THIS IS A SERIES OF 3 BOOKS BY LINDSAY GIBSON THAT ARE ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE!

This first one, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, is brilliant and easy to read. I have saved below some of my absolute favorite quotations from the book. 

 

One of the great experiences of my life to be listened to and loved by such a genuine and caring person. Emotional intimacy is profoundly fulfilling. Mutual emotional responsiveness is the single most essential ingredient of human relationships. 

Emotionally immature parents fear genuine emotion and pull back from emotional closeness. Their immaturity makes them inconsistent and emotionally unreliable. Much of their immature, hurtful behavior in unintentional. Most have no awareness of how they’ve affected their children. 

Interactions with some family members can be so hurtful and frustrating. The good news is that you can develop more realistic expectations of other people, accepting the level of relationship possible with them instead of feeling hurt by their lack of response. 

An emotional mature person is capable of thinking objectively and conceptually while sustaining deep emotional connections to others. They can function independently and have deep emotional attachments. They are direct about pursuing what they want. They’ve differentiated from their original family relationships sufficiently to build a life of their own. They have a well-developed sense of self and identity and treasure their closest relationships. They are comfortable and honest about their own feelings and get along well with other people, thanks to their well developed empathy, impulse control, and emotional intelligence. They’re interested in other people’s inner lives and enjoy opening up and sharing. They deal with others directly to smooth out differences. They cope with stress in a realistic, forward looking way, while consciously processing their thoughts and feelings. They can control their emotions, anticipate the future, adapt to reality, and use empathy and humor to ease difficult situations and strengthen bonds with others. They know themselves well enough to admit their weaknesses. 

 

On the flip side, emotionally immature parents basically lack emotional maturity. Understanding their emotional immaturity frees us from emotional loneliness as we realize their neglect wasn’t about us, but about them. Emotionally immature people don’t step back and think about how their behavior impacts others. 

Personality traits associated with emotional immaturity:

• Once they form an opinion, their minds are closed. 
• They have low stress tolerance
• They use coping mechanisms that deny, distort, or replace reality. They have trouble admitting mistakes, discount facts, and blame others. Regulating emotions is difficult and they often overreact. Once upset, it is hard to calm down and they expect other people to soothe them. They often seek comfort in intoxicants or medication. 
• The childhood instinct to ‘do what feels good’ never really changes for them. 
• They are subjective, not objective. How they are feeling is more important than what is actually happening. 
• They have little respect for differences. They are annoyed by other people’s differing thoughts and opinions. The idea that other people are entitled to their own point of view is beyond them. 
• They have fundamental doubts about their core worth as human beings. They are profoundly self-involved because their development was stunted by anxiety during childhood. 
• They are self-referential; not self-reflective. Basically that means that all roads lead back to them. Those who are more socially skilled might listen more politely, but you still won’t hold their interest. They won’t ask follow up questions or express curiousity about the details of your experience. Due to lack self-reflection, they don’t consider their role in a problem. They don’t assess their behavior or question their motives. If they caused a problem, they dismiss it by saying they didn’t intend to hurt you. After all, you can’t blame them for something they didn’t mean to do, right? In this way, their egocentric focus remains on their intention, not the impact on you. 
• They promote role reversal. The parent relates to the child as if the child were the parent and expect attentiveness and comfort from the child. They may reverse roles and expect the child to be their confidant. 

There are two very different types of children likely to emerge from emotionally immature parenting: internalizers and externalizers. Internalizers engage in self-reflection and personal growth. 

Attempts at emotional intimacy have failed to create closer relationships with emotionally immature people. 

Emotional intimacy involves knowing that you have someone you can tell anything to, someone to go to with all your feelings, about anything and everything. You feel completely safe opening up. 

If one or both of your parents weren’t mature enough to give you emotional support, as a child you would have felt the effects of not having it, but you wouldn’t necessarily have known what was wrong. 

Children cope with emotional loneliness by jumping into adulthood prematurely- like getting jobs, marrying early, or joining the service. In their rush to leave home they may end up marrying the wrong person. They often settle for emotional loneliness in their relationships because it feels normal to them, like their early home life. Many times people do not realize that their lack of satisfying emotional intimacy started in childhood. 

The classic egocentric response of emotional immature people is to turn your request around on you and tell you what you need to do. 

