Healing the parentified child

[Intro] Hello and welcome to Empowered to Thrive. I'm your host Corinne Powell. I'm so glad you're here.

No matter what type of day you're having, you're always welcome. I like having you around. This space is especially designed for the person who goes about life focused on everyone else while neglecting their own needs.

The person who says yes when inwardly they want to say no. The person who is frustrated at all they do because they don't receive much in return. If that's you, I'm going to put out some great ideas on how you can change those patterns and get unstuck.

Life isn't meant to be tolerated. It should be enjoyed. So let's get to it.

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Corinne Powell: Hello, friend. How's your week been? A lot can happen in a week, can't it? Let's just pause for a moment and reflect on the good things that have been a part of our week. Maybe there's only one thing, but what is the one thing that you can recall that brings a smile to your face or warmth to your heart?

I'm remembering - I came home from dropping my husband and one of my girls off at the train station and had about 45 minutes before I needed to leave and pick up my two older children from a birthday party. And I had high hopes of using that 45 minutes to clean up the kitchen because it was a mess. But my one and a half year old was tired and needed me to hold her and needed my attention. So the kitchen was going to need to get put to the side. 

We went to go blow bubbles on the front porch. But instead of her popping the bubbles like she would normally, but like I said, she was tired. So she enjoyed them just by watching them. But our puppy, actually enjoyed popping them. I had never seen him interact with bubbles before and he had such a good time. And I recall that moment and it brings a smile to my face. The simple pleasures of life. So what is it for you?

Sometimes it can be really refreshing to recall those moments, because we all know there's a lot of difficult, challenging, painful moments in our week. And it may be work to remember the one that isn't, but it's worth it. And feel the warmth, the joy, the peace that you feel in that moment surrounding whatever it is.

Sometimes a stranger offers us a smile or they hold the door for us. They do something kind. It's good for us to capitalize on the kind things that we experience to remind ourselves that there is goodness surrounding us. Yes, there may be lot of hardships, but it doesn't have to all be hard. There's usually some beauty in the midst of whatever is ugly and difficult, but we have to look for it. We have to pay attention to notice it and then sit with it, absorb it, allow it to affect us.

And moving on to the topic of conversation today, if you are the parentified child, how can you change your lifestyle and live differently? Perhaps you're an adult child of a parent who still heavily relies on you for emotional support, for physical support.

There are many parents who look for one of their children to be the mediator between them and other family members. Sometimes it's that a parent needs their child to be their emotional support. When they have anything come up that disturbs them, they seek out their children to help them get through that.

Sometimes it's a very practical need that a parent has and they reach out to their children. How can you tell if this is something healthy and fine, or that's toxic and misplaced responsibility? The parent putting on the child what is not the responsibility of the child.

Consider the long-term relationship. Has it been this way for a long time? Does your parent rely on you because they're aging and they physically now have more limitations or they're in the middle of a difficult emotional season and they're reaching out to you, but that's not their normal. They haven't done that all of your life long. They haven't even done that for a very long time. That's different than the parent who has always relied on their child to take care of their emotional or physical needs.

There are moments in my day where I reflect. I'm in the middle of a situation that feels overwhelming to me. For example, one of my children might have dropped a glass and now it's broken on the floor and I need to pick it up. But there's also four other things happening around me and we need to get out the door in a few minutes. In that moment of overwhelm, I can actually start to depend on my children in a way that's not their responsibility.

I can become the helpless version of myself that is in child form. The little girl I used to be shows up, figuratively speaking. And she feels very overwhelmed and incapable of cleaning up the glass, managing the four other things that are happening and still getting out the door on time in 10 minutes. In that moment, I have to pause and decide whether I'll reach out to my children and say, hey, I need you to do this, this, and this because I don't feel like it can handle it all. Or if I'll pause and say, to one of my children very calmly and more collected.

We might be a few minutes late. I need to pick up this glass. Can you do this for me? Because I need to focus on the glass right now. There's a difference in my response. One is me reacting as the helpless child I used to be who actually feels like they need their parent to help them out. So I asked my children for that help. The other is me consciously pausing, recognizing I feel the effects of that helpless child showing up.

But I'm also aware that I'm the grown woman. It is OK to be late. I probably can manage the four other things and clean up the glass and still get out on time, perhaps. Or I can focus on cleaning up the glass calmly and delegate one of the other tasks to one of my older children who is capable of helping out in this situation because we didn't expect the glass to break. This is a legitimate situation where asking an older child for help is reasonable. There's nothing inappropriate about that. 

But the place I come from internally does make a difference in the attitude I'll carry and in the way I'll ask for that. One will be frantic and I will actually sound like a helpless child who is reaching out as if they need a parent to support them. The other one will be from a steady place that says “There is a lot going on right now and I need to delegate something to focus on the new tasks that's in front of me that demands I do it. We don't want someone getting cut by the glass. We don't want someone stepping on the glass. This is an immediate situation that needs my attention”.

So noticing the difference, recognizing that each one of us comes up against these types of situations in our everyday allows us to reflect. But on the other hand, if you're wanting to recognize and consider what the dynamic of the relationship with your parental figure is, consider the long-term relationship. How has it been? Are you able to rely on them? Are you able to share what's going on in your life and they're able to listen or offer you feedback if you ask? Or is it mostly you hearing what's going on for them and you're there as their support system? Is it a mutual? 

You share when things are going on for you, they share when things are going on for them, you're both two grown adults, and this is the dynamic of your relationship now.

Do either of your parents speak about each other with you? They speak about their challenges, they speak about their frustrations, but they bring them to you instead of talking directly with the person they have that issue with. Sometimes the mother talks about the father with the child. Sometimes the father talks about the mother with the child.

