That's not normal. I'm sorry you had to go through that mate.
this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2025
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I grew up hardcore conservative, southern baptist, very anti non-straight etc etc.
What you just described would appall my bible thumbing parents.
My folks found me looking at "objectionable" porn too. They didn't get weird about it. The old man just talked with me about sexuality and privacy and of course God as well.
My upbringing sucked. And I have a lot of issues with my folks. But what you're describing went beyond even what I went through, and I thought my folks were fully crazy.
Good luck fam. You'll be alright.
They used their religion to justify callous behavior and invasions of privacy.
My folks found me looking at “objectionable” porn too. They didn’t get weird about it. The old man just talked with me about sexuality and privacy and of course God as well.
See, religious disagreements aside that sounds like a completely healthy approach. I'm guessing that's better than most parents manage, regardless of beliefs.
my dad would lean against my door
Creepy, not normal at all.
he picked the lock of my door
He's fucked up in the head. No one does this.
he said “nothing” with an unsettling smile
He's a pervert. You're not.
he could prove it by revealing
He's a psycho, no one does this. Ever.
my older brother got into my journal
Another psycho.
“God told me to do it.”
Yep, psycho.
I'm sorry you had to live through this but it's not a normal behavior. I wish you the best for the future without them though because I know that it can destroy someone.
you grew up in hell
Sounds pretty fucked up to me. Normal people will just accept you for who you are, whatever that is. Well, unless you're a serial killer or something, but as long as we're talking about consensual sexual preferences they should stay well out of your stuff.
Your parents sound nuts. Sorry you had love with that, dude. I had some different but not all that different stuff as a kid, and therapy has been a really useful tool for unpacking those experiences and turning them into something a bit more useful. Would highly recommend it if you haven't tried yet. Shit so cash
What has therapy been like for you? I've never done therapy before, and I'm kind of worried they'll try to criticize and gaslight me into playing nice with people who I'm 90% sure are narcissists or try to get me to ignore the limitations that my health problems give me. (But then again, I can't help but notice that I was socially conditioned to expect shame, punishment, and destructive guidance if I ask for help.)
Bruh. Try therapy. Air those very concerns if you’re worried about them.
The way I like to think about therapy is you’re paying for access to a second brain, a well-trained one, to help you think through stuff. A good therapist guides you instead of leading you.
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You are 100% allowed to ask for a different therapist, and tell them honestly what about the first one didn’t work for you.
Think of them as someone you hire, like a construction contractor building a new addition for you. If they do a bad job for your needs, fire them and hire someone else, just like you would if they disregarded your hypothetical missing leg while designing the layout, and gave you lots of stairs. Stairs don’t help you, even if they might be fine or even desired for someone else, just like a therapist who would criticize you or try to gaslight you isn’t helpful to you.
It might take a few tries, but it’s definitely worth it to find the right person if it’s not the first one.
My first ever therapist was super religious, and told me that it was better for me to be bored and vaguely unhappy in my relationship than to be alone (I’m a woman so that’s not the first time I’d heard that drivel..). She also told me I need to at least be spiritual, or I’d never get over my depression (incidentally went away when the relationship did.. funny, that..) I was raised without religion, and her comment about my relationship gave me the ick, so I found a different one. And that one was a lot better.
I grew up in a crazy Christian environment, really messed with me for a long time. Go to therapy. You don't have to stick with the first person you try, and it took me a few to find the right person to just click with. But you're gonna need to talk this shit out. It'll be rough, but worth it in the end. A good therapist will listen and ask questions, but they're not going to make you do anything, least of all make ammends with people who are a bad influence on your life. You got this.
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You have a fucked up family full of fucked up people doing fucked up things and pretend fucking god told them to do the fucked up things.
Man, my heart goes out to you, you got some weird family members.
Me personally, I would write them off untill they can treat me with the respect I deserve.
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yea sorry about your hell bro
"God told me to do it."
The first time I heard that as a teenager, I made sure nobody ever felt comfortable saying it around me again.
Some mild stripping, knocked over glassware, and "speaking in tongues" later, sorry god made me do it.
My brother tried your approach, he got an exorcism as Satan was tempting him, lol.
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That sounds typical for conservative Christian households, but is deeply unhealthy. It’s a huge violation of both trust and privacy, and also extremely, overtly bigoted. So, common? Yes. Normal? No. Healthy? Absolutely not.
(It’s probably not a majority of conservative Christian households that do this, but it’s not seen as bad in that community, and is therefore relatively common compared to the overall population. It’s also not unique to Christians. Many fundamentalist religions exhibit this sort of strict, spying-enforced behavioral control.)
Wicked people do wicked things. Good people do good things. But for a good person to do wicked things, that takes religion. (Paraphrased from Steven Weinberg.)
Hell
No, this is not normal. Or at least my upbringing was nothing like this. I grew up catholic (until 12) and my extended family is fairly conservative. While I did fall into the cishet paradigm, no one was spying on me and looking for evidence I wasn't.
Is there anything you didnt share that would explain further why they did what they did? Can you think of any reason they would suspect you?
That sounds pretty fucked tbh.
