35 People Are Sharing The Heartbreaking Moment They Realized Something Was Very "Off" About Their Family

Recently, we wrote about the moment when people realized something was off in their family, and the BuzzFeed Community piped in with their own heartbreaking responses. Here are the stories they had to share.

NOTE: There are mentions of sexual abuse, physical and emotional abuse, and drug use.

1."It's outrageous to think of it now, but I remember getting in trouble for having health issues. I had epilepsy as a kid, and it was absolutely forbidden to talk about. In fact, if I had a seizure, my parents would be furious with me. When I was in junior high school, I missed several days of my medication while on vacation. I overdosed because I was afraid my parents would find the missed medication and punish me. (I obviously wasn't the brightest!) I had to go to the hospital, and I remember there was a psychiatrist consult who asked if I did it intentionally. I said, 'Of course! I obviously didn't want to be punished for having a seizure because I missed my meds.' The way that man looked at me when I said that...I realized that most kids don't get in trouble for having health conditions they can't independently control/manage."

—Anonymous

2."When my friends gave me faces of shock when I told them that my father performed 'bra checks' on us by running his hands down the front of our chests when we were in middle school. Among other things, I found out we were actually being horrifically abused and neglected."

—Anonymous

3."I was about nine when I was running errands with my best friend and her mom. When we passed by the jailhouse, I said, 'My daddy goes there sometimes' and laughed. She knew about our family drama and shared with me that I shouldn't tell people that my daddy was in jail. I didn't understand because my mama would tell everyone like she was telling a funny story."

"As an adult, my ex was having some problems, and I had to check him into a psych ward. That night, I went to a party. When asked about him, I just said, 'Oh, he's taking a "grippy sock" holiday for a while,' and laughed. No one else laughed. I then realized that I had turned into my mother, and it hit me that family trauma isn't funny. I got help. After years of therapy and work, we are both better and thriving, BTW."

—Anonymous

4."My dad and I were in a car wreck when I was about 10 or 12. This was before seat belts, and I broke my nose hitting the dashboard. My dad was fine. A friend took me home, and my dad stayed with the wrecked car. When I got home, my Mom was standing on the sidewalk waiting for me with her purse in her arm. Apparently, my dad had called her about the accident. My nose was bleeding. She took one look at me, never said a word, got in the friend's car, and left. I was alone in the house for several hours until my parents got home. They didn't even take me to a doctor."

—Anonymous

5.Similarly..."When I was about 15, my friends and I got into a minor car accident. No one was hurt, but we all called our parents to let them know and to come pick us up. Everyone's parents greeted them by asking if they were okay. My mom didn’t even greet me; she walked right past me to tell my friends’ parents how much weight she’d lost recently. That was the first time I realized something was off."

"What really made it stick, though, was when my mom met me at the door with a gun pointed at me because I was five minutes late for curfew."

—Anonymous

6."My sister and I were thrust into a world that felt like a cruel twist of fate. Our home, a ramshackle property in the mountains, became our prison after our mom and evil stepfather claimed it as their 'free land.' At just seven years old, and on our first night on the new raw land, I was left alone with my little sister, abandoned in a place with no running water, electricity, or escape. Our parents disappeared eight miles into town, seeking solace at the local bar until the early hours of the morning, leaving us to fend for ourselves. The only shelter we had was the old truck."

"Dad thought it would be 'good for us' to learn how to be on our own. As night fell, fear wrapped around us like a suffocating blanket. The howls of coyotes echoed through the still air, circling the truck. We would huddle together, tears streaming down our faces, as we stayed locked in the truck — our first night in our new home.

But as the years passed, abuse and neglect became the norm. Until we started spending time with our friends' parents — that's when we realized how bad we really had it. I moved out at 18, and my sister followed suit at 17. With fierce determination, we forged our own paths, immersing ourselves in education and hard work."

—Anonymous

7."When I used to leave my toddler sister with strangers at a hotel so she would be safe while I went back to the family hotel room to try to stop my stepfather from beating my mom. I begged the strangers to call the police. When the cops came, they took my stepfather away. My mom got my sister back, then got dressed to go get her husband out of jail. She left me (aged eight) in a strange hotel room with my two-year-old sister. She returned hours later with him. I realized it was up to me to keep my sister and myself safe. I couldn't count on anyone else."

