+
“A balm for the soul”
  review on Goodreads
GOOD PEOPLE Book
upworthy

Modern Families

Modern Families

15 'habits' of people who grew up with an 'emotionally fragile' parent

Having an emotionally fragile parent can leave lasting damage.

via The Mighty

If you grew up with an "emotionally fragile" parent, chances are, you didn't have the typical, idyllic childhood you often see in movies.

Maybe your parent lived with debilitating depression that thrust you into the role of caregiver from a very young age.

Maybe your parent was always teetering on the edge of absolute rage, so you learned to tiptoe around them to avoid an explosion. Or maybe your parent went through a divorce or separation, and leaned on you for more emotional support than was appropriate to expect of a child.

Growing up with an emotionally fragile parent can leave lasting damage on a person as they leave childhood and enter adulthood.

Though it's true many kids who grow up with emotionally compromised or neglectful parents struggle with their mental health in adulthood, it's important to remember parents seldom set out to abuse their kids.

Oftentimes they simply do not have the support or resources to care for their own mental health. If you are a parent struggling with your mental health, we want you to know there is no shame in struggling, but it's important to seek the support you need.

Our partners at The Mighty wanted to know what "habits" people who grew up with emotionally fragile parents have now as adults, so they asked their community to community to share their experiences with us.

Here's are the "habits" our community shared with us:

1. Constantly Apologizing"

"Constantly apologizing is just one of many things I do as a result of an 'emotionally fragile' parent. Another is panic and, again, apologize if someone looks at their watch or checks the time when I am doing something, particularly if shopping. It is why I prefer to be alone and do things at my own pace, the anxiety and fear such an innocent thing like checking the time because of me is horrible." — Jodie B.

"Constantly apologizing for normal things like having an opinion and crying, bending over backwards to please everyone and keep the peace, not standing up for myself because when I did at home I'd get blown up at, etc." — Natalie J.

2. Overthinking

"I overthink everything all of the time because I'm trying to prepare myself for the next thing you will be disappointed in." — Faith L.

3. Always Feeling Afraid of Upsetting Others

"Not talking or doing anything for fear of getting into trouble or making people upset. Feeling like you can't move or speak without permission, even amongst your closet friends." — Rye B.

4. Having "Control Issues"

"I have huge control issues because I felt responsible for everyone's feelings. My father had a hairpin trigger temper and my mother was a perpetual victim, so I tried to micromanage every little thing to keep him from exploding, and protect her. Now I have debilitating anxiety and it becomes worse if I feel like something is out of my control. Because if I can't control everything, then something might upset someone, and it'll be my fault and not only will I be in trouble, but no one will love me. It's exhausting." — Murphy M.

5. Being a "Parent" for Others

"Be the mom for all my group friends. The mature person who will be there to give you the advice someone else can't." — Gladys M.

"Automatically parent everybody because I had to do it my whole life, but then I break down when it comes to trying to take care of myself." — Chloe L.

6. Struggling to Make Decisions

"I have a hard time making choices, or having an opinion. When you spent your whole childhood, teens and part of your 20s without the ability to choose things for yourself, you either feel guilty, or really uncomfortable having an opinion. Because you feel like you're going to get in trouble, or you're going to have a panic attack." — Kaylee L.

7. Ignoring Your Own Feelings

"I feel like I always have to fix everyone, take care of everyone, control everything. I feel like I have to ignore my feelings, and I have a hard time reaching out to people." — Kayla O.

"[I] try so hard to hide my feelings rather than rock the boat." — Jodi A.

8. Being a "People-Pleaser"

"I find it impossible to talk about how I feel. I constantly try make others happy, even if it means hurting myself. But I grew up with a dad who was both physically and emotionally abusive." — Jamie J.

"Being a people-pleaser. I do a lot of 'fawning' now because I always had to watch what I said in case it triggered either severe depression or anger." — Sela M.

9. Feeling Like You're a Supporting Role in Your Own Life

"I always feel like I'm just playing a small supporting role in the great drama of other people's lives instead of my life being a story of my own. I have a really hard time believing my feelings are valid and matter." — Susanna L.

10. Constantly Fearing Abandonment

"Constantly fearing abandonment… And no matter how much reassurance I get, I keep waiting for the moment where that love disappears." — Monika S.

11. Overanalyzing the Behavior of Others

"I overanalyze how people talk and their body language. When you're used to looking for small clues to try to make life easier or prepare for a meltdown, it's… a hard habit to break." — Lexi R.

12. Pushing People Away

"I push people away when I hit my depression low since that's what my mom did. I'm trying to learn how to let people in but it's hard to do at times and I never know how to tell people." — Jennifer B.

13. Getting Offended Easily

"My daughter would say I cry too much and get offended too easily, and she isn't wrong." — Kat E.

14. Cleaning Up After Others

"Cleaning other people's homes while you're there because you grew up cleaning up after everyone because your parents didn't clean." — Des S.

