The Parentified child learned very early in life to take care of their care-taker/s. The entire parent-child relationship gets inverted and distorted with devastating results for the child and later the adult.
The Parentified child, and this can start VERY early in infancy, learns that their care-giver is unable to soothe and reassure them. While they may try to SAY soothing things or try to get the baby settle, all the baby feels, senses and experiences is the actual state of the nervous system of the care-giver, which is usually anything but coherent, congruent and calm. It’s usually an anxious, fearful state, a state of stress, anger, exhaustion, or depression/dorsal state. So the baby not only doesn’t get soothed and supported, but over time they gradually adapt their own behaviours, curtailing their genuine needs, in order to placate, not stress, not worry and yes, take care of their parent instead.
Later as an adult, the Parentified child often guides the adult into relationships with the same kind of dynamic where we are always taking care of others: partners, parents, children, animals or clients. And, they often also enter the Helping Professions, thereby continuing these patterns as they’ve accumulated vast skills and experience in being there for others, soothing and supporting others, and usually at the expense of their own needs for support and help.
Hands-up honestly anyone working in the helping profession who this doesn’t apply to, to some extent?
Until that is, something instead starts to break. Or rather, a pressure starts to build indicating a warning that this is becoming unsustainable now. The internal 'check-engine' light starts blinking. We feel and sense this but often keep going as now we’re hooked-into a profession, role and persona-based identity and also it’s how we earn our living! Yikes!!!
This is a huge problem then for many people, myself included, and I know so many others who’ve also reached this breaking point, where it’s like the internal pressure cooker is going to blow any day now…
It starts off as irritation, fatigue, a waning sense of fulfilment in one’s work, somatic issues arise, or even illnesses or accidents happen, as the body and soul try one way or another to get our attention and encourage us to look at what we’ve been doing ALL OF OUR LIVES, and face up to the fact that it’s simply not right to keep going in the same way.
I reached this point with regards to my dependent relatives from my family of origin 6 years ago. And then 1 year ago with relation to one core aspect of my work. And then it took me a further nine months to reach the second and final stage of letting go of the helping role I’ve held for nearly 20 years. So it’s been an immense time of releasing professionally and personally, and also adjusting to what comes next and moreover, who I will be next and how I will professionally make a living now! It’s also involved a long period of simply not knowing and inhabiting an in-between stage with much uncertainty and many questions.
So now I’m working on how to move forward and shaping a whole new way of working and being in the world, one which doesn’t come from a foundation of supporting others in such a deep, personal way. And one which feeds my needs and soul much more in the process.
All manner of feelings accompany this revelation and process of disintegration and rebirth: Guilt, fear, anxiety, depression, anger and rage, uncertainty, bewilderment, relief and yes, even some joy at times as we begin to sense a new opening and a whole way of living our lives now as our priorities, time, energy and focus all start to shift.
Probably the biggest feelings though for the parentified child-now-adult are that of guilt and anxiety, both of which need to be tolerated for a time in greater proportion as we work through the very old legacy of always being there for others; for always putting their needs and preferences before our own; enduring the fear and anxiety we feeling our body as we dismantle the old habitual, reflexive patterns, and the uncertainty that comes with all of this “newness” both inside and in our outer world and relationships.
It helps enormously to remember though that everything in nature is balance and as we are also a part of nature then balance is absolutely key for us too. And if we've lived a highly unblanced, one-sided life so far then the time is long overdue for this to change.
This is why psyche/the soul can only allow us to continue in this way for so long.
Until finally, something has to give.
We have to stop. Reassess. Re-prioritise. And begin anew but from a much healthier, aligned, congruent, healing and balanced place.
*Does this resonate for you? If so leave a comment below, I'd love to hear.
©Angela Dunning
Art by Gabriella Barouch.