An extremely difficult emotional reality many people face in therapy is this:
The people who were supposed to be there for me – who “should” be on my side – simply aren’t.
For some, this includes parents or siblings. For others, it is extended family, or even people within their community of belonging or cultural group. It is a heartbreaking realization that some relationships – despite years of trying – will not offer the emotional safety, support, or understanding you need.
Not only is this frustrating, it can also re-open deep psychological pain – especially when those patterns echo earlier life experiences where your needs were not met, your voice was not heard, or your vulnerability was ignored or punished.
So how do we begin to live with this truth – without becoming bitter, hopeless, or disconnected from ourselves?
Understanding the Wound: Why It Hurts So Deeply
From the lens of attachment theory, we all enter the world biologically wired to seek closeness, comfort, and protection from our caregivers. Our brains and nervous systems organize around these early relationships. When caregivers are inconsistent, neglectful, shaming, or rejecting, we adapt – often in ways that allow us to survive, but not thrive.
Many patients grow up to be high-functioning, generous, competent adults – yet still carry internal blueprints shaped by those early attachment dynamics. These blueprints often lead to:
- Collapsing into shame when misunderstood or criticized.
- Feeling overly responsible for other people’s reactions or emotions.
- Staying in harmful or unsatisfying relationships out of obligation or hope for repair.
- Struggling to set boundaries for fear of abandonment.
When a parent, sibling, or important figure today continues to withhold support or act in oppositional or self-serving ways, it does not just hurt in the present, it reactivates the emotional memory of being small and alone in the past.
The Internalized Family
Even when we create distance from unsupportive family members, the emotional entanglement often remains – not because we are weak or regressive, but because parts of us are still negotiating with internalized versions of those relationships. You might hear a critical voice in your head echoing a parent or feel the pull to prove yourself to someone long gone. This is not pathology, it is the residue of relational survival strategies. Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy can support us better relating to these parts with compassion, offering them new roles in our emotional world rather than being driven by their outdated scripts.
Parts of You That Still Hope (and Hurt)
From an IFS perspective, this pain is not coming from a single part of you. You likely have multiple internal parts responding to the experience, each with their own story, emotion, and strategy. For example:
- A caretaking part might feel guilty or conflicted about stepping back: “I should try harder – they’re still my family.”
- A protective part might want to shut it all down: “Forget them. I’m done.”
- A younger part might still be trying to earn approval: “Maybe if I explain myself better, they’ll get it this time.”
None of these parts are wrong. In fact, they have each helped you survive and stay connected, even when your needs were sidelined. But now, as an adult, the invitation is to develop a more Self-led relationship with these parts – where your wiser, compassionate internal “Self” can witness, soothe, and support them.
Healing begins not when the people who hurt you change but when you stop outsourcing your safety to them – and start caring for the parts of you that still wait for something they may never give.
Letting Go Without Letting Go of Yourself
This does not mean cutting people out of your life entirely (unless you need to for safety or healing). Nor does it mean giving up on the values of empathy, kindness, or repair.
What it means is moving from expectation to acceptance – without betraying your emotional truth.
In relationship therapy, we talk about “earned secure attachment.” Even if you did not receive consistent emotional attunement early in life, it is possible to develop secure patterns now – by building relationships (including with yourself) that are rooted in boundaries, clarity, and mutual care.
You do not need your family to validate you in order to claim your worth.
You do not need everyone to agree with your decisions in order to trust your inner compass.
When You are Abandoned but Still Expected to Prioritize the Abandoner
One of the greatest disorienting and painful relational dynamics is this:
Being left, dismissed, or devalued by someone then being expected to continue prioritizing their needs, perspectives, or emotional comfort.
This creates a double bind. On one hand, you are grieving the rupture or rejection. On the other, you are being asked – explicitly or implicitly – to remain emotionally available, deferential, or “gracious,” even toward those whose actions have caused you harm. This reversal is especially confusing for those who, as children, were conditioned to attend to others’ emotional needs while suppressing their own.
In adult life, these dynamics sometimes persist in environments where you are expected to maintain a posture of civility or emotional neutrality, even when the context feels personally wounding. You may be called to demonstrate empathy or flexibility toward individuals who are consistently met with institutional protection, support, or validation, while your own emotional reality must remain unspoken or secondary.
In these situations, stepping back from the inherited survival strategy can feel risky. Not because you do not know your truth, but because the structure around you may be organized in such a way that performing that old role still appears more professional, cooperative, or “appropriate.” The emotional labour of staying calm, regulated, and relational in the face of relational harm becomes invisible, even expected.
