Libertarian Prepper

So it turns out he was really popular because he was a socialist? Damn. Thanks for your research. Looking forward to the video!

I'm sorry you're going through this Andrew. It looks like she doesn't care about your needs and feelings one iota, so it's not surprising you're feeling neglected and angry, I really get that. Since she's literally taking your childhood memories hostage, she is pretty much acting as a terrorist. Talk about an utter disrespect for someone's emotional needs... I would not negotiate with terrorists. Perhaps you can get someone else, like a friend or other family member, to pick the box up?

I get what you're saying and I agree - mistakes don't necessarily entail bad intentions.

This is an interesting issue. With regards to such major mistakes, I think that the answer is not always a yes, but most of the time it is. Let me explain: If my parents really had good intentions that went beyond vacuous statements like "Well of course we always loved you!", they would have actually studied for becoming good parents. When dealing with a serious issue like the death of a relative, if I were in their place I would read books, ask this question of other virtuous parents I knew, and maybe even talked to a counselor. The fact that they just lied to me is a pretty good indication that they never went through this process, which means I seriously doubt their intentions. It's like in Stef's video "But they did the best they could" - if I have the intention of becoming a great parent, I'm going to work my ass off to resolve my issues and prepare to be a good parent years before I would even consider being ready for kids. My parents never went through that stage. I've talked to them about it too. I told my mother (who is a professional Pianist and Piano teacher) - if you had a concert to prepare for, how much time would you need to spend learning the piano? "Years" she said. Then I asked her how much time she spent preparing to become a parent, and she admitted that it was none. Of course she immediately began to justify things with "Well we were well-intentioned and always had lots of love." I told her that being a well-intentioned piano player doesn't make you any better at playing. All it can do is give you the motivation to prepare better. Finally, someone truly well-intentioned, who has the interests of the child ahead of theirs, would admit to a mistake, accept responsibility, apologize, and promise never to do something like that again. So far with every memory I've confronted my parents with they just began defending themselves or outright gaslighting me. Not exactly signs of "good intentions". If I'm wrong here, please correct me. Edit: Another thought occurred to me - anybody who has an enormous amount of unresolved issues that dictate their decision-making process has no idea what their real intentions even are. If something like 95% of someone's decisions are made subconsciously and without serious reflection and analysis, then they have about as much control over and understanding of their intentions as a drunk person has. This is why self-knowledge is so tremendously important.

I think this is really, really good advice.

That makes sense to me. It might indeed be that they didn't want to deal with my feelings and then probably deceived themselves into thinking I already knew. That's sad :/ dsayers, thanks for your post. You're right about the issue of permanence. Maybe it would also help the child value their life more? Although maybe that's a bit of a heavy lesson for a 4 year-old. Either way though I think that for a family member that always lived in the house with me, 4 years is definitely old enough to know that they didn't just disappear and then not care enough to call even once in 10 years. Oh and I would also be interested in a discussion of when it becomes appropriate to tell the kid the truth about death, and whether euphemisms like "passed away" are appropriate (I don't think they are). The sad thing is I'll never be able to find out the truth of their intentions because they won't take responsibility for anything they've done. My dad has said, in a kind of nebulous way, that of course everyone makes mistakes, but once I cite specific things he always goes on the defensive and begins justifying his actions. Both of my parents also pretend stuff never happened that I clearly remember (like my father trying to hit me and being stopped by my mother).

On my path of self-knowledge, a few days ago I uncovered yet another sordid episode in my childhood, so I thought I would share. When I was about 4 years old, my grandfather (mother's side) died. Rather than tell me where my grandfather had disappeared to, my parents lied to me and told me that "he moved to America". Then, as the years went on and there was no contact, I must have begun freaking out. My mother told me that "he must have lost contact" or things along those lines. I probably felt pretty abandoned (I don't really remember exactly how I felt). When I was about 12-14, I used the internet to try and find my grandfather. I used genealogy websites and websites for finding lost people to look for him, and of course his name never came up. When I told my mother that I was looking for him and couldn't find him, as best I recall she frowned or was upset in some way and said, "Oh, I thought you knew he was dead." This shocked me. "He was dead?!" Apparently they had been tending to his grave once a year all that time, and would always lie and tell me they were going somewhere else. Once I knew the truth, the next time she offered for me to come, but I think I declined and just stood on the stairs after they left. I repressed these memories until just a few days ago, and it's really angering me that my parents would lie in such a fundamental way for an entire decade. Perhaps they didn't want me to feel sad about his death, but this is terrible parenting and I don't think there are any justifications for making me feel abandoned. I haven't confronted my mother about this yet as she gaslights every memory I have. She twists things and either says they happened a different way, or never happened at all... Should I confront her? What kind of effects (I'm thinking feelings of abandonment and maybe a misunderstanding of the significance of death) does such a lie have? Does anyone else have similar experiences?

