What Growing Up With Strict Parents Actually Does to You

There is a really funny hashtag trending right now about what growing up with strict parents looks like.  Those of us who relate to these statements of memes get to have a good laugh at the situations that caused a good amount of conflict in the house for years.  Most of these are funny -- like, really funny.  Feeling like we are not alone in this joking manner can relieve some of the stress that we feel against the items in these tweets.  Here are just a few of the ones I found:

Are you laughing?  I did.  A lot...

Disclaimer:
The rest of this article deals with the effects this kind of upbringing might have (at least, this is how it affected me) on kids.  This is in no way saying that parents should be completely foregoing of rules.  I believe that structure and discipline are important.  But this is what happens when parents are in denial about how strict they are or if they don't care that they are strict.

Side affects of being emotionally abused
These are a small number of the things I have noticed have resulted from the kind of parenting I received:

• Reluctance to acknowledge the problems I have may be more than just my fault (refusal to want to blame my parents)
• Lack of being able to talk about emotions
• Lack of willingness to accept any kind of flattery because I feel like I am not actually worth it
• Always apologizing for everything
• Unwillingness to try anything or make choices out of fear of being wrong
• Lack of ability to depend on others
• Guilty feelings if I decide I want something for myself (to try a different career path, buy a new shirt, etc.)
• Lack of socialization
• Being afraid to make friends
• Or being really bad at keeping them
• Anxiety about every decision I make
• Constantly wondering "What would my parents think?"
• Feeling like everything I say will be brushed off
• Especially if I ever tried to talk to my parents about how I feel
• Compulsive lying
• I was talking to a friend about how we just spout things off sometimes without realizing it.  It can be big stuff, but it is usually details that are totally unnecessary.
• Feeling like I have to constantly prove myself
• Insecurities about any flaw that has ever been pointed out by my parents
• Not crying.  Ever.  Feeling embarrassed if you do cry.
• The fact that I will not share this on my Facebook before I make sure my mom can't see it

It's not just me...
There are a lot of studies out there about why such strict parenting is harmful.  A lot of times, strict parenting is combined with emotional abuse.  This means that the child is belittled in their home, and cannot get away due to strict rules and disciplinary ideas.  But, let the experts tell you.

http://www.healthyplace.com/abuse/child-psychological-abuse/what-is-psychological-abuse-of-a-child/

http://www.teach-through-love.com/types-of-emotional-abuse.html

http://www.teach-through-love.com/effects-of-emotional-abuse.html

http://motherhood.modernmom.com/longterm-effects-strict-parenting-17796.html

You can Google it if you need more...

My Story
I have a lot of sisters.  My dad worked all the time.  My mom had several mental disorders and hardly left her room until I graduated high school.  I am the oldest.  I started taking care of my sisters when we moved to another new place.  I was seven.  My parents fought with each other.  They fought with us.  We fought with each other.  They got divorced and back together.  Not a day went by without some big argument happening.  So that is the shortened version of my cliche "Loss of Childhood" story.

I, personally, never rebelled.  I was too afraid of getting caught and, like, killed.  I don't think my parents knew they were emotionally abusive.  They know that they were strict, but also think they let up on a lot of rules.  In general:

• I did not ask to stay at a friend's house until my senior year (and only once then), except for the girl who lived across the street.  My mom was friends with her mom, though, and I always had to be home by nine the next morning.  Also, I never asked.  My friend had her mom ask my mom.
• I was homeschooled until high school, not by my choice.
• My sisters and I did all of the chores in the house.  My mother hardly left her room to eat, never mind clean.
• I could not date until I was sixteen
• When I did start dating, my curfew was 8:00.
• When I turned 17, it was moved to 9:00.
• I showed up three minutes early one night and was grounded for two weeks for being too close to the time limit.
• I could not get my license until I was 18.
• I could not be anywhere that they did not know my exact location.
• I could not ride in friend's cars.
• My parents would often brush off answering me if I asked to go to an event (a school play or birthday party).
• They then would deny that I ever asked and say no.
• If they did ever say yes, it was with a glare and growl like I asked them to cut off their arms.
• Also, the amount of chores I would have to do up until I left and after I got back home would have multiplied.
• When I started high school, my mother started to assume I would become a hellion.
• She would yell and curse at me and tell me really horrible things about my future.
• She would tell me I was a bitch that needed to get off her high horse
• This was after I told her she spelled "carrot" wrong
• She screamed at me that I was going to get pregnant in high school and ruin my life (I never had sex in high school).
• She called me promiscuous for having guy friends.
• She would slap me and my sisters.  These slaps would often progress to borderline abuse.
• I watched my sister cowering with her hands over her face, curled up in a ball, while my mother yelled on.
• My mother interpreted the hands covering her face meant that my sister wanted to slap her.
• This lead to my mother getting more angry and aggressive, pushing and shoving my sister around on the couch.

