Anyone here experienced parentification? Is that what I experienced?
When I was very young toddler - first school my mum would take me with her to pubs and parties and happily tells me how I was so cute, I would ask for coats and curl up under a table and go to sleep. She would be drinking.
I was aware of problems from a young age - my dad being violent (she left him when I was about 1), my stepdad dealing drugs and going to prison. She took me to prison to visit him and I was there when he got raided by police. When she felt sad I would comfort her. As I got older (middle school age onwards) I was aware of lots of our problems, mum would confide in me. Throughout this time I would often be with her or her and others while they got really drunk or smoked lots and lots of weed. One time they all got arrested in the street and I stayed with an acquaintance of hers that I didn't really know. I was 3.
My stepdad was an alcoholic and I helped when he did mad things like cut his wrists. Remember sitting on his head on the kitchen floor to keep him still while she stemmed the blood. I must have been about 7?
When my brother was born when I was 8 I helped look after him, change nappies etc. I cooked dinner for my mum when she was pregnant.
When she split up from my stepdad she told me when she suspected he was cheating. I remember comforting her and trying to say he probably wasn't. I was 9. While I was around she would tell people how he came home having had sex with his affair partner and get into bed with her. She had a breakdown after this and I didn't go to school for awhile. She stayed in bed mostly with my little baby brother with her while I hung around and played on my console. Her friends and my grandma brought food round.
She would go out 'for lunch' with a friend and then not come home until the early hours. If I phoned round the pubs looking for her she'd laugh to her friends while I was on the phone, holding it up and saying have you met my grandmother. Usually my stepdad would look after us then but sometimes I would just be with my brother. Sometimes she would drive home drunk and then tell me. She drove us drunk sometimes.
When we had long heart to heart emotional conversations (regularly) she would say I was so mature, so insightful, she'd want to be my friend if she wasn't my mum etc. But if I raised something I didn't like she would switch and call me neurotic and controlling. She regularly said I tried to control her too much and I'd do badly in future relationships if I was so controlling. This would be in response to me not wanting her to go out drinking or something. She also said I was a snob because I didn't like it when her friends were round getting stoned etc.
In my teens, when my brother and I went to my stepdads at weekends I would rush there from school to clean and get tea on so things were nice when my stepdad arrived having collected my brother from school.
I got my first job at 14 and gave my mum almost everything I earnt at times. This was due to us never having any money as we were on benefits (she had a mild physical disability at the time), she'd regularly pawn my computer. I later discovered around 15/16 she'd developed a heroin addiction hence we had no money. I continued to regularly give money til my mid 20s. I never told anyone about the heroin - sometimes I was aware, sometimes she told me she had really stopped this time. I nursed her through pneumonia at home twice and later found out she didn't refuse to be admitted to hospital because she hates hospitals but because she wouldn't be able to get drugs there. Twice I searched her room and found foil etc only to be told that yes she's sorry to say she is using again BUT I shouldn't look through people's rooms. She was a functioning addict on the whole. We weren't living in a crack den. The house was clean. We were just skint.
When I got older and tried to have some boundaries and distance she said I acted like I'm superior and that it all started when I got my degree. The degree I got after dropping out of sixth form due to depression and going back as a mature student and working really hard, working shifts around uni to pay my bills.
There's more but I'll go on forever. She has apologised for the superior comment. I know she feels bad for all that went wrong and she is ashamed but I also feel like she thinks the pain she feels for those fuck ups is such that I should let it go. Which largely I do to be honest but our relationship is much reduced and less enmeshed now. She sort of respects it but doesn't like it, moans to my brother I'm not physically affectionate with her (I do hug her hello and goodbye) and that I don't ask how she is enough. I think she genuinely feels bewildered and wants to find the magic key to return us to this enmeshed, best friend relationship. I think she sees the fact I was like a little therapist as evidence of a good relationship and wants to return to that. How do I say that would be no good without obliterating her? She feels fragile and I still worry a lot about hurting her. She'll either cry really hard or sometimes get angry and say spiteful things. Says I'm unreasonable.
She recently said she thought when I had my own children I'd understand better how hard being a mum is. But actually it's made me reflect on how bad things were for me at times. My oldest child is now 9, and over those years I've looked at them and thought God, when I was your age X happened, I didn't realise how small and helpless is was etc. It's brought home how quickly I grew up. She also told my brother I should 'walk in her shoes' as though I didn't spend my childhood /young adulthood feeling bad for her and trying to help, support and reassure her.
I still feel bad for her. She wants to meet this week following us having a really minor disagreement that led to her crying with my brother and making the comments above. So this means a Big Chat and I want to help her see our relationship won't and shouldn't ever go back to how it was without upsetting her/causing massive drama. She's really sensitive.
Also I should add we had good times too and there were ways she was a great mum. She gave me lots of independence in a good way as I got older too.