This is interesting to read and I think I can relate to this myself, as I am moving to Thailand in a few months to work there as an English teacher, and a large part of the motivation to move so far away is to run away from my parents while I work on self-exploration and uncover my inner child. But Mike makes a good point I hadn't really properly considered. With Skype calls, smartphones, and email, none of that will work unless I tell them that I don't want to talk until they're willing to take responsibility and stop gaslighting and manipulating me. I would say, that if you start your journey with a formal severance, you will feel much freer to pursue the rest of your life than if you maintain contact. When I was in Canada this summer, my parents demanded I call them every single day, and I did. I can tell you, it's really hard to develop as a person when you keep coming back to the people who took your true self away from you.

Wow, that was an incredible story. I almost cried and then felt lots of joy. Thank you for sharing!

I think I agree, and I'm going to go off on a limb and say the vast majority of people entering into relationships are doing it as a way to "solve" their unresolved issues (which is impossible with this method), and are in fact co-dependent.

Wow, that is amazing... I guess you have a subconscious that is really responsive to your requests

Alright, that's pretty inspiring I'll look into those projection podcasts. Obviously I'm a long way away from having kids. Prior to that I will read a bunch of books (what I'm doing now), then go through self-therapy until I'm pretty confident that I understand myself, and only then would I consider it, if I found the right partner to do it with,

Thanks Lians, I appreciate your thoughts. I agree with much of what you're saying, and I didn't really think about it that way before, but you're right, conditional love really is a heck of a euphemism for manipulating a child with abandonment and potential death. False promises are indeed something I'd want to avoid, but I've not read anywhere near enough about this to really knowledgeably conclude whether they are false or not. One thing I wonder though - is it possible to extend unconditional love to our children if we can't extend it to our own inner child?

Thanks again cynicist So, I've come to more realizations and thoughts, and also I ordered (and today received and began reading) a book by Daniel Mackler called "Toward Truth". The blurb says it's built on Alice Miller's work, and although I'm only a few pages in I gotta say it seems like he really gets it, and he too mentions unconditional love versus conditional parenting. My realization concerns the roots of my social anxiety. I think I can attribute the realization to Stef's podcast 1149 and maybe some other sources. The reason I (and perhaps anyone?) feels social anxiety is because my feelings, and my needs (and hence myself) were rejected by my parents from as far back as I remember. This rejection (through conditional parenting) becomes internalized, and is then projected onto hypothetical social interactions, where I appear to become anxious because I fear rejection. When really the source of my anxiety is that I've already rejected myself. Because someone who unconditionally accepts themselves would have no reason to feel anxiety about social situations. Why would they? Worst case scenario and the other person rejects you - so what? If you accept and love yourself (not in a narcissistic way), why would a stranger's possible or real rejection hurt you? Let me give you a couple of examples of rejection by my mother - these are recent ones, because I really don't remember a lot of specifics from my childhood except how I felt during those interactions (angry, anxious, scared, sad, or a combination of all of those). Example 1: I use NVC to communicate my feelings and needs to my mother, without using moralistic judgments. Upon expressing my feelings, I get one of two responses. Either "well maybe you feel that way, maybe you don't" (a rejection of my feelings and an implication that I am being dishonest), or "You're insane for feeling this way! You must be a crazy person!" (complete rejection of my feelings, their underlying needs, and my self). Usually NVC should work pretty well, but evidently my mother is incapable of feeling empathy for me. Example 2: The guilt. My mother frequently, especially if I'm being "disobedient", reminded me of her great sacrifice for me. What did her sacrifice entail? Well, not as much as she would make it out to be, really - she quit her job long before I was born, she raised me with the help of a string of babysitters, and I spent most of my childhood in a school during which she had 10+ hours free per day. She's done nothing with her time to this day, so the sacrifice thing is bogus. But even if it wasn't bogus, making me feel guilty about even being born with phrases like "You should be grateful to your mother for even giving birth to you." is just... ugh. No wonder I've suppressed my needs, rejected myself, and had low self-confidence in meeting new people - how could I not, if I felt guilty for even being alive? So, that's all I have to share for now. Any input is appreciated!