—Anonymous

8."I got a starring role in the first-grade Christmas play; I even had a little singing solo. My teacher asked to meet my mom after the play, and I had to tell her my family was not there. Dad really did have to work, but Mom did not work outside the home, and we lived only a few blocks from the school, so there was no reason she couldn't have been there. This was the start of a childhood filled with them not coming to events in my life."

"As life played out, I could see that other families were different than mine. I made a decision fairly early in life to do the opposite of everything my parents did and see how that would turn out. I decided I would stay in school, go to college, keep a job, and have a happy family. I did it."

—Anonymous

9."I realized that something was terribly wrong with our family when I began to keep a baseball bat behind my bedroom door for protection. Every Friday night, when the adults did not come home from grocery shopping right away, we knew they had stopped at the bar. We three kids always dreaded those nights because we knew there would be a screaming, hitting the glass, breaking fight when they got home. Sometimes, our stepdad would smash the TV or try to drive the car into the house through the wall. It was no surprise that none of our friends wanted to come over. The whole neighborhood knew about us."

—Anonymous

10."I realized that my family wasn't normal after my dad boarded up all of the windows on the inside of the house because he had been awake for four days on crack, and my stepmom finally left him. He became convinced that I was a narc, and when I came home from ninth grade, he put a bullet in the wall next to the door I had just entered. I left home and became independent at 15."

—Anonymous

11."I was preschool age. My mother often became angry and physical with me. One day, she was screaming at me and began choking me, lifting me off the floor. I vividly remember thinking, 'This time she's going to kill me.' When she stopped, I told myself that I was going to tell my dad as soon as he arrived home from work and that this time, he would have to do something about what she was doing to me. But she rushed to meet him as he came in the door before I had a chance. I saw her crying and telling my dad that she had 'over-disciplined' me. My dad did not ask any questions; he just replied, 'Don't worry about it. I'm sure she deserved it.' From then on I knew I could not count on him, and I had to be self reliant."

—Anonymous

12."I was kidnapped by the sexual predator school bus driver, who drove me around for hours looking for a place he could bury my body without it being discovered. I was six. For some reason, he changed his mind and drove me home. When he dropped me off at my house, My father shoved money at him and thanked him, saying I always lied and made up stories and drama to get attention. My mom made me write him a thank you card for taking such good care of me. I had to continue taking his bus to school each day after that."

—Anonymous

13."Listening at a family get-together to my dad and uncles discuss how to dispose of bodies and how to kill quickly with a knife. I was six years old. I'm almost 70 now, and I still have nightmares. Thankfully, they have all passed away."

—Anonymous

14."I knew we were doomed when my adopted mom came running up the stairs at 4 a.m., screaming at us (two adopted girls, ages 7 and 9) that we had molested her, then dragged us out of bed and threw us over the banister to the tiled foyer below. I looked up at my adopted dad and sobbed, 'What's wrong with her?' He told me nothing was wrong. She'd always been like this. It did not get better. And we did NOT molest her."

—Anonymous

15."When I signed myself back into high school after six months of deciding I didn't want to go. This was my first year of high school. A girl was standing next to me, and I explained to her that I had dropped out for six months. She asked me, 'Don't your parents care about you?' That still stings because it made me really question if my parents did actually care."

—Anonymous

16."I was 15 and would go to my first boyfriend's house to visit. The family would laugh and joke around. I remember one of the kids tickling their dad's foot, and everyone laughed at his reaction. I came home and tried to tickle my dad's foot, and he lost it on me — screaming at me that he was my parent and not a friend. He said, 'Don't ever touch me like that again.' His reaction is something I'll never forget. My dad was addicted to alcohol and smoked weed every day, and I thought that was normal, too."

—Anonymous

17."When my dad told me to pack my things to leave our family home because my mom was not 'happy' with me. I was 12 years old."

—Anonymous

18."When I was about eight years old, a new family moved next door. It was a young couple with two daughters, five and three years old. I used to go over and play with their little girls all the time. The couple was very nice. Mike was a cop and was very handsome. Diane was super pretty. One day, while I was outside hanging with the girls, Diane invited me in for a snack and some lemonade. First off, my mom never offered us anything to eat ever. Then she said to hop up on the bar chair in the kitchen and just started talking to me like an adult. She started asking me questions about school and just conversing with me. It was the first time (outside of one set of grandparents) that anyone had treated me like a human being. My parents treated me like I was a disgusting, mangy street dog. They never asked me any questions growing up, like how my day was."