15. Being Very Empathetic

"Yes there has been some negative impact but I also recognize that I learned how to be empathetic at a really young age. I remember my mom crying — I was only about 3 years old — and I went and got her the stuffed bear she had in her room." — Lauren A.

If you grew up having to take care of an emotionally fragile parent, you're not alone. Whether you're struggling to assert boundaries in your life, have trouble communicating your needs or don't know how to take care of yourself, we want you to know there's a community of people who want to support you in your recovery journey.


The article was originally published by our partners at the Mighty and was written by Juliette Virzi. It first appeared here on 8.19.19

From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
Family

Wife cooks nachos for 'picky' husband who refused to eat her salmon. But she has a point.

Should she be cooking two meals?

via TheMamaBrianna/TikTok

Brianna Greenfield makes nachos for her husband.

A viral video showing a woman preparing nachos for her "picky" spouse after he refused to eat the salmon dinner she cooked has sparked a contentious debate on TikTok. The video was shared on April 26 by Brianna Greenfield (@themamabrianna on TikTok) and has since earned over 2.5 million views.

Brianna is a mother of two who lives in Iowa.

The video starts with Brianna grating a massive hunk of cheese with a caption that reads: “My husband didn’t eat the dinner that I made…So let’s make him some nachos.”

“If I don’t feed him, he literally won’t eat,” she wrote. “This used to irritate me. Now I just blame his mother for never making him try salmon,” Greenfield wrote. The video features Meghan Trainor’s single “Mother” playing in the background.

At the end of the video, she hands her husband a huge plate of nachos while he lies on the couch under a blanket.

The video received over 11,000 comments on TikTok, primarily people saying that she shouldn’t have made a second meal for her husband and that he appears to be entitled.

@themamabrianna

Moral of the story: always serve your kids allllll the food, even if they say they dont like it after the first time. 25 years from now your child’s spouse will thank you. 😉 #momsoftiktok #momtok #momlife #workingmom #sahm #marriedlife #marriage #marriagehumor #wifelife #wivesoftiktok #happywifehappylife #pickyeater #pickyhusband #nachosfordinner #wivesoftiktok #cuisinartairfryer #humpday #guesswhatdayitis🐪 #guesswhatdayitis #eattherainbow

"If my husband came home after I cooked dinner and told me he wasn’t eating it to make something else I’d laugh in his face," Rebecca Rose wrote. "This ain't a marriage it's a caretaker internship," Ad Trèz added.

"It got worse with him wrapped in the blanket being served," Lauren Becker wrote. "Ohhh...now I know what people mean when they refer to 'the ick,'" Tara Townsend commented, referencing the moment when people realize that their attraction to someone has turned to repulsion.

However, Brianna believes that people are missing the point of her video.

"Moral of the story: always serve your kids allllll the food, even if they say they don't like it after the first time. 25 years from now your child’s spouse will thank you," she captioned the post.

Brianna wasn’t trying to paint her husband as infantile but call attention to the fact that when parents don’t expose their children to different types of food, they can wind up with a relatively unsophisticated palette. She knew he didn't like salmon when she made the dinner for her and her kids, so it wasn't a surprise that he didn't want it.

“If you have parents who don’t really like to try anything new, you will also be exposed to fewer new foods,” Marcia Pelchat, Ph.D. told Self—adding that the reverse is also true. When we have positive experiences with new foods, we are more likely to try unfamiliar tastes in the future.

Even though many took shots at Brianna and her husband, they took it all in stride and aren’t bothered by people who don’t know them.

"Thankfully, my husband and I have an excellent sense of humor and know the truth (that he is a wonderful husband and even better father), so we just think the reaction is genuinely entertaining,” she told Newsweek. “Some of the rude comments are hilariously clever!"

After the first video went viral, she posted another where she serves him macaroni and cheese, while he lays on the couch, under a blanket with numerous electronic devices around him.

@themamabrianna

Replying to @cokedoutsoccermom hot damn🔥 #momsoftiktok #momtok #momlife #workingmom #sahm #marriedlife #marriage #marriagehumor #wifelife #wivesoftiktok #happywifehappylife #pickyeater #pickyhusband #eattherainbow #macandcheese

This article originally appeared on 7.16.23

From Your Site Articles
marriage
Family

I told a kid a riddle my dad told me when I was 7. His answer proves how far we've come.

This classic riddle takes on new meaning as our world changes for the better.


When I was 7, my dad told me a riddle.

"A man and his son are driving in their car when they are hit by a tractor-trailer.

Photo via iStock.

(We were driving at the time, so of course this was the riddle he decided to tell.)

The father dies instantly.

The son is badly injured. Paramedics rush him to the hospital.

Photo via iStock.

As he is being wheeled into the operating room, the surgeon takes one look the boy and says:

'I can't operate on him. He's my son.'

How is that possible?!"

Without missing a beat, I answered:

"The doctor is his mom!"

Photo via iStock.

My dad first heard the riddle when he was a child in the '60s.

Back then, most women didn't work outside of the home.

