Growing up in a toxic household is tough, especially when you've never healed from it. Complications from parental neglect or abuse in any type of way can manifest in the way you navigate through adulthood, subtle or not.
If you grew up in a toxic household, you'll find these things a little too familiar:
1. You developed a paralyzing need to be in control, at all times.
Growing up in a chaotic household where moments of peace are scarce and violent predicaments often occur, could significantly affect the way you handle any situation later on in life. Being constantly exposed to volatile outbursts of aggressive emotions where you often feel helpless will most likely manifest in deep anxiety in adulthood.
You were never in control of the outcomes at home, so now when you're an adult, you have the tendency to go out of your way to ensure everything is thoroughly calculated and you leave no room for unpredictable outcomes to present themselves. From googling the menu before going to a restaurant to quadruple-checking your documents at the airport, you simply need to feel like you're in control at all times or you're screwed.
2. You often feel alone, yet you reject any kind of help.
Having unreliable parental figures who've only ever greeted you with absence or neglect in your times of need will eventually activate your hyper-independence. The idea of being able to depend on anyone is simply a foreign concept to you and you'd rather struggle alone than accept aid or assistance because at least then, you'll leave no room for anyone to let you down.
3. You avoid failure like a plague.
If you grew up with emotionally unsupportive parental figures, you might find it hard to properly credit yourself later in adulthood. Having parents who never acknowledged your achievements or undermined your efforts can be very damaging, and you'll most likely grow up to be extra harsh on yourself, due to the lack of gentle parenting. You often beat yourself up over the smallest mistakes, and having imposter syndrome seems to be very common too.
4. You never learned how to be gentle with yourself.
You've had to develop a thick skin and honed survival skills at a very young age, and there were many moments when you had to protect yourself from the very people who were supposed to provide you protection. You had to be in defensive mode almost all of the time and now as an adult, you've forgotten how to take a moment to remind yourself that it's okay to be vulnerable.
5. You find solace in emotionally unavailable partners.
What you lacked as a child, you'll try to compensate for later in adulthood. However, victimized children in dysfunctional families are often exposed to rather skewed portrayals of love and relationships. So, you'll most likely seek the traits of your parents in your potential partners- emotionally manipulative, frequently gaslighting, emotionally distant, etc and mistake them for signs of a normal relationship. When you've been exposed to such an environment as a child, it's easy to mistake abuse as love.
6. You tend to develop severe abandonment issues.
Children from broken or dysfunctional homes don't typically receive secure attachments from their parents and therefore, they tend to seek it from relationships outside of their home. Overattachment issues or lack thereof could easily manifest in these individuals. They either tend to be over-possessive or recoil completely from forming any type of connection, because of their abandonment issues.
Being a product of a broken or a dysfunctional home can make adulthood a little difficult, especially when we have to depend on our own initiatives to re-parent ourselves, in order to mend past traumas. However, at the end of the day, if you're constantly trying to be better than your parents, you're doing a good enough job already.
