#emotionally immature parents

[nothing0fnothing]

Most parents decide they're going to use their child's innate naivety and trusting nature to instill a sense of wonder. Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, mermaids are real, Disneyland. All that.

My parents used it to create an invisible panopticon that only existed in my mind so they could easily deny its existence if I reported it to anybody.

Basically, was told at a very young age, that there were tiny hidden cameras I couldn't see everywhere in my home, and in my clothes, and in my school. They gave my stepdad 24/7 round the clock acsess to view me whenever he wanted to. He said these cameras could not only record my face, voice and actions, but that they had special technology that could read and translate my very thoughts.

I was at the "mermaids and unicorns are real" age, so not only did all of this seem totally plausible, it terrified me. I was changing under the covers of my bed, worried he could see me on the toilet or in the shower, and worst of all I started monitoring and censoring my own thoughts, convinced he could hear every one of them.

My mum noticed I had started taking longer to get dressed and ready than I used to, and asked why I was wasting time trying to get dressed in bed. When I told her about the cameras she tried to convince me they weren't there, and even did a sweep of my room to prove it to me, but I didn't believe her. I thought my step dad had so much power he could even hide these mind reading micro cameras from other adults. She just kind of brushed it off, assuming this was some silly thing I'd be over in a week.

I wasn't.

He kept reminding me of them, so I continued to be scared of them.

The second time my mother heard of these invisible cameras were when another parent, concerned, told her about it.

See I'd been playing at her daughters house, and I was asking her to call my step dad to ask permission for every minor thing I did.

"Can you call my dad and ask if I'm allowed to play in the garden?" "Can you call my dad and ask if I'm allowed to watch TV?" "Can you call my dad and ask if I'm allowed ketchup on my chips?"

She would assure me she'd asked my mum and my mum said it was fine, but I was adamant it be my step father she call. Eventually, she asked me why I was so concerned about his permission to do these things I'd been doing fine every other time I'd been at her house.

"Because he's the one with the cameras."

I said it so naturally. Like every family had a parent who had the cameras and another who was under surveillance by them. I was worried that if I conveyed the frozen still fear I felt over these hidden cameras, it would seem that I had something to hide.

"There's no cameras in our house so you don't have to worry about it." She tried to convince me.

"Oh no, they're in my clothes" I said. "They're so tiny they could be in a zip or a button or on my shoe laces and nobody would know."

She was, understandably, freaked out by this.

I'm not sure if she beleived my step dad had just sent me bugged into her home like a pervert or something, but I think when I started talking about how it can hear my thoughts like a regular camera can record voices, she realised that this was something else.

My mum pretended that I'd made it up and was lying for attention, even though she knew I wasn't. She knew that her husband had been terrorising me with these fake omnipotent cameras for weeks to the point I was losing sleep and dreaming about them. It was just easier for her to paint me as some kind of freakishly and manipulative child. It was really messed up, this woman's daughter was my only friend, I'd be friendless and alone if she decided she didn't want her daughter learning this behaviour from me.

The last time it was brought up to her was by my aunt. I'd had a bonding day out with her that ended in me crying on her couch after dinner. I vented about the cameras and how much pressure they were putting on me. I said I felt scared to be out with anyone, because if my daddy was watching and he heard their thoughts and he didn't like them, he could stop them from ever seeing me again. I knew she didn't like him, and he didn't like her. All he needed was video proof that she thought bad things about him and he'd have the perfect excuse to cut her out of my life. I didn't want that, I loved my aunt dearly.

My mum tried to pull the same "oh she's just making it up for attention" bit, but my aunt knew my step dad, and she knew he was exactly crazy and twisted enough to torture me like that. She believed me over my mother, and after that I never heard about the cameras again.

Over the weeks I wasn't threatened with them, I slowly started to think about them less and less. And by the time I stopped thinking about them entirely, I'd stopped believing in tooth fairies and unicorns and high tech invisible cameras that could hear my thoughts.

I never forgot about them though.

[adustoflove]

No one understands guilt better than a girl with emotionally immature parents

[shamebats]

Growing up most of my extended family (my parents' siblings and their families) was boomers and they were always actively at war with each other, one time my mother & my dad's brother's wife got into a passive aggressive feud because of a coffee cup that was placed facing the wrong way when one was serving the other coffee. This was a huge deal and ended in them refusing to speak to each other.

No issues ever get resolved, they'd just bottle it up, act like nothing happened and pretend to be nice but then gossip behind each other's backs until the person being gossiped about found out about, but even that would usually not lead to a direct confrontation, they'd just start gossiping about the gossiping and like form these childish alliances against each other, sometimes to the extent where a relative who was neighbors with a second relative wasn't "allowed" to speak to them because a third relative had some kind of beef with them.

