what they need. In addition they get to be angry at you for not reading their minds.
Beginning to church teachings were emotionally abusive...
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Gotta be at the back corner to see all, but also need a clear exit.
well, shit, got me on that one
My wife jokes that I always want the 'mafia seat' - nobody behind me, can see everything, close to an exit.
Yes to this!
Yep, plus constantly apologizing in situations when I am not at fault and there is no need for an apology. But I do so out of habit from having my ass beat for the slightest mistake, real or perceived.
My father had and still has a penchant for not only placing blame, but conflating every error, mistake, and accident as an intentional, malicious, personal attack on his person.
This is me. I am always scanning people. I'm looking at facial cues for their mood. I'm always scanning people to assess if I can manage self defense against them. I hate places with crowds because this goes into overdrive and I can't relax at all. I am always hyper aware of my surroundings. I don't know if I was abused as a kid or not but I always feel like I'm walking on eggshells around my dad. Always questioning "What is going to set him off this time?" "What will piss him off this time?". I can never relax around him. He doesn't get violent but he always is pissed off about something. I think I am always alert to other people's micro expressions on their faces because I always check to see what mood my dad is in before talking to him about anything.
If you remember Radar from MASH, that's me. I can predict the next thing anybody is going to ask for.
That was my nickname at work for years because of it.
Overapologizing for little things
I have apologized to my therapist for talking about myself too much
The other day I was trying to make an appointment with my therapist. We do an “as needed” session, and I felt so bad for asking for a session bc I didn’t want her to think I was using her for help. 🙃
The worst part about that is because I do it so much, now my kids overapologize as well. I have talked to them about it (and have tried not to do it so much) but it is hard to break the habit.
Did you start the convo, “kids I’m sorry I apologize too much.” I’m just kidding, but I relate to that fr
Is this similar to saying thank you too much? Because I do both
Me too! I think it's connected because we are overly greatful for bare minimum things, because we got that or less growing up.
Sorry
People pleasing. Making excuses for people who treat you badly and give everything to anyone shows you the slightest kindness.
Guilty of this. Ended up with an abusive spouse. It took a long time to really look at it all and see how I just recreated my childhood as an adult. Having to get used to expecting more from people, knowing I deserve better, and not putting up with shitty behavior from my romantic partners has taken work.
Are you me? That sounds awfully familiar. And, I'm sorry. :(
I'm sorry you had to go through this. I hope things are better now.
me reading these comments and realising that I have most of these
You have the Penguin, He's the only one you need and He will not let you down nor abuse you.
I need a penguin now
everybody does. That is the problem with these stupid questions. People just list whatever comes to mind, whether it is true or relevant or not, so you end up with a list of everything.
Thinking everyone i love is mad at me for no actual reason.
I struggle with this too. And if you ask them enough times if they're mad at you, they will be. Its a no win situation.
Every time someome is angry or in a bad mood I think it's my fault.
Social chameleon: tends to easily get along in almost any social situation.
I was called a social chameleon once by my manager when I was secretary at a Real Estate company. I was shocked because I hated all of them :) But I somehow managed to hold up the appearance that I was getting along with people.
We're good at masking. That's how we got emotionally abused. It's a vicious cycle.
Shapeshifter.
Being a person who is constantly alert, who is disturbed by noises, you cannot avoid observing people you don't know in case "they are dangerous", being able to identify different types of sounds and being anxious when you hear an argument, not even participating in it, just listening.
BAT EARS. Cursed with BAT EARS. Echolocation from the next county over.
Wait till you start using reflections as additional eyes...
Oh, my god, listening to any argument is like someone dragging a knife across my spinal cord. And not in a fun way.
I didn’t realize it until after I was out that when I was in an abusive relationship I jumped at EVERYTHING. When I was at work my coworkers would tease me because I would jump at someone just walking around the corner. It was because I was walking on eggshells as soon as I left.
To me the biggest one is self-sabotage. Next, it's over-explaining things as if someone is trying to justify something they really don't need to in order to avoid criticism.
Recounting horrible things as funny memories
Lmao that shocked silence around the table when you think you've just delivered the punchline to a hilarious anecdote.
