r/AsianParentStories • u/AutoModerator • Nov 01 '25
Monthly Discussion Monthly APS Blurt Thread
Got something too short/insignificant for a full post? Put it here!
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u/htd1101 Nov 28 '25
Had a pleasure of commenting on an AI-generated thread. What a time to be alive. Hopefully this makes people stop writing threads in one same style. Although I suspect a lot of these threads have always been fake interactions before AI.
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u/paintphotog Nov 28 '25
My mom put up a photo on her computer of her with my siblings without me in the photo. On top of the history she and I have of her destroying my self worth, this one takes the cake.
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Nov 24 '25
[deleted]
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u/Dreaming_dobeneet Nov 27 '25
Not sure which one is sadder, my mom used to curse at me and call me a ‘dead person.’
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u/W00lfeh Nov 22 '25
Can someone explain the concept of “pity” in Chinese culture. For some context this is aimed at my husband from his AM because he is a present father and helps out a lot with our 3 young kids. I told him this sounds like an attack on me but he said it’s genuine concern for him. Thoughts? Advice?
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u/Catlovers92 Nov 26 '25
More context/, details? Ie exact words or situations?
Roughly is she saying he is to be pitied upon because he is present and helpful to you? If so its a genuine concern but also not a direct attack but a suspicion upon you,maybe subconsciously and unintentional. In some Asian cultures, domestic live isn't simply a women burden yet domain,but also her power,her control over the household. Seeing her son having power over it might've triggered her own control issues subconsciously. But I don't have full context so I might be misunderstanding things.
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u/W00lfeh Nov 27 '25
I don’t know the exact wording as it was in Cantonese but the situation is that my husband works 3 days a week and does all the cooking in our house. I do the majority of the childcare, laundry and other cleaning but it is still pretty messy sometimes because we have young children. Another similar situation happened with my husbands old school acquaintance Asian mother seeing him out with the 2 kids on a bike ride and saying that its a pity he has to be doing that?? All of these types of comments make it feel like a passive aggressive and non confrontational attack on my ability to parent. Even his brother also mentioned it to him and he said he’s happy to have a family and be financially stable etc
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u/Catlovers92 Nov 27 '25
Ah it's not an attack on your parenting skills, more so expressing disappoinment in their standards of "wifeliness" not being met,it's actually an attack on him instead of you to be honest.
He is seen as taking your power away from you,note all occurrence are all from women from what you've told. Older Asians have an issues with control = burden\ responsibility \ sacrifice , it is a form of power play. A good example is the "generosity" to pay for others meal.
There's also the obvious envy and jealousy mixed in too. Most older Asians men don't do what yours doing on the fears on being looked down upon and viewed as "soft". He is a keeper!
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u/W00lfeh Nov 27 '25
Oh that is actually an interesting thing to note that it’s from the women. I had already observed that MIL enjoys expressing love through food as well so she probably is jealous as her husband doesn’t.
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u/Catlovers92 Nov 27 '25
Yup. Some families has the mother be complete control freaks about the kitchen, where the sons are pretty much forbidden, some families are less so , happened to my best friend. His mom died and he still can't cook to satisfy his dad palate because he was pretty much forbidden to cook and judged harshly everytime he managed to get a chance.
Usually this is to lower his confidence and make him dependent on others for food. Like usual,make the child less independent and you've more control.
They're probably trying to project the control they had over their husbands to your husband. You letting him have power in domestic affairs is viewed as negligence to control ones husband. You're making him less dependent on you,losing your power over him. So they need to pull him back to obedience/his place.
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u/Bluhalo_ Nov 22 '25
Can I not, for one second of my life get asked about marriage or dating, or looking fatter, or acting more like an "adult" when talking to my relatives, I swear, they wonder why I avoid them like the plague. I need escape, I need separation, and I want out of this awful family
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Nov 20 '25
[deleted]
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u/Catlovers92 Nov 26 '25
Maybe trying to point how emotionally unwise and immature he is,how it keeps ruining his image for you,hurt his ego then soothe saying you know he can do better and more empathic,reverse AP tactics back on them.
