How awful. To undermine people's experience of abuse by criticising the label they give it
My adoptive father abused and bullied me emotionally for years until I just about lost my sense of self. No he didn't just forget my birthday one year, he repeatedly called me fat and told me I was a fake. That the only reason people liked me was because they didn't know the 'real me'. He raged at me whenever I disagreed with him and controlled me excessively (eating, bodily functions etc). He would lie and tell people at his work that I studied medicine to fulfill his narcissistic need for status. He has delusions of grandeur (could have been an Olympic champion, was friends with important American politicians, could have been a millionaire). His lack of empathy is startling. He could reduce me to tears of shame and worthlessness and get a kick out of it. He would ignore me for days if I didn't fulfill his narcissistic needs. He once made me go running with him and wouldn't let me go home to use the toilet. He raged and raged at me, that I was making excuses. I still remember the awful stomach cramps I endured that day, trying to hold it in. Then the shame of having to go to the toilet in public. He threatened me with his fists, his words and his creepy repressed sexuality (called me a slut).
Reading that Toxic parent book by Susan Forward changed my life. I sought counseling and have pretty much got him out of my life after he turned his need for narcissistic supply onto my DS. I wrote him a letter and he responded by stating he was 'withdrawing from my life'.
The reason he was allowed to get away with this is because of these sorts of views expressed here. He was just doing his best. I should understand that he had a difficult childhood. I should forgive him.
Thus it went unchecked for years and I ended up with eating disorders, self-harmed and suffered anxiety and depression.
If you feel uncomfortable with your parenting or feel you have not always been the best mother, do not transfer this guilt onto others who claim their parents have been abusive. Toxic is just another word for abusive and the intellectualizing of it is arrogant and disrespectful of those in genuine distress
This was actually a reply to a similarly unkind thread about the term toxic. My adoptive father has NPD I am sure of it so I felt the need to post this