Trigger warning for abuse, naturally. Moderation note: I describe my relationship with my parents here; I have absolutely no interest in your advice about what to do. It’s meant to illustrate my point, nothing more.
My relationship with my parents is… fucked up.
I’ve been mentally ill since elementary school, but after a few failed attempts (including one threatened suicide) to explain that something was wrong to my parents, I spent nearly a decade hiding that I was mentally ill and pretending to just be a fuckup who, like, chose to fail all zir classes and not have any friends.
So the revelation last year that I was mentally ill… in fact, that I was mentally ill enough to attempt suicide and be Baker Acted… well, it understandably came as a shock to them. They’re neurotypical, most of the people they have experience with are neurotypical, they have no idea how to cope with me. They’re overwhelmed, they’re worried, they’re afraid that they’ve been terrible parents, and they want me to stop being unhappy. So they ended up freaking out a lot and making some truly questionable decisions.
Not to mention that on a very fundamental level they have yet to grasp that mentally ill people have different needs than people who are not mentally ill. So if I ask my parents not to give me a hug when I’m crying because physical touch is literally physically painful to me, their response is fifteen minutes of “but I was just trying to help! I love you and wouldn’t do anything to hurt you! How can hugs hurt you, you’re supposed to like hugs when you’re sad!”, being over-dramatic and self-congratulatory about how they are NOT HUGGING ME LOOK HOW GOOD THEY ARE, and then forgetting a week later.
Of course, this situation could be straightened out if I explained to them what my mental illness means and what they ought to do. Except… my brain already believes my parents are Scary People Who Will Hurt Me. My instinct is to avoid whenever possible, placate when not possible. This is not a mindset conductive to setting boundaries or making them upset, the way I’d have to to point out that they’re treating me in a way that hurts me. So I am literally unable to give them the information that would help them.
This relationship is clearly unhealthy, because it leaves one half of the relationship in an anxiety attack every time zie contacts zir parents, and the other half concerned about why their child is suddenly SO DISTANT. But I don’t feel like it’s abusive. Abusive implies that there’s fault, that there’s an abuser and a victim; my relationship with my parents just involves some people with needs that cannot be fulfilled in the same relationship.
I think there should be space to say that a relationship is unhealthy without saying that it’s abusive. I like “unhealthy.” It doesn’t imply judgment; it reminds us that there are a lot of situations where no one is clearly at fault but everyone is unhappy. And you know what? Just because it’s not abusive does not mean that it’s okay.
I also think the construction of “unhealthy relationship” might help some abuse survivors, because it gives them a space to recognize that their relationship is fucked up when they’re not ready to admit yet that it’s abusive.
I’d also like to give permission to people in unhappy relationships to end their relationships. I think a lot of us tend to assume that we can only end relationships, or certain kinds of relationships like marriages or family, if People are doing Wrong Things. But if a relationship makes you miserable, you don’t have to stay in it. Not wanting to be in a relationship with someone is enough reason not to be in a relationship with them.
That situation sounds pretty unhealthy to me. Good luck.
Hey, I really liked this. Sometimes it’s just good to remember that not everyone has mastered the whole “other minds” problem yet, and that is a totally valid reason to avoid them.
We can learn a lot from one another if we just take the time to understand one another. Just as you are frustrated that your parents don’t understand you, they are frustrated that you don’t understand them. To them, you will always be that little kid that begged to be picked up and rocked to sleep….you don’t remember that, but they do. I spent many years being angry with my mother for the barrier in our communication. I felt as if she were abusive and hateful, and just didn’t love me. She thought I had turned into a monster. Really, we just couldn’t communicate for failure to view ourselves in the others shoes. And I’m not sure that you ever will until you both are older. You will never know the love a parent has for their child until you have one of your own, and their memory is too foggy to remember the exact feelings they had when they were your age. Let’s not jump to a mental illness diagnosis so quick. Perhaps you are just misunderstood. It takes us awhile to find that voice that clearly expresses ourselves and you are doing well with this blog. Don’t be so angry with others for not understanding you, instead discover new ways to communicate your needs. You will find that when you are able be understood, you will be happier in life.
Hello, raisenemreal!
I am pleased to discover that your Magic Internet Diagnosis Powers have managed to figure out that I don’t have a mental illness, contrary to the opinions of two social workers, two psychiatrists, and three psychologists. Have you considered going into the mental health field? I’m sure they’d be overjoyed to discover that they don’t have to diagnose people anymore, they can just ask you to read one short piece of writing by someone and figure it out.
