The most common toxic behavior of parents is to criticize their child, express self-wishes, complain about the difficulties of raising a child, make unhealthy comparisons, and make hurtful statements1. What is this?
Impacts on Adult Daughters
The damage from a toxic mother can also lead to lifelong struggles with self-image, communication with others, mental illness like depression and anxiety, addiction problems, eating disorders, relationship issues, and more.
Toxic parents may invade your privacy or not allow you to make your own decisions. Or maybe they're overly critical and controlling of your decisions, even as an adult. Manipulative behaviors. Your parent may try to control you by using guilt or shame to play with your emotions.
Parental gaslighting is a subtle and covert form of emotional abuse. These parents manipulate to undermine the child's sense of reality and mental stability. Some well-meaning parents may gaslight their children in an attempt to protect them.
Some of the common signs of a toxic parent or parents include: Highly negatively reactive. Toxic parents are emotionally out of control. They tend to dramatize even minor issues and see any possible slight as a reason to become hostile, angry, verbally abusive, or destructive.
Emotionally absent or cold mothers can be unresponsive to their children's needs. They may act distracted and uninterested during interactions, or they could actively reject any attempts of the child to get close. They may continue acting this way with adult children.
One sign of a toxic parent is making their adult children feel guilty if they try to have any independence. The toxic parent may say the adult children don't love them anymore if they move. The parent may use a health problem they have or claim to have as an ace in the hole to make the child stay.
Inner Child Explained. A mother who has endured trauma with no support or healing work done may unconsciously BLEND with her own inner child in moments, projecting the rage, punishment, and aggression about how SHE was deprived or betrayed by her own mother, onto her daughter.
When adult children desire to individuate and develop autonomy, they may struggle to trust their choices and may fear being unable to withstand mom's influence. Often, to avoid feelings of criticism or incompetence, the daughter will pull away.
A narcissistic mother may feel entitled or self-important, seek admiration from others, believe she is above others, lack empathy, exploit her children, put others down, experience hypersensitivity to criticism, believe she deserves special treatment, and worst of all, maybe naïve to the damage she is causing.
A vindictive parent can mean a lot of things. They may be vindictive towards you (the other parent), aiming to make life miserable for you. Or they might be vindictive in ways that put your child in the middle of conflict, or worse—hurt the child emotionally.
“You knew I didn't like it, but you still did it to hurt me.” “You only think about yourself.” “You always look for attention.” “You don't deserve everything that I have done for you.”
Cue the cabinet slamming, yelling, or stomping around the room as you let your partner know just how upset you are. Because that's the thing about mom rage: It's a kind of seething — but also surprising — rage that can feel very difficult to control. And it can be set off by the smallest of things.
Signs of controlling parents include: Demand blind obedience and conformity. Do not allow children to participate in or question the parents' decisions. Do not let their child make their own decisions.
Toxic parents create a negative and toxic home environment. They use fear, guilt, and humiliation as tools to get what they want and ensure compliance from their children. They are often neglectful, emotionally unavailable, and abusive in some cases. They put their own needs before the needs of their children.
A mother's role-playing has direct effects on the child that can be long-lasting and highly damaging. Children of mothers who play the victim may feel inadequate and struggle to maintain boundaries, recognize the abuse, and voice their needs.
However, a toxic mom will lash out at her child every time she is upset. Sometimes it might even turn into frequent verbal and physical abuse. These are clear signs your mother resents you. She doesn't have the ability to resolve conflicts with her children in a healthy manner.
humiliating or constantly criticising a child. threatening, shouting at a child or calling them names. making the child the subject of jokes, or using sarcasm to hurt a child. blaming and scapegoating.
Feelings of extreme anxiety, low self-esteem, worthlessness, difficulty trusting others, maintaining close relationships, or feeling worn out after a visit with your family are all signs you grew up in a toxic family.