The Rage My Father Gave Me — New York Magazine

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My dad was a man of infinite varieties of bitterness, rage, distaste. In my lifelong struggle to avoid becoming him, I’d developed an inability to demonstrate much negative emotion at all.

Gillian Flynn • Gone Girl: A Novel

the parentified daughter

open.substack.com

I call my mother to ask if the emotions I feel are hereditary. My father is on the line, too, but I don’t dare ask the same question. My mother once told me he was hard on me because he saw too much of himself in me. I think of all the times my father explained my outbursts to my mother, the look of arrogance on his face as I reluctantly admitted... See more

Wenyi Xue • we fear no god but each other

Anxiety also transmits family sins. If a parent did not feel safe as a child and became distrusting of others, fearful of simple behaviors such as flying or driving, or unable to relax or sleep properly, her child is probably susceptible to this same anxiety. One woman, a highly successful screenwriter from Chicago, had so internalized her anxious

Steven Wolf • Romancing the Shadow

“One: These losses shape your psyche; they lay down patterns for all your interactions. If you don’t understand them and actively work to form new emotional habits, you’ll act them out again and again. They’ll wreak havoc on your relationships, and you won’t know why. Two: No matter how much therapeutic work you do, these may be your Achilles’