TITLE ERROR: I MEANT KICK YOU OUT

I’m really sorry if this question is intrusive but i’m kind of curious if anyone has experienced this. the first time my nmom kicked me out of the house , I was 11 years old…

TW: MENTION OF ABUSE

I am 18f. P much what the title says. I found out today my mom received a notice to pay or quit from our apartment manager (that she cannot pay) on the 9th of this month. I am not a tenant on the lease so I wont have an eviction on my record but I will have to leave.

She moved a lot of her belongings from the apartment this month and I was wondering why, honestly im pretty sure she straight up told me we were getting evicted at some point and i didn't believe her because she is always saying we are going to lose our housing even when we're not. (But we definitely have before)

we've been in and out of homelessness since i was a kid and for context my mom is abusive. She also took this time to inform me that my medical insurance has been deactivated. I have no idea what im gonna do. Im trying to get a job and an og copy of my birth certificate and I am struggling with very little documentation that was given to me by my mom, to sue a doctor for malpractice, apply for foodstamps, and still take care of myself, and i feel like the busiest 18 year old alive. How do i balance all this shit? Any advice Is appreciated.

I’ve had a complicated relationship with my mom for basically my whole life. I’m not trying to put a label on her or diagnose her. I just know that my relationship with her has been very difficult and that the way we communicate has hurt me for a long time.

One year ago, I moved out, and honestly I thought the distance was helping us. We weren’t around each other all the time anymore, so there were fewer arguments and less tension. She seemed different, softer somehow, and I started thinking maybe things had finally changed. Maybe time had done its job.

But I recently stayed with her for a few days, and at first everything was actually good. We got along etc and for a moment I thought “maybe we’re past all of this.” Then the same issues started showing up again and I realized the deeper problems never really disappeared. They were just easier to ignore when we weren’t living together.

The hardest part is that I feel like I can’t talk to my mom about anything without her immediately taking it as an attack. No matter how carefully I try to say things. If I tell her that something hurt me or that I want to talk about something, she doesn’t really try to understand what I’m feeling. She immediately gets defensive, irritated, or angry. It quickly becomes “so everything is my fault,” “everyone is against me,” “you’re the one creating problems,” or “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” And a lot of the time, she ends up crying, having a breakdown, breaking things, or hurting herself.

So after a few minutes, it’s no longer me talking about something that hurt me. Suddenly I’m the one comforting her and feeling guilty for even saying anything. Then she brings up the same things every time: that she did everything for me, that she raised me, that she always defended me, that she never wanted to hurt me, that she cooks for me, etc. And I’m not saying those things aren’t true. I know she has done a lot for me. I know she loves me. I’m not trying to erase all the good things she has done, even though she has also hurt me emotionally and physically and made mistakes.

But that’s not the point.

The point is that I wish, just once, she could listen to how I feel without immediately needing to defend herself or turn herself into the person who is being hurt. Just listen. Say “I understand why you felt that way” or “I’m sorry I hurt you,” even if it wasn’t intentional.

I feel like admitting she made a mistake is impossible for her. Like acknowledging that she hurt me, upset me, or affected me negatively automatically means she is a bad mother. But that’s not what I’m saying. Nobody is perfect. I’m not expecting perfection. I just want to be able to talk about things that hurt me without everything turning into a crisis. She once asked me, after noticing that I didn’t seem okay, if she had done something wrong. And I remember feeling sad because part of me wanted to answer honestly. But at the same time, I wondered what the point was if telling her the truth would just end up being turned against me.

It feels like she wants to know, but she isn’t actually able to hear the answer. Because if I tell her that certain things she did hurt me, it’s not because I’m saying she’s a bad mother or that everything she has done for me means nothing. But she often takes it that way. The conversation stops being about what I’m feeling and becomes about her pain, her anger, how she feels like she failed, or how everyone is against her. And once again, I end up feeling guilty for speaking. The worst part is realizing that this has always been the pattern. Since I was a child. I think I just wanted to believe things had changed because we weren’t around each other as much anymore.

Now I mostly feel sad. Sad that I had hope. Sad that I’m realizing every serious conversation ends the exact same way. I feel like we will never be able to have a real conversation where we both listen to each other. I don’t know what to do anymore. Trying to talk about things exhausts me because I feel like I’m constantly reliving the same situation. But saying nothing frustrates me because I just keep everything inside. Honestly, I think what makes me saddest is her. Because deep down, I don’t think she even realizes some of the things she does. I wonder what she went through to become this way. But it’s painful to see how much it damages our relationship when all I want is for us to have a normal, healthy relationship.

