I learned a new word about two weeks ago – parentification. It’s a word that has changed my life. What is parentification? In a nutshell, it’s when the roles of children and parents become reversed. It’s when a child either takes on the role as the emotional caretaker of the parent or they take on the actual responsibilities of being the caretaker such as paying bills, making meals, or caring for the needs of siblings.
Why is this word so life-changing for me? Because I’ve been a victim of parentification. It’s a form of emotional abuse. Turns out there is a decent amount of information regarding parentification on the internet, including several really good articles written by trained therapists. Another term, C-PTSD, is Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which is officially recognized by the World Health Organization as its own separate issue from PTSD because it’s complex. The complex part if of is the repeated, usually longer-term part of the trauma. I found an article calling it Complex Relational Trauma which also fit really well and perhaps provides a better descriptor. Not everyone who’s been parentified will develop C-PTSD, but I’m pretty sure that I have and I’ll elaborate in future posts.
About five years ago, I made an appointment with a dietician because I had reached a point where my fatigue was so bad that I had to do something and I thought it was my overall diet. She was fantastic. She did assist me with discussing various foods and nutrition – which was very informational and helpful – but as a dietician, she also had an understanding of eating disorders and psychological issues. She very gently recommended that I work with a therapist and had a network of people in the area she could recommend. That led me to a therapist who I connected with and who started me down a journey that has now lasted for five years.
First, I have to note that I have moved to different states twice during that time. I’m trying to be kind to myself and know that if I had been in a consistent place perhaps my five-year journey could have been shorter, but its’ also possible that the move created situations for me that perhaps actually sped up the process. I also believe that working with different therapists who have different techniques worked for my stubborn brain because they approached similar topics but with different methods, allowing me to process them separately but then able to connect the pieces into a bigger picture.
About ten months ago, shortly after moving back to my current state, I began to itch all over. It gradually became worse and my research led me to all kinds of things from dry skin to cancer. While our global pandemic has been a shock to human beings everywhere, for some people, there have been small silver linings. One of those for me was that articles were being written about how some people were starting to itch from the stress of the pandemic. A couple months after the itching, the hives started to show up and that, thankfully, gave me something else to research which led to taking an antihistamine to counteract the itching. I saw a doctor about that same time and was told that hives can show up for many reasons, many of which aren’t known but that if the antihistamine was working, it was fine to continue with that. However, it’s now been several months and I’m not sure that lifelong use is a good thing!
A couple months after the hives, around the holidays, our state starting hitting high numbers of Covid cases, which stressed me out. Also it was the holidays, which stress me out. I was really on edge in general and felt an anger and bitterness and general depression kicking in. This culminated with a blow up on Christmas with my spouse – which was NOT his fault. Shortly after that, the anger wouldn’t dissipate, my overeating became worse than it’s ever been and I had an emotional pressure cooker build up within me while at the grocery store. I was fortunate to recognize it and leave as soon as possible to avoid what was certain to be an eruption – a violent eruption on my part. I’m leaving it at that.
I am thankful for being enough self-aware, thanks to my therapists and continued research, that I recognized what was happening in me wasn’t ok and I had the power to remove myself from the situation. But the general anger wouldn’t go away. I wanted to snap at everyone and did get rather snippy at work (but about actual work stuff). I wanted to run away, get a hotel for the weekend or anything to remove me from the depression and anger. The overeating was out of control and I couldn’t continue to live this way, so I’ve continued to do research and meet with my therapist.
During this entire time, I couldn’t shake the continued, yet disconnected, thoughts of “family”, “mother”, “chores”, “responsibility”, “obligation”. I had thought I came to a conclusion regarding my upbringing two years ago when I realized that I had to choose between my parents life or my life. I felt a release of pressure when I realized that I could pick my life. Turns out, that was just the starting point.
My therapists tried to guide me to this point, it’s not their fault I’m stubborn. They did say some things that have stuck with me that did help get me here.
- Trauma doesn’t have to be a car wreck or a war story or a rape. Trauma can be a series of small things that hurt us and it can be emotional. Think about a bully that picks on another kid in the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grades, or longer. What traumatized me may not even be a blink on someone else’s radar and vice versa.
- I knew my mother acted the way that she did because that’s what she was taught as a child but then my therapist said that in her yelling at us to get our constant attention and obedience, she was also getting the emotional attention and response that she needed for herself. She was meeting her emotional needs, although I know she didn’t understand that.
