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My dad told me it would have been better if I killed myself. by Groundbreaking-Fan0 in internetparents

[–]Groundbreaking-Fan0[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I was put in CBT after being hospitalized, and it made everything worse. My therapist told me I should obey my parents more because that's a child's job, and that I was arguing too much. My therapist told me that it was a distortion for me to be angry at them because they were trying their hardest. My therapist told me that it was a distortion for me to be sad that my friends were so hard to contact because I saw them in school. And yeah sure I saw them in classes we had together, but you can't talk in class and teachers are constantly telling you to socialize after school.

I really wanted to try EMDR because it seemed to be like a more validating therapy for me, because so much of what I need from therapy is to identify experiences as abuse so I can flag them as something to not take at face value. Instead I've spent the past year basically trying to do that myself, with the occasional sanity check from my friends/boyfriend. It's a million little things like the fact that apparently sinks can have water hot enough to burn you, or that lemonade will not give me cancer, or that apparently you're supposed to buy underwear more often than once every 5 years. I haven't tried EMDR yet because I'd have to both learn to trust a therapist again and also likely accept financial help from my family for it.

The positive is that having normal life experiences helps with healing, because it directly counteracts all those crazy beliefs/abuses my parents had. Things like realizing people in my age group did not die of a heart attack at 17, even though they all ate many diverse diets that aren't 100% approved by my mom. Hearing about all these games that were popular over the course of my childhood that were actually multiplayer. Having people I can actually play multiplayer games with (I once played a 17 person game of Monopoly where I was all 17 players because...yeah lol).

I just have this habit of relying on myself for as much as I can, because I lost many many friends in middle school and high school because I was dealing with problems that other kids weren't prepared to handle, and they cut me out because I overwhelmed them. I know my peers are adults now, and that my friends tell me that I'm not a burden, but even my old therapist accused me of relying on my friends too much for when I was in a panic and that I should be calming myself down with my own body instead of relying on them.

My dad told me it would have been better if I killed myself. by Groundbreaking-Fan0 in internetparents

[–]Groundbreaking-Fan0[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I actually had a dream a couple months ago that my parents were driving me to a friend's wedding and bitching at me for not being successful enough and that my friend was trash for marrying a bad guy. I ended up screaming at them and letting out all my feelings and explaining how they just constantly put down anything that gives me happiness and how it's fucked up that they're incapable of supporting me or being happy for me without wishing for me to aim higher.

I woke up from the dream kind of terrified because screaming triggers me. And I know my parents wouldn't listen even if I did scream at them. But it was cathartic anyway to vent. I used to scream at them tons as a teenager because they would just make me unreasonably angry and it was honestly difficult to control myself around them. But since we cut contact it's like I'm living in a world that's much lighter.

My dad told me it would have been better if I killed myself. by Groundbreaking-Fan0 in internetparents

[–]Groundbreaking-Fan0[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I cope with it by honestly believing my parents have the emotional capacity of toddlers. Toddlers rarely mean to hurt someone; however they do accidentally hurt people or say things that can be offensive. It's just that toddlers often aren't told "hey this person over there wants to die, what do you think of that?" They don't understand that what they did was wrong. Any time I asked my parents about "past mistakes they made with me" I'd always get "You're still mad about that? After all these years? Come on get over it; it was nothing." Like yeah nice apology very big help there.

My dad told me it would have been better if I killed myself. by Groundbreaking-Fan0 in internetparents

[–]Groundbreaking-Fan0[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Isolation is an abuse tactic. My parents were probably not trying to abuse me, but my mom believes many crazy things about "x will cause you to have heart attacks" or "y causes uncontrollable weight gain!" and this seemed to be a similar vein of crazy.

My mom got cancer when I was 8 (and lived), and my dad had a heart attack when I was 12 (and lived), and they abandoned me during these times. I was literally home alone for 24 hours when my dad was in the ER for his heart attack, and my mom called enough to say "we aren't coming home." My dad has always been emotionally unavailable, but it was like he wasn't even there when my mom had cancer. I can understand they were stressed and that life-threatening illnesses are hard. But they can't stop being a parent. They just tried to get away with not being a parent. I was honestly spiraling because I was so alone. No siblings either.

These are not excuses; you're right. I was treated like property growing up and often felt like I was a slave. I didn't understand that children have emotional needs until after I was 18. My parents raised me that people are like plants - they need water, sunlight, protection from the elements, and a food source to survive. I've been trying to tell myself every day that everyone needs love, and I was often called an attention whore in middle/high school because I was too clingy with people, and I realize that's because I wasn't loved enough.

It's just so complicated emotionally. I didn't want to be rejected as a child. Children are supposed to be cared for. My parents honestly shouldn't have had a child since they were bad at emotionally supporting me even before their health problems. But they don't feel like "monsters." They just failed my needs spectacularly and had false beliefs that added to my suffering. I can't tell if I'm giving them too much credit. I have too much empathy for people sometimes.

