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Down the Rabbit Hole: The world of estranged parents' forums (2015)

• gkoberger 5y ago
  My favorite article from this site is The Missing Missing Reasons: http://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-missing-reasons.html http://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-miss...
  • DarylZero 5y ago
    It's quite good. I do that same thing. It's really absurd. :|
• resoluteteeth 5y ago
  Title should say 2015
  • 77pt77 5y ago
    No because it's irrelevant here.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
• testfoobar 5y ago
  This is a fascinating post to get some perspective from the narcissist side. In my experience, beyond the suffering and abuse, it is nearly impossible to describe to someone else the experience of extended engagement with someone with narcissistic personality disorder or someone with borderline personality disorder. Friends and family often have no frame of reference in dealing with NPD or BPD. It makes finding help and treatment much harder. Often you have to discover on your own that you have been the target of NPD or BPD abuse. It takes time.
  • vwoolf 5y ago
    I'm sure there are children who unjustifiably cut off their parents, and the reverse. I can say that I read Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents and it rocked my world: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/adult-children-of-emotionally-immature-parents-lindsay-c-gibson/1121368782 https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/adult-children-of-emotional... by thoroughly describing my upbringing. I've not cut off contact but I have containerized it and set strict boundary conditions, if you will, and my parents seem not to understand their own behavior, at all.
    • quercusa 5y ago
      Ordering that one right away; it's taken me decades* to figure out how my loving (AFAICT) parents set me up for problems in personal relationships. * I may be slow in this regard.
      • dreamcompiler 5y ago
        I think decades is pretty much par for the course.
    • bittercynic 5y ago
      Thank you for the recommendation. Been reading this for the past couple hours, and likely won't put it down till I'm through.
    • Trasmatta 5y ago
      This book really helped me figure out my parents and my childhood. For my entire life I've essentially thought "my parents aren't really narcissists and they weren't outright abusive, so why have I always felt like something was wrong with my upbringing, and why do I seem to harbor resentment towards them?". Turns out they were / are very emotionally immature. This quote summarizes it pretty well: > Growing up in a family with emotionally immature parents is a lonely experience. These parents may look and act perfectly normal, caring for their child’s physical health and providing meals and safety. However, if they don’t make a solid emotional connection with their child, the child will have a gaping hole where true security might have been.
• MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  I believe there was a reddit thread one time about some family in New York that cut ties from their parents or grandparents, and due to some age old Kinship law, the elders could take children to court for not allowing them to see grandchildren or something of the like. It's fascinating in the US that we've gotten to the point that families can break contact entirely and be successful but due to completely out of date institutions baked in to law, we're stuck with arbitrary reasons to engage with hostile people. As a judge, why would you ever grant rights of a grandparent willing to take their children to court to see their grand children short of an abuse related situation?
  • HWR_14 5y ago
    This doesn't sound like some misinterpreted archaic law. It sounds like the law prevented exactly what the drafters intended - parents cutting grandparents off from children. Whether that's a stupid law is another question.
    • deleted 5y ago
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    • teraflop 5y ago
      The article touches on this: > Grandparents' rights groups are one step forward and one step back. One step forward, because the majority of the people who are interested in this cause are the people grandparents' rights were meant to help: grandparents who lost touch with their grandchildren through the parents' divorce, incarceration, or some other rupture in their children's families. However, it also brings out the people who think they have more rights over their grandchildren than the children's own parents do, the people who want to force a family reconciliation through the courts, the people who want to take custody of their grandchildren to punish their children.
  • seattle_spring 5y ago
    This is indeed a law, but if the grandparents in question have a history of abuse then it's possible to still bar visitation rights.
• cleandreams 5y ago
  I have half siblings like this, who tried to take the family house from me after my father (their stepfather) died. That is, they tried to take my share of it; the will split everything equally. We split the family things up into thirds and they were caught trying to steal from my share. Crazy making it was. So much gas lighting. We are now estranged. TBH even seeing their picture upsets me.
