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Allie Jayne Reed, LMHC, Seattle, WA (2025)

11/27/2025

Why you need to know the difference between your Role Self & your Authentic Self

If you’ve ever wondered why it feels so hard to know what you want, speak up, or even feel your own needs… there’s a reason. & it isn’t because you’re lost, broken, or confused. It’s because your Role Self was shaped in a family system where your individuality wasn’t safe.

Your Role Self grew out of shame (“I’m too much”), guilt (“If I need something, I’m a burden”), & fear (“If I show my real self, I’ll lose love or create conflict”). Emotionally immature parents often interpret a child’s needs, boundaries, opinions, or emotions as threats, because they never developed the capacity to tolerate difference. They reject anything they can't control or personally relate to. So you learned to shrink, smooth yourself out, perform, or disappear. EIPs avoid self-reflection or changing, so you did.

Your Role Self became the mask that kept you protected in a system that demanded compliance over authenticity. She became the responsible one, the easy one, the high achiever, the emotional sponge, the child who intuitively understood:
“If I adapt to what they need, I’ll stay safe.”

Meanwhile, your Authentic Self - the part of you with natural preferences, impulses, desires, & boundaries - was suppressed. Not because she was wrong, but because the environment rejected her, making her feel dangerous.

This is why distinguishing these two selves matters so deeply. If you don’t, you’ll continue mistaking survival strategies for your identity. You’ll think your self-abandonment is compassion. Your guilt is morality. Your fear of conflict is maturity. Your silence is kindness.

The truth is, these traits were born from unmet needs in an unsafe emotional ecosystem. They are adaptations, not destiny.

The healing begins when you recognize: 'My Role Self helped me survive, but she doesn’t have to define who I am now.'

Reconnecting with your Authentic Self isn’t rebellion, it’s restoration. It’s the moment you stop performing for safety & start living from truth. That’s where real freedom & connection finally begins.

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11/25/2025

When your anger feels 'too much', but everyone elses never did...

You know that quiet, tight feeling in your chest when something bothers you… but you smile, nod, say “it’s fine.” Until it isnt. Until 1 more request, dismissal, “can you just…” tips you into that familiar internal snap.

“yes, yes, yes… F** you.”

This is the cycle: swallow your irritation → stay agreeable → feel taken for granted → explode internally → fantasize about burning the whole relationship down. The hardest part? On the outside you still look calm, capable, composed.

If nothing changes, this pattern keeps eroding your self-trust. You keep abandoning your boundaries until you dont recognize your own needs anymore, maybe youve always struggled to recognize your needs at all. It becomes easier to disconnect than disappoint, so relationships become fragile, draining, or distant.

But none of this makes you “dramatic” or “too sensitive.”
It makes you someone who grew up with emotionally immature parents whose anger dominated the room, while yours was punished, minimized, or ignored. You learned early that staying small kept you safe. That being pleasant kept the peace. That your anger was dangerous, while theirs was allowed to rage freely.

So of course your adult nervous system gets confused. Of course anger feels like a threat instead of a message.

Your anger isnt the problem, your childhood conditioning is. Anger is actually a wise internal signal. It protects your energy, boundaries, truth. When you learn to recognize it before it becomes a breaking point, you stop cycling between passivity & shutdown. You make mindful choices instead of reacting with an automatic 'yes'.

On the other side of healing, anger becomes grounded. Direct. Safe. You set limits without rehearsing them for hours. You speak up before the resentment builds. You stay connected to the people you care about because you’re finally connected to yourself.

This is the version of you who trusts her inner signals, who doesn’t apologize for having needs, & who no longer fears her own fire...because she knows how to hold it with clarity & calm.

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11/20/2025

The Role Self vs the Authentic Self, & why it matters for your healing

If you grew up as the responsible one, the emotional buffer, the peacekeeper… you developed something incredibly adaptive: your Role Self. She’s the version of you who figured out who you needed to be in order to stay safe, keep the household functioning, & protect the people around you.

Your Role Self is capable, perceptive, and deeply attuned to others… but she’s also tired, because she’s always ‘on’.
She learned to anticipate needs, stay agreeable, hold everything together, and hide overwhelm behind competence. She kept you safe, but she isn’t an embodiment of who you truly are.

Your Authentic Self, on the other hand, is the part of you that existed before emotional responsibility became your identity. She has desires, preferences, limits, & a natural emotional rhythm. She expresses without performing. She feels without apologizing. She is genuine, not performing to please others.

For many parentified daughters, reconnecting with her feels both relieving & scary. Relieving because she’s been waiting. Scary because you were never taught it was safe to be her.

Here’s why this matters:
When you live from your Role Self, you can achieve, support & succeed, but often feel disconnected from yourself. A quiet emptiness. A sense of not fully knowing who you are outside of what you provide.

