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After everything with moving away, leaving the cult, graduating, making real friends, and being able to be openly queer... I still miss my parents so much
They treated me awful and still haven't really apologized. They're all sad I'm not in contact with them but have done nothing besides decide "I guess we should stop messaging since they asked us to". This is safer for me but God I want parents. The bond between parent and child and the security of having a guardian to rely on is a privilege ripped away from me.
I love my found family, but wish my biological ones were what I needed and deserved.
Now that I'm POMO interactions with parents are weird. In a way I'm fortunate that my family is still willing to talk to me, but they still suck as people. Their abusive and continue to misgender me and be manipulative. It was really hard to say that "no, I don't want to meet up rn even for a meal" because I know how many people desperately wish they could have that offer. Even knowing how triggering it would be I almost said yes because I miss my parents. But I guess I more miss having parents I can trust and support me, than them specifically.
Hey bestie I'm having one of those moments
idk i guess there’s just something terribly lonely about growing up in an environment where people love you well enough, sure, but only the parts of you they want to love. they look at you and they see something they could love, if only you were a little different - a little happier, a little straighter, a little more complacent. so they take those traits of you that they like and they treat that part of you with love and kindness, and they take the rest of you and leave it for dead, all while talking about how much good they do for you
When abusive parents hurt you, they're not 'doing it for your own good' or 'disciplining you', they're singling you out and making you a target. Because they're not doing it to all other kids, they're not doing it to their guests, friends, coworkers, bosses, neighbours, it doesn't even count if all of those people make one of the same mistakes you do. It's allowed for them. It's okay if anyone else does it. It's okay if other people break things, or refuse to be controlled, or speak up, or demand something, or act selfish, or act childish, or don't cater endlessly, or don't guess their moods, or don't act submissive, it's okay for everyone else! Just not for you!
What exactly is that teaching you?
That you're different. That the brutal and torturous rules exist only for you. That you are the only one who deserves no allowances, no forgiveness, no gentleness, no tolerance, no nuance, no love. And you are the only one! Everyone else can get those things and do what they want, but you will get tortured for it, you'll get tortured even for things you didn't do, because these two people have singled you out and deserved that you're so rotten you deserve worse treatment than any other person alive. And those people are your parents, they made you.
It teaches you injustice, it teaches you to put yourself in a different category than anyone else in the world and to assume you must be so intrinsically different that you won't ever find community, you won't ever find somebody to be on your side or similar to you, because you are the only one who could ever deserve this kind of hatred. It separates you from humanity and makes you feel like you don't belong, like you don't have a home here, it makes you abandoned by everyone because nobody is stating anything different about you. With their silence, dismissal and neglect, everyone is passively agreeing that this is what you deserve. That it doesn't matter to them if you live in pain and despair because you're too different, too otherworldly for them to care about.
No child has deserved to feel like that. Nobody is supposed to be pushed into that pit of despair, injustice and pain, alone, with no visible way out. With nothing they can do to redeem themselves, to find a way to see themselves as human after all that's been done to them. This is not a pit that somebody can easily crawl out of, this is something that can follow you all your life.
All children deserve better than this. Never defend abusive parents when they do this to a child. If you don't want a child to believe themselves to be a monster, don't ignore when this is happening and don't act like it's none of anybody's business. It's all of our business to make sure no kid thinks this lowly of themselves, not even if their parents decide they should. Parents who do this to children should be charged with torture, isolation and psychological devastation of a human being. All children are human. And no child deserves that.
Did your abusive parents continually imply or say outright, that you're a burden not only on them, but also on all other people you interact with?
I had my parents warn me every time I was leaving the house that I was a nuisance and to not allow other people to 'feed me' because then I would be eating somebody else's food. There was a few times where I accepted a ride from my friend's parents, because I didn't dare to ask my own parents, and when they found out, they were outraged, furious and went on this big tirade about how I owe them gas money, how I spent resources that weren't mine, and was now in debt to those people, and they, my parents now had to go and make up for that debt (for the friend's parents, it was a 3 minute detour to pick me up, they were already driving their own kid).
I was discouraged from going anywhere because of how big of a burden I was on those people, and if I wanted to go to a friend's house, they would get mad and ask 'why do you have to go there, aren't we good enough for you', it was mind-boggling.
However it did force me, as a child, to continually believe I have to be extremely useful; at every house I went, I made a gift for them so they wouldn't be mad at me, and to pay my dues that I owe them for being at their place. I also didn't dare to ask for food or drinks anywhere because I believed that would make me a burden and put me in debt, and rides were considered basically unrepayable, and I had to depend on my parents for them, who would use them for blackmail every time. (you have to do whatever I say for 2 weeks, if you want that 15 minutes ride to the train station).
I only realized recently that they actively worked on making me feel despised and burdensome in every place I ever went, not only at my own home, and that it's the reason I never visit other people's houses anymore, and stick to myself in fear of being unwelcome.
abusive parents will act like the world is insanely dangerous place where you get shot on sight as soon as you make a slightest mistake or displease anyone, when in reality the only place where this happens is your parents house
Abusive parents will program you so extensively, that when you’re asked:
‘What have your parents done to you?’
the only thing you know how to answer is:
‘They gave me the roof over my head and clothed me and fed me.’
Because that’s whats repeated to you almost every day of your life to be grateful for, you don’t have the words to describe the devastating abuse and hatred, because they don’t want you to have the words for it. All they teach you to say is ‘I’m grateful and it could have been so much worse’.
That’s how nobody can ever find out about the abuse. They make sure the children won’t know how to answer even if asked.