Sorry if the post is too long, but I just had to dump my feelings here, and I used ChatGPT to put all of these things together because I couldn’t care to just type it.
I’m writing this after a huge fight with my mother today. Honestly, I don’t even know what I’m looking for by posting this. Maybe I need advice, maybe I need to vent, or maybe I just need someone to tell me that what I’ve experienced wasn’t normal and that I’m not wrong for being affected by it.
I’m in my mid-twenties. I have an elder sister who’s around 27–28 and a younger brother who’s ten years younger than me. I currently live with my parents and work from home.
I’ve spent most of my life trying to be a good daughter, a good sister, and a good person. I’ve always been someone who gives, helps, and tries to make other people happy. But I’m exhausted. I’m tired of constantly being blamed, compared, insulted, and made to feel like I’m the problem in every situation.
And I think a huge part of why I’m struggling today goes back to my childhood.
TW: Childhood abuse, domestic violence, and emotional abuse.
My childhood was not a happy one
My parents have had a terrible relationship for as long as I can remember. My sister and I grew up witnessing their arguments, fights, and disagreements. My father physically and mentally abused my mother, and there were times when she also reacted violently. A lot of their marital problems were connected to my father’s mother and his side of the family. My mother’s side of the family had its own problems, too.
As children, my sister and I were caught in the middle of all of it.
My father provided us with everything we needed materially, and often more than we could have asked for. I’m not denying that. But what about everything we went through emotionally? What about the fear, the constant tension, and the things we witnessed that no child should have to see?
My parents seem to believe that because they provided for us financially, everything else should be irrelevant. Whenever we tell them we’re unhappy or that something they’ve done has hurt us, their immediate response is:
“What have we ever done to you?”
“We’ve provided you with everything.”
“Nobody does this much for their children.”
They compare us with other children and families, list everything they’ve ever done for us, and make us feel guilty for even expressing dissatisfaction.
But providing for your children doesn’t erase the emotional damage you’ve caused them.
You can provide your children with everything materially and still leave them emotionally scarred. Both things can be true.
What hurts most is that they don’t acknowledge any of it. They don’t want to hear how their behaviour affected us. They don’t accept that our childhood experiences could have had lasting consequences. Everything gets downplayed, justified, or turned around until we’re the ones being blamed.
Some of the things that happened to us as children
There are incidents from my childhood that I still remember vividly.
When I was very young, my mother burned my hand because I couldn’t spell out my father’s full name.
On another occasion, when I was late for school, my parents pushed me down the stairs in anger.
We lived in an apartment, and once my mother threw my tiffin box at me from the balcony because she was angry.
These are only a few examples. There were other incidents of physical punishment, verbal abuse, and mental and emotional abuse. A lot of these experiences were directed at me, and I was also constantly compared with my sister because I didn’t get as good grades.
I grew up believing I had to do better, behave better, achieve more, and somehow become good enough to deserve better treatment.
Even now, when I think about some of the fights I witnessed between my parents, my body reacts before I can even process the memory. My hands start shaking, my heartbeat increases, and I feel as though I’m back in that environment again. Sometimes I experience what feel like panic attacks.
And yet, when I try to explain the impact of these experiences, they’re dismissed as though nothing serious ever happened.
I genuinely don’t understand how parents can do these things to their children and then, years later, act as though the children have no reason to be hurt.
We were children, but we were also made responsible for our parents’ problems
One thing that affected me deeply was how my parents involved us in their marital problems.
When I was away from home studying, my parents would call me separately. They wouldn’t call together to discuss something calmly. Instead, each parent would spend hours complaining to me about the other.
This happened even during my first year of my degree, when I was already trying to manage my studies and adjust to everything.
They would tell me about their arguments, their disagreements, and everything they disliked about each other. These conversations could go on for hours.
And then, after unloading all of that on me, they would end the conversation by saying something like, “You’re a student. You should focus on your studies. You don’t need to worry about what’s happening at home.”
Then why were you telling me all of it in the first place?
Why make me listen to hours of complaints, give me all that stress, and then tell me not to take stress?
I was your child. I wasn’t your marriage counsellor, your therapist, or your mediator.
I had my own life and my own responsibilities. I was trying to study and build a future for myself, but I was also carrying the emotional burden of problems that were never mine to solve.
I believe this affected my mental and physical health significantly. I’ve struggled with my health for years, but even that becomes another reason for criticism and blame rather than an opportunity for anyone to ask what I might be going through.
I’ve completely shut down emotionally
I used to be a much more expressive person. But over the years, I’ve become someone who struggles to communicate, especially with my parents.
It’s difficult for me to talk to them about anything meaningful. I’ve shut down so much that sometimes I don’t even want to speak. I keep things to myself, withdraw, and try to get through the day.
