We Need To Talk More About The Effects of Growing Up With An Emotionally Volatile Parent
The scars are real
We don’t talk about it enough.
What it’s like to live in a home where love and fear sit side by side. Where you never know which version of your parent will walk through the door or be waiting at the dinner table. A home where your heart pounds a little harder every time the phone rings or footsteps approach. A home where the air is thick with tension, and the smallest things — a missed chore, a wrong word, a loud noise — can set off a storm.
Growing up with an emotionally volatile parent is an experience that sticks to you, even when you’ve long left that house behind.
It’s hard to explain to people who haven’t lived it. From the outside, maybe everything looks fine. The parent is charming, successful, maybe even well-liked. But behind closed doors, there’s this other side — this unpredictable, overwhelming side that you, as a child, had to learn to navigate.
You learn survival skills no child should have to develop. You become hyper-aware of mood shifts, body language, the tone of a voice. You read the room better than any adult because, in some ways, your emotional survival depends on it.
