Things our toxic parents have done/said that is bats*it crazy

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I thought id start a thread away from stately homes where we can just list the things our toxic parents have done that other people would be horrified about but for us its a long list of things that were seen as "normal" to our parents.
I can laugh about alot of them now, obviously at the time not so funny. Just thought some light hearted dark humour of these things would help people not feel so alone and make us laugh a little in a rubbish situation I.e toxic parents.

As I previously mentioned on the stately homes board. I once brought my mum an orchid as a gift for her birthday. She moaned about it as thats not her 'usual' type of plant she likes.
Anyway she had it for a few months. In this time she kept commenting how it looked fake. One day there was no plant and I asked what had happened. They crazy woman how chopped it up as she was convinced it wasn't real. So she just chopped my gift up that wasn't a cheap purchase either. No remorse for destroying the gift I got her either.

I received a call to move into a womens refuge almost 10 years ago away from abusive ex. My mum said to me "its not that bad is it" I think i stood with my mouth wide up and said they don't just offer refuge places for anyone.

There's many more but I cant think right now. Would be good to hear some of yours?

I remember one particular mothers day. Me, my sister and dad picked out some cushions to get our mum. I even remember they were blue. I must have been around 12 or so.
Mum hated them, she was shouting at all of us and said why did you get me these. She sulked all day and gave us all the silent treatment. My dad said "id stay out of your mums way". He often used that phrase.
We had booked a family meal for mothers day but she refused to come, so the 3 of us went out instead. It was awkward everyone around us had their mum at the table and we sat there wondering what on earth we had done wrong.

Just like to follow this story and say not to feel sorry for my dad. Hes always been my mums enabler. He also did alot of the beating to me and sister. Mum would often twist a story or even make it up and my father would lose it and smack us so hard, sometimes he would drag me by my hair. Left huuuge red hand prints on my thighs. One time he had hit me particularly hard on my legs. I was sobbing in my room. My mum sat on my bed and I said to her look at my legs. She just looked at me and then left.
My teenage years were bad because I was becoming my own person with my own thoughts and opinions. It became harder for them to control me.
I often wouldn't want to come home from college because I never knew what mood our mum would be in.

My dad enabled my mother too. He was bad, himself, but he just watched her and still laughs about it.
I used to pray on the way home from school that she wouldn't be angry. I would think, If I do this, do that, she won't be angry.
She didn't need a reason. She'd invent something that I had done or not done whilst I was at school and when I got home would lay into me.

It's the little things my mum is now saying to my children that I can see is a repeat of what she has done with me all my life. Unnecessary criticisms. Recent example, "Don't drink too much, you'll need the toilet" at my 10yo DD who was drinking water in our home, which has 2 toilets.

Everything requires a little dig, a negative response and it took me a long time to realise how much that shaped me as a person, to constantly be thinking of her negative reaction to anything in my life. It all sounds very trivial but years and years of nonsense like that in response to me doing absolutely anything is pretty tiresome.

Mines absolutely not as bad as the vast majority (if not all) of these but when I was a child we went on holiday and every day had to go back to the room for her and my dad to have „a siesta“ in the afternoon. So I’d sit in the separate living room of the hotel room whilst they had sex, I’d put my head under a pillow so I didnt hear. A few days later my mum told me that when she said they were going for a lie down/siesta whatever I did know they were having sex. She said it quite aggressively as if I should know that.

on another holiday aged 11, my dad ordered some shellfish and my mother was at pains to make sure I knew that these were a favourite of his as they reminded him of a woman’s vagina. She meant vulva of course.

she also, when as a child we were talking about Barcelona said „that’s where your dad went with that prostitute“.

i occasionally when I remember these things want to ask what the fuck she was thinking of saying that stuff. I know the Barcelona thing was because she wanted me to hate him as much as she did. But the others? It was like she thought she was teaching me about sex is the only explanation. I also know my dad had a small penis - according to my mum. Even my therapists eyes widened at that one!

Where to start…

It feels like every conversation, at every stage of my life, from childhood to now, has focused on my weight. I can’t ever remember not being on a diet in childhood. I remember being unwell with a nasty gastro thing when I was about 6, mum weighed me and congratulated me on losing so much weight within a week. For ages afterwards, she proudly told everyone how much weight I’d lost that week and how I needed a few more bouts of that illness on a regular basis. The thing is, looking back at photos, I was a very slim child who happened to have wide hips and breasts which developed very early. I ended up very overweight as an adult, partly because as soon as I had to freedom to shop and cook for myself, I went crazy for all the food which had been forbidden my entire life, and also because I had received the message that I was fat despite all my mum’s best efforts, therefore I reasoned that if it wasn’t going to make any difference, I might as well eat crisps rather than raw spinach.