The thing is, it always seemed like just my mom.  But what my dad did was just as influential.

He did nothing.

He knew what was happening.  He saw it and heard it.  But he didn't stop it.  He would occasionally tell her to stop yelling, but he just mostly sat there and looked at the TV.  It was so twisted.  He acted like the more stable and in control one.  But he contributed to the ideas of high expectations and family pressure, with the added bonus of me feeling like this emotional abuse was normal.

From all of this, I have developed an anxiety that revolves around what my parents think of me.  If I am ever presented with a choice, I freak out for days, weeks, or months over making the wrong decision.  After I make a decision, I very unwillingly tell my parents and wait for ridicule.

• I changed my major
• "So, you wasted all of that time?"
• "What are you going to do with THAT?"
• "Yeah, that seems worth your time."
• I got my first serious boyfriend
• "Why would he want to date you?"
• "You know he just wants sex."
• "You just want attention."
• When I married that same serious boyfriend
• "You'll be divorced in ten years."
• "Oh, you mean the daughter that got married too young?"
• When I confronted them about me feeling attacked
• "I'm your father, not your friend."
• "I'm not supposed to like it."
• "You're being too sensitive.  Take a joke!"

Not only do I have this anxiety, I usually will be sent into a depression spell.  Now, I have gotten a lot better about this.  I have good friends now who are able to talk things out with me.  I have a God who I know loves me and tells me about who I really am (and that that real me is NOT dependent on what my parents say).  But, it is not possible to be rid of altogether.  Just thinking about my parents even reading this article makes my stomach turn and want to throw up.  I feel physically ill just thinking about what they would say to me or how this would make them feel.  This is one thing I can't see myself talking to them about, along with:

• My church or beliefs
• My financial decisions
• My friends
• The way I think about or interpret books or movies or songs
• Feminism
• Politics
• My major
• My classes
• What I want to do with my life
• My marriage
• Stress
• How I feel
• Children

All of these come from things I have been judged by them for.  I consider the most important things on my life to be on this list!  I talk just enough about a few of these things that they think I am telling them important stuff.

I can honestly handle if my parents are just being honest with me.  I love honesty.  But, when comments are aimed to hurt or degrade, I want to sink back and never come home again.  There are some seriously messed up things that should just NEVER be said to your children, and then add the fact that the comments are from you!

• "Just because you are a slut doesn't mean you should teach your sisters to be."
• "Learn your place."
• "You'll just work at Hooters one day."
• "You are expected to do better, and it looks bad on us when you don't."
• "I guess I'll just move away.  I can kill myself if that would make you feel better!  I can go to sleep and not wake up.  Would you be happy then?"

Here is the tricky part:
Strict or emotionally abusive parents can:

• Say I love you
• Do good things
• Give their children things
• Be considered good people
• Love their children

But, NONE of these excuse  parents from the life they threw at their child.  NONE of this makes up for the sleepless nights spent crying.  NONE of this makes up for the fact that the parent who reads this article MAY STILL BRUSH IT OFF!  Do not pretend that this is not you, if you know it is.

