The “I wish no ill will towards my daughter” while also publishing the smear campaign book against her daughter on the same week as her daughters wedding because it “brought her comfort” is such next level mental gymnastics.
This. I NEVER see the opposite of that. The adult children won’t focus their energy on their unhealthy parents. They don’t talk about THE PARENTS, but the trauma they have and how to heal. These parents are really showing their behind with these kinds of behaviour.
Mmhmm, pure facts. My friends narc mother likes to reach out to her on her birthday to send her a card saying how embarrassed she is about having to hide their estrangement and how ungrateful my friend is. Always doing the most egregious things and then playing the victim. These people are cooked in the head.
@@MagisterialVoyagerthat’s such a good point lol. I’m 35 and I cut my dad off 15 years ago. Most people just assume I never had a dad bc I don’t talk about him lol
Like imagine if doormat mom got remarried, and the week of her wedding the DAUGHTER released an entire book detailing how much she thinks her mom is entitled and mean and marrying the wrong person and delusional and disrespectful. Doormat mom would FLIP HER LID about it. There’s such a double standard where parents genuinely believe they’ve ‘earned’ the ‘right’ to subjugate and abuse their children because kids are just property right? So when that property becomes sentient and conscious they think they’ve been slighted somehow…
Telling a child that they owe their parent for childhood care is based on the belief that children don't have the right to that care, that parents were doing them a favour by raising them. Nope, nope, nope.
This makes so much sense. Especially when they say: I gave birth to you, you should be grateful. I never asked to be born, that was your decision, and it’s your responsibility to take care of infant children. You don’t stop being a parent when your kids become 18 and now you can throw them out of the house because “you’ve done enough”. That tells me they never truly wanted to have kids in the first place, a lot people can change opinion over time ofc, but seeing your children as a free ticket for you to be taken care of by them when you’re old, especially when you haven’t been a good parent, is honestly so depressing to hear. Children are our flesh and blood, but they’re also individuals. You’re not entitled to you children’s life.
Also that means the child is an investment for emotional support, punching bag, eldercare and financial security. The child is an underperforming employee they see as locked into a lifetime contract.
I feel that it's such an archaic way of thinking about parenting: you survived your first years of life, my childhood was way worse, I've done a great job, why are you whining? Nowadays many would be parents think long and hard before having children and try to provide much more than what earlier generations did for them. No wonder there's a generational divide.
Also, in a lot of countries/states you can literally go to jail if you dont provide said care. So it's not only the bare minimum, it's also basic self-preservation to provide said minimum.
@marygreenapple I saw that on another channel. There was even speculation that it would lead to elder abuse. Perhaps not on the part of people who had cut contact because they left due to understanding toxicity but on the part of family members who have left it to fester and not processed anything and are just reacting. My mother and sister had a MMA battle level toxic relationship. If my mother hadn't died of cancer I could see my sister taking her apart.
It reeks of being a victim narcissist; I haven't done a lot of focused research into it, but I am a therapist and have worked with both victim narcissists and those who've been affected by them, so I feel comfortable saying that. They have all the narcissistic traits, but instead of a "I'm the greatest" narrative that's struggling to fill the bottomless void of insecurity, it's a focus on being a victim because at some point being a victim was profitable for them; whether it was profitable in extra attention, getting to ignore rules and responsibilities, or some other way. Narcissism is complicated and contradictory, but just because clinical-level narcissism (where it actually becomes diagnosable as Narcissistic Personality Disorder) is often borne from trauma and neglect doesn't mean it's okay for her to be acting this way. And I've met clients with NPD who would agree; because they still love and care about the people in their lives, and they know that NPD can sabotage it, so they try to manage the symptoms. But many people with narcissistic traits would NEVER go to therapy because that would mean challenging the only mindset they've found that makes life feel safe for them. So we have to pay attention both to people who are trying to do better as well as those who simply refuse to.
so true. My mother has called me (over the years) sensitive, paranoid, aggressive, angry, insane, detached from reality, looking like death warmed up. I'm sure there are more. That's off the top of my head. But she carries herself as the longsuffering victim of me.
@@TheEverGrowingRosey-333 Almost as if they're preemptively scared that they have to do damage control. 🤔 My mother has made up stories about me being insane in order to discredit anything I might say about her. It's really too bad for her that my character speaks for itself.
Not to mention demanding (usually biological) children of anyone, no matter who it is, is kinda s*xual harassment...(probably not even "kinda", it just IS)
Ephesians 6:1-4 (KJV) 1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. 2 Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; 3 That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. 4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
When an abusive person says they feel like they are WALKING ON EGGSHELLS: Abusive people having a hard time not committing acts of abuse and therefore causing negative reactions from the people around them. GOLD.
Yep. You telling them they’re hurting you is “a bad experience” for them. They’ll flip it on you “i can never do anything right with you, tired of walking on eggshells, you make me feel like I’m not good enough, etc” AKA “don’t tell me the things I do wrong to you - I don’t want to think about it or deal with your negative emotions about it. It makes me feel bad but I don’t wanna deal with it, just take it!”
@@ptlovelight2971okay let's not make broad generalizations like that. It could be used in that scenario, but have you ever been around a highly sensitive person who won't let you know they're getting upset for days if not weeks, then explode at some point? My ex started crying when I said I think we missed our freeway exit. Why? Because earlier in the day i suggested trying something different to get her broken car door to open. Because she is constantly worried people think she's stupid (her words) and me making that suggestion plus saying she missed the exit confirmed for her that I think she's stupid. You really think that's healthy boundaries? That's not me having to walk on eggshells by wondering if saying "wasn't that our exit" could precipitate such a huge negative reaction?
@@Mutantcy1992time and place, dude. we are talking about this statement coming from narcissistic parents, not your emotionally fragile ex-- no need to be so pedantic about a sentence that isn't specific enough, lol
@Mutantcy1992 - I see two possibilities here - your ex needs mental health care, which I'm hoping she's now getting. Or 2 - you ARE "that person." Layered trauma can result in not speaking up until something seemingly insignificant breaks the dam. I'm not saying either one is right. I hope the former, and you've since gone on to find a healthy partner and have a good relationship with them. If the latter, I hope you can eventually see yourself and seek help.
It's funny how every time I hear an estranged parent talk about their kids, somehow even when they tell the story from their perspective and I haven't heard the kids side at all, I still immediately understand why the kid doesn't want any contact with them. It's as if the accused take the stand to proclaim their innocense and the only thing they achieve is making you realize that they're guilty as hell.
I once read through an estranged parent forum and something that really stuck out to me is that they all claim their children won't tell them a reason, or that they don't understand the reason. But they never say what the claim was. They never say "this is what my child says, and this is why it's wrong". And sometimes you can see EXACTLY where the disconnect or denial is, like one lady who said all three of her children cut contact with her over "a single letter" that they found. But she never said what was in the letter. She just kept repeating it was "just a letter" and it was so clear that's where the truth is but she just couldn't acknowledge that.
my own mother fits this bill. She was wailing ''it makes no sense!'' when I was trying to tell her what had hurt me but she would NOT hear it. I wrote letters that went into the recycling, whatsapps went unread, she wouldnt talk to me (she would walk off crying, in victim mode) she has gone to great lengths to NOT hear what i'm saying.
I told my mother specific things she said, texted with quotes, and she still denied them. She goes around telling around people that she doesn't know why I won't talk to her. I also tried to talk to her once and she cut me off in the middle of a sentence, screaming, "STOP TALKING!" So she physically wouldn't listen.
Yeeeeaaah, my mom should be in prison over how far she's gone with my siblings and I, but according to her she never did anything to deserve the no contact. We're just really awful people according to her. Like, how dare we not put up with financial abuse, pathological lying, manipulation and destruction of our adult lives, triangulation and being smeared so she can feel better about herself? She can't fathom why we don't feel indebted to her. Like, why won't we just sweep her evil under the rug the same way she does? 🙄
when i was a young adult I would try to talk to my mom about my CSA trauma and ask that she not force me to see my main abuser (by inviting him over while i was staying at their house with no vehicle, or just a lot of guilt tripping that she wants us to get along). she would respond that it's not good to hold a grudge and i need to grow up. meanwhile she didn't speak to her own mother and i never met her. so i was devestated that she didn't try go understand. i gave up after a years. she would call and leave voicemails saying 'i don't know why you don't want to talk to me."
"We just have different memories" was something that I always got. That and "your living in the past" for not wanting to just magically forget about the issues.
"You're living in the past" yeah well so is the 13-year-old version of me you seem to think never grew up and continue to bully twenty years later, my bad I guess 🙄
oh my gosh, my father says the same thing! "You're living in the past" and its like um excuse me the past is not the past when these issues keep on happening in the present
Have a friend who’s been estranged from her mother for over a decade. She told her mom when she was 11 that her step dad was molesting her. It took a lot of courage because her stepdad had threatened her that he would harm her cat if she told anyone. Her mother did not believe her. Told her she probably dreamt it. It wasn’t until she told one of her friends at school about it, who told a teacher who told the guidance counsellor who called the police that the guy was caught. He ended up confessing and went to jail, and then her mother divorced him. But her mother still doesn’t “understand” why her adult daughter has distanced herself.
I get it. I am still in touch a bit with my mother who chose to ignore my anguish and stayed,and now wonders why I have an in and out relationship with🎉my father..they just cannot engage!!
So many people believe that if they didn’t actively do something to hurt someone else, that they are completely innocent. They do not understand that not acting in the face of abuse is often experienced as even more of a betrayal than the actual abuse itself, because so often, the lack of action is on the part of the mother, and children inherently expect a level of protection from their mothers that they don’t expect from fathers or anyone else. It may not be “fair” to mothers that it is in our nature as humans to expect more from our mothers, but it also means that mothers mean the most to children, which is special. With great power comes great responsibility, right?
@@katieandnick4113Yep. I understand my job as a mother is to love my children no matter what they do; not to not have basic boundaries for my own self-preservation, respecting the separate needs of each kid (I have two, and man, do they have very different needs!), and such, but in the sense that I can be sad about, or disappointed in their behavior, even have to set boundaries about it, but I cannot, and will not, EVER stop loving them. If they are ready to respect basic safety and legality, I am here to support them, care about them, and just generally love on them, even if everyone else has rejected and given up on them, because they are MY babies; the people I grew inside of me, pushed out of me, fed with my own body, changed thousands of diapers for… I will not forget that; I will not give up the responsibility of having brought them onto this planet. It is uniquely my role and position, and I take it very seriously! 😤
This is an excellent reason to detach from the mother. There are exceptions and this is a great example of one. The mother’s primary allegiance was to her husband, not to her daughter. The mother may have had reasons, financial, physical abuse to her by her husband, fear, weak sense of self, but her decision not to act would be difficult to justify.
I recognised that rehearsed sweet old church lady act immediately. Seen in it a few horrendously abusive people who use it to appear innocent in their second act.
The reality is that kids are not blind. If you treat your children well and show them love, they will love you back. Some parents work hard to pay bills and feed their kids, but treat the kids harshly, then cry later that the kids don’t love them after they gave away their dreams to race the kids. Kids care more how you treat them than what you give them.
This is so true, it has to be the most common case I see in my social surroundings. You have parents that break their back and sacrifice a lot to provide a comfortable life for their children, but don't really treat them with love or respect. Additionally, they feel entitled to their child's love because of how much they sacrificed for them, which is at the same time understandable and also very, very delusional. These people don't understand that no amount of suffering or logistics on their part can make you love them, that's just not how human emotions work.