Impaired empathy is a central characteristic of emotionally immature people. They’re strikingly blind to how they make other people feel and they don’t use their understanding of people to foster emotional intimacy. Lack of empathy suggests a lack of self-development. Many of them were emotionally shut down as children. Often the relationship between someone’s mother and maternal grandmother was conflictual and unsatisfying. There was never a supportive or emotionally intimate connection with their own parents. Empathy is a necessity for true emotional intimacy. Empathy is a bedrock component of emotional intelligence. True empathy involves more than knowing what people feel; it also entails the ability to resonate with those feelings. 

If you don’t have a basic sense of who you are as a person, you can’t learn how to emotionally engage with other people at a deep level. It is a form of arrested self-development. 

Often times these EI parents had to shut down important parts of themselves growing up out of fear of their parents’ reactions, so their personalities formed in isolated clumps. This explains their inconsistent reactions, which make them so difficult to understand, and that they grew up to be emotionally inconsistent adults. They often express contradictory emotions and behaviors. They step in and out of emotional states, never noticing their inconsistency. Their behavior can at times be described as chaotic, flip-flopping in ways that make no sense. Their inconsistency means that they can either be loving or detached; depending on their mood. This sets up what is called an intermittent reward situation. 

As adults, these emotionally immature people have an automatic anxiety reaction when it comes to deep emotional connection. Most genuine emotion makes them feel exposed and extremely nervous. Often you come away feeling invisible and unheard. Communication usually feels one-sided and they have a limited vocabulary for emotional experiences. They aren’t interested in reciprocal, mutual conversations. This can all make one feel dismissed or unseen and creates an emotional separation. 

The intense emotions and anxiety that emotionally immature people experience can decrease their ability to think at this highest level. Since they are often at the mercy of their emotions, their higher thinking can easily fall apart under stress. 

Being raised by such a parent feels both lonely and exasperating. They don’t try to understand the emotional experiences of other people. They can’t be expected to make the effort to understand what’s going on inside other people. Mature people take on the emotional work in relationships  automatically because they live in a state of empathy and self-awareness. For people who have empathy, emotional work flows easily. 

They have poor receptive capacity meaning they want others to show concern about their problems, but aren’t likely to accept helpful suggestions. They reject efforts to make them feel cared about. When people then try to help, they push them away. 

We know that it takes confidence and maturity to admit to being wrong, but emotionally immature people resist facing their mistakes. They expect you to take them off the hook immediately. If it feels better to blame you for not forgiving them fast enough, that’s what they’ll do. They have no awareness of the need for emotional processing or the amount of time it may take to rebuild trust after a major betrayal. They would rather shut down communication than hear something that could make them feel like bad people. 

4 TYPES OF EMOTIONALLY IMMATURE PARENTS 

All tend to be self-involved, narcissistic, and emotionally unreliable. All share the common traits of egocentricity, insensitivity, and a limited capacity for genuine emotional intimacy. They distort reality rather than deal with it. All use their children to try to make themselves feel better, often leading to a parent-child role reversal and exposing their children to adult issues in an overwhelming way. Most tolerate frustration poorly and use emotional tactics or threats rather then verbal communication to get what they want. They’re all afraid of genuine emotion and seek to control others for their own comfort. None of them make their children feel emotionally seen. All are draining to be around in their own ways, and all are incapable of true interpersonal reciprocity. 

1) EMOTIONAL PARENTS

These are the most infantile of the four types. It doesn’t take much to upset them. Their emotional instability is the most predictable thing about them. These parents are, quite frankly, mentally ill. They may be psychotic, bipolar, or have a personality disorder like narcissistic or borderline. Their emotionality can even result in suicide attempts or physical attacks on others. They have difficulty tolerating stress and emotional arousal. They see the world in black and white terms, they keep score, hold grudges, and control others with emotional tactics. They see themselves as victims. It can be shocking to see how no-holds barred they can get. 

2) DRIVEN PARENTS

These parents look most normal and even appear exceptionally invested. Their egocentrism is hard to see. They make assumptions about other people. They usually grew up in an emotionally depriving environment. They learned to get by on their own efforts rather than expecting to be nurtured. They are self-made and proud of their independence. They make their children feel evaluated constantly. 

3) PASSIVE PARENTS

These parents seem more emotionally available, but only up to a point. When things get too intense, they become passive, withdraw emotionally, and hide their heads in the sand. They may love you, but they can’t help you. Children sense that they parents aren’t really there for them in any essential way. 

