It's hailed as a classic, and you see it everywhere in bookstores. But I don't get why it earned It's popularity. What makes the story so special? To me, it just seems like yet another toxic relationship story. No gimmicks as far as I can see. Not even the time setting or location of the story can make it somewhat intriguing.
I am Latin and an exchristian (excatholic, to be exact).
I have two questions for people in the same boat. You can answer one or both of them. I'm curious to hear your story and/or thoughts:
How does our family or community see atheism?
How did they react when you came out as atheist?
This one time, my ndad threw a whole ass fit while searching his car for a small plastic container of homemade guacamole. He insisted that he had left it there, and wouldn't just let it go.
Eventually, he found it, but damn! All that tantrum over guacamole? I'd have a better time understanding his frustration if it's over lost keys, lost phone, or lost wallet. But even then, he has to take better care of his belongings, including his guacamole.
I ask because my dad's priest always finds an excuse during his sermons to bash on "the younger generation" for always believing in everything they see on Tik Tok and what have you.
The priest would talk down on the youth for their naivety as if old Christians (or just Christians in general) don't fall for misinformation too. Remember, a lot of them...
Dismiss evolution as just a theory,
Think vaccines contain tracking devices,
Believe the Earth is 6,000 years old,
See mental health problems as spiritual rather than medical.
This frustrates the Hell out of me because it comes across projection. And it doesn't help that the priest (like he usually is) is so smug when bashing young people.
So they want to end abortion because "killing babies is wrong"...yet they think that owning a gun is a right, plus they support the orange man even if he mandated the bombing of a school in another country.
What's more is that they want to get rid of abortion, but as far as I can see, they can care less about affordable Healthcare, affordable schooling, parent training, and improving the child protective services and the foster care system. All of these things are imperative for the youths livelihood.
I'm currently reading Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. Because of how this passage is worded, I'm having a hard time understanding it. Can somebody break it down or give any ideas?
This is the part when Gregor Samsa's sister and mother are emptying out his room now that he's transformed into a giant cockroach:
"As he listened to these words of his mother, Gregor understood that the want of any direct human address, in combination with his monotonous life at the heart of the family over the past couple of months, must have confused his understanding, because otherwise he would not have been able to account for the fact that he had seriously wanted to have his room emptied out."
Saying No to substances shouldn't offend people.
I respect what people want to do with their bodies. Whether you want to stay completely sober or consume recreational substances. You do you. Hell, I have good friends who smoke, vape, and even do shrooms or get drunk on certain occasions.
That said, I'll still hear smokers complain about how non-smokers think they're better than everyone simply because they do not smoke and are "healthy."
Yes, I don't find it hard to believe that there are non-smokers who are full of themselves. At the same time, I’m skeptical as to how common it is, since I’ve never come across it myself.
Instead, what I have encountered more often are smokers who not only pressured me, but judged me because I calmly and respectfully declined a puff—because I prefer to maintain my health. Even without condemning anybody for smoking. I just say No.
One day, when I was a Senior in high school, I was waiting at my usual bus stop with two of my peers. As they were preparing their pipes, they offered me to hit, to which I calmly declined. These two then started laughing and teasing, saying crap like:
"C'mon, don't be scared!"
"Ah! We got a good boy here!"
This other time, when I was in community college, me and a bunch of other peers went to a field trip. When the travel bus we rode in stopped at a McDonald's for a break, one guy offered me a vape, to which I, once again, calmly declined. This dude proceeded to laugh and talk smack to his friends.
The same can be said for some drinkers. They’ll complain about sober people acting superior, but then turn around and pressure you to get "shit-faced" in parties and act weird if you say No. Even if you want to drink just a moderate amount of alcohol, like one or two drinks, they treat it like it's weird or prudish. I have a brother and cousin who act that way.
I think what nparents ought to realize (but often times don't) is that we don't hate them for no reason.
We didn't wake up one day and decided "You know what? I hate my parents. Why not?"
We don't hate them just for the Hell of it.
We don't hate them because we think it's fun.
We do not hate them because they told us to go to school, do our homework, to take showers, or to go to bed.
Heck, once upon a time, we didn't even hate our parents in the first place. There was a time when we loved them. Because they fed us, clothed us, took us to school, provided a roof over our heads.
Even when they started abusing us, we loved them.
But at some point, we became not only hurt by their abuse, but angry as well. Especially once we realized how much of an impact the abuse had on us—our mental health.
Eventually, that's when we realized that we no longer love them. Instead, they earned our hate Despite what they've done for us.
And that's the thing: they earned our hatred. Our hatred didn't appear out of nowhere. It gradually developed each time our nparents wronged us.
I remember a year ago or two, my (Catholic) dad once showed me a video (from Tik Tok or YT Reels, I'm not sure) of a town that has been flooded. I don't know where this town was located, but I'm gonna go on a limb and say it was in Texas (Again, I do not know. I just pulled that out of thin air).