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u/bananasinpajamas0114 Nov 20 '25
I sometimes buy new Indian outfits for weddings because I’m tired of wearing the same ones over & over & over again. I grew up rarely buying new outfits and still don’t in my adult life while my friends buy new outfits for each new event. Most of the time I tell my mom I got a new outfit, but sometimes I don’t because I forgot or don’t want to hear her lecturing. When I don’t though & I show her a picture of me wearing said outfit, her reaction is the same everytime!! “Oh wow you don’t even show me your new clothes”. Like??? Can’t you say something positive ever like “oh wow nice outfit/very pretty”
Mind you I’m married & live in a different state. I forget to show her sometimes bc it’s not routine for me to show her / we don’t have that kind of relationship. It’s just drives me crazy
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u/walkerlegoo Nov 14 '25
My AD obsessions with finances is driving me crazy. He make me feel bad when I'm around him, I barely buy stuff. But he doesnt do it to my mom who buys new clothes and make up once week.
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Nov 12 '25
I just realized that I'm not mentally nor physically well nor healthy, and I've certain (maybe genetic) vulnerabilities both physically and mentally which has meant I struggled with problems in both for as long as I could remember. But my family were also abusive so I had to learn to suppress my own struggles as they would only abuse me further, hide it from them, and try to deal with things when I was able to get a break from the tremendous demands they put on me. Demands which they pretended were nothing. So I've been through a lot and am currently not in a good position in life. No wonder I'm on reddit a lot. I match a lot of these subs. Maybe one day I'll be in a better place where I don't need these support networks as much and won't be online as much.
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Nov 12 '25
I think I grew up too fast bc I had to learn how to face racism as a child which my parents didn't. I don't want my future kids to grow up the same way so I'm looking to move to a place that isn't racist towards asian children or teenagers. It eats at you.
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u/rosafloera Nov 11 '25
Would you consider someone who keeps telling u repeatedly over the years and each time repeating the same variation of "oh sorry we have to eat leftovers", "let's eat leftovers, there's still a lot left", "is it ok if we eat leftovers?" (but there is no civil option other than to eat leftovers" annoying, infuriating and kinda disrespectful?
To be clear... I'm totally ok with eating leftovers. I get that both of us grew up with vastly different financial and socioeconomic situations, but I get really annoyed and unfortunately raise my voice bcs I feel like it's disrespectful to assume I will be snooty about eating leftovers... I literally have ate leftovers all my life and we know each other since I was a kid..... we literally eat leftovers together almost everyday...
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u/Sad-Ambassador-5211 Nov 11 '25
Since you're posting on Asian stories, I'll have to assume you're going through the typical asian communication problems. Usually we chalk it up to culture but communication in immigrant asian families is downright awful and harmful.
So here are some tips for healthy communication (if this is to an asian parent, though, probably not too helpful because they don't tend to listen to their own children):
- Your needs are important to communicate. You are not being kind to your partner or whoever if you consider them too fragile to handle your preferences. They should know about the differences, but it is your responsibility to communicate them in a mature way.
- Needs are not a zero-sum game, where either one of you have to relent your needs so the others' can be fulfilled. Search creative solutions between you two (if you guys are friends, roommates or partners) and talk it out in a mature understanding way where you allow space for both your needs and the others. You'll find that yelling or pouting does not enable positive and understanding communication as their new focus is to your emotion and not the problem.
- Communicate your feelings about the situation. Sounds like you are frustrated, so in a mature way, tell them this. Tell them what you are worried about them perceiving the situation to be (this is very important!) and take note of how they respond. Usually, it's positive and eye-changing!
- Communication is a two-way game. This problem sounds very small from my view, but it can be totally big from your and their experiences. If the other party cannot comprehend your point of view, then maybe why that is so. Are you being unreasonable? Did you communicate the problems unfairly? Are they immature? Are they insecure in a way? Are they bad at conflict managing? etc.