  • hinkley 5y ago
    I wonder if anyone here has had luck pointing out the bigger picture in these situations. Essentially they risked never talking to you again, losing a living link with their deceased step father, over what? An end table? A book case? Is this really how you want to play this out?
    • bittercynic 5y ago
      If this is really about some pieces of furniture, maybe honest misunderstanding that blew up? After the passing of a grandparent I took some items home that I thought I was saving from being thrown out with the trash, but it turned out a sibling really wanted them and felt wronged that I had taken them without their approval. I think GP's situation is more serious than this, but in some cases maybe honest misunderstandings plus digging in heels causes some unnecessary grief.
      • denton-scratch 5y ago
        When my great-aunt died, there was some money which got divided up in a simple way; and a number of artifacts - furniture, nice crockery, jewellery. Most of the other heirs were women, so no jewellery for me. For the artifacts, we had a sort of auction: "Who wants this chinese vase?" I would have liked that vase, and I got the fuzzy end of the lollipop in that auction. I went away with a few articles of sentimental value, but no cash value. I reckon I got a good deal. When my father died, it was even easier; the will was a mess, if you ask me, but my sister was executor, and she did a really good job. He had been in a care home, and had already disposed of most of his personal posessions. My siblings all played very nicely, and edge cases were settled very amicably. In fact, if anything, it brought us all together. Make a will, and use a lawyer.
• saul_goodman 5y ago
  /r/justnomil
• caslon 5y ago
  This series of articles is... really something I've been needing to hear for a while, despite rationally having already accepted the things inside of it. Thanks for posting it here, Jason.
• golemotron 5y ago
  It's very concerning how quickly people throw around medical terms like NPD or BPD. The blog seems anonymous so there is no indication of whether the person who wrote it is qualified to diagnose. My guess is no because there are many blanket statements and few qualifying statements. People without training are likely to read about a few characteristics and, well, you see what you look for.
  • TameAntelope 5y ago
    I'm confused about where you see a diagnosis as being relevant to the discussion.
    • golemotron 5y ago
      "The narcissists I see online don't write about their relationships with their children and close friends; they hardly write about their own partners, except as props in the narcissist's ongoing drama." The writer seems very confident of their assessment of various people online.
      • TameAntelope 5y ago
        So? Swap "narcissists" with "people who exhibit some specific shared traits between one another that are also often described as part of the diagnostic criteria of a narcissist" and you get the same effect. It's a shortcut, not a diagnosis. Layperson English tends to be that way, and getting caught up on the different definitions between medicine and "common" speak is likely a waste of time.
        • golemotron 5y ago
          Considering that some degree of narcissism is part of everyone's psyche, using it as a label and associating it with extreme cases makes it close to an epithet. I have no doubt that many of the people one might see as extreme or "obvious" narcissists might have the same opinion of those who use that language. It's nearly comical at that point.
• mjfl 5y ago
  • tpmx 5y ago
    • 77pt77 5y ago
      Or maybe the ones that didn't have problems don't feel the need to share. Man bites dog vs dog bites man. Your perception of frequency is not an unbiased estimator of actual frequency.
    • clusterfish 5y ago
      The "epidemic" is in the real world, you're only noticing it now because now it's in your face on the internet. Must be shocking to see that, if like most people you had normal parents, but those mad asshole parents are sadly very real.
    • bisby 5y ago
      The raised by narcissists sub has 750k subscribers. Reddit has ~500m monthly active users. That's 0.15% of reddit. If 0.1% of people actually are raised by narcissists, that is an accurate number.... 750k people in a single place is a LOT, but it might still be representative. so yeas, it seems like there is an "epidemic" but it's more about "if all the people raised by narcissists were to be grouped in a single place it would be a lot of people". That's just a testament to how the internet brings groups of people together. If you had a great childhood with great parents. Good for you. Not everyone has. and I don't think that 0.1% of reddit is some sort of epidemic.
      • bjornsing 5y ago
        It’s estimated that 0.5% to 5% of the US population has NPD, so I don’t see why it would be the least bit unexpected that 0.15% think they had a narcissistic parent.