I’m now overweight, as opposed to obese, and still working on it, but mum still grimaces and criticises every time I see her. I’ve been asked to stand out of the way of family photos because, she’d be embarrassed to show them to her friends if I were in them. She bought me pyjamas for Christmas in size 30 (I’m a 16) and waved her hands in the air saying – “well, they are all just large sizes aren’t they. Fat is fat - they just given people like you different numbers to make you feel better.”

When I was sixteen, my parents found out I’d lost my virginity because the guy had graffitied a wall, saying he shagged me. Dad threw a full coffee cup at my face and from that day onwards, had a look of pure disgust on his face every time he looked at me. I broke down to mum, letting go of the trauma I’d been carrying for a few weeks and told her that he had held me down, even though I kept saying no.She said I must have done something to lead him on in the first place and I deserved what had happened. She said it was typical of me to get myself into trouble (I was a quiet, straight-A student) and then try to blame some poor boy – ruining his life because I couldn’t control myself.

She accompanied me to buy my wedding dress. It had all gone really well and after choosing the dress, I decided to look for underwear to go with it. Mum was picking up plain and frumpy looking bras, but I said I wanted something a little more special for my wedding day, at which point she suddenly changed mood and started shouting at me in the middle of John Lewis for being a little slut who is only focused on the wedding night and not the marriage.

As a teenager, mum also used to constantly tell me that I caused them both so much stress (apart from hormonal arguments, usually about tidying my room, I really wasn’t a troublesome teen at all) and that my dad was sure to have a heart attack and die and it would be all my fault. I lived in fear of causing his death and became such a people pleaser, bottling up my feelings.

Dad once burst into my bedroom, picked me up and threw me against the wall, calling me a dirty slut who was rubbing my slutiness in his face (there is a theme here). Turns out, I’d mistakenly left a used, but well-wrapped, tampon in the bathroom. There was no bin in there and I’d forgotten to take it with me to dispose of.

Did you become a people pleased? Because I did

Absolutely did.
I also had two horrible relationships with much older men who abused me, mostly I would say because I had been taught that people who say they love you, hurt you.

Yes in the same. All my relationships have been awful but had a few absolute abusive arsehole partners. Longest relationship ive managed in my life is 4 hours. Find it hard to have a relationship and attract the abusive ones

I have a few more of mother's bat shit utterances which are absolute gems.

Period blood was considered 'dirty' and she often told me that it was and that made me 'dirty' too. I did actually ask why she thought this and her answer was that it's because it smells. Just that - it smells so it must be evil right? I pointed out that that was what blood smells like and how can it be dirty if it's in the uterus and it helps to grow a baby? She was flabbergasted & speechless so gave me a good slap for it although she never said it was dirty blood again - I think that she was just ignorant of how the female body worked.

She and my dad were very fond of European summer holiday's and topless sunbathing became very popular so she embraced it as my dad enjoyed it - apparently. As soon as I started developing breasts she insisted that I also went topless so I would have been about 11. If I refused (out of obvious mortification) she would nag me loudly on the beach saying that everyone was doing it (they weren't) and that I was showing myself up as I'd be the only one not doing it. She would bully me until I gave in and I removed my top then she would loudly proclaim about how 'European & modern' we were. How my dad felt about seeing his own daughter's tits being flashed about, I'll never know but after a few years I would deliberately give myself a bad sunburn all over at the start of the holiday so that I had a valid excuse to sit in the shade covered up. By the time I got to 14 I had enough courage to say no and mean no.

She also decided that wine drinking was very cosmopolitan and sophisticated when I was about 8 or 9 (all those foreign holidays I expect). She would insist that wine was drunk at Sunday dinner or any special meal and would make me drink at least 2 glasses as that was what European children did. I often managed to pour some away and top up my glass with water but she caught on to this this and then would add a little lemonade instead and watch me like a hawk to ensure that I drank it all. I am now an alcoholic. I have been sober and alcohol free for about 20 years but I'm pretty certain that the early wine training probably caused it and her need to be 'sophisticated'. Again no one ever thought to report it to the authorities and I wonder what her friends and family thought. To this day I can not watch Abigail's Party (the Alison Steadman one) because we lived with her just like this - it's almost as if Alison Steadman spied on our house to get the character but only my reality was more violent!

