The Vikki Story: Why I’m Here

I didn’t end up here because I was searching for self-help tips or trying to become “more positive.”

I’m here because caregiving destroyed me.

Not caregiving in the noble, chosen sense — but the kind that starts when you’re a child and never really stops. The kind where you learn, very early, that your job is to manage someone else’s emotions so you can survive.

My mother was narcissistic. Not in the trendy, overused way — but in the way that meant her emotional world came first, always. From the moment I was capable, I became her regulator. Her therapist. Her buffer. Her emotional punchbag and her emotional support system, often in the same day.

I wasn’t raised.

I was used.

When Love Is Actually a Job

I learned that love meant:

• Anticipating moods
• Preventing explosions
• Staying loyal even when it hurt
• Never leaving, unless I stayed emotionally available

There was no room for my fear, my anger, or my needs. Those were inconvenient. Dangerous. “Too much.”

So I became small. Hyper-aware. Responsible. Exhausted.

By 15, the cost of that role nearly killed me.

And still, the pattern followed me into adulthood — because when caregiving is all you know, you mistake familiarity for safety. You choose partners who feel like home, even when home was never safe.

The Toxic Reversal Dynamic

What I didn’t understand for a long time is that the relationship with my mother was built on a toxic reversal.

She wasn’t regulating herself.

She was regulating through me.

When she was anxious, I had to be calm.

When she felt abandoned, I had to stay.

When she was angry, I had to absorb it.

My distress settled her.

My boundaries destabilised her.

That’s not love. That’s extraction.

And when I finally stopped playing that role — when I blocked her, stepped back, and chose my own sanity — she didn’t reflect. She escalated. She rewrote history. She targeted. She tried to use my child  to get to me.

Because when you remove someone’s regulator, they panic.

Leaving Wasn’t Abandonment — It Was Repair

This is the part people get wrong.

I didn’t abandon my mother.

I stopped abandoning myself.

I ended a dynamic that never should have existed — not because I’m cruel, but because I’m done sacrificing my nervous system, my health, and my child to keep someone else stable.

Healthy people don’t need others to suffer so they can feel calm.

And I will not pass that role to the next generation.

My teenager sees it. She’s 16, and she’s already blocked her father for the same treatment. She understands the strategy because she’s watched me dismantle it. That matters more to me than looking “forgiving” or “nice.”

The Cost Nobody Talks About

Caregiving like this doesn’t just hurt emotionally.

It shows up as:

• Chronic anxiety
• Hypervigilance
• Relationship sabotage
• Burnout
• Stress-induced illness
• Hair loss
• A body that never fully relaxes

Your system never learned safety. Only management.

This blog exists because pretending that’s “just family stuff” nearly destroyed me — and because I know how many people are still trapped, wondering why they feel broken when they’re actually injured.

Why I’m Here Now

I’m here to tell the truth about:

• Parentification
• Narcissistic family systems
• Emotional regulation by proxy
• Why leaving feels dangerous even when it’s right
• Why guilt spikes after boundaries
• Why healing isn’t forgiveness — it’s containment

I’m here because feeling “fucking amazing” isn’t about vibes or manifesting. It’s about ending dynamics that cost you your life force.

This isn’t a redemption arc.

It’s a reclamation.

And if any part of this feels uncomfortably familiar — you’re not weak, heartless, or broken.

You were trained to survive something that was never supposed to be your job.