I sound like a horrible daughter, don’t I? Maybe. Maybe not. I’m one of three daughters who don’t talk to or only very rarely talk to my mom. I won’t speak for my sisters, but I have many reasons for hoarding my words and time. As the eldest, and only 18 years younger than my mom, I filled her “best friend” role for most of my life.  As an adult, that role sometimes translated to positive experiences together, but other times, in not-so-healthy ways, like becoming drinking buddies.

When I was a kid, Mom most often called me her best friend when she sobbed in my arms. I remember one time, when I was about 12 or 13 years old, wrapping her in my arms on the kitchen floor. She cried heavy, barking sobs into my chest. As I sat on the floor in the middle of the night, helpless and confused, Mom insisted again that I was her best friend. I’d just wrestled a kitchen knife out of her hands that she’d threatened to stab herself with. (This might explain why I also long struggled in the friendship department–it took me a while to learn what true friendship looks like.)

Now, at only 61 years old, my mom has been put into assisted living. She can’t take care of herself anymore. In my opinion, she never has…taken care of herself, I mean. Despite this, I feel profound grief for her situation. All our situations, really. Because my mom is more than alcoholism, mental illness, and a disease ultimately created through the combination of those things. My mom was also one of the smartest, sharpest, and most tenacious people I’ve ever met. Many of the good things I value in myself wouldn’t have flourished if not for her. In some ways, those things grew in me because she planted and nurtured the seeds in ways she could. In other ways, I thrived just to prove I could, and because I was determined to never need anyone the way she needed me. I didn’t want to drain anyone of their vitality the way I felt stripped of mine.

I’m writing this article because it really pisses me off when people assume that children who cut off parents do so with ease and callousness. There is nothing easy about this. I love my mom. I care about her. I have compassion for her. And…I just can’t do it anymore. As I heal, the emotion that rises to the top again and again and again is grief.  I’ve mourned my mom from many angles, many times, in many ways. I’ve mourned for a childhood where I felt safe and loved without conditions. I mourned for a relationship with my mom where I didn’t have to also calculate the cost of her affection and attention.

I’ve mourned on her behalf for all the things she missed out on because she couldn’t be present in the ways we–and she—deserved. Now I mourn a future she will never have because the chains of the past have permanently bound her.

Like me, Mom grew up in someone else’s nightmare. She never escaped but instead created new scenes. Not all of them were horrific or tragic. Some of them were heroic. She got her GED a few years after dropping out of high school, pregnant with me. In her early twenties, with four kids under the age of seven, she started college. She was the first in her family to earn a college degree. She did it with honors.

In some ways, she set solid examples and, at times, I truly did feel her love in strong and powerful ways. In other moments where I offered consolation and comfort, I felt a profound sadness and the deepest well of hopelessness one can imagine emanating from her. I know my mom did not want these things for herself. Or her kids.

She always said, “I want to do better for you than was done for me.” I think she succeeded and failed because here we are, repeating the same cycle. Throughout most of my childhood, my mom didn’t talk to her mom. When we mentioned Grandma, Mom shut us down and couldn’t conceal her strong negative feelings. Eventually, they reconciled, but Mom rejected her mom throughout most of her adult life. I wish it were not this way, but I feel like the only way I can make sure that this isn’t repeated with my daughter is for me to heal. I can’t heal when I’m locked in caretaker mode. My mom doesn’t know how to see me any other way. The only way to resign from that role was to walk away completely. So, I did.

I’m afraid to watch someone I once saw such tenacity and intelligence in flounder to perform basic daily functions. I don’t want to see her that way, which is interesting because, in some ways, that intelligence and willpower allowed her to manipulate me and situations in ways that crushed me. I don’t know who she is without them in her arsenal. As much as those parts of her hurt me, I’m sad that she lost the things that gave her some sense of control in a chaotic life. I understand why she wielded them; they were self-protective. And…they tended to hurt those in her wake, me included.

My mom’s mental decline happened to coincide with the long-overdue resurrection of myself. I’ve been in therapy for over two years, and sometimes, between individual, couples, and group therapy, I attend up to five hours of therapy a week. I work hard between sessions to practice new coping strategies, assert boundaries, and engage in self-care. It’s working because I’m working so hard to heal. Sometimes it pisses me off that I have to bust my ass to come out the other end of this thing and that I can’t have the kind of relationship with my mom that I longed for.  I’m enraged that I have to work this hard to feel safe, secure, and happy.

