Every conversation in my childhood was criticism or advice
I was a problem child and I deserved it. Yet it's an odd memory.
Posted Nov 9, 2019, 8:15 AM UTC
3911
I went through the exact same thing
You’re not alone
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I got no advice.
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You were a perfect kid.
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Nope I was actually the scapegoated child, the parentified child. I could never do anything enough or anything right.
My life was a desert of emotional neglect with sandstorms of abuse.
My parents never spoke to us, ever unless they were criticizing us. It's like they didn't have children, they had servants or slaves.
But honestly now knowing how crazy and manipulative my mother is, I'm glad they didn't talk to us because she would have just messed with my head more.
It's important to have these realisation about your past so you can understand, you are not what they told you, you are not what they made you. When you start peeling off the layers of the past is when you start finding your truth.
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Of course there is no such thing as "a problem child", even though thoughts might repeat otherwise... they are not even yours...
actually they are no one's.
the child is born free and spontaneous, without conditioning or indoctrination. Not having a clue of "good or bad"
If the care takers are traumatized ... they can't handle the freedom a child is born with...
It's like a threat to the jail of trauma they live in
they can't but react to that the same way they reacted to them when they were young...
it's like an insane domino effect...
Some people repeat and pass it on..., some people just become "apparent victims", the so called victim feels like it because it does not know it has nothing to do with them or with their parents...
Your brain did what it could to survive, it created a fence that keeps the pain unreleased, seemingly unseen (but current), it has no idea about health or illness or concepts...
your parents did what they could... there is no real option in what happens (otherwise it would had happen something else)
it's no ones fault.
But, health-wise, it's better if that trapped energy comes out...
if that "berlin wall" crumbles ... so you will feel like being one
The end of contradiction and final freedom is "waiting"
Good luck :-)
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I feel you, OP. The criticism or advice was always related to school or my future. I wasn’t the problem child but my brother was and faced the same thing as us. Sometimes I feel like my dad was trying to live through me and never saw me as an actual child, but something to keep pushing beyond its limits to satisfy his ego. He did not care about me, what I wanted to do or be, my interests, or even how my day was. 20 years in and he can’t even name my favourite colour or food - he still insists that it’s pink and pizza. How could a parent be absent but still very active in your life? It’s crazy. My brother is his favourite now that I’m no longer the golden child lol.
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Once, I told my mom that I wanted to be like her when I grew up. I wanted to cheer her up. She said 'Well I started as a bitch, too.'
I guess that didn't count since she insulted herself, too. It hurt. It always hurt. When my grandmother had a big anniversary, my aunt gave a speech about how much that family my grandmother started had grown, even me, who had been such a bitch as a kid. I was 17 when she said that. These days, she is estranged from her own grandchildren whom she treated similarly when her son died. Malignant woman. My grandmother never once said something nice to me. I tried to think of something but she didn't. She loved my mom though.
I grew up hearing what a bad kid I was, how difficult. Looking back at it, I wasn't even problematic. I started to turn into an anxious mess after a while but that was not my fault. Even they think it was. The insults and putdowns were an excuse for the lack of attention and parenting. I was so bad of course [insert deflection of guilt].
Try to look at it as if you were a neighbour and you'd see the family life from a 3rd person perspective. Would you really think the child is to blame?
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80% of the things my mother only talks to me about is my appereance, how I need to get my hair cut, styled, take care of my skin, have my acne removed, my nails styled, my weight taken care of, my clothes properly kept... since I was a child. The rest is her oversharing and using me as a substitute of a mother for her own emotional needs. She gets angry when I avoid even conversing with her at all, gets all puzzled. So blind.
OMG that is my mother too. And my father.
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As a mother of three, I have to catch myself and let that stuff go because life is short and there are so many things to be thankful for in a healthy child. I think, oh my, they could be in a wheelchair or have Cancer. That sets me straight about the griping about the small things.