  • amanaplanacanal 5y ago
• leejoramo 5y ago
  Issendai’s writing about how to get out of “sick systems” profoundly changed my life. If you are trapped in a job or relationship and feel too overwhelmed to get out read these: http://www.issendai.com/psychology/sick-systems.html http://www.issendai.com/psychology/sick-systems.html http://www.issendai.com/psychology/sick-systems-whittling-yourself-away.html http://www.issendai.com/psychology/sick-systems-whittling-yo... http://www.issendai.com/psychology/sick-systems-qualities-that-keep-you-stuck.html http://www.issendai.com/psychology/sick-systems-qualities-th...
  • lenocinor 5y ago
    I just wanted to say that I found these links profoundly insightful today. I’m going to start handing them out a lot in the future. Thank you!
  • microjim 5y ago
    That first article references an essay called ‘Not all vampires suck blood.’ The link is dead, so I found a backup at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20610102 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20610102
  • zuj 5y ago
    I remember coming across the first sick systems article you mentioned almost 5 years back when I was with a company which the symptoms of a sick system and this article helped immensely. While I could know that the place is bad and not suitable for me I couldn't really pinpoint why it is bad and how I can get out of it. This article gave me a great perspective and actually propelled my career.
  • mattgreenrocks 5y ago
    Oh my goodness, this feels extremely familiar. I have some reading and work to do. Thank you for linking this.
  • agumonkey 5y ago
    Couldn't be more timely
  • big-smitty 5y ago
• Terry_Roll 5y ago
  A problem I see with parents in general and not just personality disorder types, which is reinforced by the state and scientists, is this subconscious bias that kids are the property of their parents. It needs to stop. Kids are like AI they learn from the environment around them and prison populations are in part an example of the failed parenting, state and scientific direction, but as usual State officials and scientists never get held to account when they should only the parent. Add in different belief systems and you have a recipe for disaster which constantly unfurls to one degree or another day in day out. ad nauseum. And all the while the planet still keeps being more and more over populated. Its like fiddling at the seams whilst Rome burns.
  • Lammy 5y ago
    I was with you until that last part. Sorry I'm not really willing to believe John D. Rockefeller Ⅲ and co. could have my best interest in mind when talking about how we should maintain humanity under half a billion in perpetual balance with nature. Sounds more like a world where they will own everything and there will never be enough of "the rest of us" to effectively demand equality https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED050960.pdf#page=10 https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED050960.pdf#page=10
    • Terry_Roll 5y ago
      Are you aware of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink ? Clockwork Orange, Rat Utopia as other examples? I dont care to a certain extent because it will end with war OR sickness and poverty, if people are not forced to live within their means and make the best of what they are given. I'd like to see euthanisia become legal so we dont have to be experimented on by scientists who have the audacity to think its acceptable, just like I dont agree with Govt who have the audacity to think they can control our lives through legislation and all that. In the 70's there was a Eugenicist movement in the West which lost out to the current thinking, but here in the UK the NHS was performing medical operations like tying the tubes of woman after 1/2/3 kids to stop their from having more. Obviously there is the female contraceptive pill which has helped reduce number sizes. This is eye watering! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_the_most_children#Mothers_and_couples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_the_most_c... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_the_most_children#Fathers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_the_most_c... You could say the Eugenicist movement has become more persuasive today. We have also had to have our health impaired to make us more docile and to reduce our breeding abilities whilst also increasing the risk of cancer, to the point that something like 50% of the UK population will get cancer in their lifetime here in the UK. TF the NHS is free! I bet Josef Mengele is kicking himself for being too obvious! Inflation is also stalking the planet right now, its getting more expensive to live, now whilst various central banks can print monkey tokens to keep the natives happy, inventing an excuse or two to print more like Quantative Easing helps keep people in the game and Govt's can invent bureaucracy to keep people busier. I'm also aware that in the West its been cheaper to offshore some jobs to parts of the world with lower labour costs. That last point may or may not also entail poorer working conditions like we see with Foxconn and Apple. Now its also clear that we have a form of global communism imposed on us by global business giants under the guise of global capitalism only its not a govt but a board doing the communism bit limiting our choices of what we can spend money on. What govt would want to distance themselves from domains previously under their control like telecoms spying? But in all of this, there is a new entrant, artificial intelligence, chipping away at the middle class jobs and some working class manual labour jobs which has opened up a new angle of attack that previously hadnt existed in human history. Now its doing three things, its improving quality like we see with robots building German cars and its also forcing Govt to get creative with their bureaucracy which is why the security services "hack" via these global entities with court orders. Muddying the waters to keep us busy. Bread and Circuses been going on since Roman times and all that. Its also discovering new attack vectors for all sorts of areas of life, but its also undermining the pillars of society authority namely the State and religion.
