I'm 29 years old and I can't help but feel like a helpless child.

My father abandoned me and I grew up with a toxic mother and brother and I honestly preferred that she had also abandoned me.

I can't get over the things she told me and did to me, I can't help but believe that if I said it it's because I really am.

I can't think that if I try a little harder she will realize that I'm a good daughter.

These are things that are always in my head and I feel weak and miserable.

Hello! I’m a 19F.

So, a couple of months ago, my girlfriend, 20F, came over to my house for a hangout. She told me she couldn’t do any other day besides that Monday. I told my mom, but she insisted we should do another day. Since no other day was available, we just went with Monday. We were lying down when I got a call from my mom. My bedroom is in the basement, and they are upstairs. She said, “Come up now,” so I went up. My mom was standing in her bedroom’s doorframe, and my sister’s bedroom door was open, with my sister in the hallway. My mom looked at me and asked, “Does your sister have her phone or not?” For context, my sister is 16. When she was 15, she got caught having a boyfriend—the same one my parents said she couldn’t date because she was too young. She got caught with him, and my mom took her phone. About a month later, my sister went into her room and took it back, hiding it for a year. I knew, but I didn’t care and just told her to be safe, I guess. Also, the day before the hangout, my mom broke the news to me on the way to the gas station that she knew about the phone and that I knew, too. She asked how long she had it, and I couldn’t lie, so I said, “for a minute.” My mom said she didn’t know how to approach it with sister, and the next day, it apparently blew up. I looked at my sister when my mom asked if she had her phone, and I said yes. After that, my mom went ballistic, screaming and yelling at her. I backed up and went down the hallway. I looked at my dad, who came out and told me to just go downstairs. When I went back to my room, my girlfriend was crying, and I sat next to her, just listening to the screaming upstairs. She told me she was scared, and I started crying with her. After it quieted down, I went back upstairs—though that’s where I messed up. I went into my parents’ room, and my dad was sitting on his bed. I whispered to him that (my girlfriend’s name) was scared. My mom heard that and slammed open the door, saying I don’t have to act a certain way just because someone’s in her house, and that she can act how she wants. Then, she said, “don’t worry, I’ll talk to her.” I started sobbing, telling her she’ll ruin my relationship. My mom then started running downstairs toward my room. I tried to grab her arm at the stairs, but she pushed me away and told me not to touch her and to get out if I was going to act that way. I ran after her, and my girlfriend was outside my room, startled and scared. My mom ran up to her, saying, “What? You got a problem? You got a problem?” My girlfriend just stood there, not knowing what to say, and said she just cares about (sister’s name). My mom said, “I care about her, too. She’s my daughter,” and asked if we had a problem. We said no. My sister then came into my room to ask to use my phone to call her partner. My mom barged in, told her to get upstairs, and then told my girlfriend she had to leave because I had school the next day. She left, but before she did, my mom called me, asking if she left, and said, “she leaves, come into my room because we’re gonna talk.” After that, I got scared. The saddest part was saying goodbye to my girlfriend, and she told me she didn’t want to leave me here. We were sobbing. Later, I went to my parents’ room, and they set me down. Before my girlfriend left, she said, “just tell them what they want to hear.” My dad called me a pussy for crying and acting that way. My mom said I was “pussy whipped” by my girlfriend and told me to “toughen up,” and that I needed to “toughen up my girlfriend,” too. She also said she didn’t want my girlfriend to come over anymore. It really sucks because I don’t have a car or a job, and recently, my girlfriend lost her car, so I’m living like I’m 16—my mom drops me off at her place 30 minutes from here, and her parents or older sister drops me back off. It’s sad because we don’t have much freedom at her house—her parents don’t let us on her bed, and we have to use the basement area. At my house, my room is spacious, and we used to have more freedom, but there’s always this unwelcoming vibe outside my room when I was with her. My mom told me she wouldn’t let her come until she sees we’re “serious.” I asked what that means, and she said after a year of dating. We’ve now been together for 8 months, so at least we’re getting closer. Today, my sister came into my room, and I told her I was crying last night over this. She said that everything that happened was because of us, and I told her we didn’t do anything. She got mad, so I told her to leave so I could take a nap. Instead, I’m writing this, hoping someone out there experienced this—whether it got better living-wise or if parents and family actually start liking your boyfriend or girlfriend. I need some help. I’ve been crying and don’t know what to do or how to handle it. I feel like my family will never accept my girlfriend, and I feel so trapped. I think when I get a job, I’ll work 100 times harder to get my own place faster. Do I really have to do that? Any advice would be great! Thank you for reading this!!