This self-restoration has brought piping red, long-submerged anger to the surface, but there’s more than that.  I’m devastated for her. As much as I know it was out of her control–essentially two diseases, alcoholism and mental illness, paved the way to another disease, WKS–I’m so angry that it took her down. I’m furious with her for not fighting harder. I’m pissed at myself for not “saving” her. Sometimes I don’t know where to put all that anger.

I don’t want to fight my mom because it’s not a fair battle. Once again, there’s an unbalanced power dynamic. This time I’m in “power.” I could potentially use it to pulverize the final shreds of her. I don’t want to. Not even a little bit. So, I’m going to keep walking the other way. The anger, for now, keeps me safe.

Beyond the anger, though, I’m so damn sad. I don’t want to see my mom suffer. That young child in me, who soothed her so many times, wishes she could save Mom just one more time. But that little girl in me can’t. I can’t. So, my mom’s house stands vacant and for sale. I never visited. Not once. Now, she lives somewhere where strangers will do the things that I can’t. Not because I don’t want to, but because I just can’t. Not anymore. This choice doesn’t feel like a choice at all, but it’s what I must do for now. I must continue to move on.

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Guest Post Disclaimer: This guest post is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing shared here, across CPTSDfoundation.org, any CPTSD Foundation website, our associated communities, or our Social Media accounts, is intended to substitute for or supersede the professional advice and direction of your medical or mental health providers. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CPTSD Foundation. For further details, please review the following: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer

Recently, he asked me what principle I live by. He gave his own principle as an example:

“If you are behind me, I will protect you.

If you are beside me, I will respect you.

If you are in front of me, no mercy.”

Then as teenagers sometimes do, he quickly launched a ballistic missile at me: “but you’re Christian, so you will just say let God handle everything.”

We had a brief, productive conversation that included my experience that Christianity doesn’t expect us to ignore evil but to use wisdom and discernment. We acknowledge its existence. It teaches us to forgive, but it doesn’t require us to forget. And forgiveness means not pursuing vengeance on your own and allowing it to consume you. We have the justice system for that.

It was a nice mother/son moment, which has left me pondering the issue of evil, or if you are not religiously minded, criminality, abuse, harm to others, disregard for others, whatever you want to call it.

I could take this discussion towards theology, philosophy, or other disciplines.

But, I want to keep this practical.

My son is asking many questions, and some of those questions have been asked for millennia without satisfying answers. 

One thing he is wrestling with it whether he is “different” because of his father’s actions.

This has me thinking about the phrase “damaged goods,” which many victims of abuse grapple with, and I think it is partly because society overall has difficulty pointing fingers at multiple perpetrators. If a father sexually abuses his child, and the mother doesn’t take action to protect her child, she becomes an enabler, an accomplice. Who points the finger at her? Dysfunctional family systems ignore this. Society as a whole ignores this.

Why does society call the victim damaged goods? And it does happen. It has happened to me.

Calling the victim damaged goods is in many ways blaming the victim. Society prefers the narrative of the ‘flawed victim’ because it lets us keep believing that most families are safe and most parents are inherently protective. Naming the perpetrator and the enabler shatters that comforting illusion. It accepts appearances rather than substance.

Look at the linguistics surrounding these topics.

A victim of child sexual abuse is called mentally ill, defective, damaged, broken, scarred, delusional, liar.

A perpetrator of child sexual abuse is called troubled, sick, complicated, misunderstood, or worst of all…the victim of lies.

The language to describe a perpetrator almost begs you to be sympathetic towards the perp.

It took me many years to ask these questions. Just because my grandfather was a child molester and I his victim, why does that make me the damaged one?

Isn’t he the damaged human being, the one committing crimes, the one inflicting harm? If he has the capability to be cruel, why isn’t he defective? If my mother failed to protect me, why isn’t she “different” from animal mothers who have robust maternal instincts to protect against a direct attack by a predator. 

Frequently, I run across an anecdote on social media that goes like this:

“My therapist said, people who need therapy don’t come to us, their victims do.”

We need to reject the idea that we are damaged goods. We aren’t on the clearance rack because of some defect. As victims, we need to assertively embrace this concept, internalize it, and speak out about it. 

Back to my son:

His dad has not been physically abusive. He developed a rare form of dementia when our son was young, and this dementia caused psychosis. We separated when our son was 6 years old. His dad disappeared for years. Then suddenly, he reappeared a couple of years ago. He still had parental rights and wanted to visit with our son. At first, things went well. They had fun. Then little by little, I could tell the relationship was turning south.

One day, my son came home from a visit and announced he never wants to see his dad again. He didn’t want to tell his dad directly, thus putting me in the middle. Dad filed a motion in court for custody. Our son is old enough to have his voice heard in court, so he told the family court mediator, then he spoke directly to the judge. My son got what he wanted, and dad lost all of his rights.

