Are You Hell Bent on Misunderstanding Your Parent
A Question You Won’t Find on TikTok
You’ve spent 47 hours watching videos about toxic parents. You’ve taken every online quiz about narcissistic mothers. You’ve highlighted half of “Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents.” Your therapist—who’s never met your mother—agrees she’s probably borderline. Your support group validates every grievance. Your TikTok algorithm serves you nothing but “going no contact” success stories.
But here’s what you’ve never Googled: What happened to your mother when she was seven?
You call her controlling, but do you know what happened when no one controlled who entered her childhood bedroom? You say she’s emotionally unavailable, but do you know which emotions she had to kill to survive? You’re furious she violated your privacy, but do you know what secrets destroyed her innocence?
You’ve diagnosed her with seventeen personality disorders, but you can’t name her childhood best friend. You’ve analyzed her every failure, but you don’t know what she survived. You’re hell bent on misunderstanding her—and you’re so good at it, you don’t even realize that’s what you’re doing.
This isn’t about excusing abuse. Real abuse exists. Real toxicity exists. Some parents genuinely shouldn’t be parents. But there’s something else that exists too: traumatized parents raising children in the aftermath of wounds you know nothing about, protecting you from ghosts you’ve never seen, fighting demons they’ve never named. And you’re calling their PTSD “narcissism.” You’re calling their hypervigilance “control.” You’re calling their survival mechanisms “abuse.”
What if you’re wrong?
The Mother You Call Controlling
She wouldn’t let you sleep at Kelly’s house. “Controlling.” She asked too many questions about the party. “Invasive.” She wanted to meet everyone’s parents. “Embarrassing.” She checked your phone. “Violating boundaries.” She tracked your location. “Treating you like a child.”
But here’s what you don’t know:
Kelly’s house reminds her of the house where her uncle lived. The one everyone loved. The one who volunteered at church. The one who knew exactly when her parents worked late. You complain she never trusted you to make good decisions, but she wasn’t worried about your decisions—she was worried about theirs. The strangers. The family friends. The ones who smiled at parents while calculating access to children.
Those “invasive” questions about the party? She’s not trying to control you. She’s trying to control the variable that destroyed her friend at fourteen. The one who went to a party and came back different. The one who dropped out and disappeared. Your mother asks questions because no one asked her friend. No one asked her.
Meeting everyone’s parents isn’t about embarrassing you. It’s about looking into another adult’s eyes and knowing—the way survivors know—who’s safe and who’s performing safety. She’s not reading their words; she’s reading their energy, the same way she learned to read footsteps on stairs, breathing patterns outside doors, the specific weight of danger approaching.
That phone she checks isn’t about invading your privacy. It’s about the secrets that destroyed her childhood. The ones that started small. The ones adults made children promise not to tell. The ones that got bigger and darker until silence became a prison. She checks your phone because she knows what happens in darkness, and she’d rather you hate her for looking than miss the signs she wishes someone had seen.
The location tracking that makes you feel like a prisoner. She’s not tracking you. She’s tracking her ability to get to you. Because when she was fifteen and needed someone—desperately, urgently needed someone—no one knew where she was. No one came. The GPS isn’t about control; it’s about never letting you be as alone as she was when everything fell apart.
But you don’t know any of this. Because she protected you from knowing. Because she thought if she could just keep you safe enough, you’d never need to understand why safety mattered so much to her. She thought love could be perfect enough to never require explanation.
She was wrong. But not in the way you think.
Reflection Check-In #1
What do you actually know about your parent’s childhood?
⬜ A) Almost nothing—they don’t talk about it
Silence often protects the worst wounds. What they’re not saying might matter most
⬜ B) Only the good parts, which seem fake now
People edit trauma out of family stories. The gaps tell their own truth
⬜ C) Bits and pieces that don’t form a full picture
Trauma fractures memory. The pieces they share might be all they can access
⬜ D) Some dark hints they’ve never fully explained
The stories half-told are often the ones that shaped everything
⬜ E) I know there was trauma but not specifics
Sometimes the general knowing is enough to shift your perspective
⬜ F) I’ve never asked and they’ve never offered
This mutual silence might be protecting both of you from different things
⬜ G) Other
Whatever you don’t know about their past might explain your present
The Father You Call Emotionally Unavailable
He never says, “I love you.” Never did the daddy-daughter dances. Worked through every recital, every game, every parent night. When you cried, he left the room. When you needed comfort, he offered solutions. When you wanted connection, he provided money.
