> My parents were far from perfect, but they loved me and did their best
Not all parents do that, when a divorce happened at least one of them thought that as well. The thing is: not everything is abuse but things can still be bad enough as also pointed out in the article. That's when you call it toxic I guess. It's this fuzzy new word to describe some hard to grasp behaviour that is maybe only so hard to grasp because it's that outlandish. One time I was with my sister and my father on holiday - my mother gave us a cell-phone so we could call in case he would abduct us. In any case, my mother was completely overwhelmed with raising 2 kids and cut some corners. Also my father did his best to put pressure on my mother, mostly financially. (He moved far away and blames anything bad that happened on my mother or me) And the list goes on. My sister is completely unwilling to talk about any of this. My father is like described in the article saying I'm rewriting history and having a complete lack of empathy. Is this abuse? Probably not, unless you go with a crazy strict definition. But toxic for sure. What upsets me the most that this is just some really fuzzy stuff that happened, I cannot pin-point any isolated root cause. So to come up with a reasonable explanation why I chose estrangement, I would have to tell quite a long story and some details are too personal. Still I'm much happier now.
Not all parents do that, when a divorce happened at least one of them thought that as well. The thing is: not everything is abuse but things can still be bad enough as also pointed out in the article. That's when you call it toxic I guess. It's this fuzzy new word to describe some hard to grasp behaviour that is maybe only so hard to grasp because it's that outlandish. One time I was with my sister and my father on holiday - my mother gave us a cell-phone so we could call in case he would abduct us. In any case, my mother was completely overwhelmed with raising 2 kids and cut some corners. Also my father did his best to put pressure on my mother, mostly financially. (He moved far away and blames anything bad that happened on my mother or me) And the list goes on. My sister is completely unwilling to talk about any of this. My father is like described in the article saying I'm rewriting history and having a complete lack of empathy. Is this abuse? Probably not, unless you go with a crazy strict definition. But toxic for sure. What upsets me the most that this is just some really fuzzy stuff that happened, I cannot pin-point any isolated root cause. So to come up with a reasonable explanation why I chose estrangement, I would have to tell quite a long story and some details are too personal. Still I'm much happier now.