If you grew up being your own source of comfort, guidance, and emotional support, you probably don’t need anyone to tell you how exhausting that was. You already know.
What you might not know is that healing from self-parentification is actually possible.
The patterns you developed as a kid—the hyper-independence, the difficulty asking for help, the instinct to take care of everyone but yourself—aren’t permanent. They’re adaptations you learned by doing the best you could with what you were given.
And adaptations can be unlearned.
It takes time. It takes intention. And it often takes a combination of professional support and everyday practices to slowly teach your nervous system it’s safe to let go.
But with a few small steps, you can do it. You begin paving the way toward real and lasting healing. Here’s how.
Professional Support
If you have access to therapy and the resources to pay for it, working with someone who understands childhood emotional neglect and attachment wounds can be a game-changer. It can help you untangle complex emotions or maybe even events you haven’t thought of in years.
If this piques your interest, here are some therapies worth exploring.
Trauma-Informed Therapy
Not all therapists are trained to recognize the subtle, long-term effects of growing up without adequate emotional support. A trauma-informed therapist understands that self-parentification is a form of trauma, even if it doesn’t look like it.
They can help you:
- process what happened
- understand how it’s showing up in your life now
- help you develop tools to move forward
This can be groundbreaking, and yes, it’s hard work. But it can really begin to change the relationship you have with yourself and even with those who raised you (in a good way!).
Attachment-Based Therapy
Self-parentification is technically an attachment wound.
You learned early on that the people who were supposed to care for you couldn’t—or wouldn’t—meet your emotional needs. This is really hard to accept. But I can say, from first-hand experience, that attachment-based therapy can be one of the most life-changing therapies.
Attachment-based therapy focuses specifically on helping you understand your attachment style, how it developed, and how to build more secure connections with yourself and others. In other words, it’s not just addressing your past but also the relationships present in your life now (and into the future).
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT is one of the most well-researched therapeutic approaches out there, and it’s particularly helpful for addressing the negative thought patterns that often come with self-parentification.
Things like “I have to handle everything myself” or “needing help means I’m weak” can be addressed using CBT. CBT essentially helps you identify those beliefs and actively challenge them with more balanced, compassionate thinking.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
IFS operates on the idea that we all have different “parts” within us—including wounded inner child parts that developed as a result of early experiences.
This approach helps you connect with those parts, understand what they needed, and offer them the care they didn’t receive.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
If your experience of self-parentification involved more acute moments of neglect or emotional pain, EMDR can help you process those memories in a way that reduces their emotional charge.
In fact, it can be particularly effective for trauma that feels “stuck” in your body or keeps resurfacing in unexpected ways.
Related Article: What is Emotional Incest? The Causes, Signs, Effects & 4 Tips to Help You Recover
6 Daily Practices You Can Start Today
Therapy is powerful, but healing doesn’t only happen in a therapist’s office.
There’s a lot you can do on your own to start shifting these patterns, such as small, consistent practices that add up over time. If you’re unsure about therapy or perhaps want to start small (or even add practices alongside therapy), here are some you can start today.
Daily Emotional Check-Ins
This one sounds simple, but it’s radical for someone who spent their childhood ignoring their own needs.
Once a day—morning or evening—pause and ask yourself: What am I feeling right now? What do I need? Now, you don’t have to fix anything. Just notice. This small act of attention builds emotional trust in yourself over time.
Inner Child Visualization
Reparenting is the practice of giving yourself the emotional care and support you didn’t receive as a kid. One way to do this is through visualization.
So, close your eyes. Now, picture yourself as a child, and imagine offering that version of you the comfort, reassurance, or protection they needed. It might feel awkward at first. That’s okay. Keep showing up.
Try this each day, and see how you feel or what comes up. It can really help you understand your own needs, as well as understand where you can ask others for help here.
Journaling With Your Non-Dominant Hand
This one comes from art therapy, and it’s surprisingly effective.
It’s super simple: Use your non-dominant hand to write as your inner child. Yes, this means it’ll be messy, unfiltered, and likely emotional. Then use your dominant hand to respond as your adult self. The physical awkwardness of writing with your non-dominant hand may help bypass your usual defenses and access deeper feelings.
Self-Compassion Practice
When you’re feeling overwhelmed or critical of yourself, try a simple compassion break.
Acknowledge the moment: This is hard. Remind yourself you’re not alone: Other people struggle with this, too. Then offer yourself kindness: May I be gentle with myself right now.
It’s a very small reset that interrupts the harsh inner critic many self-parentified adults carry.
Setting One Small Boundary
You probably grew up without many boundaries. Or maybe you learned that your boundaries didn’t matter. Healing means slowly reclaiming them.
But start small. Say no to one thing you don’t actually want to do. Let a call go to voicemail. Leave a gathering when you’re tired instead of pushing through. These tiny acts of self-protection rebuild your sense of agency.
Related Article: Are You Codependent? Understanding Codependency, Signs & What You Can Do
Reconnecting With Play
What did you love doing as a kid before you had to grow up too fast? Drawing? Dancing? Building things? Running around outside? Playing music?
Give yourself permission to do that thing again, with no purpose or productivity attached. Play is one of the ways we easily reconnect with our inner child, who never got to just be a kid.
Healing Is a Process
Healing from self-parentification is less about arriving somewhere and more about slowly, gently shifting the way you relate to yourself. You spent years learning to survive without support. It makes sense that learning to receive support, from others and from yourself, takes time too.
But every small step matters. Every check-in, every boundary, every moment of self-compassion is you showing up for the kid who had to do it all alone.
Related Article: Are You Your Own Parent? 7 Signs You’ve Been Self-Parenting Since Childhood
Photo by cottonbro studio
