15 Sign You Have Toxic Parents

15 Signs You Have a Toxic Parents

By: Sharon Martin

Do you have a troubled relationship with your parents? Are they demanding, critical, and manipulative? If so, they may be toxic people.

No one has a perfect relationship with their parents or in-laws.

 If you’re lucky you have a positive and healthy relationship with your parents most of the time. Unfortunately, for some people – those with toxic parents – this isn’t possible. No matter how hard you try, you can’t have a mutually satisfying and respectful relationship with people who are emotionally unhealthy.

What is a toxic parent?

The term “toxic parent” is a bit nebulous and we probably all define it differently. Often, narcissistic or those with other personality disorders or mental illnesses, abusive, emotionally immature, and alcoholic or addicted parents are labeled as toxic.

Young children, even those with toxic parents, assume that their parents are typical. Without any basis for comparison, you think other families operate by the same dysfunctional rules and that everyone’s parents are cruel, unavailable, or controlling. Eventually, however, you realize that emotionally healthy parents show genuine concern for their children’s feelings, encourage them to follow their dreams, apologize when they screw up, and talk about problems in a respectful way. You realize that your parents are different. 

Toxic parents cause a lot of pain and lasting psychological problems for their children. The good news is that it’s possible to overcome the effects of toxic parents. The first step is to be aware of what it really means to have a toxic parent and recognize the particular ways that your parents are dysfunctional or emotionally unhealthy

Signs you have a toxic parent

Below are some of the common signs of a toxic parent.

Toxic parents are:

• Self-centered and have a limited capacity for empathy: They always put their own needs first and don’t consider other people’s needs or feelings. They don’t think about how their behavior impacts others and they have a hard time understanding how other people feel.

• Disrespectful: They fail to treat you with even a basic level of respect, courtesy, and kindness.

• Emotionally reactive: Toxic parents often have difficulty controlling their emotions. They overreact, are “dramatic”, or are unpredictable.

• Controlling: They want to tell you what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Toxic parents always want to have the upper hand. Guilt and money are common ways they exert power and control.

• Angry: They’re harsh and aggressive. Or they might be passive-aggressive – using the silent treatment, snide comments said under their breath, or intentionally forgetting

• Critical: Nothing you do is ever good enough for a toxic parent. They find fault with everything.

• Manipulative: They twist the truth to make themselves look good. They use guilt, denial, and trivializing to get what they want.

• Blaming: They don’t take responsibility for their own behavior, won’t own their part in the family dysfunction, and blame it all on you (or another scapegoat).

• Demanding: They expect you to drop everything to tend to their needs. Again, they have no concern for you, your schedule, or your needs; it’s all about them and what you can do to serve them.

• Embarrassing: They behave so poorly (anything from making racist jokes, getting into physical altercations, making sexual advances towards your spouse, and so on) that you’re embarrassed to be associated with them.

• Cruel: Toxic parents do and say things that are downright mean. They mock you, call you names, point out your shortcomings and intentionally bring up things that you’re sensitive about.

• Boundaryless: They intrude on your personal space and don’t accept that you’re a grown adult who is completely separate from them. They want to know about your personal life, they stand in your personal space, open your mail, come over uninvited, offer unsolicited advice, and undermine your parenting.

• Enmeshed: Your parents have an unhealthy reliance on you. They share too much personal information with you (secrets or details of their marital problems or sex life, for example) and rely on you to be their primary source of emotional support.

• Competitive: Not only do they always need to be right, they act like they’re in competition with you. So, instead of cheering you on and being happy for your successes, they try to one-up you, diminish your accomplishments, or ignore you.

And the last sign that you have toxic parents is about how you feel rather than what they do.

• You feel bad when you talk to, spend time with, or think about them: You feel worse after an encounter with your parents. You dread talking to them. And even the thought of your toxic parents can cause your body to tense up and your stomach to churn. Painful memories may surface. Their negative energy taints everything they touch. If you have toxic parents, you probably weren’t encouraged to have your own feelings, so you might not be used to noticing them. So, be sure to pay attention to your feelings and notice whether your parents trigger feelings of anger, sadness, guilt, shame, or other negative emotions.

