Was this bad?

[Ineedmychapstick]

I've been feeling quite down after seeing a family member recently and am starting to look back at my childhood not through rose tinted glasses I guess. I honestly don't know if because I'm feeling down atm, I'm looking back at my childhood and judging it harshly or whether actually I'm right in feeling that my childhood wasn't great and it's ok to feel that way about it. My parents argued constantly and never seemed to make any effort to hide it from their children. Made it very obvious they hated each other. Always Screaming at each other calling them every name under the sun. Occasionally children got hit, occasionally parents got physical with each other (not beating each other up but throwing stuff at each other and pushing and shoving for example) One of my parents would use me as their counsellor and would tell me things like "If I could get away with murder I would kill them" meaning my other parent and telling me how much they hated them and that sort of thing. However they were both also very loving at times, house always clean and warm, always food on the table and a
stay at home parent collecting us from school everyday, lots of lovely days out, holidays etc. Is that bad or usual for late 70's early 80's childhood?

Very dysfunctional, sounds very much like a family I know/knew and I think it’s effected them as adults.

It doesn't sound "usual" but very common, maybe 20-30% of households. My parents spent the period between me being about 10 and 15 (late 80s/early 90s) having huge daily rows. No hitting but my mum shouting at my dad accusing him of all sorts of stuff that he probably hadn't done. (I say "probably hadn't done" because I'm not sure when he'd have had time to, he got up, went to work, did his job, came home and stayed in. Literally never went out anywhere without my mum aside from work.) It really scarred me to be honest because regular as clockwork it would kick off at about 7pm, usually for an hour or two, sometimes longer. I just stayed in my room night after night and tried to avoid them as much as possible.

My house was like that and it definitely affected me.

What's the point? Your memories are your memories regardless of whether they are good or bad, you can't change them. It's sounds pretty dysfunctional on the whole.

What you can do is not dwell on something that can't be altered. You dont need to let it define what you want to be or feel now. You are an adult and are able to choose how you are, who you are.

Did the relative you saw tell you something that you hadn't previously remembered?

Yes one difficult parent growing up, it's definitely affected me. Damaged me I mean. It was my normal so didn't know any different until I grew up and saw the light in my mid 40's. Hopefully in time to make a difference to my own children who were in their teens by then. Our own family life is certainly much better since I saw the light and realised my own upbringing wasn't great and I made a big effort to change my own behaviours from those modelled to me as a child.

It's OK to feel this way about your childhood. It sounds really bad and I think no child should go through this or worse. I sincerely hope it won't affect your adult life, relationships etc. because you can and you deserve better.

Having constantly warring parents is certainly hard for a child, especially if there were a lot of aggressive arguments and you felt caught between them. I don't think it's especially unusual, and it was probably even less unusual then because divorce was rarer and unhappy couples were more likely to stay together and be miserable - but the fact that it was probably relatively common doesn't make it any better for you, of course. It's really horrible for any kid to witness that sort of conflict between their parents, and it's totally understandable that you feel the way you do about it.

It's also totally OK to have mixed feelings about your childhood. You can remember bad times and you can remember happy times - both those memories are valid and neither one cancels out the other. The bad memories can co-exist with the good memories and both perceptions are true.

I also think that it's when we're already feeling down that the bad memories tend to surface more than the good ones. Again, it doesn't make them any less true, but I suppose it's like we're looking at one part of the picture instead of the whole thing - so it's perfectly valid, but is missing a bit more context.

If you feel like this is something you're really struggling with, it sounds like some counselling or therapy to talk through it all might be really helpful.

Thank you all! I'm usually quite an upbeat glass half full type of person so to suddenly be in a bit of a low mood is unlike me but I'm being proactive and eating well, exercising and trying to not dwell on it and focus on my own family and friends. I started this thread to hear from people that actually it wasn't great and that its ok to feel that way. I think before I had my own children I didn't see it as that bad, it's only now I'm a parent myself I can't understand what planet my parents were on! I saw a parent recently and they seem to have remembered life as a bed of roses and totally forgotten how much they argued and it threw me a bit as I was thinking wtf! My best friend and dp both had much worse childhoods so I think I was always under the impression it wasn't that bad and it's only now I'm realising that it wasn't great and that its ok to feel that way.