Put me on a 600kcal per day diet.

I stayed single a very very long time (apparently because I am a loser not because I chose to not have strange men around my son of course and/or i was a lesbian/with married men you know yourself any old rumour bar just the flipping truth) and then i met and totally fell for a fake fuck quite honestly but i didnt realise it having been raised with zero self esteem and to be a yes person. When we broke up I was heartbroken and my mother could barely hold in her glee at this. My sister facetimed from Aus one morning and on my way down the stairs shes telling her a whole load of lies about why we had split up and as i am taking the phone i said to her none of that is true and she openly said 'i know i was just filling in time till you got to the phone'. I mean she BLATENTLY lies and still people dont pull her up on this. It was the beginning of the end then anyway. I think that was Oct and in the Dec she contacted my childs school just to kinda cash in on the fact I was still fragile but she pushed the wrong button thinking I would allow her to start on my child. Im still fairly salty about the fact I am the scapegoat. It is not fair.

It's not often that I regret being an atheist, but after reading these stories, I am so sorry that these abusive parents won't be burning in hell for all eternity because that is what they deserve.

My mum once slapped me round the face in my house when my son was 3 weeks old. I was upset and irritable because the bag hanger on his pram broke and mum was going on at me because I hadn't noticed. I said I'd get a new one but that wasn't good enough. I got more and more upset about her going on at me and she shouted at me to grow up and slapped me.

After my beloved Grandma's funeral she yelled at me loud enough to let some people hear that I looked ill and my shoes looked awful. They were new black shoes. I looked ill because I was tired, not slept well the night before. And everyone was "quiet" at the wake... People just chatted inanely between themselves and us family just kind of got through it. She still says people wondered if I was on drugs or something.

It's my Dad's funeral next week. When she told me he had died I got very upset. "Stop it [myname] he was my husband! You don't get to be like this." I was out at my local for a quiz night I'd already paid for, to put it in context. She shouted loudly enough for people around me to hear, and not on speakerphone.

I'm having nightmares about my Dad's funeral. He would simply not want any drama. My lovely children (14 and 8) are coming, eldest to the funeral, youngest to the wake only (mum's wishes). They don't need drama on that day particularly, none of us do. 😢😢😢😢

@SonicBoomInTheRoom I'm so sorry about your dad.

On the morning of my granddad's funeral my mother looked at me, did a full body stop in exaggerated horror and said "Oh no- that is FAR too much makeup!"

I hadn't even put any on!

I remember being about 8 years old
We'd been out an about somewhere and id spotted this (awful,looking back) ornament
It was a tree with a squirrel on it
8 year old me fell in love with it and thought it was the best present ever for her birthday
I saved my £1 a week pocket money for weeks and weeks and finally had enough to buy it
I walked the 3 miles to the shop and back again,clutching my treasure and carefully wrapped it
Of course as soon as she had it in her hands she went mental
Screamed at me that it was crap,I had no taste and binned it
She then rang round all her friends to laugh at my shite taste and to laugh at this ornament

Years later,I was a skint single mum and saved to buy her a brooch (a tiny branch with a Robin on it)
(She claimed to love small and delicate jewellery)
My golden child brother also bought her a brooch (a massive sunflower-it was the size of my palm)
Of course,his was the best brooch ever
'He buys jewelry you just want to touch!' and mine headed straight off to the charity shop as 'you have no taste at all and this is shite,its way too small'

To this day,that bloody ornament shows up to taunt me in charity shops and I'm that scared of trusting my own taste,I run most things past dp to check I'm not buying something utterly vile

My mil was shocked when it came up (id seen the bloody thing in a charity shop) and she told me that it wasn't the best thing shed ever seen but you accept the love and effort your child put into it and accept it with grace and love it anyway because they bought it for you (and this is a woman who still uses the tin opener and rolling pin dp bought her almost 40 years ago)

I've been accused of lying about my mum because she's lovely and so proud of me. Only people who have heard the way she treats me actually understand what's been happening since I was 4.

If I call her up on anything it was either "That never happened" or "Good grief, I was joking!"

This funeral is something I am dreading.