How to recognize a strict parent

Strict or emotionally abusive parents make their children feel guilty for asking for anything.  They rarely, if ever, admit they were wrong about something.  They hardly ever say sorry.  They make judgments of what their children like in a harsh way.  They are non-supportive and degrading.  They use guilt trips on your child.  They don't trust their children, and are constantly monitoring them.  There are some ways you can recognize if this is you.

• First of all, if you refuse to think that your child could feel this way
• If you have ever read their texts or diary without a severely just cause
• If you took things away because of or put a huge focus on grades
• If you feel like they don't talk to you about things
• If they don't come around a lot after they left the house
• Or, if they do, making them feel guilty for not coming around more
• If you ever purposefully made them feel guilty about anything
• You know if you have
• If you have ever tried to degrade your child
• "You're not good enough to do that."
• A more common form is phrasing insults like a compliment
• If you make jokes at the expense of your child and then brush it off or chastise them if they are hurt
• If you refuse to get involved in your child's emotions
• If you assume they are too young to know things or see things that happen or have opinions
• If you EVER say the words "Know your place."
• If you don't listen to them during an argument

You are probably emotionally abusing your children on some level.

What you can do as a parent

You need to address this.  Like, now.  I want you to talk to your child, I don't care what the age is.  I want you to ask them if you have ever said anything hurtful to them that still bothers them.  I want you to realize they might not want to tell you because they are afraid.  I want you to listen to them and not react quickly.  I want you to realize you might think some of their thoughts are irrelevant or that they just don't understand, and then dismiss those ideas entirely.  I don't care if they tell you they are angry you told them the moon wasn't made of cheese.  For this moment, at least, I want you to absorb everything they say.  DO NOT guilt trip them.  DO NOT try to make them feel bad for being honest and getting things off of their chest.  Also, do not assume that if they didn't tel you anything that nothing is wrong.  It took me a long time to figure out the root of a lot of my issues.

What you can do as the child

Here is the best link I have found so far:

https://theinvisiblescar.wordpress.com/suggestions-for-adult-survivors/

Get help.  Talk to people.  Don't keep this bottled up.  It can and will come back to haunt you and try to mess up your future life.

Also, don't give up.  One day, you won't have to live under this oppression from your parents.  Another thing I would suggest is find out what God says about you.  Discover how much he loves you and would never abuse you in this way.  All you have to do is see what he says.  You don't have to commit to anything.  In fact, ask me, if you need someone who won't judge you or force you to do anything.

Boycotting: Why it Matters

When I tell someone that I am boycotting something, I am met with eyes that will either roll or look at me like I have two heads.  It is hard to explain to some one why you boycott something.  It is like trying to tell someone why you don't like their friend.  I want to tell you a short story about the thought process I ride to get to this point.

Picture your best friend.  Think about how close you are and how much they mean to you.  Now imagine that someone is making fun of them.  This other person is tearing your friend down behind his/her back and to his/her face.  This other person is making up lies about your friend and telling a lot of other people.

Your friend can't fight back.  No one will listen.  They believe the other person's lies and start to have bad thoughts about your friend.  You see your friend hurting over this.

You used to be friends with this other person.  Do you still want to be friends?

Maybe you want to talk to this person about it and see why he/she is saying these things.  But they don't answer any of your questions directly.  Do you still brush it off?  Do you just admit that they are good at listening, and you won't give that up?  They have good parties, and you don't want to be uninvited?

No reason you have will be enough for your friend.

You are just one person, and your opinion may not directly matter.  But if you start to ignore the other person, others might follow.  If not, you don't have to put up with it.

That is how boycotting feels to me.  If a restaurant or company decides to heavily slam on something I care about, this is what I think.

I hope this made sense...

We Have Lived a Thousand Lives

You know that feeling when you finish a book?

The one where you can't figure out how the rest of the world is still moving.

Like, how can they not know the importance of what just happened at the conclusion or whatever it is at the time you look up?

Maybe someone died.  Maybe you're clutching the book to your chest or wanting to throw it across the room or both.  Maybe you've already put the book down and are contemplating it --already comparing it to your life.

Maybe, hopefully not, someone is there to witness it.  Maybe they said something to you about it.

“I don't know why you read if it makes you so sad.”