Healing isnt about rejecting the Role Self; she served a purpose. It’s about gently letting the Authentic Self return, so you can build a Life Worth Living based on your truth, not your survival patterns.

When she comes forward, you begin to feel your desires clearly, set boundaries with more ease, & form relationships where you’re seen for who you are, not what you do.

If this resonates, youre not alone. This is the work we can do together. 🤍

If youre ready to heal your childhood wounds from & rediscover your Authentic Self, tap the link in my bio & schedule an intro call with me!

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11/18/2025

When it feels like your parents don’t actually know you...

There’s a specific kind of ache that comes from trying to have a real conversation with your parents… & feeling like you’re speaking into a void.
You share something personal & it gets brushed off.
You express a boundary & it’s ignored or misconstrued.
You mention your goals, your schedule, the things that matter to you, & their responses remind you again: they don’t really see your inner world.

Staying in this pattern can quietly wear you down. You may start doubting your needs, feeling “too much” for wanting connection, or carrying a growing loneliness within a family that still feels emotionally far away.

This isn’t your fault. Here’s the truth: there’s a reason this feels so familiar.
If you grew up parentified—always managing others’ emotions, being the helper, the responsible one, your parents learned to rely on your role, not your identity. You were valued for what you provided, not for who you were becoming.
So it makes sense that they struggle to know you now. You were never given the space to fully be you then.

This isn’t proof you’re unworthy of being understood. You’re simply outgrowing a role you were never meant to carry in order to meet the needs of emotionally immature parents. In their world, their emotional needs always come first. Healing isn’t about changing your parents. It’s about reconnecting with the parts of you that were overshadowed too early. When you reclaim your True Self, you stop seeking your parents validation of your inner world.

On the other side, there’s a version of you who feels grounded & self-known. Who shares her needs without shrinking. Who builds relationships - romantic, platonic, chosen family - where she feels deeply seen. A woman who no longer chases emotional recognition… because she lives from a place of it.

If this resonated, youre not alone. This is exactly the work we can do together. You deserve to be known. 🤍

If youre ready to heal your wounds from & realign with your Authentic Self, tap the link in my bio & schedule an intro call with me!

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11/13/2025

What would you like to see transform in your life after healing your childhood wounds from emotionally immature parents?

Are you tryna be slide 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8? Let me know in the comments!

If you're ready to heal your wounds from & regulate your central nervous system, tap the link in my bio & schedule an intro call w/ me!

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11/11/2025

It's normal to go to therapy for wounds from one of your parents, probably the more overtly harmful one, and unveil throughout the process that you have just as much work to do addressing your attachment & wounds from your other parent, the one you may have even preferred or seen as an ally.

Because usually, if there was one abusive family member, there was another.

It's often the more passive parent. The one who has no problem validating you behind closed doors, maybe even talking badly about the overt parent, but rarely intervening in any meaningful ways. They might even dismiss you when you try to tell them about how the overt parent makes you feel & the things they say & do to you. They may be in denial.

This, too, is harmful, and will require uncovering & addressing in trauma therapy.

It's not about seeing your preferred parent as a bad person, it's about seeing the reality of who they are & what happened to you. It's about clearing your trauma & thus clearing your vision.

Know that if this sounds like you, you're not alone.

If you're ready to heal your wounds from & realign with your Authentic Self, then tap the link in my bio & schedule an intro call with me!

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11/08/2025

You don’t have to think, feel, and act just like someone else in order to connect.

Your differences (most of the time) will not block connection.

While research does indicate that similar values is good for relationships (birds of a feather flock together), it also indicates that otherwise, people can be different & still forge strong connections (opposites attract).

But this can be hard to imagine in practice, if your parents judged you for having a different opinion from them, disengaged with you when you talked about your favorite singer instead of their favorite show, or yelled at you for crying cuz it made them uncomfortable. EIPs see you as an extension of them, which causes these problem beliefs to form. Beliefs like ‘if we disagree then the relationship is doomed’.

Your EIPs messaging may have been ‘you have to agree with me in order for me to like or respect you’

This doesn’t mean you need to aggressively assert your differing opinion either. Try practicing with your friends - see what happens if they state an opinion, you say ‘I see where you’re coming from, I also think ___’. This is how we learn more about eachother, get to know one another better, and deepen our bonds. We can’t connect if we can’t see eachother. Emotionally mature, trustworthy people will likely take interest in & enjoy learning about your inner world.

But EIPs don’t usually want to see you as the unique individual you are. This is how we break the cycle they taught us.

If you’re ready to heal your wounds from & realign with your Authentic Self, then tap the link in my bio & schedule an intro call with me!

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11/06/2025

6 Ways being raised by emotionally immature parents may impact you as an adult...

1) Increased vulnerability to depression, anxiety, &/or other mental health issues due to unmet emotional needs, lack of emotion regulation skills, &/or trauma.

2) Low-self esteem due to chronic invalidation, emotional neglect, &/or insecure attachment.

