r/toxicparents

Title: [Advice/Support] 18, about to call the police for a civil standby to leave an abusive home, but I’m terrified. Need outside perspective.

Body:

Hi everyone, I really need some advice and perspective from people outside my household because I feel like I'm losing my mind.

I’m an 18-year-old college student. Things at home have always been toxic under the guise of a "perfect family," but today it escalated to a dangerous level.

An argument started because one of my brothers was getting in trouble, my mom said I was smiling, and I said I wasn't. My dad jumped in, I told him I wasn't arguing and was just giving them the same energy they give me, and things went back and forth. I went upstairs to my room to cool off. While I was walking up, my dad mocked my voice in an annoying tone, so I matched it back. He snapped, called me a "fucking dumbass," and followed me into my room.

I was sitting on my bed. He came right into my face, yelling aggressively. When I stood up to try to get space, he kept getting in my face and hitting my hands/trying to hit me first. I pushed him away to get him off me. He kept shoving me back forcefully, which backed me into a corner and forced me to step on my guitar, snapping it in half. Now they are blaming me, calling me overdramatic, and saying it's my fault the guitar broke.

My mom is now weaponizing my past against me. She’s threatening that she has "evidence" of me getting physical in the past (which only ever happened when my dad cornered and screamed in my face like this). She's bringing up old arguments, acting like I'm a monster. They are also holding all my legal documents—my ID, Social Security card, and birth certificate—so I can't leave freely.

I want to call the non-emergency police line today for a "civil standby" so an officer can keep the peace while I pack a backpack, force them to hand over my documents, and get a courtesy transport to a domestic violence shelter before transitioning into my college dorms.

My dilemma and fears:

1. My siblings: I have younger siblings, especially a little sister, and I am terrified of losing contact with her or being labeled as "dead to the family" for breaking their trust/leaving.
2. My safety vs. survival: I've never lived on my own, I don't have a car or a license, and I'm worried about surviving college and life on my own.
3. The guilt: My parents make me feel like I'm the abusive one for pushing him off me when he cornered me.

Am I making the right choice by calling the cops for a standby and walking away completely today? Has anyone else survived leaving a controlling/abusive household at 18? Any advice or reality checks are appreciated.

I go first . This one still hurts me to this day I was losing weight and I got on depression medication and I gained a lot of weight. My mom told me I was skinnier right after I had my daughter . And that I need to take care of myself

​I'm a 24F, I have an intense resentment and paranoia towards my mother that I can't explain. I constantly feel like she is trying to hurt and humiliate me, and I absolutely cannot trust her. This is despite the fact that I am still dependent on them and they are paying my university tuition.

​There are no distinct 'bad' memories of her. To be completely honest, I have almost no memories before I was 11 years old. However, there is one specific memory of her smiling while my father was physically beating me. But it just doesn't make sense to me that this single memory could be the sole reason for all this resentment, right? What could be the reason for these feelings?

I dont know what the hell her issue is. I want a single bed, because i sleep on my own with my plushie. A double bed takes up all the space in my room, i cant fit my belongings. My mum keeps saying im just as bad as a pedophile and that im trying to cater to predators by wanting a single bed.. I dont date, ive never slept with anyone, i never even have friends over because im not allowed. I am 20! What the hell does this even mean!!

My mother has completely stopped doing anything. I have been cooking my own meals and buying my own groceries with minimal money that I get from busking with my violin out in the streets. For context, I am 14 years old which is probably a reasonable age to become self-sufficient.

Whenever she realises that I am using my laptop, even if I'm not using it as entertainment (I have started to self-learn python at a more advanced level and also arranging sheet music for my instagram account as hobbies) she will shut down the wifi completely and it always takes ~20 minutes for me to restart it which is just quite annoying. She, however, hasn't been doing anything except watch short-form videos all day

Around 2 nights ago she threatened to kick me out of the house if I didn't comply with all of her rules (basically I give her all of my devices at 10pm, I get 40 minutes a day on my phone, I'm never allowed to get angry, I have to contribute money to the family (how??), I can't question anything she says, etc...)

