did you actually personally see all these financial statements?

Yes. I have the login credentials to their two accounts with Merrill Lynch, and my dad’s 401(k) with Fidelity. I personally reallocated the funds in the latter account on behalf of my dad, with his permission, to my recommendation. Those three accounts are over $2 million total.

On second thought, there is one investment account which I have not seen, which is my mom’s etrade with $112k. I have no reason to doubt her though, based on their other (personally verified) assets.

That’s a good point with the car analogy. A lot of times I feel like we should level this 1960s house and start all over, but spending that kind of money would give my dad a heart attack.

The cPTSD is something I’ve only recently begun to suspect about myself; I haven’t yet discussed it with my psychiatrist. It started when I googled “why do cute things make me cry” and the first result landed me on a related post on the cPTSD subreddit. Then I started recalling all the times that I became extremely, inexplicably emotional when watching tender family moments play out in animated TV shows.

For example: there is an episode of Rick and Morty that ends with Morty crying on his bed (or maybe he was just visibly upset—I don’t remember), because he had just broken up with his first girlfriend and was experiencing a painful new emotion for the first time. It was very sad—something that might even bring a reasonably well-adjusted viewer to tears if they were emotionally invested in the story and could identify with the characters. But that’s not what hit me.

Morty’s mom, Beth, hears him crying and walks into his room, up to his bed, sits next to him, embraces him (😮), strokes him (😱) and says “there, there. Mommy’s here… mommy’s here…” Morty sobs… but I start sobbing harder than a five-year-old kid who just watched a movie where the dog dies. WTF!? I was shocked. “OMG. Parents can do that!? That would have felt SO good,” I thought. I tried to think: What would my parents would have done thirty years ago in that scenario? I think they would both gawk in horror at me—IF they noticed my distress at all. Hugging me would not have even crossed their mind—I am dead serious. Speaking soothing words would also have been beyond their skill set.

Then the whole prolonged trauma thing made sense. It’s not a single event that made me cry myself to sleep one night and left me with trauma, it’s the accumulation of mini traumas with zero emotional guidance.

I tried as hard as I could to recall a hug from my parents. I think I hugged them at the airport or something a couple times… I think (as a formality). Phrases never uttered in my childhood household include:

• “How are you?”
• “How was your day?”
• “I love you.”
• “I’m proud of you.”
• “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
• “Are you okay?”

I’ve been so focused on removing the shackles of debt my whole adult life that I haven’t thought much about it. You’re right, what are they going to do to my parents if they don’t pay it? Ruin their credit rating? Don’t need that anymore. Pull their Social Security? I doubt it.

Yes. I posted that when I had just finally learned the full truth about their financial situation. I walked away without reading any replies, because the subject was too much to deal with at the time. I should qualify that I later learned that some of that $600k included one of my dad’s IRA’s which was simply moved to another investment firm, so not all of that decrease represented losses by my mom—I could probably log in and calculated the exact amount if I really cared to (I don’t)—however, I know that there were other accounts in the past that she moved from ~$150k to $0 through panic trading, and I could glean from that $600k account that her choice of stocks in the long term (~20 years) performed significantly below market average, despite good performance over the past few years (as is typical). So my depiction of the situation was still emotionally accurate.

I have enough experience with life to know that it leaves a lot of people fucked up through little or no fault of their own. I have sympathy, and see them as deeply flawed people trying their best. They are playing out the role of parents that was modeled to them in their own childhood. I’m trying to balance kindness towards them with vocalizing my trauma. It’s particularly hard with my mom, because it breaks her heart to hear about that stuff.

He talks frequently about how the retirement money is more for her than him. There’s a dissonant mixture of love and contempt. He was head-over-heels for her, but his anger issues pushed her away. She took up religion (subconsciously?) to spite him, because she was too submissive and traditional to leave him, and he hated nothing more than religion. He still sometimes snipes at her about “preachers”. I think it’s okay to hate televangelists as he does, but he should have long ago either accepted who she is, or left her.

It could very well be as “simple” as depression and past trauma. My sister mentioned schizoid personality disorder yesterday, and reading about it kind of sounds like my dad except for the “not getting angry” part.

Just my mom.

Well, maybe my little brother too. He found Jesus a couple years ago.

My mom finally leveled with me and showed me her Merrill Lynch account about a year ago to ease my depression and make me feel okay about buying things for myself like clothing. My financial anxiety was immediately wiped away and replaced with confusion and anger. Overall, it was a great improvement though (that’s how much money weighs on people under capitalism). I’m trying to process the anger in a healthy way and repair the family. My parents are fucked up and have difficulties expressing their affection for me, but they would both die for me in a heartbeat. I’d be living on the streets without them, and I know of parents who would be letting that happen instead. My mom has also been very kind in letting me buy a few treats for myself over the past year, which is something I can do with a healthy conscious now that I have the full picture of their financial situation. It’s been therapeutic towards the trauma of past penny-pinching.

I got my ADHD from him. But I got diagnosed and started coping ten years ago. He’s never had the benefit of that awareness. I’m trying to share my techniques.

The credit card debt is a result of a lack of communication and mutual decision making. My mom handles all of the finances, and she has been covering the costs of treats but also all the emergency expenses with the credit cards, because she doesn’t want her stock numbers to go down. If my dad had his way, he would probably have chosen to sell some stocks instead.

I’ve tried the age angle, and also the resell value angle. Too early to tell if it worked. People rarely turn around and say “yes, you’re correct” when it comes to deeply personal issues. You can only plant the seed and wait to let the gears turn on their own.

I’m approaching 40 and I think about twink death often. Most people guess 22 for my age but I know I can’t hold it off forever. I have a solid sunscreen and tretinoin routine but my dysmorphia is such that I may add botox and anabolic steroids to the mix. I have poor self-esteem as it is, so I won’t be able to cope if I stop being hot.