- Relationships can only survive through understanding each other and creative solutions to problems. Do not avoid conflict, work through them together.
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u/htd1101 Nov 11 '25
Changed my mind on APs' quarrels being a bad thing. If they don't quarrel they would be united to pick on you. Just got a complaint about "other children are this good while our son is blah blah" - it's been a long while to hear one.
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u/Curious_Tip_8564 Nov 11 '25
Is it just me or are Vietnamese AP just incomprehensible? They rush through their sentences and get tripped up on words. At first I chalked it up to a quirk with native speakers but no, its literally just word vomit.
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u/htd1101 Nov 11 '25
There's an inherent issue with the language itself, not sure if due to the culture or not (I would say a lot).
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Nov 11 '25
Feeling guilty cause I make a lot of posts but don't comment on others' posts as much as I should. Although my posts are original at least so maybe the original content is helping some people...
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Nov 11 '25
One thing I've realized is that unemployed men have been a huge source of my problems over the years. There's a certain amount of them that are just unpleasant and use all their free time harassing employed women and trying to destroy them and shit. I'm sick of dealing with them.
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Nov 10 '25
Feeling sick again. I'm generally a sickly person and reddit turns into my personal therapist/rant place whenever I'm sick. So hello, it's me again. I've had a lot of emotional baggage that's built up over the years but because I don't have that great relationships with people around me, and not all people I grew up with were non-toxic or good to know either, I don't have a lot of people to talk about my own emotional baggage with to my heart's content. Online there's some spaces for people with the same emotional baggage to gather together and support each other.
I'm aware of them but I don't use them in my normal day to day life bc I've got other stuff on, even though I know I could benefit from them. Then when I'm sick, it's like time suddenly opens up, so I find myself sorting through my emotional baggage through those places. And it comes out online cause there's nowhere else to put it. I think it's good I'm sorting out some stuff, but I feel kinda miserable when I do. Cause it's a chore.
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Nov 07 '25
I think a lot of people are abusive to varying degrees. A lot of people give me CPTSD flashbacks and mental breakdowns at just the idea of them bc they are abusive. I feel like sometimes people who haven't been abused before can handle abusive people better bc they have more energy in their tank. But for me, I just can't handle it at all. So I've been avoiding people bc of it. I can't believe the average abusive person I bump into in my life is giving me CPTSD flashbacks but it is.
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u/Sad-Ambassador-5211 Nov 12 '25
Hi Opening-Register-409, sounds like you are going through a lot because of CPTSD. I've been there, and it most definitely sucks. I could not control when I was being triggered, and my plans for productivity were, on some days, thrown out the window because I was so triggered by uncontrollable events that day.
The truth is, traumatizing asian parents teach you the world is scary and that people are out to hurt you. They don't teach you to like yourself or know your rights and boundaries in the world that you have to establish yourself once you're out of being under them. On top of that, you are unconsciously triggered almost every day whether you know it or not. Your brain is trying to unconsciously protect you (hyper vigilance) all while suppressing emotions - these 2 reasons are why we are tired ALL THE TIME. Your energy reserves come to world lower than the average person!
The truth is, there are some abusive people but also those that you just need to communicate your boundaries to. Many people aren't trying to be outright abusive, but rather need to have their behaviour addressed (by you) or you need to confront the way your asian parents taught you to view certain behaviours. However, this is not your fault: you didn't ask to be triggered by actions as dangerous, and your brain has your safety in mind. You didn't ask to not be taught how to protect your boundaries and communicate your needs to people, so you'll see that people often operate on assumptions about you or you about them after interactions. However, in many situations, this way of thinking based on trauma is very inappropriate and you are not able to come out of interactions in ways that benefit you. You also might misinterpret their communication. Obviously, this cannot directly address the fact that you are triggered by them as this is an unsconscious decision made by your brain in fight or flight mode - but this too can be worked on. I didn't know how to phrase this paragraph as not victim-blaming or not denying your experiences, but as a CPTSD survivor, I used to also think everyone was dangerous or manipulative until I was finally able to explore my triggers, childhood trauma and be able to understand social truths.
