10 Signs You’re An Emotional Orphan — Someone With Living Parents But No Real Parental Relationship
You may look like you have a healthy family but inside, it feels like you're on your own.
BrankoPhoto | Canva An emotional orphan has living parents, but they are not expecting these people to be parents in any way. Whether you are fully estranged or low contact, you have finally recognized and reckoned with the deep truth that you have no real parents.
Many of us, adult children of dysfunctional families, try to believe that our parents are a lot different from what they are. Throughout childhood, we try and see the ways that our parents are similar to those of our friends or the ones on TV, even though this is a challenge when the differences are so glaring.
It is evolutionarily adaptive for children to try and see the best in their parents, even when the parents are abusive. Children cannot survive without their parents, so biologically they need to love them and try and stay close to them to get whatever nurture they can, no matter how minimal. The novel The First Day Of Spring is a heartrending view into what children try and tell themselves to cope with neglectful, selfish parents. (This book made me cry, so you are warned; it is worth it, though.)
Adulthood, however, is a different matter. When you are old enough to be independent of your parents, it is adaptive to view them more objectively and take yourself out of situations where you are continually disappointed and hurt.
But that is easier said than done. Most adult children of dysfunctional families have many years, or sadly even decades, of playing Charlie Brown and Lucy pulling away the football with their parents. Here are some examples:
Here are ten signs you’re an emotional orphan:
1. Despite a parent not showing up time and time again, you keep inviting them to come over to your home
fizkes / Shutterstock
You're disappointed when the appointed time comes and goes.
2. You ask a parent for a favor
Even though they have always refused to go out of their way for you in the past.
3. You expect a parent to act normally in a social situation
Even though they have embarrassed you by acting childish, offensive, and/or attention-seeking in all social situations since you were a kid.
4. You share something vulnerable with a parent and then are hurt when they use it against you
They ignore that you said anything, or try to trump you with their own sad story, despite that they have done this same thing with anything important or vulnerable that you’ve ever shared.
5. You expect a parent to remember that you have confided in them that your childhood was difficult
But yet again, they pretend they have never even heard you say this and continue to insist that your childhood was great.
6. Your parent makes jokes at your expense
You are surprised and hurt, even though they have done this many times before.
7. You go through something very painful, like divorce, job loss, or a medical issue, and you think this will make your parent act less selfishly, but they still leave you high and dry
For example, you need emergency money and your parent with enough money pretends not to have any; you need emergency childcare and your parent is “too tired” but then goes to a social function instead, your parent doesn’t visit you in the hospital, your parent doesn’t ask about your child’s surgery, etc.
8. Your parent does not know or remember basic information about your life
ViDI Studio / Shutterstock
This leaves you newly hurt every time.
9. Your parent disrespects your parenting, relationship, or job for the millionth time
It feels humiliating yet again.
10. Your parent compares you unfavorably to your sibling
You are upset despite this happening since you were old enough to form memories.
At some point, especially if you are interested enough in human behavior, relationships, parenting, and recovering from a dysfunctional childhood to be reading this post in the first place, you may have a priceless epiphany: your parent will never change, and they will never be normative, healthy, or safe. For as long as you interact with them, you will be hurt, disappointed, angry, and sad.
Anyone else that you expose to them may also be harmed in similar ways. This epiphany can be both painful and extraordinarily liberating. It likely means that you have become what I call an emotional orphan.
An emotional orphan has living parents, but they are not expecting these people to be parents in any way. Whether you are entirely estranged or virtually estranged (e.g., you still see them a couple of times a year and your kids know them), you have finally recognized and reckoned with the deep truth that you have no real parents.
When you are an emotional orphan, you have realized there is no situation, not divorce, cancer, mental health issues, or even child loss, that will ever make your parent act like a healthy parent. They will never be there for you, will never protect you, and have absolutely no ability to act in any way that does not put their self above you.
Therefore, they cannot really be considered a parent at all. This realization can allow you to do several things you could not do while pretending you had real parents:
- Grieve and move forward
- Never set yourself up for humiliation and hurt again
- Become newly motivated to get out of a toxic marriage in which your partner treats you, come to think of it, a whole lot like your parents did
- Become newly motivated to work on parenting so you don’t make emotional orphans out of your kids, despite your best intentions
- Do whatever you want for any upcoming holiday, or ever
- Forgive yourself for any secret wish that they would die and release you from the emotional bondage of being their child
- Stop thinking that there was anything you could have done differently to get their love (therapy can help with this).
Note that your parent is not a “bad person.” They were likely raised by someone as selfish as they were and were never able to mature into a healthy person who could provide a child with unconditional love.
They likely suffer from untreated depression, anxiety, or personality disorders. (Usually, if a parent acts in some of the aforementioned ways, it is not only depression or anxiety, but depression/anxiety combined with narcissistic or borderline traits.) Other types of parents who are unable to provide love in a healthy way to their kids include hoarders and those who have experienced a great deal of childhood abuse/neglect.
You can often empathize with your parent a lot better when you are no longer expecting them to ever care for you. You can make peace with their denial of reality and unchecked self-absorption when you are not secretly hoping that they will decide to come to your child’s play, offer you help with the kids, or even remember what you do for a living.
Although it may not seem like it now, you may even develop enough objectivity and distance from your parents’ dysfunction to find some of their stories kind of funny. (“Get this, this one time my mom told me that I may be a trial lawyer, but she was the one who understood the courts because of watching Matlock. No really.”)
If you are an emotional orphan who is actively trying to process and own this new identity, often others come out of the woodwork who are in the same boat. I am not into vision boards or whatever, but there is something very powerful about owning who you are that attracts others to you.
The more open you are about your lack of relationship with your parents, the more you will start to meet others in the same position. You then end up with chosen family, aka friends, who can begin to fill the space left by your lack of parents.
You deserve to fully consider what it would mean to you to be able to move forward in your life without expectation of love/care/comfort/basic respect from your parent, and how this might impact you in positive and healthy ways.
For example, what would it feel like not to live your life wondering if your achievements would finally impress your parents or if your next holiday meal would go well? What would it be like to put this constant emotional rollercoaster behind you and move on, focusing on parenting yourself and your kids?
What would it be like to realize that there have been enough times that your parent has not come through in a pinch, and you don’t need any more examples to conclude that there is no world in which they magically change into a different person? Would this realization be liberating in any way?
Would being an emotional orphan allow you to do anything or be anything that you are currently not able to do or be? Therapy can help you figure this out if it seems too complex or scary to tackle alone. You deserve to live a calm and fulfilled life, and frequently, you cannot do this when still expecting a dysfunctional parent to change.
Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten, aka Dr. Psych Mom, is a clinical psychologist in private practice and the founder of DrPsychMom. She works with adults and couples in her group practice, Best Life Behavioral Health.
