Anonymous wrote:It made me extremely self-reliant and resilient. I do not expect that anyone would do anything for me. I often feel responsible for others' wellbeing though. I have always deep and long lasting friendships. I'm a pretty happy and joyful person. The upside of having zero expectations towards others is that I am never disappointed and always feel gratitude for the people in my life. I did pick a partner who is rather avoidant too. So two avoidants together has it's challenges.

Similar experience here. My father was incredibly physically abusive and into all sorts of vices. Thankfully he abandoned us in my teens. My mother reacted by becoming an addict, a fairly severe one. Homeless when I was 18, I was able to go to university on athletic scholarship. My brother did the same thing. We raised each other. About 20 years of age I had zero expectations from either of them. My brother and I obtained excellent educations at top schools and went on to success. My parents were not in the least educated and our achievements (we paid for them ourselves) only caused additional estrangement. I didn’t speak to my father the last 40 years of his life. I used to process both of them as intellectually deficient but that was not accurate. They just made bad decisions. Rare for the time period, both of my grandparents were well off so they had no excuse. We lived in a 1000 sq foot house my grandfather purchased but their thing was belonging to fancy country clubs. When dues were owing they hit my grandparents up. No concern for our education or welfare. They had no idea of my college major and didn’t care.

My father was an excellent athlete but lazy and inclined to criminal acts. He lied big time about his athletic accomplishments - even in his obituary. More talented than my brother and me but way too lazy and poorly disciplined. All three of us were NCAA D1 finalists- but he was eligible for only a year. I used to laugh at his waste of talent - a reaction to him beating me and calling me fat dumb and lazy.

Yes there were missing pieces in terms of emotional IQ. I watched people who had their act together and tried to learn. Always a work in progress. You sound more grateful than I am, but I work on it.

What do you consider emotional support op?

Anonymous wrote:Did anyone grow up with parents who provided zero life guidance and emotional support/growth during their childhood and formative years? How did you deal? How did you learn the tools to have an emotional life and personal growth? Did your siblings learn?

My spouse did.
His dad and mom (and him and his brother) are all on the high functioning side of the autism spectrum.

I’ve tried to provide role modeling via myself, my brothers, my parents, vacationing with other families. And for awhile we sent the kids to private school so they became more social and socialized. Otherwise it’s all on me.

My spouse doesn’t acknowledge, however, what you are acknowledging. That there was a level of neglect and cluelessness and missing emotional support. He doesn’t realize that it was his guidance counselor that saw this dynamic and helped him get into college, the same one the counselor went to. He doesn’t realize that most of the world does not sit in silence during car rides or family dinners. Or that other kids did activities after school or took a real vacation once in awhile.

Unf his normal is neglect and isolation.

I stay for the kids. Everyone in my support network knows what I am going through. No meds will help him. He lies at therapy. He is closed off and thinks everyone else is crazy. Crazy to talk so much, do a sport, go out at night, go on trips. He cannot fathom another way of living besides his parents way. Which was quite off.

Unfortunately my entire neighborhood parented the same way, I thought the disfunction was normal until I went to college. Visiting other students homes during breaks was an eye opener and sent me straight to therapy, did not realize how emotionally void I was at that point. I am still involved with my family, but the struggle to not repeat their mistakes (which many of my siblings do with their children) is real, and I have to remind myself every single minute of the day that I want a different family unit. I want normal, what I had was not normal but I do understand my parents did the best they knew how, they just never tried to do better. I'm working on that, slowly but purposefully.

Anonymous wrote:Did anyone grow up with parents who provided zero life guidance and emotional support/growth during their childhood and formative years? How did you deal? How did you learn the tools to have an emotional life and personal growth? Did your siblings learn?

Friends’ parents and teachers.

I don't think most of us who were teens in the 80s ever got much advice. We just watched our parents and learned and saw how they worked and what they did, which is how we developed life and work skills.
I don't remember a single talk about what I should study or do as a job.

Anonymous wrote:What does this look like? I’m not sure what you mean.

