49 - PARENTIFYING - DID YOUR PARENTS DEPEND ON YOU? DID YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE FOR THEM?

Have you heard about parentifying? Do you know what that means? This is when the roles of parent and child are reversed. Hi, I'm Dr. Carol Darca, author, psychologist and founder of Reconnect Trauma Treatment center in Los Angeles. Today we're going to talk about parentifying. This is an important one because a lot of people actually do not realize that they were raised in that way. And this can be a huge trauma for a child growing up as when they are treated as if they were the parent themselves. So this is when a child basically is used for, by the parent to fulfill the parents own needs, right? Rather than the parent focusing on the child's need, the parent is very much focused on their own needs. So if your parent probably not diagnosed, but if they had tendencies to be maybe narcissistic personality or borderline personality, or if they had their own childhood trauma where they were not parented sufficiently, they might end up really feeling sort of resentful and, or not really know how to parent and they end up giving their job without of course realizing to the children. So this is unfortunately a relational trauma. You, you guys have heard me talk about that a lot and a chronic stress for a child. Well, another word that kind of describes the situation is actually enmeshment, right? So immeshment is when actually the boundaries between two people are basically really blurry and, and, and you know, meshed like that. So that's when again a child becomes all of a sudden a parent or older than their age and the parent becomes a child. So let's, let's look at some signs of, if you know, signs that you were actually parentified as a child. One, you were expected to be responsible enough to figure out things. And I'm talking about way beyond your age, right? So we often see this with, with people who actually grow up with, with a large family if maybe they are the firstborn and they have siblings to take care of. I'm not talking about just helping your parents, but if you are all of a sudden put in a role of you're literally the parent. Like the parents are gone and you are cooking, cleaning, taking care of the, of the siblings instead of you being a child. So that's one example. So you had to just, you know, make dinner, not only maybe for your siblings, but next thing you know you are really taking care of your parents. They come from work and you are taking care of them rather than them taking care of you. Another typical common sign is actually you comforting your parents emotionally rather than them comforting you. So you're seeing maybe you had a depressive parent or an anxious parent. I, I've worked with many clients whose parents were in bed all day and the child would come from home, I'm sorry, from school to home and then just sort of really worried about their parent. How are they? How are you doing, mom? If the parent is crying or alcoholic or drug addict, you know, they're, they're kind of feeling sick. So there's a lot of caretaking of the parents that happens. And again, so those are maybe more, maybe common ones or maybe obvious ones, but then there's the emotional ones. So let's talk a little bit about that. An example would be a parent who's going through divorce or was even cheated by the partner. And it really confides in the child. So the child all of a sudden is treated like a friend, right? Maybe the parent didn't have another person that they're relying on, so they're relying on the child. It's also often known if one of the parent didn't receive certain love and emotional comfort from their partner, then they go into the child and literally asking like I want you to love me. Right? In an indirect and direct way. And don't get me wrong, of course, I mean I'm a parent myself, of course I want to be loved by my children, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about when my self esteem value and the main source of love comes from my children, which then really gives tremendous amount of burden and responsibility to the children that shouldn't be their responsibility. So if you're finding, if you as a child had to hide a lot of your needs from your parents, where you felt like you couldn't say what you need because there was really no place, no space for them to be fulfilled, you might have been parentified as a child. When you think of your child, if you feel like really like your childhood was missing, you just didn't feel like a child in some way. You matured very fast, you know, too fast, too soon. That's another sign. If you now as an adult you find yourself sort of having a hard time to, to be playful or let loose and maybe just have fun, that could be another sign that maybe you are parentified. If you feel like you have to be constantly in control and you're just in this sort of state of constant survival mode as an adult, that could be also a sign that you were parentified. Oh, here's a good example. I took notes so that I don't forget because there's a lot of important examples. If you find yourself as a child pulled into arguments between your parents. So they're fighting, they're arguing. It's one thing that you're observing and you're witnessing, which is a pity and. Or of course, domestic violence. I'll talk about that in a minute. But that they are asking for your advice or for your opinion about how they are. Right. So they're fighting. Then the parent comes to you, the mom comes to you and says, this is what, you know, what your dad did and he cheated on me or he lied to me, and what do you think of that? And then the father comes and, you know, gives his story, his own story to the child. That's another sign. Unfortunately, the domestic violence, when there's actually physical violence between the parents, could be another time. A lot of children feel parentified. I've worked with a lot of clients that when they witness their parents fighting, they had to intervene to protect whoever was of course, getting beaten. And in many cases, actually those children ended up telling their parents, maybe their mom or their father, you know, leave the