Struggling with Grief for Living Parents

Your experience was likely traumatic and absolutely real if you are grieving for your inner child. Distortions in self perception come from gaslighting/ being told your feelings were wrong or too much or not explaining (because i said so!), poor communication in regards to behavioral expectations causes so much confusion! They are neglectful to our self esteem and self awareness. I’m learning now at 36 how not to gaslight myself when expressing anything. Cptsd is real. Doing inner healing work is majorly beneficial. Lots of free resources out there. ❤️‍🩹

Yeah. Its mourning the parents we didn’t get to have. Its okay to cry for the reason your husband says. I do it often, and its hard to be okay with that. It feels childish and stupid. Im an adult. But as an adult I can finally start unpacking all this shit and understand that i need to stop polarizing everything. I always argue were my parents good or bad? In general or for me? But theyre not good or bad necessarily. They’re just them. And they tried somewhat, and you can appreciate whatever good things they mightve done, and be hurt by the bad things or things they didn’t do. My mom is a neglectful subtype narcissistic parent I think. But i also can’t trust myself and the self gaslighting is constant 🤪

Your feelings are valid. I think a lot of us wish we had better parents.