What is a toxic parent?

A parent who won’t compromise, take responsibility for their behaviour, or apologize is toxic. They often have a mental illness or serious addiction. They can cause a lot of pain and lasting psychological problems for their children.

Read more about: Are your parents toxic?

Do you have toxic parents?

Here are some questions you can answer that can guide you if they are or not:

Adapted from ”Codependency for Dummies. 2nd Ed. 2014. John Wiley & Son, Inc.” by Darlene Lancer. 2108

How does a child react to toxic parents?

For many children, this is the only type of parenting they know – and they accept it as this is how parents are.

They try to stay connected:

In this confusing world, children often try to be what their parents want them to be to keep the peace. Eventually, they lose their sense of Self. They become a bandage for their parents’ wounds.

They develop anxiety and depression.

They give up their sense of self to survive –  they eventually become aware they feel anxious and depressed.

They develop anger

In rare cases, a child will be aware the parent is doing wrong by them—the stew in anger for years. Anger may cause them to indulge in self-harm behaviour.

 They understand

Even rare are children who truly understand that their parents are wrong and mentally ill, and they wait patiently to get away.

”One of the great things about being an adult is that you get to decide what kind of relationship to have with your parents,” says Sharon Martin¹.  ”Your relationship with your parents doesn’t have to be like this. You can begin to break your family’s dysfunctional patterns. You get to decide how and when to relate to your parents. You get to decide what’s right for you.”¹

What to do to survive?

Be safe

Detach or distance yourself: Detachment means not reacting or taking things personally while staying close to the toxic person. Stop trying to please them. It’s normal to want your parents’ approval, but toxic parents are nearly impossible to please. ¹ This is often what school-going youth have to do. You can learn to detach ( not react) when someone pushes your buttons. You are not responsible for the toxic person’s feelings, wants or needs. Limit what you share with them about your life. When things start deteriorating, take that as your cue to leave.

Always have an exit strategy. It is okay to leave a toxic person. Sometimes, people are so damaging to you that you have to go to protect yourself from further harm. You do not have to accept belittling, shaming or constant humiliation. You may end it.  Remember, what you allow to happen will continue. Remember, you won’t heal just because you cut them off – you must still recover your power and self-esteem.

It is also okay not to leave. Maybe the toxic person is your parent, who you love despite the toxicity. You love them, but you don’t have to like them. Maybe you are still financially dependent on that parent, and you must stay. You do not have to feel weak because you cannot leave. You can still survive the relationship and become stronger if you are willing to work on getting to know yourself and minimising the damage. For example:

• Limit the amount of time you spend together
• Remain confident when talking to them
• Keep things as respectful as possible.
• Remember, this has nothing to do with you.
• Remember, you can’t change them.

Take care of yourself.

Any person needs to become self-sufficient and independent as an adult. It gives you choices in life. As long as you are dependent on someone, they have the opportunity to mistreat you or abuse you.

 

Allow yourself to live life on your terms and accept that it is okay to make mistakes. It is human to make mistakes—we all do. It doesn’t make you worthless or useless. Maybe that is what your parents told you about your whole life. You will never know what you are capable of if you don’t go out there and try.

If the thought of living life scares you, write down the beliefs holding you back. Beliefs can be rational or irrational. The irrational thoughts are the ones that are holding us back. Next to the view – write down the cost of the belief in your life. Does it cost you, friends? Is it preventing you from being happy, from being confident or comfortable? Is it preventing you from exploring life? This is your story, and you can change it. You can choose to do things differently. Try to write a new way of doing something next to each belief that is holding you back. It means to change an irrational thought into a rational thought. An easy way to do it is to question the idea or thought holding you back. For example:

• Irrational thought: My parents always say I am useless
• Question: Am I useless?
• Rational answer: I am good at several things, like getting good grades, enjoying my sport, and enjoying my hobbies. I am responsible, and I have a few good friends. However, I can’t entirely agree with their statement that I am useless.

Remember that the human brain can shut itself down in a toxic environment to protect itself against others’ toxicity. This can have adverse effects because the brain produces fewer neurons when shutting down. This can make people more vulnerable to anxiety and depression, cause memory loss, reduced immunity, and reduced resilience to stress and physical illness.

Note:

• You are not your parents.
• You cannot change you or rescue your family members.
• Indifference, not hatred or anger, is the opposite of love.
• Hating someone interferes with loving yourself.
• Unresolved anger and resentment hurt you.