Trying to deal with a person literally out of touch with reality can be extremely disorienting. And it can be extremely emotionally abusive. It doesn’t matter if his dad can’t control it or isn’t responsible for his illness. The effect is the same on our son.

When my son asked me if he is being cruel to his dad by going no contact, my response was, “I think you are being honest with your feelings.”

My son isn’t responsible for his father’s illness. He isn’t responsible for his father’s choices. He isn’t responsible for fixing a relationship that has become unsafe for him.

He is responsible only for being honest about what he experiences.

That may be one of the hardest lessons for victims of abuse to learn.

We are not broken; we are witnesses. We are not defective; we are people who learned survival strategies that once kept us alive and now can be updated.

Honesty is not cruelty.

Setting boundaries is not cruelty.

Speaking truth is not cruelty.

Being harmed does not make you damaged goods.

It means someone else caused harm.

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Guest Post Disclaimer: This guest post is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing shared here, across CPTSDfoundation.org, any CPTSD Foundation website, our associated communities, or our Social Media accounts, is intended to substitute for or supersede the professional advice and direction of your medical or mental health providers. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CPTSD Foundation. For further details, please review the following: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer

What are you learning to be more patient with?

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Guest Post Disclaimer: This guest post is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing shared here, across CPTSDfoundation.org, any CPTSD Foundation website, our associated communities, or our Social Media accounts, is intended to substitute for or supersede the professional advice and direction of your medical or mental health providers. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CPTSD Foundation. For further details, please review the following: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer

What helps you feel emotionally safe?

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Guest Post Disclaimer: This guest post is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing shared here, across CPTSDfoundation.org, any CPTSD Foundation website, our associated communities, or our Social Media accounts, is intended to substitute for or supersede the professional advice and direction of your medical or mental health providers. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CPTSD Foundation. For further details, please review the following: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer

Loving an emotionally healthy partner

Here is Part 1 of this series.

If the adult child finds an emotionally healthy partner, they might feel uncomfortable because this person can challenge everything they learned about love. For the adult child, love was historically mixed with criticism, guilt, disappointment, and control while unconditional love and kindness can make the adult child suspicious and distrusting.

The adult child might wonder, “what does this person really want?”; “why are they so nice to me?”; “why do they love me like this?”; “when will the criticism come?” The absence of criticism can feel unfamiliar and unfamiliar doesn’t always feel safe.

The emotionally healthy partner may express appreciation, affection, gratitude and admiration. The adult child might hear the words, but struggle to internalize them because they might think to themselves, “if they really knew me, they wouldn’t feel like this.” Years of criticism can create a deeply rooted belief that love must be earned. However, the adult child’s difficulties with emotional regulation, if not recognized and handled through interventions, risks negative effects to their romantic relationships (Riggs, Cusimano & Benson, 2011).

Researchers have found links between childhood emotional maltreatment and reported difficulties in communication, relationship satisfaction, intimacy, empathy, hostility, defensiveness, and overall relationship quality (Vaillancourt-Morel et al., 2024).

Specifically, some research has discovered that men who grew up with parents who were chronically critical or did not provide a healthy emotional environment are found to provide their partners with less support, engagement, and positive communication skills and have a greater observation of negative traits like high levels of conflict (Malek & Papp, 2015).

The risks of refusing to recognize the unhealthy patterns

If the healthy partner is trying to hold up a mirror to their emotionally injured partner, that person will have to answer to their partner’s insistence that they’ve been unfairly treated, how much they’ve sacrificed, how very little recognition they received, and how long they’ve tolerated this treatment. Sometimes these adult children get angry at the messenger showing them the truth.

If you happen to be one of these people, you are potentially sacrificing your relationship to hold on to your old coping strategies with your parents. That is very direct, I know, but it is true. While you’re feeling tremendous pressure to remain loyal to your parents and the criticism dynamic, you’re putting your partner in the position of being second and ignoring the pain they feel on your behalf, or pain they get if they are also in the line of criticism fire.

If you are the partner in this situation, understand that your partner might feel a great sense of shame beneath the defensiveness, irritation, and anger. They grew up in a family where emotions were not processed in a healthy way, so they didn’t learn how to handle anger, grief, disappointment, and shame in healthy ways. Instead of saying to you, “I’m angry with my parents,” they say, “why are you making such a big deal out of this?” Understand that your partner’s frustration might be understandable, but that doesn’t make it something you must inherently accept.

