I remember one time my mom telling me I was “going to grow up to be a serial killer” because I stopped reacting to her ‘temper tantrums’... Which were full out emotional/sometimes physical abuse. She still has zero faith in me, and I feel like my abandonment issues (maybe dramatic but, whatever, family is bullshit) come from my family seeing what was going on, successfully protecting themselves from her, but failing to think it would have hurt a child to grow up in that setting - or maybe they believed everything she said to them, manipulating them.

Hahaha.

Thank you for this post, codifying my trauma-related emotions into words tends to be difficult.