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The original was posted on /r/getmotivated by /u/max_thomas0630 on 2024-01-22 11:32:27+00:00.

Original Title: My parents were very abusive/absent and never taught me anything I needed to survive and didn’t model behaviors for me as a really little kid so I never really learned they were important deep inside myself. How do I begin to try to catch up? [Tool]

I was a kid who when I wasn’t actively being abused/bullied by my parents, they completely ignored me. As a result, I never learned how to clean. I didn’t learn or was modeled keeping track of hygiene stuff (my mother was a hoarder and my I never saw my father in the mornings getting ready because he was military so he was up long before I was up) so I don’t know how to keep up with it though I try. I never learned how to cook anything that doesn’t come in a box. I don’t know how to park very well. I don’t know how to eat three meals a day (I didn’t get fed a lot as a kid so a lot of the time I had spoonfuls of condiments as dinner, which were rationed out of worries of running out), and I never learned how to keep up with laundry. I basically know nothing about being an adult that everyone else already knows and I’m embarrassed and ashamed and humiliated and my ex-girlfriend tried her best to teach me, which made me feel like a man-child and I tried to be receptive but my therapist said I am having difficulties with making a habit because a) my mother drank heavily with me in the womb and b) it was never shown by example to me as a really little kid so I never learned its importance. How do I even begin to tackle all of this? It feels so insurmountable I’m getting upset everyday having difficulty getting the motivation to do these things and then when I do I always do it wrong.