• deleted 5y ago
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• deleted 5y ago
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• ilamont 5y ago
  For people who have narcissistic/BPD family members/SOs, Issendai provided a link to the the following forum: https://www.outofthefog.net/forum/index.php https://www.outofthefog.net/forum/index.php
• aidenn0 5y ago
  > . If a person's own writing shows that they lie, rewrite reality, or otherwise engage in cognitive distortions, they're abusive. Period. Instant kill shot. If you haven't dealt with someone with NPD or BPD, I'd like to clarify this a bit. I'm sure that any of the prolific commenters on HN could be found to have contradicted themselves and/or distorted reality occasionally. This is about patterns of behavior, and it's usually coupled with minimizing any specific examples of the behavior while never engaging with the fact that the problem is the pattern of behavior, not any one example. I've dealt with someone with eBPD who was unable to get through a 45 minute therapy session without contradicting themselves. They also habitually selectively report facts to distort reality[1]. If the estranged kid(s) really were the ones with personality disorders, I suspect the emotional responses to being cut out would be something along the lines of "Sad, relieved, guilty about feeling relieved." 1: Here's an example with details changed: "Joe drank too much last night and we got in a car crash." Reality, Joe was in the passenger seat, and the driver hit a deer that jumped out in front of them. On confrontation: "I never said Joe drove drunk!"
  • michaelbuckbee 5y ago
    Also, from context, I believe that's really focused on observable patterns in the forum. If someone is lying and contradicting themselves so plainly on the forum (with relatively low stakes) it's quite likely that they do so elsewhere.
    • DarylZero 5y ago
      Agree that they're doing it elsewhere, but not that these are low stakes social situations just because they're online forums. They may be very important social scenes in the lives of the participants.
  • fragbait65 5y ago
    Is that actually a good example of what you mean? There is no contradiction? The first statement does not say that Joe drove drunk?
    • 5y ago
• Thin_icE 5y ago
  Thank you for posting this. It was really helpful, and it's very comforting to know I'm not crazy, or imagining things in my head.
• fmajid 5y ago
  I’m sure this is true in many, or even most cases, but there are also cases where the grandparents do have the grandchild’s best interest at heart. Obviously those grandparents would not be on some forum where they get to expound on their sense of entitlement. Here in the UK, in the last month alone we’ve had the horrific cases of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, 6 or Star Hobson, 1.5, both viciously murdered by their parent’s partner with the parent’s full complicity. In both cases the grandparents alerted social workers but were brushed off, with tragic results.
  • tptacek 5y ago
    This series of articles spends a lot of time and energy differentiating ordinary estranged parents and grandparents from those who spend time campaigning on forums for estranged parents, and expands on a bunch of concerning reasons why parents can become estranged through no fault of their own; for instance, children can fall into drug addictions. It goes on to make the point that these forums seem to be actively alienating to those kinds of parents, who presumably seek support from forums dedicated to parents estranged due to addiction. The thru-line for the whole series is that participation in these forums is a powerful clue, all on its own, that abusive behavior is involved in the estrangement.
    • fmajid 5y ago
      I understand, hence my caveat that the grandparents were not on those forums. What I worry about is when the undeniable existence of abusive grandparents is assumed by CPS or social workers as a universal and cause valid warnings to be overlooked.
