Oh god, I read this stupid meme today that really got me thinking.  Here is the meme before I say more: 

Look at the first bullet point: Your parents did the best they could, AND still their choices wounded you.  

Good grief.  That sentiment?  Is only used by people who do not understand sociopaths.  There is no such thing as their "best" with us.  An old therapist once told me that and I knew right then and there, our relationship was coming to an end.  I mean, I'd been seeing her for six months and she was a total psycho and eventually I came to realize she was a narcissist herself.  But in that moment, I knew she was not listening to me, and hadn't for six straight months.  No, my mother did not do her best with me.  Like, ever.  A narcissist only knows manipulation, even when they're being nice.  So there is no "best".  There is only fake nice.  And my mother knew how to "fake nice" her way through friendships and other relationships with people.  She knew how to be fake kind, fake caring, fake sweet, fake generous, fake everything nice.  But to me?  All I ever got from her was control, beratement, verbal abuse, shaming, name calling, and putting me down.  I even got a few really hard slaps thrown in (once as an adult).  She was fake nice to me, at times.  But it never lasted.  With my cousins, she was always as sweet as pie to them.  

Tell me know, how was singling me out to abuse (as well as my father--both her abusing him and him abusing me) her "best"?  

I will slap the next person who tells me that.  Just kidding.  I am not violent.  But I would want to.  But I will laugh in their face and tell them exactly why that sentiment is both stupid and damaging people.  

My mother did not do her best with me.  She gave me her worst and then blamed me for it.  

She even blamed me for my father's worst in 2018 after coming back into her life after 14 months of no contact.  I didn't want to come back, but we were homeless and had to.  She said to me "Your father was only abusive and drank so much because he had to deal with YOU as a teenager!!"  Even though I could be honest with my mother at that point in our lives, about why I had went no contact in the first place (even though she knew exactly why), about everything, I could be about that.  I gathered up my courage and looked her straight in the eye and said "DO NOT BLAME ME FOR DADDY'S DRINKING OR ABUSE.  He was an alcoholic and hit you LONG before I ever came into your home."  She didn't have anything to say about that.  She had told me a long time ago my father became physically abusive after his mother died (which I do not believe, I think he always was), which was long before I was even born.  The fact that this 70+ year old child in an old body was sitting there and saying this to her only child showed just how much my mother has never done her best with me.  I mean, who says that kind of shit?  She wouldn't say that to someone else.  Only me.  Oh, and my oldest son.  As he is her main scapegoat now (though she's pretty quiet most days anymore).  

So I would like this sentiment stricken from the mouths of therapists and everyone else.  "They did the best they could."  No, the, fuck, they, did, not.  My mother has held down jobs and never once talked to anyone at work the way she talks to me.  My mother has never talked to her parents this way.  She's never talked to my husband that way.  She has never talked to youngest son that way.  She's never talked to her friends that way, even at her worst with them.  She's only talked to me, and my father that way.  That is it.  So that's very purposeful.  To feel good making your child or your husband hurt?  That's some psycho shit.  And that's nobody's best.  

I would like this sentiment changed to "They set out to do their best, but instead, they always gave you their worst.  And it's on them for doing so.  There is no excuse for how they treated you.  They singled you out because they are bad parents, period.  There is no other explanation needed."  

Saying someone's abusive parents "did their best" is a cop-out and an excuse.  As though that makes it all better.  Abusive parents are abusive, and there is no excuse for that.  

Some parents try to do their best and fail.  Those who are addicted or severely mentally ill or sick.  And some of those parents do love their children, but have no idea how to do better.  But when it's said about a parent that ABUSES their child, then we have to draw the line.  Because nobody's "best" includes abuse.  My father was insanely abusive when he was drunk.  So, his addiction is what was at fault?  That's simply not true.  My father was an abusive man who let his abusive side out when drunk.  Yes, he was an alcoholic.  So I won't hold him as accountable for that (though, at the same time, I will).  But his abuse did not stem from his addiction.  It stemmed from him.  You cannot separate an abuser from their abuse.  Especially not from a depressant such as alcohol.  I used to have an ex who was a coke addict and was rage punch holes in walls (and who's now in prison for armed robbery...I was 18, so please excuse my taste in young men back then).  When he was sober, he wouldn't hurt a bug.  He was kind and sweet and thoughtful and nice.  I can separate his behavior while on drugs because he took stimulants that can cause horrible amounts of rage in normal people.  But I can't really excuse shit from a substance that makes you the exact opposite.  Alcohol opens you up to let out the parts of you that you are hiding.  It releases your inhibitions.  So if you're violent while drunk, you most likely have some stewing rage below the surface already.  My father did love me, though.  At least I think he did.  To my face, when he was sober, he hugged me goodnight every single night.  He always apologized when he did bad things.  He always held himself accountable for his actions.  But, later in life, he was cruel about me behind my back all the time when he was sober.  He said terrible things about me.  So, in all honestly, I have no idea.  I am not sure if any of that other stuff was real, and the cruel stuff was the real him, or was it the opposite?  I will never actually know.  