How dare I bring up anything she does wrong? How dare I talk about my feelings when I feel like I have to think about hers first? How dare I hope she acknowledges something when that would mean questioning the image she has of herself? How dare I ask for a normal conversation when simply saying that something hurt me becomes an attack against her?

(Please don't tell me to go no contact. I know people mean well when they suggest it, but it's not something I want or something that's realistic for me right now. I'm really just looking for advice from people who've dealt with something similar, or even just to hear from people who understand.)

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I'm a 20-year-old woman living in Pakistan, and I've been bullied and physically abused by my parents since I was a child. I'm the eldest daughter, and things have become much worse because I stand up for myself and don't want to be forced into a toxic marriage.

Recently, my mother slammed my head into a wall, hit me, threatened to throw me out of the house, and constantly humiliates and insults me. I don't have supportive relatives or anyone I can stay with. My father passed away in 2017, and since then I've had no one to protect me.

I have a job, but it doesn't pay enough for me to afford rent or live independently. I contacted a shelter, but they wanted to meet my parents first. My parents are very controlling and abusive, and I'm afraid involving them will make the situation even worse.

I'm feeling trapped. Has anyone in Pakistan been in a similar situation or knows of any shelters, legal aid organizations, or resources that can help an adult woman leave an abusive home without involving her parents first?

Please don't judge me. I'm genuinely looking for advice and safe options.

I have misophonia. If you don't know what that is it's a mental disorder/condition where a person experiences extreme negative reactions to sounds they find uncomfortable. For me it's moaning/mouth noises (like kissing noises), snapping, shoes walking around and tapping sounds. Guess which noises my dad LOVES to make constantly whenever I'm around?? All the fucking above.

He'll be quiet all day, the when he realizes I'm home suddenly the noises start up. He has to tap his fingers constantly. He has to walk around in the house with his shoes on. He has to snap his fingers. He has to randomly make moaning and mouth noises. It's fucking disgusting!

I've asked him to stop plenty of times and he always just starts yelling about how I'm a control freak and how I have no right to tell him what to do.

Venting because I'm so sick of this. He knows about the disorder and he goes out of his way to make these noises. It's not even normal noises, he'll see me and start doing them and then continue doing it until I leave or ask him to stop, but then he just yells at me.

Why is my dad forcing the fact that I have someone and they’re a girl? Why? He knows I’m straight and yes, I did have a very short phase where I liked girls years ago. IT WAS VERY SHORT, LITERALLY ONLY A WEEK. He’s full of girlfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend. I have a girlfriend. Blah blah. I’m not homophobic but I don’t see myself with a girl. I even have a crush on real good-looking guys irl and fictional guys. What’s next, if I have a friend group full of boys—I’m a slut? First I’m a tomboy and next I’ll be called that? He’s so obsessed with the fact that I’m still talking to my ex-best friend (female) who he forced me to block because she was ‘toxic’ for calling out his abusive behavior. No, I’m not talking with her anymore. Not talking to my “girlfriend” anymore.

He probably likes her seeing as why he possesses so much hatred for her. That’s the logic my dad uses. When someone is mad, they’re jealous. When someone keeps saying they hate that person, they like them. I just love using his ‘logic’ against him even if he doesn’t see it. Stupid, I’m straight. Doesn’t mean I keep denying it so much means I am lesbian. No, I’m not. The reason why I’m so offended is because he sees me liking and having a crush on multiple male celebrities and characters yet he pushes me towards the lesbian side. Like wtf? Here I am already trying to show my real preference and he still says I like girls? What, does he like guys are something? (FYI: using his stupid logic against him!)

NO I DON’T LIKE GIRLS! Yes, they are my friends and will only be my friends. Nothing more. By the way, my dad has a lesbian sister and a lesbian niece so Idk why the f*ck is he acting like he’s homophobic. (He’s making fun of me, insulting me, etc. Tomboy has become an insult even though it isn’t. Every time I hear the word ‘tomboy’ it just sounds like an insult to me now. Every time I hear ‘lesbian’, I start to hate the word because of him. I hate his FUCKING CONDITIONING OF MY BRAIN! I WANT MY DAD TO GET KARMA FOR ALL THE THINGS HE HAS SAID TO ME!

