Your Parents

[MissaFX]

I've never had a good relationship with my parents, at least for very long at a time.  For all of their BS talk about wanting to have a good relationship with their kids, they just never follow through.  It has taken me many years to realize it too, but it's basically all their damn fault.  I really don't think they ever wanted children and that they would have both been happier with a dog. 

It's a little hard to say this, but to be perfectly honest they never invested anything into me, but they expected the world from me, just because I was autistic.  You'd think most parents would expect less from their autistic, asmatic, immune difficent, etc child, but no...  My dad expected me to do everything that he didn't do in his childhood, because of similar problems he has!!!   My mom is another story, but lets just say that her expectations were equally insane.  So instead of nurturing anything I was good at, they forced me to only do things I couldn't or was totally inept to do.  After my dad stopped playing the NES himself, they pretty much fought my video game interests up until oh say 2001.  I could have gone on from middleschool to be a game developer.  I can see it now myself going over my old projects.  I could have been a novel writer, right out of 5th or 6th grade.  My writings from then are better and more facinating than books I have read in the last 10 years.  I let a friend read some while he helped me organize boxes and he agreed.  There are several other jobs I could have gone on to do directly from the 6th grade.

However they activly fought against anything I was good at, finding fault in it.  I only have 3 christmas/birthday presents from my parents in my whole life that I care anything for.  That is about 1 present every 10 years worth getting!  f*ck.  I give them something each year which is generally awesome.  Something they actually want too.  Hell, my parents actually made my buy them specific gifts for christmas and birthdays every year.  Because they made me work for them at little to no pay working their shipping department (as a child!) I always had money saved up...which I would get to spend on them   This seems abusive to me today as well as many of their other practices.

My mother literally used to say all the time, and she really ment this with her heart
"When you have children, you can make them do whatever you want."

This is the love I know from my own parents.

In fact my parents were always looking for angles to use my sister and I.  Weither it was lying to public officials, having my younger sister shoplift, lying for them to countless other adults, or using us in some way to get benifits which they could spend on themselves...  They were always looking for an angle.  Sadly my younger sister has latched on to some of these ways

My mother was especially in my younger years, a drug using, bi-polar, alcoholic...which ment she was SUPER unpredictable.  It also ment anything good she promised she would quickly forget after.  I don't know if this was a common practice in the 80's, but by the time I was 6, she would send me to the store 10 blocks down the hill to buy her beer and cigs, which the store worker would get for me (the beer) and bag it, and then I had to haul it back up the hill to the house.  I always apparently told her as a child I always wanted to play with her, but she never took the time.  Why is it my memories are full of beer trips instead of...well you know...it's too hard to say, I'll fall apart totally if I try to express it.

I hate that I love them...I wish to god that I could sometime break myself off from that personal abusive cycle.  I hate they EVERYTIME I start to trust one of them, they totally let me down.  It's a very scary thing to say, but they should have put me up for adoption.  At least then they would haven given me a fighting chance.  I've learned, painfully, I am much better on my own than with them.  God that's painful to say.  Every desierable quality I have, is one that I fostered and said was more valid than what they preached.  The only thing they taught me was how to endure endless torment without loosing all of my sanity.

So....how is the relationship between you and your parents?  If anyone wants to say anything on the subject, good or bad, anything they just feel they want to say, feel free.

[mobiusclimber]

Unfortunately, you don't get to pick your parents the way you can your friends. And you're stuck with them the rest of your life. But that doesn't mean you have to let them affect you forever. I really don't want to get into it, but I spent a good portion of my childhood in foster care because of my parents. Now they hear from me on holidays, and that's the way I want to keep it. There's no sense in trying for anything more. I have a wife and good friends, they're all the family I need.

[Necromancer]

Sorry to hear that your life growing up was so shitty; your parents certainly sound f*cked up.  It doesn't provide much solace now, but remember that it could've been far worse (sadly enough).  Don't be afraid to try writing again or to stick your little toe into programming; you're far to young to be resigned to some career that's totally unfulfilling.

Luckily, my parents have always been supportive.  I enjoy a pretty good relationship with 'em, though they occasionally bug the shit out of me with their goofy plans; no doubt they think the same of me from time to time.

Here's Necromancer's prescription for more happiness: shit in a box and mail it to those who've screwed you over (preferably postage due).  Trust me, you'll feel much better.

