#Parentification

[lastsecondsquirrel]

I am so so tired of having the compassion for everyone else that they don't have for me

You're having a bad day? Let me pause my whole life so I can help you with that. Let me give you that book that is so so special to me knowing I won't be getting it back. Let me play along with your cruel jokes, tend to your wounds and carry you across the finish line

I'm having a bad day and I must apologize for feeling feelings in your direction I guess I should have tried harder but I'll see you next time you need something

[scoobydoodean]

Dean criticizing his father | 1.20, 1.21, 1.22, 2.01, 2.03, 2.10, 2.11, 3.03, 3.10, 4.10, 4.19, 5.06, 5.13, 5.16, 5.17, 6.02, 8.18, 10.03, 12.14, 12.22

[fenrysmoonbeamswife]

my recent tiktok has made me realize that people don't actually understand what being parentified is

it's not just having to parent your younger sibling💀 only children are parentified too. girls who aren't the oldest but are the only girl? also parentified

being parentified means you're expected to fulfill a parents needs and provide support, it means you're given responsibilities that aren't fair or age appropriate. that can be a lot of different things, not just parenting younger siblings

parentified doesn't come from parenting siblings, it comes from parenting parents

now I have officially typed the word parent too many times and it's looking all sorts of weird so this better make sense

[enmesheddaughterparentified]

Are you normal or do you have hypervigilence problems because you always had to be aware of your family members moods growing up in order to deescalate situations before the arose

[pain-is-my-game]

Parents really do traumatize you and then force you to reparent yourself instead of being a capable human being who can contribute to society like a normal person. Sorry I can't get a well paying job right now I'm trying to learn coping mechanisms.

[autistic-human]

“Dick is a mother hen” “no Jason is”

nah y’all tim is. He fucking parented and kept a suicidal Batman intact. All at the ripe age of 13-currently I think 17

[traumatizedjaguar]

"The guilt that people feel about what their parents may have gone through is a classic symptom of being an adult child of emotionally immature parents. They go over the boundary of what is their responsibility, worrying about the feelings and the needs and the life of other people because thats what emotionally immature parents teach their children to do. They teach their children to take care of them and to be worried about what other people need. The parent has not matured to the point where they can take care of themselves let alone a child. They're demanding that from their children, so its not surprising that the child would end up feeling guilty about any that distress the parent, and feel responsible for that because thats what their childhood would be set up to do."

Lindsay C. Gibson, PsyD

[thepeacefulgarden]

[roguekaiju]

Thinking about Lawrence's (okay technically Lomeli's) strained and unclear relationship with his mother, widowed for 40 years. Thinking about Lawrence's parents perhaps abruptly having another kid when he's in his mid teens and then his dad dying a few years after. Thinking about Lawrence becoming parentified and responsible for his little brother in the wake of his mother's grief. Even though he's barely an adult he already has to be A Manager. Thinking about Lawrence, 40 years later, still managing, still bearing unwanted responsibilities without complaint and without expecting thanks because he's gotten so good at it, but it's worse now because these are men his age or older, and maybe he was cold towards his mother once over it but now he's just tired

[ashwashere8]

Okay I'm thinking about Luke Castellan and all the reasons for his betrayal of the gods, and one that I personally have never seen talked about is his own parentification.

Cause he grew up with an unstable mother, meaning for the most part he had to raise himself and THEN he runs away and he meets these two girls, both younger than him and just as lost as he is, and he's found someone to protect in a way he never gets to be protected.

He gets to camp, and from there he's raising a grieving Annabeth BUT as time goes on and he gets older he gains more responsibility, and by the time Percy meets him, he's basically a parent figure to the ENTIRE Hermes cabin, as well as one of if not THE oldest camper in the whole camp.

He's constantly watching these kids beg for the gods'attention, both parental and otherwise, and seeking that attention in him, and of course he curses them. It is because of them the kids he cares about are hurting. And, more selfishly, it is because of them he has an emotional and mental burden of parenthood, when he never wanted nor prepared for it. Of course they're the villains.

