It’s well worth talking to a therapist to work through the impact of parentification, and to get guidance on starting to unlearn the patterns that have followed you through life. “Awareness, as always, is the first step towards healing,” Dr Woodhouse recommends. “Learn about emotional parentification, talk to a psychologist, therapist or coach who specialises in it. Process. Move everything into the light where you can see it. This is how we heal.”

Whether you talk to your parents about your experience is a deeply personal question and one with no wrong answer.

Deepti*, 46, experienced emotional parentification in her teens, and now, as a mother herself, is working to break the cycle. She hasn’t raised the issue with her mother and doesn’t think she ever will. “As the eldest daughter, I have always felt a huge responsibility to support them emotionally,” she says. “I would never say anything that would upset them in their old age.”

Dr Woodhouse notes: “Whenever a client asks me if they should talk to a parent about their childhood I say: if you want to get closure and state your truth then go for it, but if on some level you have an expectation that they’ll understand and give you what you need, don’t go there. If you have an expectation that your parent will support you, be careful. History indicates that they will not be able to see, hear or acknowledge your emotions. And this could be extremely painful and triggering.”

The very idea of saying aloud that you experienced parentification can be tricky, let alone discussing it with your family. Deepti feels a lot of guilt for being remotely critical of her parents, which Dr Woodhouse says is common. “For many of my clients, denial (disguised as family loyalty) is often the first hurdle. This is especially true for those whose parents were physically or mentally unwell. It can feel disloyal saying, ‘Actually, the way they needed me has caused me harm.’ Moving out of black-and-white thinking is important. You can know that your parent did their best and you can acknowledge that it was hard for you. Both can be true.”

How emotional parentification as a child affects you as an adult