      • tptacek 5y ago
        Another thing the articles repeatedly observe is the proclivity of parents on these forums to abuse these shared concerns about valid warnings in order to weaponize CPS and social workers against their estranged children. Examples include instances where the parents admit publicly that they lied to CPS in attempts to punish and control their own children.
      • 5y ago
• Pixeleen 5y ago
  I suspect that we are at an inflection point in history, and the United States has the factors for perfect storm. Traditional gender values meeting the pill, and Baby Boomers (the "me" generation) grappling for a last bit of control, while more progressive generations come of age. I also think that Boomers' drinking culture is relevant, as alcoholism and narcissism are correlated. Being trans and the family scapegoat, I personally got out town as soon as I could, but that was not the end of the story. My narcissistic, abusive family conjured up a special blend of threats, saccharine and passive-aggressive letters, stalking involving the media, and misgendering/deadnaming/outing me in the will when they did croak.
  • jollybean 5y ago
    This recent populist boomer bigotry is too much. The boomers represent the biggest social change of any generation in centuries. The pill rock and roll women in the workplace divorce MLK JFK Malcom X etc. Everything past them is an echo and Im not even sure it's on the right side of history. Churchill drank 12 ounces a day that was normal before boomers. They are not heavy drinkers historically speaking. And they did not have access to material goods like we do. The ME generation is every generation from here on in so long as consumerism expands.
    • deleted 5y ago
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    • seattle_spring 5y ago
      This is a really weird way to respond to someone who suffered real abuse from a narcissistic abuser. You might get more sympathetic ears choosing to defend boomers in a thread not about abuse from predominantly boomer-aged parents.
    • kelseyfrog 5y ago
      If we're going off pet theories, mine's got to be the lasting effects of a lifetime of lead poisoning[1]. Difficult adult personalities[2], emotional regulation[3] and emotional intelligence[4] are linked to childhood lead exposure. I'll be the first to admit that this is a strong stance, weakly held, and that we're probably never going to have conclusive evidence as to the likely infinite factors at play, but it's still fun to try to explain the clear patterns of behavior associated with these people. 1. p. 6 http://leadsafedemo.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/LEAD-PLAYBOOK.pdf http://leadsafedemo.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/LEAD-PLAY... 2. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190123112330.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190123112330.h... 3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6450277/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6450277/ 4. By way of Takeuchi, H. et al. https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-021-02435-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-021-02435-0
• deleted 5y ago
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• mrxd 5y ago
  This mostly comes down to parents who have more traditional cultural values than their children. It’s like watching two sports teams argue about who broke the rules, but they can’t agree because fundamentally one team is playing soccer and the other is playing baseball.
  • rjbwork 5y ago
    Ultimately the role of parents is to provide their children the means to become successful and self-actualized adults. Their traditional values and feelings have little to do with that if their kids are opposed. If you decide to have kids, you owe them everything. Your needs, values, feelings, hangups, etc. now take a backseat to what your kids need. If you're unwilling to do so, the reasonable response from the child is to cut you off to some extent, from making certain topics of conversation off limits all the way up to complete no contact.
    • mrxd 5y ago
      In non-western countries the norm is filial piety, which means showing respect, devotion and obedience to one’s parents. The West is really the only region that has shifted to the values you describe. I believe there are advantages to the Western way. But the claim that any other way is abusive seems quite ethnocentric to me.
    • indymike 5y ago
      Love doesn't work when you treat it like a bank note, to be collected by the creditor when due. No one is the debtor, no one is the creditor. If you love your children, you don't do things that cause them to cut you off. Likewise, if you love your parents, you don't cut them off when they they don't do what you want. You forgive. Every day, you choose to be a part of each other's life, and help each other get through life. How you do that changes through life. Not every child will be successful, self-actualized or achieve anything near their potential. Not every parent will make good choices, be successful, or even be worthy of respect. People mess up. They make mistakes. The way love really works, is you forgive. And keep forgiving. You keep the relationship alive. You celebrate the good, and you sympathize through the bad. The greatest gift a parent can give is loving their child despite it all, and the greatest gift a child can give is loving their parents despite it all.