[kernsing]

never over the fact that han yoohyun remains also a victim of child neglect/abandonment/having adult responsibilities foisted upon him too young even as he grows up under yoojin’s care. it’s not yoojin’s fault, he did his best and he did good raising yoohyun but. you’re not supposed to be able to hurt your parent, you’re not supposed to learn how to manage your parent’s emotions/wellbeing/public image, you’re not supposed to have to fear for their physical safety and desperately try to figure out a way to protect them, you’re not supposed to be capable of real cruelty toward them, not supposed to be able to fuck up their life. but your parent is your brother who is only five years older than you, and suddenly the new and dangerous world demands you (you who are new and dangerous too) in its spotlight, and you are just a child and he was just a child. the world is so wholly unjust to both of them and i will never fault either for how their relationship was in shambles for three/eight years, even when han yoohyun makes his terrible decisions with terrible consequences, paving the road to hell. you’re not supposed to be able to hurt your parent like that. you’re not supposed to be a brother that he needs to rely on, just as much as you rely on him, both of you abandoned.

haven’t even mentioned yet how you’re not really human you don’t understand humans you try your best for your brother but you Don’t Get It, how and why society works and the full emotional harm its hatred can wreak. you might see it but you don’t get it like physical danger and there is so much of that latter danger in the world now. you might see him and keep tabs on him but you don’t get your brother, that he needs you like you need him because of the very fact that you need him and children realizing their parents are complete emotional beings is not something that should happen before you learn to stand on your own. and learning to stand on your own, paradoxically and inevitably, takes much longer when you are forced to grow up too fast. you are forced to mature too early and so you are immature in ways invisible. so many flavors of terrible responsibilities foisted upon them that no one should ever bear (raising a child while you are a child/the world is on fire and so are you/your parent also needs you to bear your shared emotional burden).

it’s so unfair. i’m bundling them both up in a blanket. han yoojin’s childhood was stolen away so he could give this simulacrum of a childhood to his brother but the world is terrible and yoojin is just a child too and it’s not possible it’s not his fault that the wonderful beautiful childhood he built is not, cannot be the bulwark in the face of brutal reality, that delicate childhood shaped by hands still so small too.

[lastsecondsquirrel]

As a kid I found comfort in reading. Authors validate characters' experiences and feelings in a way I've never learned to do for myself.

A woman comes home from a bad day, frustrated, and takes a shower to try and relax.

There's no questioning it. She is frustrated. It's on the page. It's real. It's valid. There's no questioning it. The author has stated it and so it is real.

Without someone to tell me otherwise, I just stay convinced when I'm hurt by something that I'm just being too sensitive or too dramatic or too selfish.

[scoobydoodean]

You really just can't unsee it once you see it though, can you?

Sam starts blaming Dean for what he's going to do (work with Ruby) way back in 3.09 because Dean isn't going to be around to be Sam's mommy, which is going to force Sam's hand.

After Dean comes back, Sam actually blames Dean for him working with Ruby by saying Dean wasn't there to protect him (4.04).

Dean repeatedly begs Sam not to work with Ruby and is ignored repeatedly (3.03, 3.04, 3.09, 3.16, 4.01-4.04, 4.12-4.22).

After telling Dean to open up to him and trust him (4.08), Sam calls Dean weak and pathetic for being traumatized by hell and says Dean is holding him back and therefore deserves to be lied to because he can't be of use (4.14) Sam says it's not what he really thinks when they both know it is (and Sam repeats it to other characters in 4.16, and 4.18) and then he admits it's the truth again to Dean's face in 4.21.

Sam accuses Dean of not trusting him enough (4.21).

Bobby blows up at Dean for not supporting Sam enough and calls him a pansy after Sam strangled Dean near unconscious, and tells him family is supposed to make you miserable (4.22).

Dean tries to reach out to Sam and Zachariah and Cas actively prevent him from doing so (Cas only at first) (4.22)

Zachariah (5.01) and Cas (5.02) both tell Dean the apocalypse is his fault because Dean didn't reach Sam in time to stop him from killing Lilith.

Dean says Sam hurt him, Sam is the one Dean depended on the most and Sam hurt him in ways he can't even voice (5.01). Sam apologizes, but then in the very next episode, shoves Dean into a wall for not trusting him like Dean is crazy and irrational when Sam doesn't even trust himself (5.02).

Sam says he thinks they should go their separate ways and is shocked when Dean agrees easily. Dean says that he spends more time worrying about Sam than he does doing the job right and time apart would be good. Sam reiterates that he's sorry and Dean gently says he knows Sam is (5.02).

