One of the worst things about growing up is when your parents decide to inflict a horrible punishment on you and then say "look it is not that bad, my parents used to do [insert more horrible thing here] to me!" Like, sure, Susan, but this is messed up, too!

A thread over on Reddit asked people what the worst punishment they ever got as kids was and, I am not going to lie, some of them are pretty messed up.

Warning: some of these are pretty harsh and could definitely be classed as child abuse--read on with caution. For more, head on over to Reddit to read the thread there.

Just a fancy star, kind of?

“My mom said I couldn’t have a best friend anymore because my best friend and I were drawing pentagrams on MS Paint at our afterschool program, pretending they were transmutation circles from an anime called Fullmetal Alchemist (pentagrams are much easier for a 9 year old to draw than an intricate alchemy array).

My mom immediately jumped to this being devil worshipping, despite my friend and I not even knowing what a pentagram really meant. This lead to my mom telling every single teacher and after school care worker not to allow me to be anywhere near my friend.

Friend moves away and mom won’t let me email her to stay in touch. I’m 24 now and haven’t had any close friends since. Christina, if you’re out there, I still miss you.”

Wonder why it didn't (But glad it is better now!)

“Beatings will continue until your morale improves”

In all fucking serious.

Life got better and I never see my dad anymore and him and my mom ask when I’m having kids and why I haven’t seen them in years despite living probably 30 minutes from them.”

That's messed up.

“When I was around 6 years old, my stepdad woke me up in the night by pulling me out of the bed and yelling that I got piss on the toilet seat.

He took me out on the front porch and while he was paddling me, the rail I was bracing against broke and I fell off the porch.”

You can't just pretend that never happened...

“When I was in year 2 (UK) so six or seven years old. I was an unruly child to say the least. I was undiagnosed ADHD. My mum had enough and told me I was getting adopted. I remember distinctively telling class mates I was leaving to live somewhere else.

My mum made me tidy my room and take what I wanted in a bag and I went to my aunties house (mums sister) to wait for the lady to pick me up. I don’t remember falling asleep but I must have and woke up in my aunties spare bedroom. She took me to school that day and my mum picked me up and I went home, as if nothing had happened.

Years later (I’m in my late thirties now), I brought this up and my mum, she acts like it never happened. Her words exactly were “you’re living in a fantasy, that never happened”. So yeah, that had messed with my head quite a bit.”

Longest 6 weeks ever

“My mum took everything in my room except a blanket. My radio, books, toys you name it.

I was locked in there for the UK summer holidays. They are six weeks long.”

With no apology

“I was grounded for 6 months straight, which was me being locked in my room (not an actual physical lock) and I wasn’t allowed to leave it except for dinner, the bathroom and to go to school. I had zero toys, I owned no books, I had nothing to do but get lost in my head and at one point my radio was taken away so I was left in complete silence I was between 10-13.

Why was I grounded? My dad thought either my brother or I stole his camera and sold it, and until we told him who did it we were both grounded. Finally after 6 months he finally cleaned his room and found his camera and said we were ungrounded, we never even got an apology.

After that my dad continued to ground me for block of months at a time. I ended up being grounded and isolated for 1.5 years total between 10-13 years old. Being trapped in my head for that long has fucked me up mentally permanently.”

NO

“In the 1980s, my father was a radioman and often had spare parts lying around.

Whenever I was rebellious toward him, he was fond of whipping my bare back with metal radio antenna.”

Even worse

“My mom pulled down my pants and hit me with the brush side of a hairbrush…in front of my three fellow 5-year old friends.

I was innocent. She didn’t believe me.”

Ugh. Also bizarre punishment

“Got put on restriction for 6 months for doing something my mom said I could do. But then she said she never gave me permission to do even though another adult was sitting there and confirmed he heard her give me permission to do it.

Also had to pick up all the rocks in the vacant lot next to our house and put them in a pile on weekends as part of the punishment.”

WHAT

“My uncle would have me stand T pose, and hold books. Not too bad.

Then I have to stand on my toes.Then he would put nails sticking up under my heels. He would dare me to relax.”

That's intense

"I was driven about 30 minutes outside of my city to an isolated, large, and creepy looking building, which I was told was an orphanage.

I was given the choice of "teling the truth" and admitting to something I had not done or being left there.

I am 38 and still think about this, from time to time."

Rock moving punishments appear to be common?

"The pointless ones.

We had landscaping rocks in our yard from an unfinished project, they were probably 30lbs each.

After a number of other punishments failed, my parents came up with the "move rocks" punishment. I'd have to move 30 or so of these rocks 50 yards. Set them up into a particular shape (square, circle, etc.), have my parents check them and then move them all back.

The pointlessness of it all was the worst."