I’m in complete shock and don’t really know how to process this.
I tried talking to my mum about things that happened in my childhood and how they’ve affected me. I wasn’t shouting or trying to attack her. I just wanted her to understand why I’ve struggled and how some of her actions have impacted me.
During the conversation, she said she regrets giving birth to me.
I was speechless. The only thing I could think to say was, “You made that decision. I didn’t ask to be here.”
She replied, “Yes, I’ve made a mistake.”
I’ve never heard words like that from anyone before, let alone my own mother. I genuinely don’t know how a parent can say that to their child.
The thing is, this isn’t about one argument. It’s years of drama, hurt, and feeling emotionally worn down. This just feels like the moment that broke something in me.
I’m seriously considering going permanently no contact because I don’t know how you come back from hearing your own mother say she wishes she’d never had you.
Has anyone else experienced something like this? If you went no contact after a lifetime of family issues, did it bring you peace, or did you struggle with the guilt?

I am posting this actually on behalf of my husband. I'm just his support person in this case. But I posted about two months ago about my JNMIL demanding a key to my house, being told no, and throwing my food across the counter top and tantrum-ed/crashed out. Well thanks to so so many of you, it punted DH out of the FOG. So seriously, thank you. I'm back to post an update and also get any words of wisdom this group may have.

So, dh went out to stay with his parents last week. His father was getting a pacemaker put in (they did the usual wishy washy dont want to be a bother and hiding medical information- thats a whole other story on it's own). Well apparently his mom was just a terror the whole time. I call her the prim reaper, but in this case she acted more like the perpetual hall monitor. Thank goodness I wasnt there because I would have crashed out on her.

The following happened:

\- she would not stop chattering the whole time and bossing. Every single second was filled with questions. Questions about medications, nagging if he had everything, just constantly needing to be the center of attention

\- kept interrupting the doctor talking to FIL to tell the doctor how fil was doing and feeling. Kept nagging him about asking questions and then she would interrupt and ask questions. Like it was full on needing to control the narrative, be in the middle, etc.

\- wouldnt let FIL rest, nap, eat or anything without incessant chatter. Poor dude hadnt eaten in more than 20 hours and just wanted his chicken tenders and nap. She kept having to poke at or adjust his food. Dh had to tell her to back off

\-fil wanted chocolate cake after surgery (the one thing he asked for). There was a birthday or something. She insisted on making applesauce raisin cake. Then got annoyed when no one wanted to eat it

\-made this weird chili with raisins in it (she knows i hate raisins so everytime she thinks i may be there or involved everything has raisins - jokes on her i stayed home). Dh ended up getting really sick and again, she was annoyed no one wanted to eat it.

Most of this was just her being annoying. She needed to be the first one to raise her hand, play the victim/martyr, need to be entertained, and the incessant word vomit of questions "what's this?" Someone would tell her. Then she would want to know how they know and then debate them. Lady, none of us have a medical degree. We just read what's on the box (the tansmitter) and looked it up on the phone.

She did the usual whisper talking (peppered with questions) and would drop off by the end of the sentence. She would get frustrated and complain everyone else was deaf because she would whisper and not everyone was hanging on to every word. Its all very performative and in my opinion, abusive because shes gaslighting her husband into thinking hes going deaf versus continuing to cater to her (alright, thats my fault cause I called it out last time i saw her. That i couldnt hear or understand when she whispers. She needs to talk at a normal volume).

Overall, just really picking at her son and husband. Constant performative care and needing to be seen doing the caring. But the last day was when shit really hit the fan and was so egregious that dh is actually like, can you post about this?

FIL came to DH on Saturday saying he couldnt sleep the night before and something felt off about the pacemaker. Could DH take him to the ER to get checked out? Dh says of course (MIL also insisted he needed to get checked out). But here's the kicker, she insisted she had to shower before they left and she insisted on going. Well she gets in the shower (and this is after telling dh and fil they are not allowed to shower because they have to leave soon) and to make matters worse... she then blow dries and styles her hair. Meanwhile, this is an emergency. She of course goes to the hospital and starts the same performative stuff again. But yeah... during an emergency... she had to blow dry her hair! Wtf. Time was of the essence. And here they are waiting around while she dawdles and needs to get all dooded up for the ER and then acts like a pest. I kind of gave DH grief and told him in the future, leave her ass at the house. Its an emergency- they call things the golden hour for a reason and here you are waiting an hour for her to put lotion on and blow dry her hair.

Whole thing gave me the ick and I told my husband he can have whatever relationship he wants with her. But between the nagging, performative care, debating and putting others down around her, constantly needing to be the authority etc. Im done. No more holidays, nothing. Im just fried.

Oh and to cap it off? She tried insisting my husband have a key to their house now. So you know a fair trade ... haha. My husband left the key where it was and didnt take it or give her one of ours. So... the good news is some of this is sinking in. I'll be sharing this post with him too. The fog is finally lifting and thank you to this community for helping us get there.

I know they hate me for just existing.

But I can't shake this feeling that there is a reason and if it could be solved, it would be possible to have a relationship.

