In this deeply personal and unflinchingly honest work, Unparented: Healing from Narcissistic and Borderline Family Systems, explores the hidden costs of growing up in a family defined by narcissism, dysfunction, and emotional neglect. Through vivid memoir, Ashley Quiroz traces the unraveling of her parents’ marriage, the toxic cycles of obsession and manipulation that followed, and the invisible role she was forced to play as a child and adult — mediator, caretaker, truth-teller, and ultimately, survivor.

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The book unfolds in three parts. The first is a memoir that illuminates the lived experience of being raised by parents caught in their own unresolved wounds, where love was conditional, attention fleeting, and silence often more devastating than words. The second grounds these experiences in research, examining how childhood trauma reshapes the brain, nervous system, and sense of self, while unpacking concepts like limerence, attachment, estrangement, and trauma aftermath. The third offers a path forward: meaning-making, coping strategies, and tools for readers who find themselves navigating similar family dynamics, seeking healing, or wrestling with the decision to let go.

Unparented: Healing from Narcissistic and Borderline Family System, gives language to the quiet suffering of those raised in narcissistic families and shines a light toward resilience. It is a story of betrayal, invisibility, and loss  but also of clarity, self-preservation, and the radical act of breaking free.