Anyone else know how to cope with this?

[Latekin]

Urgh, ok, difficult to explain. So, I have mental issues. ADD, Anxiety, Depression and Suicidal Tenancies. I'm working through them. I stopped posting for a while there because the last one on that list bit me in the ass again. I'm fine though.

In the past, I used to deal with compulsive lying and anger issues, and I pretty much have them under control now (Although try explaining to a coworker why getting really angry makes you burst into tears and become physically sick.) Go on, I'll wait.

Well, I recently discovered WHY a few of my issues exist. I uh, I thought I had a fairly normal home life as a kid...turns out, not so much.

Emotional abuse is a thing parents do sometimes. Didn't really know it applied to my folks until the Proff at my psych course started going over the effects of growing up in an emotionally abusive household on adult patients and realized every single point he went over applied to me. Talked to my partner hoping he'd laugh it all off with me, but he kinda got uncomfortable and pretty much went "uh, yeah. The things you've talked about as a kid are kinda messed up. That's not how families are supposed to work.

Now...I can't stop finding different messed up things my parents did. I see it all now and it's...sad. I've never really liked going home to see my Mum, but now I actually know why. Used to feel guilty about that, now, not so much. I like my Dad, but shit man, where were you when she was messing with my head? Why the hell did you never believe me?

Anyone else dealt with this sort of thing? How the hell do I work through this? Will I ever stop being pissed right the hell off?

[mjr]

One thing I've heard that some people will do is the following:

Sit down with some paper and a pen. Write a letter to each person you need to. Just get it all out. Use whatever language you need to use, and make it as angry as you want. Get everything out. The letter can be as long or as short as you want it.

But DON'T mail the letters. Either put them up somewhere, or tear them up and throw them away.

If you don't want to waste paper, just open up a Word Processing program and type up the letter. I think hand-writing it would be more effective, though.

I can't say you'll never stop being pissed off about it, but there's a certain "release" that you may have to go through, and I've heard of people doing this letter thing as part of that release.

I have self-esteem issues and self-doubt issues from my childhood, as well.

[Latekin]

Thanks. I will probably try that. I really need some form of closure on this. I'll do the letter thing. I want to tell people some of the stuff that happened. Mostly because I can't believe I thought this was normal. I wish I'd seen this stuff earlier.

[MoonCat]

Hi. I grew up with an alcoholic father and a very depressed mother. Baggage, oh boy, have we got that in my family. I'm sitting here at home today instead of at work because of a physical reaction to emotional stress from a few days ago. I can't seem to just brush it off like I used to.

I LOVE the letter idea. It's amazing how therapeutic that kind of thing can be. Also, if you want to PM me, we can trade stories, or if you just wanna vent, feel free.

[morgana]

Something that helped me get past the emotional abuse from my second husband (who I've mentioned on here before) was a bit more physical.

The basement of the house I moved into after the split was unfinished concrete blocks. My roommate and I liked to go to garage sales. I bought A LOT of cheap, ugly crockery over a six or eight month period, and then spent hours in the basement lobbing it as hard as I could at a picture of Clueless taped up on the concrete wall. Usually screaming at him as I did.

A lot of the time Tori (the roomie) was sitting there giggling at me. She even sometimes suggested things for me to yell at him. But then she hated the man for what he did to me.

Just a suggestion.

[Tama]

I recommend posting on reddit's Raisedbynarcississt's board. The behavior you describe in your dad is enabling, which tends to go hand in hand with a narc.

[mjr]

Thanks. I will probably try that. I really need some form of closure on this. I'll do the letter thing. I want to tell people some of the stuff that happened. Mostly because I can't believe I thought this was normal. I wish I'd seen this stuff earlier.

But please remember, DON'T mail the letters.

One time I referred to a couple of members of my family as "travel agents for guilt trips".

[Android Kaeli]

I can vouch for the letters. If I'm having a particularly horrible day and really don't want to talk to anyone about it, I'll open Word up and start just typing things to people. It calms everything down and the boulder falls away so much easier.

