Our Whole Childhood with Patrick Teahan

In this episode, Patrick Teahan, MSW, explores nine rarely named but deeply damaging family dynamics that quietly shape childhood trauma and follow people into adulthood.
Rather than focusing on symptoms alone, Patrick breaks down the dysfunctional family systems behind them—the unspoken rules, emotional roles, and survival patterns that distort self-worth, boundaries, and relationships.
As a follow-up to 11 Oddly Specific Childhood Trauma Issues, this episode examines how growing up in emotionally immature or unsafe families affects perception, identity, and connection. From households where feelings are ignored but secretly run everything, to families that bond through complaining instead of change, Patrick explains how these patterns condition children to self-betray, overfunction, or disappear.
Listeners will learn:
What happens when children grow up without mutually satisfying parental relationships
How scapegoating, gaslighting, and chronic blame damage self-trust
Why some families resist growth and punish success
The emotional cost of always being “the responsible one”
How gender roles and hierarchy reinforce dysfunction
Why survivors are often told to “be the better person” with abusive relatives
Patrick also discusses recovery tools, including inner child work, repairing distorted perception, boundary development, and learning to step out of dysfunctional family roles.
If you grew up feeling unseen, unsafe, or emotionally responsible for others, this episode offers language, validation, and a clearer path toward healing.
Keywords: childhood trauma, toxic family systems, emotionally immature parents, CPTSD, family dysfunction, emotional neglect, scapegoating, parentification, trauma recovery, boundaries, inner child healing
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This episode explores how childhood trauma and emotionally unsafe parenting can cause us to lose touch with our original personality, the self we were born with before survival, compliance, and shame took over.
Through personal stories and clinical insight, Patrick explains how emotionally immature or abusive parents distort a child’s sense of self by mislabeling innate traits as problems. Poor emotional mirroring, lack of goodness of fit, and pressure to comply can force a child’s spark underground, leading trauma responses to be mistaken for personality well into adulthood.
Learn how many survivors grow up feeling disconnected from who they really are, surprised by positive feedback, or unsure whether their behaviors reflect their true self or trauma adaptations, and how to begin reclaiming what was lost.
Topics include:
How childhood trauma suppresses innate personality
The impact of emotional abuse, misattunement, and forced compliance
Why trauma responses often replace a true sense of self
The five core childhood personality types and how they’re shaped by family dynamics
How to begin reconnecting with your authentic identity through trauma healing
If you grew up feeling like the difficult child, the odd duck, or the misunderstood one, this episode offers clarity, validation, and a path back to yourself.
Keywords: childhood trauma, lost sense of self, emotionally immature parents, trauma recovery, inner child healing, emotional abuse, identity development, CPTSD, family of origin trauma
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This episode tells the story of Thomas, a survivor who went no contact with his abusive father after a public meltdown at his wedding, and how the world around him quietly blames him for the relationship he didn’t break.
 From well-meaning coworkers saying “all families have stuff,” to relatives insisting “you’ll have to let it go,” Patrick explores why the burden to forgive and reconnect so often falls on the person who was hurt, not the person who caused the harm.
Learn how survivors like Thomas are pressured to “be the bigger person,” while abusers avoid accountability, and how to stop carrying that emotional labor yourself.
Topics include:
Why abusive parents are rarely held accountable
How relatives and in-laws minimize harm to “keep the peace”
The shame, guilt, and invisibility survivors feel when going no contact
The hidden motives behind advice like “just forgive”
How to flip the script and protect your peace
If you’ve ever been told to reconcile with someone who never took responsibility for the pain they caused, this episode offers validation, and a new way forward.
Keywords: family estrangement, toxic parents, no contact healing, emotional abuse recovery, accountability, narcissistic parent, trauma recovery, boundaries, forgiveness pressure, inner child healing
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Help them get the meals they need!
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This episode explores how growing up with a toxic or emotionally unavailable mother can shape a daughter’s sense of worth, identity, and boundaries, and how to finally break free.
Rather than focusing on blame, Patrick unpacks the lasting emotional damage that daughters carry into adulthood and the path toward self-trust and emotional independence.
Learn why patterns like people-pleasing, guilt, and over-responsibility aren’t flaws, they’re survival strategies that once kept you safe. Through stories, insights, and tools, Patrick guides you toward seeing your story with compassion and clarity.
Topics include:
How toxic maternal behavior damages self-perception
The “good daughter” role and its emotional consequences
Guilt, shame, and the confusion between love and obligation
Reparenting yourself and building healthy emotional boundaries
Reclaiming confidence and connection without losing yourself
You’ll leave this episode with practical tools to stop carrying emotional responsibility for others, repair your self-image, and begin building the safety your mother couldn’t provide.
Keywords: toxic mother, mother-daughter trauma, emotional abuse, inner child healing, childhood trauma recovery, boundaries, reparenting, self-worth repair, codependency, healing tools, family roles, emotional neglect 
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This episode explores how growing up with a narcissistic or emotionally immature parent can distort your perception of yourself, others, and your worth, and how to reclaim it. Instead of fixating on the parent, we look at the damage that lingers and the path to undo it.
Learn why triggers around work, relationships, and self-doubt aren’t personality flaws—they're leftover survival responses from childhood. Patrick shares vulnerable personal stories about being cast as “the dumb one” and how those old narratives showed up in adulthood, even during success.
Topics include:
How narcissistic parents damage a child’s perception
The impact on self-worth, identity, and intimacy
Hypervigilance, projection, and feeling “in trouble” for existing
Three powerful recovery tools:Protecting your inner child
Writing a truth statement
Giving back what was never yours to carry

