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Is this even abuse?
My mother has always been super controlling, and angers easily. She often insults me, either directly when she's angry about something, or passive aggressively in pretty much every conversation. She's called me lazy, worthless, stupid, psychotic, told me I should go to a (mental) hospital, and that I'd amount to nothing when I grow up. These were all on different occasions, but you get the idea. And in normal conversations, she'll often bring up how smart other kids are, imply that I should eat less and exercise more, and talk about how talented other kids my age are. Any time she compliments me, it's always followed by an insult, like how that top looks good for girls my age, but my arms are too fat. My waist is the only slim thing about me. I don't eat that much but I'm not getting any skinnier. Tan skin looks healthy, but I don't look good tan. However, my parents have spent a lot of money and time on me, taking me to different extracurriculars (although I was forced into some of them), going on lots of family vacations (although afterwards, my mom always says bringing me and my brother is a waste because we don't appreciate it, even though we always have fun there at least), and she always asks what I want to eat, and makes my favorite foods. My dad is better, but he always tells me that I'm overreacting, and always lectures me in a very condescending tone, telling me that I'm too arrogant and I know nothing. He always justifies it by saying that his attitude is always patient, and he's very nice about it, but his patronization is almost worse than my mom's constant insults because at least then I can just roll my eyes. They dote on me and buy me stuff, and tell me that they do all this because they love me, and want me to be successful in life, and that I'm too sensitive and overreacting when I tell them, this is verbal abuse, you know. They never take any of my concerns seriously either, when I try to bring it up, and my mom usually gets angry and says, "oh yeah, everything is my fault" and my dad usually just laughs at me. But whenever my parents and I are on good terms (usually after I haven't seen them in a while because I've been holed up in my room), I'm always unsure because they're nice and I have fun memories of my family and I can't hold grudges for the life of me. Also, I have this one friend who is actually abused by her parents, like she's been put in the hospital by her mom before, and it makes me even more unsure, because compared to what she has to go through, my problems seem like petty whining and not so serious.
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I can say from experience, that yes, you are being verbally abused. Both your parents are in a bad spot. Can't know what ever happened in their past to cause them to bed this way. However, something that each of them felt and believed to be tramatic, started them on this path. I was married to a man who was verbally abusive. My Mom told me I could come live with her if I would leave him, early in marriage. Unfortunately, I believed what i heard in church that God hates divorce. Yet after having 3 kids with him, two who were moved out already, I heard the opposite from God, that my husband had run out of time to uphold the vows he made on our wedding day but never did. The time for him to learn to grow into a better human being had ended. A retired counselor friend told me he needed to go see a psychologist. This is also what needs to happen to your parents but no one can force them to. It is best if you let a school counselor know and have them get you help. If you are a minor, you can always let Child protection service or whatever its called in your area, know what is going on. Don't be afraid because I have a family member with kids who along with husband was leaving bruises on the kids. A teacher called the agency. All that happened was having to be seen by a psych Dr. who said they were okay and had to attend parenting classes, and losing the oldest child who was sent to her birth father. People on drugs even do not get jail time for being bad parents but instead get the help that they need. Your problems are not petty when comparing to a friend. My ex had verbally abused me for the entire time I was with him, 30 years. But it was in the last 5 of those years he started getting pushy with me. Would push me out of his way when walking through the house rather than asking me to let him by. The pushing became more frequent and on one occasion he came up behind me while angry and shoved me off our porch so I went flying but managed to land with my hands taking the brunt. The porch was only 3 steps high but I could have been injured. In his case, he went only a couple times to a psychologist and I went along for the first couple visits. The Dr. wanted me there. It took nothing for the Dr. to discover right at the start why I was being treated this way. My ex husband, as he is now, had mental illness for sure, but the Dr. needed more than a couple visits to figure out what kind. Now hers what twisted thing happened in his mind. As a child, there was a point his Mom was really ill in Hospital. He overheard the Dr. telling his Dad that there were equal chances that MOm would make it or would die. When his child mind heard that, he began to believe that his Mom would abandon him by death. She recovered. However that stuck in his mind. All girlfriends before me, left him. Why? He was trying to control circumstances to bring about a self fullfilling prophecy in his own life, that all women would always end up leaving him. So when he treated me bad and I didn't, he had to treat me worse in hopes that I would give up and leave. What kept me going so long was my trust in God to "heal the marriage" as church people and pastors told me. Then God told me at the end, I gave each of you free will to do as you wish, good or bad. I never will interfere and use power to change a bad person into a good one because that would be taking away their free will. So the end result was my needing to love myself enough to no longer allow myself to be subjected to this type of unloving treatment. If you think you can hold out til old enough to leave, think again. Everyone is different in how much stress their body can take until it begins to suffer from the stress of such a life. And that stress has to go somewhere, either into your body...getting illnesses or to your mind where you become more like a mental ill person or you are afraid to talk to people, have an opinion, look people in the eye, and battle little to no self esteem. Mine went to physical issues, daily headaches, a few migraines per year, all over body stress rashes that itched and stomach ulcers, just to name a few. All in all, verbal abuse is nothing to ignore....it is Serious, and can in the long term, cause an earlier death for you, way early...just from stress. Or something could snap in them, and you begin to become battered as well. I understand about the few fun memories of the family together. I will remember something and laugh at how great it was. But the problem is the good times were too few and the bad times pretty much daily. So you need to reach out for help hon. You will also need professional help as the victim. I had to go through counseling myself after I left my ex because I had too many coping mechanisms I had put in place that would interfere with future relationships with any human, not just a new partner. So please tell someone, a school counselor, the child protection agency. You might also put out feelers if any friends whose parents really know and like you, would let you stay with them for a while during the transition of the parents finding out you spoke out to people on this, because you don't want to suffer more abuse because of it. Perhaps you have aunts or grandma's you can call and ask to stay with if it becomes necessary and let them know what is going on. By their reaction, you'll know who's on your side or not and avoid those who are not.
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Verbal abuse can often be worse than the physical kind because it leaves irreversible damage and scars that will forever affect self-esteem, worth and how you approach life.
The hard part is in knowing who you are versus the crap you hear about worthlessness etc. etc. out of them and others. Know your true self and work to discover it and use that to mentally defend yourself. You have to know that you aren't those things are are actually much better.
It's awful that they cannot see that but their behaviour is wrong and one day they will have to atone for it. Often in cases like these the person(s) doing the abuse are projecting what they actually feel about themselves onto a blank canvas in this case you.
If your parents are alcoholics, mentally ill themselves (and may not be aware) or suffered that kind of abuse they are putting on you as kids themselves it will dictate their behaviour towards their own children.
I think the best thing for you to do is find a therapist or Child & Youth Worker through school and tell them confidentially about how things are with the verbal abuse and get support to navigate and deal with it. They can often find ways to address things with parents too as can teachers. You need this and a support network so you can thrive.
People who are verbally abusive can also be nice at times too and revert back to horrible behaviour. It's all on them and not you. Reach out to adults you know who care and to your doctor who can get you help and support you need and deal with your parents for you. Anything you tell any of these people are kept in confidence unless you authorize details to be shared.
Your doctor may even refer you to a psychiatrist to make sure your mental health is in check and to help you rise above your situation at home and the depression it has brought on you. You have to deal with depressed thoughts and thinking associated with what you told us as that's something that needs to be handled now.
As far as being successful in life you already are whether you know it or not and are quite brave and level-headed and know already that this isn't your fault and that you're the opposite of what they are saying you are. That's monumental to know that because a lot of people don't and start out worse than you have in getting help and past what is going on and being above it. Reach out to every adult you can that can support you. That's key.
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