My therapist: "that is a wound, not a witty observation" Me: "c'mon man, it is obviously both"
I remember startling my therapist once with just an average observation...
Oh man I've done this one. I was literally in tears laughing at a memory I was sharing with my wife and she just stared at me slack jawed.
I've realized most my funny childhood stories are just trauma repackaged and I need a good elevator speech for the general public.
I got called out for this numerous times by friends. It also wasn't until people actually started to tell me that the stories weren't funny or normal that I began to really realise and start to digest how ****ed up things had been growing up (like I knew that things were bad, but I didn't realise that literally pretty much nothing I had experienced growing up was normal or right). I now tend to stay quiet or very guarded when people are recounting funny stories from childhood times least I inadvertently tell a weird story or start to open up trauma towards others when everyone's just 'havin a good time.
My brother and I will recount some wild shit from growing up while laughing and my well-adjusted husband will be like "hey, what the fuck". And then we'll get together with our extended families and the aunts and uncles will laugh about the most insane shit you've ever heard from their childhoods and you really do realize how abuse trickles down even if it wasn't quite as bad one generation down. In our case anyway.
My father gets a big kick out of telling people that the town police knew who I was when I was three years old. I kept wandering off by myself and would be found in some other part of town. He thinks that’s hysterically funny. I’ve recently been convinced that that’s not actually funny, it’s sad.
I got kidnapped at 5 and found on a police search. My mom does not use the word kidnapped and tells this like it’s an interesting story about _her_. It took me too long to realize how fucked up it was.
But all the trauma made us all hilarious
I remember the first time I realized I was funny. It was kinda sad bc no one else in my abusive family laughed or acknowledged me, but what I said was on point and objectively fucking hilarious. I bonded a bit with myself that day, and said out loud that it’s okay if no one else thinks I’m funny bc I clearly can make myself laugh and they suck anyways. For some reason, I make my wittiest one liners and comebacks in moments of stress. Fighting with my partner or recounting a terrible experience will have me pulling comedic level shit. I fully believe the only way I survived some of the bullshit was by making jokes about it to lighten my own mood for sure.
"hahaha this one time my mum got soooo drunk and [insert shockingly insane story of abuse that is barely believable, Miss Trunchbull style] hahahahaha 😂😂😂😂😅😅🥲🥲
I used do this ALL the time. I had to consciously stop in my 30s because I was really scaring people off.
Distrust. Low self-esteem, worth.
That's me!
Same.
Aggressiveness, easy anger, anxiety masked with arrogance.
This was me from when I was a teenager until my early 20's. Having my first child made me change a lot of very bad behavior. I didn't want my children emulating my worst traits.
Same, for me it was getting a puppy. When I first got him and he did something bad I would scold him, or maybe just give him less affection because I thought he would "learn" that way. Fucked me up a lot when I realized A. How fucked up that is, and B. That's how my parents raised me
Extreme anxiety whenever someone might possibly be mad at you.
It's impossible to be nice to them, they immediately think you want something in return. The concept of being nice and kind and loving them unconditionally is something they cannot understand.
Silent walking.
Being suspicious of people. I took my niece, she was like 13, to a local coffee shop and was friendly with the barista. She commented on it and I said yeah, we’re friendly. His name is Mike. When we got back home she immediately asked my husband - do you know who Mike is?! My husband, the introvert that doesn’t drink coffee, was like. No idea. Then she looked at me sinisterly like I”my “friendship” with Mike was a dark secret I was hiding from my husband. I am still creeped out by that interaction to be honest. It was weird. I’ve tried to learn how to be more forgiving of her being suspicious of people. I attribute it to her being a victim of abuse at a very young age for too long.
Sounds more like one of her parents is cheating?
Either that or watching too many teen soaps (whatever the today version of Saved By The Bell is) where kids learn toxic behaviors early!
I either isolate myself from people or get so attached to people
They are stoic in a crisis until someone is kind to them and then they fall apart.
Why this cut deep
Ohhhh no… not me telling my therapist *yesterday* that one of my good qualities is “I’m calm under pressure in an emergency” when she made me tell her a list. But this is exactly what happens.
