Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, Lindsay C. Gibson

an excerpt from adult children of emotionally immature parents by lindsay c. gibson [ID in ALT.]

''Hate is a normal and involuntary reaction when somebody tries to control you for no good reason. It signals that the person is extinguishing your emotional life force by getting his or her needs met at your expense.''

-Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents

The ability to feel mixed emotions is a sign of maturity. If people can blend contradictory emotions together, such as happiness with guilt, or anger with love, it shows they can encompass life's emotional complexity. Experienced together, opposing feelings tame each other. Once people develop the ability to feel different emotions at the same time, the world ripens into something richer and deeper. Instead of having a single, intense, one-dimensional emotional reaction, they can experience several different feelings that reflect the nuances of the situation. However, the reactions of emotionally immature people tend to be black-and-white, with no gray areas. This rules out ambivalence, dilemmas, and other emotionally complicated experiences.

-from Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents

Mentally filling out this checklist, then turning the page to find:

"How many of these statements describe your parent? Since all these items are potential signs of emotional immaturity, checking more than one suggests you very well may have been dealing with an emotionally immature parent."

Well, I guess ten counts as 'more than one'...

"Emotionally immature people are easily overwhelmed by deep emotion, and they display their uneasiness by transmuting it into quick reactivity. Instead of feelings things deeply, they react superficially. They may be emotionally excitable and show a strong sentimentality, perhaps being easily moved to tears. Or they may puff up in anger toward anything they dislike. Their reactivity may seem to indicate that they’re passionate and deeply emotional, but their emotional expression often has a glancing quality, almost like a stone skipping the surface rather than going into the depths. It’s a fleeting reaction of the moment. Dramatic but not deep." —Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, Lindsay C. Gibson.

“The loneliness of feeling unseen by others is as fundamental a pain as physical injury, but it doesn't show on the outside. Emotional loneliness is a vague and private experience, not easy to see or describe. You might call it a feeling of emptiness or being alone in the world. Some people have called this feeling existential loneliness, but there's nothing existential about it. If you feel it, it came from your family.”

—Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents

Developing New Relationship Habits

Now that you can identify emotionally mature people, there's one last piece of the relationship puzzle to address: your own behavior. In this final section, we'll take a brief look at some new approaches on your part that can make your relationships more genuine and reciprocal. You can work on these actions to help your relationship flourish. After all, improving your own ability to act in an emotionally mature way in as important contribution to having the relationships you want.

Exercise: Exploring New Ways of Being in Relationships

Let's create a profile of emotional maturity that you can work toward. The following list presents a picture of how an emotionally mature person might interact and behave in relationships. Read through the following list of new behaviors, beliefs, and values and choose a few to practice. Just pick one or two at a time, and be gentle with yourself as you work on them. Some might be harder than others.

Being Willing to Ask for Help

I'll ask for help whenever I need to.

I'll remind myself that if I need something, most people will be glad to help if they can.

I'll use clear, intimate communication to ask for what I want, explaining my feelings and the reasoning for my request.

I'll trust that most people will listen if I ask them to.

Being Myself, Whether People Accept Me or Not

When I state my thoughts clearly and politely, without malice, I won't try to control how people take it.

I won't give more energy than I really have.

Instead of trying to please, I'll give other people true indication of how I feel.

I won't volunteer for something if I think I'll resent it later.

If someone says something I find offensive, I'll offer an alternative viewpoint. I won't try to change the other person's mind; I just won't let the statement go unremarked upon.

Sustaining and Appreciating Emotional Connections

I'll make a point of keeping in touch with special people I care about and returning their calls and electronic messages.

I'll think of myself as a strong person who deserves to give and receive help from my community of friends.

Even when people aren't saying the “right” thing, I'll tune in to whether they're trying to help me. If their effort makes me feel emotionally nurtured, I'll express my gratitude.

When I'm irritated with someone, I'll think about what I want to say that could improve our relationship. I'll wait until I cool off and then ask if the other person is willing to listen to my feelings.

Having Reasonable Expectations for Myself

I'll keep in mind that being perfect isn't always necessary. I'll get stuff done rather than obsess over getting things done perfectly.

When I get tired, I'll rest or do something different. My level of physical energy will tell me when I've been doing too much. I won't wait for an accident or illness to make me stop.

When I make a mistake, I'll chalk it up to being human. Even if I think I've anticipated everything, there will be outcomes I didn't expect.

I'll remember that everyone is responsible for their own feelings and for expressing their needs clearly. Beyond common courtesy, it isn't up to me to guess what others want.

