What Were You Thinking Mom
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What Were You Thinking Mom
What to Do When You Can’t Forgive Your Parents For “Ruining Your Life”
P arents aren’t perfect. Some are better than others at raising happy, healthy children. How did your parents do?
Things aren’t always rosy at home. In the US in 2018, there were 677,529 reported child victims of maltreatment. How many went unreported?
Other well-meaning parents thought tough-love or authoritarian parenting was normal, but it wasn’t a healthy way to treat their kids. It causes bullying, drug use, and depression in many cases.
Social services never investigated my parents for what went on in my home, although by today’s standards, someone would have gone to jail, and I would have been placed in government custody.
The chances are high that either you or someone you know grew up in a less-than-ideal household, whether or not your parents loved you. And that left you with baggage that you get to pack for the rest of your life.
I’m not writing this to make anyone feel sorry for me or one-up your sad childhood. You may have lived through some terrible stuff. This isn’t a contest. But if anyone could claim their parents did a crappy job, it’s me.
My dad was an alcoholic who didn’t keep a steady job. He used violence to tune me, my brother, and his wife in. I was accustomed to getting a beating if I went out of line. It happened a lot.
My mom wasn’t affectionate, didn’t clean the house, and didn’t defend my brother or me against our dad. She hid from her problems by drawing and painting with all of her spare time, ignoring us. We ran around free-range, doing whatever we wanted, getting our own food, stealing, breaking stuff, getting in trouble.
I was left alone with a sexual predator and abused at the age of 5. When I tried to tell my mom what happened, she wouldn’t listen. She ignored it, so it kept happening. I understand first-hand what sexual abuse does to your entire life. It wrecks it.
My parents were hoarders, just like on the show. I was surrounded by stacks of newspapers, garbage, unwashed dishes, and dirty laundry my entire childhood. We lived like animals, but dirty, unnatural ones. Most wild dens are cleaner.
Because no-one did laundry, we didn’t have running water, and I only owned two changes of clothes, I went to school smelly and dirty. I got picked on, bullied, ostracized, and shunned. I had no friends.
Life seemed short and hard, like a bodybuilding elf. It made me constantly think of killing myself and escaping that cruel existence.
So, yeah. I understand why you might blame your parents for your troubles when you finally escape that life. I did.
It feels good to assign blame to your parents because they ruined your life. And at first, maybe that’s all you can do. The problem is, if you get stuck complaining about the past, you can’t move forward.
While you focus on what happened years ago and look at what’s bad in your life, you aren’t as open to the good things. You miss opportunities. You lose out on life.
Yes. The trauma is real. But revisiting it over and over in the blame-frame doesn’t do you any good. It just makes you miserable, and you feel justified for harboring hate or anger in your heart.
You have to let it go. Blame, anger and hate is a cage that you build for yourself. Open the door. Leave. And if you need help to heal, then please go get it!
You show me an abusive parent, and I’ll show you someone whose childhood sucked.
My dad’s early life was terrible. It makes what I went through look like a day at the spa. He was beaten and verbally abused for years, not only by his dad but by all of his older brothers. Some of his relatives died of alcoholism. His pioneer family had no money and no prospects.
His role models were the opposite of healthy.
“Don’t criticize what you can’t understand.”
My mom was raised in a family loaded with sexual abuse, emotional cruelty, and religious fanatics. She couldn’t stand up to the men in her life and was forced to push down her true self all of her life. She lived through one winter with nothing to eat but turnips and potatoes because the crops failed. They were poor, but not like what my kids know as poor. My mom didn’t have luxuries like books or snack food.
She thought success meant staying alive.
How could I expect the perfect parents when they came from this? They weren’t making choices because THEY COULDN’T. They did the best they knew how to, based on their programming. Mom and dad were trapped in their roles by their families, their upbringing, and society at that time.
There are criminals, and those you would call evil, who do become parents. I’m not writing about them here. I’m referring to regular parents who messed up. Their intent wasn’t to wreck you.
Did my dad wake up one morning and say, “You know what? I think I’m gonna have a kid so I can be his alcoholic abuser and ruined his life!”
Did my mom think, “Why don’t I marry an abusive man who will beat my kids and me? Then I’ll become a hoarder and surround my family with garbage so I can raise them to be twisted little individuals that grow up hating me?”
No. They didn’t. They started as an optimistic couple that had fun together and dreamed of a happy life with happy children. They just didn’t have the tools to pull it off.
They failed, and I can lay some of it at their feet. Sure, if they had moved mountains and struggled like an ultramarathoner in the last 10 miles of a 200-mile race, maybe they could have busted through their heritage and bad programming. Suppose they had gone for therapy, or moved to a different part of the world, or gotten help from an outsider? But they didn’t.
The deck was stacked against them. And they lost the game.
Everyone’s situation is different. There are nasty parents out there who don’t deserve your love or forgiveness.
I know that my parents feel like they should have done more. And yes, they definitely should have.
Now I’m a parent, with three grown children. When my kids were little, I was operating under my own crappy programming. And guess what? It wasn’t all helpful, healthy, or perfect. That’s because I’m a human, and life is hard.
I wish I did better. I wish I could have been the ultimate dad who set his kids up for the best life possible. But I didn’t.
