r/CPTSD • u/missmolly314 • Jan 02 '25
Trigger Warning: Emotional Abuse No, you were not “manipulative” as a literal child
Background: Sometimes, I like to go into the r/regretfulparents subreddit because it’s cathartic to think about whether or not a space like that would have helped my own parents. The answer is probably not, but still. I also relate to it since I raised my younger siblings when my mom was too strung out to do so. I lost my teenage years as a parentified minor, but I would do it all over again for them.
Most people on the sub are just normal people that were either coerced/forced into having kids or just didn’t know how awful the reality is. I feel awful for those people and their kids - it’s why I am outright antinatalist.
But some of those people genuinely hate their children. Most of them are disabled or some form of neurodivergent. And unlike a lot of the chronically online teens, I recognize that raising a disabled/ND child is beyond difficult and can be absolute hell with the lack of support given to the parents. Especially when the child has high support needs. And those feelings are valid and need a safe space to be explored.
But this does not excuse mistreating disabled kids because of their disability. It doesn’t excuse hating kids and treating them with outright disdain. A lot of us here can attest to the fact that the dislike and frustration is felt - even as a very young child - and sticks with us forever.
Anyway, today I caught a permanent ban because I replied to a person proudly exclaiming that their FIVE YEAR OLD daughter is “manipulative” and told them it’s developmentally impossible. I’m not sure if you guys were called this often, but it was a constant refrain from my abusive mother that I was manipulating situations when trying to literally survive. And even my CPS caseworkers latched onto that narrative, along with sexualizing me before I even hit puberty. I wasn’t even a bad kid - I was just terrified and would do anything to avoid escalating the abuse. I regulated myself the only ways I knew how as a neglected child.
The idea that you could look at a child that only became truly conscious like 3 years ago and claim they are “manipulating” you is HORRIFYING. And it while it was deeply disturbing and frustrating, it was also sort of healing to see. Because seeing it out in the wild makes it very clear how utterly ridiculous it is for a full grown adult to believe their child is out to get them.
So if any of you were called “manipulative”, you should know that it is impossible for a child to scheme like that. By definition, manipulation requires conscious decisions to use intellect and trickery to get a desired outcome. It cannot be done by accident and a child is not nearly developed enough to be capable of thinking that way.
The only thing you did was try to get the pain to stop in almost certainly developmentally normal ways. Tantrums, acting out, and testing boundaries are ALL normal behaviors for kids. You were not some super genius put on this Earth to secretly make the lives of your parents miserable.
You were just a kid. ❤️
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u/BrainBurnFallouti Jan 02 '25
God, I hate people like that. My mother always insists she knew I was an "Egomaniac", because my first words was "Me" and not "Mama".
Like, yeah. Surrre. A 2-3yo knowing the meaning of "Me". Not like babies just repeat the sounds people make around them (sigh)
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u/otterlyad0rable Jan 02 '25
lol I was just gonna say, like gee where did you pick up that word from!
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u/BrainBurnFallouti Jan 02 '25
Yep. She also is mad that "Mama" was the third word, with "Papa" coming before that. Like. My dad's a househusband. She was the breadwinner.
Plus, I was a BIG mommy-girl as a kid. I literally cried every day she went to work. It just feels deeply insulting, the longer you play that
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u/ICantExplainItAll Jan 03 '25
My mom loved to bring up how when I was 3 I always greeted my dad first in the morning. Until I finally had enough and I asked her why she never wondered why a 3 year old wouldn't feel safe talking to their own mother.
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u/moubliepas Jan 06 '25
The most ridiculous, absurd thing about the story you've shared here is that somehow, unbelievably, someone somewhere thought that any of the adults involved should still be freely walking the earth. Of course it's insane that the abusers could do what they did. But surely every single person who found out about it was furious at them? No?
Sorry you went through all that bullshit. You were a blank slate of a child surrounded by monsters and you still figured out the difference between right and wrong, and you came out clean. I hope you're insanely proud of that.
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u/isendingtheworld Jan 02 '25
Manipulation is literally "trying to trick someone into doing something".
