Can Choosing to be Caregiver for an Abusive Parent bring Healing?
In hindsight with the perspective of an adult and parent, I can see now that my Mom’s first abusive behaviors toward me surfaced around the time I was 8 years old and it only significantly worsened from there. Traumatized by what I didn’t recognize then but knew was wrong, my brain held onto snapshots of these memories in vivid detail.
I’m not going to share them. There’s an almost voyeuristic attitude our society holds toward abuse and trauma and sharing the memories feeds it. I don’t want to write this today to make my life a spectacle, but instead to offer hope and validation. That’s the other reason I won’t share them.
Stepping into the role of caregiver for an abusive parent, I felt so alone. So many people didn’t understand it and, unless they knew us then or unless I explained what I’d lived through until I was moved out of my family home in high-school, the abuse was invalidated. Many who couldn’t relate felt it couldn’t have been that bad if I kept a relationship into adulthood and chose to care for her. Over the course of the first few months, though, I came to realize there’s an entire community of caregivers who’ve chosen the same role despite their paralleled history. Sharing my memories can retraumatize the very people I hope to validate and support. Honestly, just allowing myself to remember, now, sends a little jolt of adrenaline through my own body.
Historically, culture has held a sense of obligation and duty toward parents. Abuse wasn’t discussed because doing so would be disrespectful. If your parent fell ill or injured to the point of needing care, it was your duty as a respectful child to bury your history and step into their care. This attitude desperately needed reform.
Recently, though, as our culture takes on a more appropriate view of mental healthcare and support, the narrative has turned. You can go no contact. You are not obligated to care. You do not owe your life, love, or respect to anyone, let alone abusive people.
Oh, I agree with this. Wholeheartedly, I agree with this. However, our pendulum swung too far, in my experience. My choice is valid, too, yet so often the attitude is held that if you don’t go no-contact, you’re doing it wrong, you haven’t healed, or you’re still succumbing to the pressure of society.
I don’t care for my Mom out of a sense of obligation. Not anymore, anyway. But also, maybe it never was about obligation. It’s just who I always expected myself to be. As a child, the only approval I received was based on the sacrifices I made and so, desperate to be loved and needed by someone – by anyone – I stood at the ready to tackle any issue head on. Stand between abuse and my siblings? I was there. Care for Mom during her depressive crashes? I dove right in. Stepping up to run the house, manage the chores, even dragging my little red wagon and a blank check to the local grocery store to do the shopping for my dad? I was on it.
So when Mom was diagnosed with vascular dementia and shortly after she experienced a major hemorrhagic stroke, I did what I knew and I dove right in. At first, I didn’t let myself feel. If I felt, I had to acknowledge that I was doing something for my Mom that she never did for me. I refused to grieve again when I’d already grieved the loss of who she should have been for me.
We can never really cut ourselves off from reality for long, though, can we? As the walls in my heart started to crumble, I was thrown into a tailspin of emotion: anger, betrayal, and just a sense of general unfairness. My therapist challenged me each time this happened.
“You can choose not to do this and it won’t mean you’re a bad child.”
But each time I was met with that reality, I knew choosing not to do this wouldn’t be right for me. My relationship with my mom now is a complete role reversal of what it should have always been and somehow, somewhere in that, I find healing. Because maybe we can’t ever have what a mother should give her child, but I can choose this. I can create this. In that choice, there’s a reclaiming of the power and autonomy I lost, as a child in an abusive home. In that choice, I’m daily reminded that the abuse was meant to break me but love, my faith, and my heart are stronger.
Decades of gaslighting don’t just disappear, though. My brain is still overcoming a lifetime of abusive training meant to cause me to question my own experiences. Just last week, I broke down to my husband. I’d had another experience where my history was invalidated so a few others could feel comfortable with the idea that I would still choose to care for my Mom; that I could possibly feel love toward her after all she’s done baffles some people. That’s okay. It’s not even easy for me to understand and, so, I begged my husband to tell me why. For years, I did keep crawling back to her, begging her to love me. Craving scraps of whatever affection she had left over from the adoration she gave my younger brother, her golden child, as I sat in her black sheep role, and my other two siblings filled their own roles, between. I needed to be reassured that I’m not still that broken puppy.
What my husband said healed some deep, broken space in my soul and resonated with something I couldn’t see in myself.
See, my Mom is now the vulnerable person still living in a home that was once so dysfunctional and unhealthy. She now relies on people that, for so many years, she didn’t trust and she mistreated. However, now, she can’t advocate for herself. In her today, I see someone just as vulnerable as I was as a child, if not more vulnerable.
She is also still my Mom. I’m still biologically hardwired to love her. I’m sure that plays a role in my decision. But I know that in caring for her, I’m reparenting myself. I know there’s healing for the me I am today and the me I was 30 years ago, each and every day she’s in my care. In me and in my choice, my husband sees the strength of a woman who was once a vulnerable person that had no one with power in her corner so she chooses to be the person who steps into the between for other vulnerable people, no matter who they’ve been.
A full week later, that thought still makes me cry. It’s exactly who I want to be and it absolutely is a thought that brings peace and healing to the fractures in my heart. If my past gives me empathy to love the unlovable, abuse never had the power to win the battle over my soul.
Beyond that, through caregiving for her, I’ve learned a depth of love for my Mom that I never believed possible, even after I’d forgiven her. I’ve been given the opportunity to create so many beautiful memories I never would have had the chance to create. In slowly losing her, she’s grown to trust me wholeheartedly and that somehow feels like a direct healing of what used to be between us. For me, there’s nothing more powerful than the freedom and opportunity to heal what we once were.
Choosing caregiving for an abusive parent isn’t right for everyone. It doesn’t always bring healing and for so many, it might deepen the wounds. Support for children of parents with disabilities needs to recognize and honor that. Boundaries are a beautiful thing, even when they mean no contact. Even when they mean refusing to care for a parent if it means a continual breaking of your own soul.
Sometimes, choosing caregiving for an abusive parent is beautiful, though. It’s the kintsugi gold filling in and repairing the shattered places of our spirit. It’s valid, regardless of how severe the abusive history. It’s still hard. It still carries so many painful memories, trauma triggers, and unique difficulties not present in healthy, functional family dynamics.
But sometimes, the beauty outweighs the pain.
We’re here for that, too.
Whatever your choice, if you’re an adult survivor of child abuse faced with the reality that your parent who abused you needs care, I see you. I’m with you. I know this is hard. I also know you deserve that healing, whether it comes through caregiving or not.
You matter. You always have. You always will.
ABOUT DEBORAH SCHIEFER:
Deb is a late-30s Midwestern mom of four caring, acting as a secondary caregiver for her Mom so her Dad can work and get breaks. She is also a veteran, an artist, an avid reader, and loves to cook, using her hobbies to cope with the stress of caregiving and the slow grief of losing a parent. Deb’s educational background is in psychology and counseling, but she’ll tell you she never truly knew her calling until she stepped into caregiving. Here, she’s found what it truly means to love people well when they need it most. She highly recommends the novel Still Alice by Lisa Genova to help build empathy and understanding for those with dementia. Learning to Speak Alzheimer’s by Joanne Koenig Coste and The 36-Hour Day by Nancy L. Pace and Peter V. Rabins have been the two most helpful books in her caregiving journey. (see links to resources below)
Recommended Resources: