Unlearning Loyalty to Dysfunction: Breaking the Silence That Protected Everyone Except Me

For most of my life, I stayed quiet. I kept the peace. I protected the image. I played the role of the understanding daughter, the one who brushed off the pain, rationalized the dysfunction, and hoped that maybe... just maybe, they’d finally change.

I've come to realize that silence wasn’t peace. It was survival.

I’ve felt uncomfortable

about many things my father has done throughout my life, but this time I couldn’t ignore it. He chose to engage publicly in highly inappropriate behaviour by commenting sexual remarks on several posts of women who appeared to be questionably young. When I brought this to my mother’s attention, she responded in the way she always has, by dismissing my feelings, minimizing the seriousness of his actions, and asking if anyone else had seen it or if she should tell him to delete the comments.

It wasn’t concern. It was damage control.

That response hit me hard. Not because it was surprising, but because it was predictable. It was the same pattern I’ve seen my entire life: sweep it under the rug, protect the image, pretend it’s not that bad. And for years, I played along. I kept quiet to avoid rocking the boat, convincing myself that maybe staying silent was the mature thing to do.

But silence doesn’t fix dysfunction. It feeds it.

Growing up, anytime I challenged questionable behaviour, called out explosive outbursts, or tried to hold someone accountable, I was labeled the problem. I was told I was too sensitive, too dramatic, too difficult. But the real issue was never my voice. It was their fear of being exposed. Being accountable.

Still, it wasn’t until now that I fully understood the role that silence played or how I was contributing to the problem. Every other time something harmful happened, I cut contact and stayed silent. I thought removing myself was enough. But silence perpetuates the problem. It enables the cycle of dysfunction to continue uninterrupted and unchallenged. And I realized that if I reacted the same way I always had (quietly disappearing) I’d get the same result: years of estrangement, followed by guilt, false reconciliation, empty promises of change, and then the same painful pattern all over again.

This time, I chose differently.

I didn’t speak up to cause harm. I spoke up to protect myself. To make it clear that I will no longer play a role in maintaining a lie or minimizing behaviour that has caused real harm for the sake of keeping others comfortable. This wasn’t about revenge or shaming anyone publicly, it was about refusing to be complicit through my silence.

I’m not breaking a family apart. I'm breaking the role I've been playing in this dysfunctional cycle that’s been tearing it apart for decades. And for the first time, I didn’t abandon myself to keep the peace, I became the parent my inner child had been desperate for all along.

The one who listens.

The one who sets boundaries.

The one who protects.

I stopped waiting for the apology, the change, the safety that never came and started becoming the source of it myself. That’s not betrayal. That’s healing. That’s what breaking generational cycles actually looks like. Every time we protect someone else's comfort at the expense of our own truth, we abandoned ourselves a little more.

The moment I said what needed to be said, something in me released. The weight I’d been carrying for decades, the fear, the guilt, the pressure to protect everyone but myself...lifted.

I felt clearer. Lighter. Like I finally chose me.

And let me tell you something I learned the hard way: If speaking your truth breaks a relationship then it was never real, it was just your silence holding it together.

You're allowed to have boundaries, even with your parents.

You're allowed to say, “this isn't okay,” even if it's always been that way.

You're allowed to protect your peace, even if it means disappointing people who were never willing to protect you.

People who are more concerned with protecting their reputation than acknowledging the truth are often the ones with the most to hide. If you were just a decent human being with nothing to cover up, your reputation wouldn't be at risk in the first place. In situations like these, especially when dealing with emotionally immature parents, they often twist the narrative to make you feel like you’re the problem. They gaslight you into silence by downplaying your concerns, denying your reality, or accusing you of being too sensitive. All to avoid taking responsibility for their own behaviour.

Healing doesn’t happen through silence.

It happens through awareness.

Through honesty.

Through choosing yourself.

For years, I let my empathy override my better judgment. I excused, rationalized, and softened the impact of harmful behaviour because I could see why my parents acted the way they did. I understood their wounds, their traumas, their pasts, and I let that understanding blur my boundaries.

Children from dysfunctional families often grow up with an overdeveloped sense of empathy. We’re taught, explicitly or not, that our role is to manage everyone else’s emotions, to keep the peace, to absorb the chaos instead of name it. But that kind of empathy isn’t compassion. It’s self-abandonment. You can have empathy and still hold people accountable for their actions. You can understand someone’s pain and still require them to get professional help before reentering your life.

My overdeveloped empathy was now holding me back. It kept me tethered to a version of love that required me to shrink, suppress, and suffer quietly. That’s not love. That’s dysfunction in disguise. And I’m done mistaking one for the other.

An emotionally healthy parent, when confronted with serious and disturbing behaviour, especially by their own partner, would respond with accountability, not avoidance. They would listen without defensiveness, acknowledge the harm, and prioritize their child's well-being over their own discomfort or image. They wouldn’t ask if anyone else saw the posts or suggest deleting them to protect appearances. They would say, “This is not okay, and I will take responsibility for addressing it.”

But that’s not what happened. Instead, it was minimized and the situation shifted into damage control. In that moment, I realized something just as unsettling as my father’s behaviour. Her response was equally harmful. Her decision to dismiss my concerns and shield him from consequences wasn’t neutral. It was a form of participation. Choosing silence, denial, and protection of the problem is how cycles like this survive. I can no longer separate the behaviour from the person enabling it. Emotional health requires truth, accountability, and the willingness to face hard things.

It can be hard to know when to speak up publicly and when to keep things private. Privacy feels safer. It’s more comfortable, less disruptive, and easier to control. But sometimes, keeping things private becomes part of the problem. There are moments when silence protects dysfunction more than it protects peace. Using your voice, especially on a public platform, comes with the risk of upsetting people, losing relationships, and being misunderstood. But when you are speaking from a place of awareness, integrity, and truth, that voice becomes a powerful tool for change. I chose to speak publicly because this is something deeply personal to me, and sometimes the only way to disrupt generational patterns is to shine a light on them. My DMs were filled with screenshots and questions from people who had seen my dad’s sexually inappropriate comments. This wasn’t something I uncovered by digging through his private messages, it was all out in the open, and there were a lot of them. When someone chooses to behave publicly in that way, I believe it’s completely fair to address it publicly. When no one speaks up, then everyone suffers in silence including people who may have felt deeply uncomfortable by his actions.

We have all done things we are not proud of. That is part of being human. But growth begins when we stop denying the damage and start taking responsibility for it.

Real change is always possible, but only if we are willing to face the truth.

If you’ve experienced abuse, trauma, or any kind of emotional harm simply because you were born into dysfunction, I want you to know you are not alone. There are so many others out there who understand exactly what you’re feeling, even if no one around you seems to; but you’ll never find those people if you keep hiding your story out of shame or fear. The moment you speak up, you make space for connection. You make it possible to be seen, understood, and supported by those who have lived through the same pain. Your story might be the very thing someone else needs to hear to feel a little less alone. And in telling it, you remind yourself that you were never the problem. You were just brave enough to name it.

This book was recently recommended to me, and although I haven’t read it yet, I already sense it will be a powerful part of my healing journey. I’ve watched a few interviews with the author and felt so seen and validated by her words. I wanted to pass it along in case it resonates with you too:

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

If any part of this resonated with you, I’d love to hear from you. Don’t hesitate to reach out, sometimes just talking about it is the first step toward healing.