Disentangling from Emotionally Immature People by Lindsay Gibson, PhD is a follow up book to her trilogy on Adults Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. This was a wonderful book to analyze and take steps to break free from the EI people in your life. 

Below are my favorite excerpts from the book:

You have something inside you that knows what is right and healthy for YOU- and what isn’t.My hope for you is that this book will spark realizations that will explain you to yourself. Our goal together is to help you disentangle yourself from other people’s unfair expectations and emotional traps. 

 

The following five characteristics are foundational in all emotionally immature people: 

• Egocentrism– self centered

• Limited Empathy-They don’t put themselves in other people’s shoes nor imagine their inner experience 

• Avoid self-reflection– self justifying and often self-righteous, they rarely question themselves. They focus on their immediate emotions and desires, seemingly oblivious to how they’re impacting others or even their own future. Instead of reflecting on their behavior, they get defensive and double down on their own position if someone gets upset with them. 

• Pull back from emotional intimacy

•  Affective realism- defining reality as what they feel it to be. Their psychological coping mechanisms are immature and simplistic, especially as they deny, dismiss, or distort any reality they don’t like. 

 

They also tend to be rigid, superficial, and have rather shallow personalities.  they typically oversimplify complex topics in ways that make it hard to reason with them. 

 

EIP’s jump to conclusions and easily take offense, making it extremely hard- if not impossible- to talk out problems and disagreements. When communicating, they are set on “broadcast” rather than “receive”. They have little curiosity for your viewpoint and feel affronted and unloved if you don’t do what they want.

 

In close relationships, EIP’s expect others to stabilize them emotionally and prop up their self-esteem. 

 

After funneling your attention into an IEP,  you will probably come away feeling depleted and drained of energy. 

 

Even the quieter EIP’s  are instinctively emotionally coercive, controlling you with guilt, fear, shame, or self-doubt. unless you give in they will peg you as bad or untrustworthy, and if you do something they don’t like, they will confide in other people against you rather than dealing with you directly. 

 

What makes coming to terms with parental immaturity confusing is that emotional immaturity can coexist with other adult capabilities. Despite developmental inadequacies in some areas, other areas of an EI parent’s functioning- intellectual, social, occupational- can develop well. Just because parents have grown up doesn’t mean that they’ve matured. 

 

EI Parents can be highly responsible and sell self-sacrificing when it comes to putting bread on the table and to minding children’s physical needs.  

 

They may not be able to relate to you in a way that makes you feel connected and understood. With EI parents, you might grow up feeling emotionally lonely, unseen for who you are, and sad about not feeling quite good enough.

 

Different parts of yourself may be in conflict over identifying your parents as emotionally immature. One part may acknowledge the evidence, while another part insists it’s not true. 

 

Ask the part of you that feels loyal and protective towards your parents: what are you afraid might happen if you viewed them as emotionally immature? 

 

(You may realize that the protectiveness you feel towards your parents might be keeping you from realizing the truth of your own history. if you don’t acknowledge the forces that impacted you in the past, you may be limited to living a reactive life instead of a created life. processing your upbringing can help you have more genuine relationships).

 

There are four types of EI parent: 

• Emotional

•  Driven

•  Rejecting

•  Passive

EI parents of the first three types are more ACTIVE  in the way they control situations, while the PASSIVE  type tends to be more good -natured, avoiding conflict and camouflaging their egocentricity. Parents can be more than one of these types, but usually they fit one best. 

 

EMOTIONAL- low stress tolerance and erupts whenever they’re limited self-control is challenged. Of all the types they are more likely to be diagnosed with psychological symptoms such as personality disorders. Children of this parental type may fear and worry about their parent and respond to their volatile behavior by being extra good, becoming withdrawn, or leaving the family all together. 

