The problem is when I visit my parents or they visit me now. I realize that they are old and have many needs. But I feel anger and resentment every time I have to provide advice, explanations, or reasons so they can relax. It’s exhausting and it’s not my job anymore. This has never been the case. I feel like I can’t just help my parents like a normal adult child. I struggle with my deep grief over caring for them and receiving little care myself. This forces me to stay away from them even if their needs increase. I guess what I’m asking for is a way to look at things differently so I don’t feel angry when they bring me their phone to fix or ask me to explain why their car seems to break down d gasoline so quickly. Helping them feels so heavy because of my past, but I really wish it wasn’t.
Distant girl: It’s not uncommon for children of immigrants like you to be parentified or given responsibilities that their parents should have assumed. By being mature, independent, or doing things like adults from a young age, you learned to reject your own needs. Instead, your parents’ emotional security replaced yours, even at the cost of keeping the abuse a secret. It’s true that your parents probably love you and probably did their best, but this rationalization still ignores the impact their behaviors had on you.
Even if you take space from your parents, it is clear that this, in itself, is not really making you feel better. Instead, it might actually make your resentment and anger worse. It’s possible that by being so preoccupied with what your parents felt or expected of you over the years, you developed an extreme disconnection from your own feelings and needs.
Things feel “heavy” because you’re still carrying a lot of stuff. What can you release? Often, when we are angry, we are actually masking a more vulnerable primary emotion. I encourage you to take the time to sit with your emotions and try to identify what else you are feeling. Maybe you are disappointed? Or do you feel abandoned? Or fight against the unfair and one-sided nature of the relationship? Make room for these feelings to breathe. Let them tell you what you need now.
There is a younger inner version of you that desperately wants to be loved and cared for. Research suggests that parentification may be a form of emotional neglect. Since your parents are unresponsive and cannot meet your emotional needs, how can you find other relationships to rely on? Or a professional you can work with to process these experiences, including your past abuse if you haven’t already? Consider how You can take care of your inner child and fix it. This could be sitting with your feelings, writing a letter to your younger self, or looking at older photos of yourself and granting yourself the compassion and emotional validation you didn’t get.
If you want to “see things differently,” you will have to start approaching things differently. Right now, you are approaching your relationship with your parents by focusing solely on them. Parentified children often grow into extreme people-pleasing adults, and you want to challenge the narrative that you are only worthy when you are useful to your parents. How can you incorporate other things into your relationship, like being more open about your life, or do an activity to spend quality time while minimizing the chances of helping them with something?
Even more so, be honest about how you activate this dynamic. You want to help your parents like a “normal” adult child, but I encourage you to explore what “normal” help looks like. Also consider if there is an achievable boundary you can create for yourself. This could decrease the frequency with which you talk to them, being less immediately available, or even providing them with resources to help them learn and do exactly the things they want you to do for them. By setting boundaries, you stop engaging with your parents from a state of exhaustion.
It’s clear that you care about your parents and don’t want to completely lose the relationship with them, but to help them you also need to be able to help yourself. This will help you decide what you want do, not out of obligation or fear of abandonment, but out of sincere concern.
