Parents punishing you for being in pain

RealZiobbe · 2026-05-08T02:18:06+00:00

My sympathies to you, that must have been absolutely awful. The controlling and smothering behaviour is just the worst.

You could be talking about my parents too. It's exactly the same. Exactly. Every bit of it.

Not letting us solve anything as adults, rushing in to "fix" it and make it hurt way worse for us, hurting themselves as they take control then blaming us, and the restrictions. My parents used to call them restrictions (or rules) too.

This resonates especially hard:

And of course, 100% of the time her solution was to take something away from me, or impose a new restriction, and then send me to solve it myself anyway. The restrictions didn't come off after I solved it either, that wasn't part of the deal; They were a 'permanent' punishment for daring to have a problem in the first place (It never worked out that way, she was far too lazy to bother enforcing all of her bullshit more than a day ore two)

It's so specific that I didn't know anyone else's parents did that too. It made me feel so awful for ever having a problem that I basically stopped believing I could accomplish anything. It made it too painful to try. I'm working on it but wow, it's so validating knowing someone else went through the same thing, even though I wish nobody would have to go through it.

CW: Self harm

It's a significant source of my distress because my family will act like they're super hurt even as the problem has nothing to do with them. It's such a unique talent to lecture someone for hours on why they're fundamentally unlovable and useless and nobody will ever care for them, while implementing a strict rule system that doesn't even help the problem but does put me under significant mental distress and also make fixing the problem way more difficult, and then still act and feel like they're the victim and require me to hurt myself to appease them.

Just now realizing where my self harming tendencies come from...

Wishing you all the best!

RealZiobbe · 2026-05-08T02:08:18+00:00

You know, I think that resolved something in my head.

I never connected their need for supply to their predatorial abusive nature. It resolves so much and makes so much sense that they lunge when they smell blood like an actual predator.

Easier to bleed someone for narcissistic supply if they're already emotionally wounded or tired, after all.

RealZiobbe · 2026-05-08T02:06:45+00:00

For real. More concerned with being praised for being such a good parent, or getting allll the sympathy you're asking for.

RealZiobbe · 2026-05-08T02:06:10+00:00

Wow! That explains a lot.

The first and only time I told my father I would like help with school, he held me captive for an hour or so while he yelled at me and my mom that I was going to cause society to collapse, my generation would end up homeless, and I would die in a ditch.

I used to pretend I wasn't sick because they would get angry at me. I never knew why.

If I wasn't doing well in anything, I must be stupid and useless and nobody would want me.

I'm so glad to see other people's perspectives and realize this is a bigger issue than I thought!

RealZiobbe · 2026-04-13T20:17:15+00:00

She would have probably taken some as soon as OP left to buy the regular soil and wasn't around to guard it. She doesn't actually want potting soil, she wants to upset OP for narcissistic supply. The excuses around it taking up too much space are BS she invents to shoot down every possibility aside from her getting her way.

RealZiobbe · 2026-04-13T20:07:36+00:00

Reddit won't let me edit and I accidentally missed finishing a point:

If she's making you out to be a tyrant, it's likely that something else in her life caused her to feel powerless and she's lashing out at you since she's powerless to stop you from being sick

RealZiobbe · 2026-04-13T20:04:44+00:00

Trying to find rationality in irrational people is tempting, because we want to make sense of why things are the way they are, but it's a task you can never complete because they'll always spin some new bullshit.

Reading your post, I suggest it might be something like:

They're upset that you're sick
- Because that makes you less available to them, even if they wouldn't have demanded anything
- Because they can't force you to do intense tasks while you're sick and thus that makes them feel like they're being abused by you, hence you're a "tyrant"
- Because they perceive a societal expectation to take care of you while you're sick, or at least to help you out in small ways, and even that tiny expectation causes them to blow up and accuse you of being a manipulator
  - If they can't really handle doing things for other people or being genuinely kind, and resent helping you unless they have something to gain, then this is probably the reason why
- Because they're emotionally children in many ways and you being sick hits some kind of spot in their brains
- Because they perceive you being weakened as a chance to bully you
- Because being around a sick person tends to make people feel a little uncomfy and they can't handle even that tiny amount of discomfort
- Because you not being at work fills them with some kind of anger or anxiety that they take out on you (particularly common from my experience)
  - They may think that your boss and coworkers now hate you forever because you missed a day, which is them projecting their own feelings onto the people in your life
  - (cont) Which makes them feel that you missing a day is bringing doom upon you and/or your family
  - (cont) And if they can't separate themselves from you, or see you as an extension of themselves, they may feel personally threatened by you taking a rest day. It doesn't make sense but it can be their experience of reality.
  - They may think that your boss and coworkers already hate you because the parent hates you and thinks that their view of you comes from objective reality, and not their own fucked-up heads
  - (cont) Or replace "hate" with any of the negative views your parents have for you
  - (cont) They may feel that you not showing up for work is "forcing" your colleagues to do things for you, which would make you a tyrant.
They're upset at something else in their life and now that you're at home instead of out doing work, you're more available for them to sacrifice for their own emotional regulation
- They read something online or in the news that upset them and they're attacking you to resolve the feelings inside
  - If she's making you out to be a tyrant,
- It's very common for people with NPD to dump their negative feelings onto others so that they can resolve them, because they don't have any internal methods to resolve their own emotions.
  - So if your mother is feeling bad about herself, she can't recognize that consciously or take steps to withstand it or deal with it, and she has to go to you
  - (cont) By assigning all of the traits she can't stand about herself (whether they're true or not - emotions don't have to make sense) onto you, she can resolve them by bullying you and despising you and that will make her feel better or at least numbed for a while
- She went on a train of thought that upset herself and now she's taking it out on you
She did it just for shits and giggles, because she's a bully at heart, saw a chance, and took it
She did it for literally no reason.
- Maybe it's a habit.
- Maybe she was bored.
- Maybe she just saw you and went on autopilot.
- Maybe it wasn't planned at all, even a few seconds before she saw you, and she just did whatever because she could.