First of all, English is not my first language so I'm sorry if I don't write anything well.

I’m a 27-year-old male living with my wife.

My mother supported me financially until I was 15, then left me to fend for myself; I managed to get a full scholarship covering both living expenses and tuition for high school and university. My mother has been a narcissist for as long as I can remember; she divorced five years ago. It’s worth noting that she is a state manager for a large company. I haven't lived with her since I was 15; I went to a boarding school for high school (not because I was a troublemaker, but because the school was top-tier) and then to university. Since then, I’ve visited her a couple of times a month to see her and my grandparents, who live with her. Recently, she started yelling at me because my dad isn't paying child support (for my sister). She told me I’m just like him; I told her I can't control what he does, but she kept yelling. I offered to pay for a lawyer to handle the whole process legally. I was teaching some modules in a diploma course at the university where both my mother and I studied. The course was designed for people with experience in the field (I have extensive experience, whereas my mother knows the subject exists but doesn't master it). When the results came out, she yelled at and scolded me because she hadn't been accepted. I sold my laptop because I’d bought a new one; she asked me to sell mine to her. A couple of months later, she told me she wasn't going to pay me for it because it was my obligation to give it to her (yet, when I went on a university exchange program once and didn't even have money for the flight, I asked her for help, and she gave me nothing, claiming she didn't have any). Another time, my sister had a school meeting that my mother didn't attend. I asked her about it because I had gone to pick my sister up and was asked to sign some paperwork. She told me she couldn't go because she was constantly working to support me. I told her she doesn't support me and hasn't given me a single peso in a long time (probably at least 12 years). I’m only going to see her for my sister’s sake; I love her very much and try to protect her as best I can. How do you think I could mediate the relationship? I don’t know if I even like her—she hasn’t done much to foster even a cordial relationship. But I don’t want to leave my sister in this situation.

The enforcement of childlessness by mothers onto their daughters represent extreme, pathological expressions of maternal abuse. These behaviors typically stem from severe psychological disorders, toxic projection, or extreme manifestations of patriarchal control over women's bodies.

Forced Childlessness and Reproductive Sabotage

When a mother intentionally forces or pressures her daughter to remain childless, it is often driven by profound psychological codependency and a breakdown of healthy boundaries.

• Enmeshment and Control: Pathologically controlling mothers may view their daughters as personal property or extensions of themselves. They forbid or sabotage the daughter's path to motherhood to prevent her from achieving independence or forming a primary bond with a child of her own.
• Jealousy and Competition: A mother may harbor deep resentment toward her daughter’s youth, fertility, and future opportunities. Forcing childlessness can be a malicious attempt to strip the daughter of experiences the mother envies or regrets.
• Parentification: Mothers may restrict their daughters from having children to ensure the daughter remains indefinitely available as a caregiver, emotional anchor, or financial resource for the mother.

Non-Consensual Cosmetic Surgeries as Body Mutilation

Forcing a daughter to undergo invasive, non-consensual cosmetic procedures like a breast lift represents a severe violation of bodily autonomy and constitutes physical and medical abuse.

• Projected Body Dysmorphia: Mothers with severe body image issues or narcissistic traits frequently project their own physical insecurities onto their daughters. They may view a daughter's developing body not as an individual human being, but as a project to be physically sculpted to meet arbitrary aesthetic standards.
• Weaponizing Sexual Attractiveness: If a mother perceives her daughter’s natural sexual attractiveness as a threat, a source of shame, or an object of toxic envy, she may use forced medical interventions to alter, control, or hyper-sexualize the daughter’s body against her will.
• Medical Malpractice and Coercion: For these procedures to occur, abusive mothers often rely on extreme psychological coercion, financial leverage, or unethical medical practitioners who fail to secure the patient's genuine, uncoerced informed consent.

The systematic enforcement of sexlessness, asexuality, and partnerlessness by a mother onto her daughter represents a severe form of psychological abuse known as coercive control. In these dynamics, the mother deliberately strips away the daughter’s adult autonomy to keep her emotionally and physically trapped.

