Kelly Uchima, the creator who posts as Kelly U, has spent years describing how responsible she felt for her parents’ emotions as a child, and how her father later apologized after putting in the work to change.
She’s said she and her sister “felt like we were the mediators and the therapists” during their parents’ fights. In a February 16, 2026, Instagram post, she described childhood house rules that included “don’t tell the truth, it’ll make them look bad” and “if they’re mad, you fix it.”
Her account includes her own anger. She described one confrontation with her father as “16 years of rage.”
She said he later watched videos about narcissism, “realized it ran in his family,” and apologized. She described his change as short of “a complete 180,” closer to “a 130, 140,” while saying, “He has changed so much.”
She put the experience simply: “being an adult and realizing your parents were taking things personally that you did when you were 7 is WEIRD.”
Her own words on where that left her: “Nothing will ever make up for lost time, but watching him actually put in the work has helped me forgive and understand.”