Growing up with a parent or caregiver who exhibits traits of borderline or narcissistic personality disorder can leave deep and lasting emotional wounds. These environments often feel chaotic, unpredictable, and unsafe—leaving you constantly walking on eggshells, questioning your own reality, and learning to suppress your own needs to manage someone else’s.

These aren’t just “difficult family relationships”—they are patterns of emotional trauma that shape how you relate to others and yourself well into adulthood. You might have experienced gaslighting, emotional volatility, or conditional love, leading to chronic self-doubt, shame, or fear of abandonment.

In therapy, we name and explore these dynamics with compassion and care, so you can begin to untangle the effects and reconnect with your authentic self. Together, we explore the relational wounds you carry and help you reconnect with the sense of self that may have been buried under years of emotional turmoil.

Parents with borderline traits often struggle with emotional regulation, cycling between idealization and rejection. One moment they may be loving and attentive, and the next, angry or withdrawn. Children in these environments often grow up hypervigilant, scanning constantly for emotional cues to stay safe.

Narcissistic parents may be emotionally self-absorbed or controlling. They often lack empathy, expect their children to meet their emotional needs, and reward compliance while punishing autonomy. Over time, this can erode a child’s self-worth and create lasting confusion about who they are allowed to be.

• Feeling like your emotions are “too much” or fearing you’re a burden
• Persistent self-doubt, even in areas where you’re capable
• People-pleasing and seeking external validation
• Fear of abandonment; overextending yourself to avoid rejection
• Internalized shame and chronic feelings of unworthiness
• Disconnection from your true self and desires
• Hyper-attunement to others’ moods to avoid conflict

These are not character flaws. They are adaptive responses to a dysfunctional system. You learned to survive in an environment that made your safety and acceptance conditional.

The impact of these early dynamics often shows up in adulthood, even when the original environment is long gone. Your nervous system and core beliefs carry the imprint of those formative years, influencing your relationships, self-esteem, and emotional regulation.

These patterns may look like:

• Prioritizing others’ needs at the expense of your own
• Avoiding assertiveness for fear of retaliation or rejection
• Repeatedly choosing emotionally unavailable or critical partners
• Oscillating between emotional caretaking and emotional shutdown
• Chronic feelings of being misunderstood or invisible
• Minimizing your pain and invalidating your own experiences
• Doubting your memories or emotional responses

Healing means creating new emotional experiences and learning that it’s safe to exist as your full self. Through therapy, we make room for those discoveries.

In families where love was conditional or manipulation was normalized, it’s common to develop survival roles—the invisible child, the overachiever, the peacemaker. While these roles once protected you, they often suppress your voice, needs, and identity.

In therapy, we use a trauma-informed, attachment-based lens to explore how those roles developed, and how they show up in your life today. We may also incorporate parts work and somatic techniques to help your nervous system feel safer in connection.

Together, we work toward:

• Setting boundaries with clarity and self-respect, without overwhelming guilt
• Understanding and unlearning survival strategies that no longer serve you
• Developing a stronger connection to your own needs, feelings, and desires
• Cultivating self-compassion and breaking free from cycles of shame and self-blame
• Recognizing and choosing safe, mutual relationships
• Developing a more stable, authentic sense of self

This work takes time and care. You don’t need to have all the answers before beginning. Bring your confusion, grief, anger, or ambivalence into the space—all of it is welcome.

Perhaps one of the most important truths I can offer is this: nothing about you is broken. Every coping strategy you developed served a purpose. You learned to silence yourself, anticipate others’ needs, or blend in to survive. Those adaptations helped you back then—and now, you get to choose a new way forward.

Healing doesn’t mean erasing the past. It means acknowledging what happened, understanding how it shaped you, and gently reclaiming the parts of yourself that were buried to stay safe. You can move from survival into self-trust, clarity, and relational safety.

It takes courage to face these patterns—but the process can be deeply empowering. I will support you through it.