Growing up with a parent who was narcissistic — whether through manipulation, control, criticism, or cold silence — leaves deep marks that don’t fade just because childhood ends. Many young men and women carry a hidden ache well into adulthood: a fierce anger, a heavy hatred, an ache that feels impossible to lay down.

Hatred can feel like protection. If you keep hating them, maybe they can’t hurt you again. If you refuse to forgive, maybe you keep a piece of control that they once took from you. But the truth is harder: hatred rarely punishes the one who caused the pain. More often, it punishes the one who carries it. It binds the heart to the person who least deserves to hold it captive.

Letting go of hatred does not mean saying it was okay. It does not mean pretending the pain never happened. It means saying, I will not let this poison shape my life anymore.

Speak the Full Truth

Some truths must be spoken before anything can heal. The full truth is this: They hurt you. Maybe this parent should have protected and encouraged, but instead they belittled, manipulated, or made you feel invisible. Maybe they made you small in your own home, left wounds that have followed you into every argument, every silence, every relationship. You did not deserve it. You were not too weak, too loud, too selfish. You were a child — they were supposed to be safe.

Understand Without Excusing

Sometimes it helps to understand the person behind the harm. Maybe they too were broken by their own wounds. Maybe they never faced their pain, so they projected it onto you. Maybe they drowned it in blame, denial, or emotional games. Seeing this doesn’t excuse what they did — it explains it. The blame remains with them, but the hatred can loosen when you see they were not powerful, just unhealed.

Let the Anger Move

Hatred has to move somewhere. Locked inside, it becomes bitterness and shame. Let it out where it can’t hurt you or anyone else. Write them a letter you never send. Tell them everything — the nights you lay awake, the fear, the rage. Rip it up when you’re done. Scream into the wind. Punch a pillow until your arms ache. Run until your chest burns and your thoughts are quiet. Let your anger pass through you, not stay inside you.

Redefine Forgiveness

Forgiveness is not for them — it is for you. It is not an excuse. It is not forgetting. It is not a door swinging open to let them back into your life if they are still unsafe. It is simply this: deciding you will not drag the weight of what they did through every doorway you walk through now. It is cutting the chain between you and them. It is saying, I will not carry this any longer.

Lay It Down Again and Again

When hatred returns — because some days it will — speak the truth again: They hurt me, and it was wrong. But I choose freedom over bitterness. Again and again, I choose to lay it down.

Choose Your Own Healing

You may never hear I’m sorry from their mouth. They may never change. But you can change. You can become your own safe place. You can learn what love looks like without fear. You can give yourself the gentleness they could not give you.

You do not have to stay bound to what they did. You can let go of hatred, not for them — for you. Because you are worth a life that is free. Because you deserve peace. Because the past does not get to keep writing your story.

A Final Hope

May you find the courage to tell the truth. May you find the strength to release what does not serve you. May you know, deeply, that the burden you have carried so long can be set down — and you can walk on without it.