3) Difficulty with boundaries due to being conditioned to people-please & suppress your own emotions & needs.

4) Repeating unhealthy relationship patterns that were present in your childhood like enmeshment, either being too close or too distant from others, or avoiding vulnerability.

5) Overthinking & overachieving to avoid feelings of shame, grief, or feeling inadequate by instead being a ‘perfectionist’ or staying busy.

6) Ineffective coping mechanisms in an effort to self-soothe (because your parents didn’t come to soothe you), such as using screens to stay distracted, substances, or isolating.

If you're ready to heal your childhood wounds from & overcome anxiety, tap the link in my bio & schedule an intro call with me!

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11/04/2025

Emotionally immature parents probably taught you that asserting your feelings & wishes, sticking to YOUR values & being in conflict was catastrophic to the relationship. They might have strongly discouraged you for having differing needs from theirs or opposing them.

Since they're the ones with the power in your household, they might have stayed in control through emotional coercion, which taught you to believe that appeasing another to keep the peace is better than being in conflict, because conflict meant consequences that would terrify any child - such as abandonment or punishment.

For relationships to actually grow, deepen their connection & trust in one another, you actually need to have conflict. Without polarity, there is no relationship. It's healthier to show up as 2 individuals, with differing feelings & needs, & learn to find synthesis even if it means going through uncomfortable periods. This is how you build emotional intimacy (trust). This applies to nearly all relationships.

It makes sense that in the moment, it might seem more effective to concede. It's also true that sometimes it might not be effective for the relationship health & long term goals.

It's also healthy to sometimes prioritize someone else's feelings or needs, however the key is to learn to not suppress yours everytime in the process.

If you're ready to heal your wounds from & realign with your Authentic Self, tap the link in my bio & schedule an intro call with me!

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10/31/2025

Imagine pausing before reacting to your emotionally immature family member when you would usually react with urgency & panic that they taught you. Instead, you notice the panic sensations, stop & say to yourself, ‘This feels old. What is mine in this moment?’

Imagine learning the skills your parents never taught you, like how to attend to yourself, your emotions & their sensations, and your own needs rather than everyone else’s.

Imagine finally feeling safe in your own body, being able to stay in your window of tolerance for longer & find your way back to it when needed.

Imagine not getting your EIP’s stuff mixed up with yours. Being able to differentiate your own feelings & wishes from theirs, and not feeling like you’re a bad person for it because you deeply believe you’re a good person.

Imagine holding compassion & empathy for your EIPs while still maintaining your own sense of self, prioritizing your needs & standing your ground.

All of this is possible. Targeted trauma therapy (like the ones I'm trained in, DBT-PE & EMDR) can get you there. It will take time & effort, but it’s so worth it.

If you're ready to heal your childhood wounds from & finally differentiate from their system, tap the link in my bio & schedule an intro call w/ me!

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10/30/2025

Emotionally mature parents step up to lead from a secure, regulated place, hold limits, solve problems when needed, empathize & validate you, & put in the work it takes to make a system functional while maintaining emotional presence (consistently, not 100% of the time). They make repairs when they mess up. They have your best interest in mind, can sacrifice their own emotional needs to meet yours or at least make yours the priority. They have the power & the responsibility.

Emotionally immature parents are low effort, dysregulated, unwilling to change or self-reflect, and inevitably shape a system where someone has to step up to enable them, to keep the peace, to ‘help’ a dysfunctional system that exists to ensure the EIP never changes & their needs remain the priority. Conflict is inevitable but repairs aren’t made. They don’t lead, they control. They see you as an extension of themselves & fail to see YOUR emotional needs. They have the power & are irresponsible with it.

If you find yourself feeling like you have to be the one to step up to mediate, solve other peoples problems, protect them from the consequences of their own actions, or be of ‘help’, I want you to know that it’s okay to step down & out of your Role in their system.

Of course there will be consequences, but you have a choice. Stay in the psychological hold your EIPs have on you, or heal. (Healing actually isn’t that black or white anyway, you just won’t know until you begin. It does require some surrender.)

If you’re ready to heal your wounds from & step out of your Role in their dysfunctional system to finally realign with your Authentic Self, tap the link in my bio & schedule an intro call w/ me!

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10/27/2025

Do you ever feel like you’re a completely different person around your parents than you are in your day-to-day life? You’re not alone.

If you're ready to heal your childhood wounds from & realign with your Authentic Self, tap the link in my bio & schedule an intro call with me!

Follow for more on & EIPs

Allie Jayne Reed, LMHC

11/27/2025

11/25/2025

11/20/2025

11/18/2025

11/13/2025

11/11/2025

11/08/2025

11/06/2025

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10/31/2025

10/30/2025

10/27/2025

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Monday	11am - 6pm
Tuesday	11am - 6pm
Wednesday	11am - 6pm
Thursday	11am - 6pm