I vividly remember 15-year-old me wanting so badly to feel the independence of adulthood. I wanted to be out from under the rules of my parents and so I couldn’t wait to move out! I imagine many of us felt this yearning for freedom in our youth. For those of us, myself included, who were parentified – at a young age, thrown into an adult-mindset and, sometimes, responsibilities too – we wanted to reap the benefits of all we had done and endured, namely autonomy and power over our lives once we finally emerged on the other side.
Parentification, for me, appeared when I was about 12 years old. It felt like overnight, upon gaining the knowledge of my parents’ impending divorce, I was forced to think and act like an adult. I quickly became consumed with tending to the emotional needs of my parents by adopting the “strong” and “responsible” role, and protected my younger brother from hurt however I could. Under this new state of being, I ended up seeking out adult-like experiences and the people I surrounded myself with were older than I was.
It wasn’t until, in my late-20s and early-30s, that I sought to consolidate my childhood memories and wounds, particularly through a community of books, personal EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy, and an intense grieving process. During this stage of intense growth, I had to ask myself: What do I want to carry with me into the next chapters of my life?
Adulthood, then, for me and many others becomes a reclamation of these childhood losses, and most importantly, an invention and strengthening of our overall sense of self. In this quest for selfhood, it is essential to note key differences between childhood and adulthood through the use of two things: voice and choice.
As children, our voices are often stifled, ignored, and dismissed by the adults in our lives acting in what we hope is in our best interests by doing so. Our immaturity means these decisions often lead to outcomes our child selves are not pleased with and feel resentful of. Children are also limited in the choices they can make freely due often to the influence of a parental figure. For example, as a child, we may desire to eat a multitude of sweets without a thought or care for the possible negative outcome. The adults in our lives may limit this desire, reiterate consequences for us to consider, or veto the idea altogether in order to protect us based on their own previous experiences.
The fact that all choices have consequences, while we continue to learn this lesson throughout our lives, seems to be more potent in childhood. The continuous lessons we learn fuel the decisions we make in adulthood and over time we understand why we were limited as children in our actions though we may continue to disagree with them. A sense of empowerment emerges in having the ability to make choices for oneself.
In order to reclaim our voice and choices in adulthood, we must re-parent ourselves, which is where we give ourselves what we did not receive in childhood. One approach to doing so is through loving discipline. Loving discipline is a method of re-parenting ourselves through kindness, compassion, and firmness around our choices. It is a method enveloped in both freedom and love that expresses the sentiment: I care about myself so deeply that I sometimes get to choose the hard or uneasy thing because that is the best thing for me. With roots in spirituality, psychology, and child-rearing practices, loving discipline is setting boundaries, enforcing consequences, and remaining kind to ourselves and others. Perhaps re-parenting looks like developing a solid bedtime routine, taking up a hobby or sport, letting go of an unhealthy relationship, eating more healthy foods, or even dancing in the rain. Loving discipline applies the consequences we ignored before to keep us healing and growing.
A few ways to incorporate loving discipline in your life right now are as follows:
Talk to yourself in the way you would like to be spoken to (e.g., with care and kindness, and without shame or blame).
Throughout our lives, we have often been spoken to carelessly which lead to negative voices, thoughts, and feelings. This develops into unhealthy means of coping that we carry with us into adulthood. For example, if someone once said to us as a child: “You’re worthless! You never do anything right” it could manifest in adulthood as: “I’ll never amount to anything. How could I have made such a stupid mistake?” and we may find ourselves trapped in a negative thought spiral, reaching for substances, or shutting down for a length of time. Try saying this instead: “Messes are made to be cleaned up. I can pay more attention to what I’m doing next time. This does not define me.” and offer yourself a loving gesture, like a self-hug or a small treat for changing this pattern.
If struggling with perfectionism, apply the concept of “good enough” to lessen the stress.
Try this: develop a task list for the day/week and leave some items on the list to be done at a later date. What we did cross off our list becomes “good enough” and the rest becomes tasks for another day. This teaches us that we do not have to accomplish everything all at once to find success in our daily lives. It also helps us avoid burnout and can reduce our stress levels. It sends the message: I do not have to be perfect to have done a good job. I do not need to be perfect to be a person worthy of rest, love, and joy. Remember: we only have so much energy each day; spend it on things you enjoy as well.
In my experience as a trauma-informed counselor and EMDR practitioner, I have noticed time and again that the following is true: everything we have done is because of all we have endured. We choose our actions either in accordance with our experiences because it is familiar and known, or in opposition in order to find a new method of operation. Regardless of that choice, our previous experiences inform our present which will also inform our future ones, and these are core tenets of EMDR.
EMDR can assist us, through visual, auditory, or tactile stimulation during the recollection of traumatic memories, with the reclamation of our adulthood by healing our inner child, finding our voice, feeling more apt to handle our choices and consequences, and applying the concepts of re-parenting and loving discipline. Click here and here for a more in-depth explanation of what EMDR is, what it looks like, and how it can benefit you.
I want to leave you with this final encouragement: reclamation is where being an adult becomes a superpower. We get to choose how we want to live the rest of our lives. Reclaiming your adulthood is a way to regain your sense of self, if not find it for the first time. We finally have the strength to ask and resolve the questions:
Who do I want to be, and how do I go about this?
Who would I be if this [issue] no longer informed my life, and who would I be without it?
Am I ready to make this change, or is something holding me back?
Am I ready to become who I’ve always imagined being?
Tatyana Maizel
LPC, LCPC, NCC, CCTP, EMDR-trained
If you are ready to explore these questions and begin the process of reclamation, click the link below to schedule an appointment.