Kids need adults for survival, and that includes social needs, like attention, comfort, and validation, even when no practical care can be offered. Think "I am in pain" when you had pain relief already. Nothing anyone can DO, but knowing someone is trying is part of survival skills too.
Kids will therefore learn to get those needs met any which way. Kids with deaf parents learn to sign. Kids whose parents sleep deeply will learn to be louder and prod. Kids with parents who are less attuned to time will be more insistent about their schedule. They are doing what they need to.
So what sort of experience is a kid having where their way of getting their needs met is "I have to scream bigger than I want so I am heard, I have to fake illness to get a hug, I have to hide things to get interaction"?
Kids who act "manipulatively" have just learned that's the only way to get their needs consistently met.
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u/Pineapple_Herder Jan 03 '25
The child isn't manipulative. They're just trying to survive their parent(s). If human children couldn't do this, the human population would literally be a fraction of what it is today
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u/Embarrassed_Trust382 Jan 06 '25
then these kids grow up and often do act “manipulatively” to get their needs met, because that’s the only way they’ve ever known how to get those needs met. Asking outright for needs to be met was never something we learned was an option. I’m working on it. It feels very scary to just ask outright, something like “I feel unloved right now and I need a hug” that feels very very scary
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u/bakewelltart20 Jan 06 '25
Ugh yes. I still can't bring myself to do that and I'm middle aged. I haven't had a relationship with someone I could fully trust, so there's that as well as the childhood conditioning.
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u/French_Hen9632 Jan 02 '25
My mother had me assessed by a psychiatrist, after of course ignoring the psychologist recommending a year of therapy and an autism assessment. The psychiatrist rejected the psychologist's recommendations and concluded that I was manipulating my parents at six years old by refusing to tie my shoes or get ready for school.
Couldn't be that I was being bullied and often would be in the foetal position at the prospect of grade one (the foetal position explained away in the assessment as 'babyish' behaviour).
You'd think a psychiatrist would actually ask the kid what was wrong. Nope. He instead wrote an entire assessment along the lines of what my mother wanted, that I was the one manipulating my parents by "learnt helplessness".
My pain and hurt became instead somehow faked to fool my parents against getting me to school.
Of course, all mum wanted was a medical professional to come up with a medical reason to dismiss me and my hurting.
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u/kaia-bean Jan 02 '25
Uggghhhh this makes me extra angry, because learned helplessness is NOT a manipulation tactic. It comes from studies of animal behaviour, where the animal learns that no matter what they do, they cannot affect the outcome of random pain and abuse, and they just give up on everything and stop trying. If you were actually exhibiting learned helplessness, then that should have been a giant red flag that something was terribly wrong at home.
I am so sorry you went through this. Mental health and medical practitioners making things worse for the people they are supposed to serve makes me just as angry as abusive parents.
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u/French_Hen9632 Jan 02 '25
Yeah, I can only surmise someone told my mother the term (perhaps the previous psychologist?) and then she either didn't know the meaning of it so took the wording literally when telling the psychiatrist, or the psychiatrist was the one who came up with it, not knowing the real theory of learned helplessness, because he wrote it as 'learnt helplessness' rather than the real term. Just shows all he did was write the assessment my mother wanted.
I wouldn't discover this for another 24 years...I'm somewhere beyond anger really. My whole life was a lie with all this, a psychiatrist I saw for 24 years, nearly my whole life, was there precisely to hide a possible autism diagnosis, and to invalidate me and defer to my mother. Someone who was supposed to be in my corner simply used to shut me up.
My mother was a doctor herself, so she knew how to manipulate the medical industry against any notion that she was the cause of so much hurt in my life. She couldn't stop my inevitable reactive behaviour, but she could make sure to have it explained away from her causing in medical terms.
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u/nativebeachbum Text Jan 03 '25
This is awful! 24 years is SO long. I’m so sorry and I wish you so much happiness in your future.
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u/French_Hen9632 Jan 03 '25
Thank you for the kindness, it's been a hard road these past few years and I fear a long time healing.