"They never came to my school or any school event. I walked to school by myself or with a friend starting from the first day of Kindergarten—it was over a mile away. They never said a kind word to me or touched me, never said 'I love you' or hugged me. So I just thought Mike and Diane were spectacular!"

—Anonymous

19."When I was a kid, they always had 'show and tell' at our school after we came back from Christmas vacation. It really sucked because I got to see all of my classmates showing off the new toys they had gotten while I had to decide if I wanted to show off the apple or orange that I had gotten; I had also gotten a handful of assorted nuts. It was always the same every year, so I started just playing hooky on that day to save myself the embarrassment."

—Anonymous

20."My dad has a PhD and has always had very high academic expectations of us. My older siblings were normal students (not at the top of the class, but definitely not at the bottom), but I remember them constantly getting beaten badly for struggling with their homework or not receiving an 'A' on their tests or assignments. Since I was the youngest, they didn't want me to experience the beatings they did, so they helped me with my homework every night for as long as I can remember. I was always at the top of my class, went on to engineering school (Go Jackets!), and now have a well-paying job in NYC. Now that I have school-aged kids of my own (who are in public school), I realize how barbaric my dad treated my siblings. Public schools have so many FREE resources for kids who are falling behind or want to get ahead. I didn't even know families actually take advantage of these resources all the time and that resorting to violence is completely unnecessary."

—Anonymous

21."When I was in grade school, I had a friend who was close enough to school that he would go home for lunch. He invited me, and his mom had lunch all made when I got there. It blew my mind. I remember wishing my mom would do that for me. My older sister and I would cook breakfast and make school lunches for ourselves and our siblings. My mom never got up in the morning with us. We were on our own."

—Anonymous

22."I realized my mom was a bully when I attended my high school reunion, and no one remembered me, but everyone remembered my mother."

—Anonymous

23."When I asked my college boyfriend if he regularly beat his sister. My brother beat me all the time, and I thought it was normal. My parents didn't make a fuss about it."

—Anonymous

24."I realized something was off when I got raped during my last year of college, and no one came to check on me once I revealed what I'd been through. My mother skipped over the assault and was excited for her first grandchild as I found I was pregnant after being assaulted. My father was pissed I was pregnant and accused me of sleeping with random men. Not a single person came to see me, and when I asked my mother to keep my pregnancy a secret until I decided what I was going to do, she told my family so I couldn't even have an abortion in private if I chose to. My family essentially considered sexual assault to be the result of stupidity on the victim's part. I then had to endure months of my mother villainizing me for not going to the police after the rape. And her telling me how heroic she'd have been had it been her that got assaulted, but she was 'too smart' to let that happen to her."

—Anonymous

25."I realized something was terribly wrong with my family when I was at school in about third grade playing with a girl, and we asked some other kids if we could join them while they were playing jump rope. One of the girls told my friend she could play, but I couldn't. I started to cry and asked why, and she said her mother told her she wasn't allowed to play with me because of my mother, and the others said they weren't allowed to either."

"The girl lived two blocks away from my home, and I guess the whole neighborhood knew about her reputation of her yelling and screaming at us kids while using the F word plus beating on us in front of others (I was the youngest) and that I had an older unmarried sister who was pregnant (I was too young to know that at the time and it was never talked about in front of me). This was in the early 1960s; I was judged and made an outcast because of my family. I grew up very shy and felt ashamed that I wasn't good enough to be included with the other kids."

—Anonymous

26."When I was in high school, my Dad would ask me to score him weed, and I was the only person in the household with a job. That lasted from age 15 until I moved out at 18."

—Anonymous

27."Like a lot of abused kids, I had no idea how bad my family was until I was in first grade and started making friends and going to their homes to visit. My friends didn't have chores at age six, like doing laundry and all the housework. They didn't get yelled at or hit with belts or whatever else was handy every day. They got snacks when they got home from school, whenever they wanted, and the food and beverages weren't in a padlocked pantry and refrigerator. Their families seemed to all like each other and laugh and talk to each other."

"At home, I wasn't allowed to speak except for 'yes sir' or 'yes ma'am.' The realization that other kids' parents loved them and enjoyed being around their kids made me burst into tears on the walk home from my first visit to a normal family. At six years old, I vowed when I got old enough, I would leave and never see my parents again. I graduated early from high school ten years later. I had secretly saved money from the many jobs I had been working. I moved out and never looked back. I had suffered every kind of abuse possible by then and knew if I didn't get out of there soon, I was going to be too damaged mentally to ever be a decent, normal person. I thank God that I had made friends with some normal people and got the chance to see what kind of life I wanted a chance at."

