Lindsay C. Gibson > Quotes

“Your true self wants you to see what’s really going on. It tries to wake you up because it wants you to stop believing that your emotionally immature parents knew what was best for you and that creating a role-self is better than being who you really are. It knows better than to let a fantasy run your life.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“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 reasons 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 a 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 or 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 don’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.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“As an adult, you might be better off investing in a deeper relationship with yourself, while lowering your expectations for the kind of relationship you can have with an emotionally unresponsive parent.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents: Practical Tools to Establish Boundaries & Reclaim Your Emotional Autonomy

“They have trouble admitting mistakes and instead discount the facts and blame others. Regulating emotions is difficult for them, and they often overreact. Once they get upset, it’s hard for them to calm down, and they expect other people to soothe them by doing what they want. They often seek comfort in intoxicants or medication.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“While passive parents often enjoy their children, have fun with them, and make them feel special, the children sense that their parents aren’t really there for them in any essential way. In fact, these parents are famous for turning a blind eye to family situations that are harmful to their children, leaving their kids to fend for themselves. When the mother is the passive parent, she may stay with a partner who demeans or abuses her children because she doesn’t have an independent income. Such mothers often numb themselves to what’s going on around them. For example, one mother later referred to her husband’s violent attacks on their children with the mild statement “Daddy could be tough sometimes.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“EI parents typically offer superficial solutions, tell you not to worry, or even get irritated with you for being upset. Their heart feels closed, like there’s no place you can go inside them for compassion or comfort.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents: Practical Tools to Establish Boundaries & Reclaim Your Emotional Autonomy

“So consider whether your need for them is real, or whether it might be a holdover from unmet childhood needs. Do they really have something you want now? This question is relevant to relating to any emotionally immature person, whether spouse, friend, or relative. You can get swept up into believing that you’re desperate for a relationship with someone even when you actually don’t enjoy the interactions the other person has to offer.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“You can get swept up into believing that you’re desperate for a relationship with someone even when you actually don’t enjoy the interactions the other person has to offer.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“If you’re okay with others telling you what to think, feel, or do, you are accustomed to being subjugated (Young, Klosko, and Weishaar 2003). But subjugation undermines your emotional autonomy and mental freedom and should not be tolerated. Your life isn’t theirs to direct, plus it’s illogical to think that an EIP knows what’s best.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents: Practical Tools to Establish Boundaries & Reclaim Your Emotional Autonomy

“How Children Cope with Emotional Loneliness Emotional loneliness is so distressing that a child who experiences it will do whatever is necessary to make some kind of connection with the parent. These children may learn to put other people’s needs first as the price of admission to a relationship. Instead of expecting others to provide support or show interest in them, they may take on the role of helping others, convincing everyone that they have few emotional needs of their own. Unfortunately, this tends to create even more loneliness, since covering up your deepest needs prevents genuine connection with others.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“When emotional parents disintegrate, they take their children with them into their personal meltdown. Their children experience their despair, rage, or hatred in all its intensity.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“Once you shift into self-disconnection, you can no longer make choices in a situation. Therefore, learning to recognize and prevent dissociation is crucial. The steps in preventing dissociation are to stay in touch with yourself no matter what snap out of it when you start to zone out keep thinking of active ways to deal with the situation.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents: Practical Tools to Establish Boundaries & Reclaim Your Emotional Autonomy