When showing me this video, my dad was gloating about how "God had flooded this town as a way of punishing the mayor for mocking him." Whether or not the mayor had actually mocked God was nothing short of an allegation.
Although I didn't express it outwardly, I found this whole situation to be wrong for several reasons.
First, my dad has gone on the record saying he doesn't view God as he was in the Old Testament: Wrathful and vengeful. Instead, he generally sees God as all-loving and forgiving. He even criticized some of his peers from his church for "being afraid of God." That in itself is weird because according to the Catholic Church (and most probably Christianity as a whole) treated the fear of God as a virtue.
Secondly, I think it's funny whenever Christians say that God punishes those who mock him, because in a way, they are portraying him as sensitive and insecure. Why would a God as powerful as the Christian God be effected by the words of mortals subordinate to him? Wouldn't words just be nothing?
Third, and worst of all: Can you imagine people having their houses damaged or losing their homes entirely, all because of the sins of one individual who happens to live in the same city as they're in? Those people wouldn't deserve it because they weren't the ones who mocked God. Heck, for all we know, some of these people could be God-loving Christians, yet God screwed them over because of what their mayor did.
And how do we know if the Mayor himself suffered from this supposed diving punishment? For all we know, while this flood was going on, he might have had a safe place to stay in, or he might have been out of town at the time. Or at the very least, he probably was able afford to repair any of his damaged property. Meanwhile, people lost their homes.
This, to me, seemed like indiscriminate punishment.
Reminds me when three years ago, my brother started smoking, and since then, my mom was not only on his case for it, but she was on my case also! On several occasions, she accused me of doing drugs even when I'm literally doing nothing at all! I can be taking a long nap and she'll ask me "Are you smoking!?" I can't even leave the house or hang out with friends without her scrutinizing me! Ultimately, I'm being effected for something I didn't do, but what my brother did!
Anyways, let me know what you think about my story. You can also share any similar experiences you've had.
Back in 2019, my nbrother (16 at the time) leaked my phone number because he was annoyed with me and my friends.
This happened while we were having lunch at Denny’s. My dad was there too (which becomes important later in the story).
I was 19 at the time, and my friends and I were just making silly faces at each other and referencing memes. We weren’t even involving my brother, yet he was still annoyed by us.
At one point, I suggested he use earbuds and listen to his music if we were bothering him that bad. He immediately snapped back, saying, “I don’t have to do that!” What stood out to me was his tone. Like he thought he was too good to follow my suggestion.
So my friends and I kept joking around. If he didn’t want to tune us out, that was his choice.
That’s when he leaked my phone number.
This was his way of getting back at me. He didn’t even warn me beforehand. He only announced it after hitting “Send.” I was immediately upset.
What scared me most was that he never specified who he sent my number to.
I had no idea whether he gave it to random strangers online or to his friends. Either way, it was concerning, especially since I knew that his social circle mostly consisted of edgy teenagers.
Two of them actually started harassing me through text. I blocked them, sure. But the uncertainty of the situation still scared me. For all I knew, someone could have forwarded my number to other people.
At some point, I became more frustrated than afraid. Hoping my dad would actually help, I told him what my brother had done.
That was the moment I definitively realized my brother was the golden child.
Because instead of scolding or punishing him, my dad said in the most casual way possible, “No, don’t do that,” and left it at that. He didn’t ask who my brother sent my number to or anything. It was essentially a slap on the wrist.
That moment changed how I saw my dad forever.
I realized that if leaking my phone number wasn’t serious enough for him to step in, then nothing would be. After that, I stopped consulting to him period.
In my opinion, what my brother's motives were petty, and what he did was overkill and potentially risky.
But what do you think? Was I overreacting? Did I deserve what happened to me?
On a post I made a while back, I talked about how when I was 16, my ngrandmother warned me to “check the neighborhood to see any (n-words, hard R) stealing, and call 9-1-1.” What I didn’t include was what happened when I told my dad about it not long after. His reaction was honestly worse than hers.
I originally told him just to vent. At the time, I didn’t realize he held these kinds of views. I just assumed we were on the same page about treating all ethnic groups fairly. But I was wrong.
I remember how, in response to my rant, he brought up a story from when he lived in Oakland in the 90s. He said a Black man broke into his car, and his at-the-time friend tried fending him off with a golf club. That incident came up repeatedly in how he talked about Black people later on.
After that, my dad then went on this tirade about how Black people use slavery in America as an excuse for being “lazy,” and how they prefer to use welfare and commit crimes instead of working. At one point he even said things like, “Black people behave that way because it’s in their genes.” Mind you, he also used phrases like “In general, Black people are like this” or “Most of them are like this.” He didn’t even try to avoid generalizations. He treated crime in the Black community as the rule, not the exception.