One of my strongest childhood memories was of the first Christmas we had after being homeless for around two years in my preteens. My mom went all out and spent a lot of money to replicate the typical holidays we had as younger children, even though I'm sure it was financially really unwise. The kind lady who had gotten us off the streets saw all this happening, knowing us kids were not treated well, and tried to explain this concept to her. As far as I remember told her very kindly that her kids wanted her to love us and spend time with us, not a bunch of gifts and Christmas decor, and that she could return half of these things and just be present with us and we'd have a great Christmas. My mother screamed in that poor old woman's face and kicked her out of the house. We never saw her again. She used to take us out for ice cream anytime my mom would let her, and she had been paying 1/4 of the rent for our new apartment. It was all incredibly eye opening for me, I cut my mother off when I was 14.
"This is not the girl I know." AND HOW. My mother never said this, but my parents' resistance to getting to know me as an adult was what led to estrangement for 15 years. You have absolutely named everything my mother was willing to do and why I love her, which rekindled our relationship. She listened and acknowledged. That simple.
This is so rare! I was lucky to experience that rarity too. When I resumed contact, I was so surprised that my mother had _changed_. Usually, abusers abuse, and they never change. I think my mother was abusive, but 1) didn't realize it at the time, 2) truly loved me 3) and was willing to take responsibility for her abusive actions when I told her how much they hurt me. I tell my story, but I also caution people, my mother's reaction was very rare. Usually abusers abuse, and if a reconciliation never happens, it's not your fault.
@@badtvbad1 Yep you can't make every desire a goal. My mom was very young, it wasn't direct abuse from her more what was allowed to happen. Similar situation for me, she loved me and wanted what was best even though her actions fell short. Life goes on. I finally decided I deserve having a relationship with her no matter what happened and I can choose to forgive.
My dad was resistant at first but both him and my mom acknowledged that they could’ve done better and they were sorry. That’s the only reason I have a relationship with them and how we were able to move on.
"Silenced" Ma'am, if your daughter cut contact with you, she did not silence you, she left you more time and space to speak actually...to people that want to listen to you. I wish someone would challenge her to expand on that.
The literal only thing I could see “silenced” referring to in the mother’s eyes, is that now she has to live with the thought that her daughter will now tell people her own version of what happened, and the mother will no longer be able to dictate the narrative to the outside. It’s not about loving her kid, it’s about control and appearances. And she’s obviously STILL not over that loss of control if she’s out writing vindictive books…
I feel so sad for her daughter, but with this book this woman is basically confessing all her ridiculous, unloving and manipulative behavior towards her daughter, and it’s delusional that she thinks she’s the victim even from her own account of the situation.
Dr Ana, when you’re being a kickass mom you’ll realize that it’s not rocket surgery to treat children with respect. Or to apologize when you make mistakes. I like to ask my son about his feelings and take them seriously, which has lead to real change. Kids are stuck with their parents and good parents remain aware of and take care within that dynamic. That, to me, is how to define good parents.
The point this Podcaster makes at around the 10:12 mark is a good one. Sometimes, things are just the way they are. Two people who are very different - or even too much the same - causes conflict. And that's that. A good parent, to a large degree, is one who raises a child to the point where the child is able to be independent, able to take care of their own needs, relate well to others, etc. Why this "doormat mom" would get any oxygen at all is mystifying as she seems to me to be having one humongous, public tantrum.
31:19 chills. That is exactly what my mother said when I finally plucked up the courage to ask if she could stop the degrading comments about people's appearances, and being verbally abusive at home. She said she felt like she was "walking on eggshells" around me for saying that. In a self-righteous tone, she went, "I cannot even be myself at home?!" and started to vent about how she feels like she needs to censor herself around my brothers and their wives when they visit. Even back then, I thought to myself that this means that her true self is being a bully, and your video practically validated that. Wow, simply wow. Thank you for putting this out there. I feel like I can see clearer.
Yeah, my mum too. 'Walking on eggshells' and 'can't be myself' = her detecting my reaction to her behaviour. I have to be constantly delighted with her behaviour no matter how awful it is or I'm somehow being abusive to her by making her feel guilty or uncomfortable...
@@jellyrcw12it's always "I guess I can't do anything right" "I guess I was a terrible mother" always excuses. And any excuse will do. My mom has a list of them, beginning with her age!🙄
I’ve tried explaining to my dad a million and one times why assaulting my mother, threatening to sh**t us all, and calling her a b*tch was not cool. And his response is always “well you know she wasn’t perfect, she said rude things sometimes” That or he just says “that never happened, I don’t remember it”. Yeah cause you were wasted But I’m the crazy one in the family because I’m too emotional as a man because I get upset by the stuff that has happened
Its mysterious, right? Like you provided what I would describe as an obvious, airtight set of reasons that things are Not Cool. You'd think an adult human would be able to, idk, take that under advisement
@@sleepinthemorningcalm literally this. I swear you’d bring up their actions to them and almost immediately they’ll try and blame shift and bring up all the ways that the other parent was ‘bad’ or the things they did ‘wrong’. And it’s like okay… but I’m having this conversation with you.. about the things that you did. They are irrelevant to this. And if I wanted to address those things then I will address them with them.. not you. Just like how I’m addressing what you did … with you. 🤦♂️
Did your siblings scold you later for speaking up? Mine did, "Why can't you just shut up? Why can't you just keep quiet? Why do you have to argue with him?" "Because he's WRONG!!! He's EVIL!" "I'm speaking the simple TRUTH!"
I cannot remember where I heard it but I recall another content creator discussing estranged parents and saying "No one orphans themselves on purpose without reason."
It goes against ALL OF NATURE to distance our parents. If THAT doesn't strike terror to one's heart and hurt worse than these parents can even begin to imagine, nothing dies. Volutarily estranging oneself from one's tribe, one's clan , one's family reads as a death warrent in our nervous systems. We are PROGRAMMED to believe we WILL PERISH WITHOUT THESE PEOPLE. Andcwe fsvevto donit snyeay. Something MUST BE WAY OFF!!
I have a "doormat mom." For mothers day when i was 13 (the year after my dad died), i brought my newly-widowed mother a decorated pot of flowers. She took it and smashed it to the ground right there. It was carpet...I assume she had to clean it up but I never got her a gift again after that. I'm no contact with her and if I ever have children she will not meet them.
10:53 I am one of those rare cases. I fasley accused my mom of medical abuse due to drug induced paranoia, and she would NEVER do anything like this to me. She never painted me in a bad light, and all the people she talked about what happened do not think ill of me at all. I accused her of poisoning me, and she really did doubt herself, and to this day wonders if she is the one who made me disabled (even though my disability cannot be caused via poison) despite my reassurances. She infact, thought I may be better off without her, and helped me leave the house. When I came back to her, she worked to change the stuff she genuinely did do to me, and took accountability.
I guess that really disturbed her. When my stepdad was sick in the hospital (cirrhosis and eventual liver transplant) his brains weren't working right either. He accused my mother of cheating, having a secret family, etc. Every single day when she came to visit him. I think that was his greatest fear when he got sick, that she would leave him. (Even though he told her she could) And that manifested in the paranoia when he was very ill. He was in a coma for a while.
Exactly. Good parents who are being accused of being bad do not go around talking shit about their kids! + I've noticed that the majority of the cases where this is true, like yours, have to do with drugs or severe mental health conditions out of their control. It's quite clear when it's the case because the parents are worried about their kid and wondering how they can help them get help.
5:54 This reminds me of a scenario I had with a now estranged family member (I’m keeping my language vague to try to protect my family’s privacy). I had been asked by a parent to hold onto a precious family heirloom. One of my family members kept trying to get a hold of this heirloom, even though they did not have any right to claim it. Whenever they would visit, I would hide this item at a friends house to ensure it didn’t get stolen. One time when that family member visited, they gifted me a version of that item. At first, I thought it was a really kind gesture, and I thanked them. Alas, this gift was a bribe to try to convince me to give up the heirloom. And when I refused to do so, they got really mad at me. Soon after this I cut off contact, and I now realize that it’s not normal to have to hide valuables when family comes over because they might go snooping in your bedroom and take things they think they have a right to have.
The woman didn't love her daughter enough to avoid being insanely petty about the release date of her book. What an awful thing to do to someone you claim to love unconditionally. Congrats on the pregnancy! I love your analysis and your steady kindness ❤️
I disconnected from my mom about a year ago. I’m almost 36 and have hair growing in farther than it has my whole life. She never heard a thing I ever said. It’s been so peaceful not being miserable
I finally told my mom this year that I didn't want to see her anymore, at 28 years old. When I told her why, it was just like this. She asked me to seek family counseling with her and her pastor, I said no. She tried to blame others, I told her she was wrong. Eventually she said, "You'll never have a perfect mother." I never wanted a perfect mother, I just wanted a mother who cared about my nutrition and housing enough to give me to someone who would do something about it rather than hold onto me so she could feel motherly and use me to get into family housing help.
I can't stand the whole "I wasnt perfect " mantra they take, because literally no one asked them to be perfect. Im fact, we are asking them to own their imperfections and take accountability for causing us pain!
@@ptlovelight2971 yup! My parents weren’t/aren’t perfect and I have never even considered going no contact with either of them because when they mess up they own it, almost immediately.
@@ptlovelight2971 literally!! you tell them they've hurt you before and suddenly it's all "i'm so sorry i'm so horrible and can't be perfect" and "kids don't come with manuals" when no one was asking for perfection in the first place. we were just asking them to realize that they did something wrong before and maybe keep that in mind in the future so they don't hurt us in that way again. my mom got on my ass before about loving my dad more than her because i talk to him more but i told both of them that they hurt me deeply because of the way they raised me and my mom played the victim but my dad actually apologized and that was literally all i wanted
It's just a strawman to try to paint you as the unreasonable one. Pretending that your issue with them is a failure to meet the impossibly high standard of "perfect", when the reality is that your issue with them is their failure to meet the extremely low standard of "not awful".
Doormat Mom: I offered to adjust my daughter's wedding dress just before the wedding. Estranged Daughter: Doormat Mom called me fat so I cut her out of her life. I expect her mother's backhanded insult was the straw that broke the daughter's threadbare patience.
I have no doubt that it was. The interaction I had with my father that led to me cutting him out of my life was not related to the reasons for estrangement. I had been thinking about it for a long time had opted not to because I felt there was still a lot to respect about him. The interaction I had with him showed me that I was wrong about that and that the value of keeping him in my life did not outweigh the harm he had done and was continuing to do. I know he still believes he did nothing wrong and fully blames me, and I'm happy to let him continue to live under that delusion, away from me.
What is it with mothers and their daughters' wedding dresses??!?! Mine called me a whore because I wanted a pale peach or pink instead of pure toothpaste white. I cried in the changing room while my sister did her darnedest to stand up for me
@@CrispyCritter2023 neither, sadly. The one I ended up choosing was more like an eggshell, but it was a beautiful dress anyway, so it worked out. I still think a pink/peach color would have looked better with my skin tone but oh well
This woman reminds me of a satirical song from Crazy Ex Girlfriend (the name of the show is part of the joke its not some kind of women suck show). The song was called "After everything I did for you that you didn't ask for" where the crux of the joke is a character is upset about her emotional manipulation of the main character is not being rewarded even though the main character never asked for it.
