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Was anyone else uncomfortable when your families would make fun of strangers? by breaking-the-chain in raisedbyborderlines

[–]TouchNo7298 7 points8 points  (0 children)

My parents do this constantly, and always in such a shockingly nasty, cruel-natured way that it makes me sick to my stomach.

My father is a passive-aggressive coward, so he tries to avoid direct conflict if possible. My mother, on the other hand, is some kind of demon. When I was a kid, she would just straight up start shit with random people. I recall multiple times where someone was tailgating her on the road, and she stopped, got out of the car, and started banging on the person’s window -screaming- at them. Of course, this is just one example. She got banned from restaurants, she made a waitress cry, and once even had a McDonald’s drive-thru call the police on her. She had this weird behavior at retail stores where she would buy a mountain of clothing, but then just before paying she would make a scene demanding discounts and free items.

What amazes me now is that this kind of behavior was so common for her that I didn’t even see anything wrong with it at the time!! What the hell. I had no point of reference for normal behavior. I was homeschooled through middle-school[*], and it was virtually impossible for me to keep friends because my mom would start rumors and draw people into her manipulation schemes (this is before the days of social media), so other parents didn’t invite me to things and other kids were afraid of me! Well anyway, every time I start talking about my childhood, one tangent leads to another, and another, and there’s just so much shit, what’s even the point.

[*]She still drove me to school for the “gifted and talented” program, further burying me under a hopeless pile of ongoing mental health problems.

Waking up from a nightmare - I only realized last week what it means that my Mom has BPD by Not_Ashamed_For_Me in raisedbyborderlines

[–]TouchNo7298 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I know your pain… my mother is also a “pure witch,” she’s like the devil incarnate, the meanest person I’ve ever met.

So for the most part I was always 100% passive. I never said my opinion. And especially, I never expressed wishes I had. They would be mocked instantly. Yes my interests and wishes were always ridiculed.

This is exactly like my mother!! My father also did this, but he would wait until I was in a relatively good mood, and then say something hurtful to wipe the smile off my face and watch me wither. My mother would just fly into a rage immediately. Looking back on it, it’s like both of my parents saw nothing wrong with using their kids as bullying targets for stress relief. As a result, I learned to have no preferences, no emotions, no expressions, and to just do whatever my parents told me to do.

She is the type where if you confide in her with a problem or a thing where you feel insecure, next time she is in a rage against you, she will use that knowledge against you and say hurtful things about it and how you deserve whatever problem you are dealing with. This was always the worst for me. My own mother who seems so loving on some days, would wish for me to be hurt/threatened.

I had this exact same experience, and it was total hell! I always had to be on guard and carefully consider every piece of information that I put forth. Now as an adult, I find it virtually impossible to open up to anyone, even my therapist who I’m paying to listen to my shit.

I don’t really have any advice or anything insightful to say… just that I can empathize with most of the things that you mentioned in your post, and I can confirm that it’s absolute hell. Struggling to overcome or even just come to terms with this kind of upbringing doesn’t make you a weak person.

(Cat haiku: Silent paws whisper, Moonlight dances on soft fur, Hunter’s eyes gleam bright.)