Second, you notice that bit where I said that I don’t want to hear advice about my relationship with my parents? I have LOTS of sources of advice about my relationship with my parents, including the aforementioned psychologist and many friends whose opinions I trust implicitly. They are familiar with my situation. You are not. Your advice is not needed and it is incredibly disrespectful of my clearly-expressed boundary to provide it anyway.
Third, it’s very nice of you to say that I need to learn to communicate better. It’s not like I’m in a form of therapy which has specific modules to deal with communication skills, clearly expressing boundaries and needs, and unlearning old dysfunctional methods of communication to replace them with new ones. Oh wait. I am. And you have no way of knowing this because literally all you know about me is one blog post.
Banned.
What’s even more fun is when your parents are told by a medical professional that you are Not Neurotypical, and they fail to understand that it means that you are….not neurotypical.
I was diagnosed with clinical depression as a teen. A few months later, my father told me to snap out of it. Er, dad? If I could make myself Not Be Sad Anymore, don’t you think I would have done it before it got to the point that you sent me to a shrink?
It didn’t help that this particular psychiatrist made me feel worse, and that I couldn’t go to a different one because he was the only one my parents’ insurance covered. (Finest healthcare system in the world, my ass.)
My mother, also neurotypical, tries. She really does. But she seems to forget that I’m not a teenager, and that therefore getting a rise out of my parents isn’t one of my goals when I do things. Sometimes I do new things just to see what they’re like.
First, thank you ozy for this post. It stresses a point that people badly need to understand in this and other areas; sometimes everyone can do their best with only positive intentions, and things can still go horribly wrong.
The_L: Almost everybody (many psychiatrists and psychologists included) fails to understand that the brain is not some computer to which an ephemeral “you” has access, but the incredibly complex structure which is, in combination, your thoughts, emotions, memories, personality, opinions, knowledge, beliefs, moods, internal monologue(s), instincts preferences, tendencies, experiences, sense of internality, and self (and myriad other things as well). They don’t understand that your brain isn’t like other organs or limbs – it’s not something you can really “control” (to the extent it is possible to “control” your brain it’s really one part of the brain affecting another part). This is also one of the reasons it often takes a long time to even diagnose a mental illness or recognize a non-typical neuro (as it were), because it’s not always something the person affected is even aware of.
To use myself as another example, I have difficulty interpreting the emotions of others, and this is a major factor in the fact that I was well into my 20s before I realized I might have been (mildly) depressed for my entire life (it’s called dysthymia). Since my brain was trained on sadder emotions than most people, it leads to a host of small difficulties, one of which is that I sometimes have to fake enthusiasm even when I actually am enthusiastic.
But I fear I’ve rambled on enough. Thank you for sharing as well.
Perfectly said.
And thank you for the great read.
I often find that my family members, merely by virtue of being a blood relation, think that I should be able to come to them about anything. This is despite repeatedly demonstrating they are utterly incapable of comprehending or empathising with problems that have never applied to them. They’re usually baffled to learn that they have to put in some additional effort, on top of feeding/clothing/raising/sharing DNA with me, to get that kind of relationship.
This usually gives them a free ticket to say “well it’s not MY fault, you could have come to ME, I’m FAMILY” should I ever cry/flip out/get depressed.
Thank you for this, Ozy. Especially the bit about not having to be in a relationship with someone if you just don’t want to.
I’m still working on internalizing that one. Moving several states away from my folks has helped. And “unhealthy” is the perfect word for it: I’ve always felt that to call my parents abusive or neglectful was too strong. They’re decent people with hearts full of good (read: magical) intentions; they just do some really stupid, shortsighted, selfish shit. Especially when it comes to their kids.
As usual, well put and extremely timely. I hope things get better for you – and thank you for sharing your story in the meantime. It means a lot.
I actually did have abusive parents (and probably have PTSD from it, suspects the last counselor I went to but I broke up with cause she was really gender essentialist) and I have to say, it is really, really hard to completely get away from my parents. I’ve moved over a thousand miles away, but the societal pressures to keep in contact with them is ridiculous. People seem to think that you should stick by your family because ‘family is important’ even though they are so, so toxic to you. There are the constant questions of ‘How is your family?’ and the weird responses you get when you say you haven’t talked to them. It’s so hard feeling like a freak or an outsider because you’re trying to avoid people that hurt you. Not to mention that if I don’t have any contact at all, they’ll call incessantly or start stalking me online.
