Even with the best of intentions, there's still a chance that you may hurt someone accidentally without even knowing the full extent of the damage you've done until years later.
Recently, the BuzzFeed Community shared stories of things their parents did with good intentions that actually ended up hurting them later in life. Here are a few of those stories:
1. "Coddling and avoidance behavior. My parents used to allow me to stay home 'sick' from school and other events whenever I felt anxious about facing an issue that may be going on, which was A LOT, with my being an anxious kid. To this day, I still struggle with pushing myself not to try to opt for making an excuse to avoid situations that make me anxious and face problems head-on."
2. "My parents had an unspoken policy of 'only grades matter,' and really, it screwed up me and my brothers so much. Bad grades were the only thing we ever got disciplined for; good grades were the only thing we got praised for. As long as we brought home mostly A grades, they didn't care about anything else. I've struggled with that lack of discipline and structure my whole life, and trying to provide discipline and structure for myself. It doesn't work very well. When you spend your entire youth being valued for one thing, it leaves you sort of lost when that one thing is gone."
3. "I think my parents always treated me like a smaller version of an adult, not a child. They really had no clue that you couldn’t treat a 6-year-old like a grownup. I eventually adapted so I could survive and was immediately rewarded for my precociousness. I was always praised for being 'easy' and 'independent' for my age. My parents just assumed I already had everything I needed because I never asked for help. But in reality, I didn’t know that they were supposed to help me, and I never understood that I was allowed to ask. Children are not little adults!"
4. "My parents took 'cutting out toxic people' to an extreme. At the slightest sign of tension or the slightest inconvenience, my parents would cut off friends and family, to the point that we really had no one to socialize with, even family. Now, in my mid-20s, I see how problematic that is."
5. "At the same time my parents were praising my accomplishments, encouraging me to better myself, and inspiring me to work hard, they were constantly saying negative things about women in general. I didn't hear one positive thing about being a woman in my family, and the unspoken rule was I needed to take on as many 'masculine' traits like hard work, rationality, level-headedness, etc. I also needed to avoid any trait or emotion that was seen as 'feminine (and thus wrong)' but also being feminine and demure in appearance and mannerisms. I'd get criticized for being too loud, pushy, talking too much, etc. I had three brothers, and my dad was very male-focused and very anti-women. My mom just parroted what he said about this.
6. "My dad is mentally ill. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 17, and I highly suspect he also has it but has never been diagnosed. When I started having my own battle with mental illness, he was very concerned for me. He was worried, and I can understand that. At the time, I didn't know how to deal with my mental illness, and I isolated myself. I didn't really want to be around friends, slept all day long, etc. The problem is that he isn't always great at expressing himself. Usually, when he's worried, it comes off as anger rather than concern. It took me a long time to understand this, and for a while, I just felt like he was ashamed of me or that I was a burden.
"My dad is a good parent, but I definitely think he would have been a better parent if his generation knew and understood more about mental health. I truly think he was as lost in his own battle as I was in mine. The good thing is that now I have the opportunity to help him. He recently came to me explaining how his anxiety was getting worse and asking for advice. I'm going to help him finally get the treatment he needs."
7. "My brother was in and out of hospitals a lot when we were young, and consequently, he often got most of the attention while I went to stay with my grandparents or aunts and uncles. I had to learn to be self-sufficient and spent a lot of time by myself; whereas, my brother was pandered to in the hospital. Now as an adult, he’s incredibly clingy (calling once a day, always wanting to talk about nothing) while I can go days without talking to anybody and lack some social skills because I was taught to look after myself and be my own company in order to cope. I don’t blame my parents for it; they did their best in awful circumstances, but I can see just how much it has affected me in the long run. They wanted to offer my brother as much support as possible, while in return, I was lacking."
8. "My mother was a fat child and was fat well into her early 20s before she lost a bunch of weight. Growing up, she obsessed over everything that went into my mouth. I was never allowed sweets or snacks. She was terrified of me becoming unhealthy and overweight. It was very damaging. I ended up becoming a food hoarder. I would go out, buy tons of snacks with the money I made at work and hide it in my room to binge eat later on. I ended up becoming incredibly overweight as an adult because, after I moved out, I had the freedom to eat ALL of the bad things I wanted. I still have an incredibly unhealthy relationship with food."
9. "My mom stayed with my dad even though he had (and has) severe mood disorders where he flies into rages and threatens everyone nearby. I understood that she wanted to keep the family together, but I used to beg her to get a divorce because I didn’t want to be around that kind of rage. She taught me to keep toxic relationships in my life longer than I needed, and it has taken years to unlearn that lesson. By all means, she is a saint of a woman, who’s been teaching for 30 years and is the sole breadwinner in her marriage, but that’s the one thing she did that genuinely screwed me up for years."
10. "The first 10 years of my life, I lived with my grandparents. It was wonderful, and they were always very kind toward me. However, in hindsight, they spoiled me a bit too much. I was never asked to do any chores at all, and my grandma would clean up after any and all messes I made. Between never having built good habits about cleaning, and some executive functioning deficits I have due to ADHD, I am an adult with a constantly messy living space. I wish my grandma would have helped support me in building better habits instead of just doing the work for me when I was a kid."
