When you are a child, your survival depends on two things: your attachment to your caregivers, and y

[00:00:00]"You're fine. You're okay. You're not hurt." Again, this may sound harmless.

[00:00:04]Lots of parents may say this, and sometimes it can be meant to reassure.

[00:00:08]The question is, what else is happening around it? In a scapegoating [music] narcissistic family, "You're fine" is usually not followed by, "Well, tell me what's going on or how you're feeling" or, "Hey, I'm here with you." Instead, it's used to cancel out the child's inner world. Maybe they fall, get hurt, and feel scared, and instead of the parent offering comfort, they give them dismissal. They say, "You're fine. Just stop fussing." Or the child comes home from school devastated because a friend had betrayed them, and the response is, "You're fine. You're making a big deal out of nothing." So, over time, "You're fine" stops meaning "You're safe now" [music] and starts meaning "Your pain doesn't count." So, the child's nervous system learns a very strange split. They feel something intense inside, yet the outside world tells them that's not happening. That's not real. And when you're a child, your survival depends on two things. First, your attachment to your caregivers, and second, your sense of reality. If your parent consistently denies your reality, you face an impossible choice. Option A, trust your own perception and see that the people you depend on are not actually tuned into you. That's terrifying. Option B, decide that your perceptions are wrong and your parents are right. Well, B is the only survivable pathway.