The Quiet Rage of Wishing that your Parents Went to Therapy.

As we inch closer to the holidays (Dec 2025), some of us can get activated on this particular theme: desperately wishing that your parents went to therapy (and the rage that comes with the fact that they didn’t).

The wish is tied up in the hope and longing that things could’ve been/should’ve been (and maybe could still be) different.

The rage comes from being the one left with “holding the bag” containing your hurt feelings and the fact that the relationship isn’t different which is ultimately causing you or them, or both, pain.

It’s the tension between when rupture might never be met with repair.

This is where the work begins — not to fix them, not to rewrite the past, but to stop hating on yourself or abandoning yourself the way they may have abandoned/neglected you = re-parenting.

It also means noticing the ache and the anger, and realizing they’re evidence of how deeply you needed (and still deserve) care, consistency, and repair.

It means giving yourself the repair that never came.

And it means understanding that your healing doesn’t require their participation — just your presence, your boundaries, and your willingness to put the bag down and finally let yourself be met through other ways, connections and relationships (without projecting).