To think this is closer to a normal childhood than to extreme abuse?

[Greensl100]

I know you can’t and shouldn’t try to measure things like this but I am told that this sort of stuff constitutes extreme abuse and I just don’t think it does. I actually think it is within the realms of a normal childhood from the 90s.

Examples…

one occasion of parent trashing child’s bedroom

leaving 15 year old in home for a week while parents went away (in same country)

calling child self centred

saying child needed to be more like child’s friend

forcing child to spend time around a pet that caused child non life threatening allergic reaction

pulling hair and smacking

not allowing teen to use washing machine or cook for themselves in home

When left home and relationship broke down in twenties, told that they were not welcome in the family home and that if they visited they were a guest

these are some examples and of course I know none of them are brilliant parenting but I don’t think it equals extreme abuse?

Its not the sort of thing you mention to friends as its your normal

Maybe not, I guess I was making the point that to my knowledge, the things OP has experienced aren't normal (which she seems to think they are)

I witnessed so much neglectful/abusive stuff in the 80s & early 90s and I never once saw or heard about an interaction with a social worker. Was there some pivotal change in the 90s? Was this 'New Labour'?

My life definitely improved under NL, but I was an older teen by then and out of the home.

I think a lot of them where quite normal in the 90s before the days of technology the only thing people had to go of was how they where brought up and the people closest to them. So if they grew up being smacked that was normal.

Of course it's nowhere near a normal childhood.

I would call it very abusive and I grew up in the 80s/90s.
My parents would never have treated me like that, neither would my grandparents have treated my parents like that

I’ve experienced none & I grew up in 80s/90s.
I'm sorry you had to go through this.

I guess I can only go on my own experience, which was that this wasn't normal.

This is critical. I am still realising late in life that certain things I thought were not great but not bad either are considered to be abusive.

Reading this has truly sickened me……..abuse to the extreme.

Yes, these are abusive behaviours and situations you are describing.

The way you are feeling and processing this information is normal. It’s okay to feel shocked and sad. This was normalised for you - and now that you’re discovering it actually isn’t normal, it’s turned your world upside down. Your whole childhood has been reframed and you’re seeing it through a different lens.

FWIW my sister and I experienced some of the exact situations you are describing - some are so specific I briefly wondered if you were DSis! It was easier for me to identify what was happening because there was a large age gap between us (I’m much older) and I also witnessed domestic violence against my mum. That being said, I would say it took until at least my late teens for the penny to start to drop.

You don’t have to make excuses for your family or try to normalise what happened to you any more. Process this is in your own time and take your time. Tell your therapist you are struggling to accept this - that’s what they’re for. Be kind to yourself.

I would suggest that you feel so sad about it because a) your adult 'self' is feeling so sorry for the child you were and b) None of us want to believe our parents were really abusive. As children we love our parents and internalise when they do shit things as we must have done something wrong.

Please talk to your therapist about how this makes you feel.

Came looking for a response like this!
What has the child's behaviour got to do with any of it?

OP, I'm sorry, if you think that these things were within the reasonable limits of parenting, in the nineties or any other decade, I think your expectations are way, way way too low. My childhood was in 70s/80s and I think they would have counted as abusive then.

I agree that context matters; I have Tanzanian friends and they'd think I'm weird if I told them that smacking a child is abusive unter all circumstances. But the actions you describe are callous; they show a real lack of concern about the child's wellbeing. Leaving a child with a pet that causes them discomfort? No, just no. You don't do that.

Likewise telling a grownup child they're unwelcome and a mere visitor if they're looking for a roof over their head after a relationship ended. Pulling by the hair is vile, stopping a teen from looking after themselves at home is just gratuitously mean. Gosh, I'd be glad if my teens wanted to do their own laundry!

You sound like you're inured to being treated badly. I'm sorry you had to get used to this kind of treatment.

but I was there and it was not considered normal.

