"Dear Abby" article hits close to home.

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Source: This Michigan News Article

This letter and Abby's response are halfway down the page. While I did not write the letter, it does parallel my own experiences. Maybe others can take heart/inspiration from the writer's story.

The article was posted 2020-03-10 at 03:12 (this morning).

On the upside, your upbringing made you independent, if only out of necessity.

The above is the important line here. I was six years old when I realized my parents could not take care of me, so I am familiar with the plot here, if my details are a bit different.

The question is: Why do some people get stubborn and persistent and keep pushing on to make something of our lives...
while others take that message, believe it and give up.

I take no credit for being someone who was able to get through it all. It is a blessing pure and simple. I made a lot of mistakes and caused damage to myself and others in the process. But I consider myself blessed in being able to make what progress I have made and the good I can bring to people and to the world now.

I think you might mean "disbelieve it and give up"; but to answer that question, I would have to say I haven't the vaguest idea, and this frustrates me. Is there a mental switch in some people that energizes the drive for ambition; one which, when left 'off', leaves the person wallowing in despair and self-pity? One that could be switched 'on' by drugs or therapy? I just don't know.Well, I would take all of the credit for myself, if I had not been taught to give the credit to G^D. But why choose me to "flip the switch" and leave others to their misery? Is it all a test? Did I do something to deserve the 'blessing'? Did someone else do something to deserve to be 'cursed'? These are rhetorical questions, by the way. At least I'm not attributing our respective successes to mere 'luck'.

"Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward." -- Job 5:7 (NIV)

No child deserves to be treated like that.
God did not send babies/children to be someone’s emotional (sometimes physical) punching bags.
We are supposed to be loved and cared about.
That is what we all deserve.

Very true, Sylkat.

Try telling all of that to a bipolar alcoholic who was raised by Christian Fundamentalists, and who does not like anyone smarter than he, more knowledgeable than he, and more successful than he telling him how to raise his children.

I appreciate your opinions, but some people simply will not accept the truth, and will go on being abusive to their family until the day they die.

I can somewhat relate. I had a loving, supportive mother, but my alcoholic father acted like my sister and I were nuisances and he never failed to bring up his "40-hour work week" or his "sacrifices."

As soon as I turned 18, he didn't want to help or support me in any way. He wanted me to go to college and be successful, he just thought it shouldn't have anything to do with him. At 22, I joined the military, and I never asked for so much as a penny from my parents.

Did either of them try to tell you later that you somehow "owed" them? Did either of them try to later claim your successes as a direct result of their efforts or influences?

My dad tried to claim my success in the Navy as a direct result of his efforts - that he somehow enabled my security clearances. This in spite of the fact that he had received a "less-than-honorable" discharge from the Army.

Poor guy ... I feel sad for him, now that he's gone. He and eye shoulda-coulda-woulda had a better relationship if only he had been sober and stuck to his meds.

You can't measure your retail value

Even the exchange rate of monetary currency fluctuates daily s**t

Self esteem, (I am pretty sure of) is purely a western notion

Dr Spock

Uppity extroverts

s**t

But I sus that the real problem is that some precious lil "people" act like they are a lot more valuable than the correct amount

Entitled conceited l dipshits


Relative value


Absolute value

Not really. I think my dad was just happy to be rid of me, and my mom, who had to borrow money from me several times, was always grateful for my assistance.

I think my father started a family because he was bored, but, when confronted with the reality of children, didn't want to be bothered.

Yeah, I relate. I've been earning a living since I was 14 and taking care of myself and sometimes others before that. All I've heard as a kid was what a burden I was and how I will never amount to anything (nastier stuff too but whatever)

The difference would be that when I moved out I also moved on: I refused to be emotionally blackmailed or extorted or allow them to even try to take credit for anything I achieved. I've never invited them to my graduation or wedding or given them the occasion to bring their toxicity around my kids.

Nobody gets to choose where or to whom they are born - or to be born. You get a really bad hand, just run as fast and soon as you can and make your own life, or they will do everything in their power to destroy any chance you have

I could be wrong, but I think Sylkat was affirming your (and all of our) worth in the eyes of God, and that you did not deserve the the treatment you, and others, got. Most of us posting on this thread suffered as the result of parents who, for whatever reason, were unable to parent lovingly.

Many parents are unable to acknowledge the problems their parenting did to their children when confronted. And perhaps even become more defensive of their actions. In general, from what I have heard, confronting one's parents rarely provides the (now adult) child any satisfaction. Whatever happened, still happened, and you gotta deal with it.

Observing this trend, I realized there was nothing to be gained by confronting my father, even had I been so inclined. It became obvious to me that I needed to settle the situation in my own mind and heart and put him entirely in the past. I had to rearrange my life, thoughts and story so that he was, in essence, meaningless in my life.

There's more to the story, of course, but that is the gist. Let it go. It really, truly doesn't matter anymore.

Dear blazing star, thank you, yes, that is just what I was trying to say;
None of us deserves the childhood abuse (that IS what it is) that messed-up parents dumped on us constantly.
We deserved better.
Finding acceptance and understanding here at WP helps.
Hearing from others who were drowned in criticism makes me feel less isolated.
I still am triggered by verbal abuse into fear, anger and depression ; bullies seem to instinctively find me.

I know that Syl was affirming my POV. That is why I said I appreciate her opinions and meant it.

The rest of the post addressed the impossibility of trying to admonish and educate a person who simply cannot change — people with addictive, depressive, or schizophrenic disorders, for example.

Agreed.