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Some of us may experience being discarded as a feeling that our existence means nothing to our toxic family. Any attempts on our part to talk to them about how we’re feeling are met with them acting as if they have no clue what we’re talking about, which leads us to question if we’re losing our mind.
This book understands me more than any person.
When I was really young, I used to have fantasies that both my parents would die and that a loving family would see me feeling alone and dejected at their funeral and would want to adopt me. This was my plan B.
same… or that I would die
Emotional abuse and manipulation cannot work without moments of intermittent kindness.
psychologically abusive people can only maintain normalcy for short spurts of time. Being an authentically caring, decent person isn’t foundational for them. They must fake the emotions and behaviors that suggest their character is positive. Because their decent personality traits aren’t real, our toxic family members quickly return to their normal state of affairs.
the hard swing back to our family’s abusive ways is always more painful after a time of being idealized. These sparse moments of counterfeit kindness are powerful enough to rekindle our hope in the security and love we want from our family. This type of toxic family dynamic causes us to live in hope and in fear. We can easily become addicted to our feelings of hope, which lead us to relax and feel things are starting to turn for the better. But as soon as hope seems it might settle in, we find ourselves beaten up and discarded once again. The repeated and sneaky nature of this type of
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Belonging is at the core of our human experience. We are hardwired to want and need to be included. Feelings of disconnection are at the very core of our sadness, our anger, and our feelings of not being accepted for who we are. Every one of us desires to feel we have a group of people who love and need us. It is this exact human necessity our toxic parents exploit in us for their gain.
When we’re not aware of the abusive cycle we’re in, each time we’re idealized we instantly go back and forfeit the growth and learning we achieved and the anger we felt because being idealized again by our tribe feels so safe and so good that we convince ourselves that it’s going to be different this time.
This is my biological mother.
emotional loneliness develops from not having experienced enough love and connection with others. In children, it develops from feeling invisible to their self-preoccupied parents. To add to our loneliness and confusion, our toxic parents often look and act normal, and they provide for our food, home, and shelter, but they do very little to connect or bond with us emotionally. Because of this, we leave our childhood with gaping holes where true security should have been.
bio mom: "you talk back to us even after we fseed you shelter you…" she said this like it was a favour, not her moral obligation as a mother
I have been told countless times by many people, “I just love your mom.” I am sure they do. She often treated other people’s children with more kindness than she showed me. But such positive comments made about my mother only served to make me feel even lonelier and crazier. If everyone loved her so much, why didn’t I? I erroneously assumed the flaw was in me.
Me with my bio sibling
Toxic parents are too self-absorbed to sufficiently respond to the emotional needs of their children.
The loneliness of being and feeling unseen by our parents is as profound a pain as any physical injury; it just doesn’t show itself on the outside. Gibson explains that emotional loneliness is a vague and private experience that is difficult for a person to conceptualize or describe. As children we have no way of identifying our parents as selfish, nor do we understand that our relationship with them is severely lacking closeness. Our young brains aren’t mature or developed enough to form or understand the complexity and gravity of these types of concepts. As children we live in what we know.
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The loneliness we develop in our childhood most often continues into our lives as adults as evidenced by patterns of unconsciously choosing relationships that cannot offer us the emotional intimacy and levels of connection we’re starving for.
Sometimes I wonder if this is why I chose Charles.
To feel emotionally connected to and unconditionally loved and accepted by our family, especially our parents, is profoundly fulfilling. Gibson tells us it is this connected closeness that helps us develop a sense that we are loved for exactly who we are. This type of relationship can only be established when our parents seek to genuinely know us, not judge or manipulate us. When parents have the necessary self-awareness, they love nothing more than interacting with their children. It is the joy of their lives to experience life with their children and to genuinely know who they are as people.
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Healthy parents live their own exciting lives, are emotionally balanced, and are consistent in their attentiveness, love, and interest in their children. They are what their children need them to be—emotionally dependable.
Being genetically related to our toxic family members doesn’t make us family. The real definition of family refers to constructs much deeper than bloodline or DNA. Family is about love, sacrifice, honesty, protection, support, unconditional love, reciprocity, acceptance, security, respect, protection, loyalty, and safety. It is not about cruelty, gang-up warfare, triangulation, manipulation, abandonment, lying, criticism, selfishness, betrayal, or gossip. When a family is full of these negative qualities, it is a family in name only. It is really merely a group of toxic people to whom we
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If our blood family is abusive, we have every right to open our heart and our life to new and healthier people capable of loving in the same ways we love. Doing this is not a betrayal. It’s our right.
