“Trapped Under the Chopper: 40 Adults Reveal the Dark Truths of Growing Up with Helicopter Parents”
It was about control and what they could control.
Anyway I haven’t seen most of them in almost 4 years now I think. No plans to visit again.
Sometimes we don’t have a clear reason but if we suspect people are toxic they probably are and if we feel we should distance ourselves than we probably should.
I live thousands of miles away now.
#40
My mother wasn’t necessarily a helicopter parent, but she had a lot of anxiety that she projected onto me because I was the sick child. She ended up sheltering me; I wasn’t allowed outside to play, I wasn’t allowed to listen to certain music/watch certain shows + movies/play certain video games, I wasn’t allowed online, I wasn’t allowed to have friends, and I wasn’t allowed to do “fun” things at home most of the time. She wouldn’t even let me cook, and the one time I tried to do it without her permission, she tricked me into putting my hand on a hot burner in order to “teach me a lesson” (I was 6 years old). She eventually ended up home schooling me too (which I loved because I got bullied at school a lot), but wouldn’t let me exchange contact info with classmates or go to the social events/field trips that the program set up for students to have socialization.
This continued on until I was 16, at which point I rebelled and went off the rails with sex, d***s, alcohol, and spending most of my time on the streets with the gutter punks and other street kids. Our relationship got really bad then, and she turned to shaming me, verbally abusing me, mocking me, and just being generally cruel (I deserved some of it, honestly). Buuuut I went to college, got sober, moved out and got my life somewhat together, and our relationship has gotten so much better. We’re best friends now, we enjoy having hours-long conversations, we go to lunch often, and she’s been incredibly supportive of me in my adult life.
