Of Parentification/Emotional Incest As A Form Of Emotional Abuse 3

This piece is yet another brick on the foundation of parentification that we have erected in the past weeks. The brick for this week contains some of the ways in which adult victims of parentification can find healing.

Acceptance of our pain and struggles is the elementary key that opens the door for our healing. Without acceptance that you were parentified as a child or still being parentified as an adult, the door for healing can never open you.

As mentioned in the previous articles, parentified casualties tend to over give in their relationships. Due to parentification, their inner child was suppressed and neglected as they tended for the emotional needs of their emotionally limping parent and siblings in some instances; a pattern which continue to replicate itself in their adult relationships if the monster of parentification still has a hold in them.

It is an irony that though such casualties parent others they secretly long to be parented too. The unexpressed cry of their heart is usually ‘I take care of and sacrifice for everyone, who is going to do same for me in equal proportions?‘

It is vital for fatalities of parentification to learn how to parent their own emotions/inner child and do the things they wish could have been done for themselves in their childhood. Parenting one’s emotions comes with the realisation that we were born vested with an assortment of virtues such as peace, joy, self-control, healing and contentment within us. Whatever can be broken can be mended. If our spirits can be broken and tattered by abuse, they surely can be mended and be intact if we tap into the healing that lies dormant in us.

The parentified victim habitually neglects themselves and over give in their relationships because they deem relationships as their ‘greatest source of joy’ and not ‘one of their sources of joy.’

They do this by over functioning and getting over-involved in the lives of others when they feel the wind is out their sails instead of processing their emotions and looking within to find peace and contentment.

For example a married parentified victim who is stressed about work and displeased that their spouse is distant may try to remedy that by over pursuing the spouse. In playing the role of an intense pursuer, their spouse becomes more distant and their work stress mounts. By over functioning in the role of an extreme pursuer, their partner under functions and becomes more distant. However, if the casualty was to look within, find healthy ways to process their work related stress with or without their sweetheart and also slow down on pursuing their partner or give them space if need be, they would most likely find a viable solution for their problem and achieve more intimacy with their lover.

Parentified victims rarely get to learn to tap into their inner and greatest joy – the inner joy that was fashioned to hold all the other joys in our lives (including the joy of relationships) and to exist independently from all these other joys. As long as parentified fatalities continue to over function in the lives of others in an effort to pacify anxiety, feeling drained and resentful will be inevitable.

Having a clear sense of self is necessary to effect being one’s own chief caretaker and comforter. In every healthy relationship there should a balance between the ‘I’ within the ‘we’. If there is too much togetherness i.e the ‘we’, the ‘I’ vanishes. On the other hand if there is an extreme ‘I’ within the relationship, the sense of togetherness and unity of purpose would be lost. On the other one hand if there is healthy balance between the ‘I’ and the ‘we’ in the relationship, we will be able to do exploits together whilst actualising at an individual and collective level.

A clear sense of oneself requires that we unambiguously define who we are and what we stand for. It also calls for hale and hearty boundaries as to how far and how much we can be there for others without losing ourselves.

As mentioned in the previous articles parentification fatalities are prone to being emotionally enmeshed and drained in their relationships. A profound sense of self and healthy boundaries are therefore some of the ammunition that can assassinate emotional enmeshment and drain. The brick for healing from parentification has been laid.

*Gaone Monau is a practicing attorney and motivational speaker. For bookings on gender based violence awareness seminars, motivational talks or consultations ON rELAtIONsHIPs, CONfiDENCE BuILDING, strEss management and self-discovery contact +26774542732 or gpmonau@gmail.com. Her Facebook page is (Be Motivated with Gaone).