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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   905 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for June 24, 2026

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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Oh man, almost felt like it was my writing, that's how similar your situation is to mine.

Any time I expressed grievances over a comment or behavior I perceived to be denigrating, my parents shielded themselves behind this

She would often treat 16/17 year old me as a marriage counselor after her argument du jour with my father

she sat me down to talk she asked for examples of what she’s done in my childhood that I found hurtful

This and so much more. To this day, I still feel guilt whenever they ask me if they were good parents because the answer is no, but they'll never understand why because to them they did everything right. They fed me, provided me roof over my head, gave me education, and steered me away from bad outcomes. Lack of nonmaterial parts of the relationship doesn't count to them.

Things will definitely get better for you as you get older and set some distance from them though. I personally gave up on trying to get them to understand, but it's okay. My advice - take advantage of whatever material help they offer even if they try holding it over your head, that's the only way they know how to show love and they will hold your childhood over your head anyway, so may as well just take it.

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