Healing Parent Wounds (in 6 easy steps)
The invisible loss that shows up in high-functioning adults (and what to do about it)
Grief isn’t always obvious. Sometimes it’s not even recognized as grief, especially when the person you’re mourning is still very much alive. Or maybe they were technically there, but emotionally….not so much.
When I talk about grieving the parent you didn’t have, I’m not talking about blaming anyone. I’m talking about naming a loss that most high-functioning adults never realize they’ve been carrying. A loss that often hides under anxiety, overachievement, relationship struggles, and a chronic sense that no matter how much you do, it never feels like enough.
If that sentence hits you in the gut, keep reading.
What does it mean to grieve a parent who’s alive?
It means recognizing that while your parent might have done their best, their best may not have met your emotional needs. And even if your childhood wasn’t dramatic or obviously traumatic, you may still be living with the effects of unmet needs, things like attunement, emotional safety, and acceptance.
This kind of grief is slippery because it doesn’t show up in the “classic” ways. You might not cry or feel sad, but it’s likely you feel a ton of disappointment. It’s likely you chronically overfunction in relationships as well. You might feel responsible for others’ happiness. You might have a hard time asking for help, or receiving it without guilt. These aren’t random habits. They’re symptoms of unresolved grief sitting quietly in the background.
When “doing well” masks old pain
I work with a lot of high-achieving professionals, people who are responsible, self-aware, and often emotionally exhausted. They didn’t grow up with chaos or overt trauma. What they did grow up with were parents who were emotionally immature, inconsistent, critical, or simply unavailable.
And here’s what I see over and over: they’ve built lives that look great from the outside, but underneath that success is a deep wiring that says, “My worth is conditional.”
So they keep performing. Overthinking. People-pleasing. Saying yes when they’re drowning. Not because they don’t know better, but because their subconscious still believes that love has to be earned. Safety has to be managed. They learned early that being "low-maintenance" kept the peace, and now they don’t know how to not overfunction.
The grief hiding in your coping mechanisms
I had a client once, a brilliant, organized, deeply insightful woman, who could explain her patterns inside and out. She knew where her perfectionism came from. She could name the origin of her people-pleasing.
But one day, in the middle of a session, she said:
“I think I’m grieving the parent I never actually had.”
She told me she’d journaled the night before and wrote: “I needed my mom to see me. To understand me.” And it stopped her in her tracks.
What hit her wasn’t what did happen in her childhood, but what didn’t: the absence of warmth, safety, and being emotionally known. Until that moment, she’d been focused on what went wrong. But this, this was about what was never there to begin with.
That shift, from analyzing to grieving, was the key. Because awareness alone doesn’t create change. Emotional release does.
What the science says: Why it still lingers
Your subconscious brain encodes early emotional experiences as patterns, not conscious memories. This means that even if you can logically understand your parents’ limitations, or even forgive them, your nervous system still reacts as if those patterns are true.
This is how emotional neglect leaves a mark. You don’t remember being ignored, you remember the feeling of shrinking, hustling, or managing the room to keep things stable. That gets wired in as “normal.” And now, as an adult, it plays out in your relationships, your career, and how you treat yourself.
We build internal models of relationships based on early interactions. These models shape your expectations, your emotional regulation, and even your sense of identity. That’s not mindset, it’s memory. And it lives in the body.
“But my parents weren’t that bad…”
This is the part where most people backpedal. They say things like,
“My parents tried their best.”
“I had a good childhood.”
“I don’t want to be ungrateful.”
I hear you. But minimizing your pain doesn’t make it go away, it just buries it. And buried grief doesn’t disappear. It gets converted into anxiety, chronic guilt, emotional numbness, or the inability to feel safe unless you’re in control.
Grieving the parent you didn’t have is not about blaming them. It’s about being honest with yourself. You can hold compassion for their limitations and acknowledge the emotional cost of growing up under those conditions. That’s not being dramatic. That’s being real.
What grieving actually looks like
Grief isn’t always about tears. Sometimes it’s about finally letting yourself name what was missing, without making excuses or sugarcoating it. Sometimes it’s rage. Sometimes it’s exhaustion. Often, it’s relief.
Here’s how many of my clients begin this process:
Name what you needed but didn’t get. Emotional safety? Encouragement? Someone to notice when you were hurting? Write it all down. No filters.
Stop minimizing. “It wasn’t that bad” is often a coping strategy. You’re allowed to tell the truth about your own story. This is your perception, and your perception alone.
Identify the “rules” you learned to follow. “Be the best. Keep the peace. Don’t be a burden. Don’t show weakness.” And ask yourself: who benefits from that rule now?
Let yourself feel it. Rage, sadness, even numbness, that’s all valid. Grief is about making space for the parts of you that had to grow up too soon.
Identify what you needed to hear back then. “I love you just the way you are. You’re doing a great job. I can see you’re hurting, and I’m here to support you.”
Repeat those phrases. Say them to yourself with compassion, and visualize yourself saying them to the child you were back then.
Get support. That can be therapy, community, wherever you feel safe and supported. This isn’t easy work. But it is possible, and you don’t have to go it alone.
Healing isn’t about “fixing yourself”, it’s about meeting yourself
You don’t need to become a whole new person. You need to meet the parts of you that had to grow up too fast. You need to hear the younger version of you who adapted, performed, and kept the peace. And you need to stop shaming yourself for the ways that’s still showing up today.
This is exactly what I dive into in my book, Unpacked: How to Detach From the Subconscious Beliefs That Are Sabotaging Your Life. It’s a guide for people who are exhausted by their own self-awareness and are ready for something deeper than just insight.
Final thought: Grief is a teacher, not a weakness
Most people avoid this kind of grief because they think it lets their parent off the hook. But in my experience, it does the opposite. It anchors you. It gives you language for the things you thought were “just how you are.” It lets you stop performing and start connecting, from a place that feels safer and more authentic.
You’re not needy. You’re not too much. You just didn’t get what you needed. And now you have a chance to give it to yourself.
No gold stars required.
