Are your parents toxic? How to find out
The relationship with one’s parents in childhood has a more significant impact than we think on our habits, good or bad.
Find out if your parents are toxic and how to free yourself from their influence. Of course, the character traits you will discover here are examples. You can be outside of these categories or in several at the same time.
If you think that your relationship with your parents seriously degrades your behaviour and morale, do not hesitate to go to a doctor or a psychologist to talk about it. In this article, we want to help you spot a bad influence and help you better meet more women and build healthy relationships.
Some toxic behaviors in your parents that can hold you back in your life
Parents who transfer their trauma to their children
Many parents think that psychology and therapy are useless. They do not solve their youthful problems, and these problems reoccur later. Unintentionally, these problems hurt their children. This is the case, for example, of unsociable, isolated parents who tell their children that no one should be trusted, that the whole world is dangerous.
This is the case with single parents who say that love is a lie and that you should never believe it. If you grew up in such an environment, these dynamics had a toxic effect on your development. Indeed, these words push you to see the world as a disturbing space, a space of danger. You may have difficulty finding the right friends and the right partners because you cannot trust yourself all your life.
You fail to distinguish a genuine friendship and a healthy relationship with your partner from an unhealthy relationship. The other takes advantage of you because you haven’t had a fit role model to follow.
How do you get out of it?
The initial step is to become aware of your problem. Take a critical look at your friendship and romance. Do you have a very small or no number of friends? Are you prone to jealousy in your relationships? Also, ask yourself how you see the world. Do you think that overall, people are all bad?
If you identify these situations in your life, the second step is to do some work yourself. You need to be aware of the mechanisms that automatically kick in your head when you are in a social or romantic situation to analyze the situation more consciously.
For example, when someone sends you a valve, or when you hear the notification ringing on your partner’s phone, you may have an unconscious reflex that analyzes this as a danger, a malicious act. When you see yourself in such a situation, please take a deep breath and regain control by consciously analyzing it.
This effort will not be easy, and you will have to do it several times before it pays off. But ultimately, you can progress and build a prosperous and fun social life.
Parents who reject the interests of their children
Some traditional parents worry about the future of their children. They prefer to play it safe in terms of their professional future and career because they know which are the suitable courses and which extracurricular activities do best on a CV.
This logic is not necessarily flawed, and it allows children to enter good schools. But at too high a dose, some parents end up crushing the tastes, the favourite activities of their children. The fear that their children have no future leads them to reject all other cultural or social activities that their children want to do.
By doing this, they discourage their children from pursuing their passions and stifle their personalities. What is suitable for their child is not necessarily what allows them to have a job and a situation; it also will enable them to flourish.
There are many examples. You have undoubtedly confronted the most common ones such as cinema, video games, sports, parties. When you are young, these activities do not improve your academic results, enabling you to escape and be balanced. By locking out or banning these activities, parents create resentment in their child. These suppressed passions and constant efforts create frustration.
How do you get out of it?
Did you choose your studies because your parents pushed you to do so? Did you do this job because they thought it was the best job for you? However, don’t quit your job overnight. Before you think about changing careers, start by finding time for yourself.
When you don’t have to be accountable to anyone when you don’t have a goal or do what you want, these moments are an opportunity for you to do the activities you would have always wanted to do but that you are not doing because of “lack of time”. It will strengthen your inner game because you will have something to tell.
Parents who put their interests first
Parents need to keep some privacy and moments for themselves. They remain individuals before they are parents. But some parents go too far, and their behaviour becomes selfish. They neglect their children’s needs because they are too focused on theirs.
Being a parent means agreeing to add those of one or more children to your priorities. It is often tiring, it is not easy, but it is a choice. These selfish parents do not pay attention to their children’s emotions, do not empathize with them.
When these parents come home from work, they vent their anger against their children. They downplay their children’s emotions and problems because “they don’t imagine how much more difficult adult life is” or “how lucky they are to be in school”.
