Anonymous wrote:I dispute the premise. I don’t think “many” people are doing this. It’s abnormal and atypical.

I think some have legitimate grievances they should work through with a good therapist. I also think social media plays a role in manipulating others into becoming performative with imagined slights and fabulism/revisionist history about things that happened.

But it’s not like this sort of thing is commonplace. It’s fringe.

Your role? I guess it’s just to listen. But don’t feel like you need to validate everything. A lot of people have these Big Feelings that actually are not valid. Whether you want to be the one to tell them that is up to you. But if they are in the performative group, you don’t have to indulge it or feed their need for attention.

Agree.
Mass media and social media are trying to make it trendy to identity trauma from one’s parents decades ago. But most mature adults go full circle and realize they were fine, loved, and nothing chronic or abusive was actually going on. The parents were doing their best and likely their teen selves were little pricks a lot. And if you have kids and yell at them occasionally when at your wits end, that’s ok too.
FYI we moved when our kids were 10 yo and they don’t even remember stuff about our old house or city unless looking at photos. So grain of salt on revisionist impressions from your early days too!

Anonymous wrote:Social media created an echo chamber telling people that imperfect parents are all narcissistic abusers and that adult children never have any responsibility to their families. It’s so much easier to cut off your parent and blame them for every single problem you have than it is to accept that life is complicated, unsure, and nuanced.

How to be a supportive friend? Just listen. If they are dealing with genuine abuse, validate their emotions. If they’ve bought into the narc nonsense, listen to a point and say something like “I’m glad you trust me enough to share your feelings.”

I want to assure you it is NOT easy to cut off an immediate family member. I would honestly like to cut off my dad, who continues to verbally abuse me as an adult. But I’ve decided, from purely a selfish standpoint, that it’s easier to do the bare minimum with my dad, which avoids a huge and distressing confrontation with lots of family guilt tripping and shaming. Plus doing the bare minimum helps preserve my other family relationships with less conflict and awkwardness, even if it ends up keeping our relationships more surface level.

It is very hard to cut contact with a parent.

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps their children have reached an age they were when their parents made some bad mistakes? When my kids were young teens, I became quite upset with my parents. They offered me no guidance, no support and zero supervision from 11-16. The shit I endured in those years changed the course of my life. Having a young teen, I couldn't grasp how my parents could've neglected me and thrown me to the wolves at that age.

My spouse had a similar issue- emotional and support neglect from both of his parents. Sure he had clothes, a home and bedroom and food and his Moms rules, but little talking or guiding and no emotional supportive.

Luckily a guidance counselor saw this and his potential and got him into his college alma mater. At college he saw a whole new way of living and finally did clubs, sports, eating out, etc.

FYI we now know a lot of this was driven by aspergers on both sides, but also their parents treated them the same. Like little robots.

Anonymous wrote:Your family was identifiably dysfunctional when you were young, in a way that was easy for you and others to grasp. Your dad abandoned you. You had a parent who was an addict and abusive in a way you recognized as abuse as a child. You processed that pain early. Even in young adulthood, if someone asked about your family, you could probably articulate what was wrong.

I grew up in a family that externally looked like it had no problems. My parents were not divorced. My dad had a successful business. We lived in a nice middle class home, took vacations, had enough to eat. I grew up believing I was fortunate and had a "good childhood." But there was always this bagging feeling if emptiness. My parents would say my siblings and I were just ungrateful or "want to be unhappy" so I though that was true.

My parents were both physically and verbally abusive but it was totally normalized as "corporal punishment." My parents (who were both raised by alcoholics) would say "you don't know how good you have it" when they'd hit us and scream at us. So I thought that was how parents were. I didn't find out until I was an adult that there are many parents who don't hit and scream at their kids.

Addiction runs on my family but my parents weren't alcoholics or drug users so I thought I was lucky I'm that respect. A few years ago in a support group I learned about the concept of a "dry drunk" which is someone who has stopped drinking but engages in all the same abusive behaviors of alcoholism -- the lying, narcissism, even "blacking out" bad behavior and pretending it didn't happen. I realized my mom, whose own mother was an alcoholic and whose dad left her family and mom died when she was a teen, has the behaviors of a dry drunk. But I didn't figure this out until I was early 40s.

You and I both grew up with neglect, abuse, addiction, abandonment. But you understood that's what you were dealing with by your teens. Back then I was still being brainwashed into thinking it was normal, that everyone's family was like that. It took me decades, and having my own kids, to understand how dysfunctional and abnormal it was. And now my parents are old and sick and there's no way to repair, I just have to pretend with them until they go because there's no reconciliation over old hurts to be had with two 75+ people with dementia.

You’re smart not say anything. I’ve brought some things up and it’s made everything worse. Mainly because they can’t admit to doing anything wrong.

What stands out to me is that I was a miserable, unhappy teenager but my mom never wondered if she could have anything to do with it. But in her mind, she’s perfect and that’s not possible.

Many of us have young kids and for me, it’s been incredibly revealing. I’m able to actually identify and articulate what my parents did wrong. Similar to the PP, I grew up in a nice, UMC family but there was a lot that is very messed up. Now that I have young kids I can’t imagine treating children the way I was treated.

I don't really believe that middle aged people suddenly "discover" something they didn't know before about their families. Usually it means that their elderly parents are in decline and exhibiting behaviors that did not exist previously, at least to such a severe extent; or it means they suddenly decided to share with you something they've long known about. If they're just now truly "discovering" something, then whatever it is must not be very bad. They're just making a mountain out of a molehill.

