I was not independent, I was unaccompanied

The phrase "the youngest on paper, the only child in practice" has resonated with me for over 20 years. Yes, I am a millennial; yes, I have loving friends and have reconnected with some family members; yes, I am still a child who is constantly healing; and yes, I am a psychologist. However, being a psychologist has not stripped away my humanity, my trauma, my experiences, my love, my pain, my joy, my anger, my anguish, my despair, my anxiety, my heartache, my serenity, my hope, in other words... my complexity.

So, "the youngest on paper and the only child in practice" phrase was born out of my Adlerian  knowledge. Alfred Adler published in his 1927 book Understanding Human Nature  his theory of birth order and how this shapes personality development. He emphasized that it is not the absolute numerical order of birth that matters, but rather how the child interprets their situation in the environment there are raised. This resonates with me as a youngest/only child who has four older half siblings. I am the youngest of 5, on paper that should have made me the "baby" according to Adler (1931). The one who was supposed to be watched over, but by the time I was around 8 or 10, my siblings were off to college, getting married, and having children of their own.

I learned that when another person bullied me for my vivid imagination, I used to play "Sailor Moon" and speak out loud to imaginary people and often daydreamed, it was because I was weird, out of place, not "normal"- whatever that means, and not compliant with "the status quo." I learned to mask myself to fit in, to try my best to be "normal" and my parents, did not defend me. I learned that when you fall in love in your early teens you must have approval from everyone and you must be clean, perfect, and godly. At least that what the congregation that my father and I belonged to deemed this as acceptable. My relationship with this person was viewed as unacceptable, the pastors called me a slut, I was removed as a choir singer because I was falling in sin, the pastors quoted "Ecclesiastes 3:1" as evidence that I was not supposed to like, let alone, fall in love at 13. The parents of my "boyfriend" despised me and his father even sent over a private investigator to look into my grades because I was not good enough for him... we were 13. It did not matter that I was a straight A student, it did not matter that I was in the church choir, it did not matter that I preached to other children, but for this congregation, something mattered, but they just failed to tell me what. However, they did not fail in jumping in shaming me, and only me. Not him, not his family, not his money. This was one of the first instances I can recall where my father neglected me. He did not stand up for me against the congregation, we stayed, we went every Wednesday and Sunday, we prayed and praised, we were "good" Christians. This did not matter-another evidence of my hyper independence. I must "show them" that I am worthy because it was my responsibility and my fault, not the adults who were using Gods name to spread misogyny and sexism.

If my memory serves me correctly, for most of my life, people complimented me on how independent I was. Teachers said it, relatives said it, and later on my psychologist career, supervisors said it. I took this as a personality fact about my character, and for a long time I was proud of it. However, reflecting in my trauma work in my own psychotherapy journey, this proudness came from shame and guilt. I was very proud of how much I did not ask for help and follow up questions to not seem as a nuisance, I was very proud of how much I cried alone to not appear broken or emotionally dysregulated, I was very proud of how much I smiled and laughed even when I wanted to scream and yell, I was very proud of how much I went out my way to help my friends, family, and clients, even at the expense of my chronic fatigue and pain.

Dr. Judith Herman describes in chapter 5 of her book Trauma and Recovery, what childhood abuse does to a developing brain. She stated that children raised in an environment of fear or unavailability often become remarkably competent. They learn to read adult moods, to anticipate needs, and to present a self- that looks fine to the external world. I agree with this because I learned how to read and anticipate the needs of others, specifically adults with authority. From the outside this looks like "maturity," but from the inside it is vigilance. I became a vigilante.

Many researchers such as Hopper et al., (2011) and Jurkovic (1997), call this parentification. A meta-analysis of studies across adult samples found a reliable association between childhood parentification and later psychological distress. The research also distinguished from two forms of parentification-instrumental and emotional. The instrumental parentification is when the child is expected to do all the chores of the household such as making dinner for the family, taking care of the youngest sibling, or for immigrant families, becoming the translator. The emotional parentification involves a more sinister approach which is becoming a parent's confidant and emotional regulator. This type was the one I had to deal the most. I had to hide from my father, who loves me dearly and calls me to this day his princess and biggest treasure, that my mother remarried to a man that I also considered a father figure. I had to hide that I also loved this man as a father because he loved me as a daughter, I had to protect my father's feelings, if not, he would not pick me up during the weekends. What research stipulates is that emotional parentification tends to carry the heavier cost.

It is not unusual in a Puerto Rican household, or in many Latine and Hispanic households that helping the family is often an expression of familismo. This is a value I hold an do not want and will not pathologize this! This is what collectivistic societies do and what I strive to do in my own communities. However, the problem is not that I help, the problem is how the emotional needs of a child go unmet, how your parents only "rewarded" you with affection if you did exactly as they say, the absence, withdrawal, and volatility of their emotional expressions when they were dysregulated.

Neglect rarely makes the headlines because it is defined by what did not happen, and it is a capitalistic society, "tangible" evidence is needed at times. Yet a paper titled The Neglect of Child Neglect by authors Stoltenborgh et al., (2013), indicates that emotional neglect is among the most common self-reported forms of childhood maltreatment. Herman writes in chapter 5 that a child in this position must find a way to keep faith in caregivers who are not reliably safe. In chapter 6 of her book, she argues that prolonged childhood trauma reshapes relationships, self-perception, and the sense of meaning. She called this complex PTSD.

Now, here is where the situation becomes harder for most of us in this position... We may know that our parents were also abused. As a psychologist, I can see the chain. It took me years, and a doctorate in clinical psychology, to say the next sentence plainly: much of what people called my independence was the shape that neglect took in my life.

In my trauma work I try to help clients and hopefully now you readers, that you can understand your parents' pain and still name your own. Loving them and keeping your distance are not opposites; for many of us, the distance is what makes the love possible. Recovery, as Herman describes it, happens in relationship transformation and adaptation, not in isolation. If this resonates, consider talking with a therapist who understands both trauma and culture.

You do not have to be independent about this too! Community and collectivism help heal our relationship.

Citations:

Adler, A. (1931). What life should mean to you. Little, Brown.

Adler, A. (1998). Understanding human nature (W. B. Wolfe, Trans.). Hazelden. (Original work published 1927)

Herman, J. L. (2015). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence, from domestic abuse to political terror (Rev. ed.). Basic Books. (Original work published 1992).

Hooper, L. M., DeCoster, J., White, N., & Voltz, M. L. (2011). Characterizing the magnitude of the relation between self reported childhood parentification and adult psychopathology: A meta analysis. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 67(10), 1028–1043.

Jurkovic, G. J. (1997). Lost childhoods: The plight of the parentified child. Brunner/Mazel.

Stoltenborgh, M., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2013). The neglect of child neglect: A meta analytic review of the prevalence of neglect. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 48(3), 345–357.