10 Signs That Show You Were Raised By Controlling Parents. Do you often feel like you’re still seeking approval or struggling to make decisions on your own? You’re not alone. Growing up with controlling parents can have a lasting impact on your self-confidence, relationships, and overall well-being. If you’re wondering whether your upbringing has influenced your adult life, look for these 10 signs.
1. You have a hard time voicing your opinions.
Growing up, if you ever voiced your opinion and it never matched that of your parents, you were probably met with aggression and led to punishment. If they voiced their opinion and you had a different one, they wouldn’t accept that. As an adult, you might find it difficult to challenge others or speak up because of this.
2. You have a hard time being independent.
Growing up in an environment where every little action you take is judged can have consequences as an adult. Controlling parents think that your every action should be reviewed by them since they are the ones who know what’s right. So, they make all your decisions for you, and once you become an adult, you have a hard time thinking on your own and doing things your way. Controlling parents also don’t like you moving out or living far away because they’ll lose the one person in their life they could control to get love and praise from.
3. You might have some unhealthy behaviors.
It’s not unusual for those who are brought up in a controlling environment to struggle with compulsive eating in their adulthood. Some people overrate to cope with it while others turn towards compulsive shopping. While these acts might make you feel better, it’s only temporary and does not deal with the problem.
4. You’ve turned into a people pleaser.
Because you grew up constantly making your parents feel better about themselves, you might do the same thing for other people. As an adult, you might forget about yourself and even think that your needs aren’t as important as others, causing you to go to extreme lengths to keep them happy, even if it means you have to do things that you regret.
5. You might constantly blame yourself.
Your manipulative upbringing made you feel guilty every day, distorting your self-perception and emotional well-being. Controlling parents has a way of making you feel like it’s your fault, and this causes you to blame everything on yourself. As you grow up, you grow up with the mentality that everything is your fault because you need to maintain a good relationship with your parents.
6. You have a low self-esteem.
If you’ve had to deal with the feeling of worthlessness, it’s not something that you suddenly developed. Studies show that controlling and over-involved parents can actually have a negative impact, causing long-lasting effects on your emotional well-being. Chronic emotional abuse and controlling behavior erode self-esteem and generate excessive stress, worsening over time without proper intervention. Controlling parents raised you to believe that your authentic self is somehow flawed.
Controlling parents shame their children for failing to meet expectations, having independent feelings, or holding differing viewpoints.
7. You are highly sensitive to criticism.
Narcissists or controlling parents often view their children as an extension of themselves. So, in order to maintain an inflated and positive experience of self, they want their offspring to be perfect in every sense. our parents repeatedly emphasized our imperfections and mistakes to make us feel miserable. Controlling parents rarely accept failure so, they nitpick, criticize, judge, and control. As a result, you become highly prone to criticism of even the smallest of them.
8. You end up being a part of one-sided relationships.
Growing up with controlling parents often leads you to seek out relationships where others exploit or ignore youExperts say that this happens because you haven’t had the chance to develop a healthy template for relationships. This causes you to feel the need to give in to others in order to have a relationship.
9. You have a hard time keeping boundaries.
Those who grow up with controlling parents don’t develop good boundaries because they generally view their children as an extension of themselves and discourage any attempts for individuality, including having boundaries. This dynamic draws people into unhealthy relationships and makes them struggle to say no, as well as tolerate hearing it.
10. You never feel good enough.
Controlling parents usually feel like they are important and better than everyone, and they want their children to look just as ideal to make themselves look better in the eyes of others. When you behave just like your parents, they praise and love you because you fulfill their expectations and desires. However, this behavior traps you in a never-ending cycle where you constantly seek love by doing whatever you want. At the same temporary and not unconditionally.