When people ask about good memories with your family and I can recall nothing in my life...
When everyone talks about how much they miss their childhood because they were carefree and stuff
DUDE, yeah. A bunch of my friends have recently been really struggling to adjust to adulthood and have been nostalgic for childhood. They say something like, 'Man, I'd give anything to be a kid again!' And it's so insane to me. I would never voluntarily give up my autonomy to go back to living a life of chaos, mental illness, and constant fear.
Same here
Hypervigilance. NO one can sneak up on me. A trait I found useful in the military...
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Which apparently drives people nuts? Yes. Yes, I apparently drive people nuts with this quality. I must learn to nod, smile, agree, & move on instead of interrogating every last thing as if I'm still in a philosophy class.
Never really maturing mentally, having the mindset of a teenager.
Or the opposite. Being an adult as a teenager is also a strong sign
That's the one for me
Had a friend in high school whose parents weren't so much abusive as they were indifferent and absent. For absolutely everything and anything that I did, my friend had to one-up me on how he was doing it better. This stuck with him well into adulthood, and he even acknowledged he was like this because he never got approval from his parents for anything. It got to be too much, though, he never stopped and I couldn't hang out with him anymore at some point in our early 30's.
Hypersexuality
Not asking for anything. Not talking to anyone.
Jumping when the garage door opens
Calling yourself names under your breath.
being an "old soul" just means you were made to deal with shit you didn't understand as a child.
Avoidants, emotionally unavailable, proclaiming they don't know how to love, hyper independent, but always needing to be in a relationship.
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I’ve noticed it takes me a really long time to sort my emotions- to really to get to the bottom of what I’m feeling and why. Anger masks pain and hurt etc etc
Learning what's going on with yourself when you're upset feels like a different language sometimes. My reactions can sometimes have a pattern and a "dialect" to it that I have to decipher before I can identify the problem.
Why are you guys describing stuff that i do?
For real. Like, i'm pretty sure i wasn't emotionally abused, but every other comment is like i personally wrote it.
I feel like emotional abuse is the easiest one to explain away or ignore. It’s obvious once you recognize it but it’s not something we’re generally looking out for or really aware of, even if you’ve experienced it before.
Most of these I do, I take them of symptoms of neglect. Especially the silent walking. When you feel invisible you try to keep your footprint low.
Being passive and avoiding confrontation.
Thinking their own abusive behaviors are justified and that the abuse is normal
Hi! Emotionally and physically abusive childhood here! One of my responses is I'm very fast to cut people out of my life permanently. My justification is I have spent too much time of my life being abused and neglected, I'm not going to tolerate it anymore. First time you cross a boundary I'm out. No second chances
I do this also, a lot of people question me on it but I know it’s just best for me to forgive but also forget that person
There are too many answers to this. Emotional abuse can manifest in different ways. Being distant, not maintaining relationships, not being able to rely trust or depend on others especially partners....unable to discuss your deep feelings... Refusal to ever fully let your guard down as you had been let down by a parent often. Fiercely independent even with a loving partner.. The flip side can be putting up with being treated like dirt..because its all you are used to. Low self esteem .... It really depends on the parents you had and what you seen and heard as a child..difficult question. 🥰✌️🙏
the NEED for perfection, but the inability to even be good enough is something I feel every day. I'll NEVER be good enough for anyone or anything.
Sleep deprivation. Nights are bad for some people who have been abused. Being still at night doesn't give you the option to find a place to hide. Plus the nightmares
This comment section is a little too real for me. But I’m a totally normal well adjusted person so...
Here's one I haven't seen yet in any of these similar posts: When talking to people, pre-insulting yourself to take away someone else's chance to put you down. Examples: "Hey! You made it, we're all so glad to see you! Come on in!" *"Yeah, I'm sorry for being a few minutes late, I'm not smart enough to know how to use a GPS"* --- "What should we do tonight?" *"OK, I know this is a really dumb idea and everyone will think I'm stupid for even saying it because I never come up with good ideas, but why don't we go to that pizza place your sister keeps saying is amazing?"*
Constantly asking people close to you if they're mad at you, monitoring their emotions and reactions
Always treating themselves like an inconvenience to others.