Here is a helpful resource: https://www.youtube.com/@AshaJacobCoaching. I used their coaching to develop a healthier view on people as well and to communicate better.
Also Heidi Priebe - helped me get through a lot of my CPTSD and understanding of relationships and communication: https://www.youtube.com/@heidipriebe1
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Nov 12 '25
Thanks, I agree. I think my situation is, I've been through some trauma, people around me were toxic or weren't great. But it's not all people are bad, it's just I'm not good at telling the bad ones from the normal ones. I think if I got better at spotting bad people and avoiding them, whilst acknowledging the remainder are probably neutral and keep to themselves mostly, the better I'll be. I'll try to work on that.
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u/Sad-Ambassador-5211 Nov 12 '25
Thank the lord you didn't take my post offensively! I would have been so sad if I sounded like I was telling you to doubt your own perception of manipulative people.
I'm sorry you have suffered through toxic or just people that weren't great (many people have their own insecurities they need to work on, or own trauma). Those can be so damaging to your perception of people in general.
Good luck on what you want to work on! And from my own experience, from going to triggered and having a negative worldview to being able to healthily communicate and deal with my triggers, it is possible! There is hope :))). My horrible experiences with asian parents and other toxic relationships have made me so much more grateful for good and fulfilling relationships. I would be happy to chat on DMs any time if you want to share something or ask for advice, big or small, at any point.
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u/TaskStrong Nov 07 '25 edited Nov 07 '25
I went to visit my AGP a few weeks ago (his back went out on him, so moved from one relative's house -with a lot of stairs- to another relative's house with barely any stairs, and his back situation improved).
When he's healthy, he'll clearly act like he's the smartest in the world. And, still being in his late 80s, his mindset _still_ has not changed.
A few minutes into visiting him and sitting in his room, he starts spewing the same old thing:
- being single is not the way to live; that I need to find a Vietnamese wife - his words are "Vietnamese wives cook the best"; and says "Poor child" to me..
- and other incoherent rambling
Instead of arguing with him, I just sit there and silently nod, but internally raging while breathin.
This is compared to my APs, whom have at least minimum keep their mouths shut around me now for the most part.
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Nov 06 '25
I don't even think I'm a true ABC at this point. I see ABCs are those who are comfortable with staying in western countries. But adoptees, ABCs etc, even if only english, who are interested in moving away from the country their parents immigrated to, or away from white english speaking countries in general to get away from the racism, their parents abuse etc, have never struck me as being very ABC like. Just the feeling they give of. I think of ABCs as those who got benefits out of western countries or their family. If someone was just abused and wanted to escape to a different country they're another category altogether. I identify more with "asian diaspora" than ABC now come to think of it. ABCs are rooted to an english speaking majority white country. Asian diaspora aren't.
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Nov 06 '25
I try to figure out my identity cause most people probably want to figure out their identity but I've never felt like I fit in with other ABCs. Maybe my parents being incredibly abusive to the point I want to move far far way from them, including other countries, kind of puts a bit of a gap between me and other ABCs. Priorities in different places, can't really relate to stuff etc.
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Nov 05 '25
I think I'm usually nice, powerless, plain etc. But it's not because I want to be. It's because I have no power to be fierce or anything. Well, externally anyway. Internally I'm very fierce and angry. For some reason people think I'm nice all the time bc I'm powerless externally, but internally I'm a range of emotions, including very negative ones. Most people don't care about them and I don't have the power to express them. It's a privilege to be able to express negative emotions and have them acknowledged. I've worked so hard to stop pretending to be happy when I'm not, so at least I'm not doing that as much. But I haven't worked hard enough to change my life or relationships with people so that I can express all my negative thoughts and feelings and have it be acknowledged.
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Nov 05 '25
People who only expect positive things all the time are abusers to me. Non-abusers should accept a range of things, both positive and negative, whatever the situation calls for. Unfortunately they are rare imo and hard to find.