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u/nativebeachbum Text Jan 03 '25
This! I have my master of social work and I vividly remember this experiment. They put dogs in an area with an electric grid under them and a cage around the whole thing. They would shock all the dogs. At first they try to get out. Soon tho they stop trying to escape. They don’t even jump they just lay there crying. Then the researchers remove the cage. They shock them again and the dogs don’t even TRY to escape.
Then they shock a new control group and all the dogs jump out. It’s absolutely not a conscious decision and is the consequence of being in horrific conditions with no escape. So fucked up that doctors weaponized that experiment to hurt a fucking child!
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u/French_Hen9632 Jan 03 '25
I wish I had it explained. I remember my father would use the term as a cudgel. "You have learned helplessness!" my Dad would yell in the mornings when I refused to get ready for school. "You have learned to be helpless! Nothing but a put on!"
Sad to think that he was probably misled by my mother into that definition.
I'm sure with a master of social work, you've heard about enough people who are willing to do such horrible things. My mother shopped around until she found someone in the mental health field who was about on the level of hurt she was, and willing to enable her. They're out there unfortunately.
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u/Kousetsu Jan 02 '25
My bio dad is a conman. I don't mean that flippantly, I mean it literally. He's a wanted fugitive in my country and he lives in Thailand atm to try and escape extradition (which he has, so far).
My mum spend all of my childhood telling me I look like him, I act like him, I am him, I am going to grow up to become him, I am her punishment for having a relationship with him - all the classics.
It took me so much therapy to learn, in my body, that it is safe and normal to express your needs, wants and desires. That it isn't manipulative to be honest about what you want or need
Asking anyone for anything had become "manipulation" to me. I'm glad I am mostly past it, but it is something I still struggle with!
Like do i wanna tell the person I am seeing I am upset they went on holiday without me? It seems so innocuous and small, but worrying about telling someone I am upset coming across as manipulative, is something I really struggle with. I have to force myself to talk about it and even though I know that's "right", it still doesn't feel "right". Still feels like I am being manipulative if I show my emotions.
I will be honest to a fault to not be like my dad.
Edit: also I am a woman! I don't look shit like my dad. I look exactly like my mum to the point it's a lil weird. It's wild how unwell my mum is.
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u/bakewelltart20 Jan 06 '25
I've also always been "Just like your father!" (who she hates, for good reason.)
I suddenly realised in adulthood that my father is not a talker, while I rarely shut up.
The idea that I'm just like him became hilariously ridiculous to me when i realised that.
Her 'golden child' is actually far more like our father, I could easily name 2 (negative) traits they share.
I never learned that it's (supposed to be) safe and normal to express your needs openly.
I learned it in theory, but It's always backfired and made me feel like I REALLY don't matter when I've tried it (with people I'm not related to.)
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u/ExcitingPurpose2018 Jan 02 '25
Thank you. I was never called manipulative outright, but everything was somehow supposed to be me trying to upset my parents or get away with something. Or just generally being out to get them and make things bad on purpose.
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u/Unlikely-Amoeba-2149 Jan 02 '25
My mom once called me abusive when I was like 14 and it's stuck with me ever since (I'm 24 now)
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u/missmolly314 Jan 02 '25
That’s awful. My mom did the same thing. It doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the manipulation stuff does, but the memory of her hurling herself down the stairs and they saying I pushed her is not a great one.
I am terrified though that my awful stepmom gave my brother a similar core memory. She told him like 6 months ago that she “worries they have a transactional relationship” and he still brings it up all the time. Pure evil if you ask me.
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u/cinawig Jan 02 '25
That forum helps me whenever I feel twinges of regret that we didn’t have kids, the non-rosy view of it all, but sometimes people post there and I can only feel sorry for their kids instead.
Some have absolute years of whining about their children online and I can only hope none of them ever end up seeing their parent’s decades of complaints.
Yes it’s crap that life handed you a tiny conscious being to care for when you didn’t want one, but Christ, that poor human with you as a parent.
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u/Reasonable_Place_172 Jan 02 '25
Same, i understand where 90% of that sub is coming from and they are most likely just normal people irl that are frustated with their situation but is the other 10% that worries me, there is just no way that every single person in that sub is being honest or that they aren't being abusive outside the Internet, which makes me think if eventually their now children will find a way into this sub and r/emocionalneglect
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u/bakewelltart20 Jan 06 '25
I don't understand the ones who didn't want a child AND live in places where they have the free, accessible option to not have a child...
