The Parentified Son

 

It’s been awhile once again. However I’ve still been putting thoughts out there just on my podcast https://open.spotify.com/show/4QBukX5DCoPEsGeVB2ZtzO?si=_bICaZayRS22sU7B_DtDWA

Homes Room. This isn’t a big plug for that, but I did want to bring up its existence.

 As for this blog I wanted to talk about a post I saw from the.holistic.psychologist on instagram. It was about “the parentified son” and boy is that me. Only like in most cases with posts like this, some slides match up with me and some don’t. Back to why I’m writing let’s talk about the difference, because maybe someone else has walked my path, maybe not and this goes into the “interesting…” bin.

“The Parentified son became the ‘little man’ of the house” Check… I can remember all the times this was told to me. I am the youngest, my dad was in and out. I can’t say he was emotionally absent, but I can say he did use me and my oldest sister as emotional dumping grounds. As for my mom, she was wading through a messy relationship and three kids and going to school, so she needed emotional support and yeah maybe leaned on me more than she should have. As a child I was definitely not ready. 

This is where the lines in this post got blurry for me. Yes my soul and emotional needs may have been unacknowledged, I don’t think I stopped emotionally maturing. In fact I think I got on the fast track. I may not have known the why of my mom’s pain, or the facts behind the whispers of adults. I still understood that she was in pain, that my father was conflicted, that those things made my oldest sister rebellious, my middle sister isolate to not have to see any of it. So I made myself useful by being with my mom as much as I could, by being the good son to my father. I think I became a chameleon. Emulating the emotions I saw other adults giving to my parents, especially the ones that seem to ease their hurt. 

 This slide hit like a ton of bricks, only I don’t feel shame for being unworthy. I do often feel the lost in this slide, but mostly what I feel towards everyone who has let me down, failed to show up when I need them, or lean on me for their support, is an overwhelming feeling of resentment that even with all that I’ve done for you I’m not important enough. Yes that’s the unworthy but it isn’t shame to me. I know my value and kind of always have. That brings us to the lost, “do I stay or do I go?” Or “are these my wants, or am I taking on theirs?” The back swing of being a chameleon is you lose who you are being so many different things for everyone else.

 Another gray blurry area. I did watch my life giver being mistreated. I probably could never express how sad I was and still am that that was the life she fought through and somehow she managed to be a North Star of right and wrong. Yes to all those things I watched my mom go through, but I never felt rage towards her. I only ever felt like I had to do right by her for all she’d done for us. As for my father, I did hold rage for him, it made it hard to form strong bonds with males, and most definitely gave me a problem with authority unless it was female authority figures. To this day, I’m still that way only all but maybe a handful of male authority figures have been shit bags so it proves itself as plausible. I do at times feel like I failed but I also give myself grace in I did everything I could and that’s all I can do. Remember those lessons for next time. At the time I did feel like it was in part my fault and I didn’t know it was just living with the choices they made. I do understand now but that took a lot of work and unpacking myself.

I don’t feel this one at all, sometimes as a kid I felt that my dad respected me more than himself at times. That’s a weird feeling as a child, it’s a look in a person’s eyes that if you know you know. My dad told me often when we’d spend time together “you can either be a superhero or a super villain. It’s up to you?” It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized that was always phrased as a question. Do I see that that choice is mine? So I don’t interpret anything from a shame based place, it’s from a “I walk with heroes” place.

I don’t feel anything in this slide, If my partner asks for help, after seeing my mom do it alone most of my life, I feel proud to be in a spot to be able to help and that my partner will not have to suffer through what my mom did. I think all of us, every human being feels under appreciated a times, but this is where you need to have two conversations. The first with yourself, “is this real, or am I projecting my past onto my partner.” And the second with your partner, let them know as early as possible those feelings because dollars to doughnuts they don’t realize you felt that way and wouldn’t want to add to it. *some people are just shitty and you should not keep them in your life if they can’t honor your feelings.

I will say at times I’m very aloof, and people probably do walk on eggshells, but that’s more to the fact that things that should make me mad seemingly don’t so the expectation of reaction throws  people off. Obviously that’s a guess because I’m only in my head. As for the rest 0% me. People tend to complement me on being able to go with the flow and not get upset, as well as my empathetic nature and willingness to put myself in other’s shoes. Good vibes only, or that chameleon thing again…

I do want to be close to my partner, I want to be close to my friends, but for me this slide has it backwards. Because I do understand the list laid out superficial relationships (like the ones created buy an absent parent) are a waste of time. I want deep and meaningful relationships often it’s the other person who can’t handle that list and feels the shame or failure feelings not me. Now I believe in ego death so go look that up. I believe your ego serves the purpose of comparison. Who you think you are, against who you ought to be. It’s a choice.

A few years ago (preCOVID) my father and I were standing in the driveway of my mom’s house. We got in an argument about something. It was in his most rageful moment, throwing a half full can of beer at the ground like a gorilla posturing to show dominance. I was just sad that he still thought I’d react like a child to that. I saw someone whose words didn’t change  someone’s opinion and anger spilled over. A few years after that in the most profound healing chapter of my life so far (during COVID) he said something in a FB message that set me off, I asked myself what was it that burned me up so bad…. Came to realize, when his words didn’t convince, his power didn’t overrule, his strength didn’t frighten, he turned to the softness that a wounded man carried. It felt like he was a different person than what I’d ever seen. In that moment I was broken free of the fear, shame, and obligation I’d lived under my entire life. For you Eagle eye readers, you may have noticed the use of father and dad, but only mom. I’ve for whatever reason been able to separate who my dad (loving, mentor, caregiver) is from who my (father) was… as I responded to his message explaining what it was I saw, and why it was we as a family didn’t fall inline like always. He became one person, one person who made choices, mistakes, and did the best he could while dealing with a life of pain and hurt and grief… he became human. 

If you made it this far thank you, mostly this is back story for why I am who I am. Maybe a bit healing as well. In the end I want to be as much like my dad as I can be, that person along with my mom did the best they could to raise a strong, wise, and just son. I owe it to their efforts to get as close to that as I can. -MH