11. "My parents were insanely overprotective. I know they really were just trying to keep anything bad from happening to me, but it was to the point where I wasn't allowed to socialize normally. I wasn't allowed to go to the mall with friends without an adult present, even into high school. If I went to a sleepover, my parents would pick me up at 11 PM and I couldn't stay the night, which I always got ridiculed for, so it was almost worse than not even going. I wasn't allowed to date literally until I was 18. I could have a guy over while my parents were there, and we could sit in the living room all together. So surprise surprise, it took me forever to figure out basic social skills, and I now have, at times, almost crippling social anxiety."
12. "I love my mom so much, but growing up, she would put so much emphasis on looks. I knew I was 'pretty,' but once I hit puberty, anytime we went somewhere, it was basically a challenge to get attention from boys. I think she just enjoyed having something to talk about with me, but it really fucked me up and eventually lead to me dating a guy WAY too old for me because I liked the attention he gave me. I also started wearing concealer and powder daily on my face in ELEMENTARY school! I'm now almost 30, and it's a big deal for me to go out of the house without makeup on."
13. "I was the child of a single parent, and I knew how hard it was for her to get me to things because she was working 60-80 hours a week. I also knew that we didn't have enough money for me to do activities like other kids did, so even if I enjoyed it, I didn't think it was worth doing unless I was good at it or I felt like I was wasting what little time and money my mother had. Now, I'm having to unlearn that. It's my money and time to waste how I please, and if I wanna do something purely just to do it, then I should."
14. "My parents told me I could be anything I wanted to be but didn't explain the economic realities of the different things I tried to explore. Most of this was probably because they didn't know, since they grew up sheltered or poor, but I really had no guidance about what opportunities were really out there. Part of it was also our geographic location, where most folks were teachers, nurses, or worked at the hot tub factory. I was told if I just got a four-year degree in anything, then I could go on to do whatever I wanted. With the debt I graduated with, that certainly wasn't the case."
15. "My parents had the mentality that if you ignore a problem, it will go away on its own. I guess they thought this would spare us all heartache or something, not knowing when things were bad and having to deal with it, it’s easier to ignore and pretend. For example, I was very close to my grandfather, who was rushed to the hospital the day before I was leaving for France with my church youth group. I was told that everything would be fine, this happens sometimes, and that I didn’t need to visit him at the hospital; I should prepare and leave for my trip. On the day we arrived, the priest said that my parents called him. My grandfather died, and they wondered if they should wait to tell me so I could have a nice trip.
"He said that was a bad idea and agreed to tell me. I was heartbroken and shocked. I found out, years later, that he was very ill and his death was not really a surprise. I’ll never forgive that I didn’t get to say goodbye.
"Now as adults, my siblings and I have a hard time asking for help, admitting when something is wrong, and being honest with our emotions. We don’t want to bother anyone or be a 'burden,' etc. when we’re sad or in pain. I know this causes more harm in the long run because a problem won’t magically disappear if you ignore it; sometimes it gets worse. But still, after years of therapy, I still put on a smile and then cry once I get home alone."
—Id
16. "I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when I was 4. It was very traumatic for me and my parents, but they never really explained the condition to me. From my perspective, one day, I just started getting stabbed with needles, so I assumed that I was being punished. I spent weeks in the hospital running from nurses, hiding from them and screaming, begging for them to stop hurting me, but nobody took the time to calmly explain it to me. 'This is your life now, get used to it!' My mother also hated giving me injections, so she made my father do it, and he always opted to inject my buttocks, which was humiliating for me. They wouldn't let me do my own injections until I was 8 and had spent weeks begging to try as I hated baring my ass in public."
17. "Whenever my parents gave me praise over anything, it wasn’t JUST praise. They always had to add constructive criticism. 'This is good, but it would have been better if you did this.' They, particularly my mother, would always say that it was only because she wanted me to do my best. But my best was apparently never good enough. It got to the point where I don’t tell them when I accomplish something good because there’s always a 'But' attached at the end of the sentence. I also struggle a lot now with motivation and self-doubt. Why bother trying when I know I’m going to fail anyway?"
18. "I have a learning disability among other various disorders, and I always needed help with academics as a child. My mom was always very helpful and understanding. However, now as an adult, she doesn’t think I’m capable of the same things other people my age are capable of. I remember a few years ago, she told my husband that I wasn’t able to do the same kinds of jobs as other people because I’m 'too sensitive.' She’s well-meaning, but I wish she’d stop trying to shelter me. I was a very sheltered kid. I love both of my parents, and they’ve always been supportive of me, but it’s just frustrating that I constantly have to prove that I’m a real adult around them."
19. "They sent me to an expensive school so I could have the kind of education they didn't. We weren't poor, but I was probably the poorest in that school. I was always at the top of the class, but I was rarely ever socially accepted, and that did a number on me. In contrast, my husband grew up poor and went to public school. Kids there didn't care about what kind of family you came from. They actually got to enjoy being kids. My husband grew up well adjusted with almost no hangups. Guess where I'm sending my kids now?"
