It’s Okay To Admit Your Parents Screwed You Up
By: Anastasia Summersault
Tags: Parenting, Life Lessons, Family, Children, Advice

Most of your adult issues stem from the way you were raised as a child.

Your fears, insecurities, inability to maintain healthy relationships, lack of fulfillment— all of it has something to do with your childhood, one way or another. It has something to do with your parents.

Often, when people think about childhood trauma, they tend to imagine something tangible, physical, such as sexual or physical abuse, or parents who are alcoholics. While these are absolutely horrifying and certainly damaging to a child’s well-being, emotional and psychological mistreatment can potentially be no less hurtful and lead to serious problems in adulthood.

In fact, due to its subtlety and the ability of abusive parents to gaslight you and manipulate your perception of the circumstances, psychological abuse can go unnoticed for a very long time, causing a profound, harmful impact on your development. To such an extent that many years later, as an adult, you find yourself stuck in a permanent state of demotivation, guilt, and low self-esteem, lost in a whirlwind of one-sided, dysfunctional relationships where you keep getting hurt — but you have no idea why and what to do about it.

The answer to that often lies in your childhood trauma. You could have been born in a “good” family that looked very benevolent from the outside. Your parents may have been there, provided for you, maybe even paid for your school. They weren’t alcoholics.

Still, they could have screwed you up.

And, if you have toxic parents, the relationship with them continues to be damaging and degrading even when you grow up.

The Toxic Parents Questionnaire

Dr. Susan Forward, in her book “Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life,” provides the following questionnaire meant to help you identify if your parents are toxic:

Do your parents still treat you as if you were a child? Are many of your life decisions based upon whether your parents would approve? Do you have intense emotional or physical reactions after you spend or anticipate spending time with your parents? Are you afraid to disagree with your parents? Do your parents manipulate you with threats or guilt? Do your parents manipulate you with money? Do you feel responsible for how your parents feel? If they’re unhappy, do you feel like it’s your fault? Is it your job to make it better for them? Do you believe that no matter what you do, it’s never good enough for your parents? Do you believe that someday, somehow, your parents are going to change for the better?

And a few more from me to top it off:

Do your parents often judge, criticize, shame, or mock you, your decisions, or actions? Do you feel obligated to do what your parents say even if it goes against your own wishes and capabilities? Do you feel like you are obligated to help your parents, even if you don’t want to, and despite the fact that it causes you emotional or financial discomfort? Do your parents gaslight you? Do you ever find yourself in a situation where you feel justified in standing your ground, but your parents make you feel like you are wrong and a bad person for feeling that way?

Note that while the questions use “parents” as the plural for generality, your answers may apply to only one parent.

If you answered yes to even a third of these questions, I got bad news for you.

It’s Hard To Admit Your Parents Are Toxic

Chances are you already know your parents are toxic — most of us can tell. You have felt and lived with it your entire life, after all.

Oftentimes, however, you just aren’t able to admit it — even to yourself, let alone to others.

There is a multitude of reasons why.

It can be because having been gaslighted your entire life, you feel like your parents are right, and you are wrong and oversensitive.

Or because you’ve been guilted into feeling like you’re forever indebted to them for whatever it is they did for you.

Or because speaking ill of your parents is taboo in our society, and you feel like people around you wouldn’t understand if you told them how you really feel.

Or maybe you think Well, they didn’t beat me up, so I shouldn’t be complaining.

Or it could be you don’t want to admit it because admitting the abuse would mean admitting the humiliation you’ve been subjected to, and you are ashamed to acknowledge that you allowed someone to mistreat you like this.

Or you are just plain scared because the moment you admit the truth, you have to do something about it, take action, and you’re just not ready yet.

So you are keeping this pain and doubt to yourself and continue living in the misery of being subservient to your toxic parents.

Photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash

The One Thing You Need To Move Forward

Understandably, sharing something intimate like this can be hard. But the reality is that by keeping quiet, you continue soaking in the poison of self-doubt and uncertainty, torn between the senses of dire injustice and unbearable guilt.

In order to break out of this vicious cycle and begin healing, you need validation.

You need to break the silence.

Find a trusted friend or a relative that you can confide in and openly share your truth. Therapy is a great place to start, as it’s completely confidential, and you can get the perspective of a trained, impartial professional.

There are also many support groups for children of toxic parents online, such as on Reddit and Facebook, where you can go and join a community of people who may be going through similar things. It’s likely that after reading the experiences of others, you will find comfort in knowing that you are not alone. And it will give you the strength to move forward.

You need to get validation for your feelings because until you get a reaction from someone other than yourself, breaking out of the bubble your parents gaslighted you into can be challenging.

Your parents conditioned you to feel guilt, shame, and fear, and you need to find an ally — someone that can hear you out and tell you that what’s happening is not okay. Someone who can take your side and back your point of view. Their feedback will offset the destructive notions instilled in you by your parents and ensure you stick to the course even when your emotions try to drag you back into the black hole of guilt and dependence.

Because they will.

It may seem insignificant, but it makes all the difference in the world. Validation is critical when you are trying to break out of any toxic relationship, be it your significant other or a parent. And recovery from the trauma is impossible without it.