Mine was a cold, brittle narcisst. Any good I did, she had done... frequently with stories how someone had told her she was the best they'd ever seen. A less stupid version of Trump.

Sadly, she was actually quite brilliant in her field (biochemistry), while simultaneously being so ardent of an adherent of a panoply of new age crap (psychic healing and the like) that she literally prevented me from getting surgery for a TBI. Instead of much needed medical assistance, I got veggie smoothies and visits to her weird friends. My head still hurts.

There was so much more crap after that, but it was such a revelation as an adult that she would rather I suffer than admit her 'genius' wasn't the solution to all problems.

She died in December. I shrugged.

If I wasn't a good as her, I needed to do better, try harder, stop being lazy etc. If I was better than her at something she would pick out the most miniscule flaw she could come up with and give it to me as a back handed complement then slowly work it into random conversations until it became my insecurity.

The thing that sticks with me the most though, she had me absolutely convinced I was far too fat to wear shorts in public, let alone a bikini. Finally was convinced by my group of friends that I was in fact, normally sized and literally handed one and told to wear it.

I was not expecting to see my Mom between getting dressed and going to the pool. She asked me if I was really going out like that and how I was going to handle everyone making fun of me then highly suggested I go change into my 1 piece. Said she wasn't going to feel bad for me when I came back crying

That broke me. Of course I believed her. She was my Mom she just wanted what was best for me right? I can still see the look on my friend's face when I came back in the room to change and she said "you know that's not true right? There's nothing wrong with you. This is about her."

Took me years and years to realize she was very wrong. I didn't let anyone take pictures of me for awhile after that but I saw some recently of 3 years later when I had "gained some weight." Holy fuck, there is zero chance in hell I was fat.

Anyways, she had a horrible, long {9 years), and painful death and probably got abused pretty bad in the nursing home. Good riddance to that piece of shit. Because I got off easy with just emotional and mental trauma. What she did to my siblings was significantly worse.

Vote for Trump a third time. Fuck you, mom. You're officially a Bad Person™.

Visiting the family next month and I forbade them from telling her we're coming. I said they can tell her whatever they want after we're gone.

My dad invited me to meet him at work, one day. It was a bad week for me and the new step-mother getting along, and so I wasn't surprised. We took a little walk from the shop and stopped to chat.

"I've given you all 25 years of my life," was when the conversation changed, mid-speech. "Now it's time for me. It's my time."

It was how he invited me to go live with my mom, or just go. It began a bit of a formative time filled with stress and anger, and I daresay we've not been the same since.

My dad was a rush limbaugh guy in the 90’s then moved to info wars, my mother who he married when she was 16 dotes on him due to his history of being abused as a child, so my dad never grew up, never learned any hard lessons, and she never made anything of herself but to be his voice box when I refused to debate him on politics.

My mom then only called to relay her struggles, or to nudge me on politics, I would call her on holidays and gift them lavishly with my nice IT job, especially after my dad was forced into retirement during Covid.

Anytime I mentioned a challenge in my life they would turn it around and tell me how they had it worse, when I told them good news, it barely registered.

The last straw was when she called me just before the last presidential election to strongarm me into voting for Trump. She crossed a line and I hung up. Haven’t talked since, and finally have peace in my life, well some peace anyway.

This one may seem silly compared to the things I've read.

My parents gave me a strange eating disorder that it took a while to get over.

Mom refused to accept that there were foods or perhaps ingredients that I was either unwilling or unable to eat. As an example, Onions are horrible and they literally make me sick, whether its whole chunks of onion or powdered onion. But she kept sneaking onion into stuff she made because she just knew I'd like them if I just tried them! It wasn't a matter of "like" it was the fact that if I ate some I'd end up doing a technicolor yodel over the toilet while she told me I was being dramatic. Sometimes if I was really unlucky I wouldn't make it to the toilet which would make her even madder. So Id get spanked after puking.

This caused me to be really mistrustful of food that I didn't prepare myself. I also had problems eating in front of other people, because mom (both parents really) would get upset over how I was eating, and it took me until I was in my 30's before I was comfortable eating with other people around. Which did wonders for my social life in my 20's.

I already had a rocky relationship with my dad after he made some questionable statements concerning COVID, but there are 2 distinct memories that just keep popping up.