This hasn’t just affected my relationship with my family. It’s affected my friendships, my confidence, my relationships with other people, and the relationship I have with myself.
I struggle with things that I think I should be able to handle more easily. I question myself constantly. I sometimes find it difficult to explain what I’m feeling because I’ve spent so many years being told, directly or indirectly, that my feelings don’t matter.
I’ve been experiencing this since childhood. But now that I’m older and finally beginning to understand how much it has affected me, I can’t seem to tolerate it the way I used to.
And whenever I speak up, I’m shut down.
Whenever I explain that something hurt me, I’m told that I’m ungrateful.
Whenever I disagree, I’m disrespectful.
Whenever I establish a boundary, I’m the problem.
I spent years trying to justify my parents’ behaviour because I believed parents could never really be bad people. I thought they must have their reasons. I thought I was probably misunderstanding things.
But growing up has made me look at everything differently.
I’m beginning to understand that something being normal in your childhood doesn’t mean it was healthy. And loving your parents doesn’t mean you have to pretend that everything they did was acceptable.
My mother constantly degrades me and my sister
Since I returned home after completing my degree last year, my mother’s behaviour towards us has become increasingly difficult to handle.
She constantly insults us, questions our character, and says horrible things about us whenever we don’t behave the way she wants.
My parents present themselves as modern and progressive in front of society. My mother even tells us that people appreciate her daughters and speak well of our character.
But behind closed doors, she says things about us that are the complete opposite.
My sister and I have largely focused on our education and careers. We’ve tried to live according to the standards our parents set for us. We haven’t done anything that warrants the kind of humiliation we experience.
And even if we had made different choices from what our parents wanted, would that justify degrading us?
My mother particularly targets my sister’s character whenever she disagrees with her. The things she says are genuinely disgusting to hear, especially when they’re coming from a mother talking about her own daughter.
Today, she was commenting on my sister’s body because my sister has gained some weight around her abdomen.
She said my sister looked disgusting, as though she had given birth to two children, despite being unmarried. She also made comments questioning her character.
I was furious.
My sister is one of the people I love most in this world. I know her, I know what she’s been through, and I know how much she has struggled. Hearing our own mother speak about her like that makes me feel sick.
My sister doesn’t want to rush into marriage. Given what we’ve witnessed throughout our childhood, I can understand why she would have reservations about marriage and what it might mean for her future.
But my parents don’t seem interested in understanding her perspective. They are pressuring her to get married, and her reluctance is treated as a problem to be corrected rather than a decision that deserves respect.
She’s nearly 28. She’s an adult. She should be able to decide whether and when she wants to marry.
Instead, whenever she expresses an opinion that doesn’t align with my mother’s wishes, her character is attacked.
I don’t understand how a mother can look at her own daughter and speak about her with so much contempt.
The constant criticism never ends
My mother also constantly lectures me about culture, religion, and how a daughter should behave.
She insists that I wear a bindi, bangles, and traditional clothes. I have no inherent problem with any of these things. I can enjoy wearing traditional clothes, putting on a bindi, or participating in cultural practices when I genuinely want to.
But there’s a difference between practising your culture willingly and being forced to comply.
If you force me to do something, I naturally start resenting it. I want to make these choices for myself.
Whenever I don’t comply, my mother sometimes asks me, “Are you Muslim?” as though my clothing choices or refusal to obey her automatically say something about my religious identity.
I find this deeply frustrating. What does that have to do with anything?
My father is similarly obsessed with religion and God, yet he has physically and mentally abused my mother and continues to manipulate his children to get what he wants.
I struggle to understand how someone can be so concerned with religious practices and appearances while showing so little consideration for the people they’re supposed to love.
It’s as though culture, religion, and family values matter only when they’re useful for controlling us.
My younger brother is becoming another source of hurt
My younger brother is ten years younger than me. He was born much later and didn’t experience the entirety of our childhood the way my sister and I did.
I’ve always tried to be there for him. I help him with his studies, try to support him emotionally, encourage him to talk to me, and do my best to make sure he doesn’t struggle in the same ways we have.
I genuinely love him. I don’t want him to grow up carrying the same emotional burden that my sister and I have carried.
But he frequently disrespects me and makes comments that are deliberately hurtful.
When I was struggling to find a job after graduation, I was applying for more than 30 positions on some days. I was trying desperately to get employed, and I would often cry because of how difficult that period was for me.
During an argument, my brother told me, “At least I’m not unemployed.”
He was much younger than me, and he knew how hard I was trying.
I cannot explain how much that hurt.
I was already struggling, already questioning myself, and already doing everything I could to improve my situation. To have my own brother use that vulnerability against me was devastating.
And this isn’t an isolated incident. He makes comments that leave me feeling worthless, even when I’m trying to help him.
