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Witnessing parent to child disconnect

Discussion in 'For Parents and Family Members of LGBT People' started by brainwashed, Dec 3, 2018.

  1. brainwashed

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    Basically being a child/young adult abuse victim has empowered me with a new skill set. Seeing disconnect.

    (Disclosure: Fact(s) distorted a bit to promote privacy) Recently I witnessed a dad complain about his son not connecting with him. The dad did not like it. I watched the dad over a period of a few days. The dad would go off and socialize with adults and indulge in alcohol leaving the son on his own. The son resorted to playing video games. I would go over to the son and ask, "hey you want to throw the Frisbee?" The son jumped at the opportunity. The dad would then give me scolding looks.

    (I do realize there may be many reasons for this disconnect.)

    Interesting.
     
    #1 brainwashed, Dec 3, 2018
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2018
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  2. D Artagnan

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    Sadly, I think this is a very common issue in families today. I've experienced it myself and have seen it on numerous occasions. What's sadder is that most parents blame the kids, video games, etc and will rarely address the real reasons.
     
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  3. brainwashed

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    To a limited degree this parent was blaming his son for the disconnect. It was very hard for me to not intervene. I realized my intervention would not have changed anything.

    I do realize kids need "their time" and down time. But down time should not be the main stay of their awake life.
     
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  4. Totesgaybrah

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    My dad blamed the disconnect between us on me. He seemed to think I was just ungrateful. I just didn’t wanna get yelled at and threatened again.

    When my mom would pick me up from school we would talk all the way home, telling stories and jokes and usually having a good time.

    When my dad would pick me up it would usually be total silence on the drive home and other times we would start talking only to have him get mad at something I said.

    It seemed like every time we talked for more than a minute we would get in an argument and by argument I mean he would get angry and act like a child.

    This type of thing started when I was around 10 and ended when I left home.
    I honestly tried for so long to connect with him somehow and nothing I ever did made a difference. Once I got to be about 20 I stopped trying.
    Now we have a distant surface level relationship.
    He seems to want a closer relationship now but I don’t.
    Every time we talk I’m reminded why I don’t spend more time with him.
     
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  5. PatrickUK

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    Parents can blame the disconnect on the kids as much as they like, but only in very exceptional cases is it down to the kids. What is true is that kids pick up on subtle vibes of disappointment from parents from a very young age (especially gay kids) and it just feeds the disconnect and can open up a huge chasm over time. Very sad!
     
  6. brainwashed

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    He's the adult (with a problem) you where the child. Interesting.

    The dad is so close to "the problem" he cant see the forest through the trees. It also sounds like he is operating from "emotion(s)" which clouds judgement.

    So how do you think this effects you in your current life? Anger, hurt, happy, neutral?
     
    #6 brainwashed, Dec 9, 2018
    Last edited: Dec 9, 2018
  7. brainwashed

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    Yes and isn't that interesting.

    Agree 100%.
     
  8. Totesgaybrah

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    Oh he most definitely operates on emotion rather than clear thinking.

    Every so often I’ll get angry at something he does or says to me.

    Most recently it was him using the word gay to describe something as lame. Literally while talking to me. I couldn’t quite believe what I heard at first.

    I sort of yelled back “yeah it was super homosexual?!”
    He apologized right away which I ignored.

    He needs to learn that he can’t say stuff like that.
    It’s crap like that which I grew up with but as a kid I would not have talked back or corrected him.
     
  9. RainbowGreen

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    I experienced the same thing, but with my siblings instead.

    My mom raised us alone since I was three (divorce and all that), and she would often let my brother babysit my sister and I (my brother is 7 years older than me while my sister is 4 years older than me).

    He was a psychological abuser. He would put me down for every little thing. Like ''you're so bad at maths!'', ''you can't spell for shit'', ''you suck at video games'', ''you're so dumb''. You name it. I'm sure it was to make himself feel better because he felt like a failure for some reason, but he made me have issues. I was convinced I was terrible in French until half of secondary school when I started writing in my spare time. Everyone told me I sucked at it since grade 2, so I kinda felt like it was true, even though it's normal for a child to not spell properly when they learn to write for the first time (especially in a language like French where the spelling makes zero sense). Anyway, my brother somehow didn't care about being fair to my development. I was lesser than him and that's that. He did the same thing to my sister, and she did the same thing to me.

    When I was teen, things started to get worse as he would always try to touch me innapropriately. I hate my body, and seeing that he felt like this towards his ''sister'' was sickening to me. I hated my body so much. I didn't even want breasts and all of that, but he wanted to touch them. I never told my mom about the sexual abuse because I didn't know what impact that would have had. Like, at the time, I still didn't want him to go to prison or something.

    Then, when I transitionned, my brother thought my gender was ''fair game'' to tease me about, telling me I would never be a boy and saying that my chosen name was old and sounded stupid. I essentially told him to fuck off.

    Anyway, it's been 5 years since I moved out of my old home and my siblings still live there, going nowhere with their lives. My mom wants us desperately to get along, but I told them I don't care, I hate them. I told her about the abuse (except for the sexual part) and she said she understood, but that's the past. Except, they didn't change. They still act like they're superior to me and try to put me down every chance they get. Though, I guess they don't understand that they don't mean anything to me anymore. I never willingly talk to them. When I call, it's always to talk with my mom and no one else. I wish they would move out so I wouldn't have to interract with them.

    Anyway, that was a long post. I thankfully don't feel that way with my parents. I think both have their flaws (completely opposite flaws at that) and they probably wish the unit was not so dysfunctional.
     
  10. Loves books

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    I got some of that from my dad. His kids hate him and he’s verbally abusive. I’ve been called a selfish bitch a lazy cow and everything in between. I’ve been told he wants to have me put down like a dog. He’s told me he never should of had kids and he enjoys saying to me and my siblings we were only born because the chemist was closed. Meaning he couldn’t get his hands on a contraceptive instantly. Total lie but it still hurts. If he bought me a chocolate bar in a shop in front of the cashier and I said thanks dad he’d say I’m not your dad you’re adopted, totally embarrassing myself and him, but if I didn’t thank him then he’d call me ungrateful in front of the cashier. He used to bring home a chocolate bar when he came home from work sometimes when we were ask did we want it and then told us we couldn’t have it and eat it in front of us. The worst part is he would sometimes have more bars in a pocket for us so I never knew if I was being played or not. I was called a drain on his resources and an idiot all through my teen years. He’s told me if my mother dies before him he’s kicking me out. I don’t think he’s joking, my mother made sure to tell me her will states he can’t do that. I can’t leave home, I can’t afford it but my siblings don’t live here so I get him 24/7. I can’t say anything around him because he’s deaf now and will mishear me and scream abuse at me or find an imaginary insult in whatever I say and scream at me. He knows he’s doing it because he acts way different in front of his family and he twists anything we say or do to poison us to them. Yet he wonders why he knows nothing about his kids. He kept going on about my sisters ‘reputation’ if she went abroad with her boyfriend. He’s stuck in some fantasy world where he’s the victim and everyone hates him yet he caused it all. It sickens me that I’ve become so accustomed to the continuous verbal abuse I no longer find it strange and despite the fact I don’t like him I still buy stuff I hope he likes for Christmas and birthdays. I also try and find a card without the word love or your the best dad. I look at my cousins dads or tv dads and I’m so jealous.