Communicating Clearly and Actively Seeking the Outcomes I Want

I won't expect to know what I need unless I tell them. Caring about me doesn't automatically mean they know what I'm feeling.

If people close to me upset me, I'll try to understand my reaction first. Did something trigger my feelings from the past, or did the person really treat me insensitively? If someone was insensitive, I'll ask them to hear me out.

I'll be thoughtful to other people, and if they aren't thoughtful in return, I'll ask them to be more considerate and then let it go.

I'll ask for something as many times as it takes to get a clear answer.

When I get tired of interacting, I'll politely speak up, asking if we can continue our contact another time. I'll explain kindly that I'm just out of gas at the moment.

Do you get a sense of how much more energy and lightness you'd feel if most of these statements were true for you? You'd be active and self-expressive in your relationships, treating yourself kindly and expecting to be heard by others. You'd be freeing yourself from emotional loneliness. Even if you didn't learn these values and ways of interacting as a child, you can develop them now. 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.

Excerpt from 'Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal From Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents' by Lindsay C. Gibson, PsyD

Children have no way of identifying a lack of emotional intimacy in their relationship with a parent. It isn’t a concept they have. And it’s even less likely that they can understand that their parents are emotionally immature. All they have is a gut feeling of emptiness, which is how a child experiences loneliness. With a mature parent, the child’s remedy for loneliness is simply to go to the parent for affectionate connection. But if your parent was scared of deep feelings, you might have been left with an uneasy sense of shame for needing comforting.

"Internalizers are accustomed to supplying most of the empathy and doing more than their fair share in trying to get along, and for a long time they may not notice that they're getting worn out while the other person isn't changing at all... They are so familiar with supplying the sensitivity that was missing in their family members that they automatically do this with everyone. They make up for other people's lack of engagement by seeing them as nicer and more considerate than they really are."

Lindsay C. Gibson

August Monthly Book Wrap

After 2 months at a very demanding job, I had to put my book reading on pause and sadly read zero books for June and July (tons of fanfics though). It felt good to be able to read 4 books in August and overall it was one of my favorite months of reading. I even managed to find a 5-star and one of my favorite books ever (Vicious).

(I love how it's very blue and then bam red which is a good metaphor for the transition into fall, the season I usually read darker books).

Favorite Book: Vicious by V.E. Schwab

Lowest Rated: Written in the Stars (3.75/5) Really cute though and I recommend reading this cute queer romance for fuzzy feelings.

Book I most want to see adapted into a tv show/movie: Vicious but only as an anime. You would think Book Lovers but I'm pretty sure it would be awful and they wouldn't be able to pull off the banter.

Book that most surprised me: Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. I don't like self-help books but this one was actually really illuminating, informative and gave me a concrete strategy to move forward.

Keep reading for reviews

Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur ⭐⭐⭐✨3.75/5

Synopsis: Starting off strong with this cute queer novel following Elle Jones, a free-spirited astrologer who believes soulmates are real and wants to find her one, and Darcy Lowell, a no-nonsense actuary who just recently moved to Seattle after an awful breakup. Set up by Darcy's brother,Brendon, the creator of a popular dating app that Elle is signing on with to help implement a new feature, the two go on a date...and well it's a disaster. Except, when Elle runs into Brendon (while having lunch with her overly-critical, no-nonsense mother) he is ecstatic to tell her about how much Darcy liked her.

Turns out Darcy is tired of her brother fixing her up and so she makes up a story that the date went well to get her brother off her back. Elle is outraged about the dilemma Darcy's gotten them into but that rage turns into a clever plan for them to pretend to date until the end of the new year. We all know how pretend dating goes 😅

Review: A seriously cute read that I picked up to fulfill the "read a book with a constellation on the cover" for the 2022 PopSugar challenge. Elle and Darcy have great chemistry and their love story is very convincing. I really appreciated throwing in the issues each of them had with their families and how their relationship helped them grow to recognize they deserved better treatment but that their love didn't cure or solve all their problems. Also, so happy that homophobia and biphobia is practically nonexistent in the book. I can't give it higher than a 4 though because it's just a cute book. One you read to bring to the beach with you and enjoy the warm fuzzy feelings it gives you and enjoy the familiar, predictable plot and get your happy ending. On their own Darcy and Elle are hard not to love and really relatable. The astrology is a nice touch and actuary and Twitter astrologist are new careers I haven't seen much in books.