Cas asks Dean if he's okay even without his brother, and Dean says "Especially without my brother. I mean, I spent so much time worrying about the son of a bitch. I mean, I’ve had more fun with you in the past twenty-four hours than I’ve had with Sam in years, and you’re not that much fun. It’s funny, you know, I’ve been so chained to my family, but now that I’m alone, hell, I’m happy." (5.03)

Sam says he wants back in. Dean objects, on the basis that he thinks they're stronger apart. Dean says they're each other's weaknesses and it's being used against them (5.04, but the weakness line is repeated from 3.03 and 3.16).

Zachariah pushes Dean into a future 2014 where Dean never met up with Sam again, and as a result, Sam said "Yes" to Lucifer, and billions of people died. All because Dean didn't want to be around Sam after being hurt and never reconnected with him (5.04).

Dean reconnects with Sam (5.04) even though he clearly doesn't want to, because the first case we see them on again, Dean struggles to trust Sam and leaves to go drink alone because he doesn't want to be around Sam (5.05).

Sam says part of the reason he went off with Ruby was to get away from Dean, because Dean is smothering. Dean is the problem in the relationship, because Sam feels inferior compared to him. Dean apologizes for being too smothering (5.05).

What does all of this tell you? Dean can't win. Dean will always be the bad guy in the family. He loves too much, or he isn't loving enough. Sam needs him and Dean wasn't there for him and so Sam went down the wrong path, but also Dean is smothering and Dean being smothering is the reason Sam went down the wrong path. Sam is not a trustworthy person, but Dean doesn't trust him enough. Sam not being trustworthy is Dean's fault. Dean doesn't deserve trust, but Sam deserves Dean's trust no matter what and not giving Sam his trust is the worst possible thing in the entire world and also again makes him smothering. The apocalypse is Dean's fault. Every single thing Sam does every single mistake he might ever make in his life is always at least partly Dean's fault and Dean's responsibility.

[audreyrose7]

Nobody tells you how WEIRD and WRONG and OFF it feels when you actually tell your parents the truth, when all you do is lie and pretend because that's what you have to do to survive, occasionally the opportunity arises where the safest thing for you is to actually tell the TRUTH, I feel like nobody talks about how incredibly wrong that feels

[amoxicillin-tangent]

i am given birth to by my mother. i am brought home to a falling-apart trailer. i am fed and i am not fed enough. i am aged into a small being with opinions and some semblance of autonomy; my childhood is a video game and i am given three objectives: sit down, stay quiet, and cease to exist. i am made good at the last part; it is a god-like sort of art, and so i do. silence is suited for me as well as i am suited for silence. 

i am told, gently, by my third-grade teacher to stop writing in passive voice. the noun of the sentence should be the actor, the doer, the taker. i am not a taker. never the actor of my own consciousness, of my own unconsciousness, remember, now, i am ceasing to exist. 

i am uprooted like a wilting plant, no sunlight, chipped terracotta pot, placed, never planted. grow, says the sunlight seeping between the drawn shutters, and i deny its case. i am made a masochist at all of eight-years-old, i am made for withering away. i am made mother, made martyr, made clever, made more, made machine. 

i am placed in a foster home and told the new rules. i will sleep at 2130 and wake at 0600. i will eat blueberries and coconut yogurt and i will make good grades. i will behave. i will sit down, i will stay quiet, and i will cease to exist. 

i am told, gently, by my ninth-grade teacher to stop writing in passive voice. like this, you are the subject of the sentence. i am brought home; i am subjected to my sentence. i am taught, i am created, i am embittered, i am disillusioned, i am ceasing. it is all i know how to do.

blurring letters litter the pages before me. maya angelou, oh pray my wings are gonna fit me well. oh, tell the hell-child to return to her cell. mangled beast, worthless mongrel, ceasing. perfect child, perfect victim, passive. the sentences are diagrammed by my expert hand and i am diagrammed as well, pages in a folder, problem child, trouble-maker, mentally unstable. infinitive, preposition, page-break. 

my eleventh-grade teacher is asked why was it okay for maya angelou to write in passive voice? she responds, because to write in active voice would take the focus from the corpse to the crew. i like that. i understand it. the pages aren’t so blurry anymore. i trace them with my fingertips, letter-by-letter. her bones were found//round thirty years later//when they razed//her building to//put up a parking lot. 

i am no longer still, silent, ceasing. i am no longer wilting, and no longer made, i am maker. 

grow, says the sunlight seeping between the drawn shutters. i am neither the corpse nor the crew. i reach forward with trembling hands,

and i pull the cord, and the light floods through.

[mother-of-houseplants-2]

fiona gallagher // "i bet on losing dogs" by mistki