• throwawayHN378 5y ago
  I didn’t read the article. However, personal anecdote, my girlfriend was a victim of parental alienation. She had a child at 18 and everyone in her life conspired against her to separate her from her child. Her mom tried to separate us. She would pull me aside and tell me her daughter ( my girlfriend ) was a narcissist, etc. I knew she wasn’t. She is a loving, caring person who cares deeply for her son. She was undiagnosed high functioning autistic and no one took any time trying to figure out how to interact with her. If it wasn’t for the fact that my salary affords us the ability to adequately represent ourselves in court she would have lost all rights to her son.
• deleted 5y ago
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• margor 5y ago
  This is the most enlightening thing I've read regarding narcissistic parents in... a lifetime I think would be a good word to describe it. It just perfectly nails my observations and comes to similar conclusions that were brewing in my mind for the past few years. It's really ... I don't know how to call it - relieving? To read it similar way I would put it in words, but from totally different person. It also bases many arguments on actual situations that happened on some group - it's not just someone talking about "theory", it's dissecting actually happening discussions and giving insight into what these people might have thought. It helps one to think that this are real people who exist that share similar traits to what one might have experienced, and not just someone making stuff up to make you think that you're right. Truly the best read I could have.
• nullc 5y ago
  many images on the site are 404 now, but there appears to be copies on archive.is: https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/estranged-parents-confront-reasons.html https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/estranged-p...
• hypersoar 5y ago
  I can't help but connect this to the internet fulfilling it's promise of helping people to find communities of others like them. In the past, I imagine a lot of these parents would have had trouble filling up their life with enablers validating their toxic perspective. They'd have to deal with people around them not taking their side by either facing criticism or shutting up about it. Either way, they'd have space to maybe rethink things. This kind of thing is readily apparent with people getting together online to talk about politics. But what about other conditions? Are bad bosses more likely to find validation among other bad bosses? Is any of my sociological bullshitting here true?
  • Shared404 5y ago
    > Are bad bosses more likely to find validation among other bad bosses? Having not used it much, LinkedIn does feel a bit like this.
  • DarylZero 5y ago
    There are landlord forums, employer forums, cop forums, where they all validate one another's abuse. Abusive parents are unlikely to form a community on that basis, but there must be parenting forums run by and for abusers-in-denial.
• poulsbohemian 5y ago
  I've been estranged from my dad for decades - I even changed my name when I reached adulthood, to further separate myself from him. By outward appearances it was the perfect nuclear family - father a successful and connected politician with charming perfect children and a doting wife. Inside though, he was a drunkard, a narcissist, horribly abusive on every level to my mother, and otherwise absent in my childhood when he wasn't busy talking about himself and his successes. All that said, now as a parent myself, I feel sorry for him. I consider his childhood and realize he didn't have a chance - he was screwed up from the very beginning. Parenting is darn hard and even if you spent your early years baby-sitting or as a camp counselor or something, it still doesn't prepare you for when they are your own and you have responsibility for them 24x7 from now into eternity. Throw in an unhappy marriage or a failed career and is it any wonder so many parents end up estranged from their children? So, yeah, the brief article matches my own experiences and those of other people I've spoken with who are estranged from their parents. I think about it regularly, as if I mistreated my children in the same way I can't say I would really blame them for not wanting to associate with me in adulthood when they are able to make that decision for themselves. As my kids have gotten older, I've even made a point to explain to them that every parent is just a human who is mostly winging it trying the best they can -- and that's the thing kids tend to realize, IE: my parent might not have known what to do, but if they showed love and concern, that tends to trump any mistakes.
  • zuj 5y ago
    > every parent is just a human who is mostly winging it trying the best they can This is an eye opening statement. Often as a kid, parents tend to look like gods and superheros because they are doing things which are impossible for us. As we age we tend to notice the shortcomings both from the current situation as they are ageing and from our child hood which we have better understanding now. Again, second order thinking helps a lot here I guess.
