What to do if You’ve Been Parentified

Part Two: Healing (see Part One of this series for more background on parentification)

If you’ve seen that you were “parentified” as you were growing up, and have recognized that there may be a toxic residue hanging on in your adult life, what do you do now? Well, the answer is both simple and complex. The simple part? You can give yourself what you did not get in your past. The complex part? How do you give yourself something you never had?

For any of us to grow, become, and live with the ease and joy and love we deserve, at some point we simply must have attention, care, and prioritization of our own needs. Period. You can live without it (and unfortunately many do) but we all need this to truly thrive. Ideally, if you won the parental lottery as I mentioned in Part One, you got this in your family of origin. If you didn’t, you can give it to yourself.

Why do I say give to yourself instead of find someone to give it to you? Two reasons. One, if you didn’t get love, care, and healthy attention growing up, typically you are not patterned to a) look for it, and b) receive it. As much as we might hope to meet that amazing person who is healthy and treats us with nothing but care, it can be very very hard to attract them, let them in, and adjust to kind and caring treatment until we are fairly far along in our own healing journey. Those of us who were raised in a parentified environment can feel distinctly uncomfortable when someone truly cares. It feels foreign to our nervous systems, which were trained for the opposite.

And two, while it is true that healthy relationships with others can — and do — provide a healing space, as my dear friend and business partner Ursula likes to say “We can’t really hear from another what we are unable to say to ourselves.” In other words, we need to believe we are worthy and lovable before those messages from others really “land.” But the good news is that as adults we can reroute early training and create the neural networks that accept positive messages.

Here are three key things to consider in healing from parentification:

ONE: Understand that what you went through was not actually ok. As one expert says, it’s important to see your past through the eyes of a child (not the adult who may be telling themselves oh well, it’s ok). This can mean detangling your personal truth from the accepted family myth, whatever that was. It really is helpful here to connect with your inner child to unearth any buried feelings that you had to stuff down in order to survive.

This includes also accepting the paradox that while you may have great strength and coping skills, you missed some things as well. One does not negate the other. You can be grateful for the strength and competency you developed while still mourning what you missed as a child.

A trained coach or therapist can help with this, and you can also journal on questions such as “when I was a child, I felt…. when…..” You can use this to start a dialogue as well, responding to this child in you from your wise, adult self. How would a loving parent respond to a child saying, for example, that they felt scared when they were home alone after school and had to make dinner for their siblings?

TWO: Notice your patterns and work to disrupt those that you now see (or suspect) come from being parentified. A few common patterns are believing you are responsible for other people’s feelings, over-helping and feeling guilty if you don’t, not asking others for help, and not expecting to be treated as well as you treat others. Interestingly, your own resentment can be helpful here. If you can heighten awareness to that (sometimes small) voice within that says “Hey, enough already!” or “What about me?” it can help bring to light where you may want to work on noticing and shifting a pattern.

Again, this is where a trained coach or counselor may be very helpful, because the old patterns are comfortable and new ones are not. So the old ones pull us back, even when they steal the joy from our lives. The good news is that with practice new patterns can and do become just as comfortable over time.

THREE: Give yourself those things you missed. Make yourself a priority. Listen to your own feelings. Do those seemingly silly “self-care” things everyone advises like taking long baths with your favorite (expensive) bath bomb, going for long walks in a beautiful place, planning a vacation alone or with people who do not ask you to care for them, buy yourself flowers, etc. While these may seem like pat answers on the surface, they are concrete ways you can say to yourself “you matter.” Our systems need more than mental reflection. We need actual, real experiences. And you’ll know if it’s a helpful thing to do if you hear an internal voice telling you it’s selfish or too expensive, but while you know you’d do it for someone else.

Related to this, do more things that bring you joy and reclaim the natural childhood delight in play. This may mean first of all, engaging in reflection on what that might be, and then, experimenting. Is it going on the swings on a playground? Taking a pottery or improv class? Could it be even just running on the beach with your arms stretched out? Give yourself back some pieces of childhood. It’s not silly. It’s healing.

—————————-

In the process of healing and need some support? Join our next group coaching program (starts January 2023) or Contact Ann for one-to-one coaching.

—————————-

Want to learn how to work with relational trauma as a coach? Join our next Certification Program for Neuroscience, Coaching and Relational Trauma starting January 2023.

—————————-

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ann Betz is the co-founder of BEabove Leadership and an expert on the intersection of neuroscience, coaching, trauma and human transformation. She speaks, trains and coaches internationally, and writes about neuroscience and coaching as well as relational trauma. Ann is also a published poet who loves cats, rain in the desert, and healthy relationships. She is in an ongoing exploration around play and healing.