“Emotionally unavailable.” “Distant.” “Checked out.” “Avoidant attachment style,” your therapist says. Your TikTok agrees: classic toxic masculinity.
But here’s what that assessment misses:
In his house, “I love you” came with fists. His father said it while beating him. Said it while apologizing. Said it while promising never again. Said it while doing it again. Those three words became a threat, a manipulation, a lie that preceded pain. So, he loves you in silence, in oil changes, in checking your tire pressure, in working overtime for your college fund. He loves you in every language except the one that terrifies him.
The daddy-daughter dances you missed. In his childhood, tenderness was currency for pain. Softness got you mocked, beaten, destroyed. His father called him a “sissy” for crying, a “fairy” for wanting hugs. He learned that real men don’t do dances, don’t show affection, don’t let their guard down ever. Not even for their daughters. Especially not in public. Every instinct tells him that keeping you at arm’s length keeps you both safe—you from disappointment, him from the vulnerability that once nearly killed him. He loves you from across the room because that’s the only distance that feels survivable.
Those tears he couldn’t handle. In his world, crying got you hit harder. Emotions were weapons others used against you. He learned to shut down feelings so completely that now, thirty years later, your tears trigger a panic he can’t name. He leaves the room not because he doesn’t care, but because he cares so much he might break, and breaking wasn’t allowed where he comes from. Men who broke didn’t survive.
The solutions he offers instead of comfort. Because in his experience, comfort was a luxury no one could afford. Problems needed fixing, not feeling. Survival required action, not emotion. He’s trying to arm you with capabilities because no one armed him with anything except fear.
That checking out you rage about. It’s called dissociation, and it kept him alive. When staying present meant feeling everything—the belt, the words, the beer breath, the impossibility of being eight and powerless—leaving his body became survival. Now you want him present, but presence was never safe. He’s not choosing to abandon you; he’s still that eight-year-old boy floating above himself, watching from a distance where it doesn’t hurt as much.
But you’ve labeled it all toxic. You’ve decided his trauma responses are choices. You’ve confused his programming with his character.
The Questions You Never Asked
You’ve spent years cataloging their failures, but you’ve never asked:
About Mom:
- Why does she freeze when someone raises their voice?
- Why are there no pictures of her before age twelve?
- Why doesn’t she drink, ever, not even wine at weddings?
- Why does she panic when you don’t text back immediately?
- Why did she change the subject when you asked about Uncle Dave?
- What happened the year she won’t talk about?
- Why does she check the locks three times before bed?
About Dad:
- Why has he never mentioned his father?
- Why does he leave every family gathering early?
- What are those scars he says are “nothing”?
- Why can’t he sleep without checking on everyone first?
- Why does he work every holiday?
- What happened in the town he’ll never visit?
- Why does he flinch when you move too fast?
About Both:
- Who were they before they were your parents?
- What did they survive that you’ll never have to?
- What are they protecting you from?
- What would they tell you if shame didn’t silence them?
- What if their “toxic” behaviors are unhealed wounds?
- What if you’re punishing them for trauma they never processed?
The answer to these questions might not excuse everything, but they’d explain more than your TikTok psychology ever will.
The Different Time They Never Discuss
“It was a different time” sounds like an excuse to you. But let me tell you what that different time looked like:
When Your Mother Was Your Age:
- Adults hit children and called it discipline
- “What happens in this house stays in this house”
- Therapy was for “crazy people”
- Mothers stayed with abusive fathers because leaving meant homelessness
- Girls were taught their bodies caused men’s behaviors
- Sexual abuse was a family secret, not a crime
- Children who told were “liars” or “asking for it”
- Protection meant silence
When Your Father Was Your Age:
- Boys who cried were “sissies” who deserved more beating
- Emotions were weakness and weakness was dangerous
- Men who couldn’t provide were worthless
- Asking for help meant you failed as a man
- Mental health was “all in your head”
- Trauma was “just life”
- Vulnerability got you destroyed
- Love was proved through sacrifice, not words
They grew up when children had no voice, no rights, no recourse. When adults could do anything and children just had to survive it. When reporting meant not being believed. When being believed meant being blamed.