Because of the environment in which the adult child grew up, healthy partners may see the unhealthy relationship patterns when they participate in family events. That healthy partner will notice how the adult child is treated by seeing and likely mentioning the criticism, double standards, manipulation, and lack of appreciation. A healthy partner will want the adult child to be treated differently.

The adult child, when confronted with this information, will feel conflicted because part of them will agree with what the partner sees, but part of them feels strongly compelled to protect their parents. This can create tension because the partner sees and hears harm while the adult child feels the need to remain loyal to their family and defensive of those unhealthy family dynamics.

Healthy and unhealthy conflict

The healthy partner might model healthy arguments and quick attempts to repair after a fight. In unhealthy households, disagreements don’t get discussed. Feelings run high and hot, but efforts to repair are not done. The adult child does not learn how to disagree in a healthy way. The adult child has not had modeling of emotional maturity, so they might struggle with the skills needed for healthy discussions, especially around disagreements or hurt feelings.

What also tends to happen in this dynamic is the overly criticized, unappreciated adult child takes their frustrations out on their partner. The partner might think, “your parents are the ones criticizing you all the time, but why do you seem angry with me?” From the adult child’s perspective, a lot is happening under the surface. The real reason is often this: his parents feel unsafe to confront.

For someone who grew up with chronic criticism, challenging the parent might feel emotionally dangerous, even in adulthood. Their nervous system learned not to argue, not to upset them, not to challenge them, and keep the peace. Unfortunately, those hurt feelings will often get redirected towards their partners. This is not because the partner deserves it, but because they’re the person least likely to abandon them (Finzi-Dottan & Abadi, 2024).

Healthy partners understand that conflict is just a part of being in a relationship. Relationships require work and sometimes compromise. Adult children of unhealthy family dynamics may not have the skills they need to participate in healthy conflict resolution and tend to be afraid of rejection and fear they won’t ever get true acceptance (Finzi-Dottan & Abadi, 2024). This is not a put-down for these people. It’s reality. Growing up in emotionally immature environments and then having potential relationships with emotionally immature people does not equip these people with the skills needed for healthy discussions and arguments.

In healthy relationships, disagreements can happen without the relationship being threatened. Many people who grew up in the unhealthy dynamics tend to result in insecure attachments to romantic partners (Riggs & Kaminski, 2010). A healthy partner should be able to have constructive conversations that might be difficult, without fearing the other person will shut down and threaten them to leave. Someone raised by highly critical parents may unconsciously expect rejection, withdrawal, punishment or humiliation and because of that, a simple disagreement can trigger intense anxiety because their nervous system learned long ago that conflict equals danger.

A thinking myth might be at play here and that is the healthy partner believes that the person they’re dealing with is their present-day partner. However, if this partner is in the family environment that is filled with emotional dysregulation and criticism, or in moments of high stress, they may actually be encountering old survival strategies that were formed decades before. The partner that becomes defensive, shuts down, redirects anger, blames the healthy partner, or chases parental approval is not consciously choosing the childhood patters, but reverting to those strategies that once helped them survive.

Understanding this does not excuse the behavior and, if the adult child wants to improve their relationships, they need to first recognize what they’re doing, forgive themselves for that, and learn how to behave and respond differently to preserve or create a healthy partnership.

You do not have to keep engaging in these disrespectful interactions

If you are the criticized adult partner, it is your responsibility to recognize it and stop it, and if you cannot stop it, then you learn how to function in that dynamic by learning new ways of responding to parental criticism without internalizing it and processing difficult emotions. The technical word for this is learning emotional regulation and if you grew up in the chronic criticism, then you grew up in an emotionally dysregulated environment (Riggs, 2010).

Learning HOW to regulate emotions might require reading about it and seeking therapy. I know, I know… so many people say therapy is the answer, but this is something serious and severe that needs someone outside of you to help navigate and learn coping skills. Therapy does not mean you are broken. It does not mean you are weak. It does not mean your relationship with your partner is breaking apart. It means you’re taking ownership of your situation and trying to improve it for you, your partner, your current or future children, and, what’s even better, every single generation after them. Your partner will be very grateful and likely even help you in that process with a generous and loving heart.

