47 years old, just got back from a week long vacation in Napa. I did have some vanity post vacation weight gain, 3 lbs. But I always lose the holiday weight after a month or so. She looked at me and asked me if I was pregnant. So rude. I said no and told her I had just gotten back from a vacation with very good food. She knew that anyway. She said "well good for you!". Nasty.

I was 18 years old. I had dated HS boyfriend since 16 and it had run its course. I told her during a phone call that I was most likely going to end it with him. She freaked out started crying, yelling. And she sobbed that if I dared to break up with him that she wouldn't love me anymore. I was shocked and horrified. I said what do you mean? She said her love was conditional. I thought that was really messed up and not normal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why just moms? My dad said pretty terrible things too

Start a thread. I can contribute, too, unfortunately.

Or op could have said what's the worst thing your parent has said to you!

Mom: Your children will hate you because you are fat and disgusting

Dad: You are a fat pig.

Obviously, weight was an issue!

Op started the thread with the question including mothers only. The thread is interesting to me because quite a few of us were mistreated and verbally and/or physically abused by our mothers. We come to dcum, which is 50% abusive responses from women.

When I was around 13, having fun at a vacation resort in the evening: “go to bed, you’re tired and your face shows what you’ll look like when you are old.”

Tmi. I was 7-8. She was doing laundry and came across one of my underwear in the hamper. It had a "bacon streak" in it. She freaked out and started counting the underwear and only counted 5 instead of 7. She went all mommy dearest screaming why weren't there 7 etc. She then took the dirty underwear and hung it up in the front yard crotch side out, for all the neighbors to see.

I think that is really strange and still think about it once in a while, as I'm doing my children's laundry. She liked to humiliate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why just moms? My dad said pretty terrible things too

Start a thread. I can contribute, too, unfortunately.

Or op could have said what's the worst thing your parent has said to you!

Mom: Your children will hate you because you are fat and disgusting

Dad: You are a fat pig.

Obviously, weight was an issue!

It was the night before I was going off to uni a few hours away for the first time as a freshman. I had always been a good, serious student who didn't ever get into trouble etc. She was moping around that night and half cried etc. I thought she was going to say something like I'll miss you. But instead she cried and Saud she didn't think I'd make it at uni and that I may fail.

Nice...way to go to be encouraging.

Anonymous wrote:“Daddy stopped laughing the day you were born.”

My mom said my dad never yelled until the third kid (me).

“Have a nice life.” said when she decided she was done with me because my mother in law saw the baby first. She refused to speak to me or visit for two months. I have not been able to open my heart to her since then. It’s been ten years. We have a relationship, but I have been very detached since then. She was always cruel. That comment broke me. My dad walked out when I was four. She knows she was all I had, and always held it over me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom would:

Routinely throw full glasses or plates of food at me at meal times and then scream at/hit me until I cleaned up her mess.
Go on Joan Crawford-style rampages and destroy my room - drawers emptied on to the floor, my things broken, smashed, etc.
Give me a small suitcase and tell me to pack b/c she was kicking me out - this started when I was around 4 - and then lock me out of the house.
Hit, scratch, pull my hair, lie, gaslight, drive exceedingly recklessly... all to intimidate and frighten me into her control.
Ruin nearly every personal milestone of mine by throwing tantrums and making it all about her.

I could go on and on...

I can relate to so many of the posts, but the bolded really rings true for me, too. And the more important the milestone (ivy league law school graduation, birth of first child, etc.), the more she made it all about her.

+10000000 spot on.

-NP

It's hard to come up with a worst. I have lots of examples of her telling me, as a young child, that I was annoying/unattractive/dumb/lazy/ungrateful/etc. And collectively those really impacted me. Suprisingly, it was the "you're so annoying" one that probably impacted me the most even though the others sound so much worse now (I'm sure lots of parents tell their kids they are annoying). But I heard it so much that it really impacted my self-perception, and I've always just felt like I had a bad personality, that I'm too needy, that people don't like me. The other stuff is easier for me to dismiss as an adult -- I'm objectively decent looking, I've been told by many teachers/friends/colleagues/bosses that I'm smart and hard working, etc. But annoying... it just sticks with you. Am I annoying? I feel like I must be, and it makes me feel hopeless because it's one of those things you can't fix, especially if you have low self-esteem. I'd probably be less annoying if I had more confidence or worried less about how much people liked me. But you see the problem there, don't you.

There were other, terrible things, her screaming at me in the middle of the night because she was having one of her rages. Or alternatively her blank, passive face of disinterest when she was in one of her low moods. But again, as an adult, I can look at that stuff and say "that had nothing to do with me." It was really hard to live through and I wish I'd had someone to talk to about it back then. But it doesn't hurt me anymore, just makes me feel sad about the childhood I lost to this stuff.

Oh, here's a concrete one that is pretty bad: once she made my sister and stand side by side to see who was taller, and then made us go weigh ourselves. So that she could know for certain that I was both shorter AND heavier than my sister. Years later I told her that how harmful that had been to a 16 year old girl, and she just shrugged. "I was just curious." That one actually does make me mad because she wasn't depressed or manic when she did that. She was just being a jerk, because she felt like it. Maybe to see what I would do, or maybe because she just really does think my sister is more attractive than I am and she wanted me to know.

Moms. They have so much power! I'm a mom now and I think I do pretty well at avoiding most of this stuff (starting with not having untreated mental health issues, that's the big one -- go to therapy folks, take your meds if you need them, don't take your issues out on your kids). But I do think all the time about how the stuff I say to my DD will one day sculpt the way she feels about herself as an adult, and I take that responsibility very, very seriously.

Anonymous wrote:My heart hurts reading these.

Im actually a bit nauseous reading them; you are all so worthy of unconditional love.

Anonymous wrote:Slapped me in the face
Rolled my arm up in a power window, supposedly an accident
Served all sugary desserts at my baby shower when I wasn’t supposed to be eating sugar
Telling everyone my house is so small
Screamed at me when I applied to a college out of state
Told me my grandmother wasn’t worth organizing a funeral for
Pits me and my siblings against each other

So many things

I am glad I have good friends but I still have a voice in my head that questions me and holds me back sometimes. I struggle now to be a normal and calm person.

You just reminded me of the time my mom stabbed me with a cooking fork, two prongs. She was cooking and teenage me said something she didn't like and she pulled it out of the boiling pasta water and pushed it into my waist. My shirt slowed it down and I didn't get burned or require stitches, but she drew blood. 35 years later, I still have that fork and I use it often, but I don't stab anyone with it. I laugh about the stabbing, but it's effed up!

My mom also used to chase me around the house, and I'd run upstairs to my room as fast as I could. She'd bang on the door yelling "d**n you to h**l, you st*pid little b*t*h" over and over again. I have almost zero memories of my childhood . . . except that.

Anonymous wrote:My dad said "If I were a young man and I saw you I'd definitely want to speak to you, but as soon as you said anything, I'd never want to speak to you again"

That's harsh for a dad to say to you. It might give you some comfort to know that quite a few guys said similar things to me. One guy said, "I thought you were pretty until I talked to you". I took it to mean that I don't suffer fools and I don't cater to guys. If I don't like you or if I disagree with you, you're going to hear about it. You are probably a strong confident person. Many men really don't like that, especially in young women.