    • poulsbohemian 5y ago
      Maybe it's just my outlook - I sit in meetings with adults and have to remind myself that we are all just children in overgrown bodies. Sure, some will have had experiences that have taught empathy, communication, etc, but most of us are still prone to the occasional temper tantrum or emotional outburst. And that's ok. Rather than seeing it in a derogatory way, I think it helps us all stay humble and open minded toward each other. With my kids - they are at an age where they are starting to realize that I'm human, with foibles. Better to admit that and build trust that they should heed my advice anyway, as a more experienced human, than have them distrust out of spite that I'm the parent and they are the teen.
• imperio59 5y ago
  Or you have the reverse issue, where the child is abusive. I watched my step son berate his mom for almost a decade before she finally was able to end the toxic relationship and cut him off for good. He was completely spoiled, was never physically or emotionally abused (he did most of the verbal abusing, often calling my wife a terrible mom, an abusive mom, worthless, useless, stupid, etc...). He also often physically tried to abuse his younger brother (my other step son). If you asked him today why he is estranged with his mom, he would tell you his mom is an awful abusive parent who never loved him and was the cause of all the issues. My wife and I know that he is just a toxic kid who never wanted to grow up (now 20, not in college, no job, his dad pays for everything so he can play video games 24/7). I think there are gonna be as many situations and nuances as there are people here.
  • visarga 5y ago
    > I think there are gonna be as many situations and nuances as there are people here. If you think about it, what is the distribution of parents and children? It's the same with population in general. So all types of people become parents. Same for children, and you get n^2 types of relationships.
  • kingTug 5y ago
    The world kind of blows now, I don't fault him for not wanting to join society. The traditional route of going to college and getting a big boy job is not the panacea it was for your generation.
    • hcknwscommenter 5y ago
      I mean it kinda is the same panacea it was back then no? As in, it's not a panacea, but its a ton better than no job and just sucking off your parents largesse like a parasite.
    • everdrive 5y ago
      The world can be pretty rough, but that doesn’t excuse making it someone else’s problem. It’s not like the parents in this situation aren’t operating under the same pressures.
• carabiner 5y ago
  This has been submitted 5x: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=estranged+parents+forums https://hn.algolia.com/?q=estranged+parents+forums I guess holiday depression is good timing?
• wodenokoto 5y ago
  I feel like I'm not caught up on some vocabulary here. What does it mean to be a victim of a narcissist? I know narcissist is someone who has an excessive interest or admiration for themselves, but how is a 3rd party victim to that?
  • chadcmulligan 5y ago
    Narcissists have admiration for themselves but they need others around them to mirror these feelings - to say they're great basically, because they're a bit broken inside. To do this they go to extraordinary lengths to keep people in their orbit tied to them somehow, and they can be very good at making people feel inadequate so they stay in their orbit and to convince themselves they are better than everyone else. if you haven't experienced it then consider yourself lucky they have a talent for warping reality so that everything revolves around them. The site talks about children of narcissists and how they are screwed up to make the parent seem better - the phrase "you're always a disappointment" or an embarrassment is something a narcissist parent would say to their child for example. Edit: psychology today has lots of interesting info e.g. https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/articles/200601/field-guide-narcissism https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/articles/200601/field-gui...
    • DarylZero 5y ago
      Questionable whether narcissists really even admire themselves. Covert narcissism seems more about believing you're a victim and your feelings are the only important ones because of that. Even overt narcissism is more like deep insecurity than self-admiration. Self-centered and self-important for sure.
  • DarylZero 5y ago
    Narcissists here really means people with narcissistic personality disorder. There are numerous personality disorders. Personality disorder is a kind of arrested development, a failure to grow up and develop a normal personality. Narcissism is one particular failure mode. Narcissists victimize and abuse people all the time and then impose on others the ego defense mechanisms that they employ internally to deflect information that would help them mature. I.e., they deny reality to themselves, and gaslight others.