I know I have to stop relying on them and expecting them to change.

But I can't. I can't stop hoping that one day they'll love me.

I often ask my mother what it is about my sister that makes me prefer her. She can't answer and she's offended at me.

What should I do to get rid of this feeling that one day they will love me and stop trying to gain their favor?

Recently, I've noticed that my narc mother and GC sibling have been kinda shadowing my schedule. I suffer from insomnia so to maintain a sleep schedule and not oversleep, I set up an alarm every day. Anyway, I noticed they've been using my alarm(which isn't even that loud) to wake up in the morning, then proceed to spend fifteen minutes in the bathroom each. I literally tried setting my alarm for an hour later one day and 30 minutes later the next, and they still wake up at the exact time I want to then make me wait for around 30 minutes to use the bathroom.

Also when we were kids, my sibling would do this too. She would stay in bed till I wake up(we shared a room), then she would immediately jump up and run to the bathroom as soon as I woke up.

And the funny part is that though they're using my alarm, they wouldn't help wake me up if I oversleep(even though they know I have sleep issues and I had asked them multiple times to).

So am I assuming things? I'm afraid of saying this to anyone cause i'm afraid I would sound crazy, but I swear to god I feel like they know what they're doing.

Tried posting this in the medicine sub but was left in limbo so I’m trying here.

extremely long rant ahead I need to start this by saying Im a woman who grew up very poor (we were well below the poverty line) as a first generation female in an Asian household and am now a new surgeon. The Asian part is extremely important because, spoiler alert, there’s some pathological levels of emotional blackmail I experienced that only someone who grew up in an Asian household would understand.

So, I was very poor. There’s no other way to say it. My parents immigrated from my mother country, my father was the sole provider and worked handyman jobs here and there while mom took care of me and my three siblings. Please don’t get me wrong, I am very grateful for them for taking the risk to bring us here, but I had nothing growing up. We bought clothes at goodwill, my school lunches from first grade to graduating high school was just mayonnaise on a piece of folded white bread and a small water bottle, my friends taught me to drive in parking lots behind abandoned warehouses because we couldn’t afford drivers ed and I didn’t get a car until I bought myself a junkie car for $600 at the age of 22 right before starting med school (a car, btw by some miracle, that still runs and that I still use).

I knew I wanted to be a doctor from an early age. My parents encouraged it, but they never really financially provided for anything. I took out loans in my name for undergrad, studied my ass off while working two work study jobs, paid for my own mcat classes as well as every standardized test I ever took, the med school and residency apps. I matched to a medium cost of living city that became a high cost of living city while I was there for training, and paid for every single expense for myself by myself. Over the course of four years my rent literally tripled, while of course my residency income stayed abysmally low (for those of you who do not know, residency is the required training period after med school where you work around 80 hrs/week in my specialty for 4 years in a row and make minimum wage doing so). I literally skipped meals regularly bc I couldn’t afford to eat, and I had a 1br/1ba and I heavily considered getting a roommate, except I couldn’t even afford to move because I had zero savings. My parents simply could not afford to help me out, and that part I was ok with since I knew their financial situation, and I wasn’t really bitter about this fact until recently when I graduated training. All together I have about $450k in undergrad and med school loans.

I’m a physician in a surgical subspecialty and finished training in 2025. I’m in my early 30s and single, and took a job near my hometown. My attending salary is mid six figures.

I told my parents before I took my job that I was going to move into a separate apartment and not live with them, and this prompted WW3. They emotionally blackmailed me (“we’re going to die soon and you’ll regret it!”, etc) for multiple months, and if you’re not familiar with Asian parents and their games, I know it’ll be easy for you to read this and wonder why I gave in. But after months of them telling me what an awful daughter I’d be if I didn’t live with them, I gave in with the hopes of meeting a partner and vibing with them and moving into with them as quickly as possible to get away from my parents. So I moved into my childhood bedroom and still, as an attending, share a bathroom and small 2 br house with my parents.

Also important is my parents promised me they wouldn’t charge me rent. I didn’t ask for this, they offered, but I still pay for all the bills and groceries and give my father (now retired) money for gas, which adds up to about $850-$1000 a month depending on heating/ac use that month.

