Anonymous wrote:My mom is the narc and my dad is the doormat.

I have PTSD from obstetric violence/trauma and my therapist wants to start eye movement desensitization and reprocessing with childhood trauma. I haven't scheduled another appointment since. Reluctant to open old wounds.

Wow, are you me? FWIW, I tried the desensitization stuff (I assume you mean EMDR) and it didn’t work). My parents damaged my childhood so badly that I hope they rot in hell.

Anonymous wrote:I think about this a lot. Every time I see my parents I wonder how it is that I dislike them as people, so much. It goes beyond politics (one parent is insanely pro trump). It goes to the core of who they are: Selfish, anxious, narcissistic, needing reassurance, gaslighters (the last one is the biggest problem imo). I often wonder — probably to an unhealthy degree — why it is that I realized at about age 5 that I didn’t like them, and stuck with that, whereas some children of these types of parents become just like their parents and want to see them often. I don’t get it, and I don’t understand what it was that at 5 years old made me dislike them, each in different ways, despite having no terrible abuse (just minor neglect). My DH is tired of me talking about this every time I see them. I can’t even get through a dinner with them without feeling revolted. Everything comes back to their view that people are fat and lazy. They even said it out loud at our last dinner in a restaurant and I was embarrassed for our whole table. But this is not new. I listened to an interview with Kathleen Hannah who just matter of fact stated that she new at an early age she didn’t like her dad. I guess I knew that too. It makes me sad and also curious how this could be!!! I need therapy.

Oh I forgot racist and classist. Duh!

You should try some breathwork, mediation, and shadow work. There are a lot of good teachers and programmes on the internet.

I think about this a lot. Every time I see my parents I wonder how it is that I dislike them as people, so much. It goes beyond politics (one parent is insanely pro trump). It goes to the core of who they are: Selfish, anxious, narcissistic, needing reassurance, gaslighters (the last one is the biggest problem imo). I often wonder — probably to an unhealthy degree — why it is that I realized at about age 5 that I didn’t like them, and stuck with that, whereas some children of these types of parents become just like their parents and want to see them often. I don’t get it, and I don’t understand what it was that at 5 years old made me dislike them, each in different ways, despite having no terrible abuse (just minor neglect). My DH is tired of me talking about this every time I see them. I can’t even get through a dinner with them without feeling revolted. Everything comes back to their view that people are fat and lazy. They even said it out loud at our last dinner in a restaurant and I was embarrassed for our whole table. But this is not new. I listened to an interview with Kathleen Hannah who just matter of fact stated that she new at an early age she didn’t like her dad. I guess I knew that too. It makes me sad and also curious how this could be!!! I need therapy.

Anonymous wrote:They have been visiting for nearly a week on account of my daughter’s high school graduation. They are both old — mid 80s — and in poor health. I feel terrible about this because they are not bad people, but I hate having them visit. I feel it is an intrusion on my space, I feel stuck, I resent them, and all I want is for them to leave and never come back (and I’ll make sure of it). This visit is a way for them to feel important and feel seen. But I feel used. I’m 54 and and I am finally seeing my parents for the very damaged people that they are. I see how they hurt me as a child by neglecting me emotionally. I think my dad is a kind of narcissist — everything has to be about him, he’ll do anything for attention and adulation. His relentless focus on himself and his insatiable desire to get his needs met deprived me of being heard and being seen as a child. My mom is rather pathetic, sitting there passively, waiting to be told what to do. She’s always been that way. She will not be around much longer. I feel like I should have some kind of meaningful conversation with her but I can’t fathom what to say. I have nothing to say. Even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to get the words out. We don’t have that kind of relationship. I hate myself for feeling this way — couldn’t I be more compassionate at this stage in their lives, I keep telling myself — but the truth is that I don’t want to be. I’ve had it with them. They repulse me. This sucks but there you have it. Does anyone else feel this way?

