For anyone who has ever experienced a complex, antagonistic relationship with a relative, this one is for you...

I met my younger self for coffee today…

She sat across from me, fidgeting with the rim of her cup unsure if she would give herself permission to take up any space. In fact, she hated taking up space in other people’s presence, and I knew that. She much preferred her own, where she felt content to be in her feelings without judgement. I noticed that she carried the weight of emotional responsibility in her posture. She didn’t know the word parentification, but I knew she was living it then. She didn’t call it narcissistic family dynamics, but she felt it in the way she silenced her own needs for others.

She didn’t cry much in front of people either—she had learned early that tears made things worse. She was praised for being “so mature for her age,” which was just a polite way of saying she learned to make herself small for the comfort of others. She was always the one who understood, the one who let things go, the one who absorbed the tension in the room and shaped herself around it. The glue. But the cost of keeping the peace was her own voice. I saw that in her eyes. In the way she never looked up directly at others, or even directly at me.

I met my younger self for coffee today…

I watched her sip her coffee and wanted to tell her everything. That the exhaustion she feels isn’t her fault. That the guilt she carries was never hers to bear. That the version of love she was handed—transactional, conditional, laced with obligation—isn’t love at all. But she had spent years being told otherwise, so I knew she wouldn’t believe me quite yet.

So instead, I told her this: You are allowed to feel angry.

Not just sad. Not just disappointed. Angry. Angry at the way moments of her childhood were taken by expecting to be involved in others’ unhealed hurts. Angry that she was expected to parent those who should have been parenting her. Angry that she had conditioned her nervous system to be hyperaware of any shifts, any changes, before speaking. Angry that she believed her worth was in what she could give, repair, and fix for others what she did not even understand herself.

I told her something even harder to believe: You don’t have to keep doing this.

Because the thing about trauma—especially relational trauma—is that it doesn’t just live in the past. It weaves itself into our present, shaping the way we move through the world. In the way we view love, trust, safety, ourselves…

It whispered to her that we must earn love, that our needs are burdens, that we are selfish for wanting something different. It tells us that breaking the cycle means being ungrateful. After all, I knew she had been reminded of this when her authentic self tried to take up space, and how expressing any “negative” feeling was met with invalidation, criticism, and withdrawal of affection. Most of all, it told her that choosing herself meant betraying the ones who ironically caused the wounds she was denying were even there. She had to, in order to feel loved and to avoid feeling alone.

I met my younger self for coffee today, and I wanted to shout “but the truth is, breaking the cycle is the most radical form of love there is”. It is saying, it is brave if it ends with me.You are choosing to unlearn, to heal, to create a new version of love—one that isn’t rooted in fear or control. It is choosing to raise the next generation who won't have to recover from their childhoods. And if they do, we will listen. It is allowing ourselves to exist without the weight of expectation and with a nervous system that feels calmer.

As I left the coffee shop, I turned back to my younger self. She looked different now, by the end of our conversation—less small, less afraid. She still had questions and her wounds would take time to heal, but something in her eyes had shifted. Maybe it was hope. Maybe it was the first taste of freedom, or the guilt and self-blame slowly being challenged for the very first time.

Maybe, just maybe, this was the beginning of her believing me. And I know that one day, she does.

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Tags: Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Ontario, Therapy for Narcissistic Abuse Survivors, Psychotherapy for Narcissism Ontario, Ontario Therapists Specializing in NarcissisticAbuse, Signs of Narcissistic Personality Disorder Coping with Narcissistic Relationships, Effects of Narcissistic Abuse on Mental Health

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