Trick Me Once Shame On You. Shame On You. Shame On You Shame On You I Hate You. I Ltierally Trusted You.

I finally cracked down on the whole ‘why don’t you know this by now’ and ‘you’re too stupid to be independent’ issue with abusive parents so I’m going to break it down.

So lets make two things clear; first: Parents ARE responsible for TEACHING you basics of life, which includes survival, your rights, and basic knowledge that you don’t get in school, and second: Yelling at you for not knowing these things already, is not teaching, and they’re aware of that.

Abusive parents don’t care for their responsibility towards the children at all, but they are very interested in making you useful and appearing as great parents to everyone outside the family. So, if they’re teaching you anything, it’s only for the sake of you doing things for them. Hell, sometimes they’ll just tell you to 'pick it up by watching’ or 'figure it out on your own’ and give you dozens of responsibilities without even asking if you know how, or offering an explanation. Maybe they want you to do menial jobs, maybe you’re responsible for raising your siblings, or restocking groceries and cooking, maybe cleaning or cutting grass or carrying wood or caring for animals; it will be allowed for you to know these things but nothing outside of it, so you wouldn’t start thinking you’re actually competent. You will do all these things correctly and still be called stupid, lazy, worthless, and be reminded that you are nothing without them; all the things you don’t know or can’t do will be thrown into your face, you’re told you are incapable of learning them.

That’s how they get that nice balance of keeping you working for them but still completely in the dark about how to survive without them. The less you know the easier to keep you from leaving; they will sometimes even devalue things you learn at school, just to get your confidence down.

But then, in their infinite masterplan to keep you uninformed, they will forget that it must appear to other people as if you know things, or it will be suspicious; why didn’t they teach their child anything? They’re all pretty paranoid about being found out, so they have to make some counter-measures just in case. So then they gotta paint this picture of 'oh I did teach my child everything! But the child doesn’t listen! If they still don’t know something it’s their own fault!’ And they pre-emptively act as if they have already taught you everything, but you, dumb slob, retained nothing of it. And they need you to act guilty of this in front of other people too, so they’ll often yell at you 'How old are you? How do you already not know this?’ in front of others, as a display of their narrative. They’re saying 'oh we did teach the child and we say it constantly but the kid doesn’t listen even at this age!“

But what it does to you is actually gaslighting. Because you know you never heard this information from them before. They never even came close to comprehensively explaining anything to you. But the scenario playing out in front of you suggests they not only did, but you forgot, and if you try to defend yourself how will you convince anyone that you didn’t forget? It’s a not such a big deal to go fight them on it, but as it happens again and again, you start doubting your memory. Sometimes they even act surprised when you don’t know something, as if they spent days teaching it to you? You start getting worried that you’re missing out on all this vital info, but watch how even when they’re fake surprised you don’t know, they still don’t give you the info! They shame you for not paying attention and what you’re supposed to take from this is to pay attention in the future where they still just never fucking tell you anything relevant ever.

Because it’s just a show of charades to keep all the useful information that would help you to freedom safely hidden away from you, while having you look forgetful and guilty for any witnesses. It’s more likely you’ll learn something asking your neighbour who doesn’t have any stakes in keeping you uninformed.

Being treated like this for long term can make you doubt your own ability to learn, will make you worried that everyone knows more than you and ashamed for being stupid. It will not only discourage you from learning but make sure you have way less context for new knowledge you acquire; you will struggle to place new concepts without the basics and new information will feel arbitrary and irrelevant.

If you want to test if your parents are doing this, try telling them you’re reading resources for abuse; see how quick they are to either devalue or forbid it as a 'wrong and manipulative’, and likely throw a tantrum for good measure to make sure you don’t do it again. Now don’t really do it. If you could have imagined them reacting like this, then yes, they’re definitely aware they’re abusing you and ready to cover it up and isolate you from the information that would have helped you escape.

What you can do is slowly come to terms with the fact that no, you’re not stupid; nobody took the time to actually teach you. The information denied to you, is not actually intimidating and impossible to retain, it’s simply threatening to abusers, but you are capable of learning it. Once you do learn it, it will make sense they wanted to keep it away from you, in fact you will find out among the things they did tell you, there was a lot of guilt-inducing lies. You are not stupid for not knowing. You have had knowledge withheld from you, and then got gaslit into accepting responsibility for it.

There’s this really specific experience in growing up with abusive parents, because they act so emotionally immature at all times. And when you’re a kid, it just feels normal, right? You’re emotionally immature, they’re immature, you’re on the same level, you don’t know any better, you think that’s how humans are. 

But then later, you actually develop some empathy, awareness of other people’s feelings and their inner worlds and thoughts and situations, and you outgrow your parent’s maturity. And at that point you’re just so used to tolerating their shit you don’t even think twice, you’re the adult now, you let them have their way, you forgive and forget, clean their messes, take care of their feelings and make it all okay for them.