4) REJECTING PARENTS 

These parents seem to have a wall around them. They don’t want to spend time with their children and seem happiest if others leave them alone to do what they want. They reject attempts to draw them into affectionate or emotional interactions. They are capable of punitive physical attacks. They are the least empathic of the 4 types. Children of this type come to see themselves as bothers and irritants and as adults find it hard to ask for what they need. 

These parents are afraid of genuine emotion and seek to control others for their own comfort. None of them make their children feel emotionally seen. All are draining to be around in their own ways, and all are incapable of true interpersonal reciprocity. 

Children of these parents learn to cope by imagining healing fantasies about how their unmet emotional needs will be fulfilled in the future. All emotionally deprived children have in common is coming up with a fantasy about how they will eventually get what they need.  The coping styles that children use in order to deal with emotional neglect is internalizing or externalizing. 

INTERNALIZERS

• Believe it is up to them to change things.
• Mentally active and love to learn things
• Self-reflective
• Learn from their mistakes
• Sensitive
• Try to understand cause and effect
• See life as an opportunity to develop themselves and enjoy becoming more competent
• Belief they can make things better by trying harder
• Sources of anxiety= guilty when displeasing others, fear of being exposed as imposters.
• Biggest relationship downfall= over self-sacrificing and becoming resentful of how much they do for others. 
• You may get exhausted from trying to do too much of the emotional work in your relationship. 

Internalizers may suffer in silence and continue to look just fine, even as they’re breaking down inside. 

 

EXTERNALIZERS

• Expect others to do it for them. 
• Take action before they think about things.
• Reactive and do things impulsively to blow off anxiety quickly.
• Tend not to be self-reflective
• Assign blame to other people and circumstances rather than their own actions. 
• Belief that life is a process of trial and error, but rarely use their mistakes to learn how to do better. 
• Regarding self-image; they either have very low self-confidence or a sense of inflated superiority.
• Expel stress as soon as it hits. Believing their problems need to be solved by someone else. 
• Biggest relationship problem= being attracted to impulsive people and overly dependent on others for support and stability. 
• You may want to ask others for feedback on how you come across in situations. 

Most emotionally immature parents are externalizers and struggle against reality rather than coping with it. It is similar to the behavior of a young child. They do impulsive things to distract themselves from their immediate problems. They are vulnerable to strong but brief feelings of shame and failure. 

The ideal is to balance these 2 approaches, so that internalizer’s learn to seek help externally from others and that externalizers learn to look inside themselves for control. Externalizers are always looking for an external power source to plus into, while internalizer’s have their batteries included. 

Extreme Externalizers: Once externalizers hit rock bottom, they sometimes open up to the idea that they may need to change instead of expecting the world to adjust to them. Extreme externalizers develop physical symptoms or get in trouble with their behavior, while extreme internalizers are prone to emotional symptoms like anxiety or depression. When under severe stress, some internalizers start reacting as impulsively as any externalizer.The extreme externalizers immature coping mechanisms simply don’t work well for successful relationships, nor do they promote mature psychological development.  

INTERNALIZERS: People who seek therapy or enjoy reading about self-help are far more likely to have an internalizing style of coping. They are always trying to figure out what they can do to change their lives for the better. Perceptive internalizers can’t help but notice it when their parents aren’t truly connecting with them. They register emotional hurt in a way that a less aware child doesn’t and therefore are affected deeply by growing up with emotionally immature parents. As an internalizer you ended up being so alert to other people’s inner states. Internalizers are extremely sensitive and notice everything. They react to life as if they were an emotional tuning fork, picking up and resonating with vibrations from other people. They may have an exceptionally alert nervous system from birth. 

Internalizers don’t act out their emotions immediately, like externalizers do, so their feelings have a chance to intensify as they’re held inside. They feel things deeply, they are often seen as overly sensitive or too emotional. They are much more likely to look sad or cry. Internalizers get the message that their very nature is the problem. They are extremely sensitive to the quality of emotional intimacy in their relationships. They long for emotional spontaneity and intimacy and they can’t be satisfied with less. At times they feel painfully lonely. They have a need to share their inner experience. Nothing hurts their spirit more than being around someone who won’t engage with them emotionally. They have a powerful hunger to connect heart to heart with a like-minded person who can understand them. They find nothing more exhilarating than clicking with someone who gets them. They read people closely. These children come to believe that the price of making a connection is to put other people first and treat them as more important. They think they can keep relationships by being the giver. If you were an internalizer, you learned that in order to be loved or desirable, you need to give more than you get; otherwise you’ll be of no value to others. 

