Conditional value isn’t “love.”

People who only value you as long as you’re playing along with their narrative, don’t value you. 

They value your function— as “evidence” that their story is true. 

This happens all the time in abusive or neglectful families. 

The minute you stop playing along with their story, their attitude and energy toward you changes. 

These are often the same families that claim “family should come first” or “family is everything.” 

If “family should come first,” then why is their positive attention contingent upon you affirming them as “good parents?” 

If “family is everything,” then why do they blame and shame the family “scapegoat” over and over again instead of taking responsibly for their limitations? 

Their own behavior proves their words are empty. 

Here’s the thing: we don’t need “perfect” parents. 

No one reading this is hurting because our parents weren’t “perfect.” 

No one reading this is “mad” because our parents weren’t “perfect.” 

What we needed were parents who were trying. 

What we needed were parents who were attuned— or, at least, doing their best to attune to us. 

CPTSD and DID do not result from “imperfect parents” or childhood pain that “everybody” experiences. When you hear someone say some version of “everyone has childhood trauma,” they are wrong.

It’s not easy to know we weren’t, or aren’t, valued by the people who were supposed to love and protect us the most. 

And it’s very easy to assume, to believe, that it was somehow our fault. 

It wasn’t. 

It wasn’t on us to “make” them love us. To be “lovable” enough for them to do what parents are actually supposed to do. 

It wasn’t your fault. 

And it’s still not. 

So they only value us conditionally, instrumentally. So what. 

What they do or don’t value, what they can or can’t do emotionally, has zero to do with us. Less than zero. 

I wish I didn’t have to say any of this, and I wish none of it applied to you or me. 

But here we are. 

And we have the option of creating a life going forward that has nothing to do with them. 

Breathe. Blink. Focus. 

It’s a long walk back to Eden. Don’t sweat the small stuff.