Why Do Parents Hate Their Kids?

[MomOfTwo]

Raven,
I am sure being a military kid was hard. It would be hard to maintain or have friendships if you were moving around a lot. I think my parents moved an average of once every couple of years. It sucked. I remember going to church and I don't remember much but I remember singing to myself a lot the song "Jesus loves me". I remember thinking Jesus did love me and I remember having a imaginary friend who always told me that everything was going to be ok. I remember him being old and I could see him. I remember him well. I have never told my therapist about him. He was the only positive influence in my life when I was very young. I have read a few books about spirit guides and wonder about that or maybe I just had a great and creative imagination and created what I needed in my mind. I don't remember when I stopped seeing him.

It is too bad that your kindergarten teacher was not able to get you out of that situation. I think years ago teachers did not intervene and many still do not but now there are more regulations then there were years ago. My sister always said that it is worse when kids are taken out of the home but I disagree. I think if children are being abused at every level then they just need to be out of the home. People who abuse children need to have stiffer penalties and I think should be held accountable even years down the road. They should have to pay for therapy and their pensions should be penalized to do so.

 

[Abstract]

it is impossible to treat other people better than you treat yourself.

Gosh I don't know. I understand your reasoning eleanore but this isnt the case for me at all. I always treat others better than myself and always have.

I treat others well. I have almost had to learn to loosen up and not and be more human sometimes. And part of that is because I have had to consider myself, my needs - something very foreign. I even had understanding and attunement to others emotional states and wellbeing when I had none for myself.

Maybe some of that is about being able to separate ones own emotional state from how one wants to be. And maybe that helps in parenting others too. I never had children so I am not qualified to say. Although I feel I partially parented my siblings.

 

[raven123]

Eleanor, "it is impossible to treat other people better than you treat yourself."

Yeah, it is possible. I did it for a long, long time. I was taught I didn't matter and everyone else did.

Momof2, I moved every 2 years after kindergarten. We moved twice in kindergarten. Military kids were openly discriminated against by civilian schools. They probably just didn't care. Mom said the only one that ever said anything was the kindergarten teacher. They also wanted to hold me back and my sperm donor refused. I hated school. I was bullied a lot, too.

 

[Philippa]

I'm the same raven... after having so many people take and not give anything back, I've turned cold to all but the ones who I deem worthy. Here I get to give on my own terms as much as I choose to give of myself and my time and energy. I have gotten better at checking in with myself and not falling for peoples manipulations when I don't continue to give them what they need and want. I'm better at living with being considered mean by people now if I don't give of myself. It's important to always ask yourself "Do I WANT to give this person ....?" instead of doing it out of obligation or habit, or needing to please.

 

[Eleanor]

Sorry, didn't mean to take the conversation in a totally different direction. :( Hmmmm. You guys have made me think a bunch about this treating others better than myself thing (would be happy to give it up, and maybe I should just restrict it to me...) When I really think about it I think I was trying to say something a little more complicated and a lot more specific than I actually said.

I wasn't, for example, talking about practical things like letting them sleep longer, taking better care of them when they are sick, making sure they take their medicine on time, making sure they aren't wearing hole-y underwear, etc. I demonstrably do better for everyone else on this front than I do for myself.

I think what I meant was more like "I cannot give other people more emotional consideration than I give myself." For example, for a long time I thought I just shouldn't ever be angry, and I couldn't "hear" or respect anyone else's anger. I would just shut it out (denial is raised to a true art form in my family.) Or I would disapprovingly walk away. What I couldn't do was to deal with it honestly, *I think* because I couldn't deal with my own anger honestly. Another example: I used to "never get my feelings hurt" That is to say, nothing people did/said to me would hurt my feelings (well, they would, but I was a samurai level stuffer of feelings.) In retrospect, I knew I hurt exactly three people's feelings during this time (about 20 years...) and I recall them because I accidentally said something really cutting and they SHOWED their hurt pretty obviously. And I am not generally a mean spirited person, so I noticed those, but I can also be pretty sarcastic and abrasive and so I am sure I cut a wide swath of bruised feelings in those years. But I couldn't see my hurt feelings, so it was hard to see theirs. I guess that is pretty different than what I said above.:cautious::notworthy:

Gosh, you guys have got me thinking now (dangerous) and maybe it is really more like having "pockets" where I am kind of "aspergers-y" with respect to others - I can know and operate on a more or less mechanical "rule" but I don't actually "get" it. The example that comes to mind is from the movie about Temple Grandin - her family taught her manners so when she meets someone for the first time she always says (mechanically) "Hi, (insert name here) I'm Temple Grandin, glad to meet you." She knows and acts on the rule, but she doesn't actually "get" the thing, so she can't really use it appropriately, and she forgets a lot. It is the noticing that is the really difficult thing to change. So, in the places where I'm seriously deficient at dealing with me, I am (at best) kind of a rule-following novice at dealing with other people. That seems about right.

In any case, the point I intended to make was that it is difficult(impossible?) to love other people if you hate yourself. And I would add that it is possible to feel shame,self-disgust, guilt and still have that root of self love. After all, the only basis for feeling these emotions is a judgment that "I am better than this, I can act better than this, and I can created better outcomes than this." They are red flags, for reflection and change. Or at least that is what they should be, and thus they should (like all alert signals) be short lived. When they go on and on, and there is nothing to be done, they become bars in a prison of misery and then you can be sure something is seriously out of whack. The consequence is that the more/better we love ourselves, the better we can love others.

It's important to always ask yourself "Do I WANT to give this person ....?" instead of doing it out of obligation or habit, or needing to please.

