Who Hurt You - and Why Was It Your Parents?

It’s a question that’s half joke, half truth.

When we start unpacking anxiety, people-pleasing, perfectionism, fear of conflict, or chronic self-doubt, it often traces back to one place: childhood.

Not because your parents were villains.

But because they were human.

And childhood is where everything gets encoded.

The Child Brain Is Not an Adult Brain

Children don’t have abstract thinking. They don’t think:

“My parent is stressed because of work and that has nothing to do with me.”

They think:

“Something feels wrong. It must be because of me.”

The child brain is egocentric by design. It is wired to interpret the world through a survival lens.

If a parent withdraws, the child doesn’t think:

“My mom struggles with depression.”

They think:

“I must not be lovable.”

If a parent is explosive, the child doesn’t think:

“My dad lacks emotional regulation skills.”

They think:

“I need to be more careful. I need to be better.”

Even well-intentioned, benign actions can land as threatening or shaming to a nervous system that is still developing.

That’s how core beliefs are formed.

Negative core beliefs don’t always mean your parents intended harm. This was just your child brain trying to survive and make sense of the environment.

“They Did the Best They Could” - And They Fell Short

Both things can be true.

Your parents likely did do the best they could with the tools, trauma, and modeling they had.

And…

They also may have fallen short in ways that shaped you.

Older generations were raised with very different parenting norms:

• Emotional expression was discouraged.

• Obedience was prioritized over emotional attunement.

• Punishment styles were harsher and often normalized.

• Therapy wasn’t common.

• “Because I said so” was considered sufficient explanation.

Many parents were taught to suppress feelings, not process them.

So when you needed emotional co-regulation, you may have received:

• Minimizing

• Criticism

• Withdrawal

• Overcontrol

• “Tough love”

Not because they didn’t care, but because they didn’t know any different.

And this distinction matters.

Attachment Makes It Make Sense

Understanding attachment can be incredibly relieving.

If your parent was:

• Inconsistent → you may have developed anxious attachment.

• Dismissive → you may lean avoidant.

• Explosive or unpredictable → you may scan for danger.

• Emotionally unavailable → you may struggle to trust closeness.

This isn’t about blame. It’s about pattern recognition.

When you understand the context of their behavior, their own trauma, their own attachment wounds, something shifts.

You can hold empathy without self-abandonment.

You can say: “I understand why you are the way you are,” without saying, “It didn’t affect me.”

Therapy Is Where Nuance Lives

In therapy, we don’t villainize your parents.

We also don’t minimize your experience.

We slow down.
We separate intent from impact.
We untangle survival roles from your authentic self.
We examine the core beliefs that formed in small moments that felt huge to a child’s nervous system.

We ask:

• Is this truly my personality? Or was this the role I had to play to feel safe?

• What parts of me developed in response to my environment?

• What would it look like to live differently now?

Healing isn’t about blaming your parents.

It’s about understanding how your nervous system adapted and deciding what you want to keep.

*Please note that this information does not apply to intentionally abusive or neglectful parents.