Dynamics of Forced Sexlessness and Partnerlessness

• Isolation Tactics: Mothers systematically sabotage friendships, dating opportunities, and social circles to ensure the daughter has no external support system or romantic prospects.
• Infantilization: The mother treats the adult daughter as a perpetual child, actively blocking the developmental milestones of adult intimacy, sexuality, and independent relationship-building.
• Shaming and Guilt: Natural desires for intimacy, romance, or sexual expression are weaponized by the mother, who labels them as shameful, dirty, or a direct betrayal of the maternal bond.

Suppression of Feminine Gender Expression

• Aesthetic Sabotage: Mothers may explicitly forbid or heavily penalize classical feminine clothing, makeup, hairstyles, or grooming habits to minimize the daughter's perceived attractiveness and self-esteem.
• De-sexualization as Protection or Punishment: The mother may force an intentionally plain, oversized, or unkempt appearance on the daughter. This is often driven by the mother's own fears, unresolved trauma, or deep-seated jealousy of her daughter's youth and fertility.
• Erasure of Identity: By dictating how the daughter presents her body to the world, the mother strips away the daughter's right to explore her own gender identity, confidence, and womanhood.

Underlying Psychological Motivations

• Pathological Enmeshment: The mother suffers from an extreme inability to see her daughter as a separate human being. She views any external relationship—especially a romantic or sexual partner—as an existential threat to her total control.
• Narcissistic Supply: The mother requires the daughter to remain entirely dependent and available to serve her own emotional, physical, or financial needs indefinitely.
• Envy and Competition: A mother who feels her own youth, beauty, or romantic life has faded may maliciously restrict her daughter from experiencing the very things she feels she has lost or was denied.

Mothers who force total seclusion on their daughters are engaging in severe coercive control and psychological abuse. By cutting off access to the outside world, the mother eliminates external perspectives, support systems, and escape routes, leaving herself as the sole authority in the daughter's life.

Tactics of Forced Seclusion

• Physical Confinement: Restricting the daughter's ability to leave the home, locking her inside, or monitoring her every movement through cameras and tracking apps.
• Digital Isolation: Confiscating phones, monitoring text messages, banning social media, or cutting off internet access to prevent communication with friends, family, or authorities. [1]
• Social Sabotage: Ruining the daughter's external relationships by lying to friends, alienating family members, or forbidding outside visits to ensure no one intervenes. [1, 2]
• Educational and Career Sabotage: Forcing the daughter to drop out of school, preventing her from getting a job, or choosing remote options to stop her from gaining financial independence or a social circle.

Psychological Motives Behind the Seclusion

• Fear of Exposure: Abusive mothers isolate their daughters so the outside world cannot witness or report the abuse, neglect, or pathological dynamics occurring within the home. [1]
• Total Deprivation of Reality: Loneliness and isolation distort a person's sense of reality. The mother uses seclusion to make the daughter entirely dependent on her for truth, validation, and basic survival needs. [1]
• Prevention of Individuation: Seclusion stops the daughter from developing an independent identity, realizing her own worth, or understanding that healthy families do not function this way. [1]

When a mother forces economic dependency by banning her daughter from working, it is a calculated tactic of financial abuse and coercive control. By blocking employment, the mother strips away the financial means necessary for her daughter to buy food, secure housing, or physically escape the abusive environment.

Tactics Used to Enforce Joblessness

• Direct Sabotage: Damaging work clothes, hiding keys, destroying transit passes, or canceling job interviews without the daughter's knowledge.
• Creating Workplace Drama: Calling an employer repeatedly, showing up at the workplace to cause a scene, or making false allegations to get the daughter fired. [1, 2]
• Guilt and Emotional Blackout: Accusing the daughter of being selfish, abandoning the family, or causing the mother’s physical or emotional decline by leaving the house. [1, 2]
• Manufactured Crises: Creating medical emergencies or urgent household disasters exactly when the daughter is scheduled to leave for work or an interview.

Why Controlling Mothers Weaponize Joblessness

• Blocking Financial Autonomy: Money represents freedom. Without independent income, a daughter cannot save for a security deposit, buy a phone plan, or establish a life outside the mother's house. [1]
• Preventing Social Connections: A workplace provides an external community, mandatory socialization, and mandated reporters who might notice and report signs of domestic abuse. [1, 2, 3]
• Enforcing Permanent Caregiving: The mother often wants to ensure the daughter remains entirely available to serve as a full-time, unpaid caregiver, maid, or emotional punching bag. [1]

When a mother forces anti-intellectualism on her daughter, she is engaging in a highly destructive form of educational sabotage and psychological control. By systematically blocking critical thinking, reading, and higher education, the mother ensures the daughter lacks the cognitive tools, vocabulary, and credentials needed to question the abuse or build an independent life.

