When the Ones Who Called You Their Pride Try to Break You: What It Means to Survive Unhealthy Parents

They used to tell me they were proud of me.

They told everyone. At church. At cookouts. At graduations.
They wore my success like a badge. A costume of good parenting.
I was the golden child—the accomplished one. And the Scapegoat for my undiagnosed high functioning Autism. Autism is a condition that doesn’t interpret nuances or read between lines well. We only understand truth, which is intolerable to insecure narcissists who rely on manipulations and “nuances” to control people.

I’m a decorated Air Force veteran. Summa cum laude graduate. MBA. Merrill Lynch advisor. Financially independent. Articulate. Some say “elegant”. Healthy.

A dream daughter.
A walking résumé.
Their pride.

Until I became my own person.

That’s when everything shifted.
That’s when the same people who bragged about me began to betray me.
Not with fists. Not with insults.
But with setups, silence, and psychological sabotage.

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The Mask They Wore

My parents looked like the Black middle-class dream.
Claire and Heathcliff. Educated. Respectable. Sharp.
They raised us in stability—or so it seemed.
They knew how to dress it up for the world.
But behind closed doors? There was control. Gaslighting. Shame. Manipulation.

They didn’t raise me to be free.
They raised me to be an extension of their image.

When I got too free—when I took ownership of my body, my choices, my truth—that’s when the cracks in their mask began to show.

And it got dark. Real dark.

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When the Ones Who “Love” You Become the Threat

They didn’t just withhold love.
They tried to dismantle me.
I believe now—based on what I experienced—that they may have even tried to set me up to be victimized in the most devastating way at age 47.

Forty-seven.
After all I had survived.
After all I had achieved.

And what’s worse? They lied about it.
And the institutions around them lied with them.
There were strange calls. Shady silence.
Someone who slipped and told me my parents “are no more.”
And my mother’s angry voice calling in. Angry I wasn’t victimized like she had planned.

It didn’t add up at the time because I could not fully process the betrayal. But the pain? That was real.

They weren’t trying to protect me. They were trying to erase me.

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How Do You Try to Destroy the One You Bragged About?

Because deep down, their pride wasn’t rooted in love.
It was rooted in ownership.
They were proud of me as long as I was useful, obedient, polished, and silent.

But when I stopped being performative—when I started healing—when I said no to their control?
I became disposable.

They wanted the version of me they could show off.
Not the one who saw through their manipulation.
Not the one who got free.

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The Pain of Surviving “Good” Parents

People don’t believe you when your abusers wear cardigans and smile in public.
When they pay bills on time. When they go to church.
People don’t believe your parents were diabolical when they look like “model citizens.”

But I know what I survived.
I know what I felt.
I know what I saw.
And now, I’m saying it out loud.

Because there’s a specific pain that comes with surviving “good parents.”
Not visibly abusive ones.
But parents who are polished and poisonous.
Who use pride as a weapon.
Who say, “You’re our pride,” and then set fire to your future behind closed doors.

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Why I Fought So Hard for My Health

I stayed in shape, not for vanity—but for survival.
I wanted to be well when I finally escaped.
I didn’t want to be sick and free.
I wanted to be vibrant and free.
I wanted a life beyond their legacy.

So I worked to heal my body.
I titrated off meds that were no longer effective.
I found rhythm again.
I remembered who I was before the pride was performative and the love was conditional.

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What It Means to Survive Parents Like That

It means you have to grieve the parents you never had.
You have to tell the truth, even when it makes other people uncomfortable.
You have to walk away from people who still believe the mask.
And sometimes, you have to parent yourself—with the love they should’ve given you.

But it also means this:

You get to be whole without their permission.
You get to reclaim your rhythm.
You get to walk free and untamed.
You get to be your own pride—on your own terms.

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I am not their trophy anymore.
I am my own woman.

And I survived the people who tried to destroy me—while smiling in public and calling me their pride.

That’s what it means to be a Black woman who survived her parents.

And I’m still rising.