References

Finzi-Dottan, R., & Abadi, H. (2024). From Emotional Abuse to a Fear of Intimacy: A Preliminary Study of the Mediating Role of Attachment Styles and Rejection Sensitivity. International journal of environmental research and public health, 21(12), 1679. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph21121679

Maleck S., Papp L. M. (2015). Childhood risky family environments and romantic relationship functioning among young adult dating couples. Journal of Family Issues, 36(5), 567–588. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513×13491749

Riggs, S. A. (2010). Childhood Emotional Abuse and the Attachment System Across the Life Cycle: What Theory and Research Tell Us. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 19(1), 5–51. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926770903475968

Riggs, S. A., Cusimano, A. M., & Benson, K. M. (2011). Childhood emotional abuse and attachment processes in the dyadic adjustment of dating couples. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 58(1), 126–138. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021319

Riggs, S. A., & Kaminski, P. (2010). Childhood Emotional Abuse, Adult Attachment, and Depression as Predictors of Relational Adjustment and Psychological Aggression. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 19(1), 75–104. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926770903475976

Vaillancourt-Morel, M.-P., Godbout, N., Bigras, N., Sabourin, S., & Bergeron, S. (2024). Partner effects of childhood maltreatment: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 25(2), 1323–1343. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380231173427

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Guest Post Disclaimer: This guest post is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing shared here, across CPTSDfoundation.org, any CPTSD Foundation website, our associated communities, or our Social Media accounts, is intended to substitute for or supersede the professional advice and direction of your medical or mental health providers. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CPTSD Foundation. For further details, please review the following: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer

On the day my father passed away, my mother, Gretchen, began digging a grave. Not literally, but metaphorically. For 27 years, she tried to symbolically murder me, a public filicide in her systematic, intentional effort to bury the truth.

I’ve pondered my choice of words carefully. Murder, filicide. These are intense characterizations. I’m sticking with them. By the end of this article, I believe you will understand why.

Gretchen’s father, my maternal grandfather, was a child molester who preyed on little girls in the family. When my mother’s sister made accusations against him, the family symbolically buried her using isolation, smear campaigns, and cutting her off from the family. I was in my teens at the time and already a victim.

The First Shovelfuls of Dirt

Gretchen possessed a knack for altering the truth. When my father was alive, he acted as a restraint for her fantastical tales. In his absence, she became reckless and extravagant in her lies, which were increasingly detached from reality. 

She told her tales with utter consistency and persistence. Her narratives became less like ordinary lies and more like an alternate reality system that demanded participation from those around her. She immediately spoke over anyone who tried to present an alternate view.

She dug the grave slowly. One accusation at a time. One smear at a time. One triangulated conversation at a time. Every lie required another shovel of dirt.

For decades I remained silent. Many survivors do. Silence required no fight, just acceptance of isolation.

To speak against the narrative machine required waging war, going into battle, and grappling with those lies. It required sparring with extended family systems and social circles. I never held hope that eventually reasonable people would believe me. I already had the example of what my family did to my aunt.

I did try to address the issue of her father with her for decades, although I did this obliquely, timidly.

Each time I tried to do this, her reasons for destroying my credibility increased. Her need to write me off and cut me out of the family, her need for a symbolic death increased.

When a Birth Announcement Becomes a “Spiteful Letter”

One of the moments that finally shattered my silence involved the birth of my son.

I had gone “no contact” with Gretchen many years prior to my marriage. I told my husband he would never know her because she and I had such a poor relationship. 

During that time, I discovered that Gretchen was “lurking” on my blogs. Our original wedding plans involved going to Nepal for the nuptials. However, we changed to a small ceremony in San Diego.

I became pregnant, yet I announced the change in wedding plans and the pregnancy by email only to trusted family members. Gretchen repeated our initial plans to everyone as if she still had a good relationship with me. So she knew nothing of the changes.

Finally, a family member informed my mother that she had another grandchild on the way. I suspect that was quite humiliating for her to have her scheming so exposed. Still, I sent her his birth announcement.

In May 2010, shortly after my son was born, my mother sent an email claiming she had visited a psychotherapist because she was distressed by a “spiteful letter” from me. She claimed outright that the therapist had diagnosed me with Borderline Personality Disorder, which would be highly unethical for a therapist to do. In other words, it was a lie. She also stated the therapist advised her to “protect herself” from me.

That email got forwarded around and eventually landed in my inbox.

The only thing I sent to her was my son’s birth announcement.

That was it.

A photograph and announcement welcoming her grandson into the world became transformed into evidence of pathology and aggression.

At the time, I struggled to fully comprehend the psychological machinery at work. Her narrative painted me as a woman who was unstable, dangerous, and disordered—the daughter who deserved burial rather than relationship.

 And it served as an answer when people asked her, “why weren’t you invited to the wedding, and why don’t you know your grandson?” 

The Grave Deepens

As the years passed, the consequences of her lies became increasingly destructive.

My husband became quite ill and eventually developed severe psychotic symptoms, including paranoia and delusions. During this period, my mother sided not with observable reality, medical intervention, or stability, but with the narrative she had spent decades constructing about me.