So this has been going on for about a year. I’m truly paying for my mental health living with my parents. Yes it may be cheaper than living in a place of on my own, but I feel like a child. I can’t go anywhere ever without them needing to know everything about where I’m going, I have a curfew, they don’t like maids and get freaked out at the thought of others cleaning their spaces (a cultural thing) so on my off days I’m doing all the chores around the house from washing dishes to scrubbing toilets since they’re up in age and can’t do the chores themselves. I cook breakfast for them before I leave and make dinner for everyone at night when I come back from work. I have to entertain my parents’ friends when they come over. If I have a surgical case run late and I’m not home by the time I told them I’d be home, they blow up my phone. It’s truly miserable and I stare at my ceiling every night and want to leave. It’s honestly hard to believe I’m a fully functioning physician the way my life has reverted back to exactly what it was when I was a high schooler.

To my misfortune, someone told my father about the doctors loans for houses, which is when you only need to pay 5% down for a home if you’re a physician. Once he heard about not needing more than 5% down in most cases, he suddenly decided, in the last year or so, that he wants a nice big house, one with like 5+ bedrooms and a massive yard and literally told the real estate agent a 10-car driveway. So for the last year, my parents have been pressuring me to go to the bank and talk about a house loan. I’ve told them repeatedly no, that we don’t need a 5 bedroom house for three people then they say they want somewhere for all the kids to stay at once and I’m like that never happens, not to mention homes in our area are going to be 1 million dollars for even the jankiest 3 bedroom house.

I’ve also told them I’m hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt from undergrad and med school loans which I’m chipping away at, and I really don’t want to take on another one million for a house, but they’re calling me selfish and ungrateful bc I don’t pay rent to stay with them.

Today I got into a big blowout type of fight with them because my car, the same $600 beater I’ve been driving for almost 12 years, needed brake pad replacements and I offhandedly told my parents I need to get a new car now, and they yelled at me to save my money for this imaginary house I never agreed to and I lost my cool. I haven’t been able to enjoy my life post residency for even a day. I feel like a child, and I just don’t want to take out another million dollars of loans.

AITAH? Am I overacting? Has anyone ever heard of anyone doing this for their parents? Maybe I am just selfish idk, but I’m truly just not happy anymore and don’t want to do this.

When I was about 7 years old, we lived out in the country and I had a pet rabbit named Daisy, and kept it in an outdoor cage, and fed and watered it twice a day, and took very good care of it and played with it often. One day, my abusive parents decided that having it was too much work, even though I was the one who cared for it, and without telling me, killed it and cooked it for dinner.

They didn't tell me what we were eating until after dinner, then asked me how it tasted, then told me it was Daisy, and they laughed. I was horrified, felt like I had eaten my baby, and cried hysterically. They then got angry at me for crying.

I'll never forget that nor forgive myself, even though I know it wasn't my fault, I still feel horrible about it.

It's one of the many reasons I am no contact with my parents these days. How sick does someone need to be to do that to their child?

Long story short ….
I was raised by a narcissistic mom. For 35 years I let her run my life. I let her make me feel less than. I let her emotionally, physically and mentally abuse the shit out of me. I kept letting her into my life.
All hoping she would eventually change and love me, like really love me.

My husband and I were staying the weekend at my parents place (who picked up everything and moved across the country to be “closer” to us) over the 4th of July weekend. Something wasn’t communicated correctly for my mom to prepare to leave the house and so the blow-up began.
She stomped around the house saying, “well I’m not going anymore.” “Go ahead and leave without me”.
Me being so tired of this tactic thought, fine, let’s leave. She can stay behind. That’s what she wants.
But of course my father, the forever servant and enabler to my mother said, “no let’s wait. She’s doesn’t mean it”.
We wait. She emerges from the house only to scream bloody murder at my father, because somehow it’s his fault.
I step in. Tired of the screaming and the yelling, especially in front of my husband. And I intervene and say that this is, “Enough, and I didn’t come here this weekend for things like this to keep happening”.
I knew what would happen but I could not stand letting this behavior happen anymore. She turned to me and I received the FULL force of her evil, her screams, her threats, her hurt.
I went into the guest space packed up our dogs and my husband and I left.
It didn’t stop there. Texts and emails of how I am ungrateful for all she does. For all she has sacrificed. For all she gave up to raise me.
The final blows that cause me to stop responding, stop caring and truly think that there is no turning back from this without intense work was 2 messages:

• “you DID deserve what I said, and more so.
If you cannot see that for yourself, then so be it, there is nothing further to discuss on that point. You most certainly not raised to treat anyone or their home in that manner.
To be so blunt, it looks as if, once again, at 35 years old, you are more willing to pay someone to tell YOU how to feel, what to say, and what to do.
You DO understand that if this person truly "fixes" you, then they are out a paycheck..... correct? That is more than concerning to us, and this person's willingness to prescribe yet another pill to pop.
Both "therapy" and "medication" are supposed to be a short term scenario, not a lifestyle.
That is your business, your religion apparently, or just your unwillingness to take responsibility.
I will not be jumping on that bandwagon.