Few of those who did had college degrees, much less professional degrees.

Female doctors were few and far between.

Back then, it was a hard riddle. A very hard riddle.

By 1993, when I first heard it, the notion that women could be highly skilled, highly trained professionals wasn't so absurd.

To me, it was normal.

I knew women who were lawyers. Bankers. Politicians. My own doctor was a woman.

To be sure, women still faced challenges and discrimination in the workplace. And even 20 years later, they still do.

But at its core, the riddle is about how a family can work. And that had changed. Long-overdue progress had rendered the big, sexist assumption that underpinned the whole thing moot.

A very hard riddle was suddenly not a riddle at all.

I never forgot it.

Now, I'm 30 — almost as old as my dad was he first told me that riddle.

My dad at 30 (left) and me at 30. Photos by Eric March/Upworthy and Mary March, used with permission.

I don't have kids, but I mentor a child through a volunteer program.

Once a week, we get together and hang out for an hour. We play ping pong, do science experiments, and write songs. Neither of us like to go outside.

It's a good match.

One day, we decided to try to stump each other with riddles.

He rattled off about five or six.

I could only remember one: The one about the man, his son, and the surgeon.

Photo via iStock.

I thought it would be silly to tell it.

I was sure that, if it was easy in 1993, it would be even easier in 2014. Kind of ridiculous, even.

But a part of me was curious.

It had been 21 years — almost as long as it had been between when my dad first heard the riddle and when he shared it with me.

Maybe it wouldn't be so easy.

Maybe I was missing something obvious, making my own flawed assumptions about how a family could work.

Maybe the world had changed in ways that would be second nature to a 13-year-old but not to me.

So I began:

"A man and his son are driving in their car, when they are hit by a tractor-trailer. The father dies instantly. The son is badly injured and is rushed to the hospital by paramedics. As he is being wheeled into the operating room, the surgeon takes one look at the boy and says:

'I can't operate on him. He's my son.'

How is that possible?!"

Without missing a beat, he answered: "it's his other dad"

Photo via iStock.

Times change. Progress isn't perfect. But no matter what shape a family takes, at the end of the day, #LoveWins.


This article was written by Eric March and originally appeared on 06.21.16

From Your Site Articles
Family

Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis admit they don't bathe themselves or their kids very often

An interesting approach to cleanliness...

via Wikimedia Commons

The water bill at the Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis residence appears to be pretty low after recent revelations the couple made about their family's bathing habits.

In a recent appearance on Dax Shepard's "Armchair Expert" podcast, they admitted they're not that into bathing themselves or their two children, Dimitri Portwood, 4, and Wyatt Isabelle, 6.

The conversation started when Shepard explained his ongoing disagreement with co-host Monica Padman. The two have dissenting views over whether people should use soap. "You should not be getting rid of all the natural oil on your skin with a bar of soap every day," he said. "It's insane."

Kunis agreed with Shepard and was very candid about her bathing ritual. "I don't wash my body with soap every day," she shared. "But I wash pits and tits and holes and soles."

"I can't believe I'm in the minority here of washing my whole body in the shower," Padman replied. "Who taught you to not wash?"

"I didn't have hot water growing up as a child," Kunis recalled, "so I didn't shower very much anyway." Kunis was born in the then-Soviet controlled Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi in 1983. Her family migrated to America when she was seven.

Kutcher added that he regularly uses soap and water on just his "armpits and crotch" and "nothing else."

Kunis has passed her lax attitude towards bathing on to her children.

"When I had children," she said, "I also didn't wash them every day. I wasn't the parent that bathed my newborns—ever." Shepard agreed, saying that he and wife Kristen Bell only bathe their children as part of a nighttime routine and don't pay much attention to their cleanliness.

"That's how we feel about our children. We're like, 'Oof, something smells,'" Kunis added. Kutcher has a simple rule when it comes to his children and their cleanliness. "Here's the thing — if you can see the dirt on 'em, clean 'em," he says. "Otherwise, there's no point."

While the Kutcher-Kunis clan's approach towards hygiene may not be typical of the average American family, they may not be wrong according to science. Research suggests that children benefit from being exposed to germs early in life.

"This line of thinking, called the 'hygiene hypothesis,' holds that when exposure to parasites, bacteria, and viruses is limited early in life, children face a greater chance of having allergies, asthma, and other autoimmune diseases during adulthood," WebMD says.

Basically, the more your body is exposed to the more it can fight off.

"Just as a baby's brain needs stimulation, input, and interaction to develop normally, the young immune system is strengthened by exposure to everyday germs so that it can learn, adapt, and regulate itself," notes Thom McDade, PhD, associate professor and director of the Laboratory for Human Biology Research at Northwestern University.

As for Kutcher and Kunis, they both share the same attitude when it comes to hygiene so nobody in the relationship has the right to complain if the other is a little funky. If it works for them, who are we to judge?


This article originally appeared on 7.28,.21

From Your Site Articles
parenting
Trending Stories