It was baffling to me even as a kid. Now I see that they were just very emotionally immature because back then those skills just weren't taught to children. But then that makes me wonder how my brother and I developed them? Maybe children's TV in the 90s was just that good.

[traumatizedjaguar]

"The guilt that people feel about what their parents may have gone through is a classic symptom of being an adult child of emotionally immature parents. They go over the boundary of what is their responsibility, worrying about the feelings and the needs and the life of other people because thats what emotionally immature parents teach their children to do. They teach their children to take care of them and to be worried about what other people need. The parent has not matured to the point where they can take care of themselves let alone a child. They're demanding that from their children, so its not surprising that the child would end up feeling guilty about any that distress the parent, and feel responsible for that because thats what their childhood would be set up to do."

Lindsay C. Gibson, PsyD

[witchyykitten]

little miss will never be good enough for her mother

no matter how hard she tries

[audreyrose7]

It's such a strange and unique way of fucking up your kid when you at the same time a) treat them like a personal therapist giving them problems that are decades away from anything that they could handle, and expecting the kid to actually fix your grown up problems and to listen to your trauma.

And b) at the same time never give them any real outside world responsibility, making sure that they know as little as possible about how to actually survive in the real world, like paying bills, etc.

Meanwhile making sure but all of your child's self-worth is tied to their actions, and not who they are as a person.

It's a weird little vicious circle, that is so incredibly hard to outgrow, because like I know I'm not worthless just because there might be a time when I'm not productive, and I know I don't have to fix everyone's problems, and I know that I'm a capable adult who can do all the things I need to do to survive and thrive, but my basic training for life goes against all that!

[femmefatalevibe]

Hi I was wondering how do you deal with a toxic family member? How do you handle situations in which they are manipulative and gaslighting you?

Validate your own emotions and experiences

Practice emotional differentiation. Prioritize your own feelings and goals

Learn the psychology behind guilt-tripping, shaming, and people-pleasing & how it's used to manipulate/gaslight children of narcissistic & other types of emotionally immature parents

Implement the "grey rocking" technique during conversations (be "boring' and emotionally flat; don't give them the emotional reaction they crave)

Go as low contact as humanely possible (no contact is the best option). Never initiate a conversation unless its absolutely necessary (logistical issue, emergency, etc. if needed)

Keep them on an information diet. Don't tell them anything about your life that is not vital for them to know

Don't try to change their minds. Just say "You're right," and disengage

Set boundaries on conversation topics/them criticizing your character. Say "I'm not engaging in this conversation." Stop replying, hang up the phone, or walk away

Live your life with them out of sight, out of mind as much as possible. You deserve to live in peace and be happy, no matter what these toxic family members say

Hope this helps xx

[otakubimbo]

Hey! Can I request for an angst romance with the very first sentence prompt with Satoru? They break up but Satoru refuses to believe that it actually happened and that it was only a joke. Like, he is in denial about it.

Hi anon! You're my first official request so thank you! I hope I did this prompt justice for you. My heart hurts.

angsty romance prompt. "tell me it was a lie, tell me you're playing with me right now "

Warnings: None really, just angst and no happy ending, which yes is so unlike me but we ball! I didn't proof read cause it made me sad writing it.

“Tell me it was a lie. Tell me you’re playing with me right now!” Satoru’s voice was at a higher level than it should being at this café. The people around pretending not to be easy dropping on the conversation that you and the man across form you were having.

“Lower your voice, people are staring.” The hushed tone of your voice, attempting to not betray the facade you were putting on.  This wasn’t easy for you, breaking up with Satoru Gojo, if anything you were breaking your own heart.

“How do you expect me to react when my girlfriend brought me out to lunch to break up with me?!” His tone is harsh, in a way you have never heard before. You flinch at his abrasiveness, making him shrink back into his chair.

Satoru’s anger and disbelief confuse you. It was as if everyone saw the signs of this impending breakup but him. The relationship had been going downhill for some time now, how could he not see that? How could he not see what he was doing? How couldn’t he see what it was doing to you?

After a year and a half of dating, you told him, you told him you loved him and you meant it with every fiber of your soul. It had been six more months since then and he never said it back. You were understanding at first when he didn’t say it back, albeit hurt a little but you knew at least a little of his past and what he has gone through. You could understand that it may be hard for him to tell you he loved you, you knew he loved you because of the way he cared for you and that was enough.