"Trauma is relative" Spot on, that's a phrasing I've been looking for for a long time, it's exactly the kind of thing people who wield their hurts as a weapon and say "MY pain is bigger than YOUR pain" need to hear.
Estranged parents often make the same vile, vitriolic comments that spurned ex-lovers make. Probably from the same place of ego and perceived infallibility.
"But what is faith without accountability if not a weapon?" Yes, thank you. Whenever I try to discuss values with my father and any actions that are hurtful he always defaults to, "I'm a conservative, Christian man! My opinion is based on my close personal relationship with Jesus," because apparently that just means he's Right and the discussion is over.
yeh, my mother has spent her life going to church and considers her self ''good''. But over the years, it has been completely impossible to give her even the tiniest bit of feedback. Not talking about harsh criticism, i mean a request that she stop labelling me. But just that much is perceived by her as a vicious attack.
Mine usually says "Oh but I WORK, so you need to respect me" Literally haven't lived with him 90% of my life and when I did that was like 20 years ago...not to mention he has never been to any job I've ever worked and has no clue about all the times where I was the bread winner for my own family (while being disabled..!) and he still has the nerve to call me lazy, when most of my life always involved ME doing the work of another person-- who didn't want to do anything..! Parents like this will lie to you with a straight face about their kid's past and feel no remorse or qualms about it!
Damn, doormat mom really went and was like, "Let me put in writing how much of a narcissistic parent I am." I, for one, think it's pretty fucked up that her youngest daughter apparently sold her out to the Romans and had her nailed to a cross for uniting the people. Sooo ungrateful.
That Jesus guy, constantly whining about being tortured and killed by being nailed to a cross. Doesn't he realise that what he went through is nothing compared to her suffering?
I've not seen anywhere else the acknowledgement of the "walking on eggshells" thing. My dad used that line on me as well, and it stirred a lot of guilt in me because i WAS on a hair's trigger with him - but only because, after years and years of him not listening and putting himself first, i had had enough. Im so glad to have finally found an explanation for why he said that - and why it was true for him that he would have to "walk on eggshells" in order for us to have a healthy relationship.
25:40 I told her, for years. It was so destabilizing and demoralizing that I stopped trying. I tried to just have an arm’s-length relationship with her, but found that every time I saw her or spoke with her I would spiral afterwards. It would set me back weeks or months. It was such an exhausting delicate dance to grey rock all the time that I eventually figured out it wasn’t worth it. I had to go no-contact without having a final conversation about it, because I knew it would be a minefield of deflection, manipulation tactics, and possibly desperate, dangerous hail-Marys. Same story with my older sisters years before. She threatened to off herself.
What a hurtful and tiring process that must have been. The part about spiraling after seeing or spoking to her kind of resonates with me. Good for you for going no contact, i hope you have more peace now!
The conversation you played at 26:40 is EXACTLY what happens when I try to tell my mom about her behavior. It's like the words aren't even entering her head. Thank you for communicating about this topic so clearly, there is a lot I can take from this video (as is with all of your videos)
I was always grateful and respectful to my parents, but I didn't know that feeling grateful and expressing that gratitude frequently, sincerely and happily wouldn't be enough, no, I was also expected to have no visible reaction to them hurting me. I didn't know that that was the way I was supposed to express my gratitude.
I grayrocked my Birth Canal until the point that people used to say I was a very calm child. My female unit demanded that I let her help me and stop being secretive like a normal child.
Doormat mom's words make my skin crawl, but they only validate the estrangement I have with my parents. To have someone this self-serving in your life will drain you until you're a shell of yourself.
I rarely talk to my mother, maybe once every couple of months, but she called me today and said "at least you didn't grow up to be a murderer" and expected me to take it as a compliment. There is no such thing as a normal conversation with her and I'm not sure if she will ever be able to admit that she's upset we don't have a relationship.
Lean into it. Say “ as far as you know” or “ well about that, maybe that’s a conversation for another day” Probably best to not speak to your mother at all. All the best. 😊
11:29 btw I‘m loving this video so deeply and just wanted to clarify that the tricky part is that abusive people often are scared of what they are. They are still human after all so the doubt and regret will ALWAYS kick in but the parent will get over it and start deflect again. I for example had to comfort my mom while she was crying after she had beat me up.
Honestly you shouldn’t have comforted her. I’m so sorry that happened to you btw. You should’ve let her sit with her actions, and perhaps she would’ve learned that physically abusing her child is a horrible thing to do
This is so interesting and so sad. Thanks for the reminder that they are human - sometimes their evil actions can be so hurtful and destructive, it's hard to believe. Dr Ana, your analysis was solid and insightful, thank you.
I'd have a more engaging conversation speaking to a brick wall than my Father. I maintain the peace for my Mother and the handful of possessions I can't keep in my apartment. Also, congratulations on the pregnancy Dr. Ana! 🎉🎉
even the way these estranged parents talk about their kids is so full of hatred. they make it so clear they don't respect their kids at all and feel that their children owe them everything because they raised them. relationships are so transactional to these people. it's always "i did xyz for you, so you owe me respect, gratitude, etc". it's never "i love you and miss you and wish we could be close". because they don't love or miss their kids. they miss the idea of them.
As a parent, it feels so foreign to even attempt to imagine thinking like that. I view my job as a parent to bring what starts as a cute little bundle of useless human all the way to a fully functional adult, and then let her do her own thing where she owes me nothing. During that time I want to build enough of a connection with her that she will want to continue to be connected with me and be a part of my life once she's her own adult and makes her own decisions and has her own power.
Yes to all of this! Also just being able to witness my children grow from babies who know and can do nothing into fully individual and functional people is amazing. It feels like a gift to me just to be the one who gets a front row seat to watch these little humans grow from childhood to adulthood and get to help and love them along the way!!
@joannamarieart I actually enjoy witnessing the growing process so much that I don't even get people that say they wish their kid was back to x age or x point of life. I enjoyed those memories, but I looked so forward to what she's gonna be next that I don't want to freeze her at any point or have her revert
@@TRoninYT Yes 🥰🥰 I do miss things about my kids at younger ages, like infant snuggles and the cute ways they formed words when they were first learning to talk, but I'm also enjoying the older stages where they are getting old enough to watch and commentate on movies with me, we can play card and board games together, they tell me about their hopes and dreams for the future. I'm really looking forward to their teen and adult years as well
@joannamarieart Yeah I can definitely get missing those things. It might make me a little weird, but I'm actually looking forward to a lot of the teenage angst and whatever weird cringe things she gets into, cause I'm just looking forward to seeing what becomes of her little mind and personality
Same here. I battled depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and SI. All gone after I went non-contact. Even after realizing how much of my life was lost to a) appeasing and obeying her and b) her sabotage and my internalized self-sabotage. It was a long painful journey of self recovery.
19:22 they always conveniently skip over the exact next verse that says “parents do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the lord” picking and choosing over the text she claims to hold so dearly tells me all I need to know.
The first thing “Doormat Mom” says is “ignore what your children have requested and go to your grandkids’ recital anyway, you deserve it!”- so…. right out of the gate, all that matters is what SHE wants, and feels entitled to. That’s the whole problem, right there.
They stomp all over other peoples boundaries to be abusive.... But god forbid someone enforce boundaries upon them. Its the most "disrespectful" thing you can do. To distance yourself from an asshole 😂
I'm 41, I have a 13 year old son. Growing up i never heard my dad apologize or admit he was wrong. He considered it weakness, and if he showed us weakness he believed we would exploit it somehow. I will freely admit to my son when I mess up, or when I am just wrong. I've had to humble myself more than once when I didn't listen to my kid and ended up being completely in the wrong. I think about how to be a better dad a lot. I want to be the dad I needed and the dad HE needs me to be, so he can grow up and be an amazing adult and do amazing things. Admitting when we are wrong is hard sometimes, but seeing us as human and realizing even our parents mess up is healthy for our kids. A parent asking a child for forgiveness can be a powerful moment in a child's life.
I can appreciate that Dr.Ana checked Dormat Mom at the door with the fair-use explanation, and verbalizing that she’d explain the situation to her followers if doormat mom tried to sue her. Smart of her to realize the type of person Doormat mom is and how she’d likely react in the face of criticism.
Whenever I've seen accounts where the adult child actually WAS the inciting factor (which are VERY rare in comparison to accounts where the parent was), the parent was very compassionate and didn't spin it as a "one versus the other" issue. You can tell just from their demeanor and their language, even when they try to lie or spin it as the child's fault, when they were the inciting factor
This video really hits home. My grandma "cut me off" a couple of years ago, after scapegoating me for around 11 years after our grandad died. I became the punching bag and the target for her snide remarks and my self-esteem was really damaged by it all. When I finally stood up to her (in a reasonable, non-shouty way) because my mum was on the verge of death with cancer and I said my mum takes priority over her, wow. All the anger. How dare I stand up to her? She said and I quote: "I'm the alpha here", "your grandad would be so disappointed in you", "you liar", "you're going to give me a heart attack" etc. She decided to cut me off without saying anything and then said via my brother if I apologise, I would be allowed back in to her good graces. What the hell do I need to apologise for? I mulled over for years if I was a bad person for not apologising and getting sucked back into the same unhealthy dynamic, but I see now that the fact I was considering where my wrongdoings were in the interaction and that she vehemently denies any wrongdoing or contribution means that I'm the reasonable one. So thanks for providing a sensible, well-articulated perspective on estrangement that has helped me put that guilt down and move on with my life.
That was terrifying but also assuring. I had to cut both my parents out of my life for behaviours like this that would have stolen my life away if I'd stay
You hit the nail on the head. Its very cathartic to watch these people employ abusive tactics without being emotionally connected to them. It's like they all read the same manual and its truly freeing to know it wasn't all my fault.
Glad to see this addressed. No mentally healthy person would tell someone they cared about to stay in a toxic or abusive relationship but anytime it comes to the parents a large portion of people will vilify you "cause they're your parents. They were doing the best they could so you owe them." Give me a break. Being in the same boat as her estranged daughter my sister sees our childhood through rose tinted glasses cause most of her abuse was emotional while mine was physical and emotional. She still downplays it even though the effects on her are obvious. We didn't have to do anything wrong. My dad just had to be in a bad mood to take it out on us. As adults my dad always justified his abuse "cause raising kids is hard and you can't go easy on them or they won't respect you." ...and my sister defends his actions. I have gone no contact for 12 years and while my life is not great it is much more peaceful since I made that decision.
Ths hits close to home, especially how the mother would act so wronged and hurt when her child would even dare to suggest that she did something wrong. That was and still is my experience.
Damn, I'm hoping her daughter had a great wedding and is okay. To all children who are considering parent estrangement: go for it. In my case, it was needed for my parent to hit their own lowest point to go to therapy for addiction and change their life around. Worst case, you will get someone who's supposed to be a source of love and kindness for you and instead was a horrible person to be gone from your life. Best case, they'll try to go to therapy to understand what's happened, and they will change for better. It's a win-win scenario.
Thank you so much for doing this video. I needed to hear it. I just wanted to add that if you’ve been scapegoated by your family, the trauma, especially if it’s bad, that you experience in their presence makes you treat them differently it makes you protect yourself. So for anyone to say “sometimes they come out bad” … If someone keeps on burning you, you’re gonna protect yourself and not let your true light shine when you’re around them.
Ohhhh, so doormat mom insulted her daughter's wedding dress choices, and then used the offer of a dress alternation to try to guilt trip her daughter?! Shocking that that wouldn't work.
