lousy parents, in my experience, are like a constant, lowgrade hum of anxiety. It’s not always dramatic meltdowns or overt neglect, though those exist. It’s often more insidious, a slow erosion of your selfworth, a persistent feeling of not being quite good enough, no matter what you do.
Imagine this: you’re a kid, and you bring home a report card with straight A’s. Instead of pride or praise, you get a shrug. “That’s what you’re supposed to do,” or worse, “Why aren’t they A+’s?” Suddenly, your achievement feels like a failure. The validation you craved is nowhere to be found. Instead, you’re left with a gnawing doubt – was it really that good?
Or consider a time you’re excited about something, a new hobby, a friend you’ve made, a dream you’ve dared to voice. You excitedly share it with your parents, hoping for a spark of interest, a word of encouragement. What you get is dismissal. “That’s a waste of time,” or “You’ll never be good at that.” It’s like they actively try to dim your light, to clip your wings before you even have a chance to fly. This constant belittling makes you question your own judgment, your own passions. You start to believe that your interests are trivial, that your dreams are foolish.
Emotional availability is a foreign concept. When you’re hurting, when you’re scared, when you’re confused, seeking comfort from them is like trying to get water from a stone. They might offer platitudes, but they rarely truly see you, hear you. You learn to internalize your pain, to put on a brave face because the alternative is being met with indifference, or worse, being told you’re being dramatic or oversensitive. This teaches you that your emotions are inconvenient, that they’re better kept hidden. You become adept at compartmentalizing, at presenting a version of yourself that won’t burden them.
And the boundaries? What boundaries? They might be overly involved in every aspect of your life, making decisions for you, dictating your choices, or conversely, they might be completely absent, leaving you to fend for yourself from an age when you still needed guidance and protection. It's a perpetual state of uncertainty about where your space ends and theirs begins, or if there's even a space that's truly yours.
Then there’s the manipulation. Not always overt, but present. Guilt trips are a common currency. “After all I’ve done for you…” or “We sacrificed so much, and this is how you repay us?” It’s a way of keeping you tethered, of making you feel perpetually indebted, obligated to cater to their needs and desires, even at the expense of your own wellbeing.
This kind of upbringing can leave deep scars. As an adult, you might find yourself constantly seeking external validation, craving the approval you never received. You might struggle with selfesteem, battling an inner critic that sounds eerily like your parents. Building healthy relationships can be a challenge, as you might unconsciously repeat patterns, or be overly wary of vulnerability. Trust issues are almost a given. You might secondguess your own worth, wonder if you’re truly capable of love or success, because the people who were supposed to unconditionally support you, instead made you feel conditional.
It’s a journey of unlearning, of trying to build a secure sense of self from the ground up, piecing together fragments of worth that were never readily offered. It's a constant process of selfdiscovery, of figuring out who you are outside of the shadow of their expectations and criticisms. And sometimes, it’s just the quiet, persistent ache of wishing you’d had parents who saw your potential, celebrated your triumphs, and simply loved you for being you, no strings attached.