DAE: Parents pretended to abandon you, or constantly threaten to abandon you?

My mother and father always used threats of removing much needed help or things in an argument to try to just... I don't know. Get away from talking about a real issue?

Make me feel bad for arguing?

To this day I'm afraid to speak up sometimes in fear of backlash.

I, like you, remember being scared of being left, particularly in grocery stores. My mom would say she just going over to a next aisle but I would get scared and say no because I'd never find her. She didn't really care how scared I was when I lost sight of her. When I'd go looking for her she wasn't so quick to stop and let me find her. I'd go aisle after aisle. Finally I'd see her just casually shopping like it was no big deal. I don't know if she was trying to teach me a lesson or she was just that clueless.

She did this everywhere.

When we're with my kids I don't let her leave my sight in public. She'll say she will be just be "right over there" but she'll be WAY over somewhere else in no time and she scoffs at me for being afraid when I can't find her. "Don't be ridiculous."

She never took me seriously when I told her she scared me.

I think that's why I have a huge fear of my kids being out of sight for too long (besides just losing track of my kids being an awful possibility). I don't want them to get lost and not be able to find me, but at the same time letting them be independent. Thinking about my kids feeling that panic stops me in my tracks. And the thought is intrusive. Deep breaths and busy work are needed to make it go away.

/r/raisedbynarcissists Thread