I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I read through the list of forums and this one seems to be the most appropriate. This is probably going to be huge. I plan on talking to a therapist about it, but at the moment that is not possible. I also feel like I have so much to say that I would need several sessions before I could get it all out.

I feel weird talking about this because I know lots of people have it so much worse, but lately, after having a lot of conflict with my parents, I have started to think a lot more about how I was treated growing up. Instead of viewing how I was treated as not ideal but probably normal and common, I'm starting to view it as really unacceptable and perhaps downright abusive. What confuses me a lot if that while my parents did a lot of questionable stuff that I would never dream of doing with child, let alone my own, they could also be very loving, caring and supportive. They were very affectionate, bought me many things I asked, took me on vacation to nice places, claim to love me and do act like it when everything is going well, they help me even if they are angry at me, think I am very intelligent and tell me I’m smart, often ask me for help with things they know I’m good at, etc.

I'm mostly ok with my life at this point and until the conflicts began recently, I had pretty much forgiven them and chose to believe that nothing is perfect and whatever happened just made me stronger and got me where I am. I have been to therapy and talked about a lot of things and worked through them but only recently I'm viewing upbringing from a different angle.

The reason I'm posting is because I find it incredibly hard to be kind and patient with my parents. Specially when they are being annoying, nosy, controlling, bossy, not respectful of my wishes or requests or otherwise irritating me. And while trying to figure out why I'm acting rude and in a bad mood a lot of the time, towards them, I started to remember a lot of incidents from my childhood, from silly things to bigger things...all of which upset me at the time and some upset me even now. As a background, I remember being very anxious and shy as child. The anxiety only increased with time to the point where I started having major anxiety and panic attacks.