- A therapist did note that I am a highly sensitive person (HSP). I’m not sure about that part yet, but one aspect of it makes sense to me and that’s how I learned about parentification. Apparently HSPs may be more susceptible to it when they are children because they pick up on other’s emotions.
These things kept bouncing around, the first and third ones for the better part of three years, the second for the last few months. I don’t know what I looked up a couple of weeks ago, other than a string of words that I was feeling at the time, but when I did, articles with the word parentification popped up and when I read the first one I became emotional, feeling an incredible sense of release. Holy shit, I get it now! I understand that I have never felt the way that other people feel my entire life. MY ENTIRE LIFE! I have been living with a constant burden that I never knew I carried because it has been with me since birth and I had no idea that there was a healthier way to live.
I’m going to be writing about this for a long time. In part because, although I’ve been looking up information mostly written by therapists, I’ve also found articles written by others who have similar stories and are sharing them. Everyone’s situation is different, but I thought writing about mine might help another person someday as well as provide a type of therapy and healing for myself, so I’ve made the decision to share my story. Just understand I’m now at the beginning of it and I know I have a long ways to go.
I was parentified by being there emotionally for my mother. It’s never just one thing, but that’s the biggest part. She grew up as a childhood victim herself and the damage she’s caused me was not intentional or most likely even known by her – I’m pretty sure about that. She was never given a safe place to grow up, either physically or emotionally and I can now say that she has no emotional regulation and probably doesn’t even really know what she’s feeling most of the time. Because of this, we also never had an emotionally safe place most of the time and I know that I never received the nurturing that I needed in order to fully emotionally develop. I can’t remember being hugged by either parent more than a couple of times when I was young or hearing “I love you” until I was much older (late teens).
I know that we grew up doing our best to keep Mom from yelling at us (Dad wasn’t much of a picnic either and could also blow up). This meant obedience. It meant getting things done that we were told to do. It meant doing what we could to keep to Mom’s schedule even if that schedule was ridiculous (which I now know, but I didn’t know then). I was born into this and have been parentified from the very moment of my birth. Until ten days ago, I didn’t understand what it meant to feel like a human being.
I’ve read that this type of emotional abuse can occur due to the absence of something, not just by someone saying horrible things to us. I’ve learned that as a parentified child, we learn to suppress our own needs and emotions in order to provide support for our parents. This means that we don’t know who we are. And I can’t stress that enough. I have very little idea what I really want or like or dislike. There’s a very simple, yet effective, Hollywood version of this…Runaway Bride with Julia Roberts. She likes whatever eggs her fiancée likes and has to make an effort to learn what she likes. My world’s a bit more complicated, but that’s the general idea…putting others above ourselves in many ways in order to keep the peace or provide comfort. Now, those who know me might not think this because I’m also pretty demanding. Given the fact that I have the emotional development of a 6-year-old, that seems about right. This is why it’s called complex trauma. I know that there’s something suppressed within me, but that’s all I know. I can’t just say…”oh, I’m suppressing fear” because in reality, I’m just completely disconnected. I learned all of this in the last week. My biggest challenge now is finding a way to find out what I don’t feel/know about myself. It’s a very weird place to be in.
My world is currently upside down and inside out and my mental health took a deep and very dark turn a few days ago because I’m overwhelmed. This has been exacerbated by the realization I’m currently working for a manipulative and narcissistic boss. But thanks to my understanding of what trauma had done to me, I was eventually able to put the pieces of his behavior together and see him for who he really is. Not before the damage was done though. I’ll write more on that at a different time.
I’m worried about being able to truly connect to anyone. I felt connections for one full week for the first time in my life and it was wonderful. I want that back. But with the compounded issue of my boss, I now know that I need to guard myself. These are conflicting strategies I’m going to be required to navigate.
I’m going to be writing about this journey nearly exclusively on here, ignoring the other interests in my life, at least in the short term. Although I might try to focus back on photography as a way to bring in diversification to my personal world and to potentially act as a valve release on the impending work struggle.
I intend to list out ways that my life as an adult has been negatively impacted due to parentification and childhood emotional neglect. I hope in the future I’ll be able to share more direct strategies for dealing with all this. And I sincerely hope that sometime in the not-too-distant-future I’ll be able to have that peaceful feeling back that I so wonderfully enjoyed just a little over a week ago.