“You're acting like a completely different person.”

“It's just a book.”

Just.

A.

Book.

But, yes.  I do act like a different person.  I read because I refuse to be the same person throughout my life.  I require personal growth and discovery to be content.  Each book brings a new thought.  Every book is a new idea.  Every book is a new person, wrapped in pages.  Reading unwraps the person directly into your mind.  This person shows you things you never thought about before.

This person leaves a little bit of itself in you when the book is done.  You absorb the ideas and feelings.  Part of you becomes this person.

Part of you changes.

We all know the studies about how people who read a variety of genres and who read often are more open minded and reflective.  People who like to read can spend hours comparing the world we know to books.  We find bits of ourselves in everyone.  We can easily identify our faults.

We see ourselves equal to everyone.

Because we have been everyone.

And yet, we know there are some things people go through that we can never understand.

But we are different after every book.  We have changed.

We have lived a thousand lives.

Maximum Ride Forever **CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS**

I feel like I have been reading these books for my whole life.  I started the series when I was nine, when only the first two books had been released.  Since then, I remember waiting anxiously for every book after that to come out.  After eleven years, the book series that linked my sisters and me together, made its way into many of my quotes and jokes, and became the inspiration for quite a few of my essays is over -- forever.

This series feels like a good friend who was really interesting at first, then got boring, then came back and slapped me in the face.  But I loved every second.  These characters grew with me and influenced certain ways I thought.  "Pain is a message; hold all calls." was my mantra for a while, like Max.  I tried to blindfold myself to see if my hearing got better like Iggy.  During rough times, I thought if I stayed still long enough that I could disappear like Fang.  I never was able to hack computers, build bombs, or read minds, but the positive attitudes of the younger Flock was a good thing to remember.  Angel's "age is just a number" attitude, however sadistic, was still kind of cool.  The Flock teaches us to trust our instincts, think before we act (usually), and to take care of the people you love first.  While they can get quite soap-opera-y, it really is a great ride.

I can read this series over and over again and still feel the way I did the first time.  There are a lot of beautiful things that happened in this series.  There are a lot of things that make you appreciate the life you have and the people you love.  It also shows a good idea on the grey lines between good and evil. 

My husband witnessed the event of me reading this final installment.  With only minimal teasing about it being a "just a book", he did give me tissues, caffeine, and hugs throughout the whole thing.  I was expecting to hate this whole book.  For the first 90% of the book, I was right.  I was heartbroken, and I felt like everything was pointless.  I didn't understand why James Patterson felt the need to make me cry within 37 pages of the book.  Take note: I don't cry... Basically ever.

Nonetheless, I couldn't put it down.  In less than four hours (including several crying and food breaks), I had gone from anxious, to crying, to hopeful, to crying, to unbelieving, to being ripped apart and angry.  I ended the book fully content and satisfied.  Maybe that is kind of heartless given the certain Dylan circumstances, but if it came down to him or losing the whole Flock (like we previously believed), I will choose the flock.  I am perfectly happy seeing the original flock still together and alive.  Plus a few.

The book itself was a roller coaster that seemed like James Patterson was just trying to give you more reasons to hate him.  After the last few books, I wouldn't have been surprised if he didn't even give us a bone by bringing the Flock back.  I was so apprehensive with the way everything after the fourth book came out.  But, like most of the other reviews I have read, I am pleasantly surprised and so glad with the way this came out.  It wasn't a fairytale ending (please, don't tell me you expected that).  The world is still gone.  It is still a horrible future to be a part of.  But they are together.  That was really all I was hoping for.

After reflection, I feel like the book was a blur.  There was a lot of stuff happening.  I can't decide how much of it was just filler, but I am leaning towards not a lot.  It went so fast, and I feel like it needs to be reread just to see what I missed.  But I am not ready for that just yet.  It was a well put-together book that does answer a lot of questions (still raising many more).  Honestly, though, I think many of us will be too tired and brain overloaded to keep asking them.

I hope you give this book a shot, and that you end up in favor of the ending.

Enjoy the ride...