—Anonymous

28."I realized in my mid-twenties that my parents were not quite normal when I got married. I was only allowed to call my parents once a day and only between certain hours. Never, ever after 9 p.m. or before 11 a.m. And certainly never at lunch or dinner time. Also, I needed an appointment to visit them. I was an only child. I realized my husband and his entire family were nothing like this. We were allowed over any time, even without calling first. We always called first. I'm in my seventies now, and they are still like this."

—Anonymous

29."In my marriage, I share tales with my wife, like the time my mom got so furious that she drove her car into all the vehicles in our driveway or when she lashed out at us after we disagreed with her. I used to think my life was normal, but seeing my wife's expression suggested I might need therapy to sort through some issues."

—Anonymous

30."When I got married to my partner (now of seven years) and started harboring secret envy of how her parents and sister cared for her, communicated constantly, came to visit, and bought things for us while we were stationed overseas. I would get angry that her family wanted to make sure she was okay and take it personally like they didn't trust me or thought I was a bad husband because they were just checking on their daughter/sister, even calling them overbearing and 'helicopter parents.' It really put a strain on our relationship very early. Meanwhile, I (continue to) attempt to cultivate a relationship with my mom and brothers while navigating anxiety around who needs money or is going to demean me for being relatively successful."

"It wasn't until I joined the military that I realized most people don't overachieve or work hard in spite of their family but usually as a byproduct of their support. Luckily, I've been able to attend therapy and continue to seek help for what I know is a warped perception of love and caring, especially as a parent now myself."

—Anonymous

31."I didn't realize it was abnormal for parents to say, 'I don't like you,' when they were mad. I grew up in a home in which my parents' love was completely conditional based on our behavior, school performance, and how we impressed the parents' friends. If we struggled in a subject in school, we were shamed. I didn't realize this wasn't normal until my then toddler was having a very public tantrum in a public place, and the words 'I don't like you right now' almost left my mouth. I took a few deep breaths, picked up my screaming son, and said, 'I understand that you're mad now, but we don't throw things or scream in the store.'"

—Anonymous

32."Dating my husband made me realize how difficult my father could be. One small tease or joke and my dad would boil over, not talk to you for days, leave the house for hours, etc. However, it was perfectly fine for him and all the other adults to tease and humiliate you. My mom never did that; she knew it was wrong. Fast-forward and I started dating my husband. His family is huge; all of them joke and tease and make fun. and everyone just laughs. No one storms out, refuses to talk to you for days, or belittles you. Being around them built you up instead of breaking you down. I realized they all knew that humor was part of life and that laughing at yourself was a part of it, too. Being with him and knowing his family has definitely changed my perception of what family is. It shouldn't be that fragile."

—Anonymous

33."When I went to college and discussed things with my friends. Their lives were mildly screwed up, but nothing like mine. I found out that other people had more than one bra, one pair of underwear, one pair of jeans, two blouses, two pairs of shoes, and their dad's old winter coat. None of them learned to hold their breath for two minutes because if they moved the tiniest muscle while their mom was screaming into their face, she would beat them violently, leaving handprint-shaped welts on their lower backs. None of them was treated as adults, with adult responsibilities, from eight years on, never receiving a pleasant word when those responsibilities were accomplished, but only criticism that something wasn't done to her expectations (and there was always something)."

"They were not expected to —somehow — buy things they needed or were told to buy, at 14, with no transportation and no money...and they were not beaten when these things were not purchased. Oh, and that their parents were paying for college. Yeah. College was the beginning of my new life."

—Anonymous

34."I had a lot of trouble talking to people in the outside world. I remember hanging out with friends and wondering why they would say nice things to me: were they trying to get something from me? Or trying to build me up so it would hurt more when they insulted me? It took a lot of time to realize that sometimes people are nice because they like you. Essentially, my mom had taught me and my brothers a language that only her family spoke, one that was full of manipulation and lies."

—Anonymous

35.And finally..."When I read the list of 37 times people knew there was something off about their families and I could identify with most of them. I am 61."

—Anonymous

When did you realize something about your family was "off"? Let us know in the comments or via this anonymous form.

Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.