Oh yeah and last year I only got like 94% on my maths test, I think, and I was locked in the garden for a couple hours but that wasn't too bad, I didn't make the top 2 in my year group so

Currently I'm buying groceries so that's how I even have access to reddit...

Anyways I just need some advice :D

I'm female, over 20 years old.

weeks ago my parents physically abused me. To explain this shortly, I was in my room when I heard my sister screaming in pain, my father was beating her with a charger wire for answering him back and being "disrespectful" without thinking I interfered to stop this and I wanted to take her out of there he stopped me and said "you won't love her better than me to act like u care by saving her from me". I disgarded him and try to push my way in while he threatened to beat me up if I don't go.

I managed to take my sister but mother didn't like that I'm protecting my sister and not her so she made drama out of it. My father came again because of the argument I had w mom and he told my sister to not sit with me and go to her room while she refused he dragged her up the stairs by her arms and then by her hair pulling so hard I almost thought he'll end up snatching her hair out of her scalp,then he hit her with a strong fist in her back (my sister is so small and weak for her age). I immediately jumped to stop him whole holding his hand and trying to let him go of her, he grabbed me by my hair and twisted my head down the stairs trailing, while slapping me so hard both sides of my face continuesly while saying things that I couldn't even comprehend by the shock I felt and the ringing sound in my ear Cuz of the slaps.

My parents did unparenting with me, but regular parenting with my 4 (much older) siblings. Anyway they grew up normal and I got nerfed with several mental illnesses. Unparenting, at least to my parents,was letting me decide my own rules and letting me raise myself. They showed up to school events, gave me boundaries or rules. I had free range to do whatever I want. I never did homework or went to bed at a good time. I’m now 23 and teaching myself discipline and setting my own rules.

Long story short, im 22 and live with my single mother. Im moving out in January to a different state.

This morning, i left the house at 8 to go for a long run.

She calls me at 10, “where are you?”

Me: “im outside running”

Mom: “did you ask me you were leaving?”

Btw i locked the door and everything.

Me: “I didn’t know I had to tell you where I was going if i locked the door?”

Her: “this is my fucking house..”

I hang the phone up.

Here’s our messages before I blocked her because she wants to start her shit this morning.

Mom:
“So if u grown get out today!”
“If u so grown pay for your own food.”
“I don’t care.”
“Your phone is suspended too.”
“And I’m not paying that card u got towards living with me for free.”
“And your response so dumb.”
“Sweet heart it’s my phone dumbass! And your perception is slow and retarded actually! And you [redacted] says you talk shit about me too her! Dumbass”
You:
“I’ll move today.”

For context: i got that phone when i was 17😭 im 22 now… and im trying to finish my last semester in college. I can’t wait to leave and never fucking come back!

MY credit card she used she refuses to
Pay it back. Then 2-3 hours later have the nerve to ask for it, and i tell her its her last time using it. And she gets all ego and shuts the electricity off in my room and take the WiFi cord with her.

What does it sound like?
Controlling!

Weird question I've been pondering for years. My mother is in general very nice and just wants me to be happy, safe, and healthy. But in all other ways she hates pretty much everything about me and tries to change me to fit her 'idea' of what a 'good daughter' is. The clothes I wear, the friends I have, the music I listen to, my hobbies and interests, my career pursuits, my sexuality, even begged me to get protein treatment to make my curly hair straight even after I said no multiple times. Also REFUSES to support the life I want to live and instead insists that I get a husband at least 5 years older than me, settle down, and have kids despite me telling her that would make me miserable. And much much more- pretty much EVERYTHING about me.

I'm not asking if this is 'okay' cause I know it isn't. But is someone capable of truly 'loving' another if they don't really like anything about them and constantly try to change them? Or just like the 'concept' of them? (for example, you have a partner but don't really like anything they do, like, etc and try to change them to match your idea of a 'good partner', do you love that partner or do you just like the idea of having a partner?)

