You Were Never Supposed to Raise Yourself: Healing from Parentification

Hey family,

What if I told you that some of your greatest strengths came from your deepest wounds?

Let me paint a picture: Maybe you were the child who became the parent. The one who cooked dinner while your caregiver worked three jobs. The one who mediated arguments, managed emotions that weren't yours, or took care of younger siblings when you were still a child yourself. The one who learned to read the room before you could read a book.

Maybe you became the therapist, the peacemaker, the responsible one, the emotional caretaker, before you even understood what those roles meant.

If this sounds familiar, I want to name something for you: You experienced parentification. And it wasn't your fault.

Parentification happens when a child is forced to take on adult responsibilities—whether that's physical caregiving, emotional support, or managing household crises. And while it may have made you responsible, independent, and incredibly capable, it also robbed you of something precious: your childhood.

Here's what I see in my practice all the time: Adults who are amazing at taking care of everyone else but terrible at receiving care. People who feel guilty for having needs. Folks who can't rest because they're still waiting for the next crisis. People who struggle to trust others because they learned early that they could only depend on themselves.

Does this resonate?

Scripture tells us that God places the lonely in families (Psalm 68:6) and that we should bear one another's burdens (Galatians 6:2). But beloved, children were never meant to bear the burdens of adults.

You did what you had to do to survive. You stepped up because someone needed to. And I honor that strength in you. But I also grieve what you lost. And I want you to know: It's not too late to reclaim what was taken.

Reflection Prompts for This Week:

1. What adult responsibilities did you carry as a child? (Emotional, physical, financial; name them specifically.)

2. How does parentification still show up in your life today? (Do you over-function in relationships? Struggle to ask for help? Feel guilty when you're not "doing" something?)

3. What would it look like to let yourself be cared for? (Not just tolerating help, but actually receiving it. What feels scary about that?)

Here's what I want you to know: You don't have to earn love by being useful anymore.

You can rest. You can have needs. You can let other people carry some of the weight. You can be cared for without having to give something in return.

The little one inside you who had to grow up too fast? They're still there. And they're waiting for you to give them what they never got: permission to just be a child, to play, to rest, to be held without having to hold everyone else first.

You were never supposed to raise yourself. But you can re-parent yourself now, with tenderness, with patience, with the love you always deserved.

You're safe now. You can put the burden down.

With compassion and understanding,

Dr. Savage