Almost 7 years of my parents living elsewhere, not listening, screaming no. Father passed (sad but it did free my mother), house had to be forced to sell, mother goes to assisted living but the years of not doing her PT, etc, caught up with her and she’s now wheelchair-bound. NOW she wants to help herself but she’s probably 10 years too late. Last time I was out there, I stayed 2 months to help and came back completely post traumatic due to the nightmare of being with people who don’t care if they deplete you to the last amount of your energy. I have to go back in a week BUT this time my mother is in assisted living. If she wants to come back East, would love to have her BUT in assisted living or a nursing home. She’s a good person (at least there is that) but can be very passive and demanding at the same time. The good news is she loves assisted living and even nursing homes because she loves the attention and help. At least here, I could have her properly evaluated and perhaps they CAN get her back on a walker which would be a huge improvement. If not, a motorized wheelchair would help.

I feel you and DO NOT feel guilty. There is a reason you feel the way you do.

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Anonymous wrote:If they were that horrible, you would have known before you were over 50 years old.

NP. When you are young, you only know what you know. So if you live with broken people, that’s your normal. It takes many years and a lot of experience to establish new normals. By then, you’re not living with those broken people anymore, and you haven’t for a long time. Your life is yours now. Maybe you try not to look back too much. You don’t want to dwell. So you never really look too deep, and you believe that you’ve moved on.

And then your parents get old. And suddenly you can’t avoid it anymore, you can’t avoid them anymore, there’s so little time and also now your own kids are grown and aren’t the buffer that they were. And those old patterns from your childhood are still there, all those familiar interactions are still there, but YOU are different, and suddenly it’s like the scales have fallen from your eyes, and it’s like, “Ohhhhh. I really didn’t get what I needed.” And that’s when it all comes bubbling up.

Or I dunno, maybe that’s just me.

Are you better, though? You are different, sure.

Our kids will all have stuff to say about us and our less than perfect parenting too.

My parents are far from ideal — they are divorced so not really one entity — but I’m not perfect either.

My best friend’s mom is schizophrenic and is currently living under an overpass or something. My friend has good reason to hate her. Being boring, on the other hand, is just what old people are.

PP. That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?

In my house there was physical abuse, so in that way I can say definitively: yes, I’m better. My kids have been safe in their home.

The emotional stuff is trickier, murkier. While I have done a lot of work to be “better,” a family is at best a bunch of flawed human beings who bump up against each other again and again. And parents have a tremendous amount of power, so our flaws are amplified for our children.

Am I better? Am I better enough? These questions have been a constant thrum in my mind since the day I became a parent. I hope I am. I try to be. I try.

Still, the question will always be there.

I have a close friend who works in the mental health field. She is seeing massive amounts of young adults angry at their parents for not being “emotionally supportive” enough. The lists of grievances run from helicoptering to letting me stop playing softball when I was in middle school even though maybe I would have been great at it, to being too steady in the face of adversity and not feeling their pain acutely enough, etc. One of her coworkers also told her that her community center’s biggest support group is parents of estranged adult children. Two couples started it and now there are over 50 people in it. The next biggest support group has about a dozen members. This is in an are with a real mix of liberals, moderates, and conservatives.

My point in relaying this is that while we may think we are doing better and that our children would never treat us the way we are treating our “objectively” worse parents, I wouldn’t count on it. The bar got raised for parenting so “our best” might not be cutting it. We, for instance, have wound up in therapy for what seemed like some really minor stuff in our view and in the view of a couple of close confidants, but it’s an attempt to grapple with this before our DC is fully independent in the hopes of fending off adult estrangement.

Just another thing we can think the boomers for. They got bored and went back to school to get degrees in social work so they could become therapists and teach everyone who sees them that their problems are all because of their parents. I know few people--except for those with truly abusive parents--who aren't in therapy who hate their parents. Therapy can be quite destructive. I feel for those parents whose kids turn against them for being less than perfect. Their kids will do the same to them and instead of having an ounce of self-awareness, they'll just blame the kids. It's a seriously messed up dynamic.

Hi OP, NP here. Just want to say I see you and I'm sorry your parents did not support you.

