According to Maggie Olivares, a social worker who’s dealt with many parentified kids, anger is another byproduct that comes from missing out on a carefree childhood. When they’re adults, they look back on all the years when they had too much responsibility and too little fun and are resentful. They struggle to maintain a relationship with the mom or dad who parentified them and may even choose to end it.
To this day, I have tremendous anger toward my mother for using me as her marital therapist. It turned out that my father was never having an affair and it was all in my mom’s head, triggered by her deep insecurity. When my dad and she grew closer again after years of being distant, she unceremoniously dumped me. I was no longer needed as her confidant and ally. My relationship with my father had been annihilated years before that so I was left with nobody.
Fortunately, I’ve forgiven my mother and moved on with my life, but I still find it difficult to trust people. In the back of my mind, I’m worried about being used again. I often see friendships as depleting rather than energizing. While my mother has apologized for talking badly to me about my dad, she certainly hasn’t owned up to how she turned me into a parentified child and caused disastrous effects in my life.
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