To think those with at least ordinarily lives can’t understand despite being sympathetic?

[OJred]

My Mam was an alcoholic from I remember so 12 years old?!! The died when I was 21 from smoking.

Dad was an abusive psycho, abused my Mam a siblings emotionally, physically and was vile though I was lucky I escaped the physically abuse generally. Needless to say I have no relationship with him. I’m mid 40’s and have two kids who I’ve tried to shelter from that and give them the best life possible. Their dad is amazing, I’ve never drank in front of them (ones nearly 18 ones 14) as I hated it so never wanted to do that in front of my kids.

I took out loans and went to University to try to give my kids the best chance financially (and me as I had no parents
to rely on). I feel lucky I have a half decent income, though it’s been hard as there has been no help from parents financially, emotionally, zero help.

One of my DC is disabled too so that’s really difficult as I worry so much about them. Good job I don’t take a leaf out my mother’s book or I’d neck a bottle of vodka every night….! 🙄

So I find things hard because of my situation. My DH has none of the above to contend with and my DC aren’t his biologically and he thinks I’m pessimistic at times so tonight I’ve had it out with him. Very difficult childhood then chronic worry about own of my children who is unlikely to be independent. I get fed up of hearing about those who make their own “difficult situations” and I can’t be arsed with it.

I said to to my DH (who is close to his parents and sees the weekly
and that’s lovely) if you hadn’t see your mam for nearly 25 years and even before that she was always drunk and your dad was a selfish man who never bothered, you wouldn’t view life the same way as you do.

It made me think of judgmental people who haven’t experienced really shit childhoods and have had, what I consider ‘charmed lives’.

So I’m not interested in hearing from those with charmed lives. It’s those who have had it difficult through not fault or choice of their own, such as abusive parents etc.. or worse, those who have really poorly children as my heart breaks for their people as it’s out of their hands

OP, I haven’t RTFT but from your first post I had to say I get you. My own situation is my mum died when I was 12 and I was left with my alcoholic dad who didn’t work, spent his money on beer and fags and was emotionally and financially abusive.

Yes I went to uni (self and government funded) and worked through everything - even finals.

I have had to stand on my own two feet, knowing there was no safety net.

I have a lovely life now but the scars from my shitty childhood remain and influence me even to this day.

Some people go through life with few issues (I do know of a couple like this) but most people have had some tough times. Obviously, there are some events that are significantly worse than others and have a bigger impact but I think people who haven’t suffered (or suffered in the same way) can still sympathise if not fully empathise.

I get it OP. It's not a misery Olympics, it's just needing your OP to at least acknowledge he hasn't got insight into your life. But it sounds like he's not even interested in understanding.

I'm sorry.

And that first reply... wow! Someone's as miserable as sin this Christmas. Sorry you're struggling @Sillysoggyspaniel, but you're in the right place. Many people feel a lot better after making random nasty replies on AIBU.

I have no shits to give mate as to what adults do or don’t do!!!

I have no strength to have any concerns!

Well lucky you that you haven’t endured such absolute trauma, where nothing could be done!!!!!!!!

You seem to think your suffering is so much greater than others

YABU. Stop playing misery Top Trumps with people. It’s horrible and unkind. What are you hoping to achieve?

My mother was an abusive alcoholic, so presumably I get to have an opinion? As you’re being incredibly dismissive of other people’s trauma, and that’s not okay. Your pain is not the only pain, it’s not the most important pain, it’s not the greatest pain. Everyone’s pain is all of those things to them.

As opposed to rowing with your DH about it, you should really focus on your therapy.

What you experienced wasn't right, wasn't your fault and wasn't fair. You deserved far better.

Other people can't understand. Personally, I wouldn't want them to, because that would mean another innocent child experienced the same void where other children experienced love, affection, safety and peace. It's so easy to slip into resentment of them for not understanding when it's rightful resentment of living in that void - one where for some, the only physical contact they experienced was violence, for others it was affectionate contact accompanied by words designed to tear them to pieces.

For some people, the yearning is what keeps them in abusive adult relationships because at least the new abuser pretends to like them some of the time. For them, leaving means not even having the occasional touch or the warmth of somebody near. They've been taught from infancy that they're so unlikable, so irritating, so unworthy that nobody would ever treat them better, so that person who will scream at them and smash the house up but will also give them a hug or sleep beside them is already 100x better than still being the unhugged child.