 

DRIVEN- This type of EI parent may seem mature and capable because they are so busy and successful. They are driven to stay active, accomplish things, and be noticed. Usually perfectionistic, they love to take over and improve things- including their children. If you are the child of a driven EI parent you may have been well cared for and provided advantages and activities, but you might have also felt pushed to do more than you wanted to or felt judged for not doing enough. You may have felt like a nuisance when you needed your parents’ attention, as if your needs were unnecessary interruptions to their pressing pursuits. Driven parents may schedule activities to the point that their children feel simultaneously overscheduled and overlooked.

 

REJECTING- Rejecting EI parents have little interest in their children and prefer to be left alone. As a child of a rejecting EI parent, you may have experienced a remote coldness that made you feel unwelcome and unloved. These parents may support the family and provide for their children’s physical needs, but they leave affection and interaction for someone else to handle, if they think of these things at all. They just don’t see why that should be their problem. 

 

PASSIVE- passive parents are the least likely to be recognized as emotionally immature. They are the good-natured parents who seem to like children and to enjoy being with them. They are more tender-hearted than the other types, less hostile, and can be more fun loving. Usually, they are the favorite parent, and the children feel closest to them. They avoid conflict and typically give in to more forceful types. Even though they are nicer, passive parents don’t necessarily notice how things affect their children emotionally. Passive EI parents may seem more stable, loving, and fun than the other types, but when it comes to protecting their kids, their passivity allows their children to suffer. The most negative quality of these parents is their unwillingness to shield their children from aggressive, authoritarian, or mentally ill personalities. Often adult children of emotionally immature parents are so grateful for the passive parents attention that they don’t notice they weren’t adequately protected. 

 

EIP’s deny, dismiss, or distort reality according to how they feel. For them, families and relationships are not connections between autonomous individuals but a meld of shared selves and identities. They certainly feel no urge for psychological independence. For them, psychological function is how loving relationships should be- a perfectly healthy belief for a toddler, but not for an adult. 

 

Projection is a favorite EI defense; instead of feeling bad about themselves, EIP’s blame others. When they are caught up in defensiveness, EIP’s are unreachable. They are the victim; you are the villain. They won’t listen to reason and have no empathy for your point of view. You may be dumbfounded as they irrationally stick to their positions. For EIP’s,  lowering their defenses and being accountable for their behavior feels unimaginable. For them, admitting fault is tantamount to bearing their throat to the enemy. 

 

For EIP’s, as soon as emotions get involved, truth doesn’t get in the way of their opinion. They show an utter lack of concern over being inconsistent, which is common. Their personalities are poorly integrated, allowing them to engage in behaviors that contradict each other. They focus on the part that interests them now and ignore the whole picture. That is why they can tell you one thing, and then later claim something completely different. 

 

In contrast, an adequately emotionally mature person experiences an intact sense of self across time, linking their experiences to form their life memory.

 

The bits of an EIP’s self-memories are like pearls scattered in a cardboard box; they freely roll around unattached to the others. For EIP’s,  each significant experience forms a stand-alone, separate emotional memory, some good, some bad. But there’s no unifying sense of self-continuity binding their experiences together across time. That’s what allows them to be so stunningly contradictory in their behaviors. When their actions are at odds with who they’ve been, it doesn’t bother them because they’re past and present aren’t meaningfully related. They don’t see the discrepancy, why it matters, or why you’re upset by it. They don’t feel internal conflicts because there isn’t enough psychological integration among their emotional memories to make the mismatch uncomfortable. Remember, their feelings determine their reality, so reality, like their sense of self, is malleable. 

 

If you have an integrated personality with a unified sense of self and personal experience, you hate to go back on your word, lie to someone’s face, or avoid problems by blaming someone else. 

 

Since EIPs are guided by their immediate emotional experience, they ignore long-term future effects and cause and effect timelines. They lack the empathy and emotional imagination to anticipate the future impact of their actions on other people. 