She reassured a mentally deteriorating man that nothing was wrong with him. She repeated her lies about BPD and an “official diagnosis.”

She reinforced his paranoia while he spread her increasingly bizarre accusations about me to therapists, churches, schools, and family court systems. Even after psychiatric professionals documented psychosis, she continued to spread her lies that I was the problem.

Worst of all, she put her own grandson’s safety at risk by telling my ill husband that I was planning “to kidnap” our son and move away. After that, my son came home from visits with his father saying:  “Mom, if dad takes me somewhere and never brings me back, as long as I’m having fun, it’s not kidnapping. Dad said so.”

Out of anger, I texted her in 2015 telling her of my decision to go public regarding the sexual abuse. As a result, she doubled down on the efforts to metaphorically destroy me.

At one point, she even reinvented herself as the ‘Director of a Psychiatric Hospital” for a dual purpose. She claimed that my husband was not psychotic, and she had worked around people in psychotic episodes long enough to spot it. And, she used this tale to reinforce her claim that I was mentally ill.

In reality, she had once been an inpatient at a psychiatric ward while I was in high school. She was never an employee…not even a janitor.

These were all frantic efforts to destroy my credibility. If I spoke the truth, then it was no longer Gretchen’s word against her sister’s. It became 2 against 1.

But abusive family systems organize not to promote truth, but in order to prevent psychological annihilation.

Witnesses to the Burial

Those who smear the truth teller in a family need the smears to flood out from private family discussions into the public realm. The person driven by secrecy recruits unwitting allies. Some become active participants. Others remain in painful gray areas—recognizing pieces of the truth while still trying to preserve family equilibrium.

And occasionally, an outsider sees the entire dynamic with startling clarity.

A dear friend of mine, Lola, once sent my mother a lengthy email after the birth of my son. Lola had known me for years. We had played competitive tennis together, traveled together, and laughed together. She had watched my life directly rather than through distorted family narratives.

Her email was warm, hopeful, relational. She praised my parenting, spoke lovingly about my son, and gently encouraged reconciliation between mother and daughter. She wrote something that has remained with me ever since: no matter how old her own adult children became, she believed it remained her responsibility as a parent to preserve connection at all cost.

My mother never responded to Lola. That hurt Lola immensely.

Looking back, the silence itself became symbolic. Lola represented something dangerous to the grave my mother was digging: an emotionally healthy witness. Someone standing outside the family system who could still recognize humanity where the burial narrative required condemnation.

If I was loved, stable, capable, and surrounded by authentic relationships, then the grave no longer made sense.

The Psychology of Burial

I no longer believe my mother’s lies were primarily about hatred.

They were about intense fear, shame, and guilt.

After decades of pondering my conversations with Grethcen I believe, my mother was victimized herself as a child. The fragments she revealed over the decades gave me enough information to understand that much. 

Acknowledging the truth would have required accepting shame and guilt. And it would have required an almost complete suspension of reality for those around her, like her husband. My parents were married in 1956. Her father was a pastor. Pastors didn’t do things like molestation. My mother would have been labeled mentally ill as her sister was, and she would have been considered “damaged goods.”

That is an unbearable confrontation for many trauma survivors trapped inside abusive family defenses.

In this way, this abuse functions like psychological entombment. The victim who chooses secrecy clings to distorted narratives because the collapse of those distortions feels synonymous with psychic extinction. 

The Final Exile

By the end of her life, my mother had largely isolated herself inside the reality she had constructed. She surrounded herself primarily with those willing to participate in it.

In her final instructions, she requested that I not be informed of her death or invited to her funeral. The same exclusion extended to relatives who had supported me publicly after I spoke about the abuse within our family.

Even after her death, her attempts to bury me and the truth continued. But now I know that the grave she dug was never mine.

It was hers.

Every lie deepened her isolation. Every distortion narrowed the possibility of authentic connection. Every attempt to bury truth required further separation from reality, from family, and ultimately from herself.

In trying to symbolically execute her daughter, she slowly interred her own life.

Climbing Out of the Grave

For survivors of abusive family systems, one of the hardest truths to accept is this: you may never receive acknowledgment from the people most invested in denying reality.

The apology will never come.

The reconciliation will never come.

The family may continue protecting the myth long after the damage is visible to everyone standing outside it. And they will likely try to send that false narrative down to future generations to preserve legacy.

At some point, survivors face a choice. We can continue organizing our identity around distorted narratives imposed upon us, or we can begin the painful work of climbing out of a grave not dug for us.

And perhaps that is the final tragedy surrounding abusive systems built on secrecy and lies: the person most committed to burying others rarely gains insight into their own self-imposed, metaphorical burial.

