My dad faked having brain cancer when I was 9 to cover up a drug problem. He sent me to live with my mom to party while I believed he was on the brink of death.
We have a strained relationship now.
What, uh... what answers were you expecting in here, OP?
I remember my dad slapping me in the face for pronouncing "water" like an American. A bunch of odds and ends like that.
Kicked me out after high school. I ended up homeless for months. That was years ago, but the psychological damage never goes away. To this day I don't spend money on furniture because I'm too scared I'll lose everything again somehow. Even my computers have to be laptops forever now because I feel like if I get a desktop I'll be fucked into losing it if I end up homeless again.
Goes to show that most people aren't ready to be parents and need a good hard look at their life before getting into that, as well as at least some sort of parenting education.
When my brother and I were both in university, we lived in cities about an hour apart. We grew up about another hour away, so to visit my brother my dad had to drive through the city I lived in, passed the campus for my university, to get to the city my brother lived in. You could literally see the buildings on campus from the interstate through the city.
He would call me about once a month to tell me about the awesome weekend he just had visiting my brother and seeing one of their school football games. He would rave about how much fun it was and always say "you should come down too next time". I would always tell him I probably would if he would tell me about it before the trip instead of after...
I started to resent my brother being the "obvious favorite". For years we barely spoke. We reconnected like a decade later when we happened to live in the same city. One night around a few beers, we started hashing out old shit, and I brought up him being dad's favorite and all the trips dad made to visit him.
That's when I found out my dad made it all up. Our dad only visited my brother's campus twice, the day he moved into the dorms and the day he graduated...
Mom took the door off my room due to her not trusting me? Smoked a lot of weed but never ever in their sight or in the house. All I did was sit on my computer in my room. Absolutely horrible experience.
She ended up putting the washer and dryer in there with me too..
Mom divorced my abusive alcoholic father and married a man from England. I was 14 but she figured I had the maturity to know it would be ok if I stayed with him instead of moving to England with her and my brother. I was angry at her because I was 14 and dumb. She left me in the US and gave me no end of guilt for making my choice once a grew up a bit and realized I made a mistake. Once she and her husband moved back to Oklahoma I took a position in California and now I'm guilted for that at the age of 42 because she can't see my daughter whom she never bothered to spend anytime with anyway because of her constant depression about having married another different kind of abusive man.
My mother passive aggressively bullied me regarding potential love interests to the point I was absolutely terrified of even mentioning boys from my class as dealing with her unfounded teasing was unbearable. This didn't help at all with my romantic relationships, I was always lacking in support in the area as I turned the topic into a taboo during my adolescent years, at home in particular.
As for my father it's not much what he did but what he didn't do. He's one of the smartest men I've ever met, he is good at managing his finances and networking yet he never gave me much support or pushed me to achieve anything in these areas - when he did it was briefly in the form of criticism. Again, this also snowballed into an adulthood problem I'm still grappling with.
Really doesn't sound bad at all compared to most people out there. Especially without concrete examples.
This isn't a contest. OP asked what was the worst, and this is it for me. It's damaging enough for me, and it's very hard to give concrete examples because it was damage over time. Personality also plays a role; it's possible that other kids in my shoes wouldn't have felt this as something too damaging, everyone is different.
Both my parents have been very supportive and nurturing in almost every other aspect but those I mentioned. I know there are some horrific stories out there, I hope yours isn't one of them.
I love my parents. We did what we could to get by. Sometimes thet means pushing the expiration dates on food. This lead me to associate meat with illness. I ended up becoming a vegetarian at a very young age; before I knew what that even was. Meat still grosses me out to this day.
Interesting how experiences shape us. Glad it sounds like you have mainly positives with respect to your parents.
My mother not loving me and saying it to me outloud at an early age. It was a very heavy burden no child should ever carry. Also she would put on a show for other people going on and on about how much she loved her kids and how she loved being a mom while continuing the abuse behind closed doors. It was maddening.
Taking myself to therapy as a young adult so I could heal, saved my life.
