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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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

186 replies

Crimble123 · 04/10/2025 07:02

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?

OP posts:
heartsinvisiblefury · 06/01/2026 18:13

Took all their children’s house keys from them when they moved out and asked for 2 weeks notice if wanting to visit. We always felt like guests in our family home and I have never ever felt welcome or even spent a night there since I left at 19.

heartsinvisiblefury · 06/01/2026 18:15

I used to wet the bed as a child and I was so scared of my mother getting angry that she had to wash the sheets that I’d not tell her and instead I’d lie in dry piss stained sheets the following night just to avoid her getting angry.

Fingalscave · 06/01/2026 18:37

My grandmother remarried after my grandad died and her new husband was horrible. He was always trying to touch my girl cousins and me, putting his hands up our skirts when we walked past, trying to kiss us and put his tongue in our mouths. I could never bring myself to be more than icily polite to him. Years later, DM asked why I couldn't be friendly to him as my grandmother (a horror) had noticed and it upset her. I said I couldn't be nice to someone who sexually assaulted me and she said she couldn't understand why I was still going on about it because it was years ago! I realised she cared more that we looked like a model family than that her daughter had been abused.
If I was ill, most times she'd just ignore me. I once fainted in front of her and my brother said she just walked away and carried on cooking the dinner. When I came round she didn't speak to me for hours.
I went away for a weekend with a friend when I was about 22. I developed abdominal pain and was doubled up so my friend took me to hospital. I rang home to tell DM and she didn't react. When I got home she didn't mention it.

HunterNoir · 07/01/2026 10:48

So many. There was a lot of neglect growing up. I was a bed wetter and my sheets were NEVER washed. My legs were all burnt and scarred from lying on ammonia soaked sheets which used to be hung up to dry daily without being washed and then spread back on my bed at night time. The smell was absolutely horrific, I had to pull the top sheet tightly around my neck to try and stop the fumes from burning my eyes. After a while, urine doesn't dry properly so my sheets always had a damp cold feel and the sheets used to sting my burnt skin so badly when I lay down. I stank of piss all the time and was teased at school.

I used to have thrush for months on end. I couldn't tell my mother as she thought anything to do with genitals was not to be spoken about, she frequently told me that I was nasty because my underwear was caked with dried discharge because to try and get rid of the itching and discharge, I used to scrub with soap and a (smelly and slimy because it was never washed) flannel and obviously that made the whole thing worse. When I went to secondary school, we had a nurse come in and they explained what thrush was, i was so relieved to know it was common and normal but couldn't ask my mum for Canestan as she just didn't talk to us about personal health and hygiene.

When I started my period, she looked at me and said ' I hope you know what this means' she then gave me a pad and no explanations, except to say if i got blood on my underwear, to wash it out in cold water. I was never taught to shower or bath before bed so I used to wear 1 pad for 24 hours, as in I would put it on in the morning and then change it the following morning, it just didn't occur to me to change it as there wasn't a supply of them and she didn't buy me any EVER and I had to get one from her stash daily, if there weren't any, i used rolled up toilet paper. She obviously knew I had a period every month but didn't think it was important I had a supply of what I needed.

My Dad was just cruel, aggressive and spiteful. I could write a book on the way he treated me. There was a lot of horrible treatment when i was a child but when I was in my 30's i got cheated on by someone who i thought i was in love with. Undiagnosed neurodivergence meant that I had very little control of my emotions and I really spiralled because of it. He caught me crying and demanded to know why. Stupidly, I told him and he said that the reason why my boyfriend had cheated on me was because he saw me as 'used goods' because I had a child before I met him. He bullied me all throughout my childhood, not once have either of them said anything kind, caring, encouraging, supportive or even friendly, in fact I would go so far as to say that they went to great pains not to. He used to call me an idiot all the time for nothing, it might just be that I was laughing, or talking too loudly or asking a question.

I don't love either of them.

Missey85 · 07/01/2026 14:09

I left home when I was 13 because I got SA and my mum told me I must have done something to deserve it 😕 I never saw or spoke to her again I didn't even go to her funeral when she died I was happy she had

junglejunglebear · 08/01/2026 09:05

GreyCarpet · 04/10/2025 10:21

Ooh, one of the more light hearted ones...

My mum bought my bras for me as a teen. I wasn't told or taught how to measure myself so she did it. She told me what size I was.

Eventually, I was the same size as her (34B). When those bras stopped fitting me properly, she made me feel that it was because my body was wrong. It wasn't her fault or the shops' fault that those bras didn't fit me properly. It was mine.

She would tell me all the time that my boobs were small, too small and that I'd never get married or find a boyfriend because my boobs were too small. I didn't have the confidence to think I needed a bigger size because bra size (evidently) carried a value judgement for her (and therefore me) and I wasnt 'good enough' generally to need a bigger size.

So I spent hours trying on 34B bras and crying because they didn't fit. I'd spent so long being told my boobs were "too small", it didn't even occur to me to try a bigger size.

She even joked about it with her boyfriend when I was late teens that she had better/bigger boobs than me and suggested on one occasion that he see them au naturel and compare them to say whose were 'best'.

I just accepted this and that she was right (such is the nature of long term emotional abuse) and just believed I couldn't find bras to fit me because my body was the wrong shape for bras.

When I finally had my size measured properly, I was a 34DD.

She just couldn't cope with the idea that I had bigger boobs than she did.

She also told me all through my teens that I was fat and too fat. She'd buy me clothes that were too big for me which then hung badly and didn't fit properly and she told me that it was because I was so fat nothing would look good on me and it was my own fault for being fat.

