I was parentified but most severely after college. I was made felt guilty for moving on with my life. This has affected me severely. I run from relationships. I don’t like anyone controlling or loving me. I feel like an imposter in relationships as an adult. I don’t want kids to transfer this trauma.
Hello! That happened to me with my ex-partner. After two years he escaped without giving me a reason why. He couldn't communicate during the entire relationship. I sympathize with your experiences.
Greetings from America! This was truly enlightening. I recently learned the terms parentifying and infantilizing from my therapist. My mother (and Grandiose father) was a narcissist... divorced when I was 8 yrs old. I have a bunch of brothers and, by default, became a surrogate mother b/c I was the only girl. I can identify w/ almost every behavior that you both mentioned... hyper-vigilance, extremely sensitive, scanning others in order to anticipate their every need, feeling alive/my best when caring for others. My mother died 2 yrs ago; I realized I swapped my husband for my mother. However, my therapist is wonderful, and I am willing and eager to do the work of separation/individualization in order to find myself again. Thank you for bringing your vast knowledge to this topic and for doing this work!!
This is very enlightening. I can see everything from a different perspective now. I have been in the process of healing for many years but didn't really understand. I think my parents did their best. They both have their own childhood trauma to reconcile. Now that I have a grandson, I am emotionally healthier than I was, raising my own children. Still a long way to go. I think all of us have unique and incredible stories to tell. When we finally get to a point of self awareness and begin to make changes in ourselves it is literally like a veil has been lifted from our eyes.
A friend of mine definitely was a parentify child...i noticed through the years that whenever she is in the verge of a breakthrough professionally, she self sabotages herself by changing gears and completely changing her path in life. It has been a puzzle to me, until I saw this video. It is probably a fear not of failure but of being "discovered as an imposter" that propels her to abandon a project (or a relationship) just when it is about to succeed....
Don’t forget the guilt of realising your internal monologue is a lie or sabotaging you. Loosing those thought processes can be a major loss of identity.
Wow. This is what I needed to hear today. As a 59 year old parentified daughter caring for her 80 year old Covid positive mother the past 12 days I have reran the gauntlet of emotions, from my childhood that I have been working hard to process. I have been in therapy and working the, “Twelve Steps,” for the past four years and I find your videos supportive to that mental and emotional work. Thank you both for sharing.
Lol the 12 steps is an addiction program which you can never really complete as you’ll be going backwards and forward between steps. 13th step is recovery and leaving the process all together after you have formed better thinking process’ and behaviours.
Here is my life training to prepare me for my life of being the failed ideal mother of my vunerable narcissistic partner and the ideal mother I never had. The reliable, solid predictable financially responsible, mother cleaning up the wreckage. Finally after being my own mother since I was born I have learned to be 2 mothers at one time and I resent it immensely.
I feel you, Lisa! My husband (and mother) is a vulnerable narcissist too. It’s an EXTREMELY painful, exhausting, demoralizing, and lonely existence!! I’m sending hugs and support your way... stay strong! Get the help of a trained mental health therapist... it truly helps to be able to touch base w/a “real” person who cares and offers support! ❤
So true, every word 😢 by the way, I absolutely detest the idea of having children. I would feel overwhelmed by responsibility. Like I would be trapped in a cage for 20 years. I have my dog and we are a very happy duo ❤❤
Wow Sam I can’t imagine what you went thru as a child, I’m so sorry this happened to you. I have so much respect for you parenting everyone when you didn’t even know how.
WOW. This is surely a topic I had to hear and see very much people relate to this. Our parents was born in the firts World war and married in the Second W/war. My father must have had CPtsd... drink too much and verbaly fisicilly and emotionally my mother a oldest brother..me and my sisters were nutured by my oldest sister who become the parent figure. She mothered me and till today she is taking control over and want to tell us what , how, and when... love her dearly , but in this parentifying mode she pushes others away from her. Our parents were also not beeing loved by there parents, and had to work like slaves sins they were very small. It is heartbraking that so many humans are realy have to cope in their broken lives, mental illnesses, and become mentally distorted, because of a lack of true Love.
Spot on remark concidering people needing a licence to perform certain tasks consiously, in opposition to paretnhood, where no "licence" or any kind of certification is requred. Thank You Sam
Dr. Sam: I have been listening to your work for quite some time. My husband of 22 yrs has NPD and 8 months ago became psychopathic. Trying to make sense of it all is overwhelming. I have found your knowledge & insight very helpful. This one in particular is right on the money. Mine was raised by a Borderline(failed Narcissist) & his Father left never to b seen again when his younger brother was one. He became GOD to the Mother & a Father to the brother. I would never have married him knowing just how deep & sinister their trauma bond was.
You sound a bit psychopathic the way you are picking apart his life and labelling everything. This videos are meant to help people recover not to diagnose partners with RU-vid degree. See a professional please.
