This is a great article that’s geared towards women regarding mothers but but from my experience in the therapy room, it could apply to anyone and from mothers/fathers. It highlights behaviour and damage which can be caused from emotionally unavailable parents or inconsistent caregiving; nice one minute, critical, volatile or rejecting the next.
The children may present with a variety of unhealthy behaviours such as becoming an adapted child with high levels of perfectionism, people pleasing, insecure and needy, anxious, poor self-esteem with a deep core belief that they are not good enough. Or copying the behaviour, becoming critical or bullying in nature themselves, manipulative with control issues.
They may mimic the past and end up in damaging, turbulent, unhealthy relationships with poor boundaries, critical behaviour with little understanding about what a healthy relationship is meant to look like. What they have learned is what they think is normal. Some fail to forge attachments at all for fear of rejection and end up pushing people away or seeking out relationships with emotionally unavailable people by way of unconscious protection.
Internally they don’t trust themselves or their intuition which makes them susceptible to attracting narcissists.
If you keep repeating old patterns and can’t figure out why, come and work on it in therapy, understand your behaviour so that you can move forward positively. If this resonates with you, PM me.