Did your therapist “re-parent” you?

[Skywatcher]

Family visits are now frustrating. Reason being, I seem to be acting more like an adult and not just doing whatever mom wants. My husband says that mom has always been demanding, I just never noticed it. I used to be frustrated when he wouldn’t do what she told him to do. It’s all so different now, and as irritated as I am, my therapist is sitting at the other side of the room smiling. I think she has been re-parenting me over the last two years without even telling me. ?

What experiences of family change have you noticed?

 

[grit]

Thank you for writing this!!!!
I do not have reparenting experience but obviously I experienced some serious developmental work.
Not only family but with people in general I am noticing I am focused on my interests and aware of theirs. I feel before I was automatically "responding"... Now I am centered on me not others or in the past my mother or therapist or authority figures. So slight even though I am assertive by nature!
I am getting a glimpse of what a healthy up - brought up child feels like--internal belief system.
It feels full autonomy to me.

 

[Deanna]

I see the change as well but most of my family has passed. One has not.. She was part of my trauma, so no love lost there. IE-- Narcissist. The therapy I'm getting is an open to others vibe though.

 

[Hilario]

Over the years my therapist has not really re-parented me, rather she's taught me to re-parent myself. I've learned to be the mother and father my parents haven't necessarily been for me. I come from a divorced family, and honestly, my step-dad, who passed away a year and a half ago, was the best influence and support for me growing up.

At family gatherings I find it easier to get along with parents now, because I can recognize their faults with some compassion instead of anger and frustration. I am who I am because of, and in spite of them, and that's ok. It's my responsibility to figure out who I am, not theirs.

 

[susannahsays]

No. I don't think you can reparent someone, just help them find a way to live with the fallout of f*cked up parenting.

 

[piratelady]

No. I don't think you can reparent someone,

My therapist teaches me things like a parent would. When I tell him about the abuse, he treats me the way a parent should have, like believing me, comforting me, trying to help me learn from it. He gives me what I should have has as a child. It certainly feels like re-parenting.

 

[Skywatcher]

@piratelady, I agree with you. Part of my “reparenting” has been her saying, I wish she had said “.....”. And just hearing her say those things is so comforting to my teenage and child parts. I actually have really good parents, but they weren’t necessarily reaching my emotional needs and my generation was sort of raised on shame, probably why I never told them the stuff that happened. When I told them 25 years after the crime, still didn’t really get the empathy. Mom felt bad, but didn’t know how to respond and dad said nothing.

 

[Kubash16]

I don’t think re-parenting would be appropriate in every situation. But I think for those of us who had childhood trauma or just generally unavailable parents, it’s something a T does even not intending to.

My T isn’t purposefully re-parenting me, however there is an element of it anyway. Because she’s teaching me things that I should have learned as a kid, she’s also providing the emotional aspect of being angry for me when talking about abuse that I didn’t get before. It’s really healing to have her be that way. I don’t see her as a substitute mother, but she definitely fills the role in her own way.