I’m Sorry You Were a Parentified Child

The adult children of parents with borderline and narcissistic personality disorders were often parentified children growing up. This is a pretty literal term and means that children are required to behave as adults during their childhood. This is something that is common when parents are emotionally immature, and incredibly common when their is abuse or neglect in the home.

If you were a parentified child, you likely have impossibly high standards for yourself, feel defeated that you seem to be struggling with aspects of adulting your peers don’t seem to struggle with, and find yourself feeling frustrated by the lack of emotional maturity present your parents possess. If you were a parentified child, this is what I would like you to know…

You’re were never an old soul, the adults just weren’t adulting.

Whenever I here someone brag about what an “old soul” a child is or how “mature for their age” they are I want to rip my hair out and scream. Those aren’t good things. Those are trauma responses. Kids are supposed to be kids. They’re supposed to be thinking about friends, playing, adventures, and other kid stuff. If a kid is acting like an adult, it’s because the adults in their life are behaving like children.

You’ll need to learn how to forgive yourself for failing at things you were never taught.

Are you struggling to “adult” in some way? Yah, of course you are. How the heck are you supposed to just know how to manage your finances, have healthy relationships, and managing stress as an adult if you were never taught how to do those things? You don’t just wake up one day and magically know these things. Plus, when you’re focused on surviving, taking the time to learn how to be a healthy adult is a luxury you just can’t afford.

Grieving the childhood you should have had is important. Allowing yourself to be angry is part of that.

So many people talk about grief and focus on feeling the sadness. Yes, cry, feel those feelings, but I want to talk about how grief includes anger. Be pissed off. Scream in the shower, punch a pillow. You should have been able to be a kid when you were a child, and that fully sucks that you can’t get that time back. Parentified children are punished for expressing anger. Allow yourself to feel that anger in healthy ways now.

There are things you should have learned growing up that you never did. Now is the time to learn them.

Your parents are supposed to model how to be a healthy, empathetic human. I’m sorry yours couldn’t do that for you. I’m especially sorry that now the burden falls onto you as adult to seek out the tools and information you need so you can learn those things yourself. Therapy can be especially helpful in bridging this knowledge gap.

If you want to heal, you need to stop parenting your parents.

This may be hard to hear, but if you continue to keep playing the part of the parentified child, it’s going to be very hard, if not impossible, to heal. Your parent is an adult. Take a step back from being their confidante, emotional support, rescuer, and emotional punching bag for a second in order to gain a little perspective. After all, how can you realistically expect to heal if you just keep doing the same things you’ve always done?

The approaches parentified children take in childhood to manage and calm the stress in their homes just don’t translate well into the adult world. That’s because while parentified children are taking on the roles of adults, they’re doing so through a child’s lens. And, there’s just no way a child’s brain can fully grasp the complexities of the adult world. Be patient with yourself as you navigate the journey to becoming an emotionally healthy adult. And, be proud of yourself for embarking on the journey towards emotional and mental wellness.