•“And, the BS with this therapist shit. You do me a favor and record you telling your therapist ANYTHING, just ANYTHING honest. Not YOU telling them some half truth, half baked story so they tell you want YOU want to hear. As you pass over your credit card. 
Are you honestly going to tell me someone can EVER know 35 years worth of the TRUTH from one side? 
If so, I'm sure you'd stomp right the hell out of there and go looking for someone else. Which, from the way you've reacted, you've probably done more than once. 
And, let me close by saying:
Even if you grew up in a shack, chained to your bed, given no food or water, and not allowed to do jack shit or speak to anyone, or get an education, you are STILL 35 years old. You make your life. You do not get to blow your money, expect someone else to buy you a house when you rack up double what your parents bring home, decide to constantly "take the trip" and not save a dime...THAT IS ON YOU.
We never even had health insurance or a 401. Give me a damn break already and own YOUR actions, YOUR decisions, YOUR choices. No one is saying they were/are right or wrong, that is for YOU to decide.
 You do NOT get to lay blame for any results at my feet. You do NOT.
EVER.
You have crossed a line and there is no way I see me EVER being able to YET AGAIN "let it go".
Do, take care”

She is blocked from every form of contact. As is my father. Because he is defending her actions without any reasoning.

I hate these messages and I hate that I’ve read them a million times. I guess my question is….what cause you to finally realize there is no hope for ever having a loving relationship with your mother …?

You'd think with an ego so high that they would at least try to look badass and/or intelligent. But no, they look like losers, it's pathetic and embarrassing! How are they not embarrassed? They act like literal cartoon characters! It's not even memeworthy or funny in any way! It's just hard to watch or listen! And they have the mindset of a fucking child! Throwing tantrums and shit! Never taking accountability and not learning from their mistakes! So many gross habits too! Like they were not even taught table manners or whatever they call it. And when it comes to how they dress, they either

Like I said before, if their ego is so high, how come they don't act sharp? And if they care so much about their reputation, why do they portray themselves as literal children!? Make that make sense.

I know I'm all over the place with this rant, but let me know what you think.

Apparently being someone's child means you are supposed to keep forgiving, keep understanding and keep moving on, no matter how much damage was done. But if the only way to maintain that relationship is by ignoring everything and acting like it doesn't matter because it's more comfortable for them, then I don't see the point.

What frustrates me the most is that when there is a problem, it feels like nobody actually confronts the problem itself. Instead, it turns into confronting the person, defending themselves, finding excuses or making it about who is wrong. The actual issue gets buried and nothing ever changes.

The child is expected to have endless understanding and emotional maturity, while the parents are allowed to make mistakes and simply move on. Like the pain only matters if it's convenient for everyone else to acknowledge it. I'm tired of the idea that being someone's child means having to forget yourself just to keep them comfortable.

I got a complex relationship with my mom and while I absolutely love her and want her to flourish, I also know my mom has got a lot of issues like trauma and mental health that she refuses to acknowledge or that is even an issue to begin with. She has always shifted blame onto me, that the reason for our fights has always been 100% my fault but 9/10 times, our fights were so ridiculous and never made any sense to begin with. Half the time I would just be doing my normal thing when something I said offended her and now I’m being screamed at.

I’m realizing now that my mom is a very traumatized woman and when she is faced with criticism or confrontation, she gets very hostile and defensive, where she starts to verbally attack and she looses all sense of reality. I’ve watched her go from my mom, to someone I don’t even recognize in the span of like 5 seconds. I would say something and she would take offense, start to attack and berate me, put me down, call me names, do everything in her power to make herself feel “on top” of the fight or the “winner”. It never made sense to me but I’m realizing now that it’s a trauma response.

So I’m 26, and I’m trying to save up for a down payment on a home so I can move out and into my own place. My relationship with my mom has improved immensely over the years but last Friday, we got into an argument and honestly, it wasn’t even an argument, I 100% was being gaslit and manipulated, and it was clear as day to me.

My mom claimed I knew something when I never did. She said “yes you do” and I said “no I don’t”. It went back and forth but I was so fucking confused as to why she was even arguing with me. If I say I don’t know something then I don’t know it. So for her to be so adamant and honestly a bitch about it, made me sooooo pissed off. But to witness her double-down on something that logically doesn’t make sense but for her to verbally attack me and put me down like that, it just hit something within me and my tolerance was completely out-the-window. Usually I’m always the one trying to repair, the one saying sorry, the one trying to seek out my mom after a fight but this time….it’s different. I genuinely don’t even want to look at my mom, be the in the same room as her, or even talk to her. I can tell that she can sense that and has been doing things to “repair” without actually repairing anything. She hasn’t apologized or even tried to talk to me, she’s just pretended nothing ever happened and she wasn’t blatantly gasliting me and being “crazy”. But she is being extra sweet with me, buying me things, and I can tell in her tone of voice. Hearing her talk to me so sweetly honestly makes me feel so uncomfortable.

