Emotional Abuse

So I am 19 and in college. I really enjoyed my first year, and when I came back this summer I was suddenly hit with a lot of pressure from my parents. A few days ago am incident happened that made me feel that I've been experiencing emotional abuse for quite a while. Here's what happened:

My dad went in for surgery and no one told me. I was a little hurt by this because I feel like no matter how small, I should be notified if my parent is going in for surgery (this is not the first time this has happened either). So a few days after, I try to ask my dad about the surgery and he acted like I was wrong to ask and yelled at me not to ask him about it. When I tried to ask my mom she wouldn't give Amy information either and yelled at me. While I realize I'm not entitled to know, I was very upset with being yelled at just for asking. I felt like they didn't understand how I felt about the situation. So as I'm thinking it over, I begin to feel like my parents don't care about my feelings in general and I began to think back to other times I've felt like this. Suddenly emotional abuse pops in my head. I didn't even think it was a real thing, but I looked it up anyway. Everything I looked up lined up with how I've felt for most of my senior year of high school and throughout my whole life. Turns out I was actually depressed in high school but I just didn't know. I would often not want to get up and could barely motivate myself to get out of bed. I would often sleep instead of doing the things I needed to do. I just thought I was lazy because that's what I was told.

After realizing this, I discussed the issue with my dad and he agreed and said he was treated the same way as a child. He apologized and said he would start treating me better and I truly believe he will do that.

The problem is my mother. I tried bringing up the emotional abuse with her. She made me wait until she finished playing with her app before she would even listen to me. Then when I started talking to her, she was holding her head and looking disinterested. It felt like she was just humoring me so that she could finish watching TV. When I brought up the possibility of emotional abuse she did not react and didn't even apologize at all. My parents mostly do (what I now recognize as) invalidation of my feelings. When I asked her if she would try to stop these behaviors she said, "well you need to stop being disrespectful and do what we say the first time". This is something she has always done. Anyone I bring up something I would like for her to change, she mentions something that I do and tells me to change and then I but give up. And it normally makes me feel like I deserve what she does because of what I do. But when she says "disrespect" that's a very broad category. Apparently, not cleaning my room without being asked is "disrespectful" because she is in the house and it bothers her if my room isn't clean. (I clean my room but it gets dirty. It's hard to motivate myself to do things so I often put it off). Anyway, after she said that to me I asked her if she would just agree to not invalidate my feelings anymore and she said she would but she used the same kind of tone you would with a 5 yr old, so I didn't trust her at all. And when I mentioned that, she said "I can't do anything about that. That's your problem." With the straightest face.

This encounter is really bothering me and is kind of scary. I don't feel like that is a normal response to what I brought up to her. If I was a parent, and my child told me they felt they were being emotionally abused and that they didn't trust my word, I would try to do something about that.

The thing is I'm not sure if I'm being overly sensitive or not. I didn't even want to believe this could be emotional abuse. My dad agreed with me, but in the back of my mind I still feel like maybe I'm imagining things. I read that this is common with people who have been emotionally abused but I just want to be sure. As I mentioned before I believe my parents mostly invalidate my feelings but they also use sarcasm and make fun of me.

One example of what I believe to be invaldation is my parents telling me that my feelings are stupid. There are at most three times that I've ever tried to talk about my feelings to my parents. I don't do it often, but when I do, I'm normally told not to feel that way or even that feeling that way is stupid. When I was in middle school I remember being told this and being so upset about the situation. I don't remember what was said but I remember the feeling. Whenever I remember instances like this, I always remember feeling guilty. So I can't tell if I'm being emotionally abused or if I deserved it for being disrespectful.

The reason I'm still not sure is because these things normally happen after I've done something wrong. When I was younger it would be me not cleaning my room or sitting around the house doing nothing. I would be called lazy. When I get in trouble, my mom often uses the phrase "you barely even know how to wipe yourself" which is very insulting in my opinion. She told me it's just a figure of speech but she says it with so much force that it just feels like I'm being accused rather than given a figure of speech. The most recent example of this is my parents telling me that I don't want to work.

I worked a part time job. My parents were always telling me that "I don't want to work" due to the fact that I wasn't scheduled everyday. They kept lecturing me telling me I needed to make more money and they just seemed very dissatisfied with me in general. So I got a new job working everyday of the week and they gave me weekends off (I didn't ask for this. That's how they scheduled me). I truly though my parents would be proud of me and would finally stop hassling me about earning more money. I got the new job myself and they don't even have to drive me there, I take the bus. I thought they would find me responsible. When I told them about my new schedule they told me that I didn't want to work and were upset because I wasn't working everyday of the week and because I wasn't working early in the morning. (I took the lunch shift) basically when they say I don't want to work they are implying that I'm lazy. I couldn't understand how I could be lazy or "not want to work" when I'm going out of my way to get this new job where they don't have to drive me and I work every weekday. I felt very upset about that.

In the end when I try to write or talk about these things it begins to feel trivial and I begin to think I'm being sensitive. I never talk to my parents about my feelings and recently is the first time I've tried in years. I was surprised that my dad even agreed with me, but now I'm thinking I might have brought up emotional abuse but it might not be? I don't know. I feel like I can't really trust my feelings so I've been asking my friends and talking with them.

I'm worried about this because it means I was depressed in high school at least slightly and didn't even know. And that I was falling into depression this summer and didn't know. Or chose to ignore the feeling? I don't know. My dad claimed he also had a talk with his parents after college and that means that he was treated the same way as a kid. And my mom didn't talk with me but I believe she might have been treated the same way. I also believe that my parents might emotionally abuse each other based on the may arguments I've witnessed through out the years. This worries me because I don't want to grow up and treat my children, and spouse the same way and I don't want them to do this to my children. Because of this, I want to have a talk with them and discuss this together.

I guess I just want to know if what I mentioned above is emotional abuse. From there...Idk. My mom is most likely never going to change. My dad said he would and I believe him. But I just want to know or sure.

Invalidation is a tried and proven technique. They use it because it works. It gets you to shut up thereby relieving the responsible party of the obligation to address it. My step father was a master of it. I didn't even begin to break the code and decipher what was wrong with me until I was past 35 years of age. When I figured out the volume of emotional abuse had been subject to, it was overwhelming.