Awareness leads to acceptance

If you have toxic parents, please remember that it’s not your fault. No matter how much they try to blame you, your parents aren’t “difficult” because of anything you did.

Recognizing that your parents have significant problems, and are unlikely to change, paves the way to acceptance. And when we accept people as they are, we free ourselves from the struggle to try to change them. We can grieve the loss of the kind of parent-child relationship that we wished for.

Acceptance is very helpful in restoring your peace of mind. But even still, it’s very stressful to have toxic parents and you need strategies to help you cope with your parents’ dysfunction. Stay tuned!  

Seeing the wife's belly after giving birth, the husband burst into tears: I will make up for you a lot!

What a happiest woman is to be a mother, but to be a mother the woman has to sacrifice both her youth and her body for motherhood. Recently, on the social network picture mother mothers newborn child was 13 days to social sharing so that not only the sisters have experienced the feeling of delivery that the same man the father also lamented

True images of the devastation after birth were shared by a young mother on her personal page. It is known that the baby will grow up and gradually grow in the mother body lasted nine months ten days. All good hormones seemed to change completely, the abdomen clear, abdominal dark in the abdomen in scary.

This is the belly of a women after 13 months of giving birth!

No one want a belly like this!

Every husbands must look at this!

However, it would be hard to get back into shape or youth, but the women they accept all hope that their beloved belly grows well and lives well. After the birth, although the belly has "look to scare" but they are proud that it is the remnants of the children have appeared in this world.

Salute to all Mothers... 

Robots Are Being Made To Replace Men By 2025

Will Robots Replace Men By 2025?

The world is fast changing and technology is becoming more and more automated!

The transition from the industrial age to the age of automation is happening thus more and more jobs will be delegated to our robot counterparts. Jobs such as:
Driving.
Surgery.
Companionship

You read that right, they won’t only be taking over the more menial jobs that pollute human existence but also will become our companions.

Futurologist Dr. Ian Pearson opened up about eh role that robots will take in our lives as early as 2025.

He believes that humans sleeping with robots in place of humans will be commonplace by 2025. His report on the future of intimate relations between humans and robots was published in partnership with Bondara.


bbc.com


Bondara is one of the United Kingdom's leading adult toy stores and they have a vested interested obviously in robots that will become our intimate partners.


mirror.co.uk

THE YEAR IS 2030...AND.. will robots replace men?

By 2030 relations between humans and robots will be as common as viewing adult films on the internet is now. By 2035 most of us will have toys (robots) that will interact with virtual reality. Dr. Pearson also believes that intimate robot relations will overtake relations between humans.

nbcnews.com

The upper class will be the first to have these robots that will be used for intimate relations. Dr. Pearson believes that they will overtake human intimate relations by 2050.

bbc.com

So what are your thoughts on Robots replacing men in 2025?

“I Am Marrying My Son Because I Spent Money To Educate Him And I Am Pregnant With Him.” - VIDEO

Wonders they say shall never end as a Zimbabwean woman married her own son.

The woman and her son claim to be in love with each other and they decided to take their relationship to the next level and got married considering that the mother, Betty Mbereko (from Mwenezi in Masvingo) is now six months pregnant and expecting her son’s child, and her grandchild.

Mrs. Mbereko who is 40 years has been a widow for the past 12 years and has been living with her 23-years-old son Farai Mbereko. She confirmed that she is six months pregnant and that she has decided it is better to “marry” her son because she does not want to marry her late husband’s young brothers, whom she says are coveting her.



Betty stunned a village court last week when she said the affair with her son had begun three years earlier and that after spending a lot of money sending Farai to school following the death of her husband, she felt she had a right to his money and no other woman was entitled to it.


“Look, I struggled alone to send my son to school and no one helped me. Now you see that my son is working and you accuse me of doing something wrong. “Let me enjoy the products of my sweat,” she told the village court council.



The son, Farai said he was more than prepared to marry his mother and would pay off the lobola balance his father had left unpaid to his grandparents.

