Top three worse things PD parent has done to you?

p123 · September 18, 2019, 11:14:45 AM

I try to remember these for days when I feel guilty!
(I know I've mentioned some of these previously)

1. Pretended he was ill xmas day. Then kept me at his house threatening to call an ambulance. My young kid was at home waiting for daddy to come home. Wife was not happy. I've never invited him back on xmas day because he thinks its all about him.

2. Self-inflicted an injury on himself because he thought he was ill enough to be in hospital. The doctors didn't think so. UNTIL he got his way and had a head injury. Hospital told us it was 99.99% self inflicted. Then he expected me to miss work to pick him up. Proving as I always know that Dad knows it all.

3. 80th birthday meal. My son had bought him a pop up balloon in a box - he was SO excited. Dad saw it stuffed it back in the box shouted "Whatever you do don't get this out in public". Why I'll never know. Son burst into tears. Then made it worse by throwing it all in the trash bin (in front of my son) when we got back home. No-one else's feelings matter.

4. (Oops cant leave this one out). When told my wife was pregnant at 41 said (in front of her) "you're too old for another baby", "they cost money whats the matter with you both" (I earn PLENTY of money), then 5 mins later "So was it an accident?" (mind you're own business but it wasnt!). Not once did he ever congratulate us. Worked out why - another baby is a distraction taking my attention away from him.

Starboard Song · September 18, 2019, 11:47:00 AM

My MIL

1. Announced she didn't want to intereact with us ever again
2. Write a letter with decades of condemnation against me and my wife
3. Smear our good names with a malicious, ignorant, libelous letter to a community member

overitall · September 18, 2019, 12:11:50 PM

1. uBPDm and uND sent me for an entire summer to grandparents in other state, even though they knew GF had a history of molesting other young relatives (I was his victim for three long months).

2. When became pregnant with child #1, they were absolutely mortified (I was 24) and told me I was too young and never to expect them to babysit (because MY child was NOT their responsibility).

3. Had a huge screaming match in front of my children at a holiday; (lots of F-bombs) When I told them to stop and that it was not appropriate, they abruptly cancelled the celebration, gathered up all gifts, and told EVERYONE that it was my fault because I ruined the day for everyone.

StayWithMe · September 18, 2019, 12:19:55 PM

My mother:

1. offered me a college graduation party and then invited a professor who promised to write a recommendation for me for a summer program but didn't do it and didn't. I told my mother this and she told me that she can't everything I tell her.

2. Befriended a guy I broke up with; took his phone calls and told me about them. didn't realise at the time that my sister was playing informant so there was always new material. One time my mother told me that the guy called her to tell her that he saw in the park playing tennis with a man. Now that was true. Then my mother went on to say that he could that I was in a romantic position with this same man in a public park.
My mother looked right at me when she said it. I guess to watch my reaction from start to finish.

Amadahy · September 18, 2019, 12:48:20 PM

How to choose?!

1. Wrote DH parents letters while we were engaged accusing him of all kinds of sexual impropriety and saying that doctors told me I'd die in childbirth so I was to never have kids (we have three awesome kids!);

2. Called college dean to report DH (then fiancee') had a gun and was threatening me. Dean and I became good friends after;

3. Began gaslighting my oldest, autistic son after we took her in to keep an eye on her progressing dementia. This was the final straw and what got her evicted. It was especially cruel as he had to face who his Gma is whereas I'd shielded him prior.

There are many, many (MANY) more and I regret putting up with so much over my life. I should have gone NC when I fled home at 17. Instead, I am LC, MC and it's manageable, but with no pleasure whatsoever.

I am profoundly grateful for this forum and a beautiful FOC. ❤️

Andeza · September 18, 2019, 01:05:32 PM

Hmm, yes indeed where to start. Trigger warning. Spanking.

1 Perverted our religion to set herself up as the ultimate authority in the home and justify every single thing she ever did or said to me. Including using it to spank me with a leather belt if I had any emotions real or imagined that she disagreed with.

