Anyone else’s parents over share when they were younger? Parentification

[Pupstar241]

I’m working through some issues since having my baby stemming from my own childhood.

I have a lot of anger/resentment towards my mother and I’m trying to go low contact with her now.

One thing that really annoys me and can’t get over is how she used to treat me as her friend in such an inappropriate manner.

Examples range from telling me all the details of my stepdads infidelity when I was around 12 years old, yet still forgiving him and expecting me to treat him as though nothing has happened.
Telling me about her financial worries from being 8 onwards and how she didn’t know how she was going to pay bills/mortgage and how we could lose the house, so i would be worried/stressed yet unable to help or do anything.
She’d tell me details of my siblings shortcomings and worries whenever they thought.

She basically told me things that you would tell an adult friend over a glass of wine. But I was a child then carrying the weight of adult worries I couldn’t solve.

Then me being loyal to my mother after she’d be crying to me over stepdad/siblings or whatever I would naturally see them as the opponent but then get in trouble for being disrespectful to the person she told me caused her untold pain.

At the time I thought we were super close and I was just mature for my age. In fact until my mid twenties I still believed this and had such loyalties to her.

It’s only now I see how wrong it was. Anyone else?

Yeah I had this. Standing at a bus stop with her when I was nine years old. I am the third of 4 children. My father left when I was five.

Telling me that if she’d hadn’t had us all her marriage would have survived. Something about she didn’t want us to die now we were older, but if any of us had died as babies …..Consoling her when she was sobbing over a boyfriend who dumped her. Many more things like this. I feel I was her parent a lot of the time.

It wasn’t until my own child was five or six I realised a parent shouldn’t behave like this. It’s left me unable to put my own feelings or needs first.

Yes, I know exactly what you mean. I was always a very mature child and tween. I was the kid everyone said was an 'old soul.' She must have thought I could handle it. As an adult, on the outside I'm overly resilient to emotional stress, I pretend things just bounce off me easily. In reality, it's just pretend resilience, which can be helpful sometimes, but other times it makes you feel like you're drowning and nobody knows.

At 8 years old she'd tell me the terrible details of a very close family members cancer diagnosis and treatment, even their death. I don't know what she was thinking, the situation was sad enough. She told me about the fear they had in their eyes when they passed away.

She then way over shared about her own MH struggles following the bereavement. I remember miss behaving one day and her saying 'I can't cope with this, I'll just go and hang myself shall I?' She'd never had any MH problems before and I remember 8 year old me feeling so desperate and not knowing how to process what she had just said. I was speechless, and felt so scared that she was going to die too.

I think back to that time and in my head think of all the ways adult me would protect little me if adult me was present at the time. It weirdly kind of helps.

My mum is much better now, but was never the same again after the loss of my sibling. As an adult I can see that she just totally wasn't ok, wasn't thinking straight, she must have been going out of her mind with stress, worry and grief. I feel very sorry for my mother.

I think venting all this to this thread has really helped me process.

@Toomanysleepycats @minutesforever Sorry you both went through those things.

Out of interest did your mums have any adult friends to share with?

My mother is unable to hold onto adult friendships. I’ve noticed over the years she makes a friend and will inevitably fall out with them for some reason or another.
I think this is why she unloaded all of her problems into me.
She was lonely with no alternative.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_personality

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8123600/

Also known as parentification.

There is a book called something like Immature Parents which people have recommended.

Its at best a form of neglect and at worst abuse.

Yep, I know all about my dad's affair, his issues ejaculating, how often they were having sex etc etc etc

When they would have an argument she would come and find me to convince me everything my dad said was wrong, and everything she said was right and tell me all the reasons she was right and force me to agree with her or I would get yelled at

Every time they argued she would tell me it was my fault because they never argued when I wasn't around. Then she would tell me my dad was probably having an affair again and would leave us.

It took me until my early 30s to realise this wasn't normal

Yes. When I was around 6 she would tell me about her marriage problems and try and get me on her side. I'd try and fix things by telling my dad i was on his side and telling my mum I was on her side. She had mental health problems and used me as an emotional crutch. Burdening me with adult problems. I reacted by acting strong and not sharing my own worries. It was bad for me as I couldn't be a normal kid who needs support. I was pulling my eyelashes out with stress by the age of 9
She also bullied me senseless as I grew older.
They are still alive. When my husband died she was getting my aunt to write to me less than a year later telling me I needed to support my mum as she gets depressed. I was grieving my fucking husband and supporting my kids who'd lost their dad. What about my mental health?

I'm reading back through people's posts and I recognise so much of what people are saying.

