I just realised that our parents LITERALLY NEVER showed the slightest bit of interest in any of our hobbies or interests except when we picked up their hobbies or it was for school. Everything else was always, automatically annoying, bothersome and a waste of time and silly.
10 years later we still feel convinced that what we like will only ever be annoying and bothersome to others.
What’s fucked me up is that I’ve only recently realized that I actually isolate myself by hiding my hobbies and interests from pretty much everyone I know in real life in order to avoid potential ridicule.
Like, oh shit, that pattern of behavior…where I only share my interests with folks online…that comes right from feeling like there was no one else I could share my interests with back when I was a teenager.
Reading this helped me realize that I did the same thing for the longest time. Tbh I still do it. I’m still afraid to talk too much about the stuff I’m interested in to people that I love and trust. This is one of the hallmarks of childhood emotional neglect that can impact your relationships for decades if you’re unaware of this behavior and where it comes from.
It’s good for threads like these to exist so that it can assure other people with similar family household atmospheres that this is not normal. That they’re allowed to feel hurt over their harmless hobbies being harshly invalidated.
Holy shit I thought it was normal
