When children grow up in a dysfunctional family system — whether the dysfunction comes from addiction, mental illness, untreated trauma, personality disorders, or chronic conflict — the home doesn’t feel secure, predictable, or emotionally safe. Kids still have to survive. So they adapt. These adaptations become roles — unwritten jobs that help the family hold it together on the surface, while hiding what’s really going on underneath. And while these roles help childre

Over time the child develops a strategy: reduce display of distress, avoid seeking proximity, appear “independent.” Ainsworth and Bell observed that avoidant behaviour may mask distress (i.e., elevated heart rate despite calm outward behaviour).

Because the real you—the unfiltered, bold, messy, honest, radiant you—was never meant to be pleasing. You were meant to be free.