Reply to When I was little

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "When I was little"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]OP, these things are unkind and absolutely had a negative impact on you. It's interesting how sometimes it takes us years to realize these things though. You just normalize because you were a child when it started so it can take time and exposure to lots of other people, or maybe even having your own kids, for it to finally dawn on you that your parents' behavior was dysfunctional, even abusive.

I have this story about an incident that happened with I was about 4 years old that resulted in a doctor's visit, that for years my family told as a joke about me. The joke was supposed to be that I was a liar, or alternatively that I was manipulative. For years I internalized that as a story about what a bad kid I was, and how patient my parents were.

It finally dawned on me like 10 years ago that it's actually a story about an extremely young child who was exhibiting anxiety or some other mental health issue, and instead of getting it treated, my parents downplayed it and rejected medical advice, and then created a story that was told by all family members for decades after about what a bad kid I was. It's a story about parental neglect. I was 4! I wasn't lying or manipulating anyone, I had zero context for what was happening and was being left to my own devices to solve a problem and then when I finally went to my parents asking for help, they made fun of me. It's actually are ally f**ked up story. But I didn't figure that out until I was like 32 and was telling it to someone else and instead of laughing they just had questions and a sort of upset look on their face. And now as a parent I can't believe that was my experience as a kid. The idea of doing that to one of my kids when they were 4... it's impossible to imagine, really.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics