Child Abuse: Why Would A Parent Make Their Child Into Their Parent?

​Now that someone is an adult, it doesn’t mean that they will have their own life. No, practically their whole life could revolve around their parent or parents, with them behaving more like their parent than their child.

Naturally, if a lot of their time and energy is being directed towards their parent, assuming it is only one, their life is going to suffer. If they had an endless amount of time and energy, this wouldn’t be the case.

A Way of Life

But, although they will be neglecting themselves, this might not be something that they are aware of. Thanks to how long they have behaved in this way, then, it won’t stand out.

Even so, behaving in this way is likely to cause them to experience a fair amount of anger and frustration. Still, they could do their best to keep this inner material at bay and carry on as normal.

Too Much To Handle

If they were to face how they feel and acknowledged that they feel this way because they are neglecting themselves, they could soon feel guilty and ashamed. Due to this, they could soon suppress how they feel.

As a result of how painful these feelings will be and what they believe would happen if they were to change their behaviour, they will feel compelled to avoid how they feel. These feelings will be seen as a sign that they would be doing something wrong if they changed their behaviour.

Weighed Down

In reality, these feelings are irrational as they should be able to put themselves first without feeling guilty or ashamed. Focusing on their parent is going to have a negative impact on them, then, but if they felt comfortable with their needs, their life would be different.

Their parent could also make out, both directly and indirectly, that they are responsible for them. This could mean that they are not grateful for what they do for them and simply expect them to be there for them.

Control

If they were to express a need, this parent could soon say something to try to make them feel guilty. This parent could say that they ‘don’t ask for much’ or that they ‘did a lot for them when they were younger’.

Based on how they often behave, it could be as if they are unable to comprehend that they have needs let alone don’t care about their needs and are consumed by their own. Consequently, one may have experienced a lot of resentment over the years and this feeling, along with the other feelings that they have surpassed and repressed over the years, could cause them to often be in a depressed state.

An Object

What is clear from this is that their parent is unable to accept that they are a separate individual who has their own needs and feelings and life to lead. One is then going to be seen as nothing more than an extension of them.

If this is so, the only way that they are going to be able to live a life that is worth living is if they take matters into their own hands. Their parent is too caught up with themselves to be able to see how dysfunctional their behaviour is and to be there for them.

A Continuation

However, as dysfunctional as their parent’s behaviour is, it is unlikely to be any different to how they behaved during one’s formative years. Most likely, this is how they behaved when one was a child.

From a very young age, then, they would have been forced to be there for their parent and to abandon themselves. And, as they were powerless and totally dependent, there was absolutely nothing that they could do.

Self-Alienation

They would have had to disconnect from their needs and feelings and lose touch with their body in the process. Quite simply, it would have been too painful for them to be an embodied human being.

Who they were, their true self, was not accepted by this parent and this is why they had to lose touch with themselves and developed a disconnected false self. This false self would have been focused on their parent’s needs and reflected the person who they wanted them to be – a needless human being.

The Other Side

As to why this parent couldn’t accept them as they were and provide them with the love that they needed to grow and develop in the right way, it was probably due to the fact they were also emotionally underdeveloped. Their physical and mental self would have grown but their emotional self wouldn’t have.

During their formative years, their parent or parents were probably unable to give them the love that they needed. Therefore, they had to lose touch with themselves and give at a stage when they desperately needed to receive.

Repeating The Past

The years would then have passed, and they would have gone from a disconnected child to a disconnected adult, and, without realising it, turned their child into the parent that they never had. This will show that they were too wounded to be able to see how destructive their behaviour was.

With this in mind, the reason one was deprived of what they needed was that their parent was also deprived and was unable to pass on what they hadn’t received. There was a blockage of love in their family line and this could go back many, many generations.

Awareness
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If someone can relate to this and they are ready to change their life, they may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or healer.