Book Lovers by Emily Henry ⭐⭐⭐⭐4/5

Synopsis: You know those movies where the guy from the big city goes to a small town and falls in love with the girl who shows him to slow his life down and appreciate the roses? Well, Nora Stephen's the heartless ex that the guy leaves behind in the city. Not an exaggeration either, it's happened to her 4 times. She's a literary agent known as the Shark but even though she's skilled she can't convince renowned editor Charlie Lastra to take on her client's book. A mistake he'll regret as the book becomes a huge hit and her sister Libby, an avid fan, convinces her sister to go on vacation with her to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina, where the book is set, to experience small-town living.

Except, while she's there she keeps running into Charlie and she can't seem to stay away from him and his well-defined eyebrows. But she's not going to let him stop her from accomplishing her bucket list that Libby's concocted for her to finish by the end of their vacation. Another mystery there too: Why is Libby, who is her whole world, so insistent Nora find a guy in Sunshine Falls and how the heck are they supposed to save a dying business? And why has Libby started to keep secrets from her?

Review: Probably one of the most anticipated books of the summer and well worth the wait. Nora is a wonderful protagonist who loves hard but at the cost of herself. Charlie, oh Charlie. I could spend hours reading him and Nora banter. They had me laughing often and their chemistry was through the roof. What really stuck out to me in this book was not their love for books, but their love for New York. As someone from NY, it felt amazing to read a book about people who got why the city was so incredible. It felt like a love story to people like me who are workaholics because they genuinely love their jobs and while there's nothing wrong with small-town living it can never compete with my love for NYC. So what if I enjoy wearing pantsuits, am a snob when it comes to food, and don't like everyone knowing my business? It doesn't mean I'm heartless. I'm just as capable of falling in love as everyone else. And I felt such hope that I would find it after reading this book.

I just loved it all around. The side characters were great, with perfect pacing, and incredible dialogue. There were times when I really expected Henry to take the cliche route (making the cousin have intense chemistry with Nora a lot faster and adding a serious love triangle or serious miscommunication) but she avoids it and I'm so grateful to her for keeping it very real that true love isn't everything.

I have to give it a 4 instead of a 5 though because of Libby and Nora's relationship. The sister bond between them is such a big part of the book and I appreciated the added depth. However, there were issues in the execution. Libby's hard to like and I do think that was somewhat the point because Nora has stepped in so often to rescue her sister and it's more for the readers to understand how far Nora will go for Libby. But I just didn't get enough glimpses of the wonderful relationship these two supposedly have and sometimes I felt like Libby was just there as this annoying presence. It would have made Libby's secret reveal more emotional but by the end, I was like "Heck yes!" As an older sister myself and someone who relates heavily to Nora particularly when it comes to our controlling nature I would foresee her being more demanding of Libby to open up sooner and so the fact that she actually let up was a little weird to me character-wise. Plot-wise it made sense yes so she'd focus on her romance but character-wise it didn't make sense.

Adult Children of Emotionally immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson, PsyD ⭐⭐⭐⭐4/5

Synopsis: Basically what the title says. You have parents who are emotionally immature and it meant you didn't get your emotional needs met as a child. We examine what that looks like as a child, potential reasons why, how it's likely impacted you, and how to move forward.

Review: I am not much of a self-help book type of person because I feel like the advice is usually obvious and repetitive. But someone told me to please read it and I'm happy I did. It's written in a way that it was very easy for me to identify that of the four types of difficult parents in this book I have an emotional parent and a driven parent. It opened my eyes to so many things I've been wondering about and answered questions I held onto for years but knew my parents weren't capable of answering. The book's structure is so easy to follow and it's not a hard read at all. I felt validated, heard and seen and I am grateful for that, especially for helping me change my mental framework for how to approach conversations with my parents.

Cons though are that if I were an externalist (a chosen coping mechanism) who read this book I would feel alienated and insulted and like I was beyond help. Another thing is I wish there had been a lot more focus on how to handle family dynamics as they bring up countless times dynamics between siblings. I really recommend if you feel like you're a child of an emotionally immature parent. I highlighted so much of this book. I think it's 85% highlighted.

Vicious by V.E. Schwab ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5

WHEN I TELL YOU I WANT TO CHUCK THIS BOOK AT EVERYONE AND ASK EVERYONE TO READ IT!!!!!

Synopsis: (I'm actually just going to copy and paste the good reads synopsis because I cannot mess with perfection).

A masterful tale of ambition, jealousy, desire, and superpowers.

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.

Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?

Review: If you loved Hannibal the TV series please read this. Everyone is so heavily flawed in this book and I LOVE IT!!! The way this book is written? Exquisite. Pacing? Perfection. Sometimes books that flash between the past and present can get very muddy but oh, here it made it so much better. And I didn't have a preference for the time period which never happens. In fact I was happy we got those past flashbacks because I was so nervous about if Eli or Victor would survive in the end I didn't want to get there because I didn't want to say goodbye to either of them.

