Here’s the strangest compliment I ever received: “You’re really good at managing other people’s emotions.”
I was twenty-eight, sitting across from my therapist, and she wasn’t actually complimenting me.
She was pointing out that I’d spent my entire life monitoring everyone else’s emotional temperature before checking my own.
That session cracked something open.
Over the next few years, I started noticing patterns in how I moved through the world: The constant people-pleasing, the inability to handle conflict, and even the way I’d apologize for things that weren’t remotely my fault.
Eventually, the pieces clicked: These were adaptations, survival strategies I’d developed as a kid navigating parents who couldn’t handle their own emotions, let alone mine.
If you’ve ever wondered why certain behaviors feel hardwired into your system, why you react to situations in ways that don’t quite make sense, this might resonate.
Here are seven traits I discovered in myself that pointed directly back to being raised by emotionally immature parents:
1) I couldn’t identify my own emotions
For the longest time, if you asked me how I felt about something, I’d tell you what I thought instead.
“How do you feel about that job offer?”
“Well, I think it makes sense financially.”
Growing up, emotions were treated like inconveniences at best, threats at worst.
My parents would oscillate between emotional explosions and complete shutdown.
There was no middle ground where feelings could be discussed calmly.
So, I learned to bypass them entirely.
By my twenties, I could analyze situations with surgical precision but had no idea if I was sad, angry, or just tired.
The real kicker? I thought this made me rational and mature.
Turns out, being disconnected from your emotions just means you’re making decisions with incomplete data.
2) I apologized constantly
“Sorry” was my verbal tic: Sorry for asking questions, needing things, and existing in spaces.
When you grow up with parents who can’t regulate their emotions, you become hypervigilant about not triggering them.
Every request feels like a potential landmine, and every need feels like an imposition.
I’d apologize to furniture I bumped into, or say sorry when other people stepped on my foot.
The word lost all meaning because I was using it as a shield, not an actual apology.
This was learned behavior from years of trying to make myself smaller to avoid unpredictable reactions.
3) I needed everyone to like me
The thought of someone being upset with me would keep me awake at night.
Not just close friends or family; the barista who seemed annoyed, and the coworker who didn’t respond to my email with enough exclamation points.
When your childhood emotional safety depends on keeping emotionally unstable parents happy, you develop this radar for other people’s moods.
You become an expert at reading micro-expressions, sensing tension before anyone names it.
However, here’s what that really means: You’re constantly abandoning yourself to manage other people’s feelings.
You say yes when you mean no, you smile when you’re uncomfortable, and you perform versions of yourself depending on who’s in the room.
The exhausting part? Most people aren’t even thinking about you.
You’re managing emotions they might not even be having.
4) I couldn’t handle conflict
Any disagreement felt like the world was ending.
Raised voices made me want to disappear, and even minor tensions would trigger this full-body response like I was in actual danger.
In my childhood home, conflict meant someone was going to explode or withdraw completely.
There was no such thing as productive disagreement.
Arguments were just abandoned until the next eruption.
So, I became the mediator, the peacekeeper, the one who’d sacrifice my own needs to keep things smooth.
In relationships, I’d rather suffer in silence than bring up issues.
At work, I’d take on extra tasks rather than push back on unreasonable requests.
The problem with avoiding all conflict? Nothing ever gets resolved.
Resentment builds, boundaries get trampled, and you end up in situations you never actually agreed to.
5) I had zero boundaries
Setting boundaries felt selfish.
Actually, it felt dangerous.
When you’re raised by people who treat your boundaries as personal attacks, you learn to not have any.
Your no becomes negotiable, your time becomes everyone else’s, and your emotional energy becomes a public resource.
I’d pick up extra shifts when I was exhausted, listen to friends vent for hours when I had my own problems, and let relationships continue long past their expiration date because ending them felt cruel.
Having a young child forced me to confront this.
Suddenly I had someone who actually needed my time and energy.
The math became simple: Every yes to someone else was a no to something that mattered more.
6) I was addicted to fixing people
If someone had problems, I had solutions; if they were struggling, I was researching therapists.
This sounds helpful, maybe even caring, but it’s actually about control.
When you grow up unable to fix your parents’ emotional problems (but feeling responsible for them anyway), you develop this compulsion to fix everyone else.
It’s a way of trying to create the stability you never had.
If I could just help everyone around me become emotionally healthy, then maybe my environment would finally feel safe.
Spoiler: You can’t fix people who don’t want to be fixed.
Most people don’t want your unsolicited help because they just want to be heard.
7) I couldn’t trust my own judgment
Every decision required a committee.
Should I take this job? Let me ask five people.
Is this relationship healthy? Let me poll my friends.
When parents can’t provide consistent emotional responses, you never develop that internal compass.
One day something’s fine, the next day it’s a disaster, and there’s no logic to explain the difference.
So, you outsource your judgment, look for external validation for every choice, and second-guess yourself constantly because you’ve never learned to trust your own instincts.
The irony? I’d developed incredibly sharp instincts from years of monitoring unstable environments.
I could sense tension before adults named it.
I knew when something was off, I just didn’t trust what I knew.
Final thoughts
Recognizing these patterns was uncomfortable.
It meant admitting that my childhood wasn’t just “quirky” or “different,” and acknowledging that some of my core behaviors were trauma responses.
Here’s what I’ve learned: Awareness is the first step toward choice.
Once you see the pattern, you can start to interrupt it; once you understand why you do something, you can begin to do it differently.
These traits served a purpose once as they kept me safe in an environment where emotional unpredictability was the norm.
However, carrying them into adult relationships and professional settings?
That’s like wearing a winter coat in July.
The work is about recognizing that you’re no longer that kid who needs those survival strategies.
You’re allowed to have emotions, have boundaries, and disagree with people and trust that the relationship will survive.
Most importantly, you’re allowed to stop managing everyone else’s emotional experience and start taking responsibility for your own.