I'm just a minute in and what she says makes me filled with rage. I was estranged from my mother and tried my whole life to prevent it! She went ahead with the abuse and neglect and gaslighting me into being my mother alone should make me love her unconditionally. 'was' because she already died and that she's gone actually felt relieving. Because all the other relatives asked why I was so distant. I fled to safe my sanity and life while everyone turned a blind eye to my suffering. Hearing the doormat, I just can see my mother whining and it fills me with rage! Maybe the situation here isn't so bad when I continue the video... but if it is then... GOOD for her daughter! May she keep her children safe from her mother and potential to inflict those wounds on them, too!
I needed this today after a bad Christmas at my moms that left me driving 6 hours home that day. The discussion about the word “ungrateful” really validated me. Thank you.
Even to a lesser degree: guilting adult children into visiting more, communicating more, etc. My husband's family does this even though that stuff goes two directions. They use our 3 year old nephew as a guilt trip to try to get us to come over more often. We visit as often as we can but have our own lives. You just can't take it personally. You have to be very self aware to be a good parent. I've become super aware of my behavior and i don't have kids yet.
This could be written by my own step mom, this is crazy. Thank you for everything you said in this video. I was told i made my parents "walk on eggshells", when i was just reacting to narcissistic abuse
Congratulations!!! Watching new life spark into being and grow from a tiny little baby to a walking talking unique human being is the most amazing thing I have ever experienced. My "baby" is now 9. The time flies but it's the best! And he doesn't owe me anything. If he ever had to stay away from me to protect *himself, I would be ashamed and heartbroken that I'd hurt him and get to work ASAP. Parental instinct feels so different for some people. So much of it is universal, but then sometimes we are reminded of how it definitely isn't felt and experienced the same for everyone. Again, congratulations!
Been going to a therapist with my mum (kill me) and I said how her not defending us from other abusive family when we were kids was messed up. Her response was "I don't know how to defend myself" to which the therapist replied "you shouldn't be defending yourself - that's the point." And I could see her brain break. Didn't compute. These people don't change. They choose not to. Loving yourself and even loving them is letting them go. If everything they claimed about you was true and they truly loved you as they say, they would let you go, too. If you're such a weight on their shoulders, why are they holding you down so tightly?
Even though you only mentioned the good enough parent theory or what ever in a side note, I’m really grateful you did. It is basically the anwser to a question I’ve tried to find a anwser for a really long time. The ethical dilemma of having a child. My mom for example clearly had me for selfish reasons with realising how selfish and destructive she’s been to me. I still love her though and she’s lately started to realise and acknowledge the ways she failed. I’d never want to put a child into the same position I was in. So I’ve always asked my self what would be an actual good, non selfish, reason to have a child. And I think that theory provides the only answer to that question.
There is no unselfish reason for having a child, and I say this as someone who has very intentionally had three children. It’s very sad that we live in a world where acknowledging that we are selfish is seen as some sort of unforgivable sin. Humans are inherently selfish, in the sense that our top priority, before we can consider anything else, is our own survival. This is probably even more true for women than it is for men, given the way humans reproduce, and the massively important role that mothers play in the lives of children, compared to fathers. Essentially, if a woman is not safe, her children have no chance, so she must make sure her needs are met before she can consider the needs of her children. Now, if humans lived the way we evolved to live, in small band hunter-gatherer societies, there would be many other humans around who could help take care of a mother so that she didn’t have to always worry about meeting her needs alone(or with just one other person who also has the potential to cause her harm, i.e., a man). But we haven’t lived like this in about 10,000 years, and it is unfair and unrealistic, bordering on delusional, to expect a mother to be some sort of self sacrificing, godlike entity that controls everything that happens to and around her children. Women do have so much innate potential to be “selfless” IF there are enough other people around to help take care of her, especially when her children are very young. Unless that ever becomes a reality again, which I can’t imagine happening, we need to try and remember that mothers are human.
As soon as a parent pops off with any kind of jealousy that's not an adult, that's someone who is arrested emotionally with a dependent personality aka a nightmare
"The best differentiator between a good parent and a bad one is their ability to consider that they may have done something wrong in the situation." Thank you. THANK YOU. As an adult child estranged from both my parents, and myself a parent wary of repeating the cycle, this sentence was a huge relief for me, a beacon of validation in a dark night of self-doubt
This is scary because my mom tells me she is writing her memoirs too and I'm horrified to think what she will write about me in that book and how inaccurate it will be.
My mom is an aspiring author, so I get that. Luckily for me she likes to use her protagonist as her placeholder for herself in her writing, so if I'm made into a villain in her story, well, no one would be the wiser. I'm still not going to read her books though for my own mental health
Same. It’s a story about her life and I read some of it. All it is is “I this” and “I that” there is no emphasis on anyone involved. It was like being a paper doll.
Didn't even push play. "Ungrateful". Yeah. It's the word all these narcissistic uses. I thibk this is the core of narcissism. Picturing their kids as being ungrateful.
The core of these people is putting on a façade for other people to praise them for it. They’ll never see others or family as worthy of their respect unless everyone does everything they want
I'm only one minute into this video and I have to say, I live a world away from my mom. Literally an ocean separates us. I still call her every week because I love her. When children go estranged there's a reason.
4:05 “Respect, loyalty, and gratitude” are earned. It is a two way street! 4:35 This comes off as an attempt at wish fulfillment. Specifically, she feels she will manifest what is not so by constantly repeating to herself that it is so… an attempt to actualize the validation she so desperately seeks. The question that follows is simple: *Why?*
I love when you talk about family and friendships (relationships) and how difficult it can be for people. And emotional regulation as well. Thanks for those videos.
"Some kids are born bad"?! Holy hell. I feel like this is fairly common and it terrifies me. What even IS " bad"? In most cases it seems to mean inconvenient. :(
I didn't have the words to explain to my mother how her decisions affected me at 16. All I knew was that I had been hurt, I had been abused, and the abuse and hurt that I had suffered had manifested themselves into psychological issues I still suffer from all these years later. I never explained the reasons for the estrangement to her, but my dad has, and she told him that he brainwashed me and my brother. I will never believe that children are required to spell out exactly where a parent went wrong. Children should never be responsible for teaching their guardians accountability and emotional regulation. My father remarried after I cut contact and the woman he married is the woman I now call my mother. She is not perfect and it can be awkward, but my mom now loves me so fiercely. Even when we are at odds, I don’t feel like the argument will spin out into retaliation. We argue and have bad days and still I am able to find comfort and safety in her. My birth mother has never put in the effort to do that, not when I was small, and not now. I am not missing anything from the distance.
I completely agree on the fact that when rarely children display some toxic behaviors towards their parents for no valid reason, a good parents never attacks the kid. My sister is bipolar and been so harsh and abusive towards our mother for years, but all what mom does is trying to always be supportive , blame herself and wonder what she might ve done wrong. My sister for sure didn’t get her bipolarity gene 🧬 triggered out of the blue, and there should be something that we maybe ignore. But it’s amazing how a good parent will always defend their children and question themselves first ❤ not write a book to play the victim.
The “I wish no ill will towards my daughter” while also publishing the smear campaign book against her daughter on the same week as her daughters wedding because it “brought her comfort” is such next level mental gymnastics.
This. I NEVER see the opposite of that. The adult children won’t focus their energy on their unhealthy parents. They don’t talk about THE PARENTS, but the trauma they have and how to heal. These parents are really showing their behind with these kinds of behaviour.
That's a narcissistic parent. This culture has a serious problem even acknowledging that they exist.
Mmhmm, pure facts. My friends narc mother likes to reach out to her on her birthday to send her a card saying how embarrassed she is about having to hide their estrangement and how ungrateful my friend is. Always doing the most egregious things and then playing the victim. These people are cooked in the head.
@@MagisterialVoyagerthat’s such a good point lol. I’m 35 and I cut my dad off 15 years ago. Most people just assume I never had a dad bc I don’t talk about him lol
Like imagine if doormat mom got remarried, and the week of her wedding the DAUGHTER released an entire book detailing how much she thinks her mom is entitled and mean and marrying the wrong person and delusional and disrespectful. Doormat mom would FLIP HER LID about it. There’s such a double standard where parents genuinely believe they’ve ‘earned’ the ‘right’ to subjugate and abuse their children because kids are just property right? So when that property becomes sentient and conscious they think they’ve been slighted somehow…
Telling a child that they owe their parent for childhood care is based on the belief that children don't have the right to that care, that parents were doing them a favour by raising them. Nope, nope, nope.
This makes so much sense. Especially when they say: I gave birth to you, you should be grateful. I never asked to be born, that was your decision, and it’s your responsibility to take care of infant children. You don’t stop being a parent when your kids become 18 and now you can throw them out of the house because “you’ve done enough”. That tells me they never truly wanted to have kids in the first place, a lot people can change opinion over time ofc, but seeing your children as a free ticket for you to be taken care of by them when you’re old, especially when you haven’t been a good parent, is honestly so depressing to hear. Children are our flesh and blood, but they’re also individuals. You’re not entitled to you children’s life.
Also that means the child is an investment for emotional support, punching bag, eldercare and financial security. The child is an underperforming employee they see as locked into a lifetime contract.
I feel that it's such an archaic way of thinking about parenting: you survived your first years of life, my childhood was way worse, I've done a great job, why are you whining? Nowadays many would be parents think long and hard before having children and try to provide much more than what earlier generations did for them. No wonder there's a generational divide.
Also, in a lot of countries/states you can literally go to jail if you dont provide said care. So it's not only the bare minimum, it's also basic self-preservation to provide said minimum.
@marygreenapple I saw that on another channel. There was even speculation that it would lead to elder abuse. Perhaps not on the part of people who had cut contact because they left due to understanding toxicity but on the part of family members who have left it to fester and not processed anything and are just reacting. My mother and sister had a MMA battle level toxic relationship. If my mother hadn't died of cancer I could see my sister taking her apart.
She speaks with an incredible amount of entitlement for someone claiming to be a doormat.
@@crazy_old_bat I suspect ‘doormat mom’ is trying to be facetious with that moniker, but it just comes across as narcissistically sarcastic.
Well, see: she is "No More" the "Doormat"... right?.. powerful stuff
To a narcissist "being a doormat" = "not getting my way 100% of the time".
lol she’s just like my mom it’s so funny. I’m sooo pushed around and bullied :((((((( does the most unhinged shit ever
It reeks of being a victim narcissist; I haven't done a lot of focused research into it, but I am a therapist and have worked with both victim narcissists and those who've been affected by them, so I feel comfortable saying that. They have all the narcissistic traits, but instead of a "I'm the greatest" narrative that's struggling to fill the bottomless void of insecurity, it's a focus on being a victim because at some point being a victim was profitable for them; whether it was profitable in extra attention, getting to ignore rules and responsibilities, or some other way. Narcissism is complicated and contradictory, but just because clinical-level narcissism (where it actually becomes diagnosable as Narcissistic Personality Disorder) is often borne from trauma and neglect doesn't mean it's okay for her to be acting this way. And I've met clients with NPD who would agree; because they still love and care about the people in their lives, and they know that NPD can sabotage it, so they try to manage the symptoms. But many people with narcissistic traits would NEVER go to therapy because that would mean challenging the only mindset they've found that makes life feel safe for them. So we have to pay attention both to people who are trying to do better as well as those who simply refuse to.