My mental illness soapbox can pretty much be summed up thusly: don’t leave anyone behind, don’t let anyone slip through the cracks. Whether the damage wrought from mental illness is directed inward or outward is irrelevant. Damage is damage and helping others (and ourselves, for those of us with it) keep it minimal and manageable should be the goal. Enough with the invisibility and stereotypes.
“I often find that my family members, merely by virtue of being a blood relation, think that I should be able to come to them about anything. This is despite repeatedly demonstrating they are utterly incapable of comprehending or empathising with problems that have never applied to them. ”
I have this problem, compounded with a grave difficulty communicating about things that people have never discussed with me personally before.
I was raised Catholic. As an adult, I realized that Wicca fit with my personality and perspective on life better. I decided to let my mother know, but had a horrible feeling that she would somehow think that this was something wrong, because it was something she didn’t know about (and therefore was vaguely-suspicious in the way such things generally are to most people), and also because she had converted to Catholicism from another Christian denomination as an adult.
The result was every bit as cringeworthy as you can imagine.
Thanks a lot for this. I’ve often closed myself off from friends because every time I tell them about unhealthy relationships that I have or have had, they start applying the term “abusive” in a way that seems inappropriate to me. I understand their concern and that lots of people have trouble identifying when their relationships really are abusive, but I, too, always felt that in my particular situations, nobody is at fault–so nobody can be an “abuser.”
“I also think the construction of “unhealthy relationship” might help some abuse survivors, because it gives them a space to recognize that their relationship is fucked up when they’re not ready to admit yet that it’s abusive.”
Hi Ozy. Long-time lurker here. I just wanted to let you know that I am wholeheartedly behind this. It was exactly how I thought of my relationship with my abusive ex while I was trying to leave him. Even thinking of our relationship as unhealthy was a huge step for me at the time. Now I know it was abusive and have called it such to very close friends and my therapist. I’ll still use the term ‘unhealthy’ if I’m explaining some things to not-so-close friends just because I really don’t want to overshare with what actually happened.
Also, /hugs for your situation.
Something I’ve found with my parents is that distance really helped: not just in giving me space to myself, but in giving them a pause that shocked them out of the mold, so they don’t have a routine (and patronizing) way of acting towards me.
You know what else I like? How it’s really SELFISH of you to not spill your heart out to a family member, because they’re just TRYING TO HELP, and if you REALLY loved them you would be more TRUSTING, and you’re probably an ELITIST for not telling them, because they want to help and everyone KNOWS they’re just super nice and loving.
So, yeah. There’s that. Nice to find you blogging again.
This idea worries me a bit. People in abusive relationships are already often unaware that they are being abused. I think the word ‘abuse’ needs to be talked about in the mainstream and defined as clearly as possible and used, instead of shying away from it by using terms like ‘unhealthy’ instead. I feel like it just adds to the stigma of abuse, a stigma that does not need to be there and infringes of the ability for many survivors to recover.
I understand where you’re coming from, Runa, but I’m not sure I agree.
While many abuse survivors would certainly benefit from the de-stigmatizing of abuse, I feel there are many that would be uncomfortable applying the term no matter how it was defined. For instance: my relationship with my parents is not a great one. They’ve done and said things over the course of my life that have destroyed my self-esteem and damaged my relationship with them. Yet if someone were to say “Yo, your parents are abusive because their actions match the definition of abuse,” I’d spend the entire conversation defending my parents’ actions and explaining why it really wasn’t abuse at all. Telling me that I’m being abused and just don’t realize it wouldn’t help at all – and it’s awfully presumptuous.
Yet if someone said “Yo, sounds like your relationship with your parents is pretty unhealthy,” I’d completely agree.
I think Ozy’s point is that Unhealthy Relationship is a lot easier for some folks to swallow when they feel like Abuse is far too strong a term for what happened to them. Abuse does need to be de-stigmatized and talked about more in the public discourse – but not so we can define the victims’ experience. Only the victim can do that. I think it’s helpful to give them a wider vocabulary with which to discuss their trauma, rather than requiring them to climb into an emotionally-charged, one-size-fits-all box.
TL:DR; I agree it would be helpful to say “Hey, folks, these actions are abuse and you shouldn’t have to put up with it if someone’s doing that to you,” but I feel it’s really unhelpful to say “You should call what happened to you abuse, because other people think it is, and if you don’t you’re making it harder for all the other abuse victims.”
I think I want to offer a working definition for abusive relationships? I think those are ones where a party says to another party “You should feel bad because X” where X can be some stupid reason like “you deserve it” or “you made me feel bad” or “you’re a bad person”, etc. This leaves room for relationships that are mutually abusive, and your parents don’t fall into it because they don’t want you to feel bad.