My mother’s funeral was held on June 27, 2025. Three days later on June 30, her sister, the one who had first made public accusations about her father and CSA, passed away.

I am the only living survivor holding the truth.

I will continue to hold and tell that truth until the day I die.

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Guest Post Disclaimer: This guest post is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing shared here, across CPTSDfoundation.org, any CPTSD Foundation website, our associated communities, or our Social Media accounts, is intended to substitute for or supersede the professional advice and direction of your medical or mental health providers. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CPTSD Foundation. For further details, please review the following: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer

But my favorite attraction was the house of mirrors.

Once inside, I was immersed in distorted angles and false illusions. Some reflections multiplied me into infinity, while others reflected back a fractured face. We all laughed inside the maze because the distortion -the mirage- provided entertainment.

The temporary illusions ended once I stepped out through the exit door and into daylight. Proportions returned to normalcy. 

When Distortion Becomes Structure

Families shaped by abuse often function differently, much like the house of mirrors. Non-abusive families frequently have difficulty understanding this dysfunction.

Abusive families build their reality around survival, denial, and secrecy. We could surmise that the distorted reflections do not remain inside the house of mirrors. Yet many times, those clinging to the lies refuse to leave the fun house and step through the exit door into the sunlight.

The fun house becomes the architecture of daily life. Roles form around that structure. The narcissist, the scapegoat, the golden child, the enabler, the invisible child, the flying monkeys, the hero, the grey zone, or the truth-teller. Over time, some family members recognize the distortion and leave. Others never gain any insight into the maze of lies.

The system depends on the mirrors remaining intact.

That is why naming abuse inside a family system rarely breaks only one relationship. The revelation acts more like a structural demolition. The entire building trembles prior to collapse. People who seemed grounded suddenly cling to distortions that once comforted them. Some retreat deeper into the maze. Some desperately try to reposition the mirrors so the old reflections still work. Others stand frozen, unable to reconcile the person they loved with the reality now standing in front of them. Those who remain stand amidst the shards of shattered glass.

Some will walk out into daylight, even though it costs them nearly everything.

Disrupting the Family Illusion

When I spoke publicly about my maternal grandfather being a child molester and that I had been a victim, I did not fully understand that I was doing more than telling the truth. I disrupted an entire system of orientation, or I would argue, disorientation. Family members who had spent decades accepting distorted images suddenly had to make choices-the comfort of the familiar maze or the disorienting clarity of sunlight.

Some relatives supported me immediately and without hesitation. Others hovered in painful gray areas: We believe you, but we also want to support the family. At first, I struggled to understand how both statements could coexist. Now I think trauma often teaches people to confuse harmony with safety. The preservation of the structure can begin to feel more urgent than the protection of the people inside it.

Some people viciously attacked me. And they still do. Mostly, these are family members who married into the family after the first accusations had long been smothered.

My mother could never fully leave the house of mirrors..

She and I had many conversations over many decades surrounding her father. While she went to her grave denying he committed child sexual abuse, those conversations gave me enough information to decide that she had also been a victim. However, she had learned that survival depended on silence, minimization, and denial. Survival depended on viciously attacking any truth teller, which is what she did to her sister and me. 

Those distortions became so woven into her understanding of reality that removing them may have felt like psychological annihilation. To acknowledge the truth would have required her to confront not only what had been done to her, but also her failure to protect her daughter despite knowing what her father was capable of doing.

That is the unbearable weight hidden inside many family systems shaped by abuse: pain welds itself to grief, which welds itself to guilt and identity. The resulting amalgamation presents as a unified whole. 

By the end of her life, my mother had surrounded herself primarily with the few people who could still remain inside her version of reality. In her final instructions, she requested that I not be informed of her death or invited to her funeral. The same exclusion extended to relatives who had supported me when I spoke publicly about the abuse. Even in death, the family remained divided along the fault lines opened by truth.

Stepping into the Light

For a long time, I experienced that division as proof of destruction. Now I understand it differently.

The truth did not shatter a healthy structure. The structure was already fractured beneath the surface. The mirrors merely concealed it.

And perhaps that is the cruelest part about systems built around secrecy: when the mirrors finally break, people often blame the person who spoke truth rather than the violence that made the distortions necessary in the first place.

Still, I no longer believe healing happens inside the maze.

Healing begins the moment we stop using distorted reflections to tell us who we are.