Interalizers naturally seek out relationships with safe people outside the family to gain an increased sense of security. Internalizers learn that “goodness” means being as self-effacing as possible so their parents can get their needs met first. The see their feelings and needs as unimportant at best and shameful at worst. 

People who externalizers are more likely to end up in treatment due to external pressures, such as courts, marital ultimatums, or rehab. They need to take responsibility for themselves. Groups, like AA, can be helpful to turn externalizers into internalizers who become accountable for their own change. On the flip side, internalizers can slip into externalizing when they get overly stressed or lonely. Externalizers often use their behavior to coerce certain responses from other people. They acheive these responses through manipulation, the attention they receive is never as satisfying as a free and genuine exchange of emotional intimacy. Externalizers also demand attention by blaming or guilt-tripping others. Most emotionally immature people tend to be externalizers. When they feel insecure, instead of seeking comfort from other people they tend to feel threatened. They react to anxious moments in relationships with rigid, defensive behaviors that alienate other people, rather than bringing them closer. Anger, blame, criticism, and domination are all signs of poorly functioning skills to seek comfort. 

Perhaps the midlife crisis is a result of years of self-denial, followed by the interalizer’s realization that other people’s needs have come first way too many times. People who live through nearly impossible circumstances shows that they invariably call upon their present relationships and memories of loved ones as sources of inspiration and determination to survive. If they were shamed for their sensitive emotions during childhood, as adults they may be embarrassed to show any deep emotion. They may say “I’m sorry” when they start crying in a therapists office. Emotionally neglected internalizers continue to feel they should do everything on their own. They are quite adept and like to learn and remember experiences. They can turn within themselves when they aren’t getting much nurturance from others. Sometimes there are times when you have to parent the parent. They must listen to them, offer reassurance, and even give advice. 

Working through childhood emotional injuries is the most effective way of waking up from repeating the past. The mental and emotional process of coming to grips with painful realities. Think of it as a process of breaking down something that’s initially too big to swallow: you chew on it until it can become a digestible part of your history. What happened to people matters less than whether they’ve processed what happened to them. 

If you are looking for an emotional intimacy with a parent, realize that they may not be able to tolerate it. While you think you are just trying to relate, they probably see it as a major threat to their equilibrium. Remember, they have been living like this for years. Your openness and honesty are more than they can handle. Think of it as though they have a snake phobia. You keep plopping a big, fat, writhing snake right in their lap. They can’t stand it, no matter how meaningful it might be to you. Emotional closeness demands a level of emotional maturity they simply don’t have. The best thing to do is to move forward with something that doesn’t involve their participation. That’s the only thing that works with parents who are terrified of emotional intimacy. A relationship with this individual is possible, but it won’t be the kind of relationship you yearn for. The best option is to manage their interactions deliberately. Most are just passing their trauma down the line, as people tend to do when they repress their childhood pain. Change your expectations and replace reactivity with observation. 

In an enmeshed family, if you have a problem with someone, you talk about that person to other people instead of going to the person directly. This is called triangling. 

A way to heal from emotional immature parents is to stay detached emotionally and observe how others behave, just like a scientist would. Try to refocus from and not get caught up in their emotional tactics. A way to do that is relatedness; there’s communication but no goal of having a satisfying emotional exchange. Once you can peg their maturity level, their responses will make more sense and be more predictable. It is important to focus on the outcome, not the relationship. This is achievable because you can ask others to listen, even though you can’t make them understand. Let me be crystal clear: focus on the outcome, not the relationship. 

EI parents are emotionally phobic and unable to handle genuine intimacy. The reality is they are simply too terrified to handle your inner child’s emotional needs. A child’s individuality is seen as a threat to emotionally insecure and immature parents because it stirs up fears about possible rejection or abandonment. Your parent may be emotionally hurtful or disrespect your boundaries. You may want to take a break from dealing with a parent who behaves in this way. Some parents are so unreflective that, despite repeated explanations, they simply don’t accept that their behavior is problematic. Just because a person is your biological parent doesn’t mean you have to keep an emotional or social tie to that person. You can take control of how frequently you’re in contact with your parents. Remember, your goodness as a person isn’t based on how much you give in relationships, and it isn’t selfish to set limits on people who keep on taking. Your job is to take care of yourself, regardless of what others think you should be doing for them. Being a member of a family doesn’t give anybody free rein to treat people like crap.  Pay attention to subtle energy drains; that can help you realize when you are giving too much. 