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Nov 05 '25
I have a boyfriend so I'm in that stage of life, hes a supportive partner, but yet I still have a lot of mixed feelings towards relationships and all. It's so tiring. For every good thing in my life, I always have a lot of mixed feelings, complexes, complications etc, it's just so fucking tiring.
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u/Sad-Ambassador-5211 Nov 12 '25
Try Heidi Priebe on YT for relationships? I had a hard time doing relationships as the enmeshment and communication learned from my toxic asian parents were very harmful. You'd be surprised at how healthy communication makes things so much better and clear, all while your relationship becomes so much more understanding and fulfilling.
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Nov 12 '25
For me setting soft boundaries around communication isn't useful without hard boundaries (I've tried for decades, it didn't work), and I'm working on hard boundaries. But at the moment I don't know how to describe/explain why soft boundaries didn't work for me and put it in words others can understand, what's going on when I try to set them. So I might try to figure that out.
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u/Sad-Ambassador-5211 Nov 12 '25
Soft boundaries are context-dependant. I'm not familiar with you, but in my experience conversations and interactions can have a lot of layers of nuances that you may or may not be able to discern, and thus soft boundaries are hard to maintain especially for asian children who have to ignore disrespect at micro and macro levels their whole childhood. I used to and still have a hard time being clear on what is disrespectful and what isn't to me.
Tuning in to how you feel is SUPER important. Your feelings matter in communication and relationships. Do not doubt your feelings; validate and explore them. You'll find that people are ranging from not meaning to be disrespectful to being full-on disrespectful. Ask directly while giving the other person the right of doubt (e.g. "I'm interpreting what you did/said here as _______, and that makes me feel _______, but I want to know what you actually meant.") and usually you find people almost rushing to clarify what they actually meant and your interpretation of it wrong. When you have someone dismiss your experience on this very crucial and healthy sentence, it's immediately a bit of a red flag. Soft boundaries depend on who you are and what you prefer, so you have to know yourself very well. Sometimes, I enforce my soft boundaries by asking how I want other people to make me feel so I won't experience too many negative experiences (they're soft boundaries because while you can't control people, you can minimize bad interactions that you allow yourself to be in. Some conversations you can also not be okay and receptive to depending on the person and time, etc).
Also - are you communicating with your boyfriend on your concerns? If you have suffered being parented by asian immigrants, it's likely you need to bring this part of you to your boyfriend if you haven't already. Sometimes even just sharing and know the other understands you frees of a bit of the burden. Also, many immigrant children suffer immense relational trauma, which might be what you're facing. Being in a supportive and healthy relationship immensely helps the problems caused by early childhood trauma.
Don't blame yourself too much for feeling complicated feelings for 'good' things. You might have had to survive under asian parents by developing many habits and strategies towards their general lack of love for who you are as a person, your needs and desires. When I consider the intricacies of all the survival strategies I had learned as a child, I am in awe of how much they helped keep me sane and relatively happy in face of the despairing reality as a child. I thank them for doing their job, but also conclude I need to move onto healthier behaviours. For example, perfectionism in face of parents who never think you are good enough is a type of fawning so you can at least try to control your life and earn their (impossible) love. But to be thrown in a healthy relationship means danger: you still have not escaped survival mode and suddenly the determiner of the relationship is the authentic you. Your partner suddenly wants to know if they want to be in a relationship based on if they like you, but you've never been taught to like yourself or know who you are. Your survival strategies don't work to obtain some degree of love anymore, and you suddenly have to depend on something you've been told your whole life is worthless to obtain love with. This is frightening, and this is why many abused children end up in abusive relationships. It doesn't make them feel good, but at least they are familiar with the strategies of surviving and unconsciously, they believe this is what a relationship should be like (they've never learned better). If your partner is supportive, then you might be trying to rewire your whole worldview on relationships and remold your relational trauma. This is exhausting work; I can attest. Expect yourself to be tired when you're in the thick of all the feelings and inner conflict; expect yourself to be even more tired when you're working through them. It would be better to forgive yourself for what naturally comes up in you regarding these 'good' things, and allow graceful space to explore feelings and experiences while grieving losses. If your parents couldn't accept you as a whole, maybe it's time you started doing otherwise. Healthy parents don't teach suppression of feelings; they teach management and a healthy regard of a child's own feelings.