 

EIPs lack emotional- and self- continuity means they won’t understand why you are still upset about something they did last week or last year. They have already moved on to a different pearl in the box. They don’t feel empathy for what they see as “ wallowing”  in the past.  They expect immediate forgiveness and are frustrated and offended when their apology doesn’t make everything right again. They don’t want to learn or improve themselves; they want you to stop. Not experiencing self-continuity across time, they can’t understand why other people remain upset with them- and will be for quite a while. 

 

WHAT IF YOU EXPECTED THEM TO DO CONTRADICTORY THINGS? YOU NEED TO REMIND YOURSELF THAT THIS IS WHAT THEY DO. Use their behavior to inform how much to trust them later. 

 

EIPs aren’t psychologically mature enough to conceptualize someone else’s experience or empathize with them. EI parents might direct attention back to themselves in a more pleasant manner (“That reminds me of when…”), but the egocentrism is the same. 

 

EIPs may not have been so lucky. Perhaps they grew up with a minimum of adult attention to their inner experiences. They may have come from a family in which a child’s feelings and needs took a back seat to survival or economic issues. Such children never learned to be social in ways that recognize other people. Instead, the prize of reaching adulthood for these EIPs might have felt like the right to expect others to put them in the spotlight. For such a child, growing up meant finally being able to make everything about them.

 

It’s emotional immaturity when a person can’t feel satisfaction or appreciation for what they’re given. 

 

Trying to encourage them or give help feels like pouring water through a sieve; nothing is retained.

 

Sharing emotional intimacy and deep feelings make EIPs nervous. Dominant types will shut down your emotions, while more passive EIPs may ignore or placate you. Both types prefer shallow communication. Whatever their response, you end up feeling invalidated. 

 

They avoid emotional vulnerability because they’ve never learned how to feel deeply without becoming destabilized. They don’t know what to do with someone who bears their soul in a desire to be understood. They’ve rarely experienced this kind of intimacy themselves so they don’t know how it’s done or even why it’s done. 

 

(If the EIP refuses more meaningful communication, back off and use the time to listen to yourself instead. Journaling about how you feel will bring you closer to yourself by putting your experiences into words. Write about your experience, exactly what you wish for from them, and how it felt to be kept at a superficial level.) 

 

Interactions with EIPs can make you feel drained, bored, and lethargic but also hypervigilant. You feel de-energized, but tense at the same time. How can you enjoy someone who isn’t interested in getting to know you? It’s also off-putting when EIPs try to dominate you by putting a moralistic spin on their request. They righteously make meeting their needs seem like your moral obligation. 

 

If you are an adult child of an emotionally immature parent you typically fall into two distinct types:  either in internalizer or an externalizer.

 

Internalizer- 

• Tends to be self-aware, self-reflective, perceptive, and sensitive

•  likes to reflect on things and love learning

•  try to figure out how to respond advantageously instead of being reactive

•  seem more mature and insightful and tend to be competent and reliable

•  thoroughly process their experiences

•  feel responsibility toward other people

•  are likely to have been “ parentified”  children,  meaning their EI parents leaned on their capabilities, and relied on them as confidence or helpers

 

* Internalizers tend to like self-help books since they are psychologically curious and enjoy learning about human behavior. They cope by gaining insight. 

 

Externalizer-

• Tend to be excitable and react impulsively, even if they seem quiet or introverted

•  have a low tolerance for stress and take action- even if ill considered- to blow off tension

•  get themselves in trouble by not thinking about future consequences; they live for the present moment and aren’t strategic and how they think about their lives

•  are not self-reflective and externalized blame for their troubles on to other people

•  are angry that so many frustrating and distressing things happen to them but rarely think two question their own behavior as part of the problem

•  can gravitate towards substance abuse or highly dependent or conflictual relationships

•  are likely to be emotionally immature and fall within the EI category

 

*All of us, internalizer or externalizer, tend to become more externalizing and dependent when we’re sick, fatigued, or highly stressed.