I am a 25 year old female, and right now I live with my mom and 15 year old brother. My mom is the type of person who will choose a man over her own kids its happened so many times already. My mental and physical health has started taking hits, I barely get enough sleep when shes home because she stays outside drinking and smoking and slams doors, and my mental health has taken hits because she talks down to me a lot and threatens to do stuff like one time she tried to hit me with a pot lid cause I couldn't remember if I washed it. But back to the point my coworker and now roommate and i have found an apartment and it will be open August 22nd and i want to tell her I found a place to move to but i don't know how to bring it up in conversation. When my little sister told her she was moving out to live with my dad my mom refused to give her her birth certificate and social security card and made her move out the day my sister told her and this was like at 6 in the afternoon so my dad had to drive an hour away to get most of her stuff edit to add i totally forgot to say this to my brother is also going to be moving out my mom and his dad are divorced so he will move in with his dad when they get back from vacation

Better be an orphan than have toxic parents.
I said what I said!!!!

I 18F have grown up with extremely strict and controlling parents who have always belittled every little thing I have done.

As of late, every little snippy comment they make about me just ruins my entire mood for the day. How do I stop giving a damm?? I hate that they have so much agency over me, even to the point that things they say to me linger on my mind for so long.

I (28F) have always had a difficult relationship with my mum. I love her, and I don’t think she’s a terrible person or that she’s never done anything for me. She has helped me a lot practically over the years, particularly since I had my daughter, and I know there have also been times where I’ve been snappy, ungrateful or said things about her when I’ve been angry. I’m not claiming I’ve handled everything perfectly.
The problem is that I feel like there has been a pattern throughout our relationship where my feelings are either dismissed or interpreted as an attack on her.
My dad became seriously ill with bowel cancer earlier this year and died in May at only 58. I was extremely close to him and his illness and death have absolutely devastated me.
My relationship with my mum has deteriorated massively since then.
I tried to tell her that I’d been struggling for months and that although I appreciated the practical things she had done, I didn’t feel emotionally supported by her. I wasn’t trying to say she was a bad mum; I was trying to explain how I felt.
Her response was essentially that I hadn’t supported her either, that I make everything about myself, and that she had supported me because she’d suggested I get therapy. She also criticised how often I visited Dad in hospital, which really hurt because I was working, looking after my toddler and helping him in other ways throughout his illness.
Eventually she said she “couldn’t do this” and ended the conversation.
There have been other incidents too. She cancelled plans with me on my birthday without what I felt was a genuine apology. She found out that I had spoken negatively about her to other people and became extremely focused on what I had said about her and who I had said it to. Some of those things were said when I was angry and I accept that I shouldn’t have said everything I did, but they were largely me talking about my experiences and how her behaviour made me feel rather than deliberately inventing things about her.
At one point she decided that communication between us should only happen by email, which made the relationship feel incredibly formal and distant.
Recently I sent her a voice message because I was genuinely sad about where our relationship had ended up. I tried to explain that I love her, appreciate things she has done for me and accept that I have hurt her too, but that I desperately wanted her to acknowledge that she has also hurt me and that the problems between us aren’t entirely one-sided.
Instead, she focused again on things I had supposedly said about her and accused me of lying about her. She wanted to know who else I had “lied about her to.”
That was the point where I felt like something in me just gave up. I told her that if protecting what other people think about her matters more than trying to understand why her daughter feels this way, I don’t know what else I can do.
The other complication is my daughter, who is nearly 2.
My mum loves her and used to look after her regularly. Contact has become much less consistent since my dad became ill and died, and there have been occasions where plans involving my daughter have been cancelled. My mum has now said she would like to start looking after her every Friday again.
This is where I’m really conflicted.
I don’t want to use my daughter as a weapon or punish my mum by withholding her granddaughter because our relationship is bad. If they have a loving relationship, I don’t want to unnecessarily take that away from either of them.
But equally, I’m struggling with the idea that my mum could potentially want no meaningful relationship with me while still expecting to have my 2-year-old every week.
At her age, having an unsupervised relationship with my daughter inevitably requires a relationship with me too. We need to communicate about childcare, routines, illnesses, arrangements, boundaries etc. I also worry about inconsistency and my daughter eventually becoming old enough to understand if Grandma repeatedly cancels or disappears when there is conflict.
Another fear I have is whether our difficult relationship could eventually bleed into her relationship with my daughter — for example, negative things being said about me or my daughter becoming caught in the middle of adult conflict.
I genuinely don’t know whether I’m being reasonable anymore because there is so much history and emotion involved.
I don’t need my mum to agree with my version of every event. I don’t even need her to take all the blame. What I want is for her to be able to say something along the lines of: “I know I’ve hurt you too. I’m sorry for my part in this. I love you and I want us to work on our relationship.”
I’ve acknowledged that I’ve hurt her. I just don’t feel she is capable of acknowledging that she has hurt me.
Would I be wrong to step away from the relationship at this point?
And separately, would I be wrong to stop the regular Friday childcare arrangement while our relationship is like this, even if I don’t necessarily stop my mum seeing my daughter altogether?
I’m genuinely interested in hearing if people think I’m being unfair, because I know you’re only hearing my perspective and I don’t want an echo chamber.

