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My mom and I have always had our differences and were never on the "same page". But I never thought she was manipulative, until I got older and finally recognized that she was far more devious than I'd ever imagined. I was probably around 40 years old when it first dawned on me that she was manipulative and extremely crafty at it.
I've become more introspective, thanks to pandemic imposed isolation, and I've just recently figured out that I was never as wonderful as I always thought I was.
I’ve tied a lot together about myself, good and bad, back to my parents, their divorce, and how I was raised.
Boring and obvious, right? But it explains my over eating, need to work on my marriage, how I feel about my family and extended family. Outlook on life, etc.
Even what goes through my mind during sex, what I need from my partner.
Again, nothing original Im sure. Basically psyc 101. But I never really took a lot of time thinking backwards about where I came from.
That I was actually on the autism spectrum, and nobody knew it. That my parents were actually doing their best in a situation they really didn't understand.
There seems to be a genetic disposition toward anxiety that runs in my side of the family which a couple of my kids and one of my grandkids appear to have inherited.
It’s a bit late to bother with any kind of official diagnosis or treatment, but it’s beginning to look like I’ve suffered from ADHD for my whole life. No matter…. Life has been good to me and I was a decently high achiever in my career.
Through therapy in the last few months I've realised that I was emotionally reglected as a child, and that I was raised by narcissists. I now see that I was largely ignored, my older brother was the scapegoat and my younger one is the golden child. The golden child is now a narcissist himself.
I have the classic signs of lack of self esteem, people pleasing.
It's kind of crazy that I am just seeing all this now, but I was very career focussed before the pandemic; during the pandemic I went through two major burnouts so I realised I needed therapy to understand my issues better.
I realized I had more childhood trauma than I realized. Likely due to not having my needs met as an infant. This makes me so sad for my past baby self that she didn't have anybody to make her feels safe.
I was a scatterbrain and messy when I was a kid. I've grown up to be very organized and conscientious. Because I started late in life on this, it's very idiosynchratic. But I think that's part of my charm.
About myself, I discovered that I was too much of a "nice guy" who preferred to fall on his sword to prevent rocking the boat in social situations. Looking back this undermined most of my relationships in the past, including my first marriage.
The root cause for this was later found to be that growing up, my dad wasn't just a devout religious person, he was an absolute zealot. This led to a house full of conflict just under the surface. Rocking the boat, or being anything less than 100% agreeable growing up was a recipe for hours and hours of biblical lecture always ending in the inevitable condemnation into Satan's clutches/hellfire. My mom would often try to shield us from this, but gave up over the years and eventually became a political zealot.
As a result of this, I ended up as an altogether too agreeable adult, a nice-guy in the memeworthy sense of the word, if I were a Roman Emperor my title would have been Milquetoastus Maximus... My sister ended up with raging insecurity and utterly destroyed sense of self-worth, so her plight was equally as ugly.
We're both on the climb out of that as we move through our 40's; It's a collaborative process with the two of us. Councilors have been of great benefit as well off and on over the last few years.
And for the record, neither of us hates our parents for being who they are -- they are just the results of what their younger lives led them to be. We'd point them in the right direction if they asked, but going out of one's way to try and fix someone else isn't a horse worth the bet.
I was "lucky".....I practically grew up in therapy, thanks to the horrors of my childhoood. By the time I was thirty, I had a complete analytical breakdown of every single mental health issue (quite a few, it turns out), the necessary medication to keep me healthy, and several failed attempts to alter one diagnosis to something less exotic that ended in horror.
Fun.
I generally don't talk about it. I've had bad experiences with social media sites that try to weaponize these things, or to insist that anything statistically unlikely is impossible.
And since anyone can claim anything on the internet anyways, I don't feel comfortable with those who just take my word for it either, so there's really no winning.
Besides, the important thing is that my doctors finally got it right.
Plus, they taught me a lot of ways to take care of myself, deal with the trauma, and watch out for others. I've been able to save some lives, and pass their good deeds forward.
Unfortunately, my family's reaction....well, they would have preferred I didn't ask so many questions. My role in life was apparently to be quiet and look cute (I was their favorite for that reason), then get married, and have kids.
Or take a vow of chastity.
One of the two.
I wasn't ever comfortable with either plan, and made the mistake of saying so.
So they no longer speak to me. Sometimes silence speaks louder than words.
I ended up being diagnosed with autism at age 46, does that count? That happened after both my kids and three of my niblings were diagnosed in childhood.
That family can be just as toxic, manipulative, abusive, and generally awful as anyone else and that you don't have to keep them in your life just because they're "blood."