According to him, “I know my father died before he finished paying the bride price and I am prepared to pay it off,”. “It is better to publicise what is happening because people should know that I am the one who made my mother pregnant.Otherwise they will accuse her of promiscuity.”



But local headman Nathan Muputirwa says: “We cannot allow this to happen in our village, mashura chaiwo aya, (This is a bad omen indeed). In the past they would have to be killed but today we cannot do it because we are afraid of the police.”

He warned them to immediately break off their marriage or leave his village. They chose the latter and have since left the village.

SHARING IS CARING...

6 VALID AND AMAZING REASONS TO SHOWER WITH YOUR MAN EVERY DAY!!!

Have you ever took a shower with your partner. If not we recommend you to give it a try next time. Not only you will save water but also you will strengthen your relationship, save time, improve hygiene, provide romance and so much more.

Here are 6 reasons why next time you go to the bathroom to take a shower you should include your partner as well.





-It saves you time and water. Taking a shower together is a great method of water preservation and saving time. If you both need to get up early for work, then you don’t have to argue about whose turn it is to take a shower first. Just do it together.

-It is good for your hygiene. It is hard to clean every inch of the body alone. This way you can help each other with your partner. Teamwork always provides better results.

-It can be very sweet and romantic. The most important benefit you will have is you will create a much stronger bond with your partner. Moments like shampooing your boyfriend’s head accompanied with some essential oils and candles on a side are something you’ll remember.

-It is a great way to have fun. Just imagine how fun showering together could be! You can both sing songs, splash water at each other, dance and make strange hairstyles out of wet shampooed hair. Sounds like fun, right?

-It can be a wonderful foreplay before your night together. If you have a problem with the intimate part of the relationship this will surely help you get back on a track.

-It strengthens your bond. A shower is a very personal thing and if you have reached the comfort level of taking a shower together, you have moved on to a completely different comfort level in your relationship.

What it Really Means to Hold Space for Someone

How to be there for the people who need you most

When my Mom was dying, my siblings and I gathered to be with her in her final days. None of us knew anything about supporting someone in her transition out of this life into the next, but we were pretty sure we wanted to keep her at home, so we did.




While we supported Mom, we were, in turn, supported by a gifted palliative care nurse, Ann, who came every few days to care for Mom and to talk to us about what we could expect in the coming days. She taught us how to inject Mom with morphine when she became restless, she offered to do the difficult tasks (like giving Mom a bath), and she gave us only as much information as we needed about what to do with Mom’s body after her spirit had passed.




The author with her mother

“Take your time,” she said. “You don’t need to call the funeral home until you’re ready. Gather the people who will want to say their final farewells. Sit with your mom as long as you need to. When you’re ready, call and they will come to pick her up.”

Ann gave us an incredible gift in those final days. Though it was an excruciating week, we knew that we were being held by someone who was only a phone call away.

In the two years since then, I’ve often thought about Ann and the important role she played in our lives. She was much more than what can fit in the title of “palliative care nurse”. She was facilitator, coach, and guide. By offering gentle, nonjudgmental support and guidance, she helped us walk one of the most difficult journeys of our lives.

The work that Ann did can be defined by a term that’s become common in some of the circles in which I work. She was holding space for us.

Learning to hold space for others

What does it mean to “hold space” for someone else?

It means that we are willing to walk alongside another person in whatever journey they’re on without judging them, making them feel inadequate, trying to fix them, or trying to impact the outcome. When we hold space for other people, we open our hearts, offer unconditional support, and let go of judgment and control.

Sometimes we find ourselves holding space for people while they hold space for others. In our situation, for example, Ann was holding space for us while we held space for Mom. Though I know nothing about her support system, I suspect that there are others holding space for Ann as she does this challenging and meaningful work. It’s virtually impossible to be a strong space holder unless we have others who will hold space for us. Even the strongest leaders, coaches, nurses, etc., need to know that there are some people with whom they can be vulnerable and weak without fear of being judged.




Understanding the essence of holding space for others

In my own roles as teacher, facilitator, coach, mother, wife, and friend, etc., I do my best to hold space for other people in the same way that Ann modeled it for me and my siblings. It’s not always easy, because I have a very human tendency to want to fix people, give them advice, or judge them for not being further along the path than they are, but I keep trying because I know that it’s important. At the same time, there are people in my life that I trust to hold space for me.

