Note: The post contains mentions of disordering eating and abuse.
Growing up in a toxic household can sometimes means people subconsciously develop behaviors to keep them "safe."
And even though these survival tactics sometimes kept them from harms way as children, some people realize, as adults, that these habits are, in fact, not always "common".
That's why Reddit user u/GreggOfChaoticOrder asked the r/AskReddit community: "What is a childhood coping method you unknowingly developed only to realize later that it wasn't 'normal'?"
The answers were incredibly honest — so we gathered several for you to read below.
However, even though some of these behaviors might seem relatable, please connect with a mental health professional if you would like to learn more, as no two situations are the exact same. You can find further resources at the bottom of this post.
1. "I look for signs, such as micro-expressions, about what kind of mood the other one is in. My therapist told me not all people do this, and I do it a lot. He also told me I developed it because I was always on the lookout because of my often angry, drunken stepdad."
2. "My parents were emotionally and often physically neglectful and cold. I was expected to stay out of the way and raise myself within the household. No mealtimes, bedtimes, bath times, nothing. The attention in the house was always negative. We lived way out in the country, too, so there were no playmates in the neighborhood — and my only sibling was 10 years older and of the opposite sex. I had this weird mental game from a young age — I must have gotten it from a book somewhere — where I would pretend I was in an orphanage (one of those old-fashioned ones, kinda like from Annie). The school bus dropped me off there. Then the evening was regimented. We lined up for dinner, sat and did homework, had a church-type service, and then were given baths and put to bed. I would pretend that I was one of many children doing these things. I would lie in bed and imagine myself lying in a row of identical twin beds."
"I realized as an adult that this was really weird. I’m not sure if my fantasy was about mattering to someone or complete anonymity."
3. "Shutting down emotional responses and forcing myself to 'not care' about any perceived loss. Apparently, this made it pretty annoying to discipline me because I would suddenly stop caring about anything that was threatened to be taken away. Nobody really taught me how to properly cope with loss when it started happening, and I guess my response was emotional repression."
"Oh my god, yes. My mom used to take away things I enjoyed when she was thinking I was behaving badly. At some point, I started to ignore it, finding something new or just lying in bed doing nothing. Now I'm curious if despite all other problems this also had an influence on me being indifferent about other people's presence and emotions."
4. "Always being okay having your decisions overridden by others and believing they know best. Examples: For birthdays, we’d get to pick a restaurant to eat at. I’d pick a place and usually my sister would complain and my parents would override. Being asked what I’d want for Christmas and being told 'No, you don’t' when you tell them what you want. I was super into astronomy growing up, so when I asked for a telescope, I was told more than once I didn’t want it. So I started to believe I didn’t want one."
"Sometimes I wonder if I'm indecisive for similar reasons. Mine isn't anything malicious. Just being the youngest of three, your opinions generally fall in last for a long time. I became very easy-going/go with the flow, but now I do this thing where I'll be like, 'sure whatever' — and stifle my own desires for others."
5. "Constantly trying to preempt or diffuse situations. I'm always checking the mood of the room. I'm pretending to laugh to lighten up my parents interactions."
6. "Apparently, I do something called 'disassociating' where I get so deep in thought that I don’t hear anything else around me. It drives my wife nuts."
"Learning about dissociation is a game-changer. It's so hard to explain what you feel when it's happening. Being able to see other people try to explain it helps us understand it and not feel so broken."
7. "I just found out I have a binge eating disorder. I eat in secret sometimes and overeat. It comes from my childhood and not knowing where my next meal would come from."
8. "Saying 'I am sorry' all the time."
"Yes, and when someone says, 'You don’t have to say sorry' and/or gets mad at you for saying sorry, and you get in a loop for saying sorry. Nowadays, it’s a lot better than it was. But whenever I feel bad, I just keep repeating it."
9. "Having three or four different responses ready for every conversation in advance just to prepare for what might come. My therapist told me this isn’t as normal as I thought it was and apparently other people don’t prepare this much for regular, everyday conversations."
"Or shutting down because you have to work out the 'perfect response' in real-time. And no, screaming at me for being quiet will not make this process go any faster or help to resolve the mind-numbing panic that triggered it in the first place."
10. "I’d pull out my eyelashes."
"It's called trichotillomania and it's a body-focused repetitive behavior. I do it, too. It used to be classified as an impulse control disorder, but now it's considered an obsessive compulsive-related disorder."
11. "Cleaning or doing things behind the scenes for my family so they're always happy, life goes smoothly, and my life is serene. The latter isn't the case unfortunately; I'm exhausted and always on edge."
"My house is spotless. Everyone is surprised my house is so clean when I have three kids. It's totally a coping mechanism. If I'm upset or stressed, I clean, and with a baby, I'm stressed a lot.
This behavior comes from my dad throwing epic fits if the house wasn't clean and tidy. He would yell that he has four daughters, so why aren't things clean? I thought if the house was clean, it was one less thing to be yelled at about.
I'm slowly learning that it's OK to leave dishes in the sink or have an unmade bed. A mess still makes me extremely anxious, but I'm doing my best not to pass it on to my kids."