Same. I grew up with parents who had high school diplomas. I went to college and launched myself. My parents were unable to help me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does this look like? I’m not sure what you mean.

You honestly can’t imagine parents/caregivers who barely talk to their kids?

I think that’s probably a good thing.

So what does this look like?

Is it? Have you read books? Watched TV and movies?

It effed me up so badly I became a children's therapist.

Anonymous wrote:Ironically, it's my asocial, unemotional and uncommunicative father who gave me the one and only piece of great advice I have ever received from my parents. He jumped on a plane to visit his ailing mother in east Asia, and told me in the elevator that you should always move mountains to see loved ones, because otherwise regrets would destroy you. I think he felt bad that he lived so far away from her. He sent money to pay for her nursing home, but couldn't visit frequently.

No professional or life advice, sadly. My mother is full of anxious prattling, but much of it is negative and sabotaging.

You sound like an ingrate.

My parents were marginally present, but also very conservative/traditional and extremely authoritarian. As a girl the extent of executive functioning skills taught to me was “marry a rich man”. I was also taught to be an extreme people pleaser (“god first, others second, you third”).

I’m nearly 40 and learning these things now. My H has been helping me learn how to communicate and set boundaries. He even reads any work emails and helps me respond to them appropriately. I read books about finance and communication which have helped.

Siblings aren’t much better off. My brother was sent to one of those camps where they kidnap you in the middle of the night and you live in the woods for months on end. He was literally just a normal kid who struggled with ADHD and is probably slightly autistic. All it did was put him around actually troubled kids where he picked up really bad stuff. Now at 35, he’s an alcoholic, unemployed, has served jail time for DUIs.

All 3 of us ended up with unplanned pregnancies. We received zero sexual education other than “don’t have sex”. So my sister and I never learned how to set boundaries and say no with sex and have been assaulted multiple times.

Anonymous wrote:Lifelong learning. Sibling was worse off as they were the first child. I learned from observing that and got out as soon as I could. What p* me off now is that they're elderly and expect all kind of support. It's as if it's always been about them, all their lives. And no, I'm keeping low contact. Mom tried to re-imagine me as her "best friend" out of nowhere once dad passed and it was so out of place.

You have typed up my life story. I'm sorry we share this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does this look like? I’m not sure what you mean.

You honestly can’t imagine parents/caregivers who barely talk to their kids?

I think that’s probably a good thing.

So what does this look like?

Echoing others: it's a long process and therapy helps but also just being self-forgiving and willing to keep learning and growing.

In my case the issue was that my parents were very young and immature when they got married and had kids and they did not have good parental role models either (both come from families with alcoholism and divorce and both lost parents young). So they couldn't provide guidance or support because they didn't know what it looked like. They leaned on us a lot to try and provide for them what they had not gotten from their own parents. This was very bad (please never ask your children to parent you) but through therapy I have also discovered that in a messed up way it did give me some good parenting skills because I had to parent my own parents if that makes sense.

So as a parent now myself I don't struggle that much to provide guidance and support to my child. The harder part is providing it to myself and accepting I will always have to be my own parent and guide and will never have that kind of scaffolding in my life. I think I mourn it all over again about once every 5-10 years -- realizing I will not have parental guidance and support through each new milestone or phase of life.

In addition to therapy I read a lot and draw inspiration from friends and colleagues who have or are the kinds of parents I want to be. I also talk to my spouse a lot about making sure we're on track to provide the environment and support we want to be providing. Having one kid has also helped immensely as it lowers the stress and means we are never spread too thin. When I thought about having another child I reminded myself that in addition to raising my actual child I am to a degree still raising myself.

Hopefully my own kid will have the kind of support and guidance neither I nor my parents had and she will have more option and feel more stable and secure. That is my goal anyway.

As a kid, there were things that I thought were only in movies (just normal human interactions), but then when I spent time at my friend's houses I realized they are normal things that normal families do. I came to the conclusion that my parents were defective. For some reason, I never felt like I had to seed their validation. Instead I decided that they will miss out on who I really am. I feel more sad for them than for myself, because I grew from it but they didn't.