 

It could be that internalizers were born more neurologically perceptive and sensitive than their externalizer siblings; the parts of their brain they use more or their innate neurobiology could explain how they tune into other people’s feelings with minimal cues. internalizers also seem more intellectually curious; they like to think and learn, so anticipating consequences comes more easily to them. they’re also Insight oriented, intrigued by complexity, and looking for underlying reasons for behavior. 

 

You may remember soothing yourself alone, mentally coaching yourself through difficult situations, and otherwise using your own thoughts as a stand-in for parents. Your own mind became a kind of transitional object, like a teddy bear, a comforting thing that provides security and the absence of parental involvement. You may be shocked in adulthood by how overwhelmed you feel in the face of unforeseen problems. You try to be ready for anything, but an unexpected crisis can trigger childish desperation over having absolutely no idea what to do. This is because there is still a secret child part of yourself that’s susceptible to being overwhelmed even though on the surface you handle things well. When you jump into maturity too early, it can be a challenge later to get back in touch with your feelings. 

 

Next time you feel in over your head, reach out to the overwhelmed inner child within you  who had to grow up too fast. Take that immobilized child under your wing. There’s no need to feel embarrassed by how shaken you feel at times under stress. Remind yourself that you feel overwhelmed for a very good reason, given how quickly you had to grow up. 

 

As you face the feelings and affirm out loud that your reactions make perfect sense, you travel back in time to let your child self know there is a caring adult  (you) on board now. You as an adult have the rationality and experience to handle the situation, step-by-step, even though your inner child may be petrified. 

 

Problem is that you have always functioned too well… and began doing so too early. 

 

With uninvested parents, there’s often a mismatch between our inner and outer selves. 

 

Your parents probably came down hard on you because there was something that scared them.

 

You don’t have to make their urgency your problem. If it feels like they are demanding your help, you have the right to stop right there. 

 

Overidentifying with the EIPs pain or upset is at the heart of an emotional takeover. When you over identify, you make their suffering your own and feel their distress even more than they do. Over identification is highly exaggerated empathy, you can actually suffer more than the other person. 

 

Over identification is not proof of love; it’s a sign that you’re getting absorbed in another person’s life to an unhealthy degree. 

 

These adults had very permeable boundaries with their parents and felt the only way to be loyal and loving was to feel the parent’s pain completely. They were showing their loyalty to emotionally remote parents by over identifying with their experiences with an excess of empathy. 

 

You can love and be loyal without ringing yourself out. 

 

“Brain Scramble” is what happens when you try to talk about something important to an EIP. You likely come away from a similar encounter feeling like a communicative failure. The problem lies not in you, but in the EIPs who aren’t interested, listening, or responding. EIPs aren’t interested in your inner world or subjective experience. They have a one track mind (how will this affect me?) 

 

EIPs are also uncomfortable with the emotional intimacy aroused when you talk to them about something you truly care about. It’s too much closeness. They sense your sincerity and emotion, and they recoil. You’re left confused because you thought you were being straightforward and perfectly clear. Their responses don’t make sense because they’re responding more to their own anxiety and  concerns rather than what you said. 

 

When you sincerely try to communicate and an EIP goes off on a tangent, you’re stopped in your tracks. you don’t know what to do next. Should you restate your message? Figure out what they’re saying and why? Try to find a way to link their response to what you said? There’s no good answer because they’re self-involved response didn’t follow logically or make sense. They leave you puzzled and unsure of yourself. But that’s not weakness; it’s EI induced confusion. When you try to follow their point, you get lost in confusion. They automatically disrupt and destabilize any interaction that threatens to take them where they don’t want to go. it’s impossible to communicate with a person who doesn’t want to listen or understand. It’s very hard to keep your train of thought with someone who is clearly unreceptive. 

 

Don’t try to make sense out of nonsense. You know what you said, and you know if the EIPs answer wasn’t on topic. Recognize that you are being diverted into brain scramble. Approach with a succinct plan. Be prepared for evasion and emotional coercion. Say what you need to say in a light and neutral way and don’t expect a productive or helpful response. 