No 1 was him helping me move into my own apartment while my maternal grandfather was dying in the hospital. We were talking about vaccinations (a requirement to visit patients) and how me and my brother got one, he started tearing up and said something about how kids shouldn't die before their parents, how egotistical we were for getting vaccinated, and how we'll die in 2 years.

No 2 was a few years later, we were standing on the sidewalk after having watched a movie, and someone had hung a pride flag from their balcony across the street. And while I'm not part of the LGBTQ community, I have good friends that are, and am firmly of the opinion that people should be allowed to do who and whatever they want to, as long as everyone involved consents. However, my dad apparently felt important enough to complain about how that's just "gay propaganda" and how he "isn't against it but they shouldn't force it into everyone's face" and so on.
My guy, it's a flag. On a balcony. On the 4th fucking floor!? Chill out.

This feels quite minor compared to most of the stuff here, but something that has stuck with me.

I was on holiday with my parents when I was younger - maybe around 12 or 13. We were on a short boat trip, and I noticed my dad was wearing a baseball cap. In my mind I had this cute scene of me taking the hat off his head and putting it on myself, and all of us laughing. Kinda wholesome. But the second I reach for the hat he whacks me hard around the back of my head. I was more confused than anything - why did he instantly resort to violence? I hated the injustice of it; the image in my mind of doing something fun, something you'd see other families doing, but then the actual result being the complete opposite. I never understood it, but then I've never had much in common with my dad.

Refused to acknowledge cystic fibrosis is actually a real difficult struggle that I needed help and support with

Me - "if you could go back and change your divorce from Mom, would you change anything?"

Dad - "no"

The man left and I mean LEFT. When I told him about how much that had damaged me, I asked him this. This is merely a crumb of how little a shit he gave about me. Die alone, fuck face.

Well, mine both died, so there's that.

But prior to that they voted for Brexit.

Metaphorically speaking, but putting the boot down on the neck that is the form of my individuality. They both did a terrible job in preparing me for life. Their idea of readying you for life is going on tireless banters about themselves and maybe a couple lessons dropped in between. There's just no recovery when parents just do not prepare for you for life, leaving you into a life full of struggle and improvision.

Calling me heretic and deviant in my early teens, Getting enormously angry when I try to challenge their viewpoints (once they said that even if we are wrong, you have to say that we are right, upon which I remained silent and they get angry), Being against other religions and ideologies, mocking them and calling LGBTQ+ a mental illness (luckily, I did not come out to them), Being angry and thinking I am arrogant if I choose not to talk to them and to be in my own space, Forcing me to eat and drink a lot more than I want, Comparing and belittling me yet still saying "We love you", Not letting me go outside and now they complain why I don't go outside, Always saying, "We did not even beat you or did anything physical. We give you so much comfort but you disappointed us, you pimp, dog, bastard", Saying I am not masculine just cuz I am extremely careful not to neglect my sunscreen, I get sick here and now and so I trust medicine over the pseudoscientific remedies, and many other things which made me lost trust in them and entire humanity and even myself sometimes. I will not forgive them.

I adopted a baby from a different race and my father only talks about the white one, refused to meet the other kid.

father in law posted KKK shit on his Facebook page.

we'll just prune those two branches now....

Called my partner a gold digging whore (hilarious, considering she was earning 3x as much as I was at the time) and outright said I should marry the woman (daughter of a family friend) that they liked for me and keep my partner around as a side piece because "a real man knows how to make everyone happy".

I don't speak to them any more.

Remembering all the times growing up when teachers suggested I get tested for ADHD and my mom would refuse because she "wanted me to be me, not a zombie" but was wildly disastrous for my future. Now she claims she has it too.

Then she voted for trump 3X.

My mom told me that she heard my soon-to-be-wife say some really horrible things about her and my kids behind my back.

Whatever she thought that would accomplish didn't work, because I had already told my wife to start recording her interactions with my mom. (Clearly not my first rodeo)

Mom wasn't real happy when I told her I'd listen to the audio.

Used the fact that he named me after himself to commit fraud using my name.

Probably variations of

"I'm going to kill myself cause of you."

And

"You have to love me or you have to leave."