2 Made sex out to be dirty and immoral by her extremely botched handling of the birds and bees conversation. Which is utter hypocrisy as she was promiscuous in her youth. As such she repeatedly accused me of sleeping with dh before marriage, even though that didn't happen. She was projecting I think. That's all I can figure.

3 Made the deaths of my uncle, and a few years later my grandfather, all about her and how someone in the family slighted her. Really what happened was she put her foot in it and they called her out. Not hard to put your foot in it when your mouth never freaking closes...

I could go on, but you only asked for three. Sheesh, our pd parents are just unbelievable.

Call Me Cordelia · September 18, 2019, 01:42:43 PM

1. Smeared me as a mentally unstable child abuser, and tried to see my children behind my back to gather "evidence" of same in retaliation for my going NC. That's why an intended temporary break is now permanent. Certainly as long as we have minor children.

2. Not a single incident, but never loved or genuinely cared about me. This has a million corollaries: Destroyed my self-esteem, allowed me to be abused by others throughout my childhood, dumped me with toxic shame... on and on. I deserved love from my parents.

3. Knew/know exactly what they were doing to me and did it anyway. My dad used to joke that he would pay for my therapy.

Gaining Clarity · September 18, 2019, 06:01:21 PM

Interesting thread. A big hug to all of you. I'm sorry each of you had to endure these things.

Aside from death by a thousand cuts, these stand out for me:

1) At 18, told me I was the root of all the family problems. Had never been in trouble a day in my life and was on my way to a good college. To this day, tells everyone including DH that I'm sick, crazy, need help.
2) When DS was three, DH and I were under tremendous stress due to tight finances, job pressures, his parent being terminally ill, me having several miscarriages, etc. Despite that and with no support or empathy from FOO or DH's fam, Nmom informed me that DH and I were such bad parents that DS was going to become a sociopath. Yes. She actually used "sociopath". DS is an incredibly responsible, smart, kind, funny and productive adult now who wants nothing to do with her or other FOO.
3) Smeared me to all extended relatives, all childhood friends and neighbors, and anyone else she can think of. Most of them have turned their back on us as a result. Also tried to get DH to go against me as well as NGCsib going behind my back to try to turn DS against me.

D.Dan · September 18, 2019, 07:46:57 PM

Sorry, just realized I should put a trigger warning

***** trigger warning for sexual abuse*****

It's hard to pick what's worst cause most incidents were traumatizing in different ways. I'll try though.

1) I was molested by my foster father in grade 1, I had reported him to my school the next day but nothing happened and I continued living with him for another year with my 2 younger siblings. My uPDmom brought up my molestation when I was 12 by first saying I must have dreamed it and it didn't happen, then followed that with how I should've known he was gonna do that when I asked to stay up past bedtime (the first and last time I ever asked anybody), then immediately finished with how I must've wanted him to touch me. She woke me up after midnight to say this to me without letting me speak and then leaving me in the dark to go to sleep again.

2) A couple years ago while my middle child was having a meltdown (I have 3 severely autistic non-verbal children), my uPDmom got in their face asking 'what their problem was?', my child pulled her hair. She then spent the next hour yelling at me that I needed to either give up my child to foster care or she'll MAKE ME give up my child, because I was going to refuse to protect my mother from my child! She then threatened to help my uPDex and his family to win everything in the divorce, leaving me and my children traumatized and destitute. Then when I got mad, she proceeded to try to convince me she never said any of those threats and that I must be really jealous of her to try and smear her good character. (except I recorded the whole thing)

3) When me and my sis were 9 and 10, my uPDmom made us give her 45 year old boyfriend a sensual massage in our bedroom, while she watched soaps in the living room. She was literally 4 feet away, and her excuse for why WE had to do it instead of HER was because she wanted to give him a massage but just didn't feel like doing it! It's still one of the most disturbing things that I remember. We didn't leave because she was standing guard outside our room with a wooden spoon while watching tv. We figured out how to get out of it, by trying to punch him and ram our tiny elbows into his back after about 10-15 minutes of hearing him moan about how good we were.... uuggghhh...

p123 · September 19, 2019, 03:26:08 AM

Quote from: D.Dan on September 18, 2019, 07:46:57 PM
Sorry, just realized I should put a trigger warning

***** trigger warning for sexual abuse*****

It's hard to pick what's worst cause most incidents were traumatizing in different ways. I'll try though.