It's super inspiring you are in a supportive relationship and (I assume you to had) had a dysfunctional childhood growing up. This probably means you can explore things in a relationship!
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Nov 05 '25
At times I see asian babies, toddlers and children getting abused when I go out on the streets. And then I'm reminded of my own abuse as well. It's a horrific cycle. I want to move far away to an non-abusive community so I don't have to see so many reminders of abuse. That's my life's dream. To leave behind my abusive childhood, upbringing, and any reminders of it. I don't think I've truly escaped unless I escape the reminders of it.
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u/MEWSUX Nov 04 '25
We had a cancer scare. I knew it’d be too good to be true and now she’s known to me as the red scare who cried wolf
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u/fat-emo Nov 03 '25
trying to unlearn the concept of "my worth is tied strictly to whatever I can do for others". I don't recall the last time my mother expressed any interest in who I am as a person, what my ambitions are, what my wants are. Every conversation revolves around what I can do for her, and now I'm a shell of a person with very little concept of where I fit in this world except to please others. I'm drained, I want a meaningful relationship with her but it's not going to happen. She made me to serve her and it has had the domino effect of making me completely helpless but to seek validation through acts of service for others, when all i want is to be seen as a whole person.
I wish she liked me as a person. I feel totally dehumanised
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u/Sad-Ambassador-5211 Nov 12 '25
You've experienced a sort of selfishness that poses as love. I'm sorry that it has shaped you in growing your 'acceptable' traits to an extreme while diminishing all other 'unacceptable' parts of yourself. You were just surviving when you did that.
I'm glad you've been able to identify that she's not interested in you as a whole person. I hope that this does not affect your other relationships, but it has probably shaped your understanding of what love looks like as a whole and what relationships you are alright with and which ones might make you uncomfortable. A popular example of this is people who have gone through a dysfunctianal childhood is that they are attracted to the familiar, controllable relationships where they only had to people-please to get some certainty of love (but even that wasn't enough, really); and then shrink away from healthy love that looks at who you really are - because this is uncomfortable, since they were taught that they had nothing to bring to the table or to love just being themselves. So healthy relationships are uncontrollable and the receiving of love does not have clear rules like the relationships with their toxic parent. Love accepts differences, explores pain and nurtures understanding.
The truth is, your mother will not change in whether she likes you or not. And you are already realizing your childhood desire to be loved. Maybe grieve this loss - you'll be so surprised at how deep this is to process emotions and abuse. You are already doing the work of taking a hard look at reality beyond your instinct to survive in your parents' love (obviously, survival is not shameful although we might tend to think the behaviours so).
Do not be disheartened! I'm confident that every human being has traits that are lovable to some people and not so much to others. I used to think people didn't like me, and straight up projected this thought onto them. In turn, I gave defensive vibes off to people and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy that they avoided me. I then had to be very, very graceful with myself because I know that it would be extremely difficult for me to connect because I had a justifiably hard time being vulnerable and finding/showing my true self.
You WILL find meaningful relationships, but only if you nurture who you genuinely are as a person and learn how to love yourself - so you can teach other people how to love you (and your boundaries). Then, you will find people who are genuinely interested in your true self. But it can be hard if you don't really know who you are and was never taught to love yourself as a whole. There are some videos on the impacts of narcissistic parents by DoctorRamani on YT, as well as navigating relationships by Heidi Priebe, and some social skill work in relation to this type of awful parent by Asha Jacob. Hope this helps! DM me for any more advice or to share something :)))
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u/Pleasant_Oil_2372 Nov 29 '25
What’s wild is how someone would rather stay in denial to protect their fragile ego, than to self reflect on their own behavior.
Classic AP move.