@GrahamMorgan: With all due respect. I have my degrees in Psychology & Education. What I left out is the specifics about how Sam helped me to put a name to it due to the current state of domestic violence, abuse, financial fraud, grand larceny & pending criminal charges against him. Trust me, I am on my path to healing & so is my only son…🌞🦋🙏
Thank you very much. I found these videos while I had my psychotherapy. I think my mother suffered from narcistic personality disorder. And now (i am 29 years old) i finally can understand what really happend 20 years ago. Can go threw it with realising what continues in my parents' family now. And thank you for showing a way to other variants of relationship. Believe that it is achievable. Thank you! And sorry for mistakes, i am russian.
You know... In watching this, it must be said that all this can also be applied to a society as well. Right now, the government of the United States is run like this. My question is this, how does an entire society get professional help?
I was raised by my grandparents until 9 , lived with narcissistic mother until 16, then off to boarding school. -- Helped mother move across country at 18 , mother moved to different country at 19-- I married a narc at age 20.
Very interesting perspective. I watched many videos on the topic of people pleasers but this specific video brings a new perspective on this topic. Thank you for elaborating on this topic and sharing this interview!
Oof... the amount of times I've had to pause, regroup and come back to this is laughable to me. I'm having such a hard time getting through it. I have a lot of work to do for my healing
I am a survivor of extreme narcissistic abuse since childhood myself. However I do know some very successful people who grew up with good and mature parents but are still deviant in nature. And I know others who grew up in total chaos with addicted and or absent parents but these people are very well adjusted. Can you explain why this happens?
I believe Sam once explained that one child could fail to individuate because mommy was sick or absent for a while during childhood, and that alone for that particular child could trigger any of the personality issues discussed on this channel. Even without narcissistic parents. Sometimes we are in the wrong place at the wrong time coupled with a certain sensitivity or proclivity specific to the person. Also I saw a video from Dr Vaknin where he mentioned how influential digestive system bacteria is on personality issues.
Thank you for all those videos, they worth so much. Is there any difference in the splitting/internalizing when the child is parentified older (10-13 years old) than in the formative years?
i am not an expert, from what i know natural splitting can be up to young adult (when still forming your own identity if i understood, since you are not seperated yet from the parents) and would imagine it being the same or simular thought mechanism. The binary, all good or all bad thinking. I could imagine it developping different pathologies at different ages but i'm not a psychologist it's just what i think i understand of it.
Excellent interview. Its always like hearing my "stats" which in itself is positive feedback - I'm at a point in my journey where I've done a lot of this work I just didn't know there was terminology for it. This is the education process .💁♀️ At the end something stuck for me- the not needing to know intent- just get up and go to the ocean for a run bit. Follow me a second here- One of the many "gifts" my biodonors bestowed me was that of medical neglect. I've been late diagnosed as autistic - wow does it makes sense🤩. Back to the interview- so when it comes to things like intent or how things work, or why I need to do something.... you see where I'm going here... I'm quite ridigid you could say, or some have said. So where I can grasp the idea the it's unnecessary to know this reason in that scenario, in another Autism may be much more of an obstacle. How would you approach this situation from a nuerodivergent perspective or with sensitivity to?
I think a lot of the people still living at home into there 30s are just there because of other factors. Ie. Lack of affordable housing and 0 hour short term contracts and unstable work. My workmate who is 50 and has a stable work history and 3months rent up front still found it almost impossible to find a flat to rent. A 1 bed flat in London is £350,000 + now. How can a normal working man on 20 k a year afford that ?
@@samvaknin Hello Sam. Thank you for replying, and let me just say I have really enjoyed and learned so much from you so thank you. Your answer is interesting and you have a point. But I grew up in London and it’s my home where all my friends are, if I move away then I struggle to find work or have to do hours of commuting so I lose the money that way . You made a good point in one of your videos that people in much harder times than today survived better than the youth of today who appear to have it much better. Jorden Peterson makes the same point saying “ do you have it harder than your grandparents “ but I don’t think it’s as simple as that. The youth of today face different challenges and life dose seem to me anyway to be getting over regulated and over complicated. I went to a little poor village in Cambodia before covid and was shocked at how happy the villagers were and how little they had but they was self sufficient. They had a farm to supply there food, they helped each other build there own houses with no one regulating them and the land was free. they all had four kids and was genuinely happy. I think Even through on the surface it looks like we have it good in the west we are very overcrowded and over worked and have lost some and are paying to much for the basics. Waged in my trade have not gone up in 20 years. Rather than a fair pay rise to keep up with inflation we got thousands of immigrants shipped in and that devalued the English workforce. The immigrants mainly polish work hard for 5 years don’t pay tax knowing they can ruff it sleeping five in a bedsit then go home to Poland and build / buy there house outright and have a nice life. The English can’t do that or compete with that ?. You can obviously tell me to move to Cambodia or Poland but please don’t 😂
I don't think I was parentified but adultified maybe? I feel like i raised myself.. and got myself through school.. no one cared when i graduated, and i almost dropped out. But i made myself finish school. and my parents weren't around much.. just enough to provide financially and legally. they had their own relationships and lives. Divorced since I was 6. So I spent most of my time alone.. moving back and forth between the houses. Just whenever things got rough with the others boyfriend/girlfriends.. Whenever drama happened. and I figured things out myself. Or my teachers would help me with basic hygiene stuff.. or I learned things from freinds.. or counsellors, or books. They didnt abuse me but didnt really care too much either..consumed in their own lives. I'm 33 now. No kids. Don't want them anymore. Never had a relationship. I never learned how to be very close with people..