And from that different time, they created you—someone who feels safe enough to call them toxic on the internet. Someone who has the luxury of analyzing their parenting instead of just surviving it. Someone who can afford to diagnose their protection as pathology.
Reflection Check-In #2
How do you typically interpret their behavior?
⬜ A) Through the lens of TikTok psychology
Algorithms flatten complexity. Real humans don’t fit in hashtags
⬜ B) Assuming the worst possible motivation
Check if you’d interpret a friend’s parent the same way
⬜ C) As intentionally harmful
Most harm comes from hurt, not hatred. Wounded people wound people
⬜ D) Without considering their context
Everyone makes sense in their own story. You just don’t know theirs
⬜ E) Through my therapist’s interpretation
Even good therapists only know what you tell them. They’ve never met your parent
⬜ F) Based on how it made me feel
Your feelings are valid, but they might not tell the whole truth
⬜ G) Other
How you interpret shapes what you see. What aren’t you seeing?
The Trauma Olympics Nobody Wins
Here’s what happens in your support groups and comment sections: You compete for who had it worse. You validate each other’s pain by invalidating your parents’ humanity. You trade stories, each one worse than the last, until someone who was actually beaten feels like they can’t compete with someone whose mother read their diary.
But here’s what that competition misses: Your parents already lost the Trauma Olympics. They lost before you were born.
Your “Narcissistic” Mother: Maybe she centers herself in every conversation because she spent eighteen years invisible. Maybe she needs constant validation because she got none when it mattered. Maybe she can’t see your needs because no one ever taught her that needs were allowed.
Your “Emotionally Immature” Father: Maybe he’s immature because he stopped developing at the age trauma happened. Maybe he’s stuck at fourteen, when everything broke. Maybe emotional growth requires emotional safety, and he never had any.
Your “Toxic” Parents: Maybe they’re not toxic—maybe they’re poisoned. By their own childhoods. By untreated wounds. By survival mechanisms that outlived their purpose. By protection strategies that became prisons.
You want them to heal, but healing requires:
- Safety they never had
- Resources they couldn’t access
- Language they were never taught
- Permission they were never given
- Support that didn’t exist
- Time they spent surviving instead
You judge them by today’s standards while they’re still operating from yesterday’s wounds.
The Protection You Call Control
Every controlling behavior has a shadow story:
“You can’t walk to school alone” Because she walked alone the day it happened.
“Tell me who will be there” Because nobody knew who was there that night.
“Be home before dark” Because darkness provided cover for what happened.
“I need to meet their parents” Because parents can be predators too.
“You’re too young for dating” Because they know what “dating” can become when you’re powerless.
“Don’t dress like that” Not because your body is shameful, but because they know how predators think.
“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” Because unanswered phones preceded every worst-case scenario.
What you call controlling; they call keeping you alive. What you call invasive, they call vigilant. What you call toxic, they call protective. They’re fighting a war you don’t know about, against enemies you’ve never met, using strategies that look insane because you’ve never seen the battlefield.
The Apologies That Don’t Come
You want them to apologize. To admit they were wrong. To validate your pain. To say the magic words that would heal everything. But here’s why those apologies don’t come:
They Can’t Apologize for Surviving How do they say sorry for doing their best with what they had? For protecting you the only way they knew. For giving you better than they got even if it wasn’t good enough?
They Can’t Apologize for What They Don’t Remember Trauma fractures memory. They might genuinely not remember the event that scarred you because they were dissociated, triggered, or in survival mode. Your core memory might be their blank space.
They Can’t Apologize Without Breaking Admitting failure might shatter the only story holding them together: that they broke the cycle, that they did better, that their sacrifice meant something. Your healing might require their destruction.
They Can’t Find Words They Were Never Given Apology requires emotional vocabulary they never learned. They’d have to translate feelings they can’t name into words that don’t exist in their language into concepts their generation didn’t have.
So, they say nothing. Or they say the wrong thing. Or they minimize because acknowledging the full weight would crush them. And you interpret their silence as indifference, their inability as unwillingness, their protection of self as abandonment of you.
