I remember for my younger birthdays, my mom would continuously make it about herself, pull knives on me or my brothers, yell at us, berate us. one day she made us verbally explain why we were complete wastes of human space, and how we could become better sons. she always tried to divide my brothers so we could always use her to talk to others, like an intermediarry. any time we would hang out without her permission, she would get mad at us for weeks at a time, send us to a black box essentially. it was like this black box with no light or windows, and we just had to sit there and reflect. it eventually led to me and my brothers learning to love isolation, which is another problem in itself my gf's family on the other hand doesn't really operate under this principle and it really confuses me. they like being nice to me, giving me gifts, and cards, and hanging out with me. the thing is my brain is very confused by this behavior, because it can't make out why someone would want to be that nice to me. they actually like talking to each other and hanging out, and it makes no sense to me. they ask me questions. a few times it short circuited my brain too much, because my brain simply can't accept benevolence from others, it tries, but it always ends up breaking down due to a complete lack of understanding