12. "I learned to lie rather convincingly. I was petrified of getting in trouble for the smallest things that I learned to hide quite a bit. I had such high anxiety as a kid."
13. "Eating too fast. I remember noticing this even as a child still. I was always done first. And I never out grew it. Neglect and abandonment issues."
"My sister and I both do this. Every minute spent at the table increased the likelihood that we would get yelled at for something unrelated, so the only strategy was to get out of there as quickly as possible. I have to make a conscious effort to slow down around other people now."
15. "Hiding in the closet."
"I have PTSD, and I never hid in the closet, but something I think is similar is that I would never go to school without wearing long pants and a hoodie, even though I live in a very humid area that gets up to 100F during parts of the year.
The hoodie always made me feel safe like nothing outside could get to me. One time, I couldn’t find my hoodie, and I was freaking out and breaking down. I felt ashamed to go to school without a hoodie, and that it wasn’t safe."
16. "I recently learned about attachment theory and it makes complete sense as to how some children grow up the way they do. My attachment style is avoidant. Those with an avoidant attachment styles are typically people who have never received proper love or care from their parent. Children with avoidant attachment styles start to disregard their own internal struggles and feelings in order to maintain that peace and keep their parents close by. Growing up as a child, I never received that proper love or care from my parents. I did, however, receive that love and care from those who took me in, but the trauma has already been done. I unconsciously grew up to have this attachment style and started to bottle up my emotions and feelings."
17. "Making my voice as monotone as possible to prevent people (my parents) from picking up on any tiny hint of emotion. My parents would lose their shit if I had 'a tone' or sounded upset in any way. It's taken years and years of practice to regain some emotion in my voice again."
18. "I don't know if it was a coping mechanism so much as a survival tactic. I walk on the balls/toes of my feet all the time. If I'm barefooted, my heels never touch the ground unless I'm standing still. Quietness was the objective."
19. "Mine was food hoarding. I'd sneak food and water into my room for when I had none. I only realized this year that most people don't have stashes of food hidden around the place."
20. "Assuming people are mad at me based on their vocal tone."
"My dad would get snippy with my sister and me to watch our tone when we wouldn't have one. And then in high school and college, the slightest fucking shift in demeanor of my friends toward me sent me into a damn worry spiral.
"My boyfriend likes to speak frankly and clearly, and my mind makes it sound like he's upset, which makes me apologize and actually annoy him since I apologize too much to begin with."
21. "I can’t have an aspiration or a dream because I don’t want to disappoint myself. I can’t even say that I am gonna get a good grade on a specific subject out loud, because I'm scared I will disappoint myself. Same thing happens with other things in my life: when I apply for a specific college, I will just do it and ignore it until I get a result, because I don’t want to get my hopes up and end up not getting accepted. I can’t even have a New Years resolution because somehow I think I would fail, and I would rather already expect that than get my hopes up and fail. I am scared of being disappointed in myself."
22. "Not doing anything till the last minute so I feel pressured to do it — and when I finish doing it, I feel useful."
23. "Trying to think/mentally prepare myself for every possible horrible thing that could happen to me, so that if it did, I wouldn’t be blindsided. It didn’t work. I want to add that my mother died in a freak accident when I was young, and I was blindsided. My coping mechanism was to prepare for situations where a friend or family member is killed out of the blue, so I wouldn’t be caught off guard again. It caused me severe stress and the inability to relax ever. I am older now and therapy has done wonders for me."
24. "Blocking out all background noise to avoid emotional damage from whatever’s going on."
"I know that...it's like flipping a switch. It's most noticeable to me when I'm watching a movie and a scene comes on that triggers some kind of memory and so I mentally switch from being in tune with the movie to staring at the box on the wall while the pictures on it move. It completely removes all emotion."
25. "Listening for the smallest sounds. Before I was old enough and had enough money to move out, I could hear the faint sound of the garage door opening because it would always squeak when it opens. I would then bolt upstairs to my room because the garage opening meant that my mom was home. I can distinguish her footsteps easily. I developed a hypersensitivity to sound because of her."
"I keep track of where people are in the house. Since you can usually distinguish who is walking by how they sound, you can easily tell where they are. I still do it to this day even when it isn't necessary.
The sound of my mom or dad walking down the stairs always made my blood pressure spike. It was my only warning that they might open my door because they were really bad about not knocking and that meant they were pissed or wanted something. Unfortunately, they could also be walking downstairs for laundry or something else. So I would get worked up for no reason."
26. "Laughing at pain, if I get hurt I laugh. I do it because I don’t want the people around me feeling uncomfortable. I do it even when people aren’t around. It hurts."
27. "I can cut people out of my life and stop caring about people at the snap of my fingers, and I do it far too often to people who sometimes may not deserve it to keep myself safe."
Did you develop any childhood coping methods? If so, what are they, why do you believe they developed, and how are you working on your mental health today? Let us know in the comments below.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline is 1-888-950-6264 (NAMI) and provides information and referral services; GoodTherapy.org is an association of mental health professionals from more than 25 countries who support efforts to reduce harm in therapy.