My close friends and I knew from our teenage years that some family dynamics were off. This is the typical age to realize such things, OP. It's not that you can do much about it until you're financially independent from your parents... but you KNOW something is wrong. I spent my 20s getting all irritated with her, then I confronted my mother about her verbal and psychological abuse in my late 20s, early 30s, and went no contact for a while.

Now I'm in my 40s. Most of my life, I've always accepted that she is the way she is and that we cannot have a trusting relationship. My close friends did the same for their problem parent, or problem sibling.

Social media created an echo chamber telling people that imperfect parents are all narcissistic abusers and that adult children never have any responsibility to their families. It’s so much easier to cut off your parent and blame them for every single problem you have than it is to accept that life is complicated, unsure, and nuanced.

How to be a supportive friend? Just listen. If they are dealing with genuine abuse, validate their emotions. If they’ve bought into the narc nonsense, listen to a point and say something like “I’m glad you trust me enough to share your feelings.”

Anonymous wrote:Because 40s is when manure hits the fan for many people. Up until then they’ve been telling themselves that they will still be all they can be, and it’s never too late, and it’ll all work out at the end. Then the realization hits: nope, that’s actually my life and that how it’s going to be, so they have to either accept it or blame someone. And should you decide to blame someone, parents are a natural target, especially if you chose to engage a therapist to help you.

+1, though there are some great therapists out there who do help people become happier.

I think some of this is trends online/videos about realize your parents were absent, narcissistic, emotionally unavailable or immature. I’m 35 and when my mother died when I was 24 I had a few people ask if I was relieved she was dead and washing their comments. Looking back now while I would never say anything like that to someone I realize how toxic she could be and her behavior wasn’t normal.

Because 40s is when manure hits the fan for many people. Up until then they’ve been telling themselves that they will still be all they can be, and it’s never too late, and it’ll all work out at the end. Then the realization hits: nope, that’s actually my life and that how it’s going to be, so they have to either accept it or blame someone. And should you decide to blame someone, parents are a natural target, especially if you chose to engage a therapist to help you.

I am sorry for everyone who is hurting and can't get beyond those feelings.

I cannot understand it as I have not walked in your shoes, but I wish you would heal.

I dispute the premise. I don’t think “many” people are doing this. It’s abnormal and atypical.

I think some have legitimate grievances they should work through with a good therapist. I also think social media plays a role in manipulating others into becoming performative with imagined slights and fabulism/revisionist history about things that happened.

But it’s not like this sort of thing is commonplace. It’s fringe.

Your role? I guess it’s just to listen. But don’t feel like you need to validate everything. A lot of people have these Big Feelings that actually are not valid. Whether you want to be the one to tell them that is up to you. But if they are in the performative group, you don’t have to indulge it or feed their need for attention.

Perhaps their children have reached an age they were when their parents made some bad mistakes? When my kids were young teens, I became quite upset with my parents. They offered me no guidance, no support and zero supervision from 11-16. The shit I endured in those years changed the course of my life. Having a young teen, I couldn't grasp how my parents could've neglected me and thrown me to the wolves at that age.

Your family was identifiably dysfunctional when you were young, in a way that was easy for you and others to grasp. Your dad abandoned you. You had a parent who was an addict and abusive in a way you recognized as abuse as a child. You processed that pain early. Even in young adulthood, if someone asked about your family, you could probably articulate what was wrong.

I grew up in a family that externally looked like it had no problems. My parents were not divorced. My dad had a successful business. We lived in a nice middle class home, took vacations, had enough to eat. I grew up believing I was fortunate and had a "good childhood." But there was always this bagging feeling if emptiness. My parents would say my siblings and I were just ungrateful or "want to be unhappy" so I though that was true.

My parents were both physically and verbally abusive but it was totally normalized as "corporal punishment." My parents (who were both raised by alcoholics) would say "you don't know how good you have it" when they'd hit us and scream at us. So I thought that was how parents were. I didn't find out until I was an adult that there are many parents who don't hit and scream at their kids.

Addiction runs on my family but my parents weren't alcoholics or drug users so I thought I was lucky I'm that respect. A few years ago in a support group I learned about the concept of a "dry drunk" which is someone who has stopped drinking but engages in all the same abusive behaviors of alcoholism -- the lying, narcissism, even "blacking out" bad behavior and pretending it didn't happen. I realized my mom, whose own mother was an alcoholic and whose dad left her family and mom died when she was a teen, has the behaviors of a dry drunk. But I didn't figure this out until I was early 40s.

You and I both grew up with neglect, abuse, addiction, abandonment. But you understood that's what you were dealing with by your teens. Back then I was still being brainwashed into thinking it was normal, that everyone's family was like that. It took me decades, and having my own kids, to understand how dysfunctional and abnormal it was. And now my parents are old and sick and there's no way to repair, I just have to pretend with them until they go because there's no reconciliation over old hurts to be had with two 75+ people with dementia.

There’s just so much anger in them now that I struggle to relate when they share. They all seem to have had really good child and teen years. Male and Female friends. I sit with them thru tears and outbursts, some of them writing letters and emails to their parents to express their anger too.

How can I be a supportive friend?

I think for me that realizing those mistakes (mother chose an abusive, addicted partner to have a child with) and accepting that my now deceased father abandoned me is what was behind my angry teen years. I used to punch walls, scream, fight, everything you can imagine. Eating disorder and self harm (cutter). I think it helped me to become well adjusted earlier than the close people around me just coming to terms in their forties.

How do I help them now at this stage? I want to be there but I do not feel that same passion for anger in my forties that I had in my teens. But it seems they feel that fury now that they did not back then.