# My family raised me with no social skills



## JuneBird

Thank god they sent me to daycare because otherwise, I'd be dead. They never took me out to fun places. They never taught me how to be social because my family never hangs out with anyone, just each other. And they complain. About everything and everyone. Which makes me understand why no one else really hangs out with them. 

Over the years, when I see what other kids had, even a mom who was willing to buy the ingredients for a f***ing SMOOTHIE, instead of saying "maybe later" and just watching TV...I've started to hate my parents for never teaching me to have a support group, for the way that they made me. They just watch TV all day. All night. I'm never buying a TV specifically for this reason. All day and night, that's all they do. 

Going out is going out to eat. That's it. They never raised me to have a life. And now that I'm paying for one I actually enjoy, I hate them more and never want to see them again. They're miserable people and I hate every second I'm in that house and relive my lonely childhood, over and over again. But I feel like I owe them something just because they raised me. And I hate that. I want to cut them off completely so I can be happy. Spending every holiday alone for a year would be happier than spending it with them. But then I also feel like I'm leaving them to die in their sad, miserable hole. Like I'm obligated to fix them.


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## Tunesimah

I can relate to this. Maybe not in the specifics... but I really feel like I had no guidance in anything growing up. No explanations of this is how to do things... or how to be successful/achieve/socialize... I'm not sure if I would even have bothered with the advice...

I just completely disassociated growing up and went further into my own bubble. Escaped into my world of video games and ideas. 

In school when I was so cut off that I just didn't care and did nothing at all, I remember being yelled at and berated for failing so much... and yet at the same time there was no help or assistance before that point...

It's easy for me to go too negative though, because my Mom had to work a lot to provide even a somewhat stable living environment... so I never went hungry or anything like that... but when it comes to the emotional/social/skill side of being raised it's a big fat zero. 

And I was only yelled at from my dad from a young age... he did basically nothing to raise me... the only positive I have about him is he bought me a couple of video games growing up... everything else is negative...


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## tieffers

Wow I can relate to you on every point there.  Except I've basically cut off my family and I no longer ever visit. You are not obligated to fix your parents! You are not the parent. They failed to be adults for themselves and for their child, and now the child has to bear the adult burden of caring for the parents. Really messed up. I've been there my whole life and it seriously stunted my development. My parents also killed my natural drive to be social and hang out with anyone through various things (not allowing hang outs and sleep overs, not allowing me to join clubs or sports at school, conditioning me to be fearful of people in general, etc) I became so socially anxious that my peers also rejected me and now I've grown up completely avoidant.

You can't undo what they did to you as a child but you can stop them from holding you back even further by moving forward from them, and not looking back. I know you would have guilt doing that but they've probably been guilt tripping you your whole life to take care of them if they're anything like my parents.


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## CookieCrumble

kobowden said:


> Thank god they sent me to daycare because otherwise, I'd be dead. They never took me out to fun places. They never taught me how to be social because my family never hangs out with anyone, just each other. And they complain. About everything and everyone. Which makes me understand why no one else really hangs out with them.
> 
> Over the years, when I see what other kids had, even a mom who was willing to buy the ingredients for a f***ing SMOOTHIE, instead of saying "maybe later" and just watching TV...I've started to hate my parents for never teaching me to have a support group, for the way that they made me. They just watch TV all day. All night. I'm never buying a TV specifically for this reason. All day and night, that's all they do.
> 
> Going out is going out to eat. That's it. They never raised me to have a life. And now that I'm paying for one I actually enjoy, I hate them more and never want to see them again. They're miserable people and I hate every second I'm in that house and relive my lonely childhood, over and over again. But I feel like I owe them something just because they raised me. And I hate that. I want to cut them off completely so I can be happy. Spending every holiday alone for a year would be happier than spending it with them. But then I also feel like I'm leaving them to die in their sad, miserable hole. Like I'm obligated to fix them.