There is a large misperception that females cannot be abusers. The fact is, many women, especially many mothers, are the source of intense relationship harm. Nevertheless, mothers manipulate a bit differently than fathers. Psychologically abusive mothers are sneakier, more covert and passive in their manipulations because they strive to hold up the billboard of a good mother to the public.
Toxic mothers want puppies who will love them no matter what, not real-life babies who grow up and can one day challenge them, expose them, and leave them. For healthy mothers, the most gratifying part of mothering is watching their children unfold in their own unique and independent ways. For a toxic mother, the natural passage of their children into their independence is experienced as an act of betrayal against her.
Toxic mothers are image-oriented rather than love-oriented.
“Never argue with an idiot. People watching won’t be able to tell the difference.” When we are attacked and defending ourselves, we end up looking just as bad as our attacker, and our attacker will make sure to focus on only our reaction rather than what they did to cause our reaction.
Toxic mothers feel an entitlement to their children. Any attempts from their children at independence or personal freedom are strongly resisted. Some toxic mothers reluctantly allow normal rites of passage (learning to shave, wearing makeup, wanting to be with friends, getting a girlfriend), but if their children insist on such “privileges,” their mothers punish them.
Some mothers are more like the one I was raised with, who didn’t assign any chores but made sure to make her doing the chores as guilt-provoking, dramatic, and martyring as possible to let me know just how much she does.
My mom -_-
Toxic mothers are immature and childish. If ever we refuse to let our toxic mother force us into doing something, she will cry that we don’t love her because, if we did, we would do as she wanted. If we hurt her feelings, she will whine and make sure to tell us we’ll be sorry when she dies and then realize we should have treated her better.
My mom
When we were children, if we asked her to stop being mean to us, she would justify it by pointing out something we did that she feels is comparable, as though the childish behavior of a child is justification for the childish behavior of an adult.
Both parents
Projection is a psychological defense whereby our toxic mother will displace her own bad behavior, poor character, and abusive treatment on us to deny them in herself.
if you even question whether you’re the one who is narcissistic, understand that you are not.
“fauxpology”—a fake I’m sorry.
An absence of empathy is the defining trait of having a personality disorder.
She destroys your relationships Toxic mothers are like tornadoes: wherever they touch down, families are torn apart and wounds are inflicted. Unless the father has control over his toxic wife and holds the family together, the adult siblings characteristically have painful relationships. If communication is shared between siblings, it is usually superficial and driven by duty. Or it can be like communication between my brother and me—virtually nonexistent; we just don’t talk to each other.
Same
Toxic mothers tend to raise children who also suffer from envy. They raise children to feel like they aren’t enough, which can make them envious that others have more than they do, even if that “more” is self-confidence or happiness.
When we try and explain this craziness to others, people say, “But she’s your mother!” Why do people say this? Do they not realize that it only serves to make us feel crazier and more alone? Children of toxic mothers get discounted twice: first by their unloving mother, and then by the clueless people who invalidate the experience we have of her. These others invalidate us by saying, “Well, I am sure she had a good reason” or “You don’t mean that … of course you love your mother” or “Of course your mother loves you.” Such people truly haven’t a clue about the reality we live in.
I see myself as her frame while she has all the room she needs to move around within its barriers. As my daughter grows, so does the size of her frame.
Beautiful
A toxic father will use us to the point of exploiting us, if that suits him. He demands that everyone cater to him, and he treats people more like things rather than human beings with their own emotions, thoughts, and desires.
My biological dad
Toxic fathers get the majority of their gratification outside of the family. They tend to crave an excitement for entertaining others and are more concerned about what others think of them rather than having any concern for what their children think or feel about them. Toxic fathers view their children’s love for them as automatic—something they deserve for just being fathers. They never consider that they might need to work for or nurture their children’s love.
Parents should never treat their children as property to own rather than as human beings to love, cherish, and care for.
Deep contentment only comes from loving a person.
These men falsely assume that when they use their money to give their children nice things, they have emotionally satisfied them. The reality, however, is that the material gifts of toxic fathers can never substitute for the love they refuse to give their children.
Toxic fathers give in order to get. They need to feel superior. They need to feel as if everyone is inferior to them and that they have the power, with their money, to control and dictate to everyone around them. This is called financial abuse.
Similar to toxic mothers, toxic fathers view their children as extensions of themselves. They do not see or validate their children as unique or separate individuals with their own thoughts, minds, or needs. They are fathers who live from a weak sense of self and use their poisonous behaviors to overcompensate for their deep insecurities. They view their children as perfect, dependent, and vulnerable people to manipulate. And like toxic mothers, toxic fathers come in various shapes and sizes.
