It Was Never Your Job

You were the one who kept the peace. The one who knew what mood your mother was in before she said a word. The one who learned, at an age when you should have been learning long division, how to hold an entire family together with nothing but your own two hands.

It Was Never Your Job is a guide for adults who grew up as the emotional backbone of their family. Drawing on family systems theory, polyvagal theory, Internal Family Systems, and attachment research, Daniel Mercer offers a compassio...