Children grown in abusive family can end up starved and longing even for conversation. Extremely abusive parents don’t talk to their children; they manipulate, fearmonger, attack, project, monologue, bitterly rant, demand compassion, criticize, lash out and triangulate but they never see you worthy of actual conversation. It is possible they wouldn’t know how to have one.
So you grow up only struggling to find your way thru a myriad of lies, accusations, criticism, attacks, false information and emotional manipulation, as if one day, if you say the right thing, you could convince them to talk to you like humans. It never happens. It makes you hungry for being seen, acknowledged as a worthwhile partner for conversing; you need to be able to ask questions, to bounce ideas off of someone who won’t ridicule and shut them down only because they’re from you, you want to be worthy of intellectual stimulation and not told you’re too stupid to understand, to share without being afraid of everything being used against you.
The simplest and most normal aspects of socialization can be taken away from you in abusive family, without you even noticing it’s going on. It can make you grateful to other people for as little as talking to you, and make you feel indebted because a person who offers you an equal part of a conversation, has already done more for you than your parents did. And regardless, they never shut up about how much you owe them.
germansingergirl
prguitarman
tangentwithtanner
