What was your relationship with your parents like for you when you were a child?
Would you run to mom and dad to share something about how you felt, anything bad or good? Could you, anytime you wanted or needed to?
Were they usually there for you, giving you their time, attention, and support?
Did you feel safe sharing something vulnerable with them? Did they keep your secrets?
Did you always know that they were there for you when you needed them?
Did you feel seen, acknowledged, and validated?
Did you feel supported?
Or... not so much?
Did you feel that your parents would likely not make time for you?
Deep inside did you already know this ahead of time, without having to ask?
Were you afraid or hesitant to come to them with your needs because they would laugh at you or belittle you? Or simply redirect their attention away from you, over to something or someone else, without dealing with what you were trying to get their attention for?
Did you often get mocked, put down, or embarrassed in front of other people, so that your parent’s ego could be propped up?
Did it often feel like you were invisible? Did you have to behave in such a way as to not burden your parents with any of your needs?
Or did you have to always be perfect? Because anything less than perfection could provoke an angry outburst...
Or did you just know that you couldn’t go anywhere near your parents to begin with, so as to not provoke any reprimand, criticism, or violence.
And what about the other way around, what about you parents’ access to you? Were you always expected to give them time and attention no matter what? Could you say anything like “let me do this a bit later please, after I finish the …”?
Could you say “no”?
Were you allowed privacy in your home?
Did you have bodily autonomy?
Where you in a position to set boundaries, and believe they would be respected?
Did you have to serve as an emotional parent to your own parents? Did you have to be an adult’s caregiver as a child? Did you have to act as a surrogate parent to your younger siblings?
Please take a look at how many of these questions apply to you. If you find that many of them do, it is likely that your parents were not emotionally there for you enough.
If that’s the case, please feel free to book a consultation here, and we will talk about what could be done to help.
Children growing up with parents who were not available for them emotionally face a particular set of difficulties later in life. I will talk about them in later posts.
Coming up: the monkey experiment, and what these findings mean for you
Coming up: Holiday season is upon us. Check in with how you feel
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