1) I was molested by my foster father in grade 1, I had reported him to my school the next day but nothing happened and I continued living with him for another year with my 2 younger siblings. My uPDmom brought up my molestation when I was 12 by first saying I must have dreamed it and it didn't happen, then followed that with how I should've known he was gonna do that when I asked to stay up past bedtime (the first and last time I ever asked anybody), then immediately finished with how I must've wanted him to touch me. She woke me up after midnight to say this to me without letting me speak and then leaving me in the dark to go to sleep again.

2) A couple years ago while my middle child was having a meltdown (I have 3 severely autistic non-verbal children), my uPDmom got in their face asking 'what their problem was?', my child pulled her hair. She then spent the next hour yelling at me that I needed to either give up my child to foster care or she'll MAKE ME give up my child, because I was going to refuse to protect my mother from my child! She then threatened to help my uPDex and his family to win everything in the divorce, leaving me and my children traumatized and destitute. Then when I got mad, she proceeded to try to convince me she never said any of those threats and that I must be really jealous of her to try and smear her good character. (except I recorded the whole thing)

3) When me and my sis were 9 and 10, my uPDmom made us give her 45 year old boyfriend a sensual massage in our bedroom, while she watched soaps in the living room. She was literally 4 feet away, and her excuse for why WE had to do it instead of HER was because she wanted to give him a massage but just didn't feel like doing it! It's still one of the most disturbing things that I remember. We didn't leave because she was standing guard outside our room with a wooden spoon while watching tv. We figured out how to get out of it, by trying to punch him and ram our tiny elbows into his back after about 10-15 minutes of hearing him moan about how good we were.... uuggghhh...

OMG all of those are just awful!

p123 · September 19, 2019, 03:52:42 AM

Wow some of these things are way worse than what I've had to deal with. Sorry I guess a lot of my stuff is low-level....

p123 · September 19, 2019, 03:55:56 AM

OK one more

5. Wanted me to visit for some reason but I was busy in work. Was up at 3am and called into the office. He blackmailed me and said he really needed his wheelchair back (it was in my car) because he was going to get his cousin to take him out the next day (first time ever). I asked him if he 100% needed it because I had had no sleep, was still in the office (midday). NO he needed it. So I had to make a 90 min round trip journey and come back to work. Very tired.

And guess what , when I spoke to him - "No didn't use the wheelchair - I didn't like to ask my cousin to push me around".

As you can imagine I was not pleased at all.

D.Dan · September 19, 2019, 05:53:36 AM

Quote from: p123 on September 19, 2019, 03:52:42 AM
Wow some of these things are way worse than what I've had to deal with. Sorry I guess a lot of my stuff is low-level....

p123, I just want to let you know that you're not suffering low-level abuse. Your receiving emotional and mental abuse. Death by a thousand paper cuts with plausible deniability.

I'm sorry but I wouldn't trade the treatment I received from my uPDmom for the treatment you received from your uPDdad, because truthfully... I don't want to have been abused at all. None of us deserved any of this treatment.

Andeza · September 19, 2019, 06:20:12 AM

D. Dan makes a valid point. Abuse is abuse, no matter what form it takes it is unacceptable on every level.

IcanseeClearly · September 19, 2019, 08:17:57 AM

1) tried to undermine my relationship with DH. First he'd never marry me. Then when he got engaged started whispering to pple that he's probably gay. Then when our first child was born, telling me he was going to take our child and leave me.

