Healing from Parentification, Part I
Here I am. It’s 12:18 p.m. I had a late night last night — in fact, I’ve been having insomnia as of late. I manage to fall asleep around midnight, but I am brought back into consciousness around 4:30 a.m. Sometimes, it’s waking up from a bad dream, or sometimes, its racing thoughts and feelings that I have yet to process. It’s been an exhausting few days but I’ve come to appreciate the moments of calm throughout the storm. I’ve booked a session with my therapist on Thursday and I trust that I will know how to care for myself.
A lot of the excruciating pain I have been experiencing lately has to do with deep wounds from childhood. I have so much anger passing through me. My body is furious. I’m hysterical. I am rightfully mad as my parents failed me and continue to fail me in an important way.
I’m going to set aside the voice that says “but be grateful, you don’t want to appear as selfish”. I’m going to set aside the voice that romanticizes the positive moments. All a child wants and needs, even into adulthood, is unconditional love from their primary caregivers. I’ve been hurt so many times believing eventually I’ll receive that love. The pain and anger that is alive in me today, that is keeping me up in the middle of the night, is coming to terms with the realization that I will never receive that love — from them. I will provide that love to myself.
The inciting event that launched my present fury is my father’s conflict over money with his younger brother. He has no regard for how he is impacting others with his bully attitude. I am completely disgusted by his behaviour. Every time I’ve had dinner with my parents over the last several months, he has made some awful joke about how he’s going to “lawyer-up” and get his brother good.
He decided to escalate things severely two weeks from my wedding date. If trying to plan and carryout a wedding during COVID wasn’t stressful enough, he has done this to me. As a result, my uncle, who has been a supportive force throughout the entire wedding planning process — completely jumping at the opportunity to help provide his wisdom of the industry and making us feel reassured throughout this journey — is no longer able to attend. My father jokingly whispered in my ear “Your uncle may not be coming to your wedding” at a recent family dinner and I was ready to get up and leave. What prevented me from reacting in the moment was the fact that my fiancés parents were there and I had to keep it together. But man, I wanted to scream in his face and make him hurt in that moment.
I don’t know if I will ever forgive my father for his selfishness. As a parent, I could never imagine inflicting this pain upon my child. The tragic part of it all is I can’t tell him how I truly feel. Recently my parents staged some sort of intervention with me, explaining that I have to stop worrying so much. The problem lies within me because I care too much what others think and I stress myself about about situations. For example, when we travelling in Portugal last summer, I was crying in bed, anxious about finding a teaching job for September. My father told me to quit crying and not take things so seriously. Again, I was ready to smack him in that moment. Fortunately, I had my fiancé to confide in. I just think of all the ways my father has responded to my emotions with complete idiocy.
He doesn’t deserve to know how I truly feel. My parents are incapable of knowing and seeing the real me. I’ve now realized trying to explain things to them only leads to more hurt, on my end. They are never hurt in all of this.
I have learned from my therapist that it is my boundaries that will protect me. I’ve rehearsed what I will say to my father after the wedding, or rather, when he next mentions his conflict with his brother. I will say “I do not want to hear about your conflict with your brother or any of your family members. Do not involve me in these affairs” — and leave it at that. I’ve thought about asking “How do you think you made me feel by escalating the action with your brother a few weeks from my wedding?” but I know the likely response from him will be anger because I have backed him into a corner. The safer response is to just tell him I do not want to hear it. He does not have the privilege of seeing and knowing his daughter in her complete self. He has demonstrated through and through he does not accept or love this version of his daughter unconditionally, and so he will not have access to it.
But how do I heal if I cannot speak my truth to the people who need to hear it most? Well, here is what I’ve been working on.
I let myself feel my anger. Yesterday, I yelled at my partner in hysteria about how much I hate my parents for how they have failed me. I said things I’m not proud of, but that was not the point of the exercise. I needed to let it out somewhere safe.
When I woke up at around 5:00 a.m., I tried listening to a mediation. I tried listening to an audiobook. I let myself cry and range. Mostly I was frustrated with myself that I couldn’t get back to sleep. The more I resisted the angry thoughts in my brain, the harder it was to relax and slip off into sleep. What I know with angry thoughts is I cannot escape them. They are important signals that I must respect and listen to.
My partner woke up and held me. I know how much he values his sleep, so at first I was upset that I had I woken him up. He reassured me that it was okay — he wanted to soothe me. After I told him my plan, he slipped back into bed while I sat at the kitchen table and wrote out my feelings.
In healing the trauma of parentification, one needs to re-parent themselves. Like an infant waking in the middle of the night, you respond to their needs with gentleness and compassion. So that is what I did for my adult self.
I sat at the table, pen and paper in hand, and I let the thoughts flow. I let go of my anger towards not being able to get myself back asleep. I validated my emotions. These are some of the words that came through me.
This is a deep wound that makes me an incredible teacher. I can provide to others what my parents could not provide to me.
It is 5:30 a.m. Feelings are inconvenient at this hour but they are important for me to feel. They are important signals from my body. There is never a right or wrong time to feel.
I trust that I am here at the table, writing, for a reason. I am allowing the truth to flow through me. Writing is a way that I am acknowledging that my needs are important.
My anger is valid.
I will think before I respond honestly and openly to my parents. I will demand space for myself. I will demand healthy boundaries.
I will protect myself.
There will be a day when I will not be as upset by their actions. A day where I am at peace, detached — the grip on my thoughts and emotions, relieved. Hopefully, my heart and mind will be focused instead on a little one of my own.
It is sad that my parents will not see the full expression and possibility of their child. Just because they are my parents, does not mean they are entitled to this. I appreciate the security of home and food, but it was not enough. It was not good enough. Being a parent is more than providing this. I do not need my parents. I do not need or want what they can provide. I can give what I need to myself.
There is nothing wrong with me.
I anticipate the next few days might be rough. I will listen to my body’s need for rest and gentle movement. I am not lazy. I am tender after all of this emotional turmoil I have endured. I am healing and need to be patient and kind to myself.
Eventually, my tears subsided and I made a plan to lie in constructive rest position on a yoga mat on the floor without the expectation of falling asleep. I reassured myself that it’s okay if I do not get back to sleep. I spent about 10 minutes there, just allowing my body to relax. I could feel my body temperature dropping, finally. I have been burning rather hot lately and I think it has to do with this overtime in flight or fight mode. In allowing my body to completely rest on the floor, I had activated my parasympathic system. When I was just on the edge of passing out, I managed to lift myself off the mat and plunge into a deep sleep.
It is day after that I’m writing this. I needed to put it all together. I’m feeling calm. I am taking each moment at a time. I know in my heart that I will give myself all of the love I need.
Note: Many of the the affirmations in this post have been inspired by this article here.