[albinoMithos]

Missa that's really f*cked up.  I'm really sorry to hear that about your parents.  Well I will say that since your still young (IIRC somewhere in your 20s or 21 where time stopped )  you have time to go out and do what you want/need to do.  If you get the chance go out there and go for it.  If you need help I'm sure plenty of us here wouldn't mind lending a hand.  If you want to get into game programming then hell start teaching yourself, become badass, get a crapload of scholarships, and go back to school (I know it sounds like a pipe dream but I've heard of it happening with enough time and patience).  Just don't let it get you down and become the person you want to be not what they want you to be.   

Now that that Dr. Phil moment is over I gotta say that my relationship with my parents is been Ok I think I might be better at interacting with them since I'm not around them and they really have never went against what I was wanting to do in life as long as it didn't put me in a bad place.  They never had a problem with my excessive gaming as long as it didn't get in the way of school. 

Here's Necromancer's prescription for more happiness: shit in a box and mail it to those who've screwed you over (preferably postage due).  Trust me, you'll feel much better.

I couldn't agree with this more if it were laced with shit and poured into an open wound of somebody who deserved it.

[nodtveidt]

Hrm...which set of parents? My "real" parents were rather worthless. My real mother, who was 18 when she had me, would leave me in the closet when she had to go out somewhere (so I developed a thing for hiding in closets), wouldn't feed us very often (so I developed a habit of harboring food and looking in the trash), and all kinds of other nice abusive things. At the age of 2, me and my brother (who is younger than me) were "stolen away" by an uncle, and placed into protective custody of the state of Tennessee. One of our aunts wanted to adopt me, but the state wasn't going to let a lesbian have custody of a child (hidden under the guise of "we don't want the children separated"). So we were both adopted by another uncle and his wife. This new woman who I was forced to call "Mom" would beat us, often times for no reason other than she was pissed off at the world. When she felt that we'd been extra bad, she'd get her husband to beat us too. And that's to say nothing of what she did to me when no one else was around. I don't know if my younger brother got the same treatment as I did when no one else was around. Also, from a very young age, I was called "devil child".

Growing up, I too was prohibited from doing the things I really liked to do. Instead, I was forced to do things that conformed to "Mom"'s vision of what a boy should like, such as sports. I never really liked sports, although I was an excellent runner. I grew to HATE all popular sports, something I retain to this day. I wanted to be a computer programmer, but she would never let me use the computer (we had a C64). I also liked video games, which I was also forbidden to do while everyone else got to play. It seemed that any time I found something I liked, I was denied the right to do it. In order to escape from her abusiveness, my brother and I would go outside and get as far away from the house as possible.

Finally, when I was 15, I had had enough and started running away from home. When it was obvious that even that wasn't enough, I attempted suicide. That got me locked up in two different mental hospitals...they were looking for "what's wrong with this brat" but in reality, should have been looking at her. I was eventually sent away to a group home over an hour away, and then to a foster home, where I turned 18, becoming free of her control. But it didn't end there...even as an adult, sometimes parents will try to maintain control.

In late 1995, someone had come up with the "brilliant" idea of sending me to Tennessee to meet my real mother. Since I had no real life skills at the time, I agreed to the plan. So in early 1996, I moved to Tennessee to be with my real mother. She seemed like a decent enough person...sure, NOW, many years later, but she denied everything that I've ever been told, so I had no idea what was really truth and what was just family lies. Anyways, it seems I did not get along with my half-brother, and we ended up getting into a huge fight and killing each other. I returned to Vermont the next day, and over the course of the next year, came to learn of the true reason I was invited to go down south: it was "Mom"'s wish, as well as the wish of the lesbian aunt who couldn't adopt me, to have me go down there and kill my real mother. Kill two birds with one stone...get rid of the black sheep of their family, and in the process, get rid of me as well. All the hatred "Mom" made me bear for my real mother was meant to eliminate her in the end. Unfortunately for them, things didn't go as planned, and both me and my real mother are still alive.

There are far too many more details to list, and I am often told I should write an autobiography. Maybe I will someday. But as it stands right now, I have cut every last family member of mine out of my life, and am glad I live in a place where I cannot properly speak the language because I have very few real social skills and quite often say the wrong thing due to the intense hatred I grew up with.

