5 Things Toxic Parents Say And What They Really Mean

3. “You are just like your father!”

If you were raised by a toxic parent, you usually know it. The trauma can be long-lasting and can quite literally ruin your life.

A toxic parent’s behavior is defined by self-centered attitudes, controlling, physical and psychological abuse, manipulations, and complete disregard for personal boundaries.

Generally, toxic parents try to control you by invoking a sense of intense guilt, obligation, or inadequacy. One way to help yourself not get emotionally engaged when they attack you is to realize what hides behind the insults they are throwing at you. Their toxic behavior is, first and foremost, a reflection of their own internal conflict and angst.

Here are the 5 phrases your parents may have used and their hidden meanings:

1. “I sacrificed so much for you! I gave you everything! If it weren’t for you, I would have achieved so much more.”

These phrases are meant to make you feel guilty and indebted to everything your parents have ever done for you. They can potentially take the form of reminding you about all the food they put on the table, as well as paying for your various expenses, including college tuition. In particular, your mother may constantly remind you that she gave birth to you and what a sacrifice it was for her. Thus you are just stuck constantly feeling that you owe your parents something, and this debt can never be repaid.

Sometimes parents use this attack to make you do something specific that you don’t want to do because controlling someone who is chronically guilty is much easier. More fundamentally, however, this is a way for them to project their anxiety and life dissatisfaction externally.

What it really means

If your parent says this to you, you need to understand that they are deeply unsatisfied with how their lives turned out. They weren’t able to achieve what they wanted and are disappointed — in themselves. Still, they are in denial about their role in the situation and refuse to take responsibility for this outcome. It’s hard to admit your mistakes — it’s much easier to blame and shift this responsibility to someone else, like your child.

2. “Look at yourself! What is wrong with you? Your friends/job/education is no good.”

This is meant to make you feel ashamed of yourself because you choose to behave in a way that goes against your parent’s desires. Your mother may want you to go to a prestigious school, associate with certain people, and have a job she can brag about to her friends — not because she cares about how you feel, but because it reflects well on her.

Shame is used as a tool to make you conform. The feeling of shame can be even more powerful than guilt because guilt is a consequence of a concrete action that can be corrected. Shame, however, is more fundamental. As social creatures, we are most afraid of social rejection and being considered inadequate and not deserving of approval.

What it really means

If your parent uses this phrase towards you, she is extremely insecure and afraid of rejection. She herself is filled with shame and preoccupied with public opinion because of her low self-esteem, so she projects her insecurity on you. Furthermore, narcissistic parents often consider their offspring an extension of themselves. Therefore, they assess everything about you, primarily from the perspective of how it makes them look in the eyes of others. Thus, if society criticizes you (e.g., because you chose a non-conventional path in life), they internalize it as an attack on themselves.

3. “You are just like your father!”

If your parents are divorced, then chances are, your mother will go out of her way to turn you against your father. Your mother still likely harbors a lot of resentment towards her ex-husband, which she is unable to process because she’s refusing to accept responsibility and blames others for the conflict. Instead of working through her issues in an emotionally mature fashion, she will get you involved and guilt you into feeling like you are a bad person, just like your father.

What it really means

This attack is your mother’s projection of her negativity towards your father on you. On top of that, if your father was the one who initiated the break, she may be secretly afraid of abandonment and is seeking reassurance that you won’t do the same. Finally, if you have a close relationship with your father, she can be simply jealous. Because of her inability to manage and resolve her own negative emotions, she will project these feelings on you.

4. “You are so selfish! You only think about yourself!”

When your parent accuses you of being selfish, what they are really trying to say is: “How can you only think about yourself, when you should be thinking about me?!”

Frequent accusations of egoism are also a projection. In most cases, it’s the toxic parent that is selfish because he pressures his child to turn her life around and adjust to accommodate his demands. In reality, toxic parents will call selfish any action aimed at anything other than fulfilling their needs.

What it really means

If your parents use this phrase, it often means they themselves didn’t receive the love and support they craved as children. They have an emotional void inside that they are unable to fill and may also fear abandonment and being alone. So, to cope with this pain, they demand all of your resources and attention to be directed at them. Except even if you give them all you’ve got, it still won’t be enough.

5. “You must do [X]! You can’t just do whatever you want in life!”

This is meant to guilt you into doing something you don’t want to do. Once again, it may take the form of trying to force you into a socially acceptable path, such as going to college and pursuing a degree in a specific field of your parents’ choice, or staying in a high-paying job that you hate.

If you choose to live a non-conventional lifestyle that allows you the freedom to do what you really want and when you want it, your parents may have a problem with that because you’re refusing to be part of the daily grind they have endured for their entire lives.

What it really means

It’s likely that your parents worked hard and made sacrifices they never wanted to do but did anyway under the pressure of society and their own families. They suffered and endured, so, to help themselves cope with the pain of these sacrifices, they have come to rationalize them by assigning them an elevated existential meaning. They learned to believe the mantras that “the world works that way” and “I didn’t have a choice.” So now they expect you to do the same. Therefore, when you go against that and choose your freedom over social expectations, you undermine their beliefs and demonstrate that they, in fact, did have a choice. They can’t bear this realization because they feel like they missed out on living their life.

Conclusion

We don’t get to choose our parents. So if your parents are toxic, unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do other than limit your interaction with them and try to mitigate the negative impact of their behavior.

It helps to look at your parents not as your parents, but rather just as people. As obnoxious as they can be, at the end of the day, their lack of empathy and self-awareness stems from the host of insecurities they harbor and have to cope with. They are deeply miserable people, and their attacks are nothing more than the reflection of the pain, fear, and regret they are trying to suppress.