I would consider inappropriate. And I don't mean by that that it's never okay to say what you're frustrated about, discuss an issue. I'm really coming at it from the standpoint that why does the parent need to say those things to you as the child? Are they looking for your validation? Do they need your empathy? Do they want you to be on their side?

That's for them to deal with and figure out. Maybe they have a counselor they can speak to. Maybe they have a friend they can confide in. You don't need to be that person for them. Now, perhaps you are still the emotional support to your parent. And you say, well, Corinne, I want to change the pattern, but I'm not really sure how. Make it work for you have limitations, have boundaries on what and how that goes about.

Are there certain times that that's what you're open to talking about with them? And are there other times you're not? You can make that clear to them. If we're at a family function, I don't wanna talk about your emotional needs. But if there's a time and space, you wanna share those things with me. Let's plan it and I'll be happy to listen. You can have boundaries as you go about still offering them some support if that's what you choose to do.

The goal is that you're in control of your decisions, that you have autonomy in this relationship, that it's no longer you having to act as the parent to your own parent. Because if you were the child who was burdened with their physical or emotional needs, you might not have felt like you had a choice. You might have had to help them out simply because that's how it was at that time.

Now, fast forward, you get to say whether you're going to help them out, when you're going to help them out, and what form that's going to take. We all know there are instances where it becomes true that the parents took care of us when we were young and now as they have aged it's our responsibility to take care of them. Again, that is still very different than what I'm the main point of what I'm getting at. That would look very different than that gap in between when you were young and when they are old. 

That gap in between would not have been you showing up for them regularly, physically or emotionally, and them at role reversal, them not meeting your needs nearly as much as you met their needs. That gap in the middle would look like, wow, they showed up for you as the child. They met your physical, your emotional needs. You were able to rely on them and depend on them. They were a resource for you.

And then as you got older, the dynamic of the relationship shifted a little bit and you both supported each other. You both showed up for each other on a difficult day or when you were in the middle of a situation where you needed some practical help and they as well, and you gave and took and they gave and took. And it came to this point where they got older and they couldn't do as much. And they relied more heavily on you than they used to.

That would be reasonable. I would say, of course, that what they were for you when you were young, you are for them when they are old. The parentified child never know what it's like to be able to rely on their parent. They only know a parent who depends on them. They don't know what it is to be able to lean back, figuratively speaking, and relax into the arms of their parent without a worry or a care.

So if you're that parentified child and you're wanting to change the dynamic of the relationship, boundaries are going to be key. I've talked about boundaries in recent episodes. Go back and listen if you want to hear my take on it. Boundaries are about what you do. They're not dependent on the other person. You make the choices. You set the limitations. You enforce that you follow those. Make sure, however you decide to go about the relationship, you're satisfied. The internal frustration is an indicator that you're still doing more than you feel like you should, more than you wish. Listen to that internal frustration. Act on it. Support yourself more. 

If you've been doing, doing, doing for the parents in your life, It is time you take a step back and you start doing more for yourself. You deserve that support. Not only do you deserve your own support, you actually have a deficit because you deserve their support that you never received. So now you need even more support than you're going to offer yourself because of the deficit that's there. You're almost making up for lost time. So you might feel like things are imbalanced for a bit. You used to do so much for them and now you've back and you're doing next to nothing and that feels so wrong. I understand it doesn't feel good. It might not even feel right.

Just consider the entire situation. And remember, you're learning how to support yourself. So it might feel drastic initially, but it won't always feel so drastic. And who else do they have in their life to offer them support? I hope it's someone more than just you. And if they don't have anyone else more than just you, there are other resources. You can either seek to connect them with those other resources, or you can leave it up to them.

But there are always other options. When we think we're the only person we've bought into the story that they've also tried to tell us. That without us, they won't survive. If that's the story you believe, if that's the story they tell you, It's not true. There are other ways that they can survive. They might need to look for those other ways. They might need to look long and hard. There are always other ways they can survive besides yourself. 

Other people may want to act like their urgency is our urgency. But the truth of the matter is, it's not. Their urgency is theirs. It doesn't have to be ours. That's the thing about codependency. It's as if to say someone else's issue has now become ours. Somehow we have to match someone else's urgency. We have to match their emotional states. No, we don't. We're two individuals separate from each other. Why are they in the urgent spot they're in?

What have they done preceding this point to avoid getting to this urgent spot? Everyone is responsible for their own actions. You're not responsible for the actions or lack thereof on their part. That's all on them. It's time to separate yourself from them, to take a hard look in the mirror and to remind yourself - “My parents can survive without me. I am not their only answer. Their problems are not my problems. Their urgency is not my urgency. We are our own people. We are separate”.

I know it's going to sound drastic to look yourself in the mirror and say some of these things. If you've lived your whole life believing the story that you're their only answer, this is going to be very difficult. But I too have had to come out of being a parentified child. I've had to set boundaries. I've had to create a new lifestyle So if I can do it, so can you.

I'm cheering you on. If you want my support, you've got it. Just reach out changeradically.com. You can book a discovery call with me. You can set up an initial session or you can decide right out the gate to commit to working with me for four months. I'll see you again here next week.

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[Outro] We've come to the end of another episode. I'm so glad you stuck around. As you consider what you've heard, what's the one thing that especially resonated with you? What's one way you can start to implement change into your life? Too much too soon isn't sustainable.

Start small and go slow. Consistency is key. If you appreciate what you're hearing on Empower to Thrive, would you kindly leave me a review and rate my podcast? It helps a lot.

I hope you'll share the episode with a friend and come back next week. And don't forget, I'm so glad you're alive.