But yes, it most certainly does sound like your parents would have been much better off with a dog. Some parents, especially like yours and like mine, would have been much better off if they'd never had children to begin with. But alas, we're here, scars and all, so we have to make the best life we can for ourselves despite being shit on so many times.

My suggestion for you is to do exactly what I did...cut yourself off from them completely. After some time, enough of the wounds heal that you can try to live a normal life. And if you ever need a place to go, you're welcome here.

[guyjin]

Anyways, it seems I did not get along with my half-brother, and we ended up getting into a huge fight and killing each other.

  what?!

[drdre]

Well, I'm very sorry for everyone that has bad parents, though I can't say the same...

My father immigrated from Costa Rica when he was in his twenties, and met my mom in California (I'm mixed).  While my mother constantly brings up the fact that the first 5 or so years of their marriage were terrible, due to my father's cheating/beating, after 5 years passed, and we moved out of a terrible neighborhood of Chicago, things got much better (I was only like 3 at the time).

Between then and when my parents divorced, I had a pretty good childhood.  Sure, my parents had their quirks, their own way of getting angry and dealing with it ( my dad never hit, but when he was really, really mad, he would grab us by our ears), but overall I had a good, stable childhood.  We went on tons of family vacations, my mother bought me numerous toys with my father's money, etc.  I can't say I ever saw them really fight/treat me or my brother badly.

When my parent divorced I was 17, so it didn't really affect me too much, I was old enough to see it coming.  After that, though, things did get a little weird....

Fast forward to today- my parents are still divorced/unmarried, my father has a particular fondness for women (lots of women) and my mother, who is older than my father and in bad health, has a particular fondness for marijuana (and yes, i am her enabler, since I don't want a 60 year old woman trying to buy drugs by herself).

In their defense, when my son was born and I was only 19 (living at home, going to community college) they both took it very well, and both have continued to support me greatly!

[Michael Helgeson]

Anyways, it seems I did not get along with my half-brother, and we ended up getting into a huge fight and killing each other.

  what?!

Lol, yea youre telling me. Zombie Rover haunts PCEFX.

All I can say is my mom did her best as a single parent. Not always perfect, sometimes there were scenes, but I mean, usually this was just due to me and my sister being a problem of some kind. In the end she always did her best given what she had to work with. I hadn't seen my dad sine I was around 1 1/2 up until I was 17 in court because the state themselves was going after him for back support. My dad never paid it. He lives in the same city I live in now. Every now and then we spot him walking down the street, exiting a store, ect.. Hes always well dressed, still looks to be in good shape (was a body builder in the 70's), so Im guessing he takes care of himself. Do I say Hi? No. Do I care to? No. Why? I don't need him. I lived my entire life not knowing him, and I don't desire to start now.

They asked me in court during the back support case if I wanted to see him. Said no then too. It probably sounds cold, but life had and has been moving on, and hes the past. I simply don't have time for him. When I was a kid, he never tried to see me. At 17, in court, he may have wanted to then, but who cares. I was almost grown up, and did it without his help, money, or moral support. Whatever he would have had to teach me as a father to a son, I don't want to learn. I learned what I needed to with him not around by my mom, that you don't have to tough it out with a worthless f*ck just to raise your kids. You can go it alone. How does this affect me as a adult now? I do exactly that, desire nothing more then to go it alone. I date very little these days. When I do date someone, usually I ditch them after a bit due to boredom or due to the fact I don't want anything serious going on in my life right now with someone, or I show such a utter lack of interest in the person that they eventually ditch me and move on themselves when they realize it isn't going to go anywhere for them because I don't want it to.

 Im greedy with my free time, my children, and my money. Ive found that a couple women Ive dated seem to think Id get lonely,desperate, need help, and want to settle down fast ect, because of not having a mom around for my kids. It never occurred to them that my kids have not had a mom around for the past few years, and they are doing just fine. They don't need a mom, they have their dad. To that effect, someone telling me they want to get serious with me, move to the next step, and try to use " I love your kids and want to be their mom" or "because your kids need a mom" as selling points or reasoning with me have all failed.  My interest in having someone jump into a serious relationship with me now so they can pretend to be my kids mom, it isn't going to happen. I'm not interested right now. I may never be. I like my space, and my freedom to raise my kids the way I see fit without someone else being around trying to put their 2 cents in on how they think it should be done.

