Did any of you grow up in a toxic or unstable home as a kid? How did you actually deal with it, or move past it?
Looking back, home wasn’t calm growing up. Constant fighting between my parents, things a kid shouldn’t really be exposed to. I don’t even fully know whose fault it is, honestly, and part of me hesitates to blame either of them completely, because I’ve also watched both of them work hard for me despite everything falling apart between them. That contradiction is confusing on its own, seeing people cause you pain and also genuinely try for you at the same time. I’ve started noticing it in myself now, more impatience than I think I should have, reacting harder to small things than the situation probably calls for. It’s like some of that environment got wired into me without me even realizing it until recently.
I’m not asking for sympathy, I’m asking because I know I’m not the only one who’s grown up like this, and I’d genuinely like to know how people actually worked through it, not just survived it, but actually became calmer, steadier versions of themselves afterward.
A few things I’m curious about:
Did you notice the effects on yourself right away, or did it take years to even recognize the pattern?
Was there a specific turning point, therapy, a relationship, distance from the situation, or was it more gradual than that?
Does it ever fully go away, or does it just become something you manage better over time?
Genuinely trying to understand this instead of just carrying it forward without realizing it. Appreciate any real experiences you’re willing to share.
[[[[Sometimes I catch myself wondering what it would’ve actually felt like to grow up in a genuinely happy, peaceful family. Hard to even imagine it sometimes, since it’s not something I ever really got to experience firsthand._]]]]
Dad beat the every loving fuck out of me for the simplest mistakes, refused to ever explain how or what I did wrong, just straight to hitting me. Then he left, so Mom had to take care of 4 kids on her own, so she was never home, too busy working to provide.
Dad came back at times, but he was always a horrid piece of shit to me until I was maybe a teen.
I cut him off this year, and started therapy (I’m 35 now). Turns out my sister and I were also sexually abused by him, she and I corroborated some memories that I always thought were bad dreams.
I’m healing, and getting past it, but in a lot of ways I feel like I’m starting from behind in life, never having had structure or order or someone to look up to till much later in life. But therapy is helping and little me is healing now. It’s a journey and I’m glad I’m taking it, and I’m glad to not be that horrid man to my children (though I definitely was too rough to begin with, having no idea what to do and only having my childhood to have learned from). I’m the calmest I’ve ever been. Find a good therapist and start healing. Talk through it with someone, it really does wonders to say all the shit you want and tell the names and things at an empty chair.
Next time I see the sperm donor will be at his funeral, to make sure he’s actually dead and gone. I think that’ll be really cathartic.