To truly support people in their own growth, transformation, grief, etc., we can’t do it by taking their power away (ie. trying to fix their problems), shaming them (ie. implying that they should know more than they do), or overwhelming them (ie. giving them more information than they’re ready for). We have to be prepared to step to the side so that they can make their own choices, offer them unconditional love and support, give gentle guidance when it’s needed, and make them feel safe even when they make mistakes.

Holding space is not something that’s exclusive to facilitators, coaches, or palliative care nurses. It is something that ALL of us can do for each other – for our partners, children, friends, neighbors, and even strangers who strike up conversations as we’re riding the bus to work.




Every day is an opportunity to hold space for the people around us

8 Tips to Help You Hold Space for Others

Here are the lessons I’ve learned from Ann and others who have held space for me.

1. Give people permission to trust their own intuition and wisdom. When we were supporting Mom in her final days, we had no experience to rely on, and yet, intuitively, we knew what was needed. We knew how to carry her shrinking body to the washroom, we knew how to sit and sing hymns to her, and we knew how to love her. We even knew when it was time to inject the medication that would help ease her pain. In a very gentle way, Ann let us know that we didn’t need to do things according to some arbitrary health care protocol – we simply needed to trust our intuition and accumulated wisdom from the many years we’d loved Mom.

2. Give people only as much information as they can handle. Ann gave us some simple instructions and left us with a few handouts, but did not overwhelm us with far more than we could process in our tender time of grief. Too much information would have left us feeling incompetent and unworthy.




Knowing how much information to give people in times of grief

3. Don’t take their power away. When we take decision-making power out of people’s hands, we leave them feeling useless and incompetent. There may be sometimes when we need to step in and make hard decisions for other people (ie. when they’re dealing with an addiction and an intervention feels like the only thing that will save them), but in almost every other case, people need the autonomy to make their own choices (even our children). Ann knew that we needed to feel empowered in making decisions on our Mom’s behalf, and so she offered support but never tried to direct or control us.

4. Keep your own ego out of it. This is a big one. We all get caught in that trap now and then – when we begin to believe that someone else’s success is dependent on our intervention, or when we think that their failure reflects poorly on us, or when we’re convinced that whatever emotions they choose to unload on us are about us instead of them. It’s a trap I’ve occasionally found myself slipping into when I teach. I can become more concerned about my own success (Do the students like me? Do their marks reflect on my ability to teach? Etc.) than about the success of my students. But that doesn’t serve anyone – not even me. To truly support their growth, I need to keep my ego out of it and create the space where they have the opportunity to grow and learn.




Keep your own ego out of it

5. Make them feel safe enough to fail. When people are learning, growing, or going through grief or transition, they are bound to make some mistakes along the way. When we, as their space holders, withhold judgment and shame, we offer them the opportunity to reach inside themselves to find the courage to take risks and the resilience to keep going even when they fail. When we let them know that failure is simply a part of the journey and not the end of the world, they’ll spend less time beating themselves up for it and more time learning from their mistakes.

6. Give guidance and help with humility and thoughtfulness. A wise space holder knows when to withhold guidance (ie. when it makes a person feel foolish and inadequate) and when to offer it gently (ie. when a person asks for it or is too lost to know what to ask for). Though Ann did not take our power or autonomy away, she did offer to come and give Mom baths and do some of the more challenging parts of caregiving. This was a relief to us, as we had no practice at it and didn’t want to place Mom in a position that might make her feel shame (ie. having her children see her naked). This is a careful dance that we all must do when we hold space for other people. Recognizing the areas in which they feel most vulnerable and incapable and offering the right kind of help without shaming them takes practice and humility.




A wise space holder knows when to withhold guidance and when to offer it gently

7. Create a container for complex emotions, fear, trauma, etc. When people feel that they are held in a deeper way than they are used to, they feel safe enough to allow complex emotions to surface that might normally remain hidden. Someone who is practiced at holding space knows that this can happen and will be prepared to hold it in a gentle, supportive, and nonjudgmental way. In The Circle Way, we talk about “holding the rim” for people.

