The Darkest Side of Toxic Parenting

Recently at my clinic I encountered a young Muslim woman in her early 20s who came across very toxic.

From the onset, it was apparent that she believed herself to be unique and special and she held a very high importance of herself. She spoke of herself almost dreamily. ‘I am a dreamer, a farmer, a dancer, a lyricist, a wordsmith, an artist of many hats, a lover.’ 

She came to me with ‘childhood trauma’ and referred to herself as ‘Daddy’s girl.’ When I asked what the trauma was, she could not elaborate. Her recent recollection was that she had made friends with a boy on campus and he had ‘got the wrong idea’ that she was into him and she had no idea how to navigate his affections but they had somehow ended up alone and he had attempted some form of physical affection with her which made her realise she was not into men ‘but that I identify as a lesbian.’

As a faith aligned therapist, it is not my job to enforce/preach but rather to heal layers that stop someone from being their best/truest self. 

So I asked her what scared her about this boy and she said, she had seen where the relationship was going and could have done something but instead kept dangling carrots in front of him with statements such as ‘I do think you’re cute but I don’t actually like you.’ 

I anchored the client and decided to try some inner child healing during which she kept praising her father and saying she hated her mother for being so manipulative. Her contempt for her mother was evident and so I decided to give her the simple yet emotionally difficult task of forgiving her mother every day until she was free of any emotional/mental control her mother held over her.

When I did ask what her mother had done that had warranted such negativity, client was unable to answer. I recognised the signs of a highly alienated child from her mother - a toxic home where the mother was maybe belittled by the father and the child had aligned herself to her father’s belief system. 

This wasn’t the only case study that stood out where someone felt a same sex attraction and had an unexplainable apathy towards their mother. My client diagnosed with borderline personality disorder showed such venomous contempt towards an overbearing mother, and the same with a girl who started questioning her identity – she had a mother who gave her very little choice and so there was a displacement of affection for their mothers onto another female figure. It was like they craved intimacy with a female to replace what had not been given in their childhood.

The more I started looking into these cases and previous ones, the more I found that there was a link between porn addiction/same sex attraction/behaviours and lack of parenting or the presence of toxic parenting. 

Recently, I came across a 10 year old girl who had made jokes and quips of a sexual nature that just were not appropriate to her age. I also noticed her making disparaging remarks against her father whom she saw every other weekend. She lived with a mother whom she never spoke ill about but that child welfare specialists were fully aware was neglecting the child and also emotionally and possibly physically abusing her. 

What struck me as interesting is that the child had a very strong belief system when it came to right and wrong and applied religion to everything. But not to herself. So to wear tight clothes was impermissible or ‘haram’ but she was ok to dress as such. To be homosexual was impermissible but she would make attachments with females such as myself and her friends in a ‘craving intimacy’ manner. It was almost sexual in how she latched herself onto women- these women were in the form of social care workers, counsellors and Court Cafcass officers. Because her parents’ case was ongoing she had the same Cafcass officer for over 3 three years. Her concern for the officer was abnormal. It became clear that either her own mother had a strong relationship with this officer or that the young girl clearly made female attachments very easily.

Another out of the norm observation was how much this 10 year old girl held such contempt for men. From accusing boys of staring at her to lying blatantly about biological father it became clear this girl was taught a campaign of denigration against men. And this is probably the darkest moment I had encountered in my clinic so far – a mother wondering why her ten year old was oversexualised and other mothers were complaining to her about her daughter’s behaviour – and being the person completely responsible -albeit oblivious- for her daughters’ downfall. 

I recently had an age appropriate conversation with my 14 year old who told me that nearly all his friends who came from either broken and/or toxic home environments seemed to agree with the narrative of the LGBTQ+ community. One friend had said he didn’t blame children for identifying as something else because when there is a lack of acceptance or when boys are told ‘you can’t cry’ or when girls are glorified for doing the same thing as a boy does, it makes children ‘wish’ they were the opposite of their birth sex. It reminded me strongly of how as a 16 year old my brother was able to attend a school dinner and dance but how I was told I couldn’t. I remember wishing strongly I was a boy so I would be just as privileged. I now wonder if it had been in the current community of pushing the narrative of CIS/PAN/TRANS genders, would I have executed the thought into further action? 

It then made me realise how much indoctrination was happening in schools and in texts and how if a child has two parents who are spiritually and religiously aligned in faith led parenting- despite being separated or divorced, then despite the current society’s downfall in morals and actions, our children should remain safe because they have a sense of belonging and validation and there is no need to chase rainbow rabbit holes which lead to one unfulfilled sinful ‘pleasure’ to another. I have watched old friends engage in chasing one unhealthy and pointless relationship to another, because there is no regard for their sense of self. In trying to identify what makes them happy they have lost their identity. But the happiness cannot be found as it wasn’t present in their childhood and a void is there and they have lost all sense of their true purpose.

In another case I sat with a mother who had severe fibromyalgia and was begging me to ‘fix’ her daughter who was a full blown narcissist. I could only gently tell her that, just as all those years ago when she had filled her daughter with ‘grown up’ venom against her biological dad and not realised what she was doing, the same thing was happening now – her daughter simply saw no wrong in ill treatment of her husband. And ironically, the same mother had come from a broken home where her father had held a hate campaign against her own mother and this client had never met her mother until news of her death reached her in adulthood. Cue her fibromyalgia. She had not only ruined her daughter and her marriage to a decent person, but she had caused her own suffering too once the realisation that her mother was not the evil person she had been told she was by her own dad.  

This piece is not aimed at divorced parents – it is aimed at those who do not raise their children to love, but to hate for their agenda. In doing so, they raise people who are deeply unhappy and cannot fill that void so they keep chasing a ‘fix.’ Cue addictions, mental illness and identity issues. 

In a society that is becoming more hellish and dysfunctional in the name of ‘woke’ it is high time us parents woke up to what we are doing to our children with constant conflict and toxic environments. Anxiety and depression are just the tip of the iceberg. When your child becomes influenced easily by a toxic parent, it weakens them spiritually and morally and leaves vast empty spaces for devilish influence to fill. For all those toxic parents who wondered where they went wrong and still maintain a façade of being the ‘award winning primary caregiver’ was paying your trauma forward worth it? 

I think not.