Although I know some believe it's an unwise approach, I find that accepting it happened, it wasn't my fault, it led me to making some poor choices, some understandable in context - but that was then. I'm not that unloved child anymore, I'm an adult who is loved, I'm safe, I'm cared for and the people who love me are as lucky to have me as I am them. I don't need the anger to pollute my present day and my future - my abusers' (yep, I went for men who just never seemed quite as bad) anger back then was quite enough for me, thank you, I don't need to add mine to the mix - and like fuck am I letting the abuse I experienced years ago control my life now.

Perhaps what others would call anger in me is the sheer bloodymindedness that makes me get up time and time again. Even as something goes wrong, any time I'm reminded again that the world can be a tough place, I'm thinking 'fuck this/fuck you/I've dealt with bigger and nastier than this and I didn't give in to them, there's no way I'm giving in now', And I get back up again.

You may need to feel that you are seen getting back up again. Well, people who have experienced it see you. You can't make somebody whose childhood was a different world to yours see it, in their heart they know it wasn't like that for them. But we see you getting back up again.

You're doing brilliantly. You will do whatever is needed for your children. You will get back up again and face everything that comes your way with that same strength, that same core of steel that can only be forged in circumstances unimaginable to others.

We cheer you on.

Again, covert narcissism

Yea I think it is odd to want people to be as miserable as others, people want people to have bad childhoods, everyone has good and bad things happen to them and no one owns another's thoughts and feelings, it is not a competition to see who has it worse and no one knows what another goes through

Who has the right to judge another person's childhood or life, if people want to do that get therapy

I agree to a point but having a child with disabilities makes it 10 x worse and no amount of counselling can help a shit abusive child and a disabled chidl who will never be independent. It seems
life life is unfair am some people get it from both barrels

Being in an abusive relationship as an adult or having one friend commit suicide - as horrendous as it is-is NO COMPARISON to having thoroughly abusive and neglectful parents.

When your whole emotional/inner life, the lens you see life through and your self esteem and identity are formed by abusive adults with complete power over you it just can't be compared nothing to do with misery Olympics!

Some vile replies on here, @sunshine244
@Sillysoggyspaniel

Unfortunately you're unlikely to find much empathy on here, hope things get better for you soon

I've not experienced what you have but I am a foster carer and witness the effects 🌷

Ok, ok, we get it OP.

Nobody has ever endured as much trauma and suffering as you.

Life is not a race to the bottom, and there comes a time when you need to stop letting the past define you & shed the chip on your shoulder.

God what a vile thread and outlook on life.

@OJred please please get some therapy and realise so many people have and do endure so much and it’s not a game of winning points.

I understand this. When you’ve had an abusive childhood you miss out on the proper emotional building blocks for life. And this is hard (impossible?) to ever rebuild. Of course bad things happen to lots of people but part of how we cope goes back to those loving foundations we’re supposed to get in childhood. If your foundations are strong, it’s ‘easier’ to deal with blows and set backs. If you’re always working from dodgy, unsafe, broken foundations it impacts everything. I hear you.

@OJred it’s hard to offer advice because you seem very fixed in this viewpoint:

But fwiw, I think you are wrong and I speak as someone who was the victim of an extremely abusive, alcoholic mother. I think your viewpoint is quite an immature one and I’d love to tell you why (and to be clear, I am critiquing the argument, not the person).

I felt exactly as you’ve described when I was 18 and went to university. It was a good uni, and I felt totally separate from my classmates from ‘normal’ families. I had a huge chip on my shoulder about it. They couldn’t possibly understand etc etc

But spending time around people helped me understand pain differently. I realised that, while my situation wasn’t directly comparable to anyone else’s, that didn’t mean I had the monopoly on shit things. Some of my friends had disabled siblings. Some had lost friends or family members. And while their suffering was different to mine, it wasn’t lesser or worse.

I’d recommend the very short but very brilliant JK Rowling book Very Good Lives. It’s the speech from her commencement address at Stanford or Harvard or one of those places, and it is magnificent: it talks about the power of imagination and empathy.