Inside Out of My Mind

I recently saw the new Disney Pixar movie Inside Out.  Expecting to love it, like most Disney and Pixar movies, I was not prepared for the emotions that accompanied this movie.

The movie starts inside a little girl named Riley's mind.  We first meet Joy, on of the emotions inside of Riley's Head Quarters.  Not long after, Sadness joins her.  For not very understood reasons, Sadness keeps pushing the button that makes Riley sad, with Joy trying to gently push her aside.  Throughout young Riley's life, more emotions join Joy and Sadness.  Disgust, Anger, and Fear all join in and help raise Riley up to have a mostly happy life.

In a turn of events, Riley is pulled across country to a new house and school.  While Joy mostly takes care to keep her happy and smiling for her parents, Sadness seems to have a problem keeping her hands off of Riley's old memories.  When she touches them, however, they turn blue, and the memory becomes sad in Riley's mind.

In the land of emotions, there are islands based on Riley's core memories.  Things like Friendship Island, Family Island, Hockey Island, Goofball Island, and Honesty Island.  These represent Riley's core values, and it isn't hard to start wondering what ours would be as the movie goes along.

When Joy and Sadness are suddenly swept away from HQ into long-term memory, Riley is at a new school and trying to introduce herself.  What she originally seems really excited about, she is now remembering as a sad time and is now sad, herself.  Left in a sad state, with no Joy around to make her smile, Riley is left to face the new move and her conflicting feelings of anger, fear, disgust, and the lingering sadness by herself.  She lashes out against her parents, but not in an uncommon way for preteens.  She hangs up on an old friend after hearing about the new girl on the hockey team.  She ends up losing all of her core values -- literally, we see them collapse as Joy and Sadness race to get back.  Near the end, we see Riley's control board start to turn dark.  The three remaining emotions realize they can't make her feel anything.  Riley is on a bus, numb.

Joy loses Sadness in long-term memory.  While wandering around, Joy replays a memory, realizing that sadness enveloped it in the first half.  Joy happened a few seconds later, making the memory happy, even though there was hurt behind it.  Joy realizes that the memory is happy because when Riley was sad, her family and friends came to support her.  This happiness outweighed the sadness.  Joy takes this knowledge with a new resolve to get both Sadness and herself back to HQ.  When both are back, they create an emotion of bittersweet as Riley cries into her parents, "I couldn't be your happy little girl."

Riley is not an abnormal preteen.  None of her emotions act too far away from what normal kids go through every day.  What is different about this movie, though, is we learn about the need for sadness and what it actually takes to make us happy.  From the beginning of the movie, we never really know why we get sad randomly.  Sadness shows up out of the blue and hits the button from birth.  Sadness touching old memories is like a change of personality.  Things that used to make us happy can looked back upon and be regretted or can remind someone of sadness lurking behind it.  This movie is not about depression, but it does point to it with a loud flashing arrow.  It shows that it is always close.

Joy gets swept away.  Suddenly, we don't know why we can't feel happy.  We don't know why we just feel sad or angry or afraid.  Maybe, we don't feel anything at all.  We can't be pulled back by ourselves.  Our core values are failing because we can't think of a reason to have them anymore.  Eventually, even anger loses out to numbness. 

We can't pull ourselves out alone.  That is such a huge theme in the movie.  We need support and love and hope.  What is wrong with this is that people don't usually know how to ask or how to give it.  A hug and an "It's going to be okay" sure won't fix everything.  But it is always nice to feel like everything is in good hands or under control.  This is one way to save someone from depression.

However, if your control board is black -- if there is no way to wake it up -- and you feel hopeless and pointless, someone telling you it is okay is not going to help.  At all.  Telling someone to just feel better isn't going to help.  Sometimes, our Joy doesn't make it back.  Sometimes, she is stuck in the forgotten land for the rest of our lives.  And it hurts.  And if anyone has found the solution to that, feel free to comment.  I would love to know.

So, to those people who know me and who either rolled their eyes or actually understood that I am not okay:  I am sorry I couldn't be your happy little girl.