I'm processing a lot of childhood trauma too (resurfaced when I became a parent myself).

I wish you the best of luck in your journey.

Anonymous wrote:They have been visiting for nearly a week on account of my daughter’s high school graduation. They are both old — mid 80s — and in poor health. I feel terrible about this because they are not bad people, but I hate having them visit. I feel it is an intrusion on my space, I feel stuck, I resent them, and all I want is for them to leave and never come back (and I’ll make sure of it). This visit is a way for them to feel important and feel seen. But I feel used. I’m 54 and and I am finally seeing my parents for the very damaged people that they are. I see how they hurt me as a child by neglecting me emotionally. I think my dad is a kind of narcissist — everything has to be about him, he’ll do anything for attention and adulation. His relentless focus on himself and his insatiable desire to get his needs met deprived me of being heard and being seen as a child. My mom is rather pathetic, sitting there passively, waiting to be told what to do. She’s always been that way. She will not be around much longer. I feel like I should have some kind of meaningful conversation with her but I can’t fathom what to say. I have nothing to say. Even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to get the words out. We don’t have that kind of relationship. I hate myself for feeling this way — couldn’t I be more compassionate at this stage in their lives, I keep telling myself — but the truth is that I don’t want to be. I’ve had it with them. They repulse me. This sucks but there you have it. Does anyone else feel this way?

What kind of childhood did your parents have?

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone worry that this will happen to them when they are old? I try so hard to be a good parent and love my children so much. But what if one day, when they are grown up, they start to feel like I made mistakes, they are annoyed by me, my stories are boring etc etc etc

I fully understand and support cutting toxic people out and establishing boundaries but I, nonetheless, worry sometimes that, despite my best efforts, I’ll be the old person everyone is sick and tired of

I worry about that too, especially because I have sons. I think our bond is different than what I would have had with a daughter.

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Anonymous wrote:I feel this way about my mother. My father too, but he moved to a developing country and self-selected out of my life. My mother was emotionally neglectful, narcissistic, suicidal, punitive and cold growing up. My childhood was me being the parent and trying to meet her numerous emotional needs as a child, teen and now adult.

Recently, I found copies of many letters that she wrote to various people telling them what a problem, bad kid I was. This was a theme of hers. Something broke in me after reading them.

I am now stuck taking care of her, she is declining cognitively and I resent having to parent her again and having so much contact that I can't dictate. I do it, and am kind on the outside but on the inside I think I hate her. She was so destructive. It is some kind of mind f**k that I have to have so much interaction with her with no end in sight.

It's okay to feel everything you are feeling.

This is my situation as well. It would be cruel to walk away now when she’s so diminished, but I resent all the time, energy and money I am pouring into caring for her. I’ve been her “parent” emotionally and logistically since I was 11, and caring for her now at the end of life is intense and exhausting and brings back in painful ways to what extent she didn’t care for me as a child. It sucks. Hugs to all of you doing the same. You are good people.

Similar feelings. I grew up having to be the adult, well into adulthood until a lot of therapy and having my own family made me see how different a parent-child relationship could be. So now, with a senior mother there are times I resent having to pick up the parenting baton that I had finally put down.

My daughter absolutely claims things that did not happen, and twists exchanges that took place in the past.

As a very devoted parent, it is exasperating, but beyond my control.

Find out what you can about family history, relatives who are gone, stories from their youth. Have them tell your daughter about what your childhood was like, if she’s interested, or theirs. Try to think of good things to get out of your time together.

Anonymous wrote:I feel this way about my mother. My father too, but he moved to a developing country and self-selected out of my life. My mother was emotionally neglectful, narcissistic, suicidal, punitive and cold growing up. My childhood was me being the parent and trying to meet her numerous emotional needs as a child, teen and now adult.

Recently, I found copies of many letters that she wrote to various people telling them what a problem, bad kid I was. This was a theme of hers. Something broke in me after reading them.