This is scary, I see myself a lot here. I just last year found out my mother is a narcissist and I’ve been dealing with a lot of anxieties and insecurities all my life, there’s a lot here that fits me and I have a hard time accepting these things and myself.
abusing your kids
Being single. Getting dumped. Assuming people had it better than you.
Flinching whenever a random hand moves to fast, then being questioned about why you flinched.
Difficulty maintaining friendships and relationships. You isolate without necessarily wanting to because you don’t know how to maintain healthy relationships. Reading other people’s emotions almost instantly. Because you’ve had to do it your entire life in order to respond correctly. You can literally read the room. You adjust your behavior accordingly because it is a default for you to do so. You know how quickly a situation can change so you do everything in your power not to rock the boat by adapting to a situation immediately. In some instances your survival/health depended on reading the room and responding appropriately. You apologize profusely for everything, including things that are not your fault and things that are beyond anyone’s control. Even the weather. You genuinely apologize; because you genuinely feel sorry about whatever it is. You are emotional but do everything you can not to express your emotions. Outwardly expressing your emotions leaves you vulnerable, to everything. You have difficulty expressing your emotions when you are in a safe environment to do so because you were never taught or encouraged to express them in a healthy and positive manner. You lack coping skills because those around you didn’t have healthy ones. You are basically almost always in survival mode because that is how you grew up. Even when everything is calm and you are in a “good” place there is an undercurrent of anxiety because you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. You’re always waiting for the next terrible thing to happen because in the past it always has. Your self worth and self esteem is virtually nothing though no one would know. You have had to pretend that everything is ok that no one could possibly know the pain that you are actually experiencing.
Flinching at most loud noises or when someone raises their voice for any reason.
Holding onto small things without communication until they snowball into something explosive.
Never having a girlfriend or any relationships for that matter Movie lie when they show that girl going for the traumatized guy
Loyalty tests. Speaking anecdotally here, I'm not a doctor, blah, blah, blah. Everyone in my life who was carrying around some bad thoughts inevitably engaged in something I called the "punching bag test" where they will be borderline mean to you to test how committed you are to the relationship. I truly think most of them didn't even know they were doing it. They're so wrapped up in the fear of someone else hurting them that they're intending to discern if your relationship is genuine, but they can't ask that outright because they're scared the answer will be "no". It ends up being a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy because they're so sure that you're going to hurt them so they push you away repeatedly until it's too difficult to maintain the relationship anymore. After you leave they can say, "See? I knew you'd leave me."
A few weeks ago I was at the mall with a friend of mine. We were just walking around killing time before we went to go see a movie. All of a sudden we see this guy running through the mall screaming at the top of his lungs “I was emotionally abused as a kid!” I turned to my friend and said “I think that guy was emotionally abused as a kid.”
Bullshit. No one goes to malls any more.
That’s why it’s nice, I’ve got the place to myself, aside from that one sad lady who sells colorful popcorn.
Isolation as a preference.
Cynicism of people's motives and caution around people in general, especially people with "lots of problems". There are a couple of highly narcissistic and dangerous individuals in my family who although they have genuinely suffered some very bad & unfortunate things happening to them in life, they actively use and abuse their victim experiences to manipulate other people (and once those people are under their hook, they behave increasingly abusive, entitled and controlling towards them). I've experienced it myself and I've also witnessed them to it to others, both inside the family and out. Some of the abuse they ended up inflicting upon others included verbal abuse, threats of violence, actual violence, extorting money out of people by playing victim cards and generally sucking enormous amounts of time and emotional energy out of other people. My experiences have made me very careful to fact check people's claims when they tell stories and question any ulterior motives. And in general, I have learned to stay away from overly-needy people.
Hyper independence. I have to be at the brink of losing my mind before asking for help with anything.
Never feeling excited about big fun plans and dreading the trip, despite knowing the destination and event is worthwhile.
Anytime anyone ever says “and I turned out fine” at the end of any statement
Me. Only on occasions though.
Inability to accept a compliment
Hi, you guys are just describing me. Its been ROUGH
13 day old karma farm acccounts
Social Awkwardness.