For context, my mom is religious while im atheist. She makes comments about the music I listen to, talking about how I used to listen to "thought provoking" songs but now its all swearing, ect. (Not true..but i let her have it. I dont feel like fighting) for my 20th birthday, I asked for more ear peircings. I had my 1st set done when I was a baby. But i did the second holes myself and a third on my left ear.

When my mom saw said ear piercings, she didn't worry abt the sanitation (I used sterial things) she didn't worry abt healing. Nope! She cared about what the Bible said and how that would make her look as a parent. She also this weird affinity for making me look like a Christian hater when I ask genuine questions abt the Bible. (Again, I'm an atheist that shes trying to convert)

For example "if god can see everything and control everything, why didnt he stop the snake if he knew what was gonna happen."

Or my favorite

"If god knew Satan was gonna go against him, why couldn't he just shut them down before it started"

Like, hello?

And she gets upset when I ask these questions, but again, if someone genuinely doesn't know, I respect the simple "i dunno" over any bullshit answer.

I (25F) am hoping to move out with my boyfriend soon mainly because my mom has been getting more emotionally abusive and I can no longer take it. I am worried once I am out that she will still be treating me badly, I dont want to completely cut her off but would like advice if anyone has some on how to set limits. I am hopeful once i am out it wont be as bad anymore.

A lot of the Asian culture loves to avoid the idea of mental health as well as criminal actions such as sexual abuse to avoid a bad reputation.

For 10 years, I was sexually abused by an uncle. There would be days where I wake up and he would be on top of me. He even gave me money after he abused me while holding and taking care of his daughter who at the time was a baby. All of this started at the age of 5. Fast forward to age 22 where my now husband helped me open up about my trauma. I was able to start a case and report him while 21 others started opening up and telling their story to help support the case. Meanwhile my Asian, parents and aunts and uncles told me not to report him and to think about what it would do to his family. Of course I didn’t listen. I decided to continue on.

A year later he was supposed to go on trial, but instead he fled to the Philippines and now there is a warrant out for his arrest. Fast forward four years later, he’s still in the Philippines, most likely abusing others. I found out today that my uncle who is a cop would’ve been able to arrest him and bring him back to the United States. But my very toxic parents told my uncle not to arrest him and to leave him be.

It hurts so much to know that my parents can’t even protect their own children, but instead protect the person who hurt their kids the most. I thought I lost my parents in the process of all of this because I didn’t know that they were a culprit in all of this. now I realize I really did lose them because why should I allow myself to be around people who is supposed to love you the most, but choose to protect those who hurt them.