I think your therapist is out of order. They have upset you with their comment.
Times have changed, eg smacking was not considered abusive in the 90s and perhaps not hair pulling. Trashing a room (depending on what this means) is concerning, but I think you're right to say most examples were not abusive by 1990s standards and probably mostly not abusive by today's standards.
It all depends on how things are said. To say to a child, "Why can't you be like x?' is arguably unkind, not abusive. Equally, saying' You're not welcome here if you behave like x' is not abuse.
People rush to label as abuse all sorts of things on MN.
I would tell your therapist she is abusing you with her comment, since it is clearly bothering you. 😄

No. Extreme abuse is withholding food and drink, locking in bedroom, forcing to do chores for hours, sexual molestation, regular physical assault.

Your examples are not all of the same level of abuse and some are not at all abusive.

one occasion of parent trashing child’s bedroom
this is not normal but it is not abuse, everyone loses their temper sometimes.

leaving 15 year old in home for a week while parents went away (in same country)
sounds brilliant to me!

calling child self centred
totally normal

saying child needed to be more like child’s friend
a bit mean but so long as it was just once, not really a problem

forcing child to spend time around a pet that caused child non life threatening allergic reaction
this is abusive, yes.

pulling hair and smacking
this is the only thing I would say veers close to "extreme" abuse

not allowing teen to use washing machine or cook for themselves in home
definitely abusive and very unkind

When left home and relationship broke down in twenties, told that they were not welcome in the family home and that if they visited they were a guest
their loss - not abuse

that is my take - some therapists want to give themselves more work

80s kid here and I hate how the word abuse is misused sometimes now, but a lot of that is really abusive

No it's not extreme abuse but it is abusive parenting and definitely not normal.

not normal in the 90's either! I agree that child abuse was less openly discussed but Childline kicked off in 1986 and before that there was the NSPCC.

I'm sorry this has happened to you, i recognise certain flavours of these incidents from my childhood and it did strike me when i had my own children that this was a bit abusive, which was an unpleasant thought as one parent had died by that point so wasn't there to discuss my feelings with.
I don't like your therapist, what was the goal of labelling your childhood in this way? I've worked through my feelings about my childhood and have come to terms with it. My parents had very limited resources and not the best childhoods themselves and I believe they did their very best.
Why don't you go and see a proper psychotherapist, they'll help you work through your feelings without pointless labels

taken as one offs, I might have agreed with you....I doubt it but I might.....but all of this taken together is extreme abuse....its obvs not as extreme as abuse can get but that does not excuse it or excuse your snarky comment about therapists (and no I am not a counsellor or mental health therapist)

I think all of these are terrible now and would have been terrible then. I was born in 1990 and I didn’t experience any of these things.

Hey couldn’t read and not reply. I was smacked and compared to friends a lot - very naughty child though in retrospect (likely ND). For example I broke a window, trashed my own room, ran away, brained another child with a rock, kicked another down the slide… that was just a Wednesday 🤣 My mum literally couldn’t cope with me at times and would smack me and shame me by comparison. We did have some very severe life adversities that explained some of my behaviour and hers. And she did love me and I never doubted that.
I do think what you experienced was abuse. I wouldn’t get hung up on label of extreme, especially if it upsets you - don’t cling to the things that hurt you op. And it’s ok for you to have your own view of what counts as extreme abuse that differs from therapist and ok to say this to her and ask if she would reframe it with you. I too think extreme abuse is more than what you describe but yes that is abusive and any abuse isn’t ok and can be deeply hurtful and hard to recover from - but you will recover x
I personally think you need to consider what else was going on in your parents life and how you behaved compared to others. Not to victim blame you (not at all x) but to help you heal from what they inflicted on you. It was abuse though as no I didn’t experience a lot of what you did and I had a lot of adversity. I am so sorry you went through that. X

I am shocked at the low bar of some posters on here and the "oh that's what things were like" posters. I was there it was not like that.