Difficulty connecting with my parents... emotional abuse?

[Ziggy]

To preface, I'm just finishing high school and I still live with my parents. I'm 17. I've always had a bit of an odd relationship with them, especially my mother. I've never been physically abused by them, and I'm not sure if their actions have constituted emotional abuse.

I remember from a young age being scared of telling my parents I was sick or not feeling well, I still get very anxious and try to hide it from them when I get a cold or other illness. This includes mental illnesses; I've been struggling with severe mood swings, suicidal thoughts, self harm and disordered eating for years. An enormous amount of energy goes into hiding this from my parents, and I've never been adequately able to explain why. A couple times they found out about the self harm and it was very traumatic for me. They care about me but they're bad at expressing it, and it can come across as anger. My whole life I've been afraid of disappointing them or letting them down. I always thought my behaviour and how I react to things was a fault on my part, but just recently I've started to link it to them and how they treat me.

My father has PTSD and can be very controlling, sometimes when he talks to me it feels like he's addressing an animal. He self-medicates and sometimes when he's high he'll make inappropriate comments about my body (nothing overly sexual). I'm usually quite close to him but sometimes he scares me. Once he told me he had a vision that he saw me dead.

My mother is very self-centred and can be very harsh and manipulative. She constantly makes me feel guilty and ashamed. She gets angry when she has to spend money on my school fees or other expenses and she tells me I'm lazy and fat. I know she cares about me and most of it isn't intentional, which makes it even harder. She says she wants me to be open with her but if I ever try to talk about my feelings she gets accusatory and defensive. She goes through my room and reads stuff I write privately. She'll often ignore me when I'm talking to her, but whenever I have her attention she interrogates me.

Could any of this be labelled as abuse? I understand there's a lot of grey area, but I only recently realized that a lot of who I am and the things I struggle with could be related to my parents. I have a very low sense of self-worth and issues with abandonment. I'm constantly seeking the approval of those around me and am very hard on myself when I make mistakes. My parents have always indirectly given me the message that these are things that I've brought upon myself and it's my fault, but what if it's not?

I don't know how much of this is just me rebelling as a teenager and whether or not I'm overreacting. I'll be moving out in a few months but I still have to live with them for the whole summer. Advice or reassurance would be much appreciated.

[bigeekgirl]

No question in my mind these things qualify as abuse. If there is gray, it's a dark shade if I ever saw one. So much I could say to you, but I couldn't say it better than The Childhood Bill of Rights. Paul published it on the blog here: http://mentalpod.com/Childhood-Bill-Of-Rights. From what you describe, your parents violated a lot of the list but this really speaks to it: "to have the family be a safe enough place for the child to express emotions and then to experience validation of those emotions by the parents."

See also my most listened to episode with Therapist Susan Hagen for lots of discussion of what she calls "tricky families": http://mentalpod.com/Therapist-Susan-Hagen

From my personal experience, my family doesn't look abusive from the outside. I always felt "icky" about certain things and oh so alone in the world. It has only been in the last few years between healing my lifelong issues with anxiety and crushing self esteem issues (among others) I've been forced to admit I didn't just spontaneously develop the problems I've struggled with for as long as I can remember. One thing that has helped is getting to know enough people in my adult life to discover the kind of shit that passed as normal in my family wasn't normal or healthy. I can relate to enough of what you said including your qualifiers: "I know she cares about me and most of it isn't intentional." So it's not intentional for the person who is responsible for keeping you alive and teaching you how to be in the world to blame you for things and be angry when you come to her with problems? Intent is besides the point. That's toxic. Just like when I read your story about your parent's problems, when I look back objectively over my life story and my family history, I see how impossible it would be NOT to have consequences.

Nothing about opening our eyes to the causes of our problems means our parents are bad or evil. It's fully likely our parents not only loved us and tried their best, but intentions don't save us from the fallout of what happened. When your life and happiness are at stake, who is to blame isn't important, but identifying the problem is vital. At your age, it's super tricky because you are likely still dependent on family for financial and other support. I would recommend seeking therapy no matter what it takes to get it. Also, do everything you can to cultivate social support outside of your parents. These too things will start to build the foundation of your future happiness. I only wish I had known sooner how to build a better life for myself, but it is possible, my friend. We can't change our families but we can change ourselves. We can heal.

