How Critical or Emotionally Immature Parents Shape Your Inner Voice—and How to Heal It

This episode of Giving Voice to Depression features  licensed therapist Carolina Bracco and a candid conversation about the profound, long-term effects of growing up with emotionally immature or overly critical parents. 

Co-hosts Terry McGuire and Carly McCollow explore this often-overlooked area of childhood experience, highlighting how these parental patterns can contribute to depression and shape an adult's life, relationships, and even their own parenting style.

Carolina, a childhood trauma survivor herself, shares her personal journey of being scapegoated and constantly criticized, which led to deep-seated toxic shame and a powerful inner critic. She explains that as children, it's a survival mechanism to turn anger and blame inward rather than directing it toward the primary caregivers, resulting in core beliefs like "I'm not enough" and "I'm worthless"—the exact phrases often heard during a depressive episode.

The discussion defines highly critical parenting as a consistent pattern of never meeting expectations and explores how this, along with the role reversal seen with emotionally immature parents, counts as childhood trauma—an emotional wound and neglect that can be as impactful as physical abuse.

More importantly, the episode focuses on healing. Carolina introduces the concept of reparenting our inner child as a continuous process of self-compassion, connection, and attunement. This involves acknowledging the feelings of the "wounded inner child" and providing the comfort and safety that was lacking.

Carly concludes by offering non-blaming context, emphasizing that parents are often doing the best they can, but that sometimes "best isn't good enough." She shares empowering strategies from Dr. Lindsay Gibson's work, including accepting that you cannot "fix" your parents and affirming your own importance and inherent worth ("I have good stuff inside me").

This episode provides listeners with essential language, context, and practical steps to understand and begin healing from the emotional legacy of their upbringing.

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