[KuariKaydrith]

Writing out how you feel about what you dealt with growing up is always such a cathartic thing. Whenever I need to get stuff out I write a blog post and put it out there. Especially when certain memories surface after being triggered by something I've seen or read.

When I was still in counselling many years ago my counselor encouraged me to write down my feelings. I didn't have to show him anything I wrote - I just had to write it out to get my feelings out so that I could better deal with them. I used to bottle everything up and when things got to be too much I would lash out violently at whoever or whatever was closest. Never a good thing when you grew up in a physically abusive environment.

I have blown up at my mother in recent years. We live across the country from each other, but she would still try her best to get under my skin. One day she started something publicly on FB and I let her have it. It carried over into PMs and I blocked her for her bullshit...and copied and pasted the entire PM convo into pictures that I then posted on FB so if anybody asked what the hell happened they could read it for themselves.

I find it also helps to have at least one really good friend you can open up to. I'm fortunately in that I have a friend who used to as a paramedic, specializing in mental crisis, who managed to pull me back from a very bad place more than once. She knows more about the bullshit I grew up with than pretty much anybody else. Dysfunctional barely comes close to describing my relationship with my parents, especially with my mother.

[Aragarthiel]

I like to talk things over with my hubby. I was living with an aunt and uncle for a while and I'm still trying to get over some of the things they did. Just telling someone about what happened lets me feel better. Hubs is about to forbid me from telling any stories, some of them just make him so

Another thing that I found helps, is I started to work on a good relationship with one of my cousins, who was innocent in the matter. It's helping me work towards finally forgiving my aunt and uncle, strangely enough.

I know this hasn't been suggested, but have you tried talking to your parents about how they treated you? And another thing- if they still treat you this way, no relationship at all is better than a toxic one, even if it's family. I cut my aunt and uncle off for almost a decade and am just starting to talk to them again.

[Latekin]

I recommend posting on reddit's Raisedbynarcississt's board. The behavior you describe in your dad is enabling, which tends to go hand in hand with a narc.

I might, but my mother's a confusing one. She might be a narcissist, god knows she had the golden child/scapegoat dynamic going with my brother (still does, he's 23 never had a job, never done anything after highschool and he's still the wonderboy. Meanwhile I'm averaging a 95% at uni, work part time and live away from home, and I'm still the irresponsible one somehow). She's definitely gaslights too. But she also doesn't fit a lot of descriptors.

know this hasn't been suggested, but have you tried talking to your parents about how they treated you?

Once, when I was younger and stupid. Told my Dad how I felt. He went and told my Mum and then she spun him some story revolving around "you know how difficult she is, I'm still trying to get her to stop lying all the time" and then they both got mad at me.

I don't need to cut contact fortunately. They can't really do too much to me now. Thanks to years of being blamed for everything going wrong with the family and carrying that guilt, I'm nearly superhumanly immune to guilt trips. They just make me angry.

I just remembered I forgot to call them over easter. I'm sure my mother will be completely reasonable about that, understanding that with my workload over public holidays I barely had time to put food in my face-hole with all of my extra shifts.

[lvsssycat]

I had much anger for many years at my terrible, neglectful mother(deadbeat dad).

The turning point for me is when my therapist told me that it was ok for me to be angry with my mother.

I cut her toxic ass out of my life years ago.

I'm sure throwing pottery may help too.

[EricKei]

I actually did the letter thing, re a failed relationship yeeears ago -- Got up to half a dozen pages in my incomprehensible script...held on to it for a couple of days and then burned the sucker. Was rather therapeutic ^_^

It's certainly worth a try!

[Kanalah]

First off *hugs*

I grew up in a very toxic household. My parents lavished love and affection on my younger sister and refused basic care for me. I still feel worthless and I've been out of that house for 13 years. Last month both of my parents asked if they could move in to my house. In the same conversation my mom told me in her will she was leaving everything to my sister.

[mjr]

Last month both of my parents asked if they could move in to my house. In the same conversation my mom told me in her will she was leaving everything to my sister.

That's f**ked up.

I feel for you. I'm kind of the same way. At this point in my life, I don't really care, but I think my sister is my mother's favorite. My mother sees her more, talks to her more, and dotes over her children more.