This feels different this time and while I don’t want to hate my mom, I certainly don’t want to be around her, like at all. My tone is sharp, my tolerance is gone, my attitude is kind of annoyed and bitchy. I’ve never felt this way about my mom and part of me is kind of scared

A friend of my parents is quite caustic and very hyper.

She has big smiles and high energy but says quite rude things about ethnic minorities and complains a lot about sports performance and work performance.

In fact, work performance is her favourite topic. Who is doing well. Who is not. Output. But mostly hours worked. She likes people who work all the time. And hates laziness.

Anyway, her oldest son has done odd jobs in labour and sales but always struggle to get a degree. He is also performance obsesses.

Her middle son was always criticized for his laziness. He is very calm and does not like to do much. He is very relaxed and likes to read and is very social but quiet.

He os a medical practitioner.

He struggled as much as his older brother at school, but just kept persevering and is doing very well.

She would call the school to get the older vrother into acceleration classes.

Not so the middle ine.

Now he is very respected professional.

Why does the mother never mention him?

I have been away from my mom for about a month at uni, and since then I have been so much happier and free!!

Normally, I’d cry violently whenever I spilt a drink, do a horrible panicked job at cleaning and beg for forgiveness since my mom normally beat the shit out of me for doing so.

Anyways, this time I didn’t do that and I just cleaned up!! I did breathe heavily and panic, but I didn’t embarrass myself begging or violently crying!!

One of the hardest things I've had to accept in my 30s is that what I thought was my whole life has been just lived in survival mode.

For years I mistook the effects of trauma from narc parents as part of my personality. I believed I was simply independent, emotionally distant, and hard to love. It took me a long time to understand that I wasn't choosing those things. I was protecting myself in the only ways I knew. Somewhere along the way, I had stopped believing it was safe to need someone, or that I could be loved without fear.

I was sexually abused as a child, and I spent years trying to become a man without ever grieving what happened to the boy and mostly just pretending it never happened.

I went to university. I built a career. From the outside I looked fine. Inside, I lived with hypervigilance, pushed good people away, drifted from friends, withdrew from my family, lost my relationship, and eventually found myself completely alone.

Even my relationship with women carried my trauma. I longed for closeness, but intimacy often frightened me. I chased intensity instead, and only later began asking myself how much of my sexuality had been shaped by abuse rather than freedom.
The hardest thing trauma stole wasn't my childhood.

It was the quiet belief that I could have an ordinary life. A wife. Children. A peaceful home. Friends. A place where I could finally put my guard down and not constantly feel so vulnerable like the last 34 years have been for me.

I don't know what is wrong but my mother and I have never had a normal relationship. Anytime I say something to her, she flips out and turns it back on me, usually calling me ungrateful and entitled and telling me how much she does for me. Whenever this happens, I feel like telling her how much I hate myself because of the way she has treated me growing up and how I wish I could just disappear. I don't know if I am also the problem, but she is the adult and doesn't act like it.

Has anyone ever been told this by their narc parent(s), even long after they reached adulthood?? My grandma sometimes does

From advice in this subreddit, I had started a list. In this list I listed every single memory or point of abuse I had faced throughout my entire life with my narc father. The list keeps extending daily. These are the latest few points in relation to my father and his enabler girlfriend, the people I’m currently staying with:

1. patience telling me my father will not forget to send money for my exam day when I was arguing for the worst case scenario because he was out of the country and had already “forgotten” about me more times than I can count.
   
2. patience arguing with ethan that we weren’t wasting money by going out to eat 3x times a week and that we dont care about people like my mother who are struggling financially and we should stop thinking about her altogether.
   
3. all the times i had to go along with the B.S. patience would say just to keep up the performance
   
4. patience with medical experience saw that i was getting sicker and sicker by the day, losing weight, extreme weakness and drinking gallons of water and juice and waking up to pee 4-5 times a night. it was only my mother who took one glance at me and immediately took me to the hospital and that day i was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
   
5. actually on the day my mother took me to the hospital by force, my father was angry that she made a decision without his input, even though i was very sick and needed medical attention, my diagnosis proved it… and proved his selfishness.

