A listener writes in with a question that many people carry quietly (and can often feel ashamed for even thinking)

Does life get more peaceful when they die?

This listener was adopted into a family where love was conditional and pain was reframed as devotion. A father who minimised abuse as “loving too much.” A mother whose behaviour ruined milestones. Public humiliation at her wedding. Health crises used as leverage.

And finally, a breaking point — being told to “fuck off” in front of her eight-year-old daughter, leading her from low contact to no contact.

After years of therapy, anxiety, depression, and recurring dreams about her parents, she asks the question so many adult children of abusive families wonder but rarely say out loud:

Does life get more peaceful when they die?

In this episode, we explore the reality beneath that question — grief without safety, guilt without repair, and what peace actually comes from (and what it doesn’t).

This is an honest conversation about the trauma of adoption, endings, longing, and reclaiming your nervous system when the relationship was never safe to begin with.

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www.callaghancounselling.ie

The C.A.L.M Method

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Calmer parenting and a happier home and kids is so much closer than you think

Katie McKenna

Accredited Psychotherapist, Podcast Host, Author

BEYOND SURVIVAL - The Therapy Podcast

In this episode, we hear from a 44-year-old listener whose role as “the strong one” began far too early. Raised in the 80s as the eldest of four children to unmarried parents, she grew up learning to stay quiet, stay alert, and stay responsible. With a hard-working, emotionally absent, father and a mother she had to tiptoe around, she was placed into the role of parent long before she had the chance to be a child.

Labelled, blamed, and isolated from friends, she became the family scapegoat — the one everything landed on. That early conditioning followed her into adulthood, where she found herself repeating familiar dynamics in an abusive relationship, feeling like a pawn caught between her partner and her mother.

After finding the courage to leave, circumstances led her back into her mother’s home — and today, as she navigates court proceedings, she names the most frightening reality not as the legal battle, but as continued proximity to her mother.

This episode explores scapegoating, parentification, narcissistic abuse, projection, and the deep nervous-system impact of growing up unsafe — as well as what it means to begin reclaiming choice, agency, and self-trust later in life.

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www.callaghancounselling.ie

The C.A.L.M Method

A proven process that will take you from chaos to calm in 6 weeks!

Doors open January 26th - Join the Waitlist today

Calmer parenting and a happier home and kids is so much closer than you think

I can't wait to see you there x

Katie McKenna

Accredited Psychotherapist, Podcast Host, Author

BEYOND SURVIVAL - The Therapy Podcast

In this episode, we read a letter from a listener who has spent her life being criticised by her mother — called “stupid,” shamed about her body, and told she was a mistake. When she shared the news of her engagement, her mother ignored her for a week. When she tried to express how hurt she felt, she was accused of “looking for trouble” and acting as if she thought she was better than everyone else.

She’s now considering taking a break from the relationship and is asking a question many adult children quietly carry: Is it okay to step back, even when it’s your mother?
We explore what chronic criticism does to the nervous system, why attempts at repair often get turned back on the child, and how to think about distance or no contact in a way that centres safety, self-trust, and emotional reality — not guilt or obligation.

This episode is for anyone navigating the painful space between longing for a different parent and choosing themselves anyway.

Follow Dr. Ruth Callaghan on TikTok

Follow Dr. Ruth Callaghan on Instagram

www.callaghancounselling.ie

The C.A.L.M Method

A proven process that will take you from chaos to calm in 6 weeks!

Doors open January 26th - Join the Waitlist today

Calmer parenting and a happier home and kids is so much closer than you think

I can't wait to see you there x

Katie McKenna

Accredited Psychotherapist, Podcast Host, Author

BEYOND SURVIVAL - The Therapy Podcast

In this episode we hear from a listener who has navigated years of emotional turmoil within her blended family.

After a life-threatening childbirth, she faced ongoing manipulation, smear campaigns, and boundary violations from her mother-in-law, who sided with her husband’s ex and sought to control their family.

This powerful story explores the exhaustion of protecting your marriage and family while maintaining your own sense of self, and the ongoing challenge of living your truth in the face of disbelief and manipulation.

Follow Dr. Ruth Callaghan on TikTok

Follow Dr. Callaghan on Instagram

www.callaghancounselling.ie

The C.A.L.M Method

A proven process that will take you from chaos to calm in 6 weeks!

Doors open January 26th - Join the Waitlist today

Calmer parenting and a happier home and kids is so much closer than you think

I can't wait to see you there x

Katie McKenna

Accredited Psychotherapist, Podcast Host, Author

BEYOND SURVIVAL - The Therapy Podcast

When you leave a narcissistic family system, the separation rarely ends with you. Often, it comes with a quiet guilt for the sibling left behind - and for the children who loved the version of the family you worked so hard to preserve.

In this week’s episode, we reflect on a letter from a listener who shares the painful complexity of this experience. For ten years, she helped her children see the good in her parents - explaining that love could look different, facilitating online contact, and enduring occasional visits that were deeply upsetting for her. She believed she could hold the pain so her children wouldn’t have to.

Now, with no contact in place, her children are grieving grandparents they experienced as kind, and an uncle they experienced as funny. She writes about how hard it is to explain boundaries when you’re still trying to understand them yourself - and the heartbreak of knowing that safety and protecting you kids, doesn’t always feel that way to a child.