 

Many EI parents teach these rules: nobody notices your distress because no one is monitoring your emotional well-being. It’s your job to handle your emotional pain yourself. 

 

Spotting the FOUR HORSEMEN of Self-Defeat:

• Passivity– the feeling that it’s just easier to give in. Sensitive internalizer children are more likely to pull back and try to figure things out on their own. Passivity can be a welcome way to avoid conflict with overbearing EIPs.

• Dissociation–starts in situations too overwhelming to process. Disassociation can create out-of-body or even amnesic experiences; although it usually takes milder forms like zoning out, numbing yourself with food or substances, or feeling empty and not present. 

• Immobilization-is an involuntary full body shutdown. It happens when you feel physically “scared stiff” or frozen. This is the deer-in- the-headlights moment where you’re so stunned by shock you’re unable to react. 

• Learned Helplessness-a state of mind that comes from repeated inescapable experiences that teach animals and people that giving up is the only option left. 

 

Don’t feel that you have to stand up to EIPs  all at once. They’re unlikely to respond constructively to such efforts anyway. Trying to be effective with them is like trying to nail Jello to the wall. 

 

EI parents also interfere with their children’s emotional autonomy by forbidding or punishing any show of feelings. EI parents have a low threshold for emotional stress and can get angry at their children for overwhelming them with their distress, sorrow, or even joyful exuberance.  When anger at someone cannot be safely expressed, it may be turned against the self in the form of self-criticism or even self-harm. Such self-attack gives the anger an outlet while simultaneously hiding the cause of the anger. 

 

If you grew up around egocentric EIPs,  you probably expect to do a lot of emotional work in your relationships. By doing so, you tacitly agree to be the grown up in the relationship. Was it your hope to teach empathy to your partner and to coach them toward emotional accountability? Where did you learn that relationships are such hard work? When we focus on a partner’s potential rather than their actual actions, we only see what we want to and make everything else fit. 

 

Irrational guilt is little more than self-generated punishment for feeling like a “bad person”.  Constructive guilt, on the other hand, is a positive prompt to correct behavior and resolve a problem. Unfortunately, EI parents don’t teach their children about constructive guilt and how to make things better. Instead, through guilt tripping, they induce irrational guilt as a way of gaining more control. Holding your boundaries when you feel irrational guilt maybe one of the biggest challenges and relationships with EIPs.

 

EIPs Exploit your adult values of kindness and respect when they shift blame and induce guilt.  Realize that your guilt and self-doubt are coming from a child part of yourself that still feels responsible for your parent’s pain in life. You can understand the guilt, but you don’t have to accept it. challenge that self-blame reflex. You, the adult, are running the show, not your guilt-ridden child part from long ago. Ask those guilty feelings to step back and give you some room to think this through. 

 

If you feel guilty when someone is unhappy with you, pretend that the rules are reversed. Feeling guilty is a trained reflex that once served the purpose of keeping you on the good side of people you loved. Being adequately mature doesn’t mean you’ll never feel guilt again. It means that you get to evaluate if your guilt is a childhood reflex or legitimate concern. 

 

Upset EIPs are like 3-year-olds who are just learning how to argue. Their arguments are barely better than tantrums. 

 

EIPs ARE NOT GROWTH FACILITATORS, THEY ARE CLOSENESS DISRUPTORS.

 

Your  wish might be to have them love you and understand your feelings, but that goal may not be achievable.

 

 Expecting satisfying connections with EIPs can create a lot of emotional pain. 