Relinquish the belief that if your parents loved you, they’d understand you. You can function without their understanding. You may not ever have the kind of relationship you’ve wanted with your parents. By expressing yourself, you can be authentic even in the absence of their understanding. Remember, you are not denying your past; you’re just accepting your parents as they are, without expectations. You can gain freedom, but only if you’ve truly relinquished the need for a deep relationship with them. If you can stay true to yourself, detach emotionally, and interact without expectations, you’ll be less likely to trigger your parents’ defenses against intimacy. You can then let them be who they are. 

If you’ve spent many years not being validated, you’ve probably suppressed sadness more than any other emotion. If we allow ourselves to sit with our true feelings as they emerge, we can be transformed. Feeling deep emotion is our way of processing important new information. Being conscious of our emotions, including grief, is how we do the inner work of psychological growth. 

HOW TO IDENTIFY EMOTIONALLY MATURE PEOPLE 

You may feel subconsciously drawn to the familiarity of egocentric and exploitative people. The people we find most charismatic are subconsciously triggering us to fall back into old, negative family patterns. Self-centered males probably stirred up uncertainty in way you find exciting. The individual that is realistic and reliable may sound humdrum. Think of it as a physical layout of a house; it won’t matter what color you paint the walls if the structure is awkward to live in. 

You may see problems and try to fix them and if changes aren’t possible, you may find a way to make the best of what they’ve got. The ability to think even when upset makes an emotionally mature person someone you can reason with. They can think and feel at the same time and it is easy to work things out with such people. They usually won’t surprise you with unexpected inconsistencies. You can count on them to be basically the same across different situations. They have a strong sense of self. They are not offended easily and can laugh at themselves and their foibles. When someone takes things too personally; that can be a sign of either narcissism or low self-esteem. Both traits cause problems in relationships because they lead people to constantly seek reassurance from others. They treat other people as individuals worthy of respect and fairness. Emotionally mature people automatically tune in to how others are feeling. Fairness and reciprocity are at the heart of good relationships. They want to help and are generous with their time. They’re willing to give more than they get back for awhile, but they won’t let an imbalance go on indefinitely. 

Emotionally mature people are usually flexible and try to be fair and objective. That being said, people usually need some time to calm down before they can talk about what made them angry, regardless of their emotional maturity level. People sometimes need space to deal with their feelings on their own first. Emotionally mature people are truthful and willing to apologize when needed. When you tell people that they’ve hurt or disappointed you, observe their response. Do they just defend themselves, or do they try to change? Do they apologize just to appease you, or do they understand and care about what you felt? 

Emotionally mature people have a sense of warmth and fun about them. What a gift it is to talk with someone who’s interested in your inner experience! It is wonderful and validating to find someone who really listens. Emotionally mature individuals take a look at themselves and reflect on their behavior. Willingness to take action as a result of self-reflection is also important. It isn’t enough to just say the right things or apologize. They have a good sense of humor and can use lightheartedness to relieve stress. They have an overall positive vibe that’s pleasurable to be around. They aren’t always happy, of course, but for the most part they seem able to generate their own good feelings and enjoy life. 

An example of this is when you are having a discussion with someone and their apology goes like this “I said I’m sorry. What more do you want? Why do you keep bringing it up? What do you want me to do?” The answer to that is simple…SELF-REFLECT. Hear the person out instead of shutting them down. 

Empathy is what makes people feel safe in relationships. Along with self-awareness it is the soul of emotional intelligence. 

The bottom line is- having emotionally immature parents may have undermined your self-acceptance, self-expressiveness, and hopes for genuine intimacy, but there’s nothing to hold you back now as an adult. Shining a light on what happened to you and how it affected your choices can stir up sadness about what you’ve lost or never had. Light shines on everything, not just the things we want to see. Sometimes while working through all this you may wonder whether all this knowledge is for the best. It may even seem as though it would be better not to know. Ultimately, it depends on what you value in life. It can feel more rewarding to give yourself a happy life now as an aware adult than to have always had it from the beginning. To be aware and present at the birth of your new self as an adult is pretty incredible stuff. How many people get to be awake and aware for the emergence of the person they were always meant to be? How many people get to have two lifetimes in one? 

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