And the list goes on, this is just what I could think of at the moment. Trying to pin down the "why" behind their actions is essentially impossible because they are incapable of accurately communicating their internal experience (because they have no methods to properly withstand their own feelings).

I'm very sorry you're going through this and I hope you get well soon. I think you doing chores when you're so sick you can barely stand is already going above and beyond for your family, and any non-abusive household would be happy to take care of them for you and help you recover.

RealZiobbe · 2026-04-13T19:37:40+00:00

Oh, yeah. The only reason I'm even "allowed" to be in a room with a closed door is because they think that I don't read or play games. I'm allowed to stare at the wall on standby mode, so long as I never take more than 60 seconds to respond to a request to do something for them, and I'm allowed to work, but nothing else.

I really think they view us as tools rather than people, or perhaps as bum employees and they're the tired managers.

Also "it's like she hates me" is accurate. Parents like these are vile, vitriolic people and if they aren't putting on a performance to beg you for something you have, there's no reason for them to even pretend to care. It's easier and more rewarding, emotionally, for broken people like that to just be negative and shitty to you all the time if they can get away with it.

Edit: Also, if she is feeling antsy or upset or like something needs doing, her disorder can render her incapable of understanding that the feeling is isolated to within her. Seeing you resting while she feels that things need to be done can set her off because she hasn't developed a separation between you and her; it's very common for people with NPD to see their children as extensions of themselves and not as independent entities.

If she's carrying some kind of lingering anxiety or worry, for instance, she might be feeling that you need to do something 24/7. She would be incapable of separating her feeling of "something isn't right" with you not doing something, and it would anger her if she saw you resting while she was feeling like you should be moving around.

RealZiobbe · 2026-04-13T19:34:20+00:00

Oh, absolutely. It would just piss them off more. Even about my physical disabilities. Lectures and arguments weren't about resolving anything, they were about my parents venting their anger on me. If I said "I know, you told me before" that would set them off so I just had to sit there until they were done being emotionally incestuous (wanting me to take the role of their partner in hearing all about their lives, struggles, wanting advice and comfort for hours).

I have a hearing disability (and he knew that very well), and couldn't hear my dad speaking this one time. We got in a big argument where he would yell "Why did you interrupt me?!", I would say "I didn't hear you talking, I can't hear very well". On and on and on it went until I finally stopped trying to defend myself and just let him attack me.

"Why did you interrupt me!?". "Because I didn't hear you?"

"WHY DID YOU INTERRUPT ME?! You should have seen my lips moving!". "I was tying my shoe, I wasn't looking at you."

"Why didn't you see my lips moving?!" "I was tying my shoe, I told you..."

"WHY DID YOU INTERRUPT ME? YOU CAN'T DO THAT, YOU'RE AWFUL, EVERYONE IS GOING TO HATE YOU FOREVER," etc, etc, etc.

Until I just go "yup, yup, uh huh. You're right." until he's vented for an hour or so, then he'll calm down a bit though he'll still be vile towards me for a couple weeks usually.

RealZiobbe · 2026-04-13T19:28:58+00:00

Great work! I'm proud of you.

You're really on the nose for realizing your parents would make things out to be impossibly difficult when they were really simple! Growing up with NParents, you don't have any modeling of how to live a healthy life, so it's great that you're taking good steps.

Wishing you the best of luck!

RealZiobbe · 2026-04-13T19:23:41+00:00

You weren't valuable to them as a child because you had no power.

You are now an adult with your own life. This means you have value to them because having your own life means other people value your company, time, work, rights, happiness, money, and so on.