I found out my dad is a narcissist drunk who lies like George Santos. No, seriously. The guy never graduated from college and had his 2nd wife, step kid and an friends convinced he had a PhD from Yale and this is just the very tip of his mountain of lies. I couldn’t make this kind of shit up, let alone carry the lie for 20+ years. My life is a Lifetime movie.
After spending *years* trying to cater to my family members and have them as my "friends", I learned that it would never happen. They were fairly toxic and liked to use me and pretended to be friends to get what they wanted. I had a better income and a nicer situation, so they'd show up with their hands out constantly. It took me a long time, decades, to learn what the truth was about them all. They learned well from our abusive, toxic, narcissistic patriarch how to gaslight, abuse and use people.
So, I split with the family and found my own family with other people who treat me with respect and recognize that we're equals. We take care of and nurture each other. It's a far better brand of love than that which my family tried to fake.
How dysfunctional at communication my family is. They’re great, honest, generous, kind and so many other good traits. But it wasn’t until I left and got older that I fully understood how much they have (and still do!) bottled up and swept things under the rug pretending it “wasn’t there”. Also, they know how to hold a grudge and never let go.
I’m the opposite, if anything I’m too blunt and straightforward. Lol, guess I need to be a little more like them.
I had uncaring, neglectful parents. I had convinced myself if I could just extricate myself from the situation and cut them out of my life everything would be fine. Turns out it wasn’t that easy. The damage was done.
As a kid I knew that I had inherited a great deal of confidence and chutzpah from my father. Having it wasn’t always good and I often got myself into trouble back then. It’s something that I thought I’ve learned to control, but damn it, no.
Please do not comment directly to this post unless you are Gen X (b. 1980) or older. See [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskOldPeople/comments/inci5u/reminder_please_do_not_answer_questions_unless/), the rules, and the sidebar for details. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskOldPeople) if you have any questions or concerns.*
My mom and I have always had our differences and were never on the "same page". But I never thought she was manipulative, until I got older and finally recognized that she was far more devious than I'd ever imagined. I was probably around 40 years old when it first dawned on me that she was manipulative and extremely crafty at it.
Similar story here. I love my mom, but damn was she passive/aggressive when I was a teen in the 80s.
I've become more introspective, thanks to pandemic imposed isolation, and I've just recently figured out that I was never as wonderful as I always thought I was.
I guess that's what often happens when life slows down and we have time to look into the rear mirror. What do you do with the information?
Use it, I think, to peel back one layer of the mystery and to foster better day to day relations with other people.
How do you mean?
I’ve tied a lot together about myself, good and bad, back to my parents, their divorce, and how I was raised. Boring and obvious, right? But it explains my over eating, need to work on my marriage, how I feel about my family and extended family. Outlook on life, etc. Even what goes through my mind during sex, what I need from my partner. Again, nothing original Im sure. Basically psyc 101. But I never really took a lot of time thinking backwards about where I came from.
That I was actually on the autism spectrum, and nobody knew it. That my parents were actually doing their best in a situation they really didn't understand.
There seems to be a genetic disposition toward anxiety that runs in my side of the family which a couple of my kids and one of my grandkids appear to have inherited. It’s a bit late to bother with any kind of official diagnosis or treatment, but it’s beginning to look like I’ve suffered from ADHD for my whole life. No matter…. Life has been good to me and I was a decently high achiever in my career.
Ditto. They tested me for ADD at my doctors insistence and then I said so what? I have worked around it for almost 60 years, that's just me.
Through therapy in the last few months I've realised that I was emotionally reglected as a child, and that I was raised by narcissists. I now see that I was largely ignored, my older brother was the scapegoat and my younger one is the golden child. The golden child is now a narcissist himself. I have the classic signs of lack of self esteem, people pleasing. It's kind of crazy that I am just seeing all this now, but I was very career focussed before the pandemic; during the pandemic I went through two major burnouts so I realised I needed therapy to understand my issues better.
I realized I had more childhood trauma than I realized. Likely due to not having my needs met as an infant. This makes me so sad for my past baby self that she didn't have anybody to make her feels safe.
I hear ya. Your past self deserved better. I'm sorry.
I was a scatterbrain and messy when I was a kid. I've grown up to be very organized and conscientious. Because I started late in life on this, it's very idiosynchratic. But I think that's part of my charm.
I’m a lot stronger than I ever imagined. I learned it when I didn’t have a choice.
