Did you parent yourself as a child?
A few years ago, a relative told me a story about a time when she visited me and my family when I was 6 years old. She was taken aback by the level of independence that was required of me and my brother due to my mother’s declining health and mobility from ALS. My relative recalled step-stools in every room of the house and items that normally would have been stored in cupboards (e.g. food, dishes, cleaning supplies) were stacked on the counter tops so that my brother and I could access them to prepare meals, wash the dishes, and do laundry. Self-reliance was a requirement of my childhood. That might not have been your exact childhood experience but perhaps you had similar ways and reasons self-reliance was required of you.
“Parentification” is when a child takes on tasks of the parent because the parent is unavailable. Children who experienced parentification learn that it’s better to be SELF-RELIANT than NEEDY*. Without their knowing, they come to believe that in order to attain and maintain love they must make themselves useful to the other person. As adults, parentified children may choose partners who have more needs than themselves and minimize their own, causing them to withhold major parts of themselves from their relationships.
This level of SELF-RELIANCE and disdain for being perceived as NEEDY can leave adults who were parentified feeling emotionally isolated, generally dissatisfied, and disappointed because they feel as though no one is capable of giving them the care they deserve and desire.
In this example, NEEDY is the Shadow—all human beings have needs—but parentified children see any behaviors associated to it as clingy, weak, or pathetic. However, in order to move out of the doldrums of emotional isolation, they must get to know this NEEDY part of themselves. The more they understand it, the more they’ll see the power it holds. The NEEDY part of them grants permission to have needs, teaches how to comfortably articulate them, and opens them up to a community of people who are happy to meet them. Working with their Shadows, they gain access to emotional intimacy, freedom to be authentic, and inner-satisfaction.