The good news is that the damage can be turned around by good eating habits, meditation, exercise, self –  and therapy.  You have to build yourself back up when you realize your parents are toxic and are harming you.

 

Connect with positive people. Reach out and rely on other family and friends for support in times of trouble. A support system is a valuable tool to help you get through this. If you have a family member or adult you trust, you can consider having a deep conversation with such a person about your parents’ feelings and experiences. Such a person can also serve as a mediator between you and your parents.

Get to know yourself.

Although you might think in terms of genes that you are just like them, if we look at personality traits and habits, you are, in fact, your person, and you can choose what kind of person you would like to be one day. You do not have to follow the same behavioural patterns. Learning what not to become can significantly influence life more than good role models.

Maybe you grew up in a household where you could not show your emotions because any situation where you would normally share what you feel caused a blowout. In the long run, locking away feelings (pleasant or unpleasant) to keep the peace will deny the essence of who you are.  Find a way to let out emotions somewhere else. One can write about feelings in a journal or diary, blogging, or other creative practices like painting, drawing, singing or playing music.  Staying in touch with emotions and learning how to voice them is essential.

It is also important to know that you have the right to love and respect the people you allow close to you. You may set the boundaries and conditions for your relationships – just as others may set theirs. We are all to treat others with kindness, care and respect. If those conditions are not met, you may close the door.  It is also not your responsibility to keep others happy – every person is responsible for their happiness.

Avoid traps

What traits do you have that make you easy prey? Learn to recognize them. They may be your fear of speaking out,  of not making them happy, of conflict. Sometimes, it is your naive belief that things are getting better when they are nice to you. But their niceness is part of the perpetual cycle where nothing has changed. It is called intermittent reinforcement. Challenge these fears by setting boundaries for how much you will allow, how they may talk to you, and how you can practise standing up for yourself without encouraging a fight.

It often happens in a family that we say things we don’t mean and regret. It is, however, never customary to treat another person poorly most of the time. Toxic treatment of another should never be accepted or excused. That would mean we are normalizing toxic behaviour. Many young people feel so broken down that they will never escape this. Some start self-harming, others become addicted to something. And then some feel like giving up on life and become suicidal.

Remember, you are more than all of this, more than every bad memory, every insult, every misunderstanding. A mentally ill person inflicted the hurt. Have the guts to look ahead and become who you will become. Help is available to support you with this.

Avoid becoming them and repeating their patterns when you are with other people. We are often drawn to people very similar to our parents. The reason is that we seek the love and nurturing we never got from our parents.  It is easy to repeat toxic patterns with similar people, but the endings are also unhappy ones. It is important to be aware of this. Questions to ask yourself are:  What do they do that is similar? What are my needs being met? What keeps me there? Asking questions and being aware will help you make rational decisions not driven by historical wants.

Healing from toxic parents

Healing is a grief process. The stages of grief are denial, anger, sorrow, bargaining and acceptance. When in denial, a person might think: ”This is not happening”. Anger might say ” I am so mad at them”. Sorrow might say: ”I am so sad they don’t love me.” Bargaining might say,” If I can do better, they might love me. I must try harder.”  Finally, acceptance says: ” My parents are who they are, but I can survive this.”

During the bargaining stage, a child may become everything the parent wants him or her to be to win the parent’s acceptance – which, of course, never happens. But it can cause the child to display all the symptoms of the parent’s mental illness and allow the parent to get away with denying their mental illness. The toxic parent blames everything on their children.  The child thinks that if he or she is quiet, polite, and pleasing, it will prevent the parent from having an anger meltdown. Sometimes, children even take over the parenting role – to care for younger siblings and the incompetent toxic parent.  As this bargaining stage runs its course, the child realizes his/her efforts are futile. Everything stays the same. They are still unloved and unaccepted by their parents.

The child then becomes sad and depressed – and loses hope. They have, perhaps at this time, already lost their whole sense of self. The child now realizes that his / her parent is a toxic human being. Some children become so depressed. They develop feelings and thoughts of suicide.

The thought of having a parent harming you more than they care or nurture you might trigger anger in them. It is described as an I AM anger – ”I am here’, I am honest and I matter”.

Only then will the child move to acceptance. With that comes the realization that this is not their fault, and they may protect themselves to survive. They learn to care for themselves.  To know care for yourself is self-healing.

References & Resources:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/za/blog/traversing-the-inner-terrain/201805/surviving-the-toxic-parent\

¹Caring For Elderly Parents Who Were Abusive. https://seniorsafetyadvice.com/caring-for-elderly-parents-who-were-abusive/