Healing begins with recognizing the weight of this task, not as a personal failure, but as a deeply patterned response to environments that reward your self-suppression. Many relational and institutional systems – whether family, workplace, or professional regulation – mistake silence for compliance, and emotional self-containment for maturity. But what appears as “grace under pressure” often conceals a profound internal cost.
You can honour your integrity without abandoning your emotional truth. And you can choose to be both ethical and internally boundaried – especially in contexts where stepping back, staying quiet, or protecting your emotional space might be misinterpreted as being cold, dismissive, or uncooperative. These misinterpretations can feel dangerous, especially when your role requires consistent professionalism. But even in those moments, it is essential to remember: You are not obligated to contort yourself emotionally in order to be perceived as “good.”
Disengagement, in this light, can be an act of preservation, not rejection. And while self-erasure may once have felt like the safest path, it is not a sustainable foundation for relational or professional integrity. Healing means reclaiming your right to show up with both boundaries and compassion, even when others cannot (or will not) see the full emotional landscape you are navigating.
Fawning as an Attachment Strategy
Some people-pleasing behaviors are actually adaptive survival responses – what trauma therapists call “fawning.” When the nervous system perceives disapproval or emotional withdrawal as a threat, it may push us to appease, accommodate, or prioritize others’ needs at our own expense. This is not weakness – it is attachment intelligence. But in adulthood, it can become a cycle of self-erasure that mimics love but does not nourish it.
This reversal – where someone distances themselves, minimizes your needs, or fails to offer support, and then still expects emotional generosity from you – can be disorienting. It quietly demands that you remain grounded, gracious, and understanding, even when the emotional cost is profound. Many people with early attachment wounds internalize the belief that maintaining peace, connection, or reputation depends on their ability to stay regulated and relational, even in the absence of relational safety. It can feel like an impossible bind: “I must stay respectful and available, even when I’ve been hurt.”
This kind of dynamic may also stir a particular grief – one rooted not just in what happened, but in what should have happened. And often, that grief is complicated by the sense that expressing it fully would be perceived as overreacting, blaming, or being unprofessional. But the grief is valid. So is the frustration. And so is the work of staying connected to your integrity without abandoning your emotional truth.
Professional Struggles as Family Echoes
If you are someone who has experienced family invalidation or betrayal, you may find yourself especially sensitive to workplace dynamics, hierarchies, or systemic feedback. That is not unprofessional, it is human. Systems often echo family: They provide care, impose structure, and sometimes misunderstand us. When those echoes activate old wounds, it does not mean you are failing, it means those parts of you are asking for attention, support, and integration.
Facing the Truth Without Losing Yourself
So how do we begin to live with the reality that some people – sometimes even our own parents or siblings – are not capable of being on our side?
One approach that can help is something I call “two-track reality.” It means holding two truths at the same time:
- Truth #1: Some people are not safe, supportive, or able to offer the care you need – and they may never be.
- Truth #2: That fact does not mean you are broken, unlovable, or to blame.
The goal is not to “get over it” or pretend it does not hurt. It is to stop expecting emotional nourishment from people who’ve shown you – repeatedly – that they cannot offer it. And to let yourself grieve that reality without turning the pain against yourself.
A Daily Practice of Reconciliation
Many patients ask: “But how do I stop from wishing they’d be different?”
The answer is not to force that wish away – it is to grieve it, gently and honestly.
Reconciliation in this sense is not about making peace with harmful people. It is about making peace with reality, while staying deeply connected to your emotional needs and values.
And longing is not the same as regression. Longing is the heart’s way of mourning what we never had, while still wishing we could have it. You are not weak for feeling it. You are alive. The task is not to erase longing, it is to let it inform your needs moving forward, without letting it dictate who gets access to you.
That may look like:
- Journaling from the perspective of your younger self and responding with compassion from your adult Self.
- Seeking out “chosen family” or emotionally safe people who support your healing.
- Setting boundaries not to punish others, but to protect your energy and clarity.
What To Say to Yourself Instead
When you catch yourself feeling guilty for pulling away from unsupportive people, try replacing guilt with grounded truth. Here are a few affirmations:
- “Boundaries are not rejection – they are how I stay whole.”
- “I can love someone and still protect myself from them.”
- “It is not disloyal to take care of myself.”
A Mantra for Healing the Journey
“I release the hope that those who misunderstood or harmed me will validate me.
I stand in the truth of who I am, and I protect that truth with compassion, clarity, and care.”
You are not too sensitive.
You are not asking for too much.
You are learning what it feels like to no longer abandon yourself in the presence of people who cannot meet you.
And that – quietly, steadily – is how healing begins.
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