No one's family is perfect — anyone could tell you that!
Just look at what happened to the Duggars or any of the past fails of the Kardashian-Jenner sisters.
You just never know what goes on behind closed doors. Sadly, us regular folk aren't much better, either. This was made evident in a viral Reddit thread where people shared the toxic things that were disguised as normal in their families.
Instead, things just keep getting swept under the rug. This helps no one and can even result in life-threatening situations, like this Redditor's family and their medical issues.
They wrote that everyone in their bloodline has this goofy nook in their heart valves. But no one talked about it until four people died from it.
"Don’t tell anyone anything about what goes on here. You don’t need friends. You don’t need to leave the house unless we give you express permission, which we never will. Sorta the same way a cult runs, you know?" - u/NeverEnoughMuppets
This is an extremely toxic mentality to have. It makes people struggle to accept their accomplishments, like this one person who wrote that they don't feel like they earned their successes, or that it's valuable.
"Best part is, people who gossip make you feel like you're on the same team against everyone else, but you just know that the second you're not there they will do exactly the same to you and gossip about you behind your back." - u/jjjhjhh
You could tell one person one thing and before you know it, everyone in your family knows it, and even family friends, too.
This makes it extremely hard to trust people because if you can't trust your own family, who can you trust?
"My dad having very high expectations of me and pressuring me a lot to the point where I felt worthless despite having perfect grades, because I felt like I could do even better if I just tried, causing me to develop a fairly severe inferiority complex." - u/deleted
When parents don't take mental health seriously, they are failing their children.
This person wrote that the number of conditions they had nearly tripled from their parents accusing them of faking things just to get attention.
"When I was a kid the screaming was normal. I didn't realise until later it was mostly due to how stressed mum was, and how at my best friends house, it was because of drug issues from his stepmum. At least not until I was older and found out most families actually talk to each other instead of just yelling or screaming at everyone." - u/deleted
This can backfire, big time. It makes a person feel like they don't have a voice and that they're a major inconvenience.
It caused this one Redditor to not feel comfortable talking to other adults as an adult. Great job, Mom and Dad!
"They basically use family as a way to force toxic people to be close with us. Sorry that I don't want to be at my mom's at the same time as my brother who is actively using and just overdosed last month, but then we're the [expletive] for not wanting to associate with them right?" - u/Rum_BunnyX3
The longer people discount your feelings and the pain you're going through, the shorter it takes before you do the same. It's incredibly damaging to a person's psyche and their view of reality.
"I was raised around a 'children are to be seen not heard' environment and its caused me major anxiety and social issues as an adult. I thought it was normal as a kid. But as I got older I realized how truly awful it is to raise a child like that." - u/deleted
One Redditor's dad has this, big time. He wouldn't teach them how to do anything other than cooking and cleaning. For instance, he wouldn't even teach them to drive and when they said they wanted to become a police officer, he said that they wouldn't be able to handle the violence.
"When my parents were angry or disappointed in me they would sit in the living room and talk about me as if I wasn't within earshot. Always in a way that made me out to be a stupid idiot. In retrospect it was typically over small disagreements that could have just been worked out if they talked to me directly." - u/deleted
While this works successfully for some people, that's not the case for all. This Redditor who comes from an Indian family saw how arranged marriages can exasperate mental health issues. They have seen drug addicts, alcoholics, problem gamblers, and more as a result.
"I was always taught to suppress my feelings because expressing any negative emotion hurts the people around me. I ended up self-harming whenever I experienced any kind of negative emotion like sadness or anger." - u/ratchnad
If not, you're being selfish and wasteful because "there are starving children in Africa." A lot of children who grew up with this guilt around food end up struggling with weight issues as adults.
"My mother is a 'fixer' but also liked to keep me sick and broken. She would fix all my issues, to the point I never learnt how to self soothe or generally adult. But she also kept my mental health untreated so that she was needed to fix me. It wasn't until I moved out that I realised how bad it was. Now I'm about 10 years behind adulting wise and some days I'm very resentful." - u/deleted
"It doesn't matter what anyone does, if they are related by blood then they are family and we should forgive and rug sweep everything they do and there shouldn't be any consequences for their actions." - u/MyAntipodeanFriend
H/T: Reddit
