Both of my parents:
My mom loves to control everyone around her because she knows what's best for them. I try not to get angry but it just doesn't stop and it's wearing after a while. She loves to bait me on her Rush/Hannity issues as well, such as healthcare and the war. It's like she needs to argue with me. When I told her I thought Bush was the worst president in my lifetime she suggested I get therapy! She also has a hard time believing the truth when I tell her things that don't mesh were her view of things. She came home one day to find the door looked like someone had tried to pry it open and I overheard her tell my stepfather it was probably me. In sixth grade a 28 year old male teacher assaulted me, throwing my desk, picking me up, and tried to hang me by my necktie by a coathook. It wasn't a clip-on tie either. He nearly killed me but when I told my mother she didn't believe me. The result was I thought I deserved to be treated like that. There are other things too. I love my mother but not as much as I used to. We don't get along at all.
My father, as one of my friends put it, "...talks to you like he's an executive giving orders." If I'm driving someplace, even locally, he'll point and tell me where to make turns. He has hired me to do some work for him on occasion and he then proceeds to tell me how to do everything he hires me to do DESPITE the fact that I've been doing my job for 15 years! The worst was when he hired me to do a class to explain the basics of the Win95 interface and then proceeded to interrupt me to the point he took over the class himself. I didn't talk to him the entire way home and he couldn't figure out why. The latest was today when he told me he thinks a framed engraving he found in the basement is a Vermeer because it's signed, "van Delft." He was looking for all kinds of information on it. I told him why not ask someone who majored in art history and he asked me who was that? Uh, that was ME. Your son. My senior paper (25% of grade) was in Dutch classical art too. After I explained that Vermeer didn't do engravings he proceeded to correct me. Yes, I explained, some engravings were listed in his estate but they were never found and may not have been by him at all. He refused to believe it.
So you wonder where my self-esteem issues come from??? I can give you a BIG hint.