Im not scared to live the rest of my adult life alone. I don't wake up in cold sweats, gripped with fear Ill be a old man all alone. My mom embedded that much into me, to not fear that kind of crap and be with someone, anyone, just for the sake of not going it alone. Besides, Im sure when Im a bitchy old man, my kids will be there holding my hand. 

[nodtveidt]

what?!

Hey it was late at night, and I forgot to include the word "almost".

[MissaFX]

what?!

Hey it was late at night, and I forgot to include the word "almost".

I assumed you cast re-raise on yourself before the fight and he forgot to.

In all seriousness though I'm glad you adapted to the closet better than I did.  One of the other little quirks about me is that I have low latent inhibition, which means that even though you shut me up there, my brain continues to process the whole house around me, the rooms and every object I know in those rooms.  If I know of what parts something is composed of or if I know how something functions like a fan, all of those elements are also observed if I concentrate on any one object.  As a young child entirely unable to understand this confining my body without confining my mind drove me mad at times.

There's a lot I have left out in my posting, but I understand all too well many of the things you went through.

*hugs*

[Ninja Spirit]

Wow this thread is pretty candid.

I had a stable childhood, I loved both my parents (my mom RIP). First off, I'm gonna go ahead, fast forward and be happy to say that in the last few months of my mom's life, they were getting along and talked about remarrying a week and a half before she died.

Thing is though, on behalf of my mom. I actually had a mixed bag toward her because of their bad marriage, whenever I went to visit her, just out of nowhere or things would be going good and then the vibes come up that's she's gonna give me 5 hours of sob stories. As far as I know this was some uncontrollable chemical imbalance type habit.

It took nerves of steel to tell her that I don't want to hear it cause of the possible reaction, which means some form of guilt trip and possibly a full scale fight (verbal fight, physical is out of the question.)

She used to talk mad shit about my dad and was hardcore with it too. Even tried to convince me that my dad was homosexual, but I wasn't buying any of it. She even tried to use me as a tool to spy on my dad to see if he's cheating, or she would cuss out any person who called our house and got the wrong number.

I didn't see her for an entire summer because how she talked to me about him after an incident that happened between my parents at my house while I was innocently in another town playing softball with my school.

I guess to her everytime I object to her claims, she automatically thought that I was against her.

At times she was mentally ill, hallucinating snakes, and thinking anyone wearing dreadlocks was doing voo-doo on her.

Warning this is gonna get semi-graphic right here...

One night my mom and I were driving around and it was the worse time for me to be trapped in the car with her in one of those moods: In the middle of a neighborhood in the dead of night when everybody's in their houses.

I told her I did not feel like hearing it. She just went psycho and started cussing like a sailor. Had we stepped out of the car, someone would hear us and call the cops on us for DTP

She made me so f*cking MAD, I actually started to have violent thoughts like ramming her head through the windshield. Instead, I started kicking the glove compartment and the passenger seat got totaled from the forces of my movement. However though, my hand did reluctantly reach for the skinny end of a Mistic bottle lodged between the seat and the door.

yeah that's how f*cked up it was

[ParanoiaDragon]

Well, personally, I have a great relationship with my parents.  As a child, I ofcoarse didn't understand the things they said I couldn't do, or the things I should do, etc.  Now, I do understand, & appreciate their discipline.  That's not to say that they didn't make mistakes, ofcoarse they did, like when my dad would spank me, because he thought I was peeing on the carpet(it was my grandpa's dog doing that), & I would actually admit to it, because I figured I wouldn't get spanked as hard.  Eventually, he saw the dog doing it, & even to this day, feels bad about the whole situation & how he treated me.

Now that I'm older, & I work with him, I consider him one of my best friends, & I feel like I can talk about anything with him, & I hurt whenever I think about how old he is, or his infirmity's(he needs his knees replaced badly), & fear losing him someday, not to mention my mom who's diabetic now, not to mention the various things that come with old age.  They mean alot to me, & I know I'm one of the lucky ones.

I do feel though I could never have children, I feel like I'd be a terrible father, very impatient.  I think, in some respects I'd be protective, but, well, we just don't want children, so, we have no plans of ever having any this side of armageddon, that's for sure!

