Empty Nest, Full Heart, Lost Connections

Online bullying has been an issues since the creation of the internet. If you take a peek into the online support groups for parents of estranged adult children, the bullying is unreal! Children join these groups and go after parents seeking support. I told one lady today that if these are adult children who have cut their parents off, that they like treat their own parents the same way. It gives us insight into the issues.they are having with their own parents.

In my own life, the texts messages my son and his wife send are over the top and hateful. At one point, my son equated me to a murderer! What the heck!? The vile things he sends through text messages are some of the same things we see online. Not having to face me, he just lets loose via text message. This is the same thing online bullies do They dehumanize the folks they are sending such hateful messages to. These millennials are very cruel on social media, text messages and other forms of electronic communication. It’s easy to do when you hide behind a screen. These texts of theirs are BULLYING. They attempt to manipulate us with the hateful words and instructions. Their lectures are, in fact, a form of bullying. They are NOT our parents. And, oddly enough, they would be screaming TRAUMA if we texted them in the same manner! I call bullshit!

It is hard to imagine the son that we raised would says such horrible things to his own mother/parents. I honestly do not know where his anger comes from. If my parents had reached out to tell me that they loved me, I would have been so happy to hear this. One of the reasons I try to tell my sons every day (that I see them), “I love you,” is because my own parents rarely, if ever told me. I grew up hearing that I was hated, that I was stupid, on and on. I vowed not to be like my parents. I never called my children names and told them every day how much I loved them.

I was far from perfect! The memories of the fun we had when they were growing up sustain me. The son that moved back in after college lets me know that what I remember is what he remembers. Thankfully. I often ask him if he suffers from the same trauma that my oldest suffers from. He does not. Which makes me wonder how two sons can have such different views of childhood memories. To be clear, he doesn’t think I was a perfect mom, he just thinks I was a good mom despite my shortcomings. AND he wasn’t traumatized by my small parental failures.

I do not deserve the hatred. Many of the parents I am in touch with don’t deserve it, either. It breaks my heart that I could play a role in raising a son who could treat his own mother this way. If I had been abusive or mean to him, perhaps this would be justified. I have never abused him. I have tried over and over to make amends and to apologize for the things he has accused me of – being annoying, trauma dumping in support groups (which I just don’t get his caring about), and for anything he holds against me. I don’t know what all the issues are because he refuses to speak and his rambling, hateful texts don’t always make sense.

Many in the millennial generation cannot function normally in society. EVERYTHING is a trauma to them. However, the do not believe the horrible things THEY say to their parents traumatizing. Their parents deserve to be treated with hatred and venom. They never even think about the trauma THEY are causing their parents. They treat their parents as less than human. It’s sadly pathetic. They abuse their own parents and cannot even see their own hypocrisy.

And here is the TRUTH: they do NOT care. They only care about themselves. They do NOT care about any trauma they cause anyone else because in their world view, the world revolves around them. I blame myself for contributing to the raising of such a self-centered son. I was not the perfect parent, but I do believe that I made him believe that he was perfect and that anytime he perceived his needs were not met, it was a “trauma”. It was not my intent to raise such a self-centered trauma centered kid. But here we are.

~Evelyn