Well, you thought it was enough. After your confession, Satoru didn’t immediately become distant, but it started with small things. He stopped texting you good morning and would only say good night. The small touches, the holding hands, and the comforting hugs became few and far between. Any time you brought it up, he would play it off like nothing was wrong, everything was fine. Then it became as if the two of you were barely even friends, it seemed he was always busy as if he never had time for you anymore. And it hurt, it hurt like hell and even then you kept pushing it off just hoping he would tell you what was going on behind those piercing blue eyes of his but he never did.

That’s what lead to today, the day of your 2 year anniversary. Truthfully, you hadn’t even planned on breaking up with him today but when you sat across from him in the same café that you had your first date at, his eyes never met yours. He didn’t hold your hand across the table, he didn’t kiss your forehead on his arrival, he wasn’t your Satoru.

You could feel the tears threatening to spill as you looked up at him, “Do you know what today is? Or why I asked you here”

His jaw tightened, “It’s Tuesday and I don’t know maybe because I’m your boyfriend and we go to this café a lot.”

Is this all a joke to you? Was he just a joke to you? He knows he hasn’t been the best boyfriend lately and that he’s been a bit distant but that wouldn’t make you break up with him. Would it? You were too kind, too patient, too pure for that, right?

“This is the café that we went to on our first date, two years ago.” You aren’t even facing him anymore when you say that, just reminiscing on a time when it felt as if you were just two kids in love. Satoru froze, not even realizing that he had forgotten. He had been trying so hard to keep you at an arm’s length after your confession that he had seemed to just push you away.  He didn’t even say anything as you turned to him, tears threatening to spill down your beautiful face at any single moment. What had he done?

“Do you even love me, Satoru?”

The question hung in the air, making his mouth go dry. He did, he loved you more than he should and that was the problem. His love for you scared him, you scared him. You didn’t know the power that you held over him; you made him weak. You were his weakness. But he was the strongest, he couldn’t afford a weakness, but he wasn’t strong enough to let you go either. Now here he was, unable to speak the words that have been written into his heart from the moment he saw you.

With a sad smile, you take his silence as your answer gathering your things and leaving you there. His heart shattered as he watched you leave out of the door, fading from his vision. Satoru’s worst fear came true, the strongest was defeated, the strongest was broken by you and it was all his own fault.

[wild-rose3090]

I'm not a whole person

I never will be

Parts of me died in the place I called home

Not a home, but a tomb

For the person I could have been

Instead of this loveless husk I've become

Angry at those who failed me

I've learned to embrace my anger

It's shown me so much

That my mistreatment is unacceptable

I deserve compassion, kindess, and love

But when you're not fed love as a child

Later you will lick it from knives

[crazycatsiren]

Growing up as an undiagnosed autistic child living with an emotionally immature parent be like, not show enough emotion and you're a cold and heartless woodblock, show too much emotion and you're a melodramatic and histrionic attention-seeker.

[walkwithursus]

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but a child cannot ‘abandon’ a parent. There’s no such thing as parent abandonment. Either you cultivate a relationship with your child that encourages them to maintain contact with you as an adult, or they can leave. Full stop.

[theereina]

😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨 I didn't have a fighting chance if you ask me.

[millerflintstone]

Saw this yesterday and it rang true for me. I've never felt like this towards my cats but the basic needs that I have can be irritating. I'm making an effort to take care of myself now vs when I was in corporate hell from 2019-2022.

One of the things I'm working through is the irritation I felt whenever something health related happened to my sister like it was an on-purpose affront against me. I didn't realize it was a trauma response. I just thought I was such a bitch to her at times for "no reason".

[snapnarcissisticabuserecovery]

@psychotherapy.central

[childish-husk]

This is for everyone who feels like they're going crazy trying to figure out if they were/are being abused.

Not every insult sounds like 'your stupid' or 'your ugly'. Abusers may not say 'your just crazy' when they try to gaslight you.

They may say things along the lines of

'you dont even try'

'if you were smarter you would ____'

'why can't you be normal?'

When trying to insult you

They may say something along the lines of

'Well I'm sorry that's what you *thought* I did'

'you need a therapist your mental illness is changing your perception'

'why do you argue everything'

When they try to gaslight you

Lots of abusers try to be subtle about how they insult and manipulate you so they can hide behind plausible deniability.

"we weren't trying to insult/manipulate you we'd *never* do that! I can't believe this is what you think of us. That just shows that *you're* in the wrong. You need to apologize"

Sound familiar?

They're *trying* to make you to feel crazy, it lets them keep getting away with it. And if you think 'they wouldn't do that *on purpose*, it must be unconscious' they want you to think that to. It also doesn't excuse their behavior even if it is unconscious

[witchyykitten]