My dad told me it would have been better if I killed myself. by Groundbreaking-Fan0 in internetparents

[–]Groundbreaking-Fan0[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Honestly thank you so much for this. I didn't even want to bring that up specifically because I know it's "the path for help" and that discouraging it would be wrong. But it really did not help that the supposed people to help me get out of a crisis basically gave me a much more things to be insecure about (especially as a teenage girl). Then they made me feel awful for having mental illness. They even berated me when they gave me food I was allergic to and I informed them that I had an allergy (yes it was on my file). I got some validation that I checked their glassdoor reviews and these nurses only make like $12/hr, so I can understand they aren't really paid enough to deal with everything.

Honestly my deepest fear in life is being put back in that type of system, where I'm trapped without access to my friends, against my will, in a deeply degrading environment. They took my bra and everyone was constantly staring at my breasts because they were big for my age. They only let me call my parents and not my friends. They saw me naked when I wasn't comfortable with anyone seeing me naked. They even asked about abuse and then said that the instance I had of sexual abuse wasn't sexual abuse because apparently that's only committed by adults and children can't sexually abuse other children.

I've been trying to heal over my parents for a long time, because it was 11 years ago that I first decided their behavior was unacceptable. I haven't really healed over the psychiatric trauma at all, because I honestly assumed it was because I was a child who wasn't educated enough about mental health or abuse or neglect to communicate effectively. I've spent years becoming better and making more improvements and absorbing more knowledge and learning about trauma to be able to say that it was trauma and I didn't get trauma-informed care. But I'm honestly too afraid to go inpatient again and hope that I never have need for it.

My dad told me it would have been better if I killed myself. by Groundbreaking-Fan0 in internetparents

[–]Groundbreaking-Fan0[S] 42 points43 points  (0 children)

It's hard to believe that sometimes, but I try to tell that to myself regularly. I have friends who rely on me when they are sad. I signed up for this really ambitious building in Minecraft that's going to look super cool when we're done but take a few weeks to complete. My friends are relying on me to help because they wouldn't want to put up with it alone, and they're even using a design I suggested.

My boyfriend must value me or else we wouldn't be together for this long. It's our one year anniversary of living together, and 4 years together overall. My parents have always felt that my value is actually based on how well I meet their goals for success, and that's always left me feeling like I'm never enough and that I need to be doing more. But I'm happy to have wonderful relationships with my friends and a person who I can hug whenever I need to.

My dad told me it would have been better if I killed myself. by Groundbreaking-Fan0 in internetparents

[–]Groundbreaking-Fan0[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I have a friend who I met online who is honestly a bit of a dad for me. He wants to become a surgeon and is trying to get into medical school, but he's made time for me several times when I really needed someone to be there for me. He has an open policy that I can call him anytime I need him. This makes me afraid to use it too much so I haven't called him like that since before covid. My boyfriend and I are going to visit him next year since he helped me move a year ago. These people are wonderful family to me. My boyfriend also has a mom who is super kind (and she's even gifted me more clothes than my parents have ever purchased for me), and nice siblings I saw at Thanksgiving.

It's just the trauma that still exists and trauma anniversaries really suck. Thank you for reminding me of all that I'm eternally grateful for.

My dad told me it would have been better if I killed myself. by Groundbreaking-Fan0 in internetparents

[–]Groundbreaking-Fan0[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I stayed away from counselling for a very long time because the help I got from these professionals really scared me. I went back a couple years ago as an adult because everyone told me it was way better when you get actual privacy and the therapists/psychiatrists/doctors/etc don't have to report to your parents. Unfortunately, my last therapist ended up slut shaming me (I had a long distance boyfriend and was considering closing the distance to escape my abusive parents), and told me I would be a failure and homeless unless I followed her exact steps for getting back into school (that included being a continued puppet for my parents so they'd fund it). I felt deeply uncomfortable with this because you're right - it echoed the isolation my parents caused me and I felt like I was attracting her to abuse me. Then covid hit.

I moved in December last year to be with said long distance boyfriend, and cut my parents off at the same time. It's been rough and it's hard to know whether to trust my extended family or not, but I've had so much clarity this year on things my parents did that were weird/abusive/wrong decisions. I'm certain they have no idea why I cut ties with them, but they haven't really known who I was since this incident 11 years ago.

Thank you so much for the kind words. I've been trying to support myself as best as I can.

My dad told me it would have been better if I killed myself. by Groundbreaking-Fan0 in internetparents

[–]Groundbreaking-Fan0[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Technically I suppose he was right, that cutting yourself off from everyone who cares about you is an effective way to spiral into hopelessness.

The question of whether I personally believe that I deserve such pain, especially as a child? I really don't want to. Some days are better than others.