spouse, because I know you don't want to get divorced because we're a family unit and you're thinking of us, but. But you shouldn't be in this abusive situation anymore. So when a parent themselves weren't even able to leave the abusive relationship, the children had to step in to protect the parent. So when you grow up that way, this can become a habit of how you are even as an adult. So if you find yourself now as an adult that you are more pretty much relying on yourself rather than someone else, you think like you are the only trustworthy person. That could be also a sign that as a child you were, you know, treated this way. Let's see. So. Oh, actually this is somewhat good and bad at the same time. You know, everything has the good and bad. Often if you find yourself that you have extra heightened sense of empathy, you are so caring about other people and how they feel and what they do. Let's say you are maybe married now as an adult, and you find yourself often taking care of your partner, and the partner doesn't actually give it to you back as much as you give it to them. This could be also a sign of a replica of really what you experienced as a child. So you have empathy, you really understand what the other person is going through. That's the positive aspect. But the negative aspect of it is that there's never been a space for you to look at your own needs. And that you're constantly looking at someone else's needs. Another one is that if you feel like you need to be a peacemaker, you have very, very low tolerance for maybe the conflict or people fighting. Because anyone else fighting or even discussing or having an argument could be to you a reminder of what you saw between your parents and how you had to find ways to make peace. And if you feel like your efforts in general in life are not being appreciated or you feel undervalued or undervalued, validated, this could be also a sign that as a child you were parentified. I know I said this many times, but I'm trying to find really good examples for you guys because a lot of the people's. People really don't realize the importance of that. This in some way constitute as a child abuse because it's an emotional abuse or neglect in some ways when a parent treats their children this way. So here are a couple of important things. I'm going to talk about what to do, but before I want to talk about what to do, I want you guys to be aware of what to do if you are the parent yourself. So not to repeat that with your children. Awareness is, number one, you have to be really aware how you were treated as a child before you treat yourself. Because if you are relating to any of these examples that I gave you, you should really look into your history more and maybe identify yourself as, as such. So don't ignore your own needs anymore. Right. Within the partnership with adults, of course, but be careful about how you're talking to your kids. So two things that I noticed, I noticed that's very, very common among parents in terms of unfortunately transferring this parentifying habit to our own kids, is to say things like, you are the big brother or you are the big sister, you can do it. You are, you are. You're almost like an adult, you know, saying this, of course, to kids that are underage. And again, I'm not talking about general responsibilities, but over responsibility. So this. If you have kids and you are giving them extra work, please be careful with your wording. You can ask them to do things, but maybe not saying things like you are responsible now. Or I've heard people with the parents, with one of the parents leaving the house, either they, maybe they went to the army or they died or something. And then all of a sudden maybe a young boy. This happens a lot with male. I noticed it to the young boy parents saying, you know, your father is gone now, but you're the man of the house. And all Of a sudden, this child feels like he has to be the caretaker, right? The scaffold of the house, which could be really traumatic for that person. So these are the things that you should watch for when you are the parent yourself. And if you are not a parent yourself, but you are now sort of becoming aware of how you were parented, what you can do, right? How do you work on these things? So, as I said earlier, I will repeat, my first step is be careful of your language. Be aware of your own needs, validate your own needs, know that it's okay for you to have needs and get in touch with your inner child. Because if you've experienced this, we are talking about you have a little child inside that was really not parented properly. If you watch my video, I believe it's 43, where I talk about inner, inner child work, you will probably have a better idea of what I'm talking about. But just a little summary of what I mean is that accept that you have a child inside that was hurt and that was not parented, and that now it could be your chance to parent that child. So literally recognize yourself as a little kid inside, maybe even connect with that part. Maybe it has an age. Even putting your hands on your body, either often on the heart or in the stomach, is a sort of a good way to connect with the younger parts of yourself and let them know that now you are here and now you as an adult will help them to feel that their needs are met. So allow them to complain, allow them to express feelings, allow them to say, hey, I'm not feeling good. Don't try to minimize any of your emotions. Don't call yourself, oh, you're being a baby kind of thing, because those are very detrimental statements. So just find a lot of ways to honor your inner child by being playful, by maybe dancing or singing or being silly and just having some fun. So I hope you find all of this helpful. And of course, if you're finding that this is really in your way of healing, I might recommend professional help. As you know, at Reconnect, we are all specialized in trauma, especially what we're calling relational trauma or attachment trauma, as I've mentioned in many of my videos. Thank you for watching. And remember, trauma equals disconnect. Healing equals reconnect. Stay connected. Stay connected with your inner child, too.