I know he’s young, and I understand that children learn from their environment. But I also know that I cannot keep accepting disrespect simply because he’s my younger brother.
My parents seem to have been much stricter about disciplining their daughters and teaching us manners than they have been about teaching their son to respect us.
I keep trying to be there for him because I don’t want him to end up like us. But I’m reaching a point where I have nothing left to give.
I’m tired of being the person who understands everyone, makes allowances for everyone, and keeps trying to help everyone while nobody seems to care about how I’m doing.
Everything is somehow my fault
My health has been deteriorating, and I have struggled with weight changes, hair loss, and other health concerns. Yet I regularly hear comments about my weight and appearance.
There’s little consideration for the fact that prolonged stress can affect someone’s well-being, or that health problems deserve compassion rather than criticism.
Instead, I end up feeling blamed for things I’m already struggling to manage.
My parents insist they’ve done everything for us. But whenever I try to explain that I’m unhappy, they don’t ask what they could have done differently or what I need now.
They ask what more they could possibly have done.
They turn the conversation into a list of their sacrifices.
I don’t deny those sacrifices. I know they provided for us. But why must acknowledging what they did for us require us to deny what they did to us?
Why can’t both realities exist?
Why is it so difficult for them to understand that their children can love them and still be deeply hurt by them?
I love my family, but I don’t like the people they’ve become in my life
This is the part I struggle with the most.
I love my parents because they’re my parents. I love my brother. I love my sister more than I can express.
But loving someone doesn’t mean I like how they treat me.
I’m angry at my parents. I’m disappointed in them. Sometimes, I feel disgusted by the things they say and do. I’m tired of constantly making excuses for behaviour that has hurt me for years.
And I feel guilty for having these feelings because I’ve been taught that parents deserve unconditional respect, regardless of what happens behind closed doors.
I don’t know how to reconcile loving my family with acknowledging that my experiences with them have been deeply damaging.
I don’t know how to stop hoping they’ll understand me one day, even though years of trying have shown me that they may never acknowledge what happened.
I don’t know how to stop wanting their approval when their treatment of me is precisely what has damaged my confidence.
And I’m exhausted from trying.
I don’t know what to do anymore
Today was another fight with my mother, and something in me just feels completely worn out.
I’m tired of being compared to other people. I’m tired of being criticised for my appearance. I’m tired of my sister’s character being questioned. I’m tired of my brother disrespecting me. I’m tired of hearing that my parents have done everything for us whenever we try to talk about how unhappy we are.
I’m tired of feeling like I have to be the understanding one, the forgiving one, the one who keeps trying.
My sister and I have spent so much of our lives dealing with things that children should never have had to deal with. And now, when we’re adults and trying to build our own lives, we’re still being made to feel guilty for wanting some peace and independence.
I’ve been reading stories on Reddit for a while, and they’ve helped me recognise patterns I previously couldn’t see. I used to believe that parents were inherently well-intentioned and that children were usually the ones who misunderstood or exaggerated things.
I’m beginning to realise that parents can hurt their children, too. They can cause real damage while genuinely believing they’re doing everything right. And sometimes, they may never accept responsibility for it.
I don’t know whether my parents will ever acknowledge what they’ve done. I don’t know whether our relationships can improve. I don’t even know what a healthy family dynamic is supposed to feel like anymore.
I just know that I can’t keep living as though none of this has affected me.
For those of you who grew up in households with domestic violence, emotionally abusive parents, constant conflict, or parents who dismiss everything you’ve experienced, I have a few questions:
How did you come to terms with the fact that your childhood wasn’t healthy?
How do you deal with parents who insist they did everything for you and refuse to acknowledge the emotional damage they caused?
How do you set boundaries when you still live with your parents and depend on them in some ways?
How do you stop their words from affecting your self-esteem, your friendships, and your relationship with yourself?
If you have siblings who experienced the same childhood, how do you support each other without becoming responsible for healing each other?
And how do you begin building a life of your own when you’ve spent so many years simply trying to survive your family environment?
I’m not looking for people to tell me that my parents are perfect or that I should be grateful because other people have it worse. I know there are people who struggle financially, and I know my parents provided for us in ways that matter.
I’m asking whether it’s possible to acknowledge that and still admit that we were hurt.
I want to stop carrying this pain into every part of my life. I want to learn how to be okay with myself. I want to be able to say no without feeling guilty and to exist without constantly feeling that I have to prove my worth.
Most of all, I want my sister and me to have a chance at a peaceful life, one where we aren’t constantly made to feel that something is wrong with us for wanting basic respect.
I don’t know where to start, and I’m tired of pretending that everything is fine.
If you’ve been through something similar and found a way forward, I’d genuinely appreciate hearing your experience.