[MissaFX]

I told her I did not feel like hearing it. She just went psycho and started cussing like a sailor. Had we stepped out of the car, someone would hear us and call the cops on us for DTP

She made me so f*cking MAD, I actually started to have violent thoughts like ramming her head through the windshield. Instead, I started kicking the glove compartment and the passenger seat got totaled from the forces of my movement. However though, my hand did reluctantly reach for the skinny end of a Mistic bottle lodged between the seat and the door.

yeah that's how f*cked up it was

Don't feel bad about it, you didn't want her to die, you just wanted her to stop dumping on you.  Your mind was only thinking such drastic thoughts because you hadn't had time yet to process the situation with your higher reasoning.  *hugs* *hugs*

[Golgo13]

Hey Missa,

While I did not have the exact same situation as you, I can relate because I too have a very bad relationship with my parents, they had me very young and were emotionally abusive and crazy.  Giving me a very bad start in life that affects me to this day.  The only advice I can give is to learn from what they did wrong, and vow to try your best to have a healthy family one day, to break the cycle of disfunction that is the best thing you can do to get over it someday, and I am still working on that myself.  I plan when I have a family of my own one day to exclude my parents from my childrens lives because of all the things they did to me, and while that is very harsh, not something I would choose, in my case my parents never apologized once for anything they did to me.  Sometimes you have to be firm.

Be very cautious in who you pick as a partner to raise a family with, and take lessons from older people who have more stable and less whacked out family lives, in my case, my parents were too "Independent" for their own good, forsaking the traditional values that families should have.

[Michael Helgeson]

Missa, reflecting on it all, this is how I see it. You can totally take it as either me being a a$$hole (which I tend to often be since I typically call it liek I see it), or as a intervention, or just solid advice. This is just the internet,so what you do outside of it is completely up to you in the end.

Since you have been here you have made many statements about being Bi-polar, having Asperger syndrome, asthma, and hip issues. Since I don't know you in person, I could only assume either all of this was true or you have may suffer from a mild form of Munchausen syndrome. True,the vast majority of people who suffer from Munchausen syndrome often seek out attention from doctors, there are many who seek attention by other means, family, friends, peers, ect. Munchausen syndrome itself can be caused by alot of what you described as how your childhood went down so before you decide to get mad as to why I would think this, just know that Im just going by what all you have stated, and so by that, that was how I formed that assumption. Again,that's all that it is, a assumption since I don't know you in person, just me being a bystander sizing up the situation as he sees it. Part of the reason I see it this way is possibly because I have been around people who have suffered from it, but that by no means makes me a expert in the field, just someone who has had a little experience in it here and there. Munchausen syndrome can sometimes result from severe depression, and its very obvious you are depressed due to serious issues, and there is medication and counseling out there to help for illness like this. Help is there, but often times unless some one else steps up and forces the person suffering from it to get help, they often dont.

If infact you do have all the problems listed above, again, counseling, and the right medication would benefit you more then hurt you. Obviously if your bi-polar/Asperger you should be on medication. Either way it goes, its obvious you suffer from a great deal of depression, and there is help out there for all the above, and in many cases,free. There is free counseling, support groups, ect. Yes, you would have to seek out said help on your own, as no one here could do it for you, or force you to, it just has to be to that point where you say enough is enough and seek it out. It could greatly improve your situation.

Also coming into play is your surroundings. Sometimes its best to leave them and move elsewhere. You literally just have to take yourself out of what could be a bad situation where you are exposing yourself to alot of unwanted hurt, and move on. Moving to a new town, city, state can help you start fresh. Surround yourself with new friends,, make yourself a new family of people who are supportive of you. In the process, sadly you would have to cut contact too with the cause of the pain, as in this case,your parents, but this would prob be more beneficial to you then harmful from what all you have described. In the end, you have to do what is best for you. Your parents had their time in this world with you, and they botched it, yours is now and you need to look out for your own better interest.


Either way,as I see it,you are hitting that point in your life where you really need to put your foot down and say enough is enough, and do something drastic to help improve your life and well being. Just my 2 cents on it all. And no,this has nothing to do with anything you and I discussed in shout so dont size it up as a personal attack of any type. I have actually been thinking about this for awhile now, for many different reasons, and discussed it plenty prior with a couple of others both before and after you made this thread. Just hoping you take some of it to heart either way because you shouldn't have to live feeling like your life has amounted to nothing but shit, nor should you let your past continue to haunt or control you I think..