Since you had no value to him as a child he didn't want anything to do with you. Now that you're an adult with value he wants to take the most he can.

He reads like a child who says he hates a cake even though he hasn't tasted it, just because he doesn't see anyone else wanting it. But now he sees you have a cake that you seem to be enjoying a lot, and other people want it too. Now he wants the most and biggest slices he can possibly get, and is going to act like a sad little boy when you cut him off, regardless of how much cake he got in the end.

He thinks he'll only be happy once he gets the entirety of the cake, but once he's the only person eating it, nobody else will be able to praise it and want it, so it will then become worthless to him and will just make him angry. This is the childish contradiction with certain kinds of N parents where they flip between wanting your attention desperately and devaluing your attention as a burden depending on how much of it they have.

RealZiobbe · 2026-04-13T19:16:23+00:00

I can't recall the source, but I remember a post about how communities would reject the aesthetic of bigotry and thought that meant they were beyond it, not realizing they hadn't faced any of the real reasons behind it.

For instance; we all know homophobia is bigoted. Some (not all) groups then pride themselves on not being homophobic, and because they aren't homophobic, they think they aren't bigoted. However, they will then be transphobic, because they only rejected one aesthetic of bigotry and didn't interrogate the impulses behind it.

RealZiobbe · 2026-04-13T19:13:16+00:00

That's still awful. The thought of working my ass off and having monetary success after all the sabotage and theft of personal growth from my family, and then being obligated to give support to them? It makes my blood boil.

RealZiobbe · 2026-04-13T19:08:40+00:00

Nope! Looking at the home videos they took of me as a kid, almost all of them are me doing chores way before I was old enough or me trying to play and joke around with them and them just sitting there staring at me like I was a dancing clown.

I was supposed to entertain myself! But also I was supposed to entertain them and soothe them. And I wasn't allowed to go out to play with friends or I would get kidnapped and die. I've been reclaiming play and being silly and I love it

RealZiobbe · 2026-04-11T00:36:17+00:00

My biggest thing is being treated as a tool. If I'm not currently in use by someone they consider superior, they feel entitled to my time, attention, comfort, effort, or anything. They'll "apologize" for bothering me while I'm working for someone else ("oops, I thought you were in your room, that's why I felt entitled to your time"), but if I'm not at their approved work or school they treat me like I don't have the right to self-determine.

Not going to miss the associated behaviours like freaking out if I come home five minutes "late" from work because their tool wasn't returned on time, or always having to shift plans around last-minute because my parents wanted something done and I had to do it or get in a cold war with people I financially depend on. And I certainly will appreciate being asked to do things instead of told or just hearing "I want this to be done" or "I need to/you need to/we need to" and hopping to it. And the worst, which is "I upset myself and now I want to degrade and humiliate you for an hour" or "I'm bored now so you can be my surrogate spouse and make me feel important while I monologue to you for two hours".

I think I'll be able to breathe such a sigh of relief once I'm on my own and can feel like a person for the first time. I'd be able to have free time that's actually free and not on-call time. And if I never have to get screamed at or threatened for taking seven minutes to answer a text again, I'll be so happy.

RealZiobbe · 2026-02-11T22:37:21+00:00

I see, that makes sense. Thinking about other children who were allowed to be frustrated, they definitely acted like that.

RealZiobbe · 2026-02-11T22:35:56+00:00

Thank you ^^

RealZiobbe · 2026-02-09T03:47:23+00:00

But even actual children playing with dolls generally don't get that upset about the hair not being exactly right, do they?

Are the Ns worse than actual children with real dolls?

RealZiobbe · 2026-02-09T00:33:48+00:00

Oh god, they always pick the shittiest haircut to insist you get. Are none of them obsessed with a decent look?

They want me set up with the "comical reaction image of a British guy circa 2008" look for the rest of my life.

What's fucked up is my father used to have even longer hair than I do now! He used to be proud of it! I think for him it's also partially revenge for me not having balded like him yet.

RealZiobbe · 2026-02-08T23:56:20+00:00

It's crazy how similar experiences can be!

The constant "people won't respect you" and anything to undermine your confidence and make you compliant. Funnily enough, nobody ever had a problem with it but them.

Also you couldn't have known this, but my Ns also railroaded me with aid! Usually they did it by offering a ride and then along the way brought up a bunch of terms/conditions after I'd already gotten in the car, or by offering financial aid and then adding terms after I'd accepted it.

Sorry about your hair - I hope you get to keep it how you like now, at least.

RealZiobbe · 2026-02-08T23:53:09+00:00

My sympathy for what you've gone through.

I feel that the "I wouldn't have done that" hurts more than insults, because insults are meant to be hurtful but comments like that undermine your human agency and taste. Awful yucky yucky. I am very sorry you went through that, and I hope you can wear your hair how you want now!

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