I had to walk home from school on a route she dictated, not with other kids in the class. I measured it on google maps a year or two ago to see how much further I walked. It was 2 miles longer than it needed to be.

I still have no idea why I couldn't walk home with kids who lived in the next street.

The giving permission to do something or go somewhere and then rescinding is a familiar one.

Accusing me of doing things to make her life more difficult when something unpleasant happened to me (e.g. boyfriend breaking up with me), constantly going 'in the huff', making me wear shoes so damaged that I had to stuff with cardboard and not buying me enough/decent clothes (I didn't own a jacket that fitted me when I was around 11, for example, I don't mean not having posh or more stylish clothes), not taking me to the dentist, never giving me a penny of pocket money yet being ridiculously over generous to my child (and making sure everyone knows about how generous she was/is).
All very immature and draining behaviour.

I can relate - the image they present and how they really are is very different. I won't be going to the funeral. Nobody knows that, yet, and she'll never find out. Gawd, it was good to type that out!

The thing about them ringing people to bitch about us, the people listening are just as bad. If one of my friends rang me to mock one of their kids for buying them something out of love I could not be friends with that person anymore.

When I was 15 my mum and I had had enough of my dad monopolising the TV with nonstop cricket. He’d been off work all week, glued to it for hours every day and then he went out every evening. We just wanted to watch a film on the Sunday afternoon and back then, there wasn’t a telly in every room.

He completely lost it. Screamed that he paid the bills, ripped the TV out, dragged it to his bedroom, locked the door, and left us with nothing to watch. He threatened to “kick my ribs in” repeatedly.

When I was 17 he called me a whore for coming home at 11pm. Told me I was worthless. Said I couldn’t be his child because no daughter of his would be such a “brat” implying my mum must’ve cheated.

I'm so sorry for your loss and for having such a cruel mother.

Can you look forward to never having to see your mum again, now that your dad has gone? You don't owe her anything and she sounds like a toxic influence that is damaging to you and your lovely children.

@SonicBoomInTheRoom
Full sympathy for you from me. This is a horrific situation for you. Would you be able to give the wake a miss or at least only attend for a short period? Seeing as your mother will be playing for sympathy at full throttle, perhaps standing back a bit and let her get on with it because some people will 'see' this for what it is. Do you plan to go NC or very LC now? Is that a possibility for you?

When my dad died he'd been divorced from mother for over 20 years (both had remarried too) but she still wanted to come and play the grief stricken wife at the funeral. I think that she thought that there would be very few people there but she had to sit near the back because over 200 people attended (dad had a lot of friends who turned up early to get a seat) so she couldn't be heard doing dramatic faux sobbing by us at the front row.
I had asked that she not attend the wake which was backed up by my DB (who'd told her that she could only come to the funeral if she left me alone) so she wandered around the crematorium afterwards telling anyone who would listen that she was banned from the wake so she'd say her goodbyes now...sob...sob...sob. She then tried to get at me but was headed off by my uncle.
When we had my SIL's funeral she was on very strict instructions from my brother not to try and talk to me. She did indeed keep to that but she stood about 10' away from me and glared at me continuously. My eldest DC noticed and put himself between us and glared right back at her until she stropped off. She did the same at the wake from the opposite side of the room until she and her family left.
When I was pregnant with my 2nd DC (and I'd refused her any access to any of my DC's) she wrote to me telling me that one day my children would know the truth about the situation and then we'd all see me for what I am. I told my children nothing but the truth as they got older and asked questions and yes, my DC have seen me as I am and how I arrived there - I don't think that it's how she envisioned it though....she's still waiting for a knock on the door from her 'adored' grandchildren who will have seen how awful I am and how they've been denied a grandparent all their lives - not!

Very LC. DH and our lovely amazing DC will be right with me and we are not staying long as DS has football the following morning and we have to get things ready. No opportunity for her to get to me alone. Ohhhhh I'm not allowed to show emotions as it's silly but my golden child brother is in absolute PIECES. IN PIECES. He only had 2 days off work following Dad's dying, I had a week off and termed drama queen making it all about me. My boss said this is standard for a close family member and Dad eas my best friend and closest ally.

How are people handling the grandparent question? Mine knows my dad is dead, and asked me if my mum was too. I said she wasn't dead but she wasn't around. Which is a fine answer for a small child who quickly lost interest, but i can't use that forever. I don't think there's a child friendly way of saying I suspect she's a psychopath and she's abused every child she's ever looked after.