 I'm kinda in the same situation. My parents never did fun stuff with us.. maybe when I was 5, but I can't remember and eversince they did not. I was jealous of all the other kids who went on vacation with their parents. My parents do not have friends and watch TV often or just hang around not going anywhere. I really did not want a life like they do. I try to be alot of diffrent than they are/their lifestyle. Also since my parents aren't talkative, the whole family is boring and I was raised with a lack of social skills. I really hate them for making me grow up like this. I could've been so much diffrent. Over the years I tried to learn social skills myself and I got much better.. but not with their help... I want to break contact when I move out


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## zippitt

Try to remember that your parents likely did all they know how, even it if was very little, unhappy people don't make good decisions. I believe much of modern / society culture lives in their heads, a lot of us don't know how to cope with the stresses of life, parents included. I have only recognized that through my own self evaluation of depression and anxiety the my mom also suffers from the same and possibly my dad to a small extent. Their issues certainly did not help mine, but I cannot blame them for not seeing their problems when it took me so long to see my own. I do sympathize nonetheless, my parents didn't teach me about socializing much either, I feel like an alien in this world at times. For me the important thing that has seemed to help is don't live in the past, when you feel your mind drift into it, shut it off, well assuming they are negative emotions / memories. It's easier said than done I know, life is a ****e show, but it doesn't always have to be.


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## thisismeyo

i can relate to that.


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## Beat Change

Yep i can relate to that too, can't remember really going anywhere as a child and yet they would wonder why I would constantly stay in and was (still am!) very shy! I doubt they have ever once thought it could be them that have been part of the problem. They were very much of the 'they should be seen but not heard' style of parenting too.


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## penguinbeak

I feel exactly like you do. When I was little, me and my parents would go out, meh, three times a month to eat in a restaurant, and that was during the summer, and usually always at the same restaurant. We'd go to the 'beach', which was a restaurant with the sea next to it, and again always the same restaurant,always the same place, because my father hated the sun and wanted restaurant food whenever we went to the the 'beach', he hated the sun and swimming, and he still does, even more actually. I had a horrible childhood, because my father was an alcoholic and on Sundays he'd just watch a movie full blast because he was a movie buff with a bottle of whiskey. On Saturdays there'd always be a fight and yelling and screaming, because he drank extra, but the yelling was not just exclusive for Saturdays. My mother just sat there and listened to him verbally abuse her, and I got a dictionary full of my native language's swear words when i was 7, thanks to him. We never had family gatherings or anything like that like I see on American movies, because my family on my mother's side hate each other and the same goes for my father's side.


For that I became addicted to the computer when I was 6 because it was my safe haven, and later on I got my own, and my parents didn't even notice my addiction to it, or they thought it was harmless. When I was 4, I got sent to ballet, but my mother stopped sending me because the children there spoke in English and I didn't understand it at the time.( It's an official language in my country and most people know it but they speak the native language, and only 'posh' people speak English on a daily basis.) Then I went to girl's and boy's scouts and it was off and on because I hated going and made no friends,but I still wear the shirt they gave me as pijamas, although it's a shame I didn't get the beret. My mother sent me to summer school when I was 7 for the whole summer but somehow I forgot that whole year and don't even remember existing. Maybe during that year I travelled to an alternate universe and ended up here.

Nothing could help with my social anxiety, not even that religious group that all christian children in my country must go to after school, even though we learn Christianity as a subject until we are 15 in our country. I hated the religious group( I don't even know how to say it in English), we basically we forced to learn prayers by heart in our native language, and I still have the little book I used to memorize prayers lol, in two different versions. We sometimes watched movies(religious cartoons), but I still hated going twice a week, and once during Halloween, i was wearing a pumpkin necklace which glowed, and I LOVED, so much, and the teacher lady, a 90 year old woman, said that Halloween was the feast of the devil, or something like that. i was 6. Anyways, my childhood was pretty weird, and i spent most of it playing violent video games (I played gta 4 when I was 8) so it wasn't normal, and my mother never baked cookies for me, so what? 

Now I'm baking them on my own, and making carrot cakes, while my mother helps me. I'd always wanted to play an instrument in my childhood, but I didn't because my mother thought it was too expensive. Now that i'm 15, I'm learning the piano, and if you're older that's fine too. I have more of a voice now, and your childhood doesn't have to reflect the rest of your life, even though, socially,my life is worse now, then my childhood was, lol. All I do is bake stuff.


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