I am the victim of parentification.

Parentification of a child happens when the parent and child roles are reversed.

This can take the form of instrumental parentification, where the child performs physical tasks that should be the parent's responsibility. This can be things like paying bills, performing chores that are not age appropriate/undertaking all the chores in the household or being the primary caregiver for younger siblings. These responsibilities mean there is no time to be a child or have any aspirations. Many children who are the victim of instrumental parentification are deprived of opportunities to have a better life, such as education.

Then there is emotional parentification, where the child is the parent's therapist and responsible for regulating their emotions and resolving their interpersonal problems. The parent is in constant competition with the child to see who gets nurtured more. The result is always that the child pushes their needs aside and nurtures the parent. When the parent does nurture the child, it's with crumbs of affection, which the child is grateful for.

I am the victim of emotional parentification. I can't remember a time when I wasn't my mother's therapist. I was responsible for solving all her problems and listening to her describe her past trauma in graphic detail. I was eight years old when she confided in me about being raped. I didn't know what sex was, let alone rape.

My mother could not regulate her emotions and was constantly falling out with other mothers at school. She would confide in me in a way that is more appropriate to confide in a friend. If she fell out with the mother of one of my friends I was expected to be loyal to her.

She also confided in me about her relationship with my father. She would talk about how he made her unhappy and ask me for advice. As a child that had limited life experience there wasn't much I could say. If what I suggested didn't work, she would be really angry with me.

"That's your fault. You told me to do that."

When I was seventeen my mother was debating whether to leave my father. She gave me an ultimatum: "I'll leave him but only if you come with me. If you don't come with me, I'll stay." I didn't want to leave my sisters and my father, so I chose to stay but suggested she should speak to my father about how she was feeling. She stayed and was desperately unhappy and blamed me.

"If you had come with me I could have been happy."

I enjoyed caring for my mother's emotional well-being. Only I could calm her down and it felt good that I was trusted with such a responsibility. I felt special and all children want to feel special. As an adult I realise that is not how you make a child feel special.

I had no idea how much parentification had impacted on me until recently. I have always had unequal friendships where I am the caregiver and therapist. My needs are pushed to one side and seldom acknowledged. I have put up barriers when a friendship has been equal because I don't know what else to do. Who am I if I'm not looking after someone?

Romantic relationships have had a similar theme. I have been attracted to people who have issues and need a therapist. All my previous partners relied on me to solve their problems and be at their beck and call. My needs were never met, but I never voiced them anyway.

When I met my husband, I remember feeling really confused and unsure. He was so kind to me and genuinely cared about my needs and preferences. I found this so difficult to understand and often felt like I didn't deserve him.

I remember him making me a cup of tea and he asked if I wanted milk. I replied that I didn't mind, too petrified to disclose that I preferred milk. I was already struggling with the fact he was doing something nice for me, even if it was just making a cup of tea. He kept probing me to tell him whether I wanted milk in my tea or not and I eventually said I wanted milk. I was surprised to find that he didn't shout at me and the day carried on as normal. This had never happened before.

It took a while to understand that the way my husband was treating me was normal. When we were first dating I stayed at his flat overnight and in the morning, I took a shower. I left my shampoo and conditioner in his bathroom and when he came into the bedroom to tell me this I turned into the child version of myself.

"I'm so sorry"

"I'll get it right away"

"It won't happen again"

Then he reassured me that he was just letting me know in case I forgot to take them home with me later. He said he wasn't going to shout at me and the look on his face made me realise that this behaviour wasn't normal.

There has been limited research into the parentification of children and the impact it has in adulthood, but what I have found so far really resonates with me.

In Bethany Webster's "When Shame Feels Mothering: the Tragedy of Parentified Daughters" she writes:

These mothers set up a competition with their daughter for who gets to be mothered. The message is there's not enough mothering or love to go around. Girls grow up believing that love, approval and validation are very scarce, and one must work to the bone in order to be worthy of it. Then as adults they attract situations that replicate this pattern over and over.

I completely relate to everything Bethany has written about parentified daughters. Having to walk on eggshells around my mother's moods gave me an anxiety disorder. This was further compounded by getting trapped in a cycle of abuse. She was my template for relationships, so all of my friendships and romantic relationships were similar, leaving me with more psychological scars.

I had a friend in secondary school who was very much like my mother. She would leave me voicemails sounding upset and like something was urgent.

"Laura are you there? I guess not. You really need to call me back. Please call me as soon as you get this."

I would ring her back and there was never an emergency. She just wanted my undivided attention and when I didn't pick up the phone she felt offended. I existed to look after her, stroke her ego and sort out her problems. How dare I not sit by the phone constantly, just in case she felt like ringing me.

One of my previous partners was very child-like and I had to pretty much do everything for him. Our relationship was entirely about him and at the time I thought I enjoyed this. This meant I was worthy and doing everything right.

I was applying to studying nursing and we were discussing how I would be working some night shifts. Instead of encouraging me, he talked about how me working shifts would impact him. He made me feel like I shouldn't have dreams of my own because that's not what our relationship was about. Yet when he wanted to start his own business I was behind him all the way, designing flyers for him and offering constant encouragement.

I have undergone a lot of therapy in order to work through what my mother did to me. I am doing well now but I still have a lot of mental health problems. This is common in parentified children as we were never taught that our needs mattered.

Mckenna Meyers, a recovering parentified daughter, wrote about the prevalence of mental health issues in The Parentified Child: How It Contributes to a Depressed, Angry, and Resentful Adult. She describes how the child can grow up to be emotional stunted and have issues with self-esteem, due to learning from a young age to minimise their emotions in order to prioritise the emotions of the parent. She goes on to explain that it is common for parentified children to suffer from depression, anger and isolation and that they need to opportunity to grieve for the childhood they never had.

I have suffered with depression and anxiety since the age of twelve. Although I feel deeply, I have struggled with stunted emotions and knowing what I want. I have to consciously check in with myself to see how I am really feeling, else I would assume I am fine with everything or if I'm not fine it doesn't matter. I often downplay how bad something is, which has often meant I have struggled alone with things. This tactic kept me safe as a child and pleased my friends and partners. Even though I no longer need to use this coping mechanism it's difficult to break the habit of a lifetime.

An article in The Atlantic suggests that parentified children become compulsive caretakers in adulthood. Based on my own experiences I would agree with this. I have always chosen to be friends and partners with people that needed looking after. It also extends to my professional life, where I have always been in caring professions looking after people that most would not want to look after.

I have become aware that I am an "over nurturer" and that this is unhealthy. I think my logic is that if I am useful and helpful I will be worthy of love. However, this means I create unequal relationships and repeat the cycle. This is harder for me to work on than processing the trauma. I was shown crumbs of love for being a nurturer so it's almost like an addiction.

I want to stress that there is nothing wrong with being nurturing, but over nurturing is retraumatising. As an over nurturer I have entered relationships that repeat the cycle and sabotaged ones that don't. I have made myself ill from burnout and been taken advantage of. It has also kept my self-esteem low, as my sense of identity depends on how useful I am to people. The term compulsive caretaking is perhaps a better description because it literally is a compulsion.

I have faith that I can heal from what happened to me. I have accepted that the responsibility I feel so easily for others I now need to feel for myself. I am learning to take a step back and not rescue people. I have made it this far on my own, so I am trying to trust that others can do the same.

I am working on accepting that my husband loves me for being and not doing, but I do regularly cry about how I don't deserve him. The quality of my friendships is improving, and I am trying to push through the guilt of accepting kindness and support.

My mother took my childhood from me. She will not take my adulthood from me too.

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