I have yet to find an estranged parent that didn’t have just awful things to say about the child they claim to love.
so true. My mother has called me (over the years) sensitive, paranoid, aggressive, angry, insane, detached from reality, looking like death warmed up. I'm sure there are more. That's off the top of my head. But she carries herself as the longsuffering victim of me.
@@TheEverGrowingRosey-333 Almost as if they're preemptively scared that they have to do damage control. 🤔
My mother has made up stories about me being insane in order to discredit anything I might say about her. It's really too bad for her that my character speaks for itself.
Exactly, because ultimately it's not about what would be best for their relationship with the child, it's about feeling better about themselves
My Birth Canal had to hate me so her suffering and continuing care after her troubles with me was more impressive!
I absolutely have. Usually parents that have lost their children to cults or abusive, controlling partners.
Perceived ownership over grandchildren makes me so INSTANTLY HEATED!! The entitlement! The audacity! The delusion!!! 😵💫
These weird parents think they have rights over grandkids because they believe they physically own their children. Its gross.
@@boyinblue.Own us like appliances. Scapegoats are faulty machinery to narc parents.
Not to mention demanding (usually biological) children of anyone, no matter who it is, is kinda s*xual harassment...(probably not even "kinda", it just IS)
100% ❤
I only agree with the grandparents in situations like Wendi Adelson…but yes, other than that, I agree. Not ya babies!
The verse after the one that says “obey your parents” says that parents should not provoke their kids to anger
Always conveniently forgotten or explained away 😅
As a staunch Catholic, as are my parents, i have had to remind them of this passage once or twice.....
Lol I have quoted that one right back to my estranged mother and it felt pretty good.
Yes! As a christian, it truly horrifies me how many abusive people use the Bible to 'support' their abuse.
Ephesians 6:1-4 (KJV)
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.
2 Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise;
3 That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
When an abusive person says they feel like they are WALKING ON EGGSHELLS: Abusive people having a hard time not committing acts of abuse and therefore causing negative reactions from the people around them. GOLD.
"Walking on Eggshells"=having a challenging time navigating someone's healthy boundaries, lol
Yep. You telling them they’re hurting you is “a bad experience” for them. They’ll flip it on you “i can never do anything right with you, tired of walking on eggshells, you make me feel like I’m not good enough, etc” AKA “don’t tell me the things I do wrong to you - I don’t want to think about it or deal with your negative emotions about it. It makes me feel bad but I don’t wanna deal with it, just take it!”
@@ptlovelight2971okay let's not make broad generalizations like that.
It could be used in that scenario, but have you ever been around a highly sensitive person who won't let you know they're getting upset for days if not weeks, then explode at some point?
My ex started crying when I said I think we missed our freeway exit. Why? Because earlier in the day i suggested trying something different to get her broken car door to open. Because she is constantly worried people think she's stupid (her words) and me making that suggestion plus saying she missed the exit confirmed for her that I think she's stupid.
You really think that's healthy boundaries? That's not me having to walk on eggshells by wondering if saying "wasn't that our exit" could precipitate such a huge negative reaction?
@@Mutantcy1992time and place, dude. we are talking about this statement coming from narcissistic parents, not your emotionally fragile ex-- no need to be so pedantic about a sentence that isn't specific enough, lol
@Mutantcy1992 - I see two possibilities here - your ex needs mental health care, which I'm hoping she's now getting. Or 2 - you ARE "that person." Layered trauma can result in not speaking up until something seemingly insignificant breaks the dam.
I'm not saying either one is right. I hope the former, and you've since gone on to find a healthy partner and have a good relationship with them. If the latter, I hope you can eventually see yourself and seek help.
It's funny how every time I hear an estranged parent talk about their kids, somehow even when they tell the story from their perspective and I haven't heard the kids side at all, I still immediately understand why the kid doesn't want any contact with them. It's as if the accused take the stand to proclaim their innocense and the only thing they achieve is making you realize that they're guilty as hell.
YUP :D thanks for seeing through the lies, this makes me feel better actually
Man, I thought the exact same thing hearing some of the nonsense Doormat Mom was going off about
this is so real 🤣
"A guilty conscience needs no accuser"
YOURE RIGHT!!!
Absolute banger quote: "What is faith without accountability, if not a weapon?" Dr. Ana is out here spitting bars!
That's the author coming out
I once read through an estranged parent forum and something that really stuck out to me is that they all claim their children won't tell them a reason, or that they don't understand the reason. But they never say what the claim was. They never say "this is what my child says, and this is why it's wrong". And sometimes you can see EXACTLY where the disconnect or denial is, like one lady who said all three of her children cut contact with her over "a single letter" that they found. But she never said what was in the letter. She just kept repeating it was "just a letter" and it was so clear that's where the truth is but she just couldn't acknowledge that.
my own mother fits this bill. She was wailing ''it makes no sense!'' when I was trying to tell her what had hurt me but she would NOT hear it. I wrote letters that went into the recycling, whatsapps went unread, she wouldnt talk to me (she would walk off crying, in victim mode) she has gone to great lengths to NOT hear what i'm saying.
I told my mother specific things she said, texted with quotes, and she still denied them. She goes around telling around people that she doesn't know why I won't talk to her. I also tried to talk to her once and she cut me off in the middle of a sentence, screaming, "STOP TALKING!" So she physically wouldn't listen.
Right. Like i find it hard to believe the children never tried, NOT EVEN ONCE, to try to explain the reason for estrangement
Yeeeeaaah, my mom should be in prison over how far she's gone with my siblings and I, but according to her she never did anything to deserve the no contact. We're just really awful people according to her. Like, how dare we not put up with financial abuse, pathological lying, manipulation and destruction of our adult lives, triangulation and being smeared so she can feel better about herself? She can't fathom why we don't feel indebted to her. Like, why won't we just sweep her evil under the rug the same way she does? 🙄
when i was a young adult I would try to talk to my mom about my CSA trauma and ask that she not force me to see my main abuser (by inviting him over while i was staying at their house with no vehicle, or just a lot of guilt tripping that she wants us to get along). she would respond that it's not good to hold a grudge and i need to grow up. meanwhile she didn't speak to her own mother and i never met her. so i was devestated that she didn't try go understand. i gave up after a years. she would call and leave voicemails saying 'i don't know why you don't want to talk to me."
"We just have different memories" was something that I always got. That and "your living in the past" for not wanting to just magically forget about the issues.
"You're living in the past" yeah well so is the 13-year-old version of me you seem to think never grew up and continue to bully twenty years later, my bad I guess 🙄
@@breauseph I broke my estrangement years ago and honestly it was the worst experience. Like maam you traumatized me for entertainment.
oh my gosh, my father says the same thing! "You're living in the past" and its like um excuse me the past is not the past when these issues keep on happening in the present
My sister would do the old crazy making gaslighting: "That NEVER HAPPENED! You must have DREAMED IT."
Yeah, it is all in the past. But when you did something wrong as a 10 year old, it hangs over your head for 30 years...
Have a friend who’s been estranged from her mother for over a decade. She told her mom when she was 11 that her step dad was molesting her. It took a lot of courage because her stepdad had threatened her that he would harm her cat if she told anyone. Her mother did not believe her. Told her she probably dreamt it. It wasn’t until she told one of her friends at school about it, who told a teacher who told the guidance counsellor who called the police that the guy was caught. He ended up confessing and went to jail, and then her mother divorced him. But her mother still doesn’t “understand” why her adult daughter has distanced herself.
I'm so sorry your friend went through that ❤
I get it. I am still in touch a bit with my mother who chose to ignore my anguish and stayed,and now wonders why I have an in and out relationship with🎉my father..they just cannot engage!!
So many people believe that if they didn’t actively do something to hurt someone else, that they are completely innocent. They do not understand that not acting in the face of abuse is often experienced as even more of a betrayal than the actual abuse itself, because so often, the lack of action is on the part of the mother, and children inherently expect a level of protection from their mothers that they don’t expect from fathers or anyone else. It may not be “fair” to mothers that it is in our nature as humans to expect more from our mothers, but it also means that mothers mean the most to children, which is special. With great power comes great responsibility, right?
@@katieandnick4113Yep. I understand my job as a mother is to love my children no matter what they do; not to not have basic boundaries for my own self-preservation, respecting the separate needs of each kid (I have two, and man, do they have very different needs!), and such, but in the sense that I can be sad about, or disappointed in their behavior, even have to set boundaries about it, but I cannot, and will not, EVER stop loving them. If they are ready to respect basic safety and legality, I am here to support them, care about them, and just generally love on them, even if everyone else has rejected and given up on them, because they are MY babies; the people I grew inside of me, pushed out of me, fed with my own body, changed thousands of diapers for… I will not forget that; I will not give up the responsibility of having brought them onto this planet. It is uniquely my role and position, and I take it very seriously! 😤
This is an excellent reason to detach from the mother. There are exceptions and this is a great example of one. The mother’s primary allegiance was to her husband, not to her daughter. The mother may have had reasons, financial, physical abuse to her by her husband, fear, weak sense of self, but her decision not to act would be difficult to justify.
I recognised that rehearsed sweet old church lady act immediately. Seen in it a few horrendously abusive people who use it to appear innocent in their second act.
Nobody saw through my mom. Nobody believed me.
@@solidstate9451i've had the same. It stinks. I'm sorry. Don't give up believing in you ever, right?
She's a stalker, that's so scary. I live in terror my mom will show up at my house one day. I'm 33.
HHAHAHAHAH
Get a restraining order. Did that with my narc dad
Me too, and I'm 46. I was worried that she would just show up for Christmas or something. She's not even dangerous, but I just dread it
My estranged mother drove across the state and showed up at my house. It was awful. Hope it doesn’t happen to you
@@haleytruslow7200 that's so horrible, I'm really sorry she did that to you.
The reality is that kids are not blind.
If you treat your children well and show them love, they will love you back.
Some parents work hard to pay bills and feed their kids, but treat the kids harshly, then cry later that the kids don’t love them after they gave away their dreams to race the kids.
Kids care more how you treat them than what you give them.
This is so true, it has to be the most common case I see in my social surroundings. You have parents that break their back and sacrifice a lot to provide a comfortable life for their children, but don't really treat them with love or respect. Additionally, they feel entitled to their child's love because of how much they sacrificed for them, which is at the same time understandable and also very, very delusional. These people don't understand that no amount of suffering or logistics on their part can make you love them, that's just not how human emotions work.
One of my strongest childhood memories was of the first Christmas we had after being homeless for around two years in my preteens. My mom went all out and spent a lot of money to replicate the typical holidays we had as younger children, even though I'm sure it was financially really unwise.
The kind lady who had gotten us off the streets saw all this happening, knowing us kids were not treated well, and tried to explain this concept to her. As far as I remember told her very kindly that her kids wanted her to love us and spend time with us, not a bunch of gifts and Christmas decor, and that she could return half of these things and just be present with us and we'd have a great Christmas.
My mother screamed in that poor old woman's face and kicked her out of the house. We never saw her again. She used to take us out for ice cream anytime my mom would let her, and she had been paying 1/4 of the rent for our new apartment. It was all incredibly eye opening for me, I cut my mother off when I was 14.
@@a-morgan-lare our moms the same???💀🤡
@@CharlieHorse4363 👍🙂 Unbiological siblings. My peeps. 😆
@@sharonthompson672 found family is fine by me 😂😭
"This is not the girl I know." AND HOW. My mother never said this, but my parents' resistance to getting to know me as an adult was what led to estrangement for 15 years. You have absolutely named everything my mother was willing to do and why I love her, which rekindled our relationship. She listened and acknowledged. That simple.