I think when we lean on and rely on our children for emotional support is abuse. However, as age is concerned in some cultures at the age 13 boys become men. Like in the Indian culture boys are taught early to provide etc. also, I believe Mary, mother of Jesus, was 16 years old when she married.
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:00 *🎙️ People are remaining adolescents for longer periods, with over one-third under 35 living with parents and marriage rates dropping significantly.* 03:36 *💡 Parentification isn't just children acting as parents; it's when children are forced to behave like adults due to the absence or incapacity of actual adult figures in their lives.* 07:50 *💔 Dead parents, emotionally or physically absent or abusive, can lead children to feel like orphans, resulting in self-parenting where they internalize dysfunctional parental behaviors.* 10:35 *🧠 Children internalize their dysfunctional parents' traits when creating imaginary parental figures, affecting their sense of self-worth and their ability to regulate emotions.* 16:24 *🔄 Parentified children often struggle with self-regulation, boundaries, and self-worth, leading to self-harm through sacrificing their well-being for others' care.* 21:48 *🎭 Internalized splitting from parentification causes perpetual guilt, self-sacrifice, and the inability to love oneself, resembling traits of codependency.* 25:26 *🔒 Parentified children may coerce and force others into needing them, replicating their upbringing dynamics.* 26:51 *🚸 Parentified children turned codependent seek to care for partners excessively, resembling a form of imprisonment.* 28:59 *🕵️♂️ Parentified children often become codependents or people pleasers, using their sensitivity and empathy to control others.* 30:24 *💔 Parentified children struggle in intimate relationships as they only know how to behave as parents, seeking dependent partners to fulfill their role.* 32:45 *🧠 Parentified children exhibit similarities with mental health disorders like dependent personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and borderline personality disorder.* 34:54 *🛌 Parentified children, when loved, fear abandonment, as love is interpreted as abandonment due to their upbringing.* 35:22 *🚨 Parentified children develop hyper-vigilance, constantly scanning parental figures, leading to similar behavior in adulthood.* 37:01 *🧙♂️ Parentified children attribute god-like powers to their internalized parent, creating dissonance in adulthood.* 39:08 *🤹 Parentified children struggle with self-love and self-sacrifice, perpetuating abusive patterns in relationships.* 41:00 *💼 Parentified children are at risk of developing personality disorders or dysfunctional behaviors in adulthood due to their upbringing.* 44:02 *🛤️ Therapy focuses on separating from dysfunctional parental figures and developing self-love to break the cycle of abuse.* 46:37 *💡 Therapeutic interventions may involve actions rather than just insights, such as setting boundaries and practicing self-love rituals.* 49:26 *💆♂️ Therapy or body work can aid in coping and change without needing full understanding.* 49:53 *😔 Giving up the internalized parental figure involves a mourning process akin to losing real parents.* 50:09 *💔 Transformation, whether through therapy or life experiences, entails sacrificing one's former self.* 50:22 *⚙️ Loss is a fundamental catalyst for personal growth, essential for gaining self-awareness and reality testing.* 51:04 *🌍 Western society's aversion to pain, hurt, and loss can lead to a stagnant existence, akin to living in a state of death.* Made with HARPA AI
Can you comment about how these codependent parentified children go on to be coaches and healthcare professions and want to be the perpetual expert adviser to the masses (guru). And also how they have a savior complex?
In respect to the west inability to or lack of desire to acknowledge pain or suffering. I feel it's worse than that- it's all emotions 😕- if they don't feel- they can't "hurt." Emotions are tied to and even taught alongside morality. Sad 😔 is equated to Bad... I'm not a fan of Disney but for once they actually illustrated this properly in their film Inside Out, too bad it gained 0 traction and popularity. It's cultural and speading via the internet emotions- that should -Inform- that's it- now are manifestations of full narratives/dramas even horror stories. All distortions. *Inform redacted after should