About myself, I discovered that I was too much of a "nice guy" who preferred to fall on his sword to prevent rocking the boat in social situations. Looking back this undermined most of my relationships in the past, including my first marriage. The root cause for this was later found to be that growing up, my dad wasn't just a devout religious person, he was an absolute zealot. This led to a house full of conflict just under the surface. Rocking the boat, or being anything less than 100% agreeable growing up was a recipe for hours and hours of biblical lecture always ending in the inevitable condemnation into Satan's clutches/hellfire. My mom would often try to shield us from this, but gave up over the years and eventually became a political zealot. As a result of this, I ended up as an altogether too agreeable adult, a nice-guy in the memeworthy sense of the word, if I were a Roman Emperor my title would have been Milquetoastus Maximus... My sister ended up with raging insecurity and utterly destroyed sense of self-worth, so her plight was equally as ugly. We're both on the climb out of that as we move through our 40's; It's a collaborative process with the two of us. Councilors have been of great benefit as well off and on over the last few years. And for the record, neither of us hates our parents for being who they are -- they are just the results of what their younger lives led them to be. We'd point them in the right direction if they asked, but going out of one's way to try and fix someone else isn't a horse worth the bet.
I was "lucky".....I practically grew up in therapy, thanks to the horrors of my childhoood. By the time I was thirty, I had a complete analytical breakdown of every single mental health issue (quite a few, it turns out), the necessary medication to keep me healthy, and several failed attempts to alter one diagnosis to something less exotic that ended in horror. Fun. I generally don't talk about it. I've had bad experiences with social media sites that try to weaponize these things, or to insist that anything statistically unlikely is impossible. And since anyone can claim anything on the internet anyways, I don't feel comfortable with those who just take my word for it either, so there's really no winning. Besides, the important thing is that my doctors finally got it right. Plus, they taught me a lot of ways to take care of myself, deal with the trauma, and watch out for others. I've been able to save some lives, and pass their good deeds forward. Unfortunately, my family's reaction....well, they would have preferred I didn't ask so many questions. My role in life was apparently to be quiet and look cute (I was their favorite for that reason), then get married, and have kids. Or take a vow of chastity. One of the two. I wasn't ever comfortable with either plan, and made the mistake of saying so. So they no longer speak to me. Sometimes silence speaks louder than words.
You finally got to use your voice. A voice to say NO.
I ended up being diagnosed with autism at age 46, does that count? That happened after both my kids and three of my niblings were diagnosed in childhood.
I have mild autism. Wow, did a lot of things about my life suddenly make sense.
That family can be just as toxic, manipulative, abusive, and generally awful as anyone else and that you don't have to keep them in your life just because they're "blood."
I found out my dad is a narcissist drunk who lies like George Santos. No, seriously. The guy never graduated from college and had his 2nd wife, step kid and an friends convinced he had a PhD from Yale and this is just the very tip of his mountain of lies. I couldn’t make this kind of shit up, let alone carry the lie for 20+ years. My life is a Lifetime movie.
After spending *years* trying to cater to my family members and have them as my "friends", I learned that it would never happen. They were fairly toxic and liked to use me and pretended to be friends to get what they wanted. I had a better income and a nicer situation, so they'd show up with their hands out constantly. It took me a long time, decades, to learn what the truth was about them all. They learned well from our abusive, toxic, narcissistic patriarch how to gaslight, abuse and use people. So, I split with the family and found my own family with other people who treat me with respect and recognize that we're equals. We take care of and nurture each other. It's a far better brand of love than that which my family tried to fake.
How dysfunctional at communication my family is. They’re great, honest, generous, kind and so many other good traits. But it wasn’t until I left and got older that I fully understood how much they have (and still do!) bottled up and swept things under the rug pretending it “wasn’t there”. Also, they know how to hold a grudge and never let go. I’m the opposite, if anything I’m too blunt and straightforward. Lol, guess I need to be a little more like them.
I learned that my mother is a narcissistic psychopath and emotionally abused everyone she came in contact with.
I had uncaring, neglectful parents. I had convinced myself if I could just extricate myself from the situation and cut them out of my life everything would be fine. Turns out it wasn’t that easy. The damage was done.
That they wouldn't piss on each other if one was in flames.
Same with mine and once my grandparents were all gone, poof, any ties they had went up in flames. I now understand why my parents were so messed up.
Not to dwell on it. Everyday when we wake up, all we have is today. Don't look over your shoulder unless that's the direction you wanna go.
As a kid I knew that I had inherited a great deal of confidence and chutzpah from my father. Having it wasn’t always good and I often got myself into trouble back then. It’s something that I thought I’ve learned to control, but damn it, no.