“Role entitlement is an attitude of demanding certain treatment because of your social role. When parents feel entitled to do what they want simply because they’re in the role of parent, this is a form of role entitlement. They act as though being a parent exempts them from respecting boundaries or being considerate.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“A common fantasy among children of emotionally immature parents is that their parents will have a change of heart and finally love them by showing concern. Unfortunately, self-preoccupied parents refuse all invitations to fulfill their part in their child’s healing story. Focused on their own healing fantasy, they expect their children to make up for their childhood hurts.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“Emotionally immature adults communicate feelings in this same primitive way. As parents, when they’re distressed they upset their children and everyone around them, typically with the result that others are willing to do anything to make them feel better. In this role reversal, the child catches the contagion of the parent’s distress and feels responsible for making the parent feel better.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“Emotionally immature people are highly self-referential, meaning that in any interaction, all roads lead back to them. However, they aren’t self-reflective. Their focus on themselves isn’t about gaining insight or self-understanding; it’s about being the center of attention.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“Emotionally mature people are usually flexible and try to be fair and objective. An important trait to keep an eye on is how others respond if you have to change your plans. Can they distinguish between personal rejection and something unexpected coming up? Are they able to let you know they’re disappointed without holding it against you? If you unavoidably have to let them down, emotionally mature people generally will give you the benefit of the doubt—especially if you’re empathetic and suggest trade-offs or compromises to ease their disappointment.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“If you look a bit deeper, you can detect the emotional immaturity in these upstanding, responsible people. It shows up in the way they make assumptions about other people, expecting everyone to want and value the same things they do. Their excessive self-focus manifests as a conviction that they know what’s “good” for others. They don’t experience self-doubt at a conscious level and prefer to pretend that everything is settled and they already have the answers. Rather than accepting their children’s unique interests and life paths, they selectively praise and push what they want to see. Their frequent interference in their children’s lives is legendary. In addition, their worry about getting enough done runs them like a motor. Goals take precedence over the feelings of others, including their children.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“Emotionally immature parents often have the fantasy that their babies will make them feel good about themselves.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“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: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“I have a special place in my heart for people like Sophie, who function so well that other people think they have no problems. In fact, their competence makes it hard for them to take their own pain seriously. “I have it all,” they’re likely to say. “I should be happy. Why do I feel so miserable?” This is the classic confusion of a person whose physical needs were met in childhood while emotional needs remained unfulfilled.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“Emotional neglect in childhood leads to a painful emotional loneliness that can have a long-term negative impact on a person’s choices regarding relationships and intimate partners.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“People who have been wronged by an emotionally immature person may start to think they’re at fault if they continue to feel hurt by what the person did. Emotionally immature people 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.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“Growing up with EI parents can make you very self-critical because they think that criticism is the only way to turn you into a responsible person. You end up feeling like you never measure up and constantly need to improve yourself. You evaluate yourself to a point that’s destructive, not constructive. Like your parents, you may think that self-criticism will make you a better person. But criticizing yourself won’t improve you any more than attacking a child’s self-esteem makes them more confident. Self-criticism is no way to have a relationship with yourself. It sentences you to a life of anxious dependency in which no power is greater than someone else’s opinion of you.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents: Practical Tools to Establish Boundaries & Reclaim Your Emotional Autonomy

“People who are emotionally immature only feel good about themselves when they can get other people to give them what they want and to act like they think they should.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“Research suggests that what has happened to people matters less than whether they’ve processed what happened to them. In a study of the characteristics of parents who raise securely attached children, researchers found that parents who created a secure attachment for their children were often characterized by a willingness to recall and talk about their own childhoods (Main, Kaplan, and Cassidy 1985). Even though some of these parents had lived through very difficult childhood experiences, their relationships with their own children were secure, since they had spent time thinking about and integrating their childhood experiences and were at ease with both the negative and positive aspects of their past.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“Instead of having a well-integrated sense of who they are, emotionally immature people are more like an amalgam of various borrowed parts, many of which don’t go together well. Because they had to shut down important parts of themselves out of fear of their parents’ reactions, their personalities formed in isolated clumps, like pieces of a puzzle that don’t fit together.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“Pay attention to your internal physical sensations. Figure out the meaning of your feelings. Refuse to judge and criticize yourself. Identify what you need. Daydream about your life purpose and where you belong.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents: Practical Tools to Establish Boundaries & Reclaim Your Emotional Autonomy

“Internalizers are always caught off guard when someone shows genuine interest in how they feel. One overwhelmed woman who had just started psychotherapy paused in her story and looked at me oddly. She then said in amazement, “You really see me.” She could tell I understood the underlying pain she was describing despite her exceptionally high functioning in daily life. She acted like this was the last thing she expected, and given that she was an internalizer, it most assuredly was.”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

“There are five crucial gifts that come from your inner world. Your inner stability and resilience Your sense of wholeness and self-confidence Your capacity for intimate relationships with others Your ability to self-protect Your awareness of your life’s purpose”
― Lindsay C. Gibson, Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents: Practical Tools to Establish Boundaries & Reclaim Your Emotional Autonomy