Were you parentified as a child?

[Thepursuitofnappiness]

If you were, how has it impacted you?

My mother suffered multiple traumas in her life before she had me, and there were many upsetting ongoing circumstances in her life when I was a child.

Basically, she used me as her therapist and told me all of her problems, starting around aged 9. It revolved around her problems, people who had hurt her, memories from her traumas and then frequently criticising practically she everybody knew, including my dad. By age 12 I knew the details of two very horrific experiences that she had encountered but I was sworn to absolute secrecy that I must never betray her and tell anyone. I always gave mature advice, even as a child and she would praise my maturity and wisdom, which I loved. I constantly felt extreme rage about the people who had hurt her and immense frustration about all these many many situations where people hurt her and she let them get away with it. I know now that it's easier said than done, but I couldn't process this.

My kids are now 9 and 12 and it absolutely blows my mind to even consider telling them my problems, let alone things that would upset them. I went through my teens utterly miserable and never knew why. I took an overdose at 16 and developed a problem with alcohol and drugs. I've been sober for 15 years and have had therapy through the years. However new things keep popping up at different parts of my marriage or my kids' ages.

I'm just curious really, if anyone can relate to this? If so, what was your experience and how it affect you? I keep thinking I'm over it and realising I'm not.

Reading the posts on this thread has made me realise that I had it easy compared with so many others. I was parentified because I recognised the hurt dealt out to my father and to a lesser extent to my mother and me. None of us deserved it, least of all my father who was the most decent, kind and generous person I have ever met. I just wish I hadn't had to visit my dad's parents every week. It was like going back for a repeated kicking. Sunday was visiting day and my parents would always argue on Sundays about my father's parents (they never argued about anything else).

I don’t think my dm was narcissistic. She was generally loving and kind.

I think she was just desperate and had no one else to talk to. I think we were victims of circumstance rather than personality.

I have been really blindsided by this thread. I read it a few weeks ago but although I ‘know’ all about parentification and how it has impacted me I was still sent into an emotional spin.

My story is one of a sudden death which left my mum only in her 20s with 7 children under 7 years old widowed, traumatised and penniless. She was really very very mentally unwell for many years. Understandably. Then one day she snapped back into reality when I was about 10 and she became this mad powerhouse. She was very attractive (very vain and self indulgent), charismatic and social. However behind closed doors it was all violence, raging, chaos and obsessions. I became her right hand man - one of my jobs was to do the parenting including the discipline of my 6 younger siblings. I would have been harsh and tough (that was the norm) but I had no impact. My siblings all hate me now - don’t blame them. I was loaded with all of her problems and spent my childhood firefighting, strategising, hyper alert always dealing with chaos. But this didn’t stop when the children were raised. It when on throughout her life - bad relationships, hideous marriages, financial issues, fall-outs with family.

I was always her fixer - but soon learned I was actually her dumping ground because she never took and advice or picked up any of the solutions I had run around to sort for her. She would lay in the tears and drama - leaving me overloaded and overwhelmed and then skip off out for cocktails with her friends. It was the same when older - I was the frumpy dumping ground whereas she would take my younger sisters out shopping and partying and it was clear that I was the doormat and ‘no fun’ ‘too heavy’.

The impact on me is that I have had repeated depressive episodes. The first was when I was 16 and off school for 3 weeks - no one commented or noticed. I was highly capable at school and achieved lots but floundered and failed often in the workplace. I was a workaholic but didn’t have an off switch so burnt out often. My emotional dysfunction meant I fell out with some friends, neighbours, colleagues, family over the years. I had strong sense of fighting injustice but didn’t know how to do that effectively. Always boom and bust.

I am stellar in a real crisis and can calmly navigate everyone through it. But I let small things get under my skin too easily in that I am not assertive and it doesn’t occur to me to walk away so I get depleted.

There was no room for anyone’s grief at the loss of effectively two parents overnight - one to death one to psychiatric bedlam for years. Even when she was ‘better’ it was just another chaos where her emotional discharge, distress, needs sucked up all the space. I tolerated shit friends and partners. I mistook a deeply emotionally absent man as ‘calm’ and thought I had found sanctuary there. I didn’t know it was a void that became abusive. On here I was told ‘he doesn’t meet your emotional needs’ - it was news to me in that moment that I would have had any emotional needs at all. I always felt angry on the edge of exploding and that I was a deeply unlovable person. I self harmed which was obvious as it was on my face - but we didn’t have a word for it then - but my DM would say wearingly of anyone asked - oh it’s just her little obsession.

I have messed up a lot in my life and achieved lots as well. I have very reciprocal deep loving lifelong friendships which I value. I have raised 3 daughters to be (to date) self assured, kind and hardworking. I have encouraged them to play to have fun to have boundaries. I know I was not the best mother when they were young - I was frazzled spinning plates, working too hard, tolerating a bad marriage for too long, still running after my mad mother in my Co-dependent way when they were young. They didn’t get the best of me, I will be honest and say I was preoccupied and dysregulated not present enough for them so there was emotional neglect. I then became informed about parenting and grew boundaries so that everything then prioritised my DCs rather than reacting to others needs which drained me. I think I have made up as best I can as a mother myself for my deficiencies and now I am drawing new boundaries with my adult daughters as I am finally looking to play have some joy and work out what my needs are and how to prioritise them and how to meet them. My own mother expressed regret to one of my friends on how she had leaned on me during one of my depressive episodes (think I was 40 then) - she was unable to communicate directly but I did eventually get that message at her funeral shortly afterwards which killed me. I adored and unhealthy idolised my DM until that point it was only after in therapy that I learned our relationship was deeply flawed, I hold anger for what happened but I forgive her as I hope the people I have no doubt hurt over these messy years will forgive me.

This message was so beautiful and full of so much reflection and depth that I tried to really give every word the attention it deserved. I'm so sorry to hear of the very heavy burden that you had to carry, and how you really were put into the parent role, with your 6 younger siblings as well as your grieving mother to support. I can't even imagine what a weight that must have been on you. It sounds like you have turned the story around and stopped the negative cycles from being passed onto your children. You sound like a fantastic mother and like you've healed and grown a lot. I'm sorry if this thread upset you but I hope it opened another door and just showed you an area inside of you that needs healing, but which had been hiding for a long time. You sound like such a lovely person and i honestly really wish I could just give you a big hug.