What were your family struggles growing up?

[MeiganMcSeinna6]

father leaving when i was younger.

Emotional abuse (not outright but was more subtle and underlying way and still affects me to this day).

Also emotional abuse and also affects me to this day. I people-please to my own detriment because I want the validation of being liked and because a childhood version of me that still exists in my head reminds me almost constantly that its safer to be on everyone's good side. I rarely ask for help for the same reasons.

Emotional abuse here too. Also subtle and I also never ask for help. Lying awake now wondering why I felt compelled to please people who thought so little of me.

severe family illness, then bereavement.
also hospitalisation and what would now be called emotional abuse in institutions.

My parents were both lovely but my mum wasn't suited to being a sahm. She lost her confidence and was bored, frustrated and unfulfilled.

Real poverty.

Emotional abuse.
Neglect.
Sexual abuse.
Physical abuse.

being raped on a regular basis

Severe mental illness/sectioning of one parent, other one an alcoholic. Poverty, sometimes extreme. A period of 18 months where domestic abuse was present, aimed both at me and my mum, including one particularly bad/dramatic incident.

While I can see now which parts of my personality and worldview were shaped by the things that happened when I was younger, I don't feel like I'm suffering from big-T Trauma. I would broadly say I had a good childhood and genuinely mean it, even if I would never wish those things on anyone.

Grandparent diagnosed with schizophrenia, father having long term secret affair, emotional neglect combined with living amongst constant stress and tension. I was also autistic and undiagnosed. As is my father.

Separated parents (fathers infidelity, refusal to commit to being a parent), mothers death when I was 9, being taken of first by an abusive father (he returned when he realised his wife had died because to not come back would've dented his social standing and then left again a few months later because raising a family was hard) and thereafter abusive siblings. After that, crippling poverty for over a decade. There were days when we only had cereal but no milk so we'd all sit with bowls of weetabix or cornflakes or whatever it was and eat it like that. Social services should've come and taken us away really.

Oh and sexual abuse at the hands of my father. He chose to target me only for some strange and perverse reason.

@AlexaShutUp

My parents were both lovely but my mum wasn't suited to being a sahm. She lost her confidence and was bored, frustrated and unfulfilled.

I feel like your mum atm 😔

Dad dying of cancer when I was 12

seven of us trying to survive on df's minimum wage job plus dm's part time cleaning.
And df's objection to the education of women - as his four daughters headed for university - didn't make for harmonious living. None of us ever went back.

No support in my education. Db had lots of support. I realise this now and encourage my dds to the hilt to make sure they are supported in their studies. Dd1 is so intelligent, I’m so proud. Hoping she uses this in her adult life.

We were very lucky and didn't have any.

Very little money in the family, emotional and physical abuse from father, sister being the golden princess. Marked me for life.

Narcissistic mother, passive father.

Mother weirdly decided to adopt a 14 year old daughter when my other sis was 13 and I was 7. Nobody else knew she was doing it , not even Dad.

The two girls hated each other on sight and that coloured our entire family life. The atmosphere was horrible, all day and every day. That lasted until they both left home .Happy times just didn't exist in our family because of that. Even as adults the two wouldn't be in the same place at the same time. No such thing as a family Christmas or birthday. Just awful. My eldest sister is deceased but the other one still hates her, many years later.

Extreme poverty and my Mum being really unwell.

None. Thankfully.

Some very sad childhood experiences here.

• alcoholic father
• parents divorced when I was 10 - I was taken away by mother at night. I didn’t know where we were going or why.
• father died when I was 15
• mother generally difficult (no diagnosis or anything, just quite unpleasant)

Certainly not as bad as some peoples experiences, but it has had an effect on my ability to have functional relationships. Therapy helped a lot.

My dad worked away in a well paid job. My mum was a spendaholic and lived a lavish lifestyle outdoors yet sometimes we would have an OXO cube in a mug of hot water for our dinner because there was no money left for food, yet my Dad earned well above average. Mum also had multiple affairs and one night stands, quite blatantly, and just assumed I would not tell. I never did but growing up with the pain of knowing what she did behind my Dad's back was awful. I felt like a traitor.

Violent father
Sexual assault within parents marriage
Father also forced us to move countries to isolate mother, he was the only one with access to household money, as well as having multiple affairs and secret child.
Suicidal unable to cope mother who thought abuse was okay
Watching mother and siblings being abused
Elder siblings suicidal and one also being violent
Mother got cancer a few times
Money problems after father left
Father lying about mother and turning me against her to go nc with her for a year as a teen

Things that i have only come to realise in my early 20s actually have affected me,

My father left when i was 2 or 3 and later was diagnosed with schizophrenia, leading to never really having a good relationship with him after the age of 7 or 8.

My single mother had quite bad depression something i only realised later in life and would explain why i think she was emotionally absent,and i failed to develop the ability of expressing love to family members, and have quite low self esteem and constant need for validation. I think i was sexually groomed online a few times which lead to me going down a self destructive path and losing my virginity to a 50 year old man in the back of a car at age 16.. and constantly craving older men and any attention i can get, obsessed with sex yet in an extremely dysfunctional long term relationship with someone extremely caring,lovely and fantastic who i have done nothing but hurt,disrespect and be disloyal to because of my selfish, horrible ways.