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Guest Post Disclaimer: This guest post is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing shared here, across CPTSDfoundation.org, any CPTSD Foundation website, our associated communities, or our Social Media accounts, is intended to substitute for or supersede the professional advice and direction of your medical or mental health providers. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CPTSD Foundation. For further details, please review the following: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer

Photo Credit: Unsplash

Many survivors of emotional neglect, or subtle abuse, carry a wound that rarely gets named: self-abandonment. Not because they weren’t loved, but because love was conditionally offered. Attention, validation, and affection came with an unspoken rule: put your needs last, abandon what you want, and you might get what you need.

This led to adaptation. And understanding it is the first step to reclaiming yourself.

The Lesson You Never Signed Up For

As a child, you learned quickly. The message didn’t need to be explicit. It lived in the eye-roll and head snap when you expressed a need. And in the blank stares and silence when you shared a feeling. Also in the words “You ungrateful 他妈的 ! I brought you into this world, the least you could do is…”

What you absorbed was this: your needs are inconvenient. Your emotions are a burden. You’re simply “too much” and wanting things is selfish.

So you learned to anticipate what others needed before they asked, and that safety meant you had to shrink.

This is what therapists call the fawn response: the trauma-driven strategy of people-pleasing, accommodating, and forfeiting yourself to maintain connection. It’s the flip side of fight-or-flight, and for survivors of emotional neglect, it’s often the default.

When Childhood Becomes Adulthood

The problem is, those adaptations worked. Well… sort of.

They kept you safe(ish) when you were dependent on people who made you feel like your needs were too much to ask. But now you’re grown, and those same patterns are quietly wrecking your relationships with yourself.

You might notice it in these ways:

• You over-explain yourself, hoping someone will finally understand.
• You say “yes” when you feel like saying “no,” then feel resentful or depleted.
• You apologize for things that don’t require an apology.
• You people-please, then wonder why you feel invisible in return.
• You confuse boundaries with abandonment, fearing that saying no means no one will love you.

The cruel irony? The very strategies that helped you survive childhood are now the thing keeping you from thriving as an adult.

Building Boundaries from the Inside Out

External boundaries like saying no, speaking up, or leaving a conversation are useless if your internal voice is screaming that “you don’t deserve to…”  Real boundary-setting starts as an inside job.

Here are some practical steps to begin that work:

1. Name the pattern without shaming yourself

Awareness is everything. When you notice yourself over-explaining, people-pleasing, or shrinking, pause and name it. “I’m fawning right now.” “I’m abandoning myself because I feel like I have to in order to keep this relationship.” Naming it breaks the automatic pilot and puts you back in the driver’s seat.

2. Give yourself permission

Permission is the antidote to shame. You don’t need anyone’s approval to want things. You don’t need to justify your needs. Write it down if you have to: I am allowed to want things. I am allowed to say “no.” My needs are not inconvenient. They are mine.

3. Start with small no’s

You don’t have to rebuild your entire boundaries overnight. Practice saying no to something low-stakes. Order what you actually want to eat. Tell a friend you can’t meet this time. Each small no rebuilds the muscle of trusting yourself.

4. Notice the body, not just the mind

Self-abandonment lives in the body. A tight chest. A throat that closes. A pit in your stomach. A knot in your solar plexus. When you learn to read those signals, when you can say “this is my body telling me I’m abandoning myself,” you gain a powerful early warning system.

5. Rewire the inner critic

The voice that says “your needs are too much” was programmed by someone who couldn’t meet your needs. That voice is not truth. It’s an echo. When it speaks, counter it with something grounded: I survived by adapting but I’m older now, and I will HONOR my needs and chose people who will, too.

You Were Not the Problem

If there’s one thing to take from this, let it be this: there’s nothing wrong with you.  There was something toxic done to you.

Your needs weren’t too much and your feelings were not inconvenient. The void you felt wasn’t a flaw in you; It was a gap left by people who couldn’t show up. The self-abandonment you learned as a child was a survival strategy. Returning to yourself as an adult is reclamation.

You don’t have to do this alone.  Find your people.  Be picky.  Make sure they deserve your presence.  You are a gift!

A Free Resource for Your Healing Journey

If this piece resonated with you and you want additional support in navigating childhood emotional neglect, self-abandonment, and people-pleasing, I’ve created a free eBook for you.

Why You Keep Explaining Yourself to People Who Don’t Hear You offers practical tools and reflective prompts to help you recognize the patterns, rebuild your relationship with yourself, and start setting boundaries that protect your peace… without shame.

You deserve to take up space. You always did.

 Photo Credit: Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: This guest post is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing shared here, across CPTSDfoundation.org, any CPTSD Foundation website, our associated communities, or our Social Media accounts, is intended to substitute for or supersede the professional advice and direction of your medical or mental health providers. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CPTSD Foundation. For further details, please review the following: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer