When my parents humiliated me was it intentional?

[Unbroken1]

This may sound like a pretty common scenario but my parents, no doubt "for my own good" forced me to participate in activities that I had no talent, skills or competitiveness to engage in, which set me up for the inevitable failures that followed.

I was raised by a covert uNPD father and emotionally labile uBPD/NPD mother under vague authoritarian parenting standards that pretty much used absolute parental authority to establish how a child was raised.

For example, when in the second grade, my mother decided I was constipated, she loaded me up with adult laxatives. You can imagine how that turned out. I was so shamed that I had to go in the middle of class that I could 't bring myself to ask to be excused, and the inevitable occurred. How does a 7-year feel when the adults come to take you out of class in front of all the other students?

For example, 3rd grade class projects: mom, being an artist, would practically do my projects for me, which of course, humiliated me in front of the class when my diorama got the best grade, evident in the comparison with others' projects that truly showed what 7- and 8-year olds were capable of. Dad, being an architect, also took my agency away when he followed suit by doing the majority of the work for similar Cub Scout projects that my pack would assign.

For example, when dad made me sign up for football, baseball, and the swim team, as an only child I had very little competitiveness and just did not have it in me to want to do these things. Nothing like being forced to participate in front of a crowd of your peers and their adults when you have no aptitude or interest and the strikes are the biggest stat you have going.

For example, when mom decided that I needed music lessons so I could be in middle school band. First it was drums and then trumpet when percussion didn't work out. At a certain point, mom decided I was ready and somehow convinced the band director to let me in without a tryout. The inevitable humiliation ensued when it became evident during the very first practice that I had no place there. Mom was called and I was once again removed from the class in front of all the students.

For example, when the 'rents decided I would be better off at a parochial school starting in 7th grade, where I floundered in the class settings which used an open concept and expected the students to create their own homework schedules. I was bullied and ended up in a parking lot fist fight where I was humiliated in front of the school population by the tougher kid who had moved to my home town from the NYC boroughs and who had the requisite experience at 12 years old to inflict a beating on me. Of course, the school headmaster called my parents and I in to clear everything up and to assign equal blame to myself and the kid who beat me up. Afterward, when I returned to class as a social outcast, with my lip swollen and stitched up, some of the kids started circulating rumors that I had been claiming that I had "run into a wall."

My parents did not know me as a person, only as a reflection on themselves which they used to polish their egos and impress their social group. Their greatest unseen achievement as parents? That would be my lifelong perfectionism and self-doubt from the years of gaslighting and manipulation.

Thanks, mom and dad.

[Starboard Song]

When my parents humiliated me was it intentional?

I doubt it.

Those all sound like they are based on a secondary error in parenting, not on a desire to embarrass you. They did things for you, promoted you, and pressed you into things for which you had little aptitude. These are mistakes many parents make by failing to see the big picture, failing to think through consequences, and failing to appreciate the differences between themselves and their children.

If your dad id NPD and mother is BPD/NPD, then these mistakes of myopic ignorance are easier to make for them.

It's a tough story, and I am glad you are working now on recovery.

[Andeza]

There was a broader mentality in years past, less prominent now but still around, that kids needed to have certain experiences in order to be well-rounded, well-socialized, etc. So things like participating in sports, or doing those evil school or church presentations/plays/singing things of absolute torment (just my personal experience)... Those were all considered "character building." It was generally understood that was how you taught a child teamwork or new skills.

However for some kids, being pushed into those activities is torture and pure embarrassment. Those are feelings I know all too well. And they are feelings that do not improve with more exposure, but rather cause these traumatizing memories to be formed. They weren't character building in the least, rather they built apprehension and anxiety.

The other stuff is flat out bad parenting. I don't know that it was intentional, and from what you're posting it sounds more akin to ignorance and lack of desire to improve. I do actually find ignorance and lack of desire to improve to be big red flags for potential PDs. When I meet people that throw those flags, I start watching their behavior carefully for more signs. We've discussed in other threads in the past the propensity for PD parents to use lines like "You didn't come with a manual" despite the ready availability of books, articles, and these days videos - giving pretty good advice on just that.

[moglow]

They may have been thinking of what they did or wanted to do, just failed the part where it actually involved you. Mine was more likely to express resentment of the funding and practice required, made that such an ordeal that we gave up the idea. Perhaps yours like mine were more interested in appearance than the realities.

[easterncappy]

More than likely, the way they'd describe the situation is totally different - they "didn't mean it like that", "it was meant to teach you a lesson", "it wasn't that bad", "I didn't know", "everyone used to do that", "I tried my best", etc. So when we ask about if it's "intentional", probably not the way you and I intend things. If your parents are personality disordered then everything down to their views on interactions like this is going to be disordered.

I get why you feel hurt by this. It sucks when your parents don't make an attempt to actually know you and just think they can mold you into something impressive, worth bragging about, a reflection of their own interests, etc. or just remembering random things from 10+ years ago and thinking they still apply. I remember once hearing my mom tell one of her friends that I love reading and history - like, it's far from the worst thing that happened to me in my childhood, but it still makes me scratch my head... I hated reading and history. I read one book like every two or more years, and I always struggled with history in school because I found it to be the most boring of the subjects. She was always very obsessed with intellectualism and being perceived as intelligent, so she projected a lot of that onto me, and it hurt, because she never made an effort to know the real me.

It's okay to be upset about and to post about things even if they weren't "the worst thing ever" or a particularly bad part of your upbringing... it's not a contest.

[square]

That all sounds pretty bad to me and I'm sorry you experienced it.

On the surface, any of those could be shrugged off and explained away (they just wanted you to be exposed to activities, wanted to help out with your projects, were worried about your digestion and health).

And that's part of why it must be so hard to process.

But both the larger context of this kind of thing happening all the time (as opposed to a good-enough parent who could have made any of those mistakes here and there but not as a pattern) and the real motivations behind them (all about themselves and not you) shows something darker.

It must be hard to feel unseen, or like a prop.

I have no idea if their goal was humiliation, and that is certainly possible. And you would be the best person to answer that question. But what I read into it was not humiliation as a goal. However, I do not see beneign motivations either. They seem to have seen you as a non-person, had zero sense of you as having needs and wants and desires and feelings.

A good enough parent could have screwed up with the laxatives... and been horrified ny what happened, emotionally supported you, and not done it again.

A good enough parent could have signed you up for an instrument you had no interest or talent in (and this part would be common really) but the thing that doesn't happen is the parent convincing themselves of s nonexistant talent and putting you into a humiliating situation. Make you join band? Yeah. Convince them to waive tryout when you were clearly not at the required level? No way.

Help you with cub scout or school projects? Nice. Do them for you? No. A good enough parent might get carried away with a project here or there but not as an overall pattern of coming between you and your education, your opportunities, and your confidence.

My H has a few memories that bother him (well, a lot, but a few examples like yours above). He feels ambivalent about his feelings because they are SIMILAR to standard childhood stories if imperfect but good enough parenting. But in the larger context of never feeling safe, never being able to get support or protection from mom or dad, just being left alone to deal with issues beyond what a child his age or capacity could deal with, and knowing that if he ever mentioned how he felt he would be dismissed, belittled, ridiculed, and blamed for it, shows that what lies under the surface that seems kind of normal really isn't.

[Call Me Cordelia]

 

It's that overarching context that's so hard to explain and put into words. Each individual incident could be recovered from, and is just close enough to normal to have that deadly plausible deniability. So when we start sharing incidences we feel petty and weak because everyone has some stuff like that. It's death by a thousand (a million) paper cuts. Not many people are able or willing to listen long enough to get a clear picture, especially when we are still putting that picture together ourselves.

[Leonor]

Heck yes it was intentional!

It's intentional to overmedicate you, override your pleas, ignore your pain, and shame you in public.

It's intentional to use your child as a toy, mirror, or puppet.

And it's intentional to do it over and over, with no attempt to take your thoughts seriously, acknowledge your feelings with compassion, or even pay attention to your distress.

I'm sorry that your experience with your parents was fear, humiliation and sadness.

You deserved attention,  attunement and protection.

[samtosha]

I certainly have many examples of that kind of thing in my own life. They didn't see you as a person in your own right - or that you had any rights - but as someone to be molded in the image they wanted. It is a way a lot of parents can be, and it's never great, but where it becomes toxic is when your feelings and selfhood are so completely disregarded. Perfectionism and self-doubt follow along, especially when you are taught to believe they "only want the best for you." They may not have intended to humiliate you, but they didn't care if your humiliation or shame or any other bad feelings resulted from their actions. Their plausible deniability is they were "just trying to help." Don't believe it. They were only helping to aggrandize themselves, inoculate against shame (my child isn't good at a thing, oh no, what will people think!), or just control the uncontrollable (another person!). You deserved so much more than that, as Leonor says.

[donutmoonpanda]

It's not unintentional. Sort of like how passive aggression is still aggression. A lot of people with PD parents are set up for failure and everything that follows is lagniappe.

Perhaps it's helpful to look at your question a different way. Most people would never want to humiliate their kid or set them up for failure. And they'd be sorry to learn that their kid felt that way. PD parents don't care. They don't care what they did and they'd do it again in a heartbeat.

[moglow]

It's not unintentional. Sort of like how passive aggression is still aggression. A lot of people with PD parents are set up for failure and everything that follows is lagniappe.

Perhaps it's helpful to look at your question a different way. Most people would never want to humiliate their kid or set them up for failure. And they'd be sorry to learn that their kid felt that way. PD parents don't care. They don't care what they did and they'd do it again in a heartbeat.

And there's that... I want to believe that parents [of all people!] don't set out to humiliate us. My mindset is more that they don't think it all the way through to what others see as obvious conclusions. We all grew up knowing our actions have consequences, but it's like so many of the PD parents were somehow above or outside any consequences at all. It genuinely doesn't/didn't seem to occur that the rules apply to everyone, INCLUDING them.

[Pepin]

I can relate to much of this -- and I believe I was set up to fail because NF wasn't listening.  My peers were allowed to follow pursuits that interested them and had flexible parents.  NF was authoritarian and chose what I signed up to do -- much of it was not my thing and I didn't excel.  And then he would get angry that I couldn't do something well -- throw a tantrum -- and then retreat into an extended silent treatment.  My not doing well was an embarrassment to him. 

I believe that it is intentional.  They never asked us what we wanted to do.  It is what they wanted us to do. 

[easterncappy]

I can relate to much of this -- and I believe I was set up to fail because NF wasn't listening.  My peers were allowed to follow pursuits that interested them and had flexible parents.  NF was authoritarian and chose what I signed up to do -- much of it was not my thing and I didn't excel.  And then he would get angry that I couldn't do something well -- throw a tantrum -- and then retreat into an extended silent treatment.  My not doing well was an embarrassment to him. 

I believe that it is intentional.  They never asked us what we wanted to do.  It is what they wanted us to do.

A lot of personality disorders and methods of emotional/psychological abuse share the trait of viewing others as either an extension of you, or a tool to get something that you want (anything from money to validation to status symbols etc.). So it does make sense that our parents just don't care if we like something or not, we're here to make them feel good and look good, any suffering they cause us is secondary.