But then at one point, you realize you have adults acting like literal spoiled children, when you’ve outgrown this a while ago, and you ask yourself, when they gonna grow? When they gonna develop some self awareness? And then you go and assume they just never had a mature presence in their life so they had no way to learn (which isn’t true because then how did you learn it?), and you go and try to teach them by showing them a good example. You become extra nice, patient, explain things to them, cater to their inner worlds, try to explain to them that there’s people other than them on this world, who have feelings and hearts and deep inner world and this is significant and needs to be respected. But all they ever respond with is “yes I am those people now cater to me”. 

It is impossible to teach abusive parents by showing them a good example. They will insist you do it over and over again, and then exploit your kindness to the max. Literally the kinder you get, the worse they get. They soon expect you to run after their every need, to jump at their every whim, and in return they insult you for a good measure, call you worthless and lazy, then they go to sleep without a care in the world. 

Do not do this. They’re not growing up because they benefit so strongly from acting like a kid. Once all of their immaturity privileges and tolerations are suspended, and they’re forced to act like a proper human being in order to keep gettinng what they want, suddenly they’ll know exactly how to do it. 

Your parents are not immature, they’re abusive. They’re not childish, they’re manipulative. They’re not silly, they’re self obsessed, selfish and forceful. You gave them enough benefit of the doubt, you do not have to wait all your life for them to grow up. Their due for that was long time ago and they have no business expecting you to be their parent.

"damn I'm crying over an insect" "why am I having such strong feelings over how the sky looks" "it's weird how happy this small thing made me feel" THAT'S BECAUSE YOU LIVE HERE!!!! you live on this earth. everything all the time is an experience, no matter how common or mundane. this world is unique. so are its small moments. it is good to enjoy a tiny thing. you love the world even at its smallest scale.

Abusive parents love to pretend that whatever is going on at home is not “real life”, and you, would have no chance of surviving in “real life”. In fact, you know nothing about “real life” at all, you are an dumb, uninformed slob of ignorance and know nothing about living at all. According to them, you have been living in some kind of “bubble” where no real life events have been happening, and all of your experiences and opinions have nothing to do with reality. They even have the nerve to tell you to “start living in the real life.”

You have been living nothing but real life. You had a real life experience of surviving in abusive environment. You have lived a reality of existing next to an abuser. There is nothing unreal or fake about your experiences, your abusive home is no bubble, it’s a real, definite hell that you went thru. There’s no question of you surviving in real life, you literally were surviving the worst of it already. You proved you are capable of surviving the worst of the worst, being in presence of a predator who was capable of brainwashing and manipulating you to keep you scared and unbelieving in your own senses and experiences. 

Every single thing you lived thru was real life. You took on real life from the second you were born. Your circumstances were hard and cruel, you got all advantages taken away from you, replaced with sabotage and hatred, and you’re still alive now. There isn’t a harsher reality than what you already went thru. Your experiences count in the real world. What happened to you affects the real world. Your parents have done nothing but lie to you. You were living in the real world entire time.

i love when characters lie to themselves in the complete privacy of their own minds

if I’m so “useless” then why do you keep using me?

if I’m so “worthless” then why do you order me around?

if I’m so “incapable” why do you care so much about decreasing my confidence?

If I’m such a “burden” then why do you care so much for keeping me dependant on you and making sure I can’t leave and be on my own?

If I’m so “stupid” then why do keep talking to me? Why not find someone else?

if I’m so “ungrateful” then why do you want me around? You shouldn’t want to give your time and energy to ungrateful people now, should you?

If I’m such a “monster” then why do you not try to get away from me? Why would you bother keeping me against your will, aren’t you scared?

If I’m such a “horrible demon” then why are you not running away from me? Why are you talking to me as if you couldn’t be less worried about what happens to you next?

If I’m such a “selfish creature” then why do you give me anything at all? It’s almost like you need to hold something against me, if I’m selfish why should I care if I’m called that?

It’s almost like your manipulative logic doesn’t hold up to tiniest bit of scrutiny. So why are you lying so much? Saying one thing and then doing as if the opposite is true doesn’t show you in good light. It turns out I’ve been plenty useful, plenty valuable, capable, bearing you as a burden even, smart enough to see thru you, grateful enough to tolerate your bullshit even though you never gave me a good reason to, harmless to you to the point where you could take your shit out on me unbothered and unafraid, selfless enough to put away my very own well being for the sake of your needs, so why do you think now, after all, I would forgive you lying to me? Don’t expect forgiveness from me.

Your parents are lying to you. You do have what it takes to survive. They're not intrinsical to your existence, but to the sabotage of it. Without them nothing could stop you from figuring it out. All you need is already inside you. They do not get to decide what you're capable of.