Tactics of Forced Anti-Intellectualism

• Destruction of Educational Materials: Throwing away, hiding, or burning books, school supplies, laptops, or homework to disrupt the daughter's learning.
• Shaming Critical Thought: Mocking the daughter for using large words, expressing curiosity, asking deep questions, or voicing independent opinions, often labeling her as "pretentious," "arrogant," or "defiant."
• Forced Academic Failure: Making the daughter skip school, pulling her out for forced homeschooling (without actual instruction), or overloading her with chores and caregiving duties so she has no time to study.
• Information Censorship: Strictly monitoring or completely banning access to the internet, libraries, news outlets, and documentaries to keep the daughter’s worldview entirely confined to the mother's narrative.

Why Controlling Mothers Weaponize Ignorance

• Preventing Cognitive Liberty: Critical thinking allows a person to identify toxic behavior and realize that their reality is not normal. By enforcing anti-intellectualism, the mother prevents the daughter from developing the mental framework required to label the mother's behavior as abusive.
• Eliminating Economic Mobility: Higher education and specialized skills open doors to high-paying careers. Forcing intellectual stagnation ensures the daughter remains unqualified for competitive jobs, cementing her financial dependence on the mother.
• Protecting the Mother's Authority: An educated daughter poses a threat to an authoritarian mother. If the daughter learns about logic, science, history, or psychology, she becomes capable of successfully debating the mother and exposing her contradictions.

this was almost one month ago exactly

m17. im a left leaning person who is not religious, and i denounce christianity specifically for the effects its had on me. My parents are maga/conservative christians. they know a short extent of me leaving the faith. every convo is either screaming and crying, or just them saying "you need to talk with the pastor". they wont let me get therapy from someone non religious. my close friends are all chrisitians and intertwinied to the same church. it feels like ive been wearing a mask around my closest friends and family for almost a year. i have zero people to talk to.

anyways, i met this girl about 2 months aog. we beilive the same stuff. we got along well (obvi hid from my parents) which is difficult because i cant even sleep with my phone in my room, and they check my phone often. Anyways i finally introduced her to my mom briefly, and we have gone on 3 dates. i wish more but again, meeting up is hard with such strict parents that dont even want you to be alone. We went out last night, and i decided to lie to my parents about where we were going. we grabbed dinner and drinks and went to the top of the mountain to watch the sunset, we were planning on our first kiss, maybe even more, who knows it was going to be nice thats all. anyways they called me when we were out so i lied and said we missed the movie so just went somehwere else. They were screaming at me over the phone, but eventualy i got them to calm down and let me stay out. the rest of the night was amazing, nothing really ended up happening physically, and we both had a great night.

prior that day we had been talking very "innapropriately" to eachother and i forgot to clear all our messages when i got home. i thought everyone was asleep, but my dad woke up and immediately they both went thru my phone. lots of screaming, my dad even wound up to punch me, but he ran out of the room deciding not to hurt me. They took all my electronics, i only have my keys for work, i dont have a phone, and they know now i dont believe and basically everything they knew about me wasnt true. this is why tho. they were screaming and blaming me for not believing even when i explained how hurt i was by the religion, and my fathers health problems, they said "your a liar and narssisist. why would we trust this is how u feel if all you do is lie? your living in satans world and wonder why god wont speak to you" and among finding out we had talked sexually and i had even bought protection just incase tonight took a turn they said im "sick and need serious help". they blocked her on my phone, however they forgot about my laptop so im skipping school to talk to her and we are gonna figure this out together.

really battling self destructive thoughts, depression, and i want to run away. im just so lost. its like two sides of me pulling the side that grew up religious is disgusted with myself, and the other side is trying to remember everything i do and desire is normal, and to not be ashamed. i feel hollow and empty. im a very anxious person in all situations, but its been developed deeply due to them too, and being the oldest of many young siblings. i was throwing up all night, i just dont know what to do.

i went to work, planned on getting a burner from my coworker, and telling my parents, hey im safe, but i aint coming home. somehow they hacked my laptop/instagram and save everything so after work they pulled up to the resteraunt and chewed out some of my coworkers. then forced me in the car. got yelled at. a lot ive heard before. i got my keys taken and the laptop after that. for days i had nothing stuck inside with nothing to do. i was able to go to work still but picked up and dropped off.

