Apologies for grammar and punctuation here I am dyslexic and did my best. Anything that needs clarification I will do my best to clear up in the comments.

I'm curious what other people's relationships with gift giving and receiving are and how that was affected by your childhood.

My wife and I were talking about this tonight. When I was a kid up until I went no contact with my mother gifts were mandatory if you didn't want to get screamed at and given the cold shoulder for days. I don't ever remember receiving one "gift" from my mother that didn't come with strings attached and I don't ever remember giving a gift to somebody not based solely on the belief that they were going to be mad at me and I would be "in trouble" if I didn't. In my family you didn't give gifts because you love someone you do it because it's expected and you were supposed to.

I now have a lot of trauma and triggers surrounding gifts so they have always been extemely difficult for me, to help with this my wife and I have a no gift policy for everything which has been incredibly freeing for both of us. My wife and I were talking tonight after some friends of ours sent us some cookies and it sent me into trauma response that my wife was able to help pull me out of afterwards we were talking about presents and how that was for me as a kid , she told me when we were first dating and she met my mom she had never seen anyone behave like she did about presents. So I guess what I'm asking is does anyone else have an extremely hard time with gifts?