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None of us is perfect, including our parents, but there is a point at which imperfect becomes destructive, taking away from children the love, warmth and nurturing they deserve and replacing it with something awful. Toxic parents come in many shapes. Some are so obvious that they can be spotted from space through the eye of a needle. Some are a bit more subtle. All are destructive.
If you are a dependent minor, all you can do is just endure and survive until you can become an independent, self-supporting adult. If you are a teen and living with your parents, just try to do the chores expected of you without being nagged into it, and essentially treat your parents’ house like a dorm. You are there only to eat, sleep, get clean, do your required chores, and that’s it. Be around your parents as little as possible, but safely. Do your homework at school or at the library. Get a part-time job after school and start saving money for college, or to move into your own place when you turn 21.
Once you are a fully self-supporting, totally independent adult and you’re not living with your parents anymore, then you will be able to choose how much or how little you wish to see your parents or talk to them. You can call or visit, but the moment either of your parents begins attacking you emotionally/verbally, you will be able to just politely cut the visit or the phone call short. “I can tell that you don’t feel like having a visit/a call right now, so I’ll go/hang up now. Talk to you later. Bye.” You as an adult don’t have to just stick around and be your parent’s emotional punching bag, you can decide to just take your leave.
Even long after I’d reached adulthood I’d just sit there frozen as my mother would begin hurling vitriolic verbal abuse at me, as though I was a trapped, terrified child. When I finally realized that I could just leave, it was a big “light bulb” moment for me. In order to do that I had to achieve a certain emotional distance from mother; I had to stop craving her approval and attention, and stop caring what she thought of me. It was much healthier for me to emotionally distance myself from her.
If you’re going to stay with them, know that it’s okay to put a boundary between yourself and your parent. You can act from love and kindness if you want to – but don’t stay in the relationship unless you can accept that the love you deserve will never come back to you. Ever. If it was going to, it would have reached you by now. See their behaviour for what it is – evidence of their breaks, not evidence of yours. Put a forcefield around yourself and let their abuse bounce off. Love yourself and respect yourself enough to fill the well that they bleed dry. They might not be capable of giving you the love and respect you deserve, but you are. You’ve been there, so you know the behaviours and you know what they do. We’re all human. We’re all going to get it wrong sometimes. Toxic behaviour though, is habitual and it will damage the members of your own little tribe as surely as it damaged you. You don’t have to be a product of the inept, cruel parenting that was shown to you, and this starts with the brave decision that the cycle stops at you. People who do this, who refuse to continue a toxic legacy, are courageous, heroic and they change the world. We’re here to build amazing humans, not to tear them down.