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| By Safe Call Now's Dr. Laura Brodie |
As I think about how those in
helping professions were raised, it was a message of doing your best and making
sure you take care of others. Often this
was taking care of a vulnerable family member.
The person was a substance abuser, a depressed individual, an anxious
parent or a parent who needed you as a child at a level you were ill equipped
to handle. You became what we in the profession call a “parentified
child”. In talking to individuals who
have taken on this role it is obvious they did not realize it. They saw the path they traveled as having great
parents who had no problems and they simply helped or listened. I think it is
the same in First Responders. Who else runs into danger when everyone else is
running away?
I get worried anytime I hear a
client say, “My parents were great/perfect, no problems.” Let’s face it, none
of us were raised perfectly and our indoctrinations of the past can control our
reactions to the future. The child learns to blame him/herself early in life if
there is any conflict. The result is a highly responsible individual that
believes he/she is without a self. He/she
strives to become someone who helps humanity, but also is oblivious that they have
little coping skills available because of the caretaker life they have lived.
Wait, you would think the
parentified child adapted to adults at a young age so they should be ahead of
the game. Nope. As a child there is a need for guidance, not caretaking. A
child does not need to rescue yet they do. It is instinct. The child has to
make sure his needs are met or he does not have a chance of thriving. The
rescue the child does is to stay alive.
The rescue idea of the “parentified
child” although now in an adult body never leaves this concept. Losing people
during a rescue, a hostage situation or a suicide scars deep because as a child
you were supposed to save someone you cared about. A task a child could never accomplish. As an
adult, this drama is replayed in the death of the person you tried to save but
could not or the person who did not love life as much as you. You are set up in
a no won situation but your brain still looks for solutions many months or
years after the event.
You have to look at the job of a First
Responder as flying in the face of all instincts in humans to survive. You run into burning buildings, you run into
shots fired, you go where no one else fears to tread. You need to understand
you may do it because you’re trying to save the one you could not save in the
past. For those, you are doing amazing work but the one who led you to your
career got lost and it hurts and you cannot fix it. No matter how many lives you save. Just let you lose one and it eats at you as
somehow in your imperfection you were bad.
You are not perfect. Hard to accept but it needs to be accepted to
allow grace in your life. You fought, you struggled and you wanted it all so
differently and unfortunately it did not happen. You did not let down the person you tried to
save. You were the only one there in the
trials of their pain. As a child we’re expected to be God and save the ones we
love. As an adult, if you expect
yourself to be God, you’re missing your calling.
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