Wow this resonates so much with me too. I also see my DH has gone thru this but he is unwilling to admit or accept it. MIL has told all her children all her problems with her husband and her own in laws from a young age they knew all the details and basically were groomed to hate them. Sadly they all still hate her in laws and I think they are completely unaware of how wrong their mum was to do that. That's just one example of many. With me my mum always burdened me with her problems, usually about my siblings or money problems etc. I was mature for my age but this took away my childhood, I basically didn't have one and grew up hating my siblings. And again I didn't even realise this was wrong until I had my own children.

I had similar to this, i had a 'normal' life until my mum cheated on my dad and my parents split up when i was 8.
Then my life was: worrying about my dad being alone/his money worries
Going on late night drive bys with my mum to her work colleagues house to see if boyfriend's car was there - it was
Being left looking after their toddler all day whilst they had days out and didn't come home at the time they said they would
Getting a job at 15 so that i didn't have to rely on my parent for money and having to lend them money at times/hear all about their money problems

It's not something i ever really think about though, although i do feel a bit resentful towards my DP who had the 'normal' upbringing and just doesn't get it.
His family have never had money problems and he's never had to lend his parents money or worry about the gas/electric running out etc.

I can relate to this. My mum had ptsd from birth trauma that wasn't diagnosed until I was a teen so grew up with her telling me all about how my birth had ruined her health and my parents' marriage, and how if she could go back she wouldn't have had me. She also used to confide her own money worries so I knew how hard up we were and grew up terrified that we'd end up starving and homeless. Just two examples but probably the two that have had the most damaging and lasting impact, I was terrified of telling my mum I was pregnant (pregnancy, birth and babies are all triggering for her) and fully expected to be permanently damaged or die during childbirth, and it wasn't until my DC was a walking, talking toddler that she showed any interest in them. Likewise, to this day I panic about money/going into our Overdraft even slightly, even though me and DH have secure jobs and decent wages, live within our means. I always just thought I was mature and that I was close to my mum, didn't realise she had a total lack of boundaries until a lot later.

I can relate to just about everything already said. For me it started when I was eight.

I shudder whenever I hear anyone say 'Oh, my child is my best friend!!' because I fear they are experiencing what we all appear to have endured.

As a result of my mother's transferring of her adult worries to me, particularly financial worries, I've never accrued any sort of debt, excepting mortgage, due to constant, unremitting worry about money as a child.

Yes. My DM still does it now at age 71 by telling me about her relationship woes and lack of sex life with my step dad. I'm nearly 50 but it makes me want to vomit. She always over shared and I got dragged into various incidents between her and my step dad over the years. I blame the fact she doesn't really have many friends.

Thank you for all your replies. Good to know I’m not alone.

does anyone else find they are a very risk adverse adult now as a result of knowing about adult problems as a child?

I’ve always been risk adverse when it comes to relationships and finances because I live in fear of things going ‘wrong’ like it did for my mum.

I never had the reckless younger years or allowed myself to fully let my hair down or take chances which makes me quite sad really. I learnt life lessons in an unhealthy way which has squashed a part of my youthful experience.

I can relate to a lot of these posts. I think it is a trap they can fall into if they don’t have many friends and are lonely so they treat you as a confidante. I won’t do it to my own dc. It has impacted me as an adult but I try not to judge to harshly as she was doing the best she could at the time.

Hi, I'm late to the thread! Also i have not read all the replies so I apologise if I'm repeating what others have said.
I hope you're doing okay?
I experienced a lot of what you describe. I'm a student counsellor, and although I had done some work previously with a therapist, to address and resolve some of the damage, my studies are really bringing up some challenges for me!
I've had to accept that this is a form of psychological and emotional abuse, I was abused by my mother. Touching the surface of this, in previous therapy, helped me so much in coming to understand myself better and really introduce self-compassion into my life and relationships, which has been so beneficial. However, reading more and talking about parentification is enabling me, over time, to more truly understand why I am the way I am, and to begin to let myself off the many hooks I set up for myself just to get by in life! It's challenging emotionally, but it will help me, I hope, to become the person I would be content to be. Right now I feel like I'm in a mire, wading through, and it 'feels' self indulgent and uncomfortable, (taking time to genuinely, truthfully and deeply think about your own needs often does not come easily to the parentified child!). But, I feel compelled to do this, it feels right, it feels necessary. I want to be the person i had potential to be, before it was all squished into the ground by the person who was supposed to be taking care of me.
If you haven't already, do read up on parentification. It can be incredibly helpful to understand more, and to learn how to show love and care to yourself and have a more genuinely happy and meaningful future ☺️
I hope you're doing okay OP