Reflection Check-In #3
What would change if you considered their trauma?
⬜ A) Nothing—trauma doesn’t excuse their behavior
You’re right. But understanding might change how you hold it
⬜ B) I might feel guilty for cutting them off
Guilt isn’t always wrong. Sometimes it’s recognition
⬜ C) I’d have to give up my victim story
Or expand it to include them as victims too
⬜ D) It would complicate the simple narrative
Truth is always more complex than TikTok
⬜ E) I might have to feel empathy I don’t want to feel
Empathy for them doesn’t diminish your pain
⬜ F) Everything—it would reframe our entire relationship
Sometimes the frame is the problem, not the picture
⬜ G) Other
Change doesn’t require forgiveness, just perspective
The Reconciliation Nobody’s Filming
While you’re performing your healing journey online, something else might be happening offline. Doubt. Questions. Recognition. The creeping realization that maybe you’ve been viewing them through a lens that was never quite calibrated to reality.
Maybe you have kids now, and you’re suddenly terrified all the time. Maybe you’re the age they were, and you can’t imagine managing what they managed. Maybe you’re in therapy learning about generational trauma and realizing you’re not the first generation to be traumatized—just the first to have words for it.
Maybe you’re starting to see:
- Their anxiety as unhealed hypervigilance
- Their distance as dissociation
- Their control as protection
- Their failures as wounds
- Their inability as injury
- Their toxicity as trauma
Maybe you’re wondering if you’ve been as hell bent on misunderstanding them as they seemed to misunderstand you.
But how do you walk back a public estrangement? How do you admit you might have been harsh when you’ve built an identity on being wronged? How do you reach out when you’ve told everyone they’re toxic?
Here’s the truth: Most reconciliations happen in silence. A text on their birthday. A call during crisis. Showing up at the hospital. Small gestures that acknowledge what can’t be said: “I might have been wrong about some things.”
You don’t have to forgive everything. You don’t have to forget your pain. You don’t have to pretend it was perfect. But you might have to admit that your pain and theirs can coexist. That they can be wrong without being evil. That they can fail you without being failures.
The Questions That Could Change Everything
If you’ve read this far, something is stirring. Maybe defensiveness. Maybe recognition. Maybe both. Here are the questions to sit with:
About Them:
- What if their worst behaviors are trauma responses?
- What if they literally did their best with what they had?
- What if they protected you from more than you know?
- What if their love looks different because love meant something different to them?
- What if they’re drowning, not toxic?
About You:
- Are you interpreting or investigating?
- Are you diagnosing or discovering?
- Is your anger at them or at what happened to all of you?
- Does maintaining misunderstanding serve you somehow?
- What would you lose if you understood them?
About the Relationship:
- Can two truths exist: that they hurt you AND were hurt themselves?
- Can you hold your pain without denying theirs?
- Can healing happen without perfect apologies?
- Can you love them without liking everything about them?
- Can you see them as human without betraying yourself?
The Story Behind the Story
Every parent you call toxic has a story you’ve never heard. Not an excuse—an explanation. Not a justification—a context. Not a defense—a truth.
Your controlling mother might be a rape survivor who promised her daughter would never be that vulnerable. Your emotionally unavailable father might be a beaten child who learned that feeling meant bleeding. Your anxious parent might be someone who lost everything once and can’t survive losing you.
They’re not perfect. They might not even be good. But they might be doing their absolute best with damage you can’t see, fighting battles you don’t know about, carrying weight that would crush you.
Before you diagnose them, ask what happened to them. Before you label them, learn what shaped them. Before you cut them off, consider what they’ve already lost. Before you decide they’re hell bent on hurting you, ask yourself:
Are you hell bent on misunderstanding them?
The Final Truth
Maybe your parents really are toxic. Maybe they really are narcissistic. Maybe they really don’t deserve your presence in their life. This isn’t about excusing real abuse or maintaining harmful relationships.
But maybe—just maybe—you’re looking at wounded people through the lens of pop psychology instead of human complexity. Maybe you’re so invested in being right about their wrongness that you can’t see their humanity. Maybe you’re so committed to your victim story that you can’t acknowledge theirs.