This episode explores the layered grief of leaving, the guilt that follows, and the slow, careful work of helping children understand emotional safety - not through blame or character assassination, but through truth, regulation, and compassion.

If you’ve ever questioned whether you did the right thing, or felt torn between protecting your children and breaking their hearts, this conversation is for you.

Follow Dr. Ruth Callaghan on Instagram

Follow Ruth on TikTok

www.callaghancounselling.ie

The C.A.L.M Method

A proven process that will take you from chaos to calm in 6 weeks!

Doors open January 26th - Join the Waitlist today

Calmer parenting and a happier home and kids is so much closer than you think

I can't wait to see you there x

Katie McKenna

Accredited Psychotherapist, Podcast Host, Author

BEYOND SURVIVAL - The Therapy Podcast

Perfectionism can look like competence, control, or high standards, but what often hides underneath is a survival strategy.

In this conversation, I’m joined by, Podcast Host & Mindset Coach, Claire Fealy to explore how perfectionism hides in plain sight - in our work, relationships, bodies, and inner worlds. We talk about how perfectionism develops as protection, how it keeps us stuck in self-monitoring and self-pressure, and why it can feel so hard to let go of.

Together, we explore what it actually takes to heal and gently disrupt perfectionistic patterns - without forcing change, shaming ourselves, or trying to “fix” who we are.

This is a conversation about understanding, softening, and creating safety beyond survival.

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Looking Forward 2026

I’m excited to announce that I’ll be running another 6-Week C.A.L.M. Parent Method in February - Doors open January 26th - Join the Waitlist today.

Here's what some of the parents who completed the course last year have shared:

“Doing The Calmer Parent course was absolutely invaluable” Nicola

“This has been the most impactful course I’ve ever taken” Steph

“I’m sincere when I say my husband and I have repeatedly said this is the best parenting course we’ve ever paid for” Annalisa

The C.A.L.M Method

A proven process that will take you from chaos to calm in 6 weeks!

Doors open January 26th - Join the Waitlist today

Calmer parenting and a happier home and kids is so much closer than you think

I can't wait to see you there x

BEYOND SURVIVAL - The Therapy Podcast

In this episode, I’m joined by psychologist and author Dr Rachna Buxani, whose book Unseen: A Therapist’s Reflection on a Daughter’s Journey Through a Narcissistic Father’s Shadow.

Together, we explore what happens when a father’s love feels more like control than care?

We discuss the impact of growing up in emotional silence, the silent erosion of self-trust, and how a child learns to survive by disconnecting from her own voice. Dr Buxani shares reflections on memory, self-doubt, and the invisible grief of never feeling truly seen by a narcissistic father.

If you’ve ever questioned your own experiences, apologised for having needs, or felt like love was something you had to earn, this episode is for you!

Looking Forward 2026

I’m excited to announce that I’ll be running another 6-Week C.A.L.M. Parent Method in February - Doors open January 26th - Join the Waitlist today.

Here's what some of the parents who completed the course last year have shared:

“Doing The Calmer Parent course was absolutely invaluable” Nicola

“This has been the most impactful course I’ve ever taken” Steph

“I’m sincere when I say my husband and I have repeatedly said this is the best parenting course we’ve ever paid for” Annalisa

The C.A.L.M Method

A proven process that will take you from chaos to calm in 6 weeks!

Doors open January 26th - Join the Waitlist today

Calmer parenting and a happier home and kids is so much closer than you think

I can't wait to see you there x

BEYOND SURVIVAL - The Therapy Podcast

In this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Natalie Fabert to explore a question I often return to: What if a narcissistic family system operates like a cult?

When we hear the word cult, it can conjure images of something extreme, distant, or dramatic, something that happens to other people. But what if a cult simply describes a system. A system where one person’s reality becomes the only acceptable reality. Where it’s “my way or the highway.” Where you’re trained to question yourself, but never the person in charge.

We’ll talk about how these systems are upheld through conditional love, inconsistent rules, and roles that determine your worth based on how well you perform. While education often focuses on the narcissist’s behaviour, this conversation looks beyond the individual to the wider system that protects and maintains the dynamic.

Using real-life examples, we explore how the psychological dynamics of cults and narcissistic families can be strikingly similar.

Dr. Natalie Fabert joins us from the Lalich Center on Cults and Coercion, where she serves on the board of directors and oversees continuing education for clinicians. She is an associate teaching professor of psychology at Arizona State University and a licensed psychologist in private practice, specialising in work with survivors of cultic abuse, spiritual and religious abuse, and coercive control.

If you grew up in a family where love felt conditional and you became hyper-vigilant, constantly monitoring and managing your narcissistic parent’s moods. Where you learned not to trust your own mind, and self-doubt became second nature, where obedience felt like survival in a home that trained you to question yourself but never the person in charge! Then this episode offers a powerful new lens for understanding what you lived through, and why it was never your fault.

Dr. Natalie Fabert

Lalich Center on Cults and Coercion

Add your name here if you'd like to know more about my parenting course

The C.A.L.M Method

A proven process that will take you from chaos to calm in 6 weeks!

Doors open January 26th - Join the Waitlist today

Calmer parenting and a happier home and kids is so much closer than you think

I can't wait to see you there x

Katie McKenna

Accredited Psychotherapist, Podcast Host, Author

BEYOND SURVIVAL - The Therapy Podcast