We left.

My father was pretty draconic. No time for friends, no time for extra curriculars, no time for homework (he didn't believe in public education, which caused its own problems), because there was always something to do: my chores, my siblings' chores, home improvement projects, random "educational" outings that were mostly just me sitting in the car. Not to mention the verbal and physical abuse, leaving me on the side of the road to "scare me straight", making me live in a tent in the backyard for a while.

I tried to be the bigger person after I moved out and practice hippy-dippy radical forgiveness. Unfortunately, he's a malignant narcissist and even when he realized he had no leverage anymore and had to behave, he was still a really really bad influence. The more time I spent with him, the more his traits rubbed off on me. I had to cut him off entirely because it became too much.

Told my friend that he's like the son he never had, in front of me.

going into my backpack and stealing my HRT while i was in the shower, and refusing to give it back

For context: I had an uncle who was an alcoholic/addict, with his addiction being the result of immense trauma he suffered as a kid. He was fired from his job in the medical field after writing himself scripts, and made a genuine effort to turn his life around. He went to AA and other therapy, brought his sponsor/buddy to events where there would be alcohol, and generally took it seriously and worked to improve.

A few years later, we got a call in the early morning. He had overdosed and died after an argument with my aunt. It's unclear whether it was a relapse or if the overdose was intentional, and to be honest it didn't matter. My aunt was distraught, he was dead, and their kids now had no father. It was a horrific tragedy.

When I got up to ask what the phone call was for, my mother had a huge smile on her face. She thought his addiction was a moral failing that automatically made him a bad person, but she also judged him badly for needing AA and the buddy syatem to stay on track. She told us, with glee in her voice, that he had "finally killed himself".

It took everything in my power to not lay into her, which I didn't do only because I knew she would never change her mind. It was just the latest and worst example of her horrid behavior. I never told my aunt, but I did tell other members of my extended family when they asked why I didn't talk to them anymore.

my dad basically told me how disappointed he was in me when he died.

because i didn't play high school football.

i was 30.

he was a weird bitter dude, really hung up on sports and a lot of trivial nonsense. only thing he ever seemed to enjoy in life was cruises and gambling.

I’m reading this at the moment. It sounds like you might have active abuse rather than detached neglect (which I believe is also abuse).

This stuff impacts us and those around us in the future. From personal experience it’s well worth talking to a pro about it.

Despite countless requests to not, they sent me to a parochial school where I was physically and sexually abused.

Choosing to invite my Jan 6er uncle to family events knowing I would never break break with an insurrectionist traitor.

First, I stopped attending family events. Eventually went no contact. Now my happiest recent memory of my mom is when my daughter couldn't remember her name.

Buying a brand new car when I didn’t have a bed to sleep on

During covid my dad would not wear a mask willingly.

It shattered my perception of him, that probably will not ever go back to what it was.

I'm gay but like, the kind that almost got murdered in the 90s for coming out in a rural high school (I know Judy Shepard well). Fast forward to my mom telling me she's conservative in every way "except she belongs to the log cabin republicans" and I just lost it. "God gave you a gay kid so you could realize everything else they're saying is a lie, too, but you're too stupid to get that."

And that's when I suddenly realized she had been outright abusive and manipulative my whole life, and it was just this idea of a perfect mom that clouded my vision on it. She weaponized her kids against our dad, his family, anyone she didn't like. Because she was too much of a victim to fight her own fights. Emotional incest. Lots of therapy fodder.

She got drunk and was crying about her regret about not aborting me. She came from a larger family and wanted more kids than she ended up having, but my dad's personal limit was 2-3 kids — and kid number three was only to try for a daughter if kid number 2 ended up being another boy. Me being a girl meant that she could only have two kids, and the fact that I was pretty fucked up means that she felt like she'd "wasted" a kid on me, so to speak

I don't blame my mum for having these thoughts, as awful as they may be. At the time, I had not long since been diagnosed with autism, and my mental health was pretty awful too, which must've been a lot of stress for a parent to handle. What I do blame her for is being deeply depressed and having her teenage daughter be her primary (and basically only) emotional outlet.

