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.

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.

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.

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.