Aw I’m so glad to hear you were able to do that!!
This is so rare! I was lucky to experience that rarity too. When I resumed contact, I was so surprised that my mother had _changed_. Usually, abusers abuse, and they never change. I think my mother was abusive, but 1) didn't realize it at the time, 2) truly loved me 3) and was willing to take responsibility for her abusive actions when I told her how much they hurt me. I tell my story, but I also caution people, my mother's reaction was very rare. Usually abusers abuse, and if a reconciliation never happens, it's not your fault.
@@badtvbad1 Yep you can't make every desire a goal. My mom was very young, it wasn't direct abuse from her more what was allowed to happen. Similar situation for me, she loved me and wanted what was best even though her actions fell short. Life goes on. I finally decided I deserve having a relationship with her no matter what happened and I can choose to forgive.
My dad was resistant at first but both him and my mom acknowledged that they could’ve done better and they were sorry. That’s the only reason I have a relationship with them and how we were able to move on.
Same! My dad, not so much. But my mom, yes, and that's why we still talk.
"Silenced"
Ma'am, if your daughter cut contact with you, she did not silence you, she left you more time and space to speak actually...to people that want to listen to you. I wish someone would challenge her to expand on that.
Plus, Mom is WRITING A BOOK and PROMOTING IT ON THE AIR. She is hardly SILENCED.
The literal only thing I could see “silenced” referring to in the mother’s eyes, is that now she has to live with the thought that her daughter will now tell people her own version of what happened, and the mother will no longer be able to dictate the narrative to the outside.
It’s not about loving her kid, it’s about control and appearances. And she’s obviously STILL not over that loss of control if she’s out writing vindictive books…
Narcissists hate to be ignored. Drives then crazy.
I feel so sad for her daughter, but with this book this woman is basically confessing all her ridiculous, unloving and manipulative behavior towards her daughter, and it’s delusional that she thinks she’s the victim even from her own account of the situation.
Classic DARVO behavior from a narcissistic parent
Dr Ana, when you’re being a kickass mom you’ll realize that it’s not rocket surgery to treat children with respect. Or to apologize when you make mistakes. I like to ask my son about his feelings and take them seriously, which has lead to real change.
Kids are stuck with their parents and good parents remain aware of and take care within that dynamic. That, to me, is how to define good parents.
Wow, you sound like a great parent. ❤️
💯
You sound awesome sauce. Keep up the good work and take care of yourself!
haha I like the phrase "rocket surgery"
The point this Podcaster makes at around the 10:12 mark is a good one.
Sometimes, things are just the way they are. Two people who are very different - or even too much the same - causes conflict. And that's that. A good parent, to a large degree, is one who raises a child to the point where the child is able to be independent, able to take care of their own needs, relate well to others, etc.
Why this "doormat mom" would get any oxygen at all is mystifying as she seems to me to be having one humongous, public tantrum.
31:19 chills. That is exactly what my mother said when I finally plucked up the courage to ask if she could stop the degrading comments about people's appearances, and being verbally abusive at home. She said she felt like she was "walking on eggshells" around me for saying that. In a self-righteous tone, she went, "I cannot even be myself at home?!" and started to vent about how she feels like she needs to censor herself around my brothers and their wives when they visit. Even back then, I thought to myself that this means that her true self is being a bully, and your video practically validated that. Wow, simply wow.
Thank you for putting this out there. I feel like I can see clearer.
Yeah, my mum too. 'Walking on eggshells' and 'can't be myself' = her detecting my reaction to her behaviour. I have to be constantly delighted with her behaviour no matter how awful it is or I'm somehow being abusive to her by making her feel guilty or uncomfortable...
Can't be her true self because she's a bully, that is so true!
Omfg are you me? I stg I had a very similar conversation with my mom!!
@@jellyrcw12it's always "I guess I can't do anything right" "I guess I was a terrible mother" always excuses. And any excuse will do. My mom has a list of them, beginning with her age!🙄
Believe it, honey.😂😢😂
Mom writing a book and talking about her relationship with her daughter on social media speaks volumes.
Speaking to her audience unfortunately
I’ve tried explaining to my dad a million and one times why assaulting my mother, threatening to sh**t us all, and calling her a b*tch was not cool. And his response is always “well you know she wasn’t perfect, she said rude things sometimes”
That or he just says “that never happened, I don’t remember it”. Yeah cause you were wasted
But I’m the crazy one in the family because I’m too emotional as a man because I get upset by the stuff that has happened
Its mysterious, right? Like you provided what I would describe as an obvious, airtight set of reasons that things are Not Cool. You'd think an adult human would be able to, idk, take that under advisement
I relate to this SO much. So sick of being told I need to get over someone who was horrible or that I can't insult him.
@@sleepinthemorningcalm literally this. I swear you’d bring up their actions to them and almost immediately they’ll try and blame shift and bring up all the ways that the other parent was ‘bad’ or the things they did ‘wrong’. And it’s like okay… but I’m having this conversation with you.. about the things that you did. They are irrelevant to this. And if I wanted to address those things then I will address them with them.. not you. Just like how I’m addressing what you did … with you. 🤦♂️
Did your siblings scold you later for speaking up? Mine did, "Why can't you just shut up? Why can't you just keep quiet? Why do you have to argue with him?" "Because he's WRONG!!! He's EVIL!" "I'm speaking the simple TRUTH!"
I cannot remember where I heard it but I recall another content creator discussing estranged parents and saying "No one orphans themselves on purpose without reason."
Needed this. Thanks
It goes against ALL OF NATURE to distance our parents. If THAT doesn't strike terror to one's heart and hurt worse than these parents can even begin to imagine, nothing dies. Volutarily estranging oneself from one's tribe, one's clan , one's family reads as a death warrent in our nervous systems. We are PROGRAMMED to believe we WILL PERISH WITHOUT THESE PEOPLE. Andcwe fsvevto donit snyeay. Something MUST BE WAY OFF!!
I have a "doormat mom." For mothers day when i was 13 (the year after my dad died), i brought my newly-widowed mother a decorated pot of flowers. She took it and smashed it to the ground right there. It was carpet...I assume she had to clean it up but I never got her a gift again after that. I'm no contact with her and if I ever have children she will not meet them.
Wait why
@@Mutantcy1992These people are evil
@@Mutantcy1992what the hell...what was hre reason for doing that?
Wait why? Like what did she say when she smashed it? I’m confused.
10:53 I am one of those rare cases. I fasley accused my mom of medical abuse due to drug induced paranoia, and she would NEVER do anything like this to me. She never painted me in a bad light, and all the people she talked about what happened do not think ill of me at all. I accused her of poisoning me, and she really did doubt herself, and to this day wonders if she is the one who made me disabled (even though my disability cannot be caused via poison) despite my reassurances. She infact, thought I may be better off without her, and helped me leave the house. When I came back to her, she worked to change the stuff she genuinely did do to me, and took accountability.
@@kirakoraawesome beautiful
Good on both of you. I'm sorry for the long term health issues.
I guess that really disturbed her. When my stepdad was sick in the hospital (cirrhosis and eventual liver transplant) his brains weren't working right either. He accused my mother of cheating, having a secret family, etc. Every single day when she came to visit him. I think that was his greatest fear when he got sick, that she would leave him. (Even though he told her she could) And that manifested in the paranoia when he was very ill. He was in a coma for a while.
Exactly. Good parents who are being accused of being bad do not go around talking shit about their kids! + I've noticed that the majority of the cases where this is true, like yours, have to do with drugs or severe mental health conditions out of their control. It's quite clear when it's the case because the parents are worried about their kid and wondering how they can help them get help.
Imagine the heartbreak when you realize your own parent never loved you. And that they only ever regarded you as a pawn.
5:54 This reminds me of a scenario I had with a now estranged family member (I’m keeping my language vague to try to protect my family’s privacy). I had been asked by a parent to hold onto a precious family heirloom. One of my family members kept trying to get a hold of this heirloom, even though they did not have any right to claim it. Whenever they would visit, I would hide this item at a friends house to ensure it didn’t get stolen. One time when that family member visited, they gifted me a version of that item. At first, I thought it was a really kind gesture, and I thanked them. Alas, this gift was a bribe to try to convince me to give up the heirloom. And when I refused to do so, they got really mad at me. Soon after this I cut off contact, and I now realize that it’s not normal to have to hide valuables when family comes over because they might go snooping in your bedroom and take things they think they have a right to have.
The woman didn't love her daughter enough to avoid being insanely petty about the release date of her book. What an awful thing to do to someone you claim to love unconditionally.
Congrats on the pregnancy! I love your analysis and your steady kindness ❤️
She definitely did it on purpose to hurt her daughter.
I disconnected from my mom about a year ago. I’m almost 36 and have hair growing in farther than it has my whole life. She never heard a thing I ever said. It’s been so peaceful not being miserable
I was thinking the same yesterday! Nothing could be better than the peace I feel ❤
That silence is so lovely. I cut off my mom twice and only in that silence was able I find myself and grow up. I was 34.
I finally told my mom this year that I didn't want to see her anymore, at 28 years old. When I told her why, it was just like this. She asked me to seek family counseling with her and her pastor, I said no. She tried to blame others, I told her she was wrong. Eventually she said, "You'll never have a perfect mother."
I never wanted a perfect mother, I just wanted a mother who cared about my nutrition and housing enough to give me to someone who would do something about it rather than hold onto me so she could feel motherly and use me to get into family housing help.
I can't stand the whole "I wasnt perfect " mantra they take, because literally no one asked them to be perfect. Im fact, we are asking them to own their imperfections and take accountability for causing us pain!
@@ptlovelight2971 yup! My parents weren’t/aren’t perfect and I have never even considered going no contact with either of them because when they mess up they own it, almost immediately.
@@ptlovelight2971 literally!! you tell them they've hurt you before and suddenly it's all "i'm so sorry i'm so horrible and can't be perfect" and "kids don't come with manuals" when no one was asking for perfection in the first place. we were just asking them to realize that they did something wrong before and maybe keep that in mind in the future so they don't hurt us in that way again. my mom got on my ass before about loving my dad more than her because i talk to him more but i told both of them that they hurt me deeply because of the way they raised me and my mom played the victim but my dad actually apologized and that was literally all i wanted
It's just a strawman to try to paint you as the unreasonable one. Pretending that your issue with them is a failure to meet the impossibly high standard of "perfect", when the reality is that your issue with them is their failure to meet the extremely low standard of "not awful".
It is always the same. They always claim we demanded perfection from them...
Doormat Mom: I offered to adjust my daughter's wedding dress just before the wedding.
Estranged Daughter: Doormat Mom called me fat so I cut her out of her life.
I expect her mother's backhanded insult was the straw that broke the daughter's threadbare patience.
I have no doubt that it was. The interaction I had with my father that led to me cutting him out of my life was not related to the reasons for estrangement. I had been thinking about it for a long time had opted not to because I felt there was still a lot to respect about him. The interaction I had with him showed me that I was wrong about that and that the value of keeping him in my life did not outweigh the harm he had done and was continuing to do. I know he still believes he did nothing wrong and fully blames me, and I'm happy to let him continue to live under that delusion, away from me.
