As Daniel Shaw writes in Traumatic Narcissism, the absence of parental love is not a mere emotional deficit—it is a source of trauma. When a caregiver is unable or unwilling to provide affection, attunement, and validation, the child is left not only longing, but fractured. Their emerging sense of self is built around the question of whether they are lovable at all. This foundational wound can shape their entire relational life, leaving a legacy of shame, confusion, and emotional dependency that persists well into adulthood.

‍

My mother’s story lives inside this truth. She was placed in the care of her grandmother just months after her father died. In those early years, her grandmother became her emotional anchor—a warm, affectionate presence who gave her the sense of being cherished. But everything changed when her mother returned to the home, still grieving, still young, and carrying her own unprocessed trauma. In an effort to reestablish expected family roles, my mother’s grandmother withdrew. The love that once flowed freely became measured and distant. Her mother, unable to offer what she had never received herself, remained emotionally unavailable.

‍

That early fracture left my mother longing—not only for the return of affection, but for the confirmation that she was worthy of love at all. Years later, when she became involved with a high-control religious group, that longing found what felt like an answer. The group promised unconditional love and healing. But the truth was far more insidious.

‍

The leaders, themselves shaped by unacknowledged wounds, operated as Shaw describes: as traumatic narcissists who elevated themselves by diminishing others. They created a world where dependency was praised and autonomy punished—where healing was held just out of reach, dangled like a prize for those who submitted fully. For someone like my mother, who had once been left behind by love, their certainty was magnetic. It seemed like redemption. But it wasn’t love. It was control dressed as care. And the cost was steep. When she moved our family into that environment, the pattern repeated itself.

‍

At thirteen, I was removed from my mother’s care—separated from her not by distance, but by a system that encouraged her to surrender her role as parent. Just as her grandmother had once turned away from her, she stepped back from my brother and me. The weight of responsibility was lifted from her shoulders and placed into the hands of those who claimed spiritual authority. And in that shift, both my brother and I were left to carry the same ache she once knew: the pain of being abandoned by the one whose love we needed most.

‍

It was never that she didn’t love us. I believe she did. But the pull of her unhealed story was stronger than her ability to break the cycle. And we—her children—became its next chapter.

‍

As adults, the echoes of this abandonment do not simply fade. They appear in our relationships, in our hesitancy to trust, in the ways we second-guess our worth or silence our needs. The child raised under the shadow of a traumatic narcissist grows up learning that love must be earned, that safety is conditional, and that their own feelings are not to be trusted.

‍

In Chapter 6 of Traumatic Narcissism, Shaw offers a difficult but liberating truth: healing does not require forgiveness—especially when forgiveness has been culturally confused with minimizing harm. What is essential is learning to detach—not just from the relationship itself, but from the psychological objectification imposed by the traumatic narcissist.

‍

And perhaps even more importantly, Shaw explains, the child of a traumatic narcissist often continues the narcissist’s work internally, long after the parent or authority figure is gone. The child, now an adult, carries an internal persecutor—a voice shaped by years of subjugation—that repeats the messages of unworthiness, self-doubt, and shame. It is this internalized system of domination that must also be named and released.

‍

In contrast to dissociation, which is a numbing disconnection from one’s pain, and unlike internal prosecution, which keeps the trauma alive through self-attack, detachment is an act of clarity and freedom. It is the conscious separation from the narcissist’s definitions, projections, and control. It is how the child—now grown—can stop living in service to the narcissist’s wound, and begin living in service to their own wholeness.

‍

This is an area in which I continue to struggle. I have held onto the pain of abandonment for much of my adult life and often find it difficult to detach in a healthy way—especially in moments of interaction with my mother. Though she no longer lives within the religious group that shaped so much of our story, she continues to deny or deflect how her decisions caused harm. That lack of acknowledgment reactivates the wound. And so, detachment for me is not yet a place I have fully arrived—it is still a path I am learning to walk, one small step at a time.

‍

Detachment is not the absence of love.
It is the recovery of self.
And that is where healing begins.

‍

1 Shaw, Daniel. Traumatic Narcissism: Relational Systems of Subjugation, Chapter 6: "What Do I Do?" Shaw describes how the child of the traumatic narcissist often internalizes the objectifying gaze of the parent, creating a persecutory inner voice that continues the narcissist’s controlling influence long after the relationship has ended.

‍