Victor and Eli (yeah they need their own section): Victor is supposed to be the one you hate-a self-involved, cunning, and ambitious sociopath who enjoys inflicting pain and using people for his own end--but you can't help but love him. While he has no problem killing he stops himself because he sees it as pointless and what use is a dead corpse to him? He's the anti-hero you root for. Eli on the other hand, for all appearances, is supposed to be the likable one. He's more approachable, and religious and sees killing the supernatural as compassionate because their near-death experience removes what he believes makes humans, well human (he's not entirely wrong either). He's doing the world a favor by taking out ExtraOrdinary people. Except, well the man is obviously batshit crazy and fanatical to the point that he's blind.

The chemistry between these two characters is insane. Technically, there's no confirmed romance between the two but I doubt that will stop people (very strong Hannibal and Will Graham vibes). But honestly, this book doesn't need romance. In fact I think that would ruin it. However, it doesn't mean a love story isn't here. Eli and Victor clearly are only capable of this much hatred because their love for each other ran so deep. Even in their hatred they're obsessed with one another.

All right I better stop before I don't ever stop. Even without their dynamic, you want to hear more about each character individually. The side characters are incredible and somehow we even managed to get a found family. The books gritty and dark, similar to a noir-style, and it doesn't shy away from violence but it's not so explicit I am uncomfortable.

I literally love this book so much and I can't wait til my place in line for the book is over so I can read the second part.

''People who lacked emotional engagement in childhood, men and women alike, often can’t believe that someone would want to have a relationship with them just because of who they are. They believe that if they want closeness, they must play a role that always puts the other person first.''

-Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents

Every page in this book is like a kick to the gut, but it's also validating my experience so much. Its painful to realise what I lived through is exactly this and that there's no repairing that though.

When you’re going through a breakdown, a good question to ask is what is actually breaking down. We usually think it’s our self. But what’s typically happening is that our struggle to deny our emotional truth is breaking down.

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson

“Emotionally immature people, on the other hand, often take pride in their lack of this skill. They rationalize their impulsive and insensitive responses with excuses like “I’m just saying what I think” or “I can’t change who I am.” If you confront them with the fact that not saying everything you think is a sign of good sense or that people can’t mature without changing who they are, they will probably respond with anger or by dismissing you as ridiculous.”

- Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children Of Emotionally Immature Parents

Defining Maturity Before we explore emotional immaturity, let’s take a look at emotionally mature functioning. Emotional maturity isn’t a murky matter of opinion; it has been well and famously studied. “Emotional maturity” means a person is capable of thinking objectively and conceptually while sustaining deep emotional connections to others. People who are emotionally mature can function independently while also having deep emotional attachments, smoothly incorporating both into their daily life. They are direct about pursuing what they want, yet do so without exploiting other people. They’ve differentiated from their original family relationships sufficiently to build a life of their own (Bowen 1978). They have a well-developed sense of self (Kohut 1985) and identity (Erikson 1963) and treasure their closest relationships. Emotionally mature people 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 (Goleman 1995). They’re interested in other people’s inner lives and enjoy opening up and sharing with others in an emotionally intimate way. When there’s a problem, they deal with others directly to smooth out differences (Bowen 1978). Emotionally mature people cope with stress in a realistic, forward-looking way, while consciously processing their thoughts and feelings. They can control their emotions when necessary, anticipate the future, adapt to reality, and use empathy and humor to ease difficult situations and strengthen bonds with others (Vaillant 2000). They enjoy being objective and know themselves well enough to admit their weaknesses (Siebert 1996). Personality Traits Associated with Emotional Immaturity Emotionally immature people, on the other hand, tend to have quite a different set of behavioral, emotional, and mental characteristics. Because these personality characteristics are all interconnected, people who display one are often prone to the others. In the sections that follow, I’ll briefly describe various characteristics of emotionally immature people. They Are Rigid and Single-Minded As long as there’s a clear path to follow, emotionally immature people can do very well, sometimes reaching high levels of success and prestige. But when it comes to relationships or emotional decisions, their immaturity becomes evident. They are either rigid or impulsive, and try to cope with reality by narrowing it down to something manageable. Once they form an opinion, their minds are closed. There’s one right answer, and they can become very defensive and humorless when people have other ideas. Gibson, L. (2015). Adult children of emotionally immature parents : how to heal if your parents couldn’t meet your emotional needs (pp. 28-34). : New Harbinger Publications, Inc.