Whilst I am theoretically open to having a relationship with her in future, if she ever got sober (though that seems unlikely I'd learn of her being sober, as I went No Contact with her years ago), I'll never be able to forget how much she hurt me. She wasn't the root cause of my mental health problems, but she certainly made them a hell of a lot worse. And given that she never remembered the stuff she said when she was this drunk, I'll never get the closure of a genuine apology.

What's especially tragic about my mum is that she's actually pretty well adjusted, considering the awful childhood she had. The main thing she wanted from life was to be a mum, and to do a better job than her own mum had. I do think she achieved that, and there are so many things that I feel appreciative of her for. Unfortunately, no amount of good can make up for the hurt that she caused when she'd get drunk and pile her grief onto me. Most of the time her drunken tears were far less hurtful, but it's still a heavy burden to put on an already struggling teenager.

It's a shame, because I think she could've been an incredible parent if she'd been able to get therapy in the few years after she moved out but before she fell pregnant.

Does it count if it's the parent of my kid? When our daughter was around 1yo my ex-wife got mad at her for being too selfish. I found her pouting not wanting anything to do with our 1yo because she was "not nice to her". That really opened my eyes to her personality.

Sent me a registered letter requesting I reply in kind and explain why he should keep talking to me.

20 years later he had no regrets, saw nothing wrong with what he said and did. Thinks we should carry on from where left off. He is also now disappointed with me because I never told him I have another kid. He wanted nothing to do with my other two but I should run around seeking his approval.

My father controlling me up to the age of 18, and preventing me from doing anything I wanted at home or at school (it was a prison, not the regular "school is boring"). The result is that I did nothing at school because I had anxiety 24 hours a day.

When I became an adult, I didn't knew what money or taxes were, I didn't knew that I had to take showers (because homework is more important), and I didn't knew how to use toilet paper. I used to take a bath once every two weeks because why not instead of taking daily showers. It took me 10 years to learn basic stuff like cooking or washing my ass.

Now that he's old and dying, he wants me to listen to his advice and help him with his phone and computer. I don't answer to such demands. And I'm pretty sure that when he dies, I'll only be sad for my mother, not him.

My mom and dad divorced soon after I was born because my mom had cheated on my dad and gotten pregnant with my little sister from her first husband. So I have the privilege of having an older brother and a younger sister that have the same dad and mom and me in the middle with a different dad and a different skin color.

Life was what it was, but then my dad, who was a huge Trump supporter and refused to mask up, got the 'rona and died from it. To this day I have no idea why my dad was a Trump supporter, Trump stood for everything that he personally hated, but for some reason just the delulu had gotten a hold of him.

His wife, my stepmom, put an obituary paper out and named my older brother and me but left my bastard younger sister off of it because my older brother had realized his dad was a piece of shit and asked my dad to be his dad in his place, which my dad agreed to while my younger sister had explicitly told my dad to forget that she exists, to fuck off, and to never speak to her again, to which my dad said, okay.

My mom called me up to bitch me out that my little sister was not included on my dad's death notice, and in the middle of bitching me out, told me she wishes she had divorced my dad sooner, and even though she didn't say it, she was implying that she wished she had divorced him before she had gotten pregnant with me.

I called her a cunt and blocked her completely for three and a half years, unblocked her to chew her out when I saw that even though I had her block she was sending me links to TikToks which I don't use TikTok to show me videos that say "I don't know what to say to you".

I am finally reaching the point where I can be rationally angry instead of irrationally angry when I think about it.

This is not the first time I've cut my mom out of my life. The first time was when I was 17 and I chose to be homeless for years rather than to enable her to enable her abusive husband to abuse me.

The only reason I ever opened the door again and allowed her back into my life was because my dad pleaded with me to do so.

So when she cursed his dead body, and implied that the child that she had with him should never have been born, despite the only reason she was in a position to do that was because the dead man had vouched for her, out of love, was fucking a bridge too far.

And I also have blocked my sister. She should be fucking ecstatic that my dad did precisely what she asked him to do.

It wasn't just one big thing (although there were plenty of those), it was death by 1000 cuts. In the end it was something relatively small. I asked her to remove me from her regular right-wing email blasts and she refused to do so. What kind of asshole refuses to do something so small for a complete stranger, much less a family member? A malignant narcissist asshole.