Your parents aren’t asking you to read this. They don’t even know it exists. They’re probably right now, today, scrolling through their phones looking at your old photos, wondering where they went wrong, not knowing that their wrong started before you were born, in houses you’ve never seen with pain you’ve never heard about.
They’re probably googling “how to reconnect with estranged adult child” while you’re googling “narcissistic parent checklist.” They’re probably in therapy trying to understand while you’re in therapy explaining why they can’t. They’re probably rewriting texts they’ll never send while you’re posting about boundaries.
The truth is you might be right about them. But you might also be wrong. And if you’re wrong—if you’re even a little bit wrong—then you’re not just misunderstanding them. You’re misunderstanding yourself, your story, and the love that might still be possible.
Even if it never looks like what you needed it to be. Even if it comes from people too damaged to love you perfectly. Even if it requires you to see them as human.
The question isn’t whether they deserve your understanding. The question is whether you deserve the peace that comes from trying to understand.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do I know if my parent is truly toxic or just traumatized? True toxicity involves deliberate harm, lack of remorse, and repeated boundary violations despite clear communication. Trauma responses, while hurtful, usually involve unconscious patterns, inconsistent behavior (good days and bad days), and pain that leaks rather than targets. Ask yourself: Do they seem to enjoy hurting you, or do they seem tortured by their own behavior? Do they deny your reality, or do they genuinely see it differently? Are they unable or unwilling to change? The distinction matters. Toxic parents often weaponize their trauma; traumatized parents are often imprisoned by it. If you’re unsure, consider working with a therapist who specializes in family systems and trauma, not just individual healing.
- What if understanding their trauma makes me feel guilty for setting boundaries? Understanding and boundaries aren’t mutually exclusive. You can recognize that your mother’s controlling behavior comes from her assault while still requiring respect for your autonomy. You can understand your father’s emotional absence stems from his abuse while still needing emotional availability. Compassion doesn’t require you to absorb their pain or accept harmful behavior. Think of it this way: Understanding their trauma explains their behavior; it doesn’t excuse it. You’re allowed to say, “I see why you’re drowning, but I can’t let you pull me under.” Boundaries with understanding might actually be more sustainable than boundaries from anger.
- How do I ask about trauma they’ve never discussed? Start indirect. Instead of “Were you abused?” try “What was Grandpa like as a father?” Instead of interrogating, share: “I’ve been learning about generational trauma and wondering about our family’s history.” Create safety by going first: “I realize I never asked about your childhood. Would you feel comfortable sharing?” If they deflect, respect it but leave the door open: “If you ever want to share, I’m here to listen without judgment.” Sometimes writing works better than talking. Sometimes they need to know why you’re asking. Sometimes they’ll never tell you, but the fact that you asked—that you considered their pain—might shift something between you.
- Should I share this article with my estranged parent? Consider your motivation. Are you sharing it to bridge understanding or to vindicate them? Are you ready for their response, which might be defensive or emotional? Are you prepared for them to misinterpret it as you taking full blame? If you share it, include context: “This made me think about our relationship differently. I’m not saying you’re right about everything or I’m wrong about everything, but maybe we’re both missing pieces of each other’s story.” Sometimes it’s better to embody the article’s message than to send it—to ask the questions, consider the context, and extend understanding without requiring them to know where it came from.
- What if I discover their trauma but still can’t forgive them? Forgiveness isn’t the goal; understanding is. You don’t have to forgive someone to release yourself from the prison of misunderstanding them. You can know why they failed you and still grieve that they failed. You can hold compassion for their pain while protecting yourself from its effects. Some wounds are too deep for forgiveness, and that’s okay. But understanding might help you stop drinking poison hoping they’ll feel it. Understanding might let you see them as broken rather than evil, failed rather than malicious. Sometimes that’s the best anyone can do, and sometimes it’s enough.
End Note
Your parents might be exactly who you think they are. Or they might be people you’ve never really seen, carrying stories you’ve never heard, fighting battles you’ve never known about. The truth probably lies somewhere between your story and theirs, in the space where hurt meets hurt and everyone’s doing their best with hearts full of shrapnel. Consider that space. You might find something there besides blame.