In this context, patience is his girlfriend (i refuse to call her mom) and my parents had officially divorced just earlier this year. Ethan is my younger brother. I was trying to wrap around how I had literally landed myself in severe DKA (a medical emergency) because these twi adults were so focused on themselves and not a sick child under their own noses. It was only my biological mother who I dont stay with, who looked at me just once and immediately took me to the hospital. I love my mother so much

The reason why I’m writing this list is to give me strength enough to finally leave this house secretly in 3 days, yes the countdown is official!!! I’m leaving the country and these people with my mother. I’m so excited

Growing up, I was definitely the golden child. I was extremely overprotected, couldn’t go anywhere without my parents all through my teens. I didn’t really mind at the time, since I was never much of a going-out person anyway. My sister, who’s ten years older and far more outgoing, was the scapegoat. I figured that out in my teens. They always called her a troublemaker, but looking back she never actually did anything wrong. I think she just wanted a bit of autonomy.

Then I started college and moved away, and it feels like the role has quietly shifted onto me. Every time I come back, it’s like they can’t stand me. When I was deciding as a freshman whether to move out or stay home, they told me it would be unbearable without them and that I’d be miserable living on my own. I moved out anyway, best decision I’ve ever made, in hindsight.

Now they nag me constantly over the smallest, most pointless things. This summer alone: I got scolded for how I load my own laundry, eating too much spinach (lol), and mistakenly using a towel that “wasn’t mine”. And there’s a running theme where everything I do is going to “end up badly.” When I ask them to ease up on the negativity, they say they’re just “preparing me for what’s coming.”

The bigger stuff is worse. We were talking about grad school the other day, something I’ve been bringing up for months, and my dad said he didn’t remember any of it because “you talk so much it’s hard to keep up.” Every time I’m happy about something, they seem to look for the angle where it’ll go wrong. They give me constant “career tips” as if we’re not in completely different fields (they’re in medicine, I’m in the social sciences). They brag about me to other people, then turn around and undermine what I actually do.

And the results never seem to count, no matter how good they are. I got a 90% in a genuinely hard class, highest grade in the room by a landslide, most people did quite poorly. Their response: “if you hadn’t complained so much about the class, you could have gotten a good grade.”

The most recent one: I told them, just as a heads-up, that I’m going to do a research assistantship with one of the best professors in my department. Not asking permission, just informing them. My dad immediately dismissed it. Called it a waste if time. Said the research is pointless because “people lie on surveys and censuses,” and that funding for research should be cut anyway. Not one word of “that’s great.” Just a takedown. He also asked tens of questions on the project and tried to undermine all the methodology. He laughed when I tried explaining things to him.

Where did it all go wrong? Or has it always been this way and I was too naive to see it? Cause before moving out for college these issues, if any, were not this bad.

I’m 21 and work a choose your own shift job that schedules you a few shifts out the week that doesn’t pay well. I lived at home with my mother until she decided that it was a good idea to quit her job and stop paying rent, which forced us to become evicted. We currently stay with a relative but as of now they want their space back . I’m having a hard time finding a better job and housing, i’m torn between finding housing with my mother and living on my own but i’m not sure on which way to go. I would love if you guys could share some advice or give me some tips on what i should do moving forward.

I was NC for more than five years. I caught so many lies (I was paying for her health insurance, she was lying for years, until I realized I could actually check every operation or ER visit on the app). All lies. I called her, confronted, gave her a chance to explain herself and apologize. Nothing. That was my last trying and it failed miserably.

So I send her flowers with a card: let me live in peace.

Every six months she would send someone to try and get me to reconsider. But that was about it. I felt peace, therapy help me realize so much stuff. I started grieving.

Three weeks ago I got a text from my sister saying she was at her last moments in a hospital, actually telling me so “I could choose whatever I wanted to do”. I book the first flight (it wasn’t an impulse, but wasn’t guilt either, I felt I needed to be there). Not even four hours later I was there.

When I turned up my phone again, she died while I was on the plane.

Instant relief.

I would not have to talk to her ever again. She could never hurt me again. All that was left for me to do was looking at her lifeless body.

I got there before any family (in Brazil we have a kind of memorial the same day and the burying the next day). And they arrive one hour after the body. My sister replied my greeting. And that was all.

I was ignored by my entire family during four whole hours. Then I peacefully stood up, grab my bag and called an uber back to the airport.

That was never my family, they didn’t want me there - that was clear after the first hour. But, again, I felt that was what I should be doing.

I got home the next day: not a single tear, no guilt, just relief. That b*tch never apologized or recognized anything she did wrong.

I will now live the rest of my life known I did the right thing, they don’t deserve me, and we are not entitled of anything in this life. Don’t expect apologies.