When you leave a narcissistic family system, the separation rarely ends with you. Often, it comes with a quiet guilt for the sibling left behind - and for the children who loved the version of the family you worked so hard to preserve.

In this week’s episode, we reflect on a letter from a listener who shares the painful complexity of this experience. For ten years, she helped her children see the good in her parents - explaining that love could look different, facilitating online contact, and enduring occasional visits that were deeply upsetting for her. She believed she could hold the pain so her children wouldn’t have to.

Now, with no contact in place, her children are grieving grandparents they experienced as kind, and an uncle they experienced as funny. She writes about how hard it is to explain boundaries when you’re still trying to understand them yourself - and the heartbreak of knowing that safety and protecting you kids, doesn’t always feel that way to a child.

This episode explores the layered grief of leaving, the guilt that follows, and the slow, careful work of helping children understand emotional safety - not through blame or character assassination, but through truth, regulation, and compassion.

If you’ve ever questioned whether you did the right thing, or felt torn between protecting your children and breaking their hearts, this conversation is for you.

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BEYOND SURVIVAL - The Therapy Podcast