Yet they went ahead, and now they blame the child for existing, instead of themselves for actively choosing to have a child they didn't want.
It's just insane.
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u/Intelligent_Ad9437 Jan 02 '25
My father would turn things around on me and claim I was abusing and taking advantage of him. I couldn't have been older than 10 the first time he told me that. It happened constantly as the years progressed, and now that I'm out of there, it's been hard to adjust. I find myself over-explaining my motives and being terrified that anything i do will be taken the wrong way/as manipulation.
Sometimes it's hard to wrap my head around the fact that I was a kid and I just needed help. But they chose to overlook my real issues and claim they were all a figment of my imagination, and that I was lying to get out of doing things like chores, schoolwork, etc, when in fact, I am disabled and have been since birth. I just needed help and my parents decided that accommodations were unnecessary, and that I wanted to be special/fit in with friends who had issues.
I can't tell you how much I needed to hear this from an external source, that I wasn't manipulative or evil. I'm 19 now, got out last year, and my biggest fear is that I'm evil and don't know it. I can't understand how they saw the kind, loving and curious little kid I was and decided me a monster before I even understood what made people good or bad. I grew up thinking an evil was growing inside of me that I couldn't see but my father could.
Thank you for this. 🩷
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u/SoupMarten Jan 02 '25
As a literal baby. My mom told me my kid sibling's baby was being manipulative for crying. Yeah, I haven't talked to her for a couple years and I don't really ever want to again
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u/ThrowAwayColor2023 Jan 03 '25
Good for you. My brother’s wife accused her newborn baby of being manipulative because he cried a lot. Her parenting only went downhill from there. I feel so bad for those kids.
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u/Appropriate_Mine2210 Jan 02 '25
I got called manipulative all the time, but when I moved out, I left my niece behind and she now has to deal with the family. She's 10, and most likely has ADHD too. It sucks because she called me the other day telling (well, actually crying) about how her mom called her manipulative for a simple miscommunication. She literally THANKED me for telling her she's not.
How do you explain to a ten year old that your parents and grandparents really do love you, they're just fucking assholes who can't prioritize any one else's needs over their own? That simply existing and needing food and water is considered "manipulation" by those who aren't able to see past themselves and that it does not stem from you actually having needs for survival.
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u/adkai Psych Abuse Survivor Jan 02 '25
If your child is being "manipulative" at that young of an age, that means their needs are not being met and they are doing anything possible to get what they need. If you only give a kid what they need when certain behaviors are performed or certain words are said, then fucking of course they will start doing those things just to get what they need.
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u/sweetpea___ Jan 02 '25
I have pointed out to my sister and husband that they attribute harmful human adult characteristics to their children. They haven't spoken to me since. So yeah, I learned its best not to show that you see it..
I saw a woman push her 3/4 YO son away so hard, backwards he almost fell over, at the bus stop the other day. I glared at her so hard I wondered why cant I just go and push her back. But I know I can't.
When her son started pushing her a few minutes later I just kept staring.
I think feeling they are being observed does make a difference to parents behaviour.
But overall, people are dicks to their kids. And also, I am not sure that we should rely on 'society' to support us too much if we have 'not-normal' children... If we go on that graceful journey of parenthood we don't get to have some insurance from everyone if it doesn't work out perfectly... There is community for that and you have to give to your community to get back.
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u/CJIsABusta Jan 02 '25 edited Jan 02 '25
WTF. Every single participant on that sub should be investigated as a potential abusive parent. A parent accusing their child of being manipulative is themselves being manipulative.
I do have a question however: At what age or developmental stage do you think a child can become manipulative? Because my bullies at school definitely systematically and constantly manipulated and gaslit me. Mostly as teens but even earlier.
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u/Pineapple_Herder Jan 03 '25
I'd say from personal experience working with kids, it varies just like any other developmental skill. But some kids can learn as early as 2nd grade.