Thanks for the empathy cynicist, it really helps. Well, I live with them right now so when I take on a multi-month project it's hard not to talk about it. Plus I naively wanted to share stuff with them... well, not anymore that's for sure. Yeah, my mother also asked me several times whether I loved her (actually pretty frequently) and for the past year or so I haven't been able to say yes. Yeah, for sure. Thankfully my parents left to visit other family a few days ago so I should have relative peace and quiet (except for the daily phone calls of course...). Now trying to get back on track and finish my certificate.

I think I mentioned that mindfulness is backed by science, which it is, but upon reflection and reading other people's comments I don't think it applies to this context. I was thinking more of mindfulness as a way of meditating and relaxing, not as a way to avoid painful (and necessary) emotions. I think the main source for mindfulness is probably Jon Kabat-Zinn.

My pleasure, cynicist. I have some more to add to this thread. Thanks to a very helpful conversation with Stephen C. in the chat room I've come to realize a few more things. I've noticed a few years ago that whatever I did, I never felt happy with myself. Even when I did things I was really interested in, I felt like they were "beneath me", and it never felt quite right. As a result, I would often procrastinate or put things off that I felt were worthless, even though I wanted to do them and they were important to me. Well, I've realized that I was internalizing my parents' (mostly my father's) voices. Turns out that though my father wasn't around all that much, he has influenced me with conditional love very much. Every time I tried to pursue a profession he didn't approve of, he would deprecate it and express great disapproval. Basically, he would reject that part of my personality that loved whatever it was that I wanted to do. When I was 3-4 years old, I asked him to teach me violin (he was a concert violinist for a time). For many years he would pretty much ignore my requests, or passive-aggressively say he would help but then months would pass and no help came. Eventually, maybe when I was 10, he told me that he wouldn't teach me or help me find a teacher because "violinists don't earn much money". When I was maybe 15, he talked to me a lot about how he wanted me to become a doctor or lawyer because they earn a ton of money. That I had no interest in the professions at the time didn't seem to matter. When I was 17, he found me an internship at a bank in another country, and without my prior consultation or consent pretty much pushed me into it, saying it would be a "good experience". I hated it and resolved not to work in financial institutions. He's even gone so far as to sometimes "joke" that I should become a financial adviser, earn $5 million, buy a castle with a winery in France, and get our entire family settled there. Worst thing is he wasn't really joking. When I expressed interest in becoming an English teacher a few months ago, both my parents ganged up on me and told me what a terrible idea that was. This lasted about two months, and even after that; whatever country I told them I wanted to work in, they said was terrible. They would only look at the negatives and not the positives. I think that from a young age, in order to assure continued love (and security) from my parents, I internalized this conditional love and rejected parts of myself, constructing a false self in order to please my parents. As a result, I am now procrastinating with finishing my teaching certificate, and feel like i'm wasting my time with something "not worthy of me". Because my father has setup these huge expectations of me and continually rejected whatever I've wanted to do, whenever I engage in something I want to do but that won't make me a millionaire, I feel unhappy and lose motivation. Given that for so long I've been rejecting parts of myself and trying to pretend to be someone I'm not, is it really a surprise that I often feel like I have no purpose in life? Here's another tidbit: I never call my father "dad". I always call him by his first name. While I will refer to him as "dad" when talking to other people, I will never do that when talking to him. A few times I wondered whether he felt unappreciated because of that and tried to call him "dad", but never could. I felt some kind of actual physical blockage and couldn't do it...

Thanks for sharing. Is this similar to mindfulness, where one would meditate and when thoughts come to their mind, they simply observe them but do not engage, and let go? I've heard that eventually, when the technique is well-learned, one can meditate and relax with just a simple breath, as you described above. And if this is the case, mindfulness does indeed have research data backing it up.

Hello, This is my first post here so I thought I'd start with a question that's bugging me (and also a bit of an introduction). I'm currently reading Alfie Kohn's book "Unconditional Parenting" and it's blowing my mind left and right. I've realized that time-outs and bouts of positive reinforcement were very much the primary parenting model my mother used with me (my father wasn't around much). I don't recall ever being spanked, but since my mother isn't being honest about my childhood (she claims to have never given me time-outs, but I remember them clearly) it may have happened at a very young age before I can recall. I seem to have most of the consequences of conditional parenting that Kohn talks about: Low self-esteem, difficulty with finding intrinsic motivation, depression, and social anxiety. Kohn's book deals entirely with how the reader can be a better parent by giving their children unconditional love. My current issue (I am not yet a parent), and what is not addressed, is how to recover from conditional parenting if it's already been inflicted on you for 18+ years. I know that at some point I will seek out a therapist, but for now this is not possible for a number of reasons, so anything else that can help me out would be much appreciated. Thanks!