I wasn't fat. I was just a different shape to her and curvy but I didn't have an ounce of fat on me in reality.

But I also spent years planning where I was going to sit in pubs, restaurants etc so that I could get to the bar/toilets easily without either a) being seen by others or b) bumping into things and sending people flying with my body. In reality, I was 8 stone by 18 and stayed that way until my mid 30s when I was 9 stone.

I just couldn't see it.

Can't believe I'm saying this, but my mother behaves similarly - years of telling me I was big. When I was small I was constantly told I was like a baby elephant. She actually said to me once, in my early teens, that the fact was that I was big and there was nothing I could do about it. I was wearing men's large clothing at 15 (when, quite predictably, I was edging towards an eating disorder. I was 5'7 and 8 stone, so underweight, but I genuinely believed that I was this massive creature. I knew I felt awful in the clothes I had but couldn't work out why. I also got told I looked awful quite often). She seemed really angry about the fact that I am just built differently to her. Looking back, I think she was very unhappy and I was an easy target. She could make a few nasty comments, release some stress.

She's also really weird about my bust (she has small breasts and I'm a DD/E) and makes comments about 'the bosom'. FFS it's not my fault, I'm self conscious about it enough as it is. As a teen she had me wearing a 36A which apparently had to be my size because I was so big compared to her so had to be a 36. Actual size = 32E. 'is that why you've got the bosom.' 'still got the bosom, I see.'

Some women are really jealous of their daughters.

Genuineweddingone · 08/01/2026 09:11

It is their own insecurities, they have to put us down to make themselves feel better. Vile vile people.

Namechangedgorthis91 · 08/01/2026 10:46

junglejunglebear · 08/01/2026 09:05

Can't believe I'm saying this, but my mother behaves similarly - years of telling me I was big. When I was small I was constantly told I was like a baby elephant. She actually said to me once, in my early teens, that the fact was that I was big and there was nothing I could do about it. I was wearing men's large clothing at 15 (when, quite predictably, I was edging towards an eating disorder. I was 5'7 and 8 stone, so underweight, but I genuinely believed that I was this massive creature. I knew I felt awful in the clothes I had but couldn't work out why. I also got told I looked awful quite often). She seemed really angry about the fact that I am just built differently to her. Looking back, I think she was very unhappy and I was an easy target. She could make a few nasty comments, release some stress.

She's also really weird about my bust (she has small breasts and I'm a DD/E) and makes comments about 'the bosom'. FFS it's not my fault, I'm self conscious about it enough as it is. As a teen she had me wearing a 36A which apparently had to be my size because I was so big compared to her so had to be a 36. Actual size = 32E. 'is that why you've got the bosom.' 'still got the bosom, I see.'

Some women are really jealous of their daughters.

Edited

My mum and sisters used to call me fat. I wasn't even overweight 😅

When we went clothes shopping my mum would always tell me to "suck my gut in" I've got a horrific memory of her trying to force the button together on a pair of jeans I was trying on and telling me to suck my gut in..... I don't know why she just didn't get a bigger pair?

I developed anorexia as an adult

When I was anorexic my mum and sisters asked how it had come to this and I ended up getting really upset and saying internally I could just always hear them calling me a fat cow, my sister had half laughed and said she didn't mean it, she used to say it to upset me and I had said well it did and irs stuck with me for life

I'm recovered now, I weigh about 53kg ( I'm 5'1 )

My daughter has inherited her dad's height /build, she's almost 11 and is almost the same height as me and she absolutely loves herself, she has zero self esteem issues when it comes to her body or face ( she's not arrogant she's just happy with herself )

It makes me feel really good about myself knowing that I've put enough love and kindness into her that she loves herself ( I did not at that age )

Aww yano what, having my daughter has healed so many parts of me, I'm very lucky to have her

junglejunglebear · 08/01/2026 11:00

@Namechangedgorthis91 OMG yes, I had forgotten about 'suck your gut in' 'hold your gut in'

My father punched me in the belly when I was 13 and screamed at me that I was fat. My mother did nothing and then the pair of them were baffled when I later had problems with food. He was also a raging snob about clothes and labels, and when I was 13 decided that I should have a pair of levi's jeans. (I mean seriously, you would have thought he was taking me to chanel, the fuss he made about it). We go to the shop, I find a pair that fits, but it's the women's cut and he refuses to buy them and insists I have a boy's pair instead because they're cheaper. I was able to squeeze into them for a couple of months but they were so painful to wear, I couldn't sit down in them without them cutting into my vulva and making me sore. I can even remember the bloke in the shop telling him the boy's clearly didn't fit me and I needed the women's.

When I couldn't get into them any more he went ballistic, had a massive tantrum, and didn't speak to me for about a week afterwards. (they were a 28 waist, so they were really small and the wrong shape). Bloody nutter.

glendabrownlow · 08/01/2026 11:06

I really feel for you all. I'll add mine: car broke down when mum, dad and I were driving to see my sister. Dad went off to find help (long before the times of mobile phones) and mum started screaming at me that it was my fault that the car had broken down (?) I was 13. She said I was bad luck, a jinx , a Jonah. I bring bad luck wherever I go. I've never forgotten it. Not the only incident. I was lucky, though because I told my grandma next time I saw her and she confirmed that it was 'unkind'.

Nevermind17 · 08/01/2026 11:21

pincklop · 04/10/2025 07:09

Had a baby before married , so was told ‘ I’m going to hell’ …. More annoyingly after a few years other people have babies without being married and it’s not a problem anymore, god has changed his mind 😥

My DM had a monk perform an exorcism on me when I was pregnant out of wedlock at 16, while all her prayer circle stood round watching. Utterly batshit.

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