If you haven't read up on narcissistic family systems there's a lot of good content out there. Here's a short article.

Cheated on my mom with a vile woman who had vile children (most much older than me) Let her push my sister and I around and eventually away. Stood there and did nothing while her entire family belittled and emotionally abused my sister on a near daily basis and had the balls to ask us why we don't reach out to him. There is a lot but that's the tldr.

• entering my flat multiple times without my consent/knowledge and not leaving when asked to (thanks for the 3h meltdown where I was completly locked inside my brain and couldnt do anything but repeat a few words over and over and rock back and forth on the couch, really liked that one)

• ignoring obvious signs of mental/neurological issues in their child (because somehow children cant have those??)

• treating our relationship as something transactional

• forcing me to do activities i really dont want to, trying to argue away my fears and thinking they "won" after i shut up

I might talk to them again if they write a letter apologizing for atleast something. I havent told them this and i realise that its kind of unfair to set a condition that the other party doesnt know about, but if they dont come to this conclusion themselves then it doesnt feel genuine to me. It really sucks because I have no other people to rely on (emotional and material) but it also kind of was like that before I stopped talking to them, because every favour needs to be repaid or might be used in an argument against me and every fear and concern is argued away.

edit: oh and i realise that some of this is my fault because i really am sometimes difficult to deal with and very stubborn and i try to take responsibility, but at the same time it often feels like I have to work with both of my hands tied behind my back and I wasnt given the tools as a child to do better.

My mom poured bleach into the enclosures of my brother's pet tarantulas when she was kicking him out over laundry or something.

He's a better person than i cause he still cares about her

My father definitelty had narcissistic personality disorder, untreated of course because his culture downplays any sort of emotional introspection. He cheated on my mom and tried to justify it by claiming she wasn't satisfying his sexual needs, when in reality she was medically compromised, and couldn't physically reciprocate those needs all the time.

Not to say my mother was a saint, cause she had her own issues of emotional detachment at times where she could be comforting most of the time but cold if you said the wrong thing to her, to the point where she beat me one time because I claimed offhandedly to my sister that "mom hates me". She and my dad still used corporal punishment to keep us and our cousins in line.

But I still respected her more than my father cause she helped not only her family members, but my dad's family members as well, allowing his brother to stay with us for a while as he traveled to the US. She even helped my dad write his own dissertation while she was raising me and my sister. Not to mention she hosted both her parents and took care of them and helped them find jobs.

But my father decided to be one of the most depsicable human beings I know personally because when my grandfather on my mom's side died and we all traveled out of the country to arrange, organize and attend his funeral, he not only brought the woman he was fucking into the house, they apparently had sex all over the house, leaving used condoms in several spots, they slept in my mother's bed, and he took her to various tourist spots that my mom practically had to drag him to. And it gets worse: He used the excuse of attending the graduation of his daughter from his previous marriage to get out of attending my grandfather's funeral, and of course, he didn't go to that event either despite my half-sister mailing him an invite.

And that's not even getting into the shit he did before he met my mom.

Yes, it gets much talk in therapy.

I was broke and hungry in college. My mother had already told me not to ask her for money, but I called anyway, hoping maybe my gran could help. My mother screamed at me and hung up.

I didn't take action on this for another thirty years.

Showed me his dick multiple times.

Mine has turned every conversation into a political fight and now refuses to speak with me unless I accept their prejudices and medical quackery.

My mother returned to Canada to visit her mother who was slowly dying of ALS. (Where I was born. We had moved to my fathers home country when I was 10, to see his side of the family and experience more of the world)

During her whole absence, my father cheated on her with various women, even taking me on a couple of his dates. When she got back and found out, she decided to leave permanently.

I (12m) was given the option of staying with either. I chose to go with her.

In the last week before I was to leave; he said he wanted to spend time with me and took me out to a couple 'fun tourist attractions'. A jet boat ride, a zipline, some random park. Each of these, he brought one of his girlfriends that he'd been cheating with (not the same one each time). We also went to at least one of their houses, as well as his weed dealers hidden under-house grow-op/party room thing. More focused on his dates than actually spending any time with me. Avoiding time with me had been a common theme throughout our lives/relationship.

I later learned he'd abused my older step-sister when she was much younger...

