62 Childhood Experiences People Now Realize Were Not As Normal As They Were Led To Believe

It wasn't any singular moment, I knew it wasn't okay especially in my teenage years then I speak to one of my best friends and he talks about how supportive and caring his family are and I'm like that's an option? I knew it wasn't normal but I had no power to stop it but I do now, I'm working on un learning it and trying to make myself a better human being, it's difficult but my friend helps a lot especially if I'm having relationship issues or questions because I'm effectively starting from scratch so I don't know.

When I realized that me and my big brothers relations were waay more antagonistic than other brothers

Lots of violent episodes, broken bones, unconsciousness from strangling and being kicked from high falls etc (as the little brother I usually was the victim, dealing with trauma now)

I like to believe that we’re working on it now individually, even though we live on opposite sides of the country.

That time I let someone punch me in the face because my dad thought it was funny when we flinched if he practiced his karate moves in our general direction. The other kid was genuinely sure I'd get out of the way, but I'd had my flinches trained out of me. We were both really confused when the punch hit.

Probably when my mom told us that her coworkers thought she was unmarried and without kids so don’t be surprised if they thought we were her nieces. didnt question it at the time, she gave a plausible reason for the lie. we also didnt really interact with those coworkers much anyways.

fast forward 20+ years later. my mom is still friends with one of those coworkers. so when i was getting married, i told my mom she could invite her friend since we dont have much family here. i asked her later why her friend hasnt RSVP’d and she admitted that its because that friend still didnt know that I was her daughter, so she just never extended the invite.

there’s a bunch of other stuff but growing up knowing my mom pretty much hid us was a big first clue that my childhood may not have been as chill and uneventful as i initially thought.

When I see my mom teaching my kids, She was way way nicer when my kids missed a letter in the alphabet. i remember running from flying slippers during my days. LOL!!!!!!!

I woke up at 14 years old and got ready for school, my mom wasn't home so I walked. 27 years later I'm still living alone. I got to know and love her as I got older and learned to forgive her. She passed last week and the only thing I would change is the time I missed with her.

When I came across the book Adult children of immature parents.

When I realized not everyone was afraid of their step dad, and had to call 911 occasionally when he went off the dead end. He also owned a lot of guns and would threaten the family with them 🙃.

I grew up in the 90s with divorced parents, which was fairly common by then. Mom had primary custody, Dad had me on weekends and 6 weeks during the summer, broken into three 2-week intervals. Dad was 25 years older than my Mom. Not as common. Dad ran a body shop, which happened to also be a community gathering spot for the local loafers after they left the Hardees in town for the morning. Even though he was getting close to 60 by the time I was 10, he still worked just as hard as he had when he was young, and I spent all day with him in the shop. He was a little possessive and I didn't really get to go anywhere when he had me. When I wasn't helping, I was loafing with the old timers.

One day, I think it was the summer between 2nd and 3rd grade, I asked one of the loafers why some kids got to go to summer camp while I had to be at the shop every day. Aside from the usual, "What, are a bunch of us old farts not good enough company" jeers, Dad interjected while not missing a beat from a bumper cover he was reassembling. "Son," he added, "parents who ship their kids off to camp don't love them. They're pawning off their responsibility onto someone else. You're here because I love you."

When school started back, one of my classmates was talking about the summer camp their church did, and I said, "I'm sorry."

"Sorry about what?" she asked.

"That your parents don't love you!" I said.

I got into a bit of trouble over that.

When i started talking about my moms rules at lunch in 9th grade and all the girls started exchanging looks.

When my therapist told me two weeks ago that CPS would investigate if they found out I didn’t have a bedroom and Mom hit me with whatever was nearby when she thought I did wrong.

I grew up in a small city working class neighborhood. Every neighborhood had a Ward Park, except mine. We did have a railroad yard. We all played there; bb gun wars, hopping slow moving trains, getting chased by RR employees and bums.

When we grew older and left our neighborhood elementary school and went to the city wide high school I was shocked to learn "working class" meant poverty poor and the rest of the kids were into playing sports and not fighting with each other for fun.

Not me but my partner.

That telling your parents that you got a bad grade doesn’t always end with getting hit, slapped or belted. Or the worst, made to kneel on rice and stare at a wall corner for an hour or two in silence.

When I told my husband that I sleep through anything because my room was across from my brothers and he used to howl and scream throughout the night. I was proud that I could sleep through that. He also informed me that using a rope tied from my brother’s door handle to mine so that he couldn’t open his door far enough to get out every night wasn’t a normal thing to do at bedtime.

On a less serious note, one of my daughter's friends in college needed to press something down for a while to flatten it out and didn't know how she was going to do it, so my daughter said, "Why don't you just put a lead brick on it?" Her friend looked at her and said, "Where am I supposed to get a lead brick?" That's when my daughter learned that not everybody has 300 lbs of lead bricks in their garage.

When I was explaining certain things to my counselor and saw the look on her face. She’s good at hiding it and I hate eye contact but there are times I’ve caught a glimpse of her face before she could hide the shock.

I didn’t realize until I was in my mid to late 30s that my childhood wasn’t normal.

When all the other children were out playing while I was inside doing book reports assigned to me by my mother during the summer.

I was very nervous to tell my freshman roommate that I wasn't going to go to church on Sundays.

When my daughter was sad about leaving school early to go to an appointment (because she wanted to stay at school). And in general just being a way happier kid than me.

Less sad than others. My friend came into school traumatized because she caught a glimpse of her brother in his birthday suit. Turns out nudism isn't a common household practice.