To think that if you’re over 30 and still blaming your parents for everything, it’s time to grow up?

I know people IRL who had completely normal childhoods who are holding stuff over their parents heads in adulthood. More than one actually. I genuinely (in a non-goady way) think it's a bit of an epidemic. I think it runs alongside the 'going no contact' epidemic too.

I do appreciate that others disagree with this POV of course.

Not always op. Some people here had awful childhoods. Its like saying oh my mum is difficult/nasty. If you havent experienced that you have no idea what its like.

I think this thread is targetted at the sort of goady fuckers that leap onto every thread with helpful comments such as 'get a grip', 'grow up' and, my personal favourite, 'you seem like hard work'.

I think there's a massive difference between making normal mistakes and being a genuinely shitty parent, though, isn't there?

Most people aren't holding normal parenting mistakes over their parents heads for generations, and most people on this thread know that. Everyone makes mistakes and no one is perfect.

My parents made mistakes, but I'm not damaged by them. However, if my parents were neglectful, emotionally, physically or mentally abusive, I'm not sure I could say the same.

I can't believe there are people pretending to not know the difference.

I've reported this thread as I think the op is nasty and goady. To me this could be very triggering.

True abuse and neglect - yabu

Where it is just a personality thing - yanbu

My trauma has become my personality and self - that's part of the problem with actual trauma from abuse and neglect. Left untreated, it does absolutely become part of who you are. Uncontrollably. That's why it's an illness.

I have panic attacks over nothing - I'm not a worrier, I won't be worried about a god damn thing, but I'll still have panic attacks and the physical symptoms and feelings of anxiety attacks where there is absolutely nothing wrong. I'll dissociate randomly too, lose whole days, feel like I'm living in a dream world and losing my grip on reality.

Not because anything has happened, but because cause my brain chemistry is now fucked. A whole childhood and most of adulthood living in fight or flight mode has messed up how my brain operates.

I can't control it. It is happening in my brain, but I can't just stop it happening. It's not a choice. I live a very gentle, nice, secure and safe life now... But I'll still wake up with night terrors and panic attacks.

I'm in treatment for it, and have been told it can be reversed but will take actually participating in the psychodynamic therapy and a lot of time. I've had many rounds of CBT before which havnt done anything ... Because it's not a problem with how I'm thinking. I'll think and feel perfectly safe, but somewhere subconscious in my brain thinks otherwise apparently. It's too engrained, it's how my brain as been moulded.

It's still my parents fault. They can't fix it for me, that's up to me and my doctors, but it's still their fault.

And possibly undiagnosed autism maybe but we don't know yet, havnt been assessed yet, but it's been asserted by my medical professionals that I could be autistic. So that on top of abusive and neglectful parents.

If I had been physically, emotionally or sexually abusive to my children I wouldn't expect them to just 'get over it'.

However, if I were the sort of parent that did those awful things, I probably would totally downplay them and dismiss the trauma that it caused in my children and maybe I would tell them that it's time to grow up.

I was brought up by parents who mostly did a good job, they got some things wrong but they loved me and my siblings very much and always did their best for us.
Some things they did get wrong and some of these have affected my personality but I can get over any of this because they actually did their best.
I think this is very different from families where abuse and neglect happened, I don't think this can really be got over at any age it is always there in the background I have a friend in her 70s who is still suffering from mental health issues stemming from childhood.

Disagree. However it is up to us to do our absolute best to re-wire our emotional responses if we can and break the cycle of abuse.

Great post.

My best friend has BPD. Her childhood was awful, her mum used to tell her things like she’d ruined her life, would assault and terrify her. She’s incredibly bright, shy, probably neurodiverse and very very sensitive. A child like that needs very careful parenting (I have one like that myself). What she got was parenting that shattered her sense of identity and self worth and left her with a literal personality disorder. She spent time in a psychiatric hospital, her arms are covered in self harm scars. Shes anorexic. She’s tried to kill herself multiple times and has never been in a relationship that wasn’t abusive.

She’s funny, loving and incredibly loyal. One of my favourite people in the world. She doesn’t blame her mum, she blames herself for being so supremely unlovable. Who do you think is to blame, please tell me.

You want to make a thread by giving us one sentence. Come on, we need examples, diagrams, etc.

Oh great, another context-free, goading generalisation post from someone with no other posting history whose only reason for posting is that they 'just have an opinion'. We've not had one of those for at least eight or nine seconds.

Yes it is. 👍

Omg that's horrific. Hope they rot in hell when they get there.

My lovely friend was repeatedly raped by her grandfather from the age of 5 and her parents knew and didn't stop it.
I didn't blame her for blaming them all for her terrible mental health. She killed herself 12 years ago. I still blame her parents and grandparents.

But the lack of insight into this is frightening.

I know we all think we'll be perfect parents before we're parents. But surely the first 6 months of parenthood show what a fallacy this is?

Don’t be silly. All the posters on here are totally perfect parents. They would NEVER be the utterly terrible parents that boomers were. (Sarcasm obviously. And obviously I’m not talking about actual abusive parents).

🤣

Mum... is that you??

It depends on whether parents caused actual trauma (as in, the medical definition of it - abuse, severe neglect etc etc) or whether it’s TikTok’s version of trauma.

The first - YABU
The second - YANBU

Maybe spend some time in a psychiatric unit OP and you will get a better idea about the abuse that some people suffer as children. I’m pleased for you if you can’t even imagine how damaging such a childhood can be.
In my case, it is my psychiatrist and therapist who tell me that it’s not surprising that I am still struggling now

I had a very difficult childhood and blamed my parents for years. But one day, I stopped and considered my mother's childhood. Which was horrific. It'd be outing to list what she went through here so I won't. Suffice to say huge neglect, physical & emotional abuse, no parental love.

No counselling for her. No understanding husband (he left her). Living on the poverty line. DV from 2nd husband.

No wonder she didn't have the tools to bring me up carefully, lovingly or well. She genuinely did her best, even though it was shitty.

Blaming our parents doesn't consider them as flawed and damaged individuals. In the same way we are flawed and damaged.

@stclementine you need to know it's her who was damaged not you. I hope you can heal. Be kind to yourself. Have you tried meditating and visualising the child that was you and talking to them? Nurturing that child. Might help? Best wishes ❤️