If that wasn’t enough, since my dad is Mexican, he also took pride in the idea that Mexicans are “the most hardworking.” And while I’m proud of my people too, my dad seemed to use that pride as justification for looking down on Black people.
Another moment that really stuck with me happened at a gym me, my dad, and my brother would go to. There, rumors started circulating about frequent thefts in the parking lot. When my dad caught wind of this, he asked a fellow Hispanic what race the suspects were. Without hesitation, the guy replied, “They looked African.” After that, he started bad-mouthing ‘those negros. (Even though the Spanish word itself isn’t inherently racist, the way he used it clearly was.)
I can’t be the only one who sees immediately asking about a perpetrator’s race as a red flag.
To my dad’s misfortune, he eventually became a victim of those frequent thefts when his laptop was stolen from his truck one day. As frustrating as that was, what stood out was how he reacted afterward. He took his anger out on the gym staff, even though the gym clearly stated that it wasn’t responsible for people’s belongings. To make things worse, when he and a staff member went to inspect the scene of the theft, my dad was ranting out loud in the parking lot about how Black people were “devils.” I can only imagine what would’ve happened if a Black person had heard that, especially considering the city we lived in had a sizeable Black population.
Even when I brought this incident up to my therapist years later (around age 21–23), he said my dad sounded like a KKK member.
And unfortunately, that wasn’t the only time he referred to Black people as “devils.” He repeated that kind of language more than once.
He often dismisses it by saying, “It’s not racist, it’s just the truth.” That’s something I still don’t really know how to make sense of. I don’t really know what it takes for someone to unlearn a mindset like that once they fully believe it.
I just wish there was some kind of research I could show him to prove him wrong (any form of evidence, really). Just something that would challenge those beliefs.
Also, my dad isn't racist to just Black people. He's also racist to Asian people. Or as he likes to call them: Chinese people. Yes, he assumes every Asian he sees as Chinese. Again, I can't be the only one who finds this alone to be racist.
He’s one of those people who thinks Asians are bad drivers. Every time he comes across a slow driver on the road, he would creep alongside the vehicle to see if the driver is Chinese. Again, he claims this isn't racist if it's true.
My dad should know better, because he's also part of an oppressed group, especially with Trump in office and ICE active. He is, in fact, against them too. He's not one of those "Latinos for Trump." But at the same time, it seems like he's participating in this crab-in-the-barrel game, where he tries to climb the social hierarchy by putting other minorities down and dragging them to the bottom.
He claims he isn’t racist and says he’s against racism (at least when it’s directed at his own group). But when it involves other ethnic groups, suddenly he no longer sees it as racist.
Lately, he’s been trying to bring his trophy-girlfriend and her son from Mexico to the U.S., and part of me worries he’ll pass these attitudes onto them too. That’s one of the hardest parts about all this. I fear these beliefs just keep getting normalized and passed down.
Has anyone else dealt with narcissistic parents who justified racism like this while insisting they weren’t racist? How did you handle it?
My nmom claims she has no friends because whenever someone invites her to hang out, she would get "too excited/eager", which bothers her friends enough to turn her down.
But if you ask me, I think that's BS. Instead, I think the reason people hardly want her around is because of how unpleasant her character is. From my experience, she's the most negative person ever. Always has a reason to whine. Always has a reason to be scared of something no matter how inconsequential that thing is. Always has a reason to be a victim. Always has a reason to be a fun-killer. This is the BS I have to put up with BTW. And it's times like those that make me think "No wonder no one wants to hang out with her." What sane person would want to be around such a negative Nancy like herself? I know I don't.
There were days when I'd avoid running errands with her or going anywhere with her in general. Because everytime she has a shouting match with my ngrandmother or nbrother, she would come across as hostile afterwards. Going anywhere with her when she’s in that mood usually turns out badly because she either uses me as a shoulder to cry on or an emotional punching bag.
I think her claim that her friend's don't want her around due to clinginess is BS, because in the past (though it was extremely rare) I'd see her with friends before, especially when they come over to our house. From my memory, she never came across as clingy or too enthusiastic during those occasions. She would laugh, chat, and have drinks. Hell, she even gossips with her friends. Just standard get-together stuff. You can even say she's showing her good side (her Dr. Jekyll side). So based on this, I don't think her clinginess was ever an issue. I just think that lately, her negativity and victim mentality has repelled people away from her, and she's too insecure to admit it. That and I think she's also anti-social, because I'd encourage her to put herself out there, volunteer at the library, city hall, or the church she and my ngrandmother used to go to. But she always turns it down. Still, she complains about having no one.
Bonus rant: I believe that because my nmom has no friends, she would get jealous whenever I'd go out with my friends. She would discourage me, thinking that I'm up to no good with my friends (i.e. doing drugs, drinking, and partying). But in reality, the outtings I go to are usually regulated and involve no vices whatsoever. Just being out in the city.