# when I was 3 or 4 I remember standing by a window to wait for my dad to come home. My mom was with me and I guess I got distracted waiting for him and I peed my pants. My mom was angry at me and I remember feeling horrible. I felt stupid and embarrassed, like I had done something wrong. I don't remember how angry she was or what exactly she said (something along the lines of "why did you do that??") but I remember clearly how I felt.
# again, same age, and my mother was recording a song from a vinyl to a tape recorder and had told me to be silent. I talked for some reason and again, she got angry and again I felt really bad.
# every time I did not want to do something, my mother would turn it into a competition with my younger sister. She would say something like: you sister is going to be first, she is going to beat you to it. She is going to be faster, etc. It made me really angry. I remember not caring about being first or "better", I cared that she made it seem like even though I was older, I could not be as mature or as good as my younger sister.
# if my sister and I fought (whatever the age), and she ended up crying, I would get yelled at or punished or spanked, regardless if I started it or not of if it was my fault. My mother did not care. I feel like she favored my sister, but even that wasn't the hugest issue because often I felt like I disliked my mom and didn't care that I wasn't her favorite, I just wanted to be treated fairly.
# needless to say I never liked my sister much and my relationship with her was never very good. Only after my 20s or so we started getting along somewhat but she often picks fights or treats me disrespectfully and I don't have a lot of patience with her either.
# my mother would spank me out of anger and I remember how angry I felt about that. It wasn't anything excessive, it was just a spanking with her hand on my butt. It did hurt usually, but what upset/angered me the most was the fact that sometimes it was not deserved at all and as far as I can remember, all of the times were done out of anger, I could see it in her face. In fact, as I got older I would look her in the eye and say she would not hit me, and cover my but with my hands or sit somewhere while she would try to spank me anyway. Sometimes I would look in her eyes and say to here: "That didn't even hurt" in a defiant tone just to piss her off to get back at her for being so angry at me.
# As far as I can remember, my parents have fought with each other, screaming and offending each other (not extremely insulting, could be worse, but bad enough that I would feel sad and bad for the one being insulted). The fighting made me very anxious and scared. Each time I would worry that they would divorce and that seemed like something really scary to me.
# My mother has always been very strict and controlling, and my father to,o though in different ways and perhaps to a lesser extent. That often made me angry and caused arguments because some of the rules made no sense and I felt like I could not be myself around them.
# I had to move to different cities at least 4 times. That is not abusive, obviously, but it did not help my shyness and anxiety.
# From the time I was around 10 I would often get horrible stomach pains and ask to stay home from school because it was really bad. I was taken to a doctor but eventually they just thought I was faking it so I didn't have to go to school. At that point I didn't like school but did not mind going. The pains were very real and to this day I sometimes have them. Luckily not nearly as often.
# One time when I was about 12, we were about to move back to the city we were living at previously. My mom was going to travel there to make necessary arrangements and I was very anxious about her going, felt that something bad would happen (but I never told her that because I thought it was dumb and I would be ridiculed) and asked to please go with her. She said no, of course. I was really upset and cried inconsolably and begged her to please take me. She said I had to go to school. I said it was the last day, that it did not matter, kept begging her. She said I was going, that I could either go crying and be embarrassed or stop crying. I could not stop crying and hearing that made me cry even more. Long story short, I had to go, could not stop crying, everyone asked me what was wrong. I felt extremely embarrassed and humiliated. As far as I can remember, my classmates were nice to me, though. They thought I was sad about moving to another school. If only, I actually wanted to move back to that city.
# At least a few times I was blamed for making my parents fight with each other.
# Once my mother clearly told that things were very difficult and if they divorced, it would be my fault.
# She also told me at least once that my dad was very stressed and I was stressing him out with my behavior (which I admit, was hard to handle sometimes, I was not submissive at all and if they yelled at me I would yell back at them) and that he would have a heart attack from all that stress or that stress caused cancer and that he could get cancer because his father had just died from that...and of course that would be because of how difficult I was and how much stress I caused them.
# My dad was no saint either and whenever he got angry he would scream very out of control in an aggressive way. He would constantly make me cry. If I didn’t want to do something or I did something stupid or wrong he would flat out call me stupid or yell at me until I cried and even then it would take a while for him to stop.
# He would also have fights with my mother in public, screaming in restaurants even...or if he got angry at something that happened while going out as a family. It was extremely embarrassing and humiliating. That got better eventually. But he still screams excessively when angry and blames me for it. He also blamed and still sometimes blames me when he and my mother fight. He is very verbally aggressive and insults my mother or me when we do something that upsets him.
# As I got older, at around 14-15, my anxiety pretty out of control. But I didn't know what was happening to me, I thought I was sick with a heart condition or something and I had no idea what to do. I felt embarrassed to talk to them, felt like I was going to be ridiculed. Eventually it got really bad that I felt like I was having a heart attack and felt like I had no choice but to tell them that I thought I had to go to the E.R. They were worried and took me there immediately and I was monitored and was told I was fine but to go to a cardiologist. I was taken to the cardiologist and was scared out of my mind that I was dying or something. At this point I was scared to be alone, to go to school, to do anything really. It made me extremely anxious to the point I felt like I was going to pass out or puke or something else embarrassing. The cardiologist had me do a heart monitoring thing where I had to use a device that was pretty bulky and I was of course extremely anxious about wearing that to school and begged and begged for my mom to let me stay home. She of course refused, so I went, panicking the whole time. At one point it got extremely unbearable and I had the school call her to take me home. I don't remember if she did or not, I think she might have.
# The cardiologist found nothing wrong with me and told her and my that I had panic syndrome and advised my mom to take me to a psychologist or psychiatrist to possibly get medication and also prescribed me something. I do not know what it was but was told it was to lower my heart rate. I felt very worried about taking (shocking, huh), I thought it could lower my heart rate too much if I happened to not be so anxious. My mother acted unsure and as if she was against me taking the medication, and left it up to me to decide, so of course I did not take it.
# Needless to say, I was not taken to a therapist, much less a psychiatrist. My mom would tell me that if I went, it would be in my medical record forever and whenever I needed to get a job or whatever, they could find out about it. I believed her, but did not care about that one bit, I just wanted to feel better. I was not taken to any other doctor. Instead, she got some rescue remedy and gave me that to take when things got too bad. Obviously, that did not even begin to touch the problem.
# Since I was feeling so horrible, and I thought I was possibly insane since apparently I wasn't physically sick, I did not want people to know that there was anything wrong with me and having to go to school was a nightmare. I hated it and would often cry inconsolable and beg her to let me stay home. I don't remember if that ever worked, all I remember was her screaming at me, hinting that I was insane and at least on one occasion she flat out told me I was in fact crazy. On another occasion she told me she would need to have me committed if I did not stop acting like that and that it would involve me going through electroshock therapy.