The circle becomes the space where people feel safe enough to fall apart without fearing that this will leave them permanently broken or that they will be shamed by others in the room. Someone is always there to offer strength and courage. This is not easy work, and it is work that I continue to learn about as I host increasingly more challenging conversations. We cannot do it if we are overly emotional ourselves, if we haven’t done the hard work of looking into our own shadow, or if we don’t trust the people we are holding space for. In Ann’s case, she did this by showing up with tenderness, compassion, and confidence. If she had shown up in a way that didn’t offer us assurance that she could handle difficult situations or that she was afraid of death, we wouldn’t have been able to trust her as we did.

The circle becomes the space where people feel safe enough to fall apart

8. Allow them to make different decisions and to have different experiences than you would. Holding space is about respecting each person’s differences and recognizing that those differences may lead to them making choices that we would not make. Sometimes, for example, they make choices based on cultural norms that we can’t understand from within our own experience. When we hold space, we release control and we honor differences. This showed up, for example, in the way that Ann supported us in making decisions about what to do with Mom’s body after her spirit was no longer housed there. If there had been some ritual that we felt we needed to conduct before releasing her body, we were free to do that in the privacy of Mom’s home.

Holding space is not something that we can master overnight, or that can be adequately addressed in a list of tips like the ones I’ve just offered. It’s a complex practice that evolves as we practice it, and it is unique to each person and each situation.

11 Ways You Might Be Keeping Your Partner At A Distance That You Don't Even Realize

We've all seen the movies with the sexy, wounded protagonists who keep everyone at a distance. Usually, the movie involves an equally sexy character who breaks down the wounded protagonist's walls and teaches them that it really is better to love and feel and let people in. (Side note: Now I'm hungry for popcorn.) Sine art imitates life, you've probably been (or dated) this person at some point in your life. And hopefully, you've learned the hard lesson that you can't go through life without making some real, deep, lasting connections with people.


But what if you don't know you're this person? Bad habits die hard (that could be the title of our movie!), especially ones that developed when we were little and that was never challenged. When I worked with couples as a Domestic Violence Victim Advocate and Planned Parenthood Certified Responsible Sexuality Educator, I did notice that there were some signs. Do you have lots of acquaintances, but not many close friends? Are you a workaholic? Have your past flings complained about your lack of emotion? Have you always been kind of a lone wolf? If so, you might be that person who keeps others out to avoid getting hurt. If that sounds like you, check out this list of other signs you're being distant. If you get that little shiver of "this is me" then it might be time to start breaking down those walls. Otherwise, you'll be missing out on some of the greatest parts of being human.

1. Not Giving Compliments




This might not seem like something significant, but it can say a lot about your willingness to open up to someone. Giving compliments is something you do to let someone know you like them. It's something that elicits an emotional response in the person you're giving the compliment too.

2. Never Making Love



OK, so there's having sex and there's making love. You know the difference. One is intimate and connected and packed with emotion. The other is just a physical act. You can have both with your partner, but you can't just have sex. If you're not making love, you're probably resisting giving yourself over to someone so completely.

3. Not Resolving Disagreements



When you have a problem and you resolve it, it's done. It paves the way for a smoother future where problems don't pile up on each other. When you keep people at a distance, you tend to brush off disagreements, either because you don't care, or because you know you can lean on unresolved problems in the future when you need something to fight about.

4. Not Fighting



Things that are worth fighting for involve fighting, no matter how mild. No person on the planet is capable of never disagreeing with you, pushing your buttons, or getting on your nerves. But if you never fight about the things that you should be fighting about, it's probably because you don't really care. And you probably don't really care because you know this person isn't someone you could or are willing to truly love.

5. Inventing Fights Or Flaws



You know that episode of Seinfeld where he had to break up with his partner because she had "man hands?" It's kind of like that. You'll start to really like someone, and then you'll find something wrong with them that justifies breaking it off and moving on. The truth is, everyone has something wrong with them. So your defense mechanism only serves to keep your heart in it's tightly sealed box.