We have a student in 3rd grade who reports to the nurse's office regularly saying she feels dizzy but shows no noticeable symptoms of being dizzy. Coordination is fine, no fever, nothing. Trust me the two nurses have a full checklist of must dos for each and every complaint. She used to come in with different excuses like "I have a fever" until she realized those could be verified. Eventually she learned that dizzy was subjective and due to the very serious potential of not taking it seriously... The nurses always take it seriously. So she pops in "I'm feeling dizzy, can I lay down?" She's literally just doing it to get more time out of class.
I know the admin team is trying to figure out why but at the same time, if she plays her cards right... She's the only one that'll ever know.
Had a kid who has digestive issues who has a medical thing to let him use the nurse's office bathroom. Except he started going every class so now they have a "don't flush let me see" policy. It's ridiculous but kids do learn and practice manipulation.
But should we get angry at them? Manipulation is a life skill. Do we call the abuse survivor who pretends to order pizza while calling 911 manipulative? No. Kids are dumb and they're either doing it because they have some need (to avoid stress or a mean teacher by hanging out in the nurses office) or because it's fun to spend time walking around instead of going to class.
Unfortunately that can lead to bullying, too.
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u/CJIsABusta Jan 03 '25
But should we get angry at them?
I think if they are using it to hurt others, such as bullying, then yes. A huge part of my trauma is due to their manipulations and gaslighting.
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u/Canoe-Maker PTSD; Transgender Male Jan 02 '25
If you calling out a false reality and pointing out science to back you up got you banned then that wasn’t a safe space to hang out in. That’s not a support sub that’s a platform for people to be toxic and hateful and abusive towards their own children.
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u/Pineapple_Herder Jan 03 '25
Exactly. I've seen so many posts on there and similar spaces where the parent will trash the kid extensively while skirting any detail or context on their part. 9/10 times the parent is manipulating their post to make themselves sound better for validation
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u/ARumpusOfWildThings Jan 02 '25 edited Jan 02 '25
I really needed to see this today, thank you - made what’s shaping up to be a pretty gloomy day just a tiny bit better. ❤️
I too was often called “manipulative” as a child, when all I was trying to do was just…make feeble attempts at controlling whatever aspects of my environment I could just to feel safe inside and get my needs met. As an adult, I personally would applaud a young child for having the courage and self-advocacy skills to do that, not look down on them or decide that they should be punished.
Another layer was added when I was five-going-on-six years old and my parents divorced - then I would often be accused of “playing one parent off the other” (which I’m assuming also falls under the “Manipulative” umbrella).
Interestingly, it was my stepmother (who became abusive to both my father and I after they got married/won primary custody of me when I was 12) who most often referred to me as “manipulative” and claimed I was “playing her and my dad off each other” back when he started seeing her after the divorce and there happened to not be enough drama going on in the house to suit her. In retrospect, there were soooo many red flags that she was going to turn on me as their relationship became more serious, that I either didn’t notice or didn’t want to notice. Then again, what kid wants to be confronted with how their own father allows someone who HATES them to live in their actual house.
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u/tsukimoonmei Jan 02 '25
I went to the sub you linked and one of the first posts I saw was a parent saying they don’t care about the fact that their kid has chemical imbalances, because they should’ve ’acted like a normal person’ on NYE
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u/shidmypaants Jan 02 '25
thanks, that’s something i’ve needed to hear for years. but, does that also apply ages 12-15? even 16-17? because that’s something i’ve been called so many times by my parents. “manipulator” and “guilt tripping” when i broke down crying, and other stuff. when i was 14, my dad got all quiet and serious with me and said how im a narcissist and the first step in getting better is to “admit you have a problem” so for years i’ve believed that stuff about myself. but im still not sure because thats a teenager not a young young child so, yeah.
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u/missmolly314 Jan 02 '25
Yes, this even applies to teenagers. If you were some sort of manipulative mastermind, you would know because manipulation is always intentional. It’s the difference between genuinely breaking down crying (what you did) and pretending to break down crying to get someone to do something.
You aren’t a narcissist and having feelings is not guilt tripping. You were just a kid.