One could argue though that's what this meme is about.  Those types of parents, the ones that actually love their kids, yet still hurt them due to their own issues.  But most parents don't.  Most parents are like my mother.  Not exactly, with the same issues, but the same underlying one, which is narcissism.  So, why make a meme about the minority of parents?  

Because people want to believe that being human means being basically good and that their parents actually love them, deep down inside.  And yet, both of these childish assumptions are wrong.  Humanity is filled with sociopaths.  And at our core, we are a selfish species, because there are more sociopathic narcissists than there aren't.  Or maybe there's not actually more of them, but we're just so filled up with them from front to back that it just looks that way.  They tend to take up more space than us, maybe not in numbers, but with ego and bravado and bullshit.  I can go back through my friends in life and tell you, that a majority of them?  Are one type of narcissist or another (including reverse narcissists).  And I had a LOT of friends.  So even if the world doesn't agree they outnumber us?  Take stock in your own life and tell me what you come up with.  Because I bet you that there are more of them than not, also.  

You want to know why none of these narcissists are never (and will never be) doing their "best" with us?   Because of us.  We are nice.  We are kind.  We are not like them.  And the only people they actually respect and treat well and do their "best" with?  Are those like them.  Those they see as bigger and badder than they are.  Those that they fear showing their true colors to because they so desperately want them to approve of them.  They get their self-worth from these types, not us.  We are mere tools to be walked on by them.  They use us and abuse us and then throw us away, only to bring us back in again by giving us "their best".  But it's only a ploy to keep us around, so they can start the cycle back again later.  

So the next time someone tells you that your mother (or whoever abused you) did their "best" with you?  Laugh in their face and say "Are you insane?  I don't think you know what phrase even means" and then walk away.  Or educate them, but most likely you're talking to a codependent or a narcissist and they won't listen to your reasons anyways.  Because who else says that kind shit to an adult survivor of childhood abuse?  Only the people who desperately want to believe that at their core, narcissists are capable of love (because what does it say about them if that's not true?).  And they just aren't.  

Here is something to chew on: What if our parents not only did do their best with us, but did so purpose?  What then?  What does it say about us if that's true?  But more so, what does it say about them?  Because we are not at fault for being bullied (though that's a weak word for it).  We are survivors.  Survivors of war started by dictators normally do not look at the ones who started the war and think "Well, it's okay, they did their best with us.  They tried to be good, but they just weren't capable."  No, they know they did their worst.  They know they could have done better and just chose instead to hurt them.  They know they were power-hungry, and they got off on doing what they did because they enjoyed the power trip.  We should be the same with our own parents.   Our childhoods were like little mini wars being fought in our homes on a daily basis for years and years on end.  When we say they did their best, we are looking at it from a perspective that asks "What does this say about us?  Does it say we were still loveable or wanted or cared for deep down?"  That they just didn't want to hurt us, but had to.  And that's just not true.  They wanted to, and they enjoyed it.  And still do.  

And that says absolutely nothing about us, and our ability to be loved at all, and everything about them.  We were just the innocent bystanders caught in the lines of fire of a battle being fought inside their own heads.  They can't hurt themselves more than they already hurt, so they hurt us instead.  And it makes them happy to do so.  They relieve their own pain by hurting us because it makes them feel good.  

Sick, right?  And that's nobody's "best".  In fact, that's some of the worst you can be.  

Any stupid memes about this sort of thing you've read lately, please share them below.  I'd love to see them.