These behaviours have a disastrous effect on children who end up thinking that their emotions do not matter, that they are not listened to. These children do not have a stable emotional crutch to face the first tests of their life like their first romantic relationship, their exams, which admittedly seem easy to adults, but only because they have already encountered them.
How do you get out of it?
If you’ve had selfish parents, you’ve probably learned to keep everything to yourself. But this is not a good thing. You must improve the management of your emotions better. And for that, you have to learn how to communicate with them. Sharing your feelings is normal; it is part of the classic process of dealing with emotions in human beings.
Talking about your problems, talking about what makes you angry with your friends and your girlfriend when you have a problem will help you, even if it does not allow you to find a solution. The simple act of confiding in yourself has a strong emotional effect, and you are right to do so.
Parents who do not respect the privacy of their children
Some parents invade their child’s personal space by imposing too hard rules on them, monitoring their phone, computer, and whereabouts. These intrusive behaviours start from a good feeling. By controlling the lives of their children, parents hope to protect them.
But it ends badly. There is always a flashback. It forces children to lead a double life, a life separated from their parents where they can be themselves experiencing forbidden things and pushing boundaries. They moved to hide the truth from them.
The effects on children are harmful because they cannot develop when they are with their parents. The fear of leaving the framework that their parents impose forces them to flee the home, to flee intimacy to find freedom and joy. They realize that they cannot be who they are at home, so they pretend to be someone else in front of their parents to avoid conflict, and they seek freedom and joy elsewhere.
How do you get out of it?
If you have had such parents, you are indeed scared to death of engagement. As soon as you feel that a woman likes you, you run away as soon as your relationship becomes serious. But a couple doesn’t have to mean giving up your freedom. You can flourish as a couple and keep your personal space.
Rather than running away from relationships, set clear boundaries early on to feel good about yourself. Tell women that you need independence, freedom, but that doesn’t mean you don’t like them. You need some space. By being clear from the start, you can build a relationship and perhaps be successful in overcoming your fear of commitment and making a lasting relationship.
It will do gradually. By communicating about your feelings and by finding a woman who respects your need for independence, you will be able to blossom into being free and happy as a couple.
Toxic parents who refuse to be responsible
Some parents never admit their mistakes and their excesses. Yet all parents make mistakes in educating their children. It happens that you get upset when you come home from work and get angry for no reason or punish the brother or sister when the other one did something stupid. But some parents never question themselves. They never examine their behaviour, their mistakes.
It creates a toxic environment for children who feel misunderstood and ultimately think that exchanging, dialoguing is useless. They no longer try to defend themselves, to give their opinion because they know that it will not lead to anything.
However, refusing to recognize mistakes creates hostility in children. Parents sometimes have to question themselves, accept to receive criticism – whether they find it or not – to discuss with their children. It doesn’t mean their child is correct. But it allows their children to learn to dialogue, exchange views, and not remain in denial.
How do you get out of it?
If you grew up in a family with uncompromising, never-questioning parents, you’ve no doubt learned to stay stuck in your positions and never give up. You have to learn to recreate the dialogue. When you interact with your girlfriend or friends, try to have empathy.
That doesn’t mean you have to prove them right. But imagine their point of view, and find out what might lead them to act, to think in a different way from yours. If you conflict and disagree, learn to speak your side without being aggressive. To begin with, try to explain your position in writing if it helps you calm down and advance your arguments. Little by little, try to take a step back and then discuss it again with a rested mind.
Conclusion
If you don’t do it for yourself. If your parents’ behaviour hasn’t impacted you, or you don’t feel like changing, don’t worry. The good reason to do this is for your loved ones. Take action if you feel their influence prevents you from building a career or relationship with the woman you love or starting a family.
Often the same pattern repeats itself, and you risk repeating the same mistakes or going too far in the opposite direction to correct them. If you want to start a home, creating a healthy space for you to flourish with your wife and children should be your priority. These will allow you to move forward in a balanced way and preserve your relationships.
Understanding what you have been through, understanding the emotions you are feeling will allow you to break the vicious cycle of toxicity and perhaps start a virtuous cycle for your loved ones and children.