That’s not normal behavior for family members
For an American Christians™️ this is disturbingly common.
This is toxic as hell.
I suggest therapy to deal with your family. It sounds over compensating to prove yourself to them, a form of people pleasing that often comes from abused childhood.
It's likely there is so much more abuse in your childhood that went down but you do not have the perspective on to see how terrible it was.
Even in conservative households, that's weird. If your dad had blown up right there about the sinful things happining in the room, I'd get it more. What he actually did was inexplicable. And the older brother thing is just awful.
Since it was two incidents total, I won't go straight for hell, though. Like maybe it was but I'd need more information.
Absolutely. This is not just some bible-thumping "you will burn for your sins if you don't repent" stuff, otherwise the logical reaction would have been to have a serious conversation on the spot. I would have kind of understood that reaction, from a certain frame of reference, although I of course think it is wrong. But this is someone collecting blackmail material in his own imaginary world where things are what the voices tell them they are.
Run, don't walk. Seriously.
Or maybe that was his plan, but he chickened out once it got too real? You'd expect it would still change things if he was at all homophobic, though. As it is, he acted like it didn't happen until he thought he was being lied to and decided to pull it back out.
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Hi! This was very similar to my situation! Yeah, it took me until my 30s to understand what happened and think of it as abuse. You survived abuse.
That's incredibly controlling behavior from them. The privacy violations are egregious.
I dont need to read much past the title. Anyone who uses the term "degeneracy" unironically in trying to control the private lives of others is probably a shitbag and they definitely should be told to fuck off.
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That's not normal. You were the victim of abuse.
By just reading the title I can say that you grew up in hell. Now let me read your description to see if it was normal hell or super hell.
Edit: So it looks like you grew up in normal hell. Which doesn't diminish the impact it has on you. I personally grew up in normal hell but had friends that grew up in super hell.
There's probably a lot you have yet to process. I still randomly have shit come up two and half decades later and realize how abnormal it was. Also fuck your dad and your brother. Both them are assholes that are probably repressed dipshits. I hope you can get past it and not let it fuck with your life too much.
It kinda sounds like you're doing your best to just live your life and that's what they are so intrusive over. Sounds more like they want you to force yourself to suffer for religion as they have and it pisses them off that you're doing you (figuratively and literally). I'd guess they are very sexually repressed.
I’d guess they are very sexually repressed.
My dad DOES have a tendency to make an unusual amount of phallic jokes, to the point where one day I responded with "You know, it's okay to be bi, you can just say it" and boy he did NOT like that
Still there? Find a chair or board you can use to prop under your doorknob so it's unopenable even if it gets unlocked from outside.
Diaries aren't safe, ever. It sucks but it's true.
Use codes.
Or go digital. (Standard Notes for example)
I seriously doubt a bunch of hillbillies parents/siblings can decipher even a basic homemade code.
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It's not common at all. What the fuck, dude
Brother Is just a bully so thats simple. But i wonder why dad was upset op isint gay. I can think of a few reasons and none are good.
In cases like these is always better to want to distance from family. Also 200% prep any woman to before meeting family. I read enough stories that if they hold any animosity they may try bring up anything prove they are right and justify hate.
But i wonder why dad was upset op isint gay.
Every day, my dad liked to call me the f-slur and threaten to kill me or kick me out of the house "if he found out" I was gay. Apparently, I wasn't in on the joke: in his head, he ALREADY KNEW I was gay, and so his words weren't meant to prevent me from being gay, but rather to make me terrified of him.
It seems like he was angry because he lost a critical control mechanism over me and desperately sought to bring it back. I will never forget how shocked he looked when he saw me actually happy for the first time in years and I playfully deflected his insults instead of engaging with them. He sort of shut down and became depressed for a couple days before he came up with a new way to control me.
It seems that there is nothing that he and my brother hate more than my genuine happiness. Since they believe that they define who I am, how I feel, and what I am capable of, any feelings I am "not supposed" to feel will be violently crushed by them.
I am not supposed to feel happy.
Understanding they need to feel this way but you dont need to be part of it is major. That is far more than others your age have been able to do. Find revenge by solidifying that happy life without them. It will remind them how useless they are without any cost to you. Win win.
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Yeah not a single thing there is normal. You grew up in an unhinged household.
Your brother is likely a pedo. God here - I instruct you to report him and get the police to search his computer
- Fetishizes female submission and powerlessness
- Shows interest in "petite" women almost 2 feet shorter than him
- Values women for how "pretty" they look
- Says the Epstein situation "doesn't matter"
- Likes to sneak into other people's private spaces without consent
I gotta hand it to you God, I think you might be onto something
Your parents are super fucked up and should be treated as such
My hot take: your father is angry you aren't gay because he secretly is and has had to deny this his entire life due to his conservative ideology.
Yeah no, you grew up in hell and nothing about that is normal.
Family you don't choose, friends you do choose. you don't owe your family anything, find good friends that will love you for what and how you are.
It is okay to cut off toxic family
Yeah, you grew up in hell. Sorry 😐
Besides that, "god told me" you should probably keep distance to your family.
I’ve read stuff like this online and was hoping it wasn’t real
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