6. Having Impossible Standards



I'm all about having high standards. You're freaking spectacular and you deserve a freaking spectacular partner. But I also believe in being reasonable. Odds are, if a person has to jump through 100 hoops and pass a checklist of 200 arbitrary wants, you're probably not nurturing your high self-esteem. You're probably nurturing your unhealthy attachment to being unattached.

7. Not Using The L Word



When you love someone, you tell them. Even if being emotional isn't your style, you'll say it once in a while. Because that's something your partner needs to hear at some point. If you're the kind of person who never says it, or waits a really, really long time, you might be keeping your partner at a distance. The same can be said of people who say it too soon ,and too often, because then it's not genuine.

8. Not Committing



People who don't commit to other people need to look at the reasons why and make sure they're not just keeping people at a distance. Commitment doesn't just mean moving in together or getting married. It can mean things like getting a dog, calling another person your partner, or making plans for far in the future.
9. Not Getting Excited About Things




A common trait among people who build walls around themselves is limiting their emotions, even if they have nothing to do with love or relationships. For example, they may not ever get excited about a thing because they fear being let down. They may never make concrete plans so they can bail if need be. They aren't a person friends and family typically think of when they need to rely on someone for something. They like to be able to pop in and out of people's lives whenever they want. It's emotionally safer that way. In their minds, anyway.

10. Being Mysterious




Guarded people are often mysterious. They don't give you a lot of details about their lives. They may give you just enough detail that you don't notice how withholding they really are, but odds are, they're not going to be the person you can chug wine with and talk about your childhoods. And if you do, they'll mostly be doing the listening.

11. You Have A Singular Focus

When you're trying to keep your guard up, you slip into habits that you think to protect you. One of them might be a picture in your head about how your life is going to turn out. You probably picture yourself alone, no matter who you're with at the time, and you're probably kind of OK with that. You might only consider your career path or other goals and never take into consideration that a relationship could ever impact those goals. You tend to move forward with the idea that you'll be alone, even if you're with someone, and you plan your life accordingly.

Feels are scary. Heartbreak hurts like hell. But if you're never truly vulnerable, are you really living?

Images: Pexels

Every Woman Should Know These 15 Tricks With Baking Soda







People knew about useful properties of baking soda from the times of Ancient Egypt. Now we know about 300 ways of its usage, which housewives from all over the world have used for many centuries.

In this article you will learn fifteen most popular of them.We are sure you all have baking soda at home. But do you use it only for baking? Well, this versatile and cheap tool can be used not only to relieve the symptoms of heartburn or to bake pies. If you choose the list of products that should always be at hand, baking soda would be, perhaps, the first in the list.




This is a universal and widely available product. Baking soda will help you throughout the house, for personal hygiene, and also for dealing with unwanted insects and will simply make everything much easier. Put off all those cleaners and other items purchased at the hardware store, they are so harmful for your health and pollute the environment!

Start using baking soda in all corners of the house and for personal hygiene. You can use it also for cosmetic purposes. For example, for your skin and hair, for struggling with stretch marks and whitening your teeth. Look through all methods of its usage:

#1. Natural deodorant.
Stop using chemical deodorants..

#2. Insect bites.
It will ease irritation.

#3. Heartburn.
You will relieve heartburn.

#4. Scrub.
It can fight with skin imperfections like wrinkles, blackheads and tarnished skin.




#5. Hair.
It can increase hair growth.

#6. Stretch marks.
It will reduce visible stretch marks.

#7. Bad breath.
It will help you fight this problem.

#8. Rough skin.
Put on warm socks with baking soda and forget about this unpleasant situation.

#9. Stains.
Baking soda can remove stains.

#10. Fridge smell.
It fights with unpleasant smell in your fridge.

#11. Jewelry.
It is able to return your jewelry previous shine.

#12. Abscesses.
It is useful as an abscess treatment.

#13. Sunburn.
Soothe burnt skin with baking soda.

#14. Peas and beans softener.
Get peas and beans ready for cooking quicker.

#15. White teeth.
Brush your teeth and make them whiter.





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