Lawyer Miki Yoshida knows all about “toxic parents,” having been raised in a controlling environment herself.

She is one of a handful of legal experts in Japan who are able to give advice in this field. And her phone rings off the hook.

LONELY CHILDHOOD

Yoshida, 39, has only torturous memories of her childhood, dating back to when she was around 3 years old.

If she followed her mother around at home, Yoshida faced an abrupt scolding.

“Don’t cling to me like goldfish excrement,” her mother would shout. 

On another occasion, Yoshida tried to get her father to play with her. But he was too busy and locked the “bothersome” child out on the balcony.

Looking back on those moments now, Yoshida said both of her parents were self-centered, focused solely on doing “what they wanted to do” first. They lacked any sense of “what their children were feeling.”

The bottom line? Her parents were obsessed with their daughter excelling at school. Nothing else mattered.

Yoshida recalled being told, “You should work as an attorney if you end up specializing in social sciences or humanities or become a doctor in the event you major in science.”

As they constantly called Yoshida “worthless,” her sense of self-esteem steadily eroded.

Her parents looked happy if her school reports were good. As they anticipated, Yoshida entered the law department of a prestigious college.

At the age of 24 and in graduate school, Yoshida was gearing up for the national bar examination. All the years of verbal abuse from her mother and father suddenly caused her to snap.

Yoshida developed a condition called fibromyalgia that is characterized by acute pain throughout the body. Her parents kept on saying she must be “pretending to be ill.”

Yoshida put up with the pain and studied hard to pass the bar exam. It was immediately after she passed the exam that she learned the phrase “toxic parents” in the context of helicopter parenting, physical and verbal abuse and other actions intended to keep children in line.

“I realized that all the problems I faced in life were due to this phenomenon,” Yoshida said.

Yoshida bought and read a heap of books about toxic parents. This process helped her confront the fact her problems stemmed from her parents, not herself.

At the start of her legal internship, Yoshida finally moved away from home to achieve her dream of living alone.

However, she quickly fell into bad habits: drinking too much, reckless shopping and aimless romantic encounters, as if to distract herself from the loneliness she felt.

“My parents and I were codependent on each other,” Yoshida recalled. “I felt lonely as I was separated from my parents, who occupied a certain space in my mind.”

SUICIDAL THOUGHTS

Yoshida began harboring suicidal thoughts and attempted to end her life by repeatedly overdosing on medicines.

She was simultaneously unable to forget her longing to be loved by her parents. No matter how badly they treated her, she still hoped to bathe in their affection.

“I did not want to think that I cannot be loved because I have some flaws of my own,” Yoshida said.

In her fourth year as a lawyer, Yoshida stayed with her parents over the year-end and new year holidays. She mustered up the courage to confide that she had agonized over her relationship with them and attempted suicide.

Yoshida had assumed her mother and father would be upset to hear that. But they did not react. Their conversation continued uninterrupted.

At that moment, Yoshida reached her emotional limit. 

“I realized they would never understand me,” she said.

Her repeated suicide attempts stemmed from not only her painful parent-child relations but also her grim desire to retaliate for her years of mistreatment.

However, the experience at the year-end and new year holidays made her realize the foolishness of making such a grand statement, suicide, to get her parents’ attention.

NO RECONCILIATION

Since then, Yoshida has refused to have anything to do with her parents. She began attending a psychosomatic medical clinic’s counseling session once a week.

Yoshida went into independent practice at age 30 and set up her office in Tokyo.

She was promptly inundated with requests for legal advice, as she included the expression “toxic parents” in the homepage advertising her services.

Yoshida said she commits herself to addressing family issues, because “many people may be troubled by their relationships with their parents, like me in the past.”

“Toxic parents essentially view their children as inferior to adults, expecting them to serve as their subordinates,” Yoshida explained. “My mission is to help my clients escape from situations where a peaceful life is not guaranteed.”

Yoshida has been involved in several hundred cases to date.

In 95 percent of cases, parents cease their problematic behavior once they are notified by registered mail of their children’s intention to take legal steps.

Having devoted herself to fighting toxic parenting, Yoshida keenly feels that society is intolerant of and unimaginative about diverse forms of family relations.

“So many people insist parents and children can understand one another,” Yoshida noted. “This tendency rather enables parents to obtain tremendous authority. Once an individual turns 18 years old, however, they fall outside of their parents’ custody. This means the parents no longer have any rights over their children.”

On occasion, Yoshida has clients who believe children should not sever ties with their parents and simply put up with whatever behavior is directed at them.

For those patrons, Yoshida always presents the same piece of advice: “It is OK for you to run away.”