I also hate how last year, before I took off one day to visit San Francisco with some friends, my nmom tried to platitude me to death by relaying something her maternal grandmother would say: "There's no such thing as true friends." I find this disgusting because even if my great grandmother said that (which I don't know), I think she's full of shit anyways. Because while I have dealt with fake friends, most of my other friends are kind and have stuck with me to this day, without betrayal.
Also from what I've heard, my great grandmother wasn't exactly a good person when she was alive.
I also find it disgusting how my nmom respects her maternal family, even though a lot of the members are degenerates. In contrast, her paternal family are more noble, humble, and chill. While my nmom doesn't 100% avoid them and she contacts them to a degree, she still gravitates towards her maternal family who, quite frankly, are more obnoxious.
Anyways, what do you think about my nmom's situation? Do you put up with something similar from your nparent?
I hate this phrase! My therapist and other people use to say it all the time! So lazy. People prefer to spew that sentence over other substantial advice. It's like a quick fix to them. But it also assumes the victim has a stack of 150,000 dollars, laying around their room, ready to be spent. In this economy, you'd be lucky to even buy a one-bedroom apartment. Especially in certain states like California.
I like this subreddit because it discourages this so-called advice. It understands not everyone has the luxury of moving out.
This gap appears whenever I try to connect a platform to the foundation of a building.
In this post, I want to rant about my racist ngrandmother, and invite anybody to share their encounters with racist narc relatives.
Though I wasn't the victim of my ngrandmother's racism per se, I still don't think it's okay for her to be prejudiced towards other minorities (even though she's a Mexican immigrant, making her a minority herself).
I found it only appropriate to post about this topic on this subreddit, because I think racism is a form of evil supremacy, much like how narcissistic abuse is. And when I was young, my ngrandmother did take care of me at some points, which made her somewhat of a parental figure.
I was also inspired to post this rant after seeing discussions on TikTok about some Latina influencer named Ashley Gonzalez, who made anti-Black rhetoric on her videos.
Anyways, my earliest memory of my ngrandmother being racist was in 2016. I remember while I was in the living room, she (like the Ms. Nosy that she normally is) would peek through the window for drama or suspicious activity in our neighborhood. She'd then tell me, "If you see the (n-words, hard-r) stealing, call 911." This caught me off guard, because where did she learn that word? And worst of all, she was already enforcing a stereotype about Black people!
Turns out, this wasn't her first rodeo. In that same year, she was studying for her U.S. citizenship, and she needed help remembering the answer to one of the questions on the test. She literally asked me, "Who was the guy who freed the (n-words, hard-r)?" Referring to MLK, btw. Once again, I was like, "Seriously, where the hell did she learn that word?" It’s not a neutral word. Rather, it usually comes from a racist context, so she had to have known what it meant!
Additionally, back in 2022, my brother told me that when he was in middle school, our ngrandmother would ask him, "Did the (n-words, hard-r) try to fight you?" Once again, promoting a stereotype.
Not too long ago, my brother, my mom, my ngrandmother, and I went out to eat. During this, my mom talked about a crime-ridden area of some city (I don't remember what led up to this topic), and my ngrandmother just had to say, “¿Cuál raza? Los negros, ¿verdad?” In case you don't know, she was asking what race of people were committing these crimes, then immediately assumed they were Black. I notice this is a common anti-Black question that gets tossed around in the Latin community. Why does this question need to be asked, besides to reduce a group into a negative stereotype? Why is that necessary? I'd confront other Latin people who hold this prejudice, and their response is always, "It's not racist, it's the truth!" just because they encountered one or two crime-related incident where the perpetrator happened to be Black. Then they make generalizations about this ethnic group.
I also hate how my mom handled my ngrandmother's behavior. In response to “¿Cuál raza? Los negros, ¿verdad?”, my mom casually said (in Spanish), "I don't know." In my opinion, she should have said, "It doesn't matter." If I was in that situation, that's what I would have said, because it really doesn't matter! To make matters worse, I discreetly expressed disgust to my mom about this, and all she said was, "Don't worry about it. Let it go in one ear and out the other," like she's trying to sweep it under the rug. So passive that it's infuriating. I'm not saying she should have full-on argued with my ngrandmother about it, but at least discourage it somehow. Or instead of telling me to "let it go in one ear and out the other," she could share the same annoyance I have, like, "I know, right? So disgusting!"
As a young Mexican-American myself, people in the Latino community should know better, because we too get discriminated against, especially in relation to the situation with ICE. We can't just devolve into a crab-in-the-barrel situation, where we try to climb up the social hierarchy by screwing other minorities over and dragging them to the bottom.
BTW, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to racism in my family. But let me know what you think, and feel free to share your experience if you have any. My apologies if this rant was long, and thank you for reading if you made it this far.