2) Repeatedly jeapordized my health and dd health. Chose to arrive at my house from a developing country with an undiagnosed respiratory illness. I then got very sick at 9 months pregnant and had to deliver while ill. Dd was born with a congenital issue that required surgery. Our attending physicians noted the uPDm's coughing and hacking and said she could not be around the baby without a mask at all times, due to the congenital issue making dd more susceptible. Lots of fighting and raging (including yelling/cringe) about the mask, and 'forgetting ' to wear it or wash her hands. Triangulating to foo that we were abusing her

3) Smear campaign when we made her leave our home. Continued to accuse us of treating her poorly. Attack on newborn baby daughter. Smear campaign to foo hinting that dd might be intersexed as a way to get revenge (nothing against intersexed individuals, just that there is absolutely zero truth to this)

*Bonus
Refused to be supportive in the delivery room. Refused to hold my leg. Dh held one and a nurse held the other. Instead uPDm stood over my doctors shoulder while I labored and delivered. Told me afterwards how awful I looked down there....ironically I delivered an 8.5 pounder with no injuries or incisions not even a tiny scratch. But yeah lots of eyebrow raising and the word 'horrible' was used.

Liketheducks · September 19, 2019, 09:04:18 AM

Leaving out the outright physical abuse....
1. Purposefully not sharing tax return information while I was putting myself through college so that I could apply for financial aid. I had to go to an attorney to be declared an emancipated minor so that I could be the first in my family to complete college. They were so wrapped up in using me as a pawn in the implosion of their marriage that they couldn't parent.
2. Threatening to kill me or themselves so many times that I just respond with...if that's what you need to do. Dad pointed a gun at me at one time. "But it wasn't loaded"....so it's not so bad in his mind. To him, it didn't happen.
3. Before I learned that boundaries were a good thing and let my unbpd Mom live with me....when I discovered that this wasn't healthy and that my FOC was really starting to suffer. I offered her another place to live. Offered to move her. Offered the moon. She told everyone else in my FOO that I kicked her out and made her homeless. That was more than 3 years ago. When we do talk, we're VLC, she still has it in her mind that I need to "fix it". Not sure what "it" is. Pretty sure any efforts I make won't be enough or right.

p123 · September 19, 2019, 09:10:01 AM

See a lot of people who've experienced more "severe" issues that I've had - as someone pointed out I've had lots of continuous.

Constant thread seems to be "denied it ever happened". WOW Just wow. This is exactly what I get. I can catch Dad out lying, making things up, generally being bad and a day later he manages to sweep it under the carpet.

MamaDryad · September 19, 2019, 10:09:59 AM

For what it's worth, p123, my mother's treatment of me has been a mix of "low level" stuff and a few really dramatic, big things. Most of the big things are back in my childhood (I'm very late 30s now) because she just hasn't had that kind of control of my life as an adult. And yet the stuff that hurts me most isn't always the things you'd think.

I feel guilty about it sometimes, because I tell people (who didn't grow up with a PD parent) about the big stuff, because I know that's what has the best chance of helping them understand why I'm NC, but it's not the stuff that feels the biggest to me, if that makes sense.

MamaDryad · September 19, 2019, 10:24:08 AM

The ones I tell people when I need them to understand:

1. She threatened to commit suicide in front of me whenever we'd fight, starting around age 6 or so. She'd storm into the kitchen, hold a knife to her throat, and say that she knew it was what I wanted and I could clean up the mess. This happened a lot.

2. She drove drunk with me in the car, probably many times (we lived in the city and she didn't go out much at night, so not as often as you might think, but we'd spend summers in the country) but one night in particular that I remember: it was so foggy that she told me to warn her when she was getting near the sides of the road. I was probably about 9.

3. She was drunk every night after 5pm and remembered nothing from that time the next day.

The ones that actually affected me most as a child:

1. She told me regularly that I'd ruined her life-- but she also told me how wanted and planned a baby I'd been, how much she loved me, how if she could have ordered any daughter to spec, it would be someone just like me.