I'll spare you from any more details, those were the major incidents. I was also mocked a lot by my younger sister, after my anxiety started. Basically called a baby for acting that way. She would also bring up the fact that I had no friends, as if I was loser because of that. I don't recall my parents doing anything about that. When I would say bad things about her or call her names, call her fat or whatever, my mother would insult me back. I do not remember her ever insulting my sister when my sister insulted me.

Eventually, by the time I was 16 or 17 my parents FINALLY took me to a psychologist but it was a horrible one and one day I got fed up and decided to look for information on the internet. Little by little I was able to find a way to cope with the panic and anxiety and by the time I was about 19, I could function again, albeit with a lot of anxiety. But panic attacks were not as frequent and manageable. Eventually by the time I was 21 or so I was pretty much cured from the panic attacks, but still more anxious than normal. The panic/extreme anxiety and depression came back a few times but I was able to control it until one day, when I went on a really amazing trip I was looking forward to, I felt nothing. Completely numb. The only thing I could feel was sadness over the fact that I felt nothing. I could not stop crying. I was fine before going, and going to a very good therapist I had found a few years before. Once I came back from the trip I told her about what happened and she told me it was likely from anxiety, that I probably had a chemical imbalance and told me to go to a psychiatrist to go on some medication. I was very scared to go, and then after I went very scared to take the meds, I thought they would make me feel worse or have bad side effects. I worked up the courage to take them and my life was completely changed. I wish I had done that years ago. Within a month I felt so normal, I had no idea how anxious I was until I suddenly wasn't anymore. It was amazing, I could not believe it. I took the meds for the recommended time (a little over one year) and was able to go off them recently(now in my early thirties) and feel fine.

Unsurprisingly, from the time I was about 14 to my early 20s, I started distancing myself emotionally from my parents. I didn't hug them or kiss them unless they asked or it was socially expected, such as when wishing them a happy birthday. But even then I kept it short and did not enjoy it. It's the same as nothing to me. I call my parents by their names, which they hate but I just feel weird calling them mom and dad. For the first 5 years or so they would complain about that. My mom specially. That I didn't hug her, that I was so withdrawn and rude, that I should be more loving like my sister. I didn't care. They still don't like that I'm not very affectionate and call them by their names, but what can you do. I'm not very affectionate with people I'm not close to either, so it is what it is.

I’m mostly over all of this. I don’t even live in the same country as them anymore. If my parents hadn’t come to visit recently this would maybe never come to light. Before I didn’t even care anymore about the past. Now, I feel like what they did was kind of horrible (but I know many people have it much worse).

Am I just being a big baby about all of this and a mean person for not being able to have a better relationship with them and not being very patient? Is the way they treated me normal and I'm just too sensitive and resentful? I do admit that while I'm able to forgive, I'm not quick to forget. I never really forget, specially when I'm hurt again in the same way, it just brings it all back.

I would like some advice on how to process/deal with this and how to be able to not be so angry at them and be able to have a less rocky relationship when we have to meet in person. If that’s even possible.

I'm sorry this is so long and thank you so much if you read the whole thing.