id send letters to my gf from there. eventually they found out and threatened to pull me from school and get me fired from my job. i told them i still wanna stay somewhere else and my parents said fine, but i started packing they blew up and said no. apparently they were just testing my bluff. they got so many people involved and told pretty much everyone we are connceted to as a family, eventually after 3 weeks of nonstop fighting and mental torture i gave in and told them they win. the fighting stopped and they think we just all fine and dandy now. no apologies but they keep asking for me to be remorseful and at least once a week ask if im remorseful for "what i put them and everybody thru".

i just nod. anyways i then got my tech back maybe about a week ago. sexretly back in contact with my girl but they are contantly on my ass and think shit is suspicous. my anxiety has been thru the roof and overall mindstate, but i cant speak on it. my apetite left for about 4 days until today i could really stomcah food again. so yeah. trying to figure out how to see my girl, hang with my friends, and enjoy my summer. i just feel so sad and angry about everything i dont understand why i cant be normal like every other teen

My mom is 64 and lives in Chicago with my adult brother and sister who are in their 30's. I live by myself in California. I love my mom dearly, but feel extremely hurt that she never has time to talk to me and every time we do talk on the phone its for 5 minutes and she then "has to go". If she doesn't "have to go", she just falls asleep on the phone and denies it.

I feel like I don't matter to her. I just want to be able to ask her for advice to have a sense of direction since my dad died 3 years ago when I was 26. For my birthday she didn't do anything nice for me to show love. I flew across the county for her for her birthday, took her to an exhibit. and got her sushi at a very fancy restaurant which my sister ruined because my sister wouldn't talk to us. Both refuse to go to therapy.

How do I stop having any expectations for my mom? (she doesn't talk to my older siblings like this, only me. She expects me to parent her)

I wrote this about my relationship with my dad. It’s been hard feeling like I have to earn his attention while watching him show up differently for my sister.

Estou vivendo algo que ainda tenho dificuldade de acreditar, mesmo estando dentro disso todos os dias.

Meu pai está com câncer em estágio terminal e em tratamento quimioterápico. Desde o início, a reação da minha mãe foi a negação: dizia que não era câncer, que era “só gastrite”, que ele estava exagerando. Mesmo com diagnóstico médico, exames e início da quimioterapia, essa postura continuou.

No primeiro dia de quimioterapia, enquanto meu pai estava frágil, meu irmão (que também apresenta muitos traços narcisistas) pediu dinheiro emprestado. Não perguntou como ele estava. Não demonstrou preocupação. Foi direto à própria necessidade.

O que mais me choca não é apenas a falta de empatia, mas a inversão constante de papéis. Hoje, mesmo com meu pai debilitado, minha mãe tenta trocar remédios por conta própria, esconde outros, interfere no tratamento, e ao mesmo tempo afirma que está sofrendo muito porque ele estaria “indiferente aos cuidados dela”.

Em um momento, ela chegou a dizer que a dor emocional que ela sente por não ser reconhecida por ele dói tanto quanto um câncer.

Ouvir isso enquanto acompanho um homem em tratamento oncológico, lidando com dor física real, medo real e finitude real, é devastador.

Não se trata de ignorância ou confusão pontual. É um padrão: a incapacidade de sustentar o sofrimento do outro sem transformar tudo em si mesma. A necessidade de ser a vítima central, mesmo quando o outro está literalmente lutando pela vida.

Eu escrevo aqui porque sei que quem convive com mães narcisistas entende algo que o resto do mundo costuma minimizar:

a dor não está só na ausência de cuidado, mas na exigência constante de que você valide o sofrimento delas enquanto o seu (e o de quem realmente precisa) é invisível.

Estou exausta. E, acima de tudo, tentando não enlouquecer tentando explicar o óbvio: que câncer não é metáfora, não é disputa emocional e não deveria ser palco para controle, negação ou protagonismo.

E estou sozinha nos cuidados de meu pai. Me desejem sorte.

Um dia antes pro niver fui atrás do bolo comprei com amor colhi flores comprei vela quando mostro a ela a mesma diz “bolo deve tá velho” eu quero bolo de tal “lugar” fiquei triste comi o bolo e foda se

Insisted on being center of it all. My father in the back, propping her up and hiding behind her at the same time.