How to make parents understand that giving birth to kids wasn't something very great to be done

U just had sex because u were horny

And there's not a single reason to respect someone because they choosed to do sex that night without condom

​I am 19 years old, and I feel so isolated. Ever since I was young, I couldn't look people in the eye, and I’ve never really had friends. I feel isolated because when I was growing up, my mom was overprotective. She always told me that my friends weren't good for me and urged me to leave them, saying they weren't good people. I never even got to play sports because she kept telling me I would injure myself and that my body was too weak. I don't even know how to ride a bike.

​When I was 11, I started reading books on Wattpad, and I began "bedrotting." Even now at 19, I struggle to do household chores and stay in bed all day. I don't want to go out, I have no friends, and I feel like I don't know how to do anything in life. I don't even have social media because of a traumatic experience when I was younger: my mom went through my Messenger, saw a chat from a male classmate, and criticized me for it, calling me terrible names and making me feel ashamed.

​To make matters worse, both of my parents were diagnosed with cancer. My mom has breast cancer, and my dad passed away from colon cancer. This all happened between the ages of 15 and 17. That was when I started feeling deeply sad and began having thoughts of wanting to die.

​Fast forward to now: I feel completely empty. I stopped going to school, and my mom has been acting erratically ever since my dad died—making videos as if she were a teenager and acting strangely in front of the camera. On top of that, I still can't go to friends' houses or travel anywhere far, because if I do, she nags me endlessly. She treats me like I am 12 years old and incapable of doing anything for myself. She is also extremely negative; whenever she meets someone, she criticizes their food and everything else about them, and now I feel like I’m turning into her.

​I have no money because I can't work. I am supposed to receive 5,000 pesos a month from my father’s pension, but my mom controls all of it. I don't even have valid IDs because I don't have the money to get them. I am writing my first post here because I don't have a single person to talk to—literally no one—and I am going crazy. I desperately want to know if I can ever get out of this situation, because I am planning to leave this house.

My parents always fought, always got physical, my mom did hard drugs and my dad dabbled.
My dad refused to feed me if my mom wasn’t there when I was a baby.
As I got older and my mom got worse, it’s like a light switch flipped in his head. He became my best friend.

But my mom?
My whole childhood was spent lying to my dad about where she would take me at night.
Drug houses and falling asleep in someone dirty laundry at age 3.
Being left alone at 13 with a bunch of addicts and watching people shoot up with a gang member being the one to look after me and make sure I was okay. (He was the homie fr.)

When I tried to OD on a handful of prescription Benadryl, my mom made it about her and made me go to my dads house when I was living with my grandparents to tell him what I did as I was nodding out sitting on a stool and then was put to bed to sleep it off, I could’ve died.

I self harmed and developed eating disorders since I was 10, and got groomed several times in my teens because my parents didn’t care enough to educate me or stop me. I was left severely damaged and abused.

My dad kicked my mom out once and wouldn’t let me open the door for her when she was begging to be let in.
My mom hid needles in my shoes, in my bathroom, in my cabinets.

I couldn’t ever go anywhere with her because she was always high out of her mind. I was 12 when I picked her up out of the floor bc she left the oven on and I didn’t want dad to see her like that and her get in trouble.
But now?
After I turned 18?
After I got an education and moved to a different city?
All of a sudden my mom doesn’t use as much. She still has paraphernalia in my childhood bedroom tho.
She’s always worried about me, both of them are.
They care more now. They show it more now.
They have always loved me, just didn’t always prioritize me.
It’s my greatest struggle to forgive them and still go into that house for a visit. I don’t know how to confront it, I don’t want to cut them or just my mom off and regret it.
But I have flashbacks every day. I’m angry a lot. I’m resentful. I want to go back to my teen years and re live them. Or my childhood. I deserved a better life.

I don’t know if anyone else has had the same issue I’m in.
But I need advice. Or just someone who can relate.