I've deliberately not spoken to him since. ~15 years later I sent him a couple old family videos I'd digitised (with my sister censored out of them), of when I was born and a few of the years immediately after. Mostly as a reminder of what he threw in the trash.

From what I've heard, he ended up homeless and jobless for quite a while and now lives with his mother.

boy that is a can of worms. my mom sorta spoiled the relationship with all her kids. Whats funny is she is really not that bad. If you have distance from her. My father in law was kinda the same and early on my wife and I bonded on how our parents were. Essentially there is a type of person where if they have any type of authority they are aweful but if you are completely out of their control then they are not all that bad.

My mom was similar. The worst thing that happened was I was assaulted by a stranger at age 4, I happily told her about it as part of my day, I had no idea anything bad happened because he told me he was a doctor. She understandibly lost her shit and that scared me, she started calling me stupid and how could I let this happen and on and on. As an autistic kid obsessed with being good, it completely shattered me. I was never able to trust her with anything ever again. One traumatic event broke the relationship in that way for good. Her narcissistic bullshit, like what you've described, is what broke the rest of it as well as gave me a good case of cPTSD.

Mine posted a hangman's noose on Facebook with reference to my old place of work. Basically calling for the lynching of everyone inside and all people like us.

There was a lot of other stuff besides but that was when I knew for sure the person I used to know was gone.

I heard him shout to someone else that he didn’t care about me or my siblings. Today, the feeling is mutual.

I don't speak to either of my parents. Both are still alive from what I can tell. My mom has deep mental health issues she refuses to accept and deal with. She probably has dementia and last time I spoke with her she thought everyone in the family was dead. Her story is sad and I tried for years to help her but you can't help someone who won't help themselves.

My father was never really around me growing up. I didn't even know who he was until I was like 8 and he was in the hospital because he almost died in a drunken car wreck. He killed his best friend and crippled his best friends brother. I was homeless and asked to live with him when I was 15. He was always drunk but one night after coming home from the bar slurring drunk and threatened to shoot me in the head with his shotgun in the wood shed, I went and lived with my best friend for a year and then my older sister for the last year in highschool. Later in life I tried to reconnect with him but one day he showed up on my doorstep demanding money for a car he cosigned and I couldn't afford so we turned it over to the bank. He demanded I pay him back because it hurt his credit score. Like the dude was never in my life and didn't pay child support or when he did it was always late. Caused me a lot of pain and suffering.

I unloaded years worth of pain and suffering he caused me that day and haven't spoken to him in over 30 years.

The joys of modern Native American life....

They died. That kind of put a damper on things. Haven't had much contact with them since.

She delayed an apology too long.

My mother was emotionally and physically abusive to me growing up. I started putting boundaries in place once I had moved far far away and that was not going well. We got into a fight during a phone call and she hung up on me.

I decided actually I was happier not talking, but I was open to it if she was willing to apologize.

It took her 4 years to try out “I’m sorry you’re so angry.”

Luckily in the intervening time I had some therapy and done a lot of self help and advice column reading and recognized that not-pology for what it was.

More recently (only 12 years after that first attempt [holy shit that long]) she finally apologized for “what I did to hurt you”.

Told me I was probably over reacting and didn't see things properly when I sent him a video of my neighbor loading a rifle outside our apartment and looking into our window.

I'd just had a blow-up with his roommate/girlfriend about him idling his truck for an excessive amount of time outside our bedroom window every morning, five minutes later he screeches back into the parking lot, drops the lift gate, pulls out a rifle and starts loading it. I got it all on camera because I saw him jump out of the truck looking pissed. Sent the video to the parent and asked him WTF I should do, he said I'm probably over reacting and he had probably simply forgotten it in his truck and was taking it home.

He literally looked at something I was experiencing and told me I wasn't seeing what I saw. This was just 1 more straw and it finally broke my back. He taught me gun safety, fucking cowardly despicable human.

These days I regret not turning him in for the things I'd found on his computer. That should've sealed the deal a long time ago, but kids are dumb and now I'm sure the evidence is gone, and I'm happy to just be done with the waste of breath.

My father died. That has caused a thorough interruption in our relationship. Regarding your question about a possible recovery, I don't know for sure if we can meet again in heaven.