What you need to know to make the most of them
Sadly, abuse often begets abuse. If an abusive parent-child relationship was normal growing up, it’s more likely to seem normal in adult relationships. You may find yourself frequently choosing partners who display traits similar to your parents', both good and bad.
Familiarity draws us in, and if we are familiar with mistreatment, we can easily end up in a toxic relationship.
This is something that can easily spill over into other relationships rather insidiously. Common signs include feeling guilty for things you’re not responsible for, and apologizing when you don’t mean it because you feel the need to resolve the situation.
If you feel fear and anxiety about your parents' reaction to your choices, that might mean that they impressed this fear into you as a child through hyper-criticism.
When a parent is hypercritical of a child, this often leaves the child with anxiety around making decisions. This is a definite sign of a harmful parenting style.
When we have a harmful relationship dynamic with our parents, we often recreate it in our romantic relationships as adults. Children of parents who struggle to regulate their emotions take on the role of carer and begin to take responsibility for managing their parent’s emotions for them.
Do you harbor an anger towards your parents that you can’t explain? Sometimes people don’t believe that their parents were emotionally abusive, but they feel anger or resentment when they think about them or speak to them.
If we learn as children that we have to put up with bad treatment in order to survive, then we’re likely to allow this into our relationship dynamics as adults. Someone who was emotionally abused may have a tendency to blame themselves when others mistreat them.
So there’s too hands-off and too hands-on. As much as neglect can be harmful, being overly involved is also a problem. Children need space and privacy in order to develop healthy boundaries.
This might be expressed through reading your journal, checking your phone or emails, keeping an eye on your social media, and dropping into your conversations. If you weren’t given the appropriate mental, emotional, and physical space, this may have been a form of emotional abuse.
We’ve covered many of the behaviors that an emotionally abusive parent might display. Now let’s see how having these experiences as a child can impact your life as an adult.
If this is something you experienced frequently as a kid, you might struggle to interact with people as an adult, often feeling disconnected.
The silent treatment always sucks, and most of the time it’s not a healthy way of dealing with interpersonal problems. If your parent used to shut down and ignore you when you upset them, this may have been emotionally abusive behavior.
This is another stressful situation that increases stress in the child. The raised cortisol levels can have long-term effects, which have been shown to cause health problems later in life.
As adults, we can usually tell when someone is guilting us into doing something. Consider whether this is something your parent also did. A very clear form of this kind of manipulation is a parent saying something like “I’ve given you everything and now you treat me like this.”
This is a more covert form of emotional abuse. It can be extremely difficult and confusing for a child, as they will struggle to understand but can intuitively feel the coldness from their parent.
Passive aggression involves hiding your true feelings, sometimes without even knowing it, and expressing them in indirect ways. A parent who’s being passive-aggressive towards their child might put on a cheerful face but lack real affection and warmth.
Common examples of this may be a parent frequently telling their upset child that they’re overreacting or being too sensitive. In more extreme cases, they might dismiss self-harm as merely attention-seeking behavior.
Young children tend to internalize this kind of negative talk, which leads to future issues with low self-esteem and insecurity. It’s common for adults who were emotionally abused as children to be extremely hard on themselves.
Parents can sometimes take criticism too far and focus on perceived negatives. If you have a harsh inner-critic whose words you can trace back to your parents, this may mean they went too far too often.
This kind of fear would consistently boost the stress levels of a child. Persistent stress at a young age can cause changes to the body and brain, possibly leading to long-term effects on their health.
We all have our off-days, but if your parents' mood swings made you feel like you had to walk on eggshells all the time, this might be a sign of emotional abuse. Consider if you felt nervous about what would happen when they were around, even if nothing seriously bad ever occurred.
This kind of stonewalling behavior has been classified as a huge red flag in romantic relationships, but it’s also harmful for children. They are left with no choices, feeling desperate to appease their parent and be let back into the fold.
This is a sign that you are harboring some negative feelings towards them, for whatever reason. It may be related to past experiences that were blocked out, or haven't been recognized as abusive yet.
At any stage of life, we need to be able to open up to the people close to us. It’s hurtful if you try to speak to your partner about something that’s upsetting you and they tell you it’s nothing. This is even more damaging when it comes from a parent to a child.
A parent who struggles to manage their own anxiety will often pass it on to their child. It’s very difficult for a child to see instability in their carer, particularly when they are directly asked for help and support they don’t know how to give.
Many people don’t realize that their parents were emotionally abusive until they grow up and learn about the family dynamics of their friends and partners. This is the point where they see that what they experienced wasn’t necessarily “normal.”
If any of these experiences resonate with you and you think they’re impacting your life today, the best way to care for yourself is by speaking to a professional. Starting to address these issues may help you to improve your quality of life and your relationships.
Sources: (Counselling Directory) (Bustle) (Good Therapy)
See also: Top characteristics of a healthy family
A parent who is frequently absent is one thing, but it’s also harmful if a parent is technically present but emotionally unavailable. Perhaps they are always focused on their phone, locked up in their home office, or even lost in drug or alcohol abuse.
The perspective of a child is colored by unconditional love and naïve acceptance of whatever their "normal" is. This can make it difficult to recognize emotional abuse until later in life. We're so impressionable as children that our parents' natural human flaws will inevitably impact us all in some way. Emotional abuse is different in its ability to leave us with long-term scars and trouble with relationships in adulthood.
Let's take a look at some of the trademark behaviors of an emotionally abusive parent and how it affects the child as they mature. Click through the gallery to get started.
Did you have an emotionally abusive parent?
Discover the tell-tale signs
LIFESTYLE Psychology
The perspective of a child is colored by unconditional love and naïve acceptance of whatever their "normal" is. This can make it difficult to recognize emotional abuse until later in life. We're so impressionable as children that our parents' natural human flaws will inevitably impact us all in some way. Emotional abuse is different in its ability to leave us with long-term scars and trouble with relationships in adulthood.
Let's take a look at some of the trademark behaviors of an emotionally abusive parent and how it affects the child as they mature. Click through the gallery to get started.