This Woman Says Her Parents Drilled Her Window Shut and Took Her Bedroom Door for a Year — the Internet Isn’t Calling It ‘Strict’

A TikTok video from creator @eriniveson described a series of childhood punishments she said were common in her household growing up.

"Anytime I talk about my childhood, I forget that there are people who grew up with parents that weren't extremely strict," she said, describing a list of "completely legal things" her parents did.

She recalled one recurring punishment involved the removal of her bedroom door. "For punishment, I would often get my door taken away, and there was almost an entire year that I didn't have my bedroom door on the hinges," she said.

Her clothing was also sometimes taken away and locked in the basement, requiring her to ask permission before getting dressed, which led to instances of her wearing clothing to school that had been explicitly forbidden, including a pencil skirt her mother later discovered and made her change out of at school.

She also described a shared punishment her parents used when she and her sisters argued. "We would have to sit on the couch and hold hands," she said, adding that the punishment sometimes lasted seven or eight hours.

On one occasion, she was left standing in a corner for an entire day, with breaks only permitted for meals or bathroom use. Food was also used as a form of discipline in her home.

"If we were served something for dinner that we did not like or we did not want to eat, that was saved for your next meal," she said, describing a cycle in which an unfinished dinner would be re-served at breakfast and lunch until it was eaten.

Her stepfather once had her text messages printed from the family's phone carrier and required her to read them aloud. After being caught sneaking out, she said her bedroom window was drilled shut. "I'm pretty sure that was a fire hazard," she said.

She had a strict bedtime while working a job in high school, so she said she completed homework secretly, using a flashlight tied to her head with a headband. She and her sisters were barred from leaving their rooms at night for water or the bathroom, forcing them to climb out through adjoining windows onto the roof instead.

Once she began earning money, she said her parents stopped covering even essential items. "If I needed, like, socks or underwear, my mom wouldn't buy them for me because I worked," she said, adding that she also paid for her own extracurricular activities, including a dance team she was later pulled from as punishment for skipping school.

Reactions to the video largely characterized the TikToker's parents as abusive rather than simply strict. One commenter wrote, "I had strict parents. She had abusive parents."

Another commenter described a personal connection to the video, writing that they remain estranged from their own parents and still sometimes question whether their own childhood experiences were as serious as they remembered. They added that the video "may unintentionally reach a kid that doesn't know to speak up to a safe adult and tell them what's going on at home."

The TikToker moved out of her home permanently at age 17 and was not permitted to take her own belongings with her, since, according to the TikToker, her mother considered anything brought into the house to belong to the household. She ended the video by saying there were more stories from her childhood she could share.

A separate commenter described a different but related experience involving childhood neglect, writing, "I'm 37 but had the opposite experience. It was only last year that I realized how neglected I was as a child. It was like Lord of the Flies. Family? WTF is that? You're telling me it's not normal to be alone ALL time? It's been difficult learning how to be a person this late in the game."

The Daily Dot was unable to independently verify the events described in this video. The details above reflect the account as shared on TikTok by @eriniveson. The identities of her family members have not been confirmed.