As Paul always says, you are not alone.

[Lucy]

I lived through that too. I had abuse from other family members, but it was my mother who effected me the most. Childhood emotional neglect is a real thing. Abuse isn't just physical, the mental abuse is often the worst part. Even now at 32 we have pretty much zero relationship, she emails me every 2 months or so but I feel its more so she doesn't look bad to other people if I wind up dead in a gutter and she isn't aware. Ever since I can remember, we didn't even like each other. I tried but always felt everything I did was never enough and that I was made to pay for my father's abusive behavior. There's no way you can list off the things your kid's abusive father did and then say "you're just like him" and expect the kid not to internalize that and get a good relationship in return. I couldn't trust her, I felt she never stood up for me, or that she even loved me. I was an inconvenient burden. The first time I remember her saying she loved me was when I was 21 and living half way across the country. I tried to confide about my life to my older sister but she was busy with her life and would just tell our mom, same thing with my step father, leaving no one to trust or confide in as my dad was gone, all the grandparents had already passed and she wasn't close to her own siblings. It got to the point that I would hide both negative and positive things. I have health problems to this day because I was afraid to tell her I was sick, enlarged cryptic tonsils from repeated strep infections, ankle pain and hip from being hit by a car and not wanting to tell her, constant 'plugged' ears from ear infections that went untreated. We had insurance, she worked in a hospital, but she complained about being inconvenienced so much, even to this day she doesn't believe these things happened because I never said anything at the time. I didn't even end up inviting her to my college graduation, or attending myself. I didn't fit into mom's picture of the perfect family life she wanted so badly. Even though I was a good kid, smart, got good grades, and never got in trouble anywhere but at home; she made sure to point out all my faults (weight, anger, quick temper, clothing, friends, etc) at every given opportunity and I was constantly reprimanded. I felt like I was walking on egg shells waiting for the next thing she didn't approve of. I am a sensitive person, these stuck with me and are the things I hate about myself and struggle to change or accept. When we got in fights, she would actually run around and close all the windows so the neighbors didn't hear but had no problems yelling at me in public or talking about me to other people. There were never positive words said about me, never. She and my step dad would often have conversations I overheard (because they were directly outside my bedroom window) about how I "was broken and needed to be fixed" but never saw how these things would effect me or stick with me, they can't even see why these would cause me to have low self esteem as an adult. I feel no connection with her, just a societally imposed obligation, which I'm sure she feels too and is why I get those bi-monthly emails, more of that concern for other people and her reputation. Whenever I have approached her and tried to at least come to an understanding, she has shot the idea down. She doesn't want to take responsibility or even understand that although she tried, it wasn't enough for me and finds it easier to blame me and alienate me instead. I find it easier not to live with the extreme anxiety she causes me that nothing I ever do is good enough, that thought is ingrained in my mind enough as is. I call and get things like "oh, finally you're bothering to call" or "oh the looooong lost youngest child finally calls her mother" which is hardly the way to start off a positive conversation and led to further deterioration. She has yet to understand that I don't care about placing blame because I feel that is useless and only makes people defensive or feel bad. It's understanding and acceptance that I want. To know I could tel her not to say things to me because I don't like it and she would comply instead of chastising me... Id love to say that it gets better, but at my current point it just isn't. My family looks at me like this is a 'me issue' and they had no part in creating it so want no part in helping me to over come it. Maybe one day, but until I have enough self confidence that her sharp words and judgements don't cut so deeply, until I have the tools to deal with it and until she can understand that the exact same events can effect people differently, I just cant subjugate myself to that kind of abuse. Hopefully that happens before she misses out on my entire life... Just know that you are not alone in this. You are far from the only person that has a tenuous relationship with their parents or suffers from emotional abuse or neglect. I agree, seek help. I believe everyone needs it and at your age it will be so beneficial for you to have someone to talk to through your upcoming life changes.