Anyway, OP, I hope you have a good Christmas and can find some peace

I was ready to agree with you, particularly about parenting a disabled child (I have two autistic kids and while both technically disabled one has a by far worse life and parents of kids like my lower need child always empathise with how hard it is but honestly it’s just not the same set of worries when you know one day you will be too old to care and the state of support systems etc).

but then read your comments about abused women having more choice than a child. I was an abused and neglected child who walked right into an abusive marriage. It’s not a woman’s fault when she’s been raised by parents and even society to not see abuse and control until his claws are so deep leaving (with your child/ren) is so incredibly difficult. Then when you leave the family court orders contact between the child and their abusive parent and even when they come home marked police and social services won’t do anything because of that court order and the family court when you take it back just rule against you. I spent years wishing I’d not left when my children were too young to be listened to. I have real empathy for women who stay because they can’t stand to risk their abuser having contact with the child and infuriating reading all the pile in of people blindly faithful the system protects these kids. It fucking does not.

everyone has troubles. One person’s massive trouble will not even register for some others and visa versa. Take your loosing a parent at different ages example. My alcoholic neglectful father died at a moderately young age from unrelated cancer and I felt nothing, whereas I can fully see how loosing a loving parent in their 90s would hurt more

I had an abusive childhood and have a disabled child.

I'm guessing that this is less narcissism and more likely that op is burning out/ caring fatigue/ complex trauma all of which affects empathy. Becoming a parent is often particularly triggering for people who have abusive/ neglectful parents and op is navigating that while caring for a child with additional needs. It doesn't sound like op is typing this from a clear mindset, she's clearly still in survival mode and is doing what she can to address that.

Are her comments about dv fair? No, it shows a lack of awareness of dv in general. But I think I can see her overall point even if she's making it badly and some people are reacting a little defensively. I had a similar upbringing to op and I was also in an abusive relationship as an adult, I know which was worse (in my specific experience) but equally I've seen other women impacted by dv that almost killed them, for some women it does kill them and there is no safe way out. It depends on the situation and of course there is nuance to it. I think there are also some very dismissive comments related to childhood abuse and that's not being called out in the same way as ops posts are being called out. And that's not ok. It's almost like there is an attitude of - well that was a long time ago so just forget it. But you can't really - it's something I notice when I go out and see a woman and her mum having a coffee - I could never do that with mine. When I got married it hit me like a stack of bricks (even though I'd previously felt like i was in a good place with it all) that my mum would never be involved and excited or supportive around things like dress shopping etc. And it's not that she can't because she passed (which is also very sad) it's because she doesn't want to, doesn't have an interest in me as her child except to be abusive towards me (even though as a child i grew up having to parent her). And that cuts really deep 100 times over in lots of different ways because of the rejection that goes with it. You have to grieve someone who's still alive while knowing they just didn't choose you as their child and just didn't/ couldn't love you enough - and the inference from that is that on a core level YOU were not enough for your own parent. I don't think anyone who hasn't been through that really, truly understands it. It has lifetime impact - kids who grow up in this type of situation are significantly more likely to go on into abusive relationships, to have severe pnd or ppa, to have ptsd or cptsd, to have a range of physical health conditions, mental health problems, to experience transiency, to end up engaged with the criminal justice system, to end up misusing substances themselves and to live in poverty. They are more likely to go to prison than uni statistically to put that in context for you. I count myself very fucking lucky that I have been able to make a decent life for myself but I've been working towards that since I was in primary school because I had no other choice - there was noone to fall back on and being able to study and earn enough was my way out. I now work with kids in the same situation I was in and have to be very self aware due to the nature of it which I think is why I manage much better than many others do. So to say oh everyone has pain - that massively minimises what op has had to overcome.

Narcissism, particularly covert, is a trauma response.

And as previously mentioned I had an abusive childhood and have a disabled child. I understand the layers of trauma from a childhood where you are neglected and abused and live in abject poverty. I'm saying despite that I'm willing to accept others have suffered too.

Trauma in early childhood is different because it wires and rewires our brain. I know people who have been through immeasurable pain, but they haven't had their brain wired by trauma in childhood. I will be on anti-depressants all my life. If you look at adverse childhood experiences, the more a child has the more likely they are to end up with mental illnesses, addiction or committing suicide. PPs who say you just have to let the past be the past and move on don't get this. Your outlook is bleak OP, but thats for a reason. Therapy will genuinely help to undo some of the wiring or at least understand how it got wired that way. Keep strong

How’s it a vile thread? It’s a fact some people absolutely do endure more than others so to pretend that’s not true is utter bollocks. Most people in a privileged portion will say shit like that!

Yes counselling could be the right option but luckily most people don’t need to consider that as an option…

Oh come on @sunshine244 - don’t make this thread all about you.

fwiw I was in an abusive relationship and got rid. And I agree with OP, it’s not as horrific as having two abusive, chaotic parents. It’s possibly the worst thing that can happen to someone. No wonder she is angry about it.

I agree but I have the added extra of a disabled child which breaks me in a way the former wouldn’t. I could handle one but not two.