 

Boundaries are Kryptonite to narcissistic EIPs.  To feel existentially secure, they have to control you. Your boundary reminds them that they don’t rule you, threatening their sense of entitlement. This is why in some relationships the narcissistic partner may become aggressive when their partner tries to set limits, threatens to leave, or withdraws love. This abrupt loss of privilege status sets off an existential panic, as if they are about to cease to exist. Quieter, more covert types wield power through guilt induction, passive aggression, or by emphasizing their unhappiness. These covert, passive narcissists use stealthier  pressures such as guilt, shame, gaslighting, silent treatment, and martyrdom to name a few, but the results are the same. Whether you fear interruption or feel responsible for their depression or suicidality, you are being effectively controlled either way. 

 

Guilt and shame are the native currency of an entangled relationship with an EIP. 

 

They don’t want help so much as they want you to validate their pessimistic outlook, which is that life is unfair and the deck is stacked against them. As soon as you offer objectivity and analysis, or don’t agree that others are reprehensible, you may find yourself in the enemy camp too. Unhappy EIPs don’t necessarily want to feel better. They may just be seeking company in their unhappiness and bitterness. You also might suggest therapy because you’re getting burned out listening to their complaints and nothing ever changing. 

 

It’s not necessary to give to the point of exhaustion. 

It becomes a problem if you work so hard to impress others that you lose touch with yourself. When you feel like you need to impress others, it makes it hard to relate at a more authentic level. It’s hard to feel close to anyone if you see them as someone you need to impress. Even though you may no longer be surrounded by EI family members, you may still stifle your authenticity for fear of other people’s rejection. 

 

It’s very likely that after a while, after their mood shifts, they’ll contact you as if nothing happened. It’s astounding that EIPs can act as if everything’s normal after they behave atrociously. 

 

Reconnect with the core of yourself, notice when your energy Rises and falls. look for what fascinates you and follow your interests. when you pursue things that are right for you, you’ll have a sense of expansion and meaningfulness.

 

 We become anxious when we deny our true wishes, and we become depressed when we think there’s no hope for being authentic selves. The solution is to stay connected to yourself from the beginning of an EI interaction rather than losing the connection after being triggered and then trying to find it again.

 

The demands of EIPs can disrupt your connection to your true self. They put themselves between you and your deeper inner world, drawing your attention to them and taking you out of harmony with yourself. 

 

No child would become a people pleaser if they felt like they could be themselves and still feel safe and loved. The instinct to please develops early, operating unconsciously and automatically, helping us to make any atmosphere feel a little less toxic. If this was you, you may have learned early how to soothe your parent, trying to be the kind of child who never gives their parents a moment’s trouble. This feeling is the result of being pressured to psychologically fuse or enmesh with the family (especially the parents) and not differentiate into your own individuality. 

 

Go into every EIP interaction with the conscious intent not to detach from yourself. 

 

Is it hard to ask for help? Some assume helpfulness in others is in short supply and thus resist drawing on it. EI parents teach their children that other people are overwhelmed with their own problems and don’t want to be troubled with the burdens of others. The idea of showing your anxiety and needs when you’re in a tough spot can feel almost unbearable. Preemptive apologies reveal your regret about putting the other person in the supposedly unpleasant position of lending a hand. Adult children of emotionally immature parents often lead with “I’m so sorry to bother you.” It’s no wonder you apologize as an adult; you’ve been taught to doubt the legitimacy of your needs. It only kills you to ask for help because of how you were treated in the past. When you’re encouraging yourself to ask for help, remind yourself that the helper you want to ask is probably very different from the people in your past. Give them a chance to offer you a fresh experience. 

 

Because EI parents react emotionally and defensively to almost everything, these children knew that in times of need, asking for help wouldn’t elicit a calm, helpful response. When you’re already scared and vulnerable, the prospect of a parent’s overreaction is yet another reason not to ask for help. 

 

They don’t see how they affect others, and they certainly don’t reflect on how they bring trouble and unhappiness into their own lives.

 

If you ever want to initiate reconciliation, the book by Pillemer called Fault Lines offers excellent ideas. 

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO GET A COPY OF THE BOOK, CLICK HERE!

 

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