What is it with mothers and their daughters' wedding dresses??!?! Mine called me a whore because I wanted a pale peach or pink instead of pure toothpaste white. I cried in the changing room while my sister did her darnedest to stand up for me
@@juniperberrymead Which wedding dress did you get: peach or pink?
@@CrispyCritter2023 neither, sadly. The one I ended up choosing was more like an eggshell, but it was a beautiful dress anyway, so it worked out. I still think a pink/peach color would have looked better with my skin tone but oh well
@@juniperberrymead Oh well.
John Bradshaw said it best way back in the 1980s about generational trauma, if you don't pass it back you pass it on.
This woman reminds me of a satirical song from Crazy Ex Girlfriend (the name of the show is part of the joke its not some kind of women suck show). The song was called "After everything I did for you that you didn't ask for" where the crux of the joke is a character is upset about her emotional manipulation of the main character is not being rewarded even though the main character never asked for it.
An iconic song 😂
"Trauma is relative" Spot on, that's a phrasing I've been looking for for a long time, it's exactly the kind of thing people who wield their hurts as a weapon and say "MY pain is bigger than YOUR pain" need to hear.
the "i'm telling you what's wrong and you have an excuse for everything" changed the composition of my brain lmao
The date she published the manifesto tells me everything I needed to know.
Estranged parents often make the same vile, vitriolic comments that spurned ex-lovers make. Probably from the same place of ego and perceived infallibility.
"But what is faith without accountability if not a weapon?" Yes, thank you. Whenever I try to discuss values with my father and any actions that are hurtful he always defaults to, "I'm a conservative, Christian man! My opinion is based on my close personal relationship with Jesus," because apparently that just means he's Right and the discussion is over.
yeh, my mother has spent her life going to church and considers her self ''good''. But over the years, it has been completely impossible to give her even the tiniest bit of feedback. Not talking about harsh criticism, i mean a request that she stop labelling me. But just that much is perceived by her as a vicious attack.
Mine usually says "Oh but I WORK, so you need to respect me"
Literally haven't lived with him 90% of my life and when I did that was like 20 years ago...not to mention he has never been to any job I've ever worked and has no clue about all the times where I was the bread winner for my own family (while being disabled..!) and he still has the nerve to call me lazy, when most of my life always involved ME doing the work of another person-- who didn't want to do anything..!
Parents like this will lie to you with a straight face about their kid's past and feel no remorse or qualms about it!
These "estranged parents" are all eerily similar and lack any empathy for the people they brought into the world.
When you remember even psychopaths can have children
No contact is a blessing and leads to a life of peace.
Did she say silenced into "submission"? A very telling way of describing a parent/child relationship.
Yep, I believe “silenced into submission” was it word for word!
Damn, doormat mom really went and was like, "Let me put in writing how much of a narcissistic parent I am."
I, for one, think it's pretty fucked up that her youngest daughter apparently sold her out to the Romans and had her nailed to a cross for uniting the people. Sooo ungrateful.
😂😂😂
Omg 😂😂
That Jesus guy, constantly whining about being tortured and killed by being nailed to a cross. Doesn't he realise that what he went through is nothing compared to her suffering?
I've not seen anywhere else the acknowledgement of the "walking on eggshells" thing. My dad used that line on me as well, and it stirred a lot of guilt in me because i WAS on a hair's trigger with him - but only because, after years and years of him not listening and putting himself first, i had had enough. Im so glad to have finally found an explanation for why he said that - and why it was true for him that he would have to "walk on eggshells" in order for us to have a healthy relationship.
25:40 I told her, for years. It was so destabilizing and demoralizing that I stopped trying. I tried to just have an arm’s-length relationship with her, but found that every time I saw her or spoke with her I would spiral afterwards. It would set me back weeks or months. It was such an exhausting delicate dance to grey rock all the time that I eventually figured out it wasn’t worth it. I had to go no-contact without having a final conversation about it, because I knew it would be a minefield of deflection, manipulation tactics, and possibly desperate, dangerous hail-Marys. Same story with my older sisters years before. She threatened to off herself.
What a hurtful and tiring process that must have been. The part about spiraling after seeing or spoking to her kind of resonates with me.
Good for you for going no contact, i hope you have more peace now!
The conversation you played at 26:40 is EXACTLY what happens when I try to tell my mom about her behavior. It's like the words aren't even entering her head. Thank you for communicating about this topic so clearly, there is a lot I can take from this video (as is with all of your videos)
I was always grateful and respectful to my parents, but I didn't know that feeling grateful and expressing that gratitude frequently, sincerely and happily wouldn't be enough, no, I was also expected to have no visible reaction to them hurting me. I didn't know that that was the way I was supposed to express my gratitude.
Yeah, “gratitude” is code for “You don’t deserve to have feelings or needs because you’re so indebted to me.”
@@Chucanelli I felt this in my soul.
I grayrocked my Birth Canal until the point that people used to say I was a very calm child. My female unit demanded that I let her help me and stop being secretive like a normal child.
I did know. It doesn't make it easier...
Doormat mom's words make my skin crawl, but they only validate the estrangement I have with my parents. To have someone this self-serving in your life will drain you until you're a shell of yourself.
"Toxic Parents" by Susan Forward. It's a short read, emotionally difficult, and is what led to the realization i needed to go no contact
“Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents”, by Lindsay Gibson is also an eye opening read.
I rarely talk to my mother, maybe once every couple of months, but she called me today and said "at least you didn't grow up to be a murderer" and expected me to take it as a compliment. There is no such thing as a normal conversation with her and I'm not sure if she will ever be able to admit that she's upset we don't have a relationship.
What the actual heck?! What a bizarre thing to say.
I don't get people at all.
Lean into it. Say “ as far as you know” or “ well about that, maybe that’s a conversation for another day”
Probably best to not speak to your mother at all.
All the best. 😊
Lmao if you didnt grow up to be a murderer thats all because of your own efforts, not because of your parents lousy parenting
"Appeared on Fox and Friends, Dr Phil, and Sean Hannity".
Tells me everything I need to know.
Yep. Between that and her antisemitism I knew she was super in the wrong
Jesus. Published on the week of her wedding. I had heard of this lady before but not this detail. Good god man.
11:29 btw I‘m loving this video so deeply and just wanted to clarify that the tricky part is that abusive people often are scared of what they are. They are still human after all so the doubt and regret will ALWAYS kick in but the parent will get over it and start deflect again.
I for example had to comfort my mom while she was crying after she had beat me up.
Honestly you shouldn’t have comforted her. I’m so sorry that happened to you btw. You should’ve let her sit with her actions, and perhaps she would’ve learned that physically abusing her child is a horrible thing to do
I think I was like 6 😂 one of my early memories of her
True, even abusers promise not to do it again, but following up with action is another story. 😢 sorry to hear what you went through
@@KillStealMusic Been there done that, but so very sorry you had to deal with that. Hope you’re doing well.
This is so interesting and so sad. Thanks for the reminder that they are human - sometimes their evil actions can be so hurtful and destructive, it's hard to believe. Dr Ana, your analysis was solid and insightful, thank you.
I'd have a more engaging conversation speaking to a brick wall than my Father. I maintain the peace for my Mother and the handful of possessions I can't keep in my apartment.
Also, congratulations on the pregnancy Dr. Ana! 🎉🎉
even the way these estranged parents talk about their kids is so full of hatred. they make it so clear they don't respect their kids at all and feel that their children owe them everything because they raised them. relationships are so transactional to these people. it's always "i did xyz for you, so you owe me respect, gratitude, etc". it's never "i love you and miss you and wish we could be close". because they don't love or miss their kids. they miss the idea of them.
As a parent, it feels so foreign to even attempt to imagine thinking like that. I view my job as a parent to bring what starts as a cute little bundle of useless human all the way to a fully functional adult, and then let her do her own thing where she owes me nothing. During that time I want to build enough of a connection with her that she will want to continue to be connected with me and be a part of my life once she's her own adult and makes her own decisions and has her own power.
Yes to all of this! Also just being able to witness my children grow from babies who know and can do nothing into fully individual and functional people is amazing. It feels like a gift to me just to be the one who gets a front row seat to watch these little humans grow from childhood to adulthood and get to help and love them along the way!!
@joannamarieart I actually enjoy witnessing the growing process so much that I don't even get people that say they wish their kid was back to x age or x point of life. I enjoyed those memories, but I looked so forward to what she's gonna be next that I don't want to freeze her at any point or have her revert
@@TRoninYT Yes 🥰🥰 I do miss things about my kids at younger ages, like infant snuggles and the cute ways they formed words when they were first learning to talk, but I'm also enjoying the older stages where they are getting old enough to watch and commentate on movies with me, we can play card and board games together, they tell me about their hopes and dreams for the future. I'm really looking forward to their teen and adult years as well
@joannamarieart Yeah I can definitely get missing those things. It might make me a little weird, but I'm actually looking forward to a lot of the teenage angst and whatever weird cringe things she gets into, cause I'm just looking forward to seeing what becomes of her little mind and personality
Exactly. I want my kids to WANT to come and see me. Not feel obligated to do so by guilt
Dmat mom released the book the week of the wedding because "it brought me comfort." Lady, try a hot beverage next time.
Narcissists all operate the same lmao. Cutting of my abusive parents saved my life, even my physical ailments and panic attacks stopped
Same here. I battled depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and SI. All gone after I went non-contact. Even after realizing how much of my life was lost to a) appeasing and obeying her and b) her sabotage and my internalized self-sabotage.
It was a long painful journey of self recovery.
19:22 they always conveniently skip over the exact next verse that says “parents do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the lord” picking and choosing over the text she claims to hold so dearly tells me all I need to know.
Waited till 14:50 wondering when we would find out that the “perfect” children were boys and the devalued child was the only daughter…
I think she has four children, and she only mentions "two brothers".
Gender can influence the relationship, but won't necessarily define it.
"What is faith without accountability if not a weapon?" WOW.
The first thing “Doormat Mom” says is “ignore what your children have requested and go to your grandkids’ recital anyway, you deserve it!”- so…. right out of the gate, all that matters is what SHE wants, and feels entitled to.
That’s the whole problem, right there.
They stomp all over other peoples boundaries to be abusive.... But god forbid someone enforce boundaries upon them. Its the most "disrespectful" thing you can do. To distance yourself from an asshole 😂
29:02 omg you’re pregnant?? That’s so sweet. Please don’t forget to take care of yourself and don’t over stress yourself
Thank you😊 right now I’m just trying to do as much as possible before the baby arrives, cause I don’t get maternity leave as self employed 😅
Classic. ‘Well all of MY friends agree with me and the way I do things so YOURE the weird/bad/wrong one!’ Typical narcissistic behavior.
And by "friends" they mean "flying monkeys"
I'm 41, I have a 13 year old son. Growing up i never heard my dad apologize or admit he was wrong. He considered it weakness, and if he showed us weakness he believed we would exploit it somehow.
I will freely admit to my son when I mess up, or when I am just wrong. I've had to humble myself more than once when I didn't listen to my kid and ended up being completely in the wrong.
I think about how to be a better dad a lot. I want to be the dad I needed and the dad HE needs me to be, so he can grow up and be an amazing adult and do amazing things.
Admitting when we are wrong is hard sometimes, but seeing us as human and realizing even our parents mess up is healthy for our kids. A parent asking a child for forgiveness can be a powerful moment in a child's life.
I hope your parameters for “amazing” are quite broad, because if not, that’s a lot of pressure to put on a child. Especially in such a twisted world.