The constant emotional whiplash did damage to my ability to trust and accept love that was-- I won't say worse, but of a markedly different kind-- than if it had just been constant insults.

2. She pretended that we had no resources or safety net. Any time I raised my voice in response to her screaming at me, she'd say we'd be evicted and be homeless. Same thing if I didn't clean my room to her standards. What I didn't realize until I was an adult is that her parents were loaded, and while her mother is an awful N, she would never have let her child and grandchild go hungry or homeless, if only for the sake of appearances.

I never realized how much this had damaged me until I was holding my own newborn son, and he was crying (as newborns do!) and I felt utter, horrifying, overwhelming panic. It all came rushing back, and I realized that some part of my animal brain was legitimately convinced that we would be evicted because my tiny infant was crying too loudly.

3. She at once infantilized and parentified me. In practical terms, she couldn't be bothered to teach me how to do chores right, so she'd just get exasperated, do them herself, and then martyr herself about it and shame me for being such a slob. But in emotional terms, she'd use me as a confidante and tell me things I was WAY too young to know, about her sex life, about her fears and anxieties, about the terrible things that happen in the world. She often related to me as if she were the petulant teenager and I were the parent who kept her from having any fun.

I still struggle with some executive function stuff that comes from that learned helplessness, and a deep shame around that. As for the parentification... that's another kind of shame. I was her secret-keeper and shame-eater. I carried it all for her.

Liketheducks · September 19, 2019, 10:37:01 AM

Quote from: MamaDryad on September 19, 2019, 10:24:08 AM
The ones I tell people when I need them to understand:

1. She threatened to commit suicide in front of me whenever we'd fight, starting around age 6 or so. She'd storm into the kitchen, hold a knife to her throat, and say that she knew it was what I wanted and I could clean up the mess. This happened a lot.

2. She drove drunk with me in the car, probably many times (we lived in the city and she didn't go out much at night, so not as often as you might think, but we'd spend summers in the country) but one night in particular that I remember: it was so foggy that she told me to warn her when she was getting near the sides of the road. I was probably about 9.

3. She was drunk every night after 5pm and remembered nothing from that time the next day.

The ones that actually affected me most as a child:

1. She told me regularly that I'd ruined her life-- but she also told me how wanted and planned a baby I'd been, how much she loved me, how if she could have ordered any daughter to spec, it would be someone just like me.

The constant emotional whiplash did damage to my ability to trust and accept love that was-- I won't say worse, but of a markedly different kind-- than if it had just been constant insults.

2. She pretended that we had no resources or safety net. Any time I raised my voice in response to her screaming at me, she'd say we'd be evicted and be homeless. Same thing if I didn't clean my room to her standards. What I didn't realize until I was an adult is that her parents were loaded, and while her mother is an awful N, she would never have let her child and grandchild go hungry or homeless, if only for the sake of appearances.

I never realized how much this had damaged me until I was holding my own newborn son, and he was crying (as newborns do!) and I felt utter, horrifying, overwhelming panic. It all came rushing back, and I realized that some part of my animal brain was legitimately convinced that we would be evicted because my tiny infant was crying too loudly.

3. She at once infantilized and parentified me. In practical terms, she couldn't be bothered to teach me how to do chores right, so she'd just get exasperated, do them herself, and then martyr herself about it and shame me for being such a slob. But in emotional terms, she'd use me as a confidante and tell me things I was WAY too young to know, about her sex life, about her fears and anxieties, about the terrible things that happen in the world. She often related to me as if she were the petulant teenager and I were the parent who kept her from having any fun.

I still struggle with some executive function stuff that comes from that learned helplessness, and a deep shame around that. As for the parentification... that's another kind of shame. I was her secret-keeper and shame-eater. I carried it all for her.

Ah man....I had that too. Totally forgot. She told me that I was the product of a date rape and that she had to marry my abusive father. Totally parentified me too. I've never felt like a child. Told everyone that I came out of the womb a little old woman. Wow!