I agree with this totally. At the end of the first workshop I did with my T (something about authentic language) she invited us all to promise ourselves that we would say "no" to anything we were not willing to say a total "YES!" to. I made the promise and I've broken it any number of times since then, but it set a standard that has been very very useful in getting conscious about what I am feeling, and what is *really* motivating my actions.

 

[Don't trip]

Phillipa,

What you're doing is called BOUNDARIES, something many of us DON'T have when coming out of childhood abuse. It's sad that we perceive having boundaries and protecting ourselves as being "cold" to others, because it's really not.

The world has changed drastically over the last several years, our political and social climate is NOT helping with perpetuation of hatred between classes, races, women, you name it. Stigmas are tossed about like a soccer ball during a game, ya know? I think there are others who are not "worthy' of us. It's safer to trust few, rather than many. I think that's common sense and I like your approach.

Eleanor, wow. This thread has been very enlightening for me with so many here having a lot of wisdom and differences of approach. Mom, I too have worked with teenagers and was a foster parent, despite the way I beat the crap out of myself as a parent here, I was a neighborhood block Mom and never turned down kids who had no place to go, or who had parents who didn't love, nor care for them. My son is gay and his friends knew they could 'come out of the closet' to me, and I was the very first person (adult) they ever told. Some of these kids had extremist religious parents who kicked them out of their homes because the kid was gay. Nice? NO, not nice, it's abuse. One of these kids ultimately committed suicide.
I loved them all. I still do. I see these kids from time to time, they visit and yet now they have lives of their own. I cared for them because no one else would. I know what that's like. I poured myself into it because I wanted them to know that there were people who cared, that there was a safe place for them to go. I wanted to make a difference because none had been made for me, even though I was completely messed up.

Those kids knew i loved them. My children know that too.

I do think it's possible to loathe one's self and still love your children. That sounds contradictory, but I guess it depends on the person and what they are willing to do about the pain they caused. Making amends with my children has been a number one priority for me in recovery. It's because I love them, that I'm willing to go through the painful purging of listening to their hearts and how they were broken. I know that during the times I was with my ex, even though I was very much 'involved' with him through the abuse cycles, there were traumatic events that occurred to my children in which I was able to be emotionally and physically present for them. I knew enough to at least do that.

One of the things I share with survivors who are still involved with their abusers, is "If you can't do it for yourselves, PLEASE consider doing it for your children." Some of these women are so trauma bonded (addicted) to their abusers, they forget that the children are equally as affected. You wouldn't believe how much resistance there is to this. It's as if the children don't matter, even if she is not being directly abusive to them, her neglect is and the child is being subjected to the abuse by the abuser. Abuse comes with tons of drama. There is no way to avoid your child being hurt.

Eleanor, through all the times of abuse, while I was with my abusers, I deeply loved my children, even though my actions said I hated myself and that is true, I did hate myself. I'm not sure I buy into the idea that you can't love if you don't love yourself. But then again, I know a lot of abusers and their partners, who are unable to make amends to their children because they feel 'so guilty". To me THAT is sad.

I think love for my children now, is expressed in my willingness to be there for them and to do whatever it takes to help them heal. A gift I wish my own parents had given to me. I would easily have forgiven them. It would have taken awhile to trust, but i would have forgiven them. Children love their parents. They are so forgiving. So much healing can happen when a parent expresses love, even into adulthood by asking forgiveness and then SHOWING them that they can trust. It has taken two years to develop this with my children through my own changes and we are not there yet, but we've come a long way.

Anyway, just wanted to share that...

 

[Mercy]

I am trying to learn how to access right brain cognitively. Honest. But so far it is beyond me.

:D
I have only one word for that - oxymoron....

A comment, a poser,a question,a query. I am an artist (originally I spelled it arsesit) and extremely visual. I guess that means I'm very right brained. Ilove looking at sunlight reflected on rain washed tree. No wonder I get distracted. I am so busy apprecating the things I see.

One example is I don't finish little things, like washing the bathroom, if I am interrupted. Afterward, I have completely forgotten anything about cleaning the bathroom until I use it. Makes my kids crazy. I'll propose a dinner menu at breakfast and we will agree. Then comes the evening with its suicidal ideation, almost 100% of the time I have forgotten that we even had a conversation. I tried writing it down but by the time I find the pen and paper, H has started a different conversation and poof whatever it was is gone. I could used more left brain. The Question is, "How can I acquire and remember left brain thinking and doing. Maybe that's why I am so awed by Ms Spock and Albatross.

 

[safenow]

Raven,

I'm not sure if I sent this to you or not. It is a message we wrote to you that I found in our diary this morning. Anyway, here it is. I hope it helps.

[DLMURL]https://www.ptsdforum.org/c/threads/how-it-all-began.30110/page-31#post-528710[/DLMURL]

 

[safenow]

For those who want to draw on the right side of the brain more, I recommend this book: I am an artist, and this book really helped : Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: The Definitive, 4th Edition.

 

[Pencil]

So, in the places where I'm seriously deficient at dealing with me, I am (at best) kind of a rule-following novice at dealing with other people. That seems about right.

Yes, I totally get it. This happens to a certain extent with my daughter - there are things I do, give, impose in terms of mothering where I'm a bit mechanical, and therefore I can't apply it to myself, for the formulaic wouldn't fool me, while it still fools her.

 

[Don't trip]

PENCIL!!!

Wow, you just enlightened me with your post!!!

UGH! I have more thinking to do....

 

[Don't trip]

I hope this isn't too much information here, but as a parent, I'm struggling with something. I don't want to hijack your thread, Raven, so maybe I need to start another thread. I need to know if my behaviors are PTSD related.