I can appreciate that Dr.Ana checked Dormat Mom at the door with the fair-use explanation, and verbalizing that she’d explain the situation to her followers if doormat mom tried to sue her.
Smart of her to realize the type of person Doormat mom is and how she’d likely react in the face of criticism.
Whenever I've seen accounts where the adult child actually WAS the inciting factor (which are VERY rare in comparison to accounts where the parent was), the parent was very compassionate and didn't spin it as a "one versus the other" issue. You can tell just from their demeanor and their language, even when they try to lie or spin it as the child's fault, when they were the inciting factor
Good parent or bad parent, no one is entitled to time with their grandchildren
This video really hits home. My grandma "cut me off" a couple of years ago, after scapegoating me for around 11 years after our grandad died. I became the punching bag and the target for her snide remarks and my self-esteem was really damaged by it all. When I finally stood up to her (in a reasonable, non-shouty way) because my mum was on the verge of death with cancer and I said my mum takes priority over her, wow. All the anger. How dare I stand up to her? She said and I quote: "I'm the alpha here", "your grandad would be so disappointed in you", "you liar", "you're going to give me a heart attack" etc. She decided to cut me off without saying anything and then said via my brother if I apologise, I would be allowed back in to her good graces. What the hell do I need to apologise for? I mulled over for years if I was a bad person for not apologising and getting sucked back into the same unhealthy dynamic, but I see now that the fact I was considering where my wrongdoings were in the interaction and that she vehemently denies any wrongdoing or contribution means that I'm the reasonable one. So thanks for providing a sensible, well-articulated perspective on estrangement that has helped me put that guilt down and move on with my life.
That was terrifying but also assuring. I had to cut both my parents out of my life for behaviours like this that would have stolen my life away if I'd stay
You hit the nail on the head. Its very cathartic to watch these people employ abusive tactics without being emotionally connected to them. It's like they all read the same manual and its truly freeing to know it wasn't all my fault.
Glad to see this addressed. No mentally healthy person would tell someone they cared about to stay in a toxic or abusive relationship but anytime it comes to the parents a large portion of people will vilify you "cause they're your parents. They were doing the best they could so you owe them." Give me a break.
Being in the same boat as her estranged daughter my sister sees our childhood through rose tinted glasses cause most of her abuse was emotional while mine was physical and emotional. She still downplays it even though the effects on her are obvious. We didn't have to do anything wrong. My dad just had to be in a bad mood to take it out on us. As adults my dad always justified his abuse "cause raising kids is hard and you can't go easy on them or they won't respect you." ...and my sister defends his actions. I have gone no contact for 12 years and while my life is not great it is much more peaceful since I made that decision.
Ths hits close to home, especially how the mother would act so wronged and hurt when her child would even dare to suggest that she did something wrong. That was and still is my experience.
"Did it kiled a large part of my braincells? Yes" 🤣
Damn, I'm hoping her daughter had a great wedding and is okay.
To all children who are considering parent estrangement: go for it. In my case, it was needed for my parent to hit their own lowest point to go to therapy for addiction and change their life around. Worst case, you will get someone who's supposed to be a source of love and kindness for you and instead was a horrible person to be gone from your life. Best case, they'll try to go to therapy to understand what's happened, and they will change for better. It's a win-win scenario.
Thank you so much for doing this video. I needed to hear it.
I just wanted to add that if you’ve been scapegoated by your family, the trauma, especially if it’s bad, that you experience in their presence makes you treat them differently it makes you protect yourself. So for anyone to say “sometimes they come out bad” … If someone keeps on burning you, you’re gonna protect yourself and not let your true light shine when you’re around them.
Ohhhh, so doormat mom insulted her daughter's wedding dress choices, and then used the offer of a dress alternation to try to guilt trip her daughter?! Shocking that that wouldn't work.
*The entitlement is strong with this one.*
@@Mad_Maximus7 Surrender to the will of the E-Force.
I'm just a minute in and what she says makes me filled with rage. I was estranged from my mother and tried my whole life to prevent it! She went ahead with the abuse and neglect and gaslighting me into being my mother alone should make me love her unconditionally.
'was' because she already died and that she's gone actually felt relieving. Because all the other relatives asked why I was so distant. I fled to safe my sanity and life while everyone turned a blind eye to my suffering.
Hearing the doormat, I just can see my mother whining and it fills me with rage!
Maybe the situation here isn't so bad when I continue the video... but if it is then... GOOD for her daughter! May she keep her children safe from her mother and potential to inflict those wounds on them, too!
8:56 Shoutout to all my fellow scapegoats 🐐
I needed this today after a bad Christmas at my moms that left me driving 6 hours home that day. The discussion about the word “ungrateful” really validated me. Thank you.
Even to a lesser degree: guilting adult children into visiting more, communicating more, etc. My husband's family does this even though that stuff goes two directions. They use our 3 year old nephew as a guilt trip to try to get us to come over more often. We visit as often as we can but have our own lives. You just can't take it personally. You have to be very self aware to be a good parent. I've become super aware of my behavior and i don't have kids yet.
This could be written by my own step mom, this is crazy. Thank you for everything you said in this video. I was told i made my parents "walk on eggshells", when i was just reacting to narcissistic abuse
Congratulations!!! Watching new life spark into being and grow from a tiny little baby to a walking talking unique human being is the most amazing thing I have ever experienced. My "baby" is now 9. The time flies but it's the best! And he doesn't owe me anything. If he ever had to stay away from me to protect *himself, I would be ashamed and heartbroken that I'd hurt him and get to work ASAP. Parental instinct feels so different for some people. So much of it is universal, but then sometimes we are reminded of how it definitely isn't felt and experienced the same for everyone.
Again, congratulations!
Been going to a therapist with my mum (kill me) and I said how her not defending us from other abusive family when we were kids was messed up. Her response was "I don't know how to defend myself" to which the therapist replied "you shouldn't be defending yourself - that's the point." And I could see her brain break. Didn't compute.
These people don't change. They choose not to. Loving yourself and even loving them is letting them go. If everything they claimed about you was true and they truly loved you as they say, they would let you go, too.
If you're such a weight on their shoulders, why are they holding you down so tightly?
Even though you only mentioned the good enough parent theory or what ever in a side note, I’m really grateful you did. It is basically the anwser to a question I’ve tried to find a anwser for a really long time. The ethical dilemma of having a child. My mom for example clearly had me for selfish reasons with realising how selfish and destructive she’s been to me. I still love her though and she’s lately started to realise and acknowledge the ways she failed. I’d never want to put a child into the same position I was in. So I’ve always asked my self what would be an actual good, non selfish, reason to have a child. And I think that theory provides the only answer to that question.
There is no unselfish reason for having a child, and I say this as someone who has very intentionally had three children. It’s very sad that we live in a world where acknowledging that we are selfish is seen as some sort of unforgivable sin. Humans are inherently selfish, in the sense that our top priority, before we can consider anything else, is our own survival. This is probably even more true for women than it is for men, given the way humans reproduce, and the massively important role that mothers play in the lives of children, compared to fathers. Essentially, if a woman is not safe, her children have no chance, so she must make sure her needs are met before she can consider the needs of her children. Now, if humans lived the way we evolved to live, in small band hunter-gatherer societies, there would be many other humans around who could help take care of a mother so that she didn’t have to always worry about meeting her needs alone(or with just one other person who also has the potential to cause her harm, i.e., a man). But we haven’t lived like this in about 10,000 years, and it is unfair and unrealistic, bordering on delusional, to expect a mother to be some sort of self sacrificing, godlike entity that controls everything that happens to and around her children. Women do have so much innate potential to be “selfless” IF there are enough other people around to help take care of her, especially when her children are very young. Unless that ever becomes a reality again, which I can’t imagine happening, we need to try and remember that mothers are human.
"Like all vagabonds do" *First Degree Sarcasm Level 17 Reached*
The retracting the blessing 😂
As soon as a parent pops off with any kind of jealousy that's not an adult, that's someone who is arrested emotionally with a dependent personality aka a nightmare
"The best differentiator between a good parent and a bad one is their ability to consider that they may have done something wrong in the situation." Thank you. THANK YOU. As an adult child estranged from both my parents, and myself a parent wary of repeating the cycle, this sentence was a huge relief for me, a beacon of validation in a dark night of self-doubt
Doormat mom was 100% the problem and no one can convince me otherwise 😂
This is scary because my mom tells me she is writing her memoirs too and I'm horrified to think what she will write about me in that book and how inaccurate it will be.
Oof I hope she’s familiar with libel laws first!
My mom is an aspiring author, so I get that. Luckily for me she likes to use her protagonist as her placeholder for herself in her writing, so if I'm made into a villain in her story, well, no one would be the wiser. I'm still not going to read her books though for my own mental health
Same. It’s a story about her life and I read some of it. All it is is “I this” and “I that” there is no emphasis on anyone involved. It was like being a paper doll.
I am 55 mother of 4 and respect is earned both ways.
Right? Many parents act ike the parent-child relationship is one-way street. You can't mistreat somebody and expect them to swallow it forever.
Didn't even push play. "Ungrateful". Yeah. It's the word all these narcissistic uses. I thibk this is the core of narcissism. Picturing their kids as being ungrateful.
The core of these people is putting on a façade for other people to praise them for it. They’ll never see others or family as worthy of their respect unless everyone does everything they want
I'm only one minute into this video and I have to say, I live a world away from my mom. Literally an ocean separates us. I still call her every week because I love her. When children go estranged there's a reason.
4:05 “Respect, loyalty, and gratitude” are earned. It is a two way street!
4:35 This comes off as an attempt at wish fulfillment.
Specifically, she feels she will manifest what is not so by constantly repeating to herself that it is so… an attempt to actualize the validation she so desperately seeks.
The question that follows is simple: *Why?*
I love when you talk about family and friendships (relationships) and how difficult it can be for people.
And emotional regulation as well.
Thanks for those videos.
I'm so grateful for your commentary Dr. Ana. You do such a good job teasing out actual abuse from hurt feelings. It's hard to distinguish sometimes.
"Some kids are born bad"?! Holy hell. I feel like this is fairly common and it terrifies me. What even IS " bad"? In most cases it seems to mean inconvenient. :(
I didn't have the words to explain to my mother how her decisions affected me at 16. All I knew was that I had been hurt, I had been abused, and the abuse and hurt that I had suffered had manifested themselves into psychological issues I still suffer from all these years later. I never explained the reasons for the estrangement to her, but my dad has, and she told him that he brainwashed me and my brother.
I will never believe that children are required to spell out exactly where a parent went wrong. Children should never be responsible for teaching their guardians accountability and emotional regulation.
My father remarried after I cut contact and the woman he married is the woman I now call my mother. She is not perfect and it can be awkward, but my mom now loves me so fiercely. Even when we are at odds, I don’t feel like the argument will spin out into retaliation. We argue and have bad days and still I am able to find comfort and safety in her. My birth mother has never put in the effort to do that, not when I was small, and not now. I am not missing anything from the distance.
I completely agree on the fact that when rarely children display some toxic behaviors towards their parents for no valid reason, a good parents never attacks the kid. My sister is bipolar and been so harsh and abusive towards our mother for years, but all what mom does is trying to always be supportive , blame herself and wonder what she might ve done wrong.
My sister for sure didn’t get her bipolarity gene 🧬 triggered out of the blue, and there should be something that we maybe ignore. But it’s amazing how a good parent will always defend their children and question themselves first ❤ not write a book to play the victim.