You're so right that there's that huge disconnect between we all know that, you know, narcissistic and emotionally abusive people exist.

But why can people find it so hard to name their parent as one of those people?

Because you talk about in the book, that's kind of the first step.

And there's a real tendency, isn't there, to minimize what might have happened in your childhood.

Why is that?

I think there's a number of reasons for it.

I think one of the big reasons is that when you're a child, you have no other choice, right?

I mean, you either admit consciously to yourself that your parent can't love you in the way that you need and deserve,

or you minimize it or make yourself the problem. And so as a child, I think you kind of have to do that.

And we, you know, look, we're wired to connect to our parents.

Gabon-Mate talks about how when authenticity threatens our attachment to our parents,

this authenticity that loses out.

We'll, you know, we'll abandon ourselves in order to be able to attach to them. But like on a real simple level,

everybody deserves to have a place they can call home and by a place they can call home. Like

our homes that we grow up in when we're children, it's nothing to do with the building or the

habitat that we live in. It's to do with the building or the habitat that we live in.

It's to do with the people within that.

And how awful and horrible it is that some people grow up in an environment when they walk through the door,

they don't get to put the weight down and take the mask off, but they have to put on the armor and carry the weight

even more. And that's the reality for a lot of people. And so I think they spend a lifetime.

And this is why I never encourage no contact. I don't tell people they should or shouldn't go

no contact. I simply validate that for some people it

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