I am now stuck taking care of her, she is declining cognitively and I resent having to parent her again and having so much contact that I can't dictate. I do it, and am kind on the outside but on the inside I think I hate her. She was so destructive. It is some kind of mind f**k that I have to have so much interaction with her with no end in sight.

It's okay to feel everything you are feeling.

This is my situation as well. It would be cruel to walk away now when she’s so diminished, but I resent all the time, energy and money I am pouring into caring for her. I’ve been her “parent” emotionally and logistically since I was 11, and caring for her now at the end of life is intense and exhausting and brings back in painful ways to what extent she didn’t care for me as a child. It sucks. Hugs to all of you doing the same. You are good people.

I'm ^^ and parents divorced at young age, so had to deal with 2 households.

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Am I worried about my own kids? Not really. I like having them around and they know it. The conversations I have with my teens now my parents never had with me, I learned to keep everything to myself pretty early.

There is no way that you can know whether 25 years from now, your adult children will see what you have done as sufficiently loving and supportive. Social mores and expectations are constantly changing and the type of parenting we provided may or may not be kindly looked upon in the future. There is no way to know. All you can do is try your best in any given moment and hope it all works out.

My parents certainly made mistakes, but I don't hold it against them personally. They tried and did what they could with the information available to them, the societal expectations of the time, and with what they had been taught from their own upbringing. There really is no point to hanging on to anger about something that they didn't even know was wrong.

I'm the PP who asked about the million dollar question. I agree that there's no way to know. As you say, all we can do is try our best in any given moment and hope.

What's interesting about the part I bolded is that over the years, I've said almost the very same words to my sibling. Sibling has been angry, just absolutely furious, for their whole life. And I ...wasn't? Or I didn't think I was? I'm still not sure I *was* angry. But something about this phase of life has been deeply trying in ways I didn't expect. Maybe I'm changing as I age. Or maybe it's a form of pre-grieving -- grieving not just the person that was, but also the relationship that wasn't.

At any rate, a lot of people have said thoughtful things here, and I'm grateful for that.

My mom got this way mid 50s. Maybe she just has more time for introspection now or her tolerance for annoyances has gotten lower. I’m not sure but she has really soured on her mother. For her sake, I hope that she can work through what she is feeling as I am worried she will feel guilty and full of regret for not engaging with her mom more when her mom passes.

NP. Yes, I think this is complicated. We grew up with an abusive mom and dad. Mom was mostly neglect, dad was emotional abuse. I was the eldest daughter, so bore the brunt of it. My brother is estranged from me and will very occasionally speak to my parents and sister, but refuses to see them. My sister is growing more distant in her late 40s -- she's missed several family gatherings/events this year. I was very angry as a child, teen, and young adult -- as I imagine them to be. However, after I graduated college, I decided that my anger was eating a hole in me. I completely changed my outlook and also changed my relationship with both parents. I think that gave them the green light to change themselves, though I never denied the reality that I wish they had been different. I think that emotional growth made me a better person, and I was able to be a very different parent breaking the cycle.

I believe my siblings were initially better parents, but the older they got the more like our parents they became, as their own children had more emotional needs/tested boundaries. My brother took away Christmas from his kids one year for a minor mistake (the last year before he cut off contact). My sister's kids have growing anxiety, and they cannot tolerate any change and she's kept them away from family recently.

The thing with my sister is that she's becoming increasingly angry with my mom, but she also doesn't give our mom any opportunity to improve either. Therein lies the difference. She sets my mom up to fail because it's basically her relationship in her head with our mom. My mom recently talked to me about the eldest daughter syndrome and how she had been reading about it and apologized. But, that's only because I haven't cut her out of my life, and gave her some space to own her mistake.

Anger is comfort, and it can be hard to break. Empathy, forgiveness, and loving boundaries is the way. You don't even need to continue a relationship, but do it out of love and honor of the past (or how the universe brought you together for some mythical reason) and let it go in peace. I love my brother and have so many fond memories that make me happy, but our relationship will not continue. I'm not angry at him, nor do I believe he needs to change.