You’ll walk away with practical exercises to shift perception, stop living in fear, and reclaim a sense of self that was always yours.
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Workbook Chapters
1 — How to Get Your Inner Adult in Place … 12
2 — The Built-In Forgetter (Codependency) … 27
3 — Honoring Our Trauma Responses & Coping Strategies … 38
4 — Overcoming Magical Thinking … 51
5 — The Feeling of Being "In Trouble"… 63
6 — How to Stop Anticipating Criticism … 74
7 — Childhood Trauma & Physical Energy Issues … 84
8 — Depression Related to Childhood Trauma … 97
9 — Processing Childhood Emotional Neglect
       (The Things That Didn’t Happen)… 107
10 - Processing Childhood Enmeshment with an
       Emotionally Immature Parent …118
11 - Processing Childhood Trauma-Related Grief … 131
12 - Processing Guilt: Recognizing the Family History
      Before Low or No Contact … 143
13 - How to Recover from a Narcissistic Parent … 153

Journal Prompts
Journal Prompt #1: How did self-worth get twisted?
How did your narcissistic parent create damage around your self-worth and how you perceive yourself?

Write a list of ten experiences about lost self-worth due to that parent.

Examples
That Christmas when my mother made me stand up in front of the entire extended family while she berated me about why I didn’t get any gifts.

My father would take any achievement I had and one-up me. I gave up on having self-worth because he was the focus.

Journal Prompt #2: Who did they say you are?
Write several paragraphs about your struggle with a healthy sense of self and how the narcissistic parent contributed to a poor sense of self. Who did your parents say you were, either through protection, neglect, or supply?

Example

I’ve always guessed at what I like or who I am. My mother had these twisted ideas, or fantasies, that I was going to become an entrepreneur and live a fabulous life in support of her. Did I want that? What even is that? What I know now is if she had a child who was a rich genius, she could have supply and validation—she could tell her friends she raised an entrepreneur. Of course I don’t know who I am.
Access the workbook here
Patrickteahan.com/workbook
Keywords: narcissistic parent recovery, childhood trauma, perception wounds, inner child healing, self-worth repair, intimacy triggers, emotional abuse healing, trauma recovery tools
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