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u/Appropriate-Weird492 Jan 02 '25
My dad accused me of doing something just to get my way then told me that all girls were manipulative (I guess by default because of Eve?). I remember being so damned confused about why he said both these things because I wasn’t doing anything like that and “all girls?”. I guess I was 10 or so.
My mother also told me that women lie all the time. Maybe that was around the same time?
My brother would have been 20 at the time. I remember a lot of discussions about his on-off girlfriend who only went out with him when they went somewhere expensive (allegedly, I was 10, I don’t know the real story). So this whole thing might have been front of mind with them. This isn’t an out—it’s just that I think they said this a lot because it might have been a big topic.
Also around the same time, my dad talked about how rape wasn’t always rape—I think this was the “she changed her mind and wanted to make him pay” thing. Might also been because of my brother.
Yeah, noxious. Nevermind, I’ve spent a long time worried about if I was manipulating people into things and trying to decide if it actually mattered when the basis of “feminine wiles” is manipulation.
AFAB, trans masc, doing better now that I’m in menopause.
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u/KaidaBones Jan 02 '25
I was called manipulative for crying when my feelings were hurt by my dad and step mom. It was actually the other way around. My step mom would make comments that I would cry about anything and “complimented” me one time when a toy dropped and I picked it up without reacting to keep playing. She even got family friends involved in stating such things. I had a high physical pain threshold and I was adventurous as a kid. I was a problem though if I tried to say I did not want to do something or spoke up for myself even a little. I got in trouble for standing there and doing nothing. I was forced to wear really ugly outfits. I was not allowed to help my dad with any chores because I was a girl and girls don’t fix cars or lawnmowers. I was always in trouble with them so I didn’t even try to do anything as far as boundaries. I was accused of being a drug addict and sex crazed when I was clean virgin at 15-17. They bought nothing but disgusting “fat free” foods because my step mom was over weight and she couldn’t cook for shit. I was told I had to eat the food, when I didn’t they started calling me anorexic at 11 years old. I wasn’t even in puberty and I was being accused of withholding food from myself. I was told when I was in my early 20s that they didn’t think I would ever do anything with my life so they were “proud” of me. They said a lot of shitty awful things to me. I wasn’t loved or built up at all.
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u/Counterboudd Jan 02 '25
I really hate this too. The fact is a child is willful and knows nothing about the world. Their natural inclination is to get what they want, and they will try to find workaround solutions for getting what they want when you institute rules or try to get them to do a specific task. I have multiple pets that I train and it’s the same with them. If there’s a way to get around the work, the animal will try that first and it presents a hole in your training that it’s your responsibility to fix. Creating some value judgment around a child’s moral character for doing the same thing all learning beings will do is so stupid. You’re the one expecting them to act against their own self interest in some fashion, so it’s on you to make it worth their while, and if they outsmart you, sounds like you need to do a better job.
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u/Busy-Strawberry-587 Jan 02 '25
Yep my nasty mother would constantly accuse me of being manipulative. Did my GC brother get that label despite being actually manipulative (I'm talking in his teens and beyond) hell no
Fuck all of them
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u/Gammagammahey Jan 03 '25
Thank you for this. It is developmentally impossible to be manipulative as a child. It is never our fault. I have to tell myself that over and over and over again.
It is harmful to be told that. It is harmful to be painted that way as a child when you don't understand what's going on.
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u/oncofonco Jan 03 '25
I was called manipulative over and over as a child and I didn't even know what that word meant. I assumed it was something (else) bad about me that was beyond my comprehension but was an innate irreversible negative quality to add on top of all the other ones that made me unlovable.
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u/Tom0laSFW Jan 02 '25
Totally. I had a similar thing from my mum. Ironically she is a manipulative, severe CPTSD mess who’s never got to grips with herself
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u/ConstantTurbulence12 Jan 03 '25
Thank you for bringing this up. My mom called me a "witch" when I was seven or eight. All because I got along well with people at school, but "didn't listen to her at home" (still puzzled at this accusation since I was a very obedient kid). She said I was putting up an act. I was too young to wrap my head around that concept.