It isn’t because I didn’t want to or didn’t try. Certain people on the internet will tell you it’s because I didn’t try hard enough. I think this idea is poisonous and harmful in most cases. I did the best I could.
My wife and I treated being a parent seriously. If there was an action that we thought needed to be taken for our children's wellbeing, we took it no matter the personal cost.
We sacrificed our time, energy, and resources for our kids. Whatever good things we had, we threw on the “for the kids” pile. Sometimes that left us nothing personally.
Was this the right approach? Probably not. But we put everything we had into it, and we went for broke.
You might not be able to forgive your parent,s or even want to. even so, it’s in your best interests to move on. Healing can only make you a better person.
It helps to talk about these issues with friends or professionals who aren’t directly in the situation with you. Counseling can help almost anyone if you give it a chance.
Please, don’t hide from these problems. You deserve to feel better and get closure.
We need to have compassion for each other. Have you tried putting yourself in the other person’s shoes?
Imagine you were your mom or dad. What was their life like?
If you actually stepped into another person’s life with all of their hangups and problems, I bet you might do a lot of the same things they did. Rapists and abusers are obviously not in this category. Even though I was beaten and raped, I would never do that to another being. But think about the other complaints people have against their parents, and actually try to see their side of it.
That’s what we need more of—reframing, forgiveness, and positive steps forward.
Blame is a dead end and won’t help you grow as a person.
I always strive not to be harmful. Instead, be harmless as you can. If you have a relationship with your parents, call them and talk. They deserve that much.
Want to stay in touch? You can catch up with me here .
A community of storytellers documenting the journey to happiness and fulfillment.
Writer, Meditation Instructor, Laser Beam Repairman. Author of the book: 90-Day Meditation Challenge — How to build a daily mindfulness habit. www.tim-ebl.com
A community of storytellers documenting the journey to happiness & fulfillment. Join thousands of others making the climb on Medium.
Writer, Meditation Instructor, Laser Beam Repairman. Author of the book: 90-Day Meditation Challenge — How to build a daily mindfulness habit. www.tim-ebl.com
A community of storytellers documenting the journey to happiness & fulfillment. Join thousands of others making the climb on Medium.
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What are you thinking Mom Jane, She continues to wait for her baby on...
What to Do When You Can’t Forgive Your Parents For “Ruining Your Life”
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“I feel like I don’t fit in anywhere. Even with you.”
I wanna tell my best friend this so much but I feel like it would crush her. We love each other to bits, but it’s like.... I always feel 2nd rate to her other friends. It’s been the same with all my friends over the years, to the point where I just slowly withdraw because the anxiety of “not living up to the friendship” gets the better of me. I’m going to end up with nobody in my life except for family, and all the people I’ve lost over the years will think I don’t like them when it’s not that. It’s the fact I look up to them, and could never live up to what I feel I should be as a friend.
EDIT: You people are absolutely beautiful humans. I saw the question and this is the first thing came to mind so i just thought, huh why not, nobody will read it anyway and its all just usernames.
And holy moly 8 hours later my most upvoted and awarded comment ever is one that has helped me in a way I don’t even know yet. And that’s on you guys. I hope at least some of you have found something in this thread to maybe hold on to as well. Again, you’re all amazing I love you all.
Hey, I know you didn't ask for advice or anything but I feel like this a lot as well. At one point I stopped hanging out with my friends cause I was anxious about them not liking me. I kinda pushed through it after a few months and started to make plans with them. A lot of them were happy I was back and hanging out with them. If they're a true friend, they'll care for you. Push through the anxiety, it's easier said than done but I'm rooting for ya!
This... this just... I’ve never felt quite so seen. Fuck.
I'm in this comment and I don't like it.
i definitely feel that I dont bring much to other people's loves sometimes and pretty much feel peripheral to everybody I know's lives. I'm anxious I'll end up alone but I'm also riddled with anxiety at the thought of letting people in
I wish I was taught to have boundaries and to say “no”. It’s annoying I’m discovering this so late in life. Oh and not to be a people pleaser.
I struggle with this too. The thing really getting to me lately is always giving someone 110% and getting around 30% back. I just feel drained and used a lot of the time.
This was so hard for me too. I was raised where you have to help people less fortunate no matter what. It does get easier the more you work on it.
Be prepared for people to not accept your no and still try to pressure you. Just stick to your original answer. Once you give in they will know they can just roll over you again and again. Also, don't bother with long explanations of why you can't help. They don't really care and they will just use your reasoning to tell you why you're wrong.
Sometimes i feel jealous when my friends are with their other friends, i know that's not right and they're allowed to have other friends, and i feel bad about it but i can't help it
I'm not my best friend's best friend
My ex-girlfriend blew my mind with this one, “when I think of you with other people I feel a little sad but I never see the person, I just see you and see how happy you are and that makes me happy cause you’re the person I love” I know very different but maybe there’s something in there you can take away about jealousy or in my case how to deal with it.
I feel this a lot, and usually it's because my friend's friends would be closer to them than I was. At this point I've kinda given up on having friends anyway aside from a few people, but even they are closer with each other than I am. Sucks but I get used to it lol.
I'm sick and I'm just going to get sicker. I'm so scared. My mother is going through it and i have to go through the same thing and I don't want to. I want help.
