Parentification trauma

 

Have you ever heard of “Parentification trauma” or “Eldest daughter syndrome”?

If not, let me tell you.

Parentification happens when a child is expected to take the roles of his/her parents, in an emotional or physical form. In other words, a child becomes a parent, and parents become a child. This situation may occur because of different circumstances. For example, one of the parents can be absent, or dead, parents can be busy with their own mental health, they can be unaware of the situation at all, or they can have a problematic marriage which make them forget about their children.

Kids who face this situation, can have parentified trauma although they will not be able to understand it at the beginning.

Eldest daughter syndrome is a dysfunction in which the eldest female kid takes traditional parenting role, or a parent transfers this role to the daughter.

As a result, children become traumatized.

Being one of those kids, what I can say is that to be in this kind of situation was awkward. Maybe “awkward” is not enough to deliver the whole experience, but I can not find any other word right now.

When I was eight, my younger brother was born. My mom took his care until he turned one. After that, mom started working again. So, taking care of him became my duty as I was eldest daughter. No one asked me if I want to take this responsibility, whether I am ready for that or not. Plus, I was at second grade at that time. Can you imagine? I needed to take my brother’s care until mom is back, to prepare my homework and to do housework under grandma’s commands. At the age of nine.

To be nine years old girl means a lot in our society. My grandmother used to say: my grandmother married when she was thirteen. Why do you complain? You aren’t little girl anymore.

The burden of responsibility was already on my shoulders.

If I gave a psychology lecture to my grandma at that time, she would not understand a word for sure. Neither I was able to figure out the trauma I was getting without being aware.

All the time dad was out, for job, for other things. My memory always fails whenever I search to find any single day which he was at home and helping mom with house and children care.  

As I grew up, I questioned myself a lot. And there was no answer. It made me think more. Is it possible to know when you face with trauma? When do we understand that we had it? How does it affect our life quality?

The problem is traumas turn into part of our lives and we give it different names as we are clueless to find out what is going on with us. Some people say, ‘it is just my character, I can’t change it’, others say ‘I was like that always, does it mean trauma was born with me?’, others laugh and don’t want to dive into themselves. They are the weakest ones by the way.

The truth is traumas are real no matter we accept it or not. Another truth is you will go on living low quality life unless you face your traumas and let them go.

I found my answer at the age of 25. That’s why I call it the age of enlightenment. Sometimes being introvert helps as well. I did research, took therapy, wrote my thoughts down, and repeated it for many times. It was a loop. The loop ended when my courage to face with traumas was bigger than fear of that.

I still have so many of them. Luckily, I have overcome some, including parentification trauma.

Now it is others’ turn!