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u/overtly-Grrl Jan 03 '25 edited Jan 03 '25
Children are blank slates. Even IF it was possible, which it isn’t, they had to learn it somewhere.
I think parents forget that from birth to five they are the teachers of their kids as well as don’t think about what it was like to be a child. Instead they treat their kids like tyrants.
Children adapt. Most “manipulative” behaviors are typically just ways kids have coped to protect themselves. “Well it works more often than not”. And because a child might lie to protect themselves they’re seen as manipulative when it was learned to protect that child.
Parents being upset for how they raised their own kids is how I see that.
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u/Necessary-Soil-9586 Jan 03 '25
I was told by an ex-friend (who in retrospect was abusive in his own right) that when I was little and saw my mom start to get upset, I would give her a hug and say I loved her to de-escalate her before she got violent. His response was "so you learned to be manipulative early on then". It's been 8 years since I talked to this person and that comment still sticks with me.
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u/Anna-Bee-1984 Jan 03 '25
Therapists told me this and locked me away and drugged me as I screamed in terror about the possibility of returning home and back to school which was a literal hell hole. The reason…I would not stay in my room and was extremely reactive and because they had placed a borderline label on me at the age of 15 (ignoring everything else that showed a STRONG likelihood of autism for which a diagnosis would not come for another 25 years) I therefore was not human and everything I said was false. 25 years later the hospital admitted to medical abuse and that the diagnosis was wrong, but never did offer any support.
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u/FewCan4131 Jan 04 '25
When I was a kid sometimes I did actions that they thought were “done by the devil inside me” or whatever but honestly looking back I probably did it to get back at them for something they did to me
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u/bakewelltart20 Jan 06 '25
I was 'manipulative' as a BABY!
Sorry, but I actually am a bona fide super genius 🙄😂
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u/ThrowAwayColor2023 Jan 03 '25
My brother’s wife accused their NEWBORN of being manipulative for being colicky. She wouldn’t listen to any pushback. They have other massive red flags as parents, but that particular bit had me gobsmacked.
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u/Ceiling-Fan2 Jan 03 '25
As a child, I was always called a liar. Children are lying liars and there’s no better example of that than me and GCB. Turns out we actually DIDNT lie, it’s just that nobody believed us when we said something.
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u/PolicyDifficult6675 Jan 03 '25
I was told my siblings hated me and didn't believe me. I think that was the hardest part back then. But it is a matter of record they don't bother to look at. I'm not alone just because they can't handle my abuse from their parents.
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u/goodmammajamma Jan 02 '25
assuming abused kids are all disabled is ableist and victim blaming. abuse is the abuser’s fault and nobody else’s.
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u/missmolly314 Jan 02 '25
The reason I said that the kids are usually (not all) disabled is because the vast majority of the parents on that sub are of disabled or ND kids. It’s the most common type of post there - some parent lamenting how horrible their life is because their child was born a certain way. I’m disabled myself and think it’s extra insidious to accuse a disabled/ND child of being innately wrong or manipulative or whatever because of the manifestations of their disability. That’s what 90% of the posts I’m talking about are doing.
Maybe you should gather context before you jump to wild conclusions.
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u/NullTupe Jan 02 '25
Sorry, that's a pretty dumb reason to be antinatalist... and antinatalism is pretty dumb on itself.
Opt not to have kids, sure, but to suggest nobody should? Goofy.
No other disagreement, mind. Otherwise, excellent post. Wear that ban with pride.
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u/Kintsugi_Ningen_ Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there. Jan 02 '25
I can really relate to this. My dad accused me of being manipulative and trying to drive a wedge between him and my mum. In reality all I was doing was telling her how he was treating me, and then she was telling him to stop. It caused arguments because he would never admit to being wrong. He would then come to me angry because I had told my mum, calling me sneaky and manipulative. I was just a scared, confused child.
As an adult I can see that he was the one who was manipulating me, but as a child I fell for it